Arts Multiple Edward "Eddie" Langlois of Dover, New Hampshire, is the REAL deal.
He's been a highly praised theatrical producer and director, an exquisitely gifted costumier, an incomparably imaginative set designer, and, in recent years, a two- and three-dimensional, multimedia visual artist of astonishing originality.
Langlois may never be fully convinced that I'm right about my assertions. He may even wonder if I've had enough exposure to and experience in the fine and performing arts to know what I'm talking about. But one thing he can't deny: I'm just One Lone Voice among hundreds and hundreds of people, in and well beyond northern New England, who swear by the brilliance and unmatched originality of his vision as a creative.
If you've not had the pleasure of seeing productions he designed and directed, then you can't fully appreciate the depth and breadth of his creative gifts. If you've not stood in any of the highly imaginative homes he's lived in over the years, then you can't justly claim that you know just how completely--and without even trying, how expertly--he's woven All Things Creative into every moment of his days.
Eddie Langlois has not one tenth of an ounce of the copycat anywhere in either his heart or his intellect. Like so many of the creative luminaries, living and dead, whom we admire and praise, in every imaginable discipline and genre, Eddie's originality is a National Treasure, just waiting to be discovered. He and his works have that freshness of vision that gives him the right to stand head-and-shoulders above the overly cautious, university-trained, cookie-cutter, Johnny One Note artists who populate galleries small and large from coast to coast here in America.
Here at home, I often sit back in my favorite North Wind chair at night and reflect--joyfully--on yet another handful of respected artists whose incomparable originality and emotional authenticity I so admire. Artists like Marc Chagall, Suzanne Valadon, Charles Burchfield, Gabriele Munter, and Alexander Calder invariably come to mind. Why? Because not only were they full to overflowing with the creative juices, they also refused--unconditionally--to be intimidated by those who so frequently accused them of not playing by the rules.
And for the record, I feel the very same way about the work of Eddie Langlois.
And yes, alas: it's true. It appears that Langlois, who's now in his late 70's, is done being actively involved in live theatre in Seacoast New Hampshire. But there can be no doubt that those of us who've experienced first-hand his gifts as a producer & director sorely miss his work, both on- and offstage.
And yet, in a recent encounter with him, I heard him make a pair of powerful, insightful, even profound assertions--to wit, that theatre is life; that his visual works--his paintings, his sculptures, his puppets, his magnificent, incomparably original tableau--are no less authentically theatrical than live theatre itself.
And so you see, Eddie Langlois really hasn't stopped being an active theatre professional at all-- he's just busy producing emotionally powerful works--works unlike any other, richly infused with inherent theatricality--but only a short distance away from places where conventional theatre is produced--and entirely according to his very own, always insightful, highly impassioned, free-spirited rules.
-- Ross Alan Bachelder, www.artsaplenty.me -- August 17, 2023