Wilderness Theatre Environmental Tourism and Cajun Swamp Tours

Bayou Black is one of the myriad interconnectingwaterways that ow through the lower Mississippi Delta in what is in essence a at, swampy maze. Along its banks grow the usual plants (water lilies, elephant ears, and marsh grass), but on its surface a strange event takes place each day: two rows of tourists, seated back-to-back in a boat, gaze and occasionally point at the surrounding landscape, as if they were an audience taking in a show. But what show are they seeing? Has the natural environment taken to performing daily, twice on weekends? And two hours after the boat’s departure, as it returns to the launch, why has the gazing and pointing stopped, as if the “show ” has ended? After all, the lilies and elephant ears are still there, the same as before. These were the impressions and thoughts that rst stirred my interest in the performance aspects of Cajun swamp tours. It was in the fall of 1994, and I was a rst-year doctoral student in theatre at Louisiana State University. Oddly enough, two fellow students and I had turned to swamp tours to escape such intrusive thoughts. Performance theory towered over us in that rst year like