Photo by Deborah Lane
Zoë Lewis’ Musical Memoir Souvenirs hits Red Room
by Steve Desroches
Growing up in the tiny village of Rottingdean, England on the English Channel, Zoë Lewis loved living by the sea. But it was on a trip to the Caribbean with her parents to visit her older sister that she realized the ocean wasn’t always the steely grey of the northern Atlantic. In Curaçao, she could look into clear turquoise water and actually see fish below. That moment sparked a thirst for adventure as she realized there is a big, beautiful world out there with endless opportunities for exploration and discovery. Fifty years later, Lewis continues to travel the world with her vagabond, vaudeville-style, incorporating musical influences she’s picked up on her variety of journeys. She’s collected souvenirs here and there, but the most important mementos she accumulated along the way are the relationships she’s made with the people she’s met on the road.
“Anywhere I’ve found community has been my favorite,” says Lewis. “It’s the people that make any place special.”
While she’ll always have wanderlust, Lewis has lived in Provincetown for over 30 years now. She laughs when she reminiscences that she’d been in Provincetown about seven years when she realized that she actually lived in town as she always seemed to be in motion. And that’s appropriate, as Provincetown is always in motion, always changing, more so than other locales, be it the population, the culture, or the natural world. Both in her travels and in her life in Provincetown, Lewis has seen a lot. And it’s those experiences that inspired her to write Souvenirs, a new musical memoir about the places she’s been and folks she met along the way and the little things that can conjure up memories. That which is remembered, lives.
The smell of lavender brings Lewis back to summers of her youth in England, while the scent of a baking cake reminds of her of her mother in the kitchen of her childhood home. She once met a man in Greece who cried whenever he heard church bells as they reminded him of his hometown. Memories have the ability to transport us back in time. In her show, Souvenirs, Lewis brings a suitcase on stage that is full of trinkets, baubles, and memorabilia from throughout her life and travels, with each holding a story within. And each memory has inspired a song, some about people, like those she wrote about artists Peter Hutchinson and Ilona Royce Smithkin, both of whom have passed away, or about time spent in places like Puerto Vallarta, or of course in Provincetown. While Lewis’ music and shows are always about celebration and joy, Souvenirs goes deeper and a little darker than she normally does. One of the souvenirs in her suitcase is from her mother’s home, which Lewis cleared out after she died, only keeping a handful of the most sentimental objects. At this point in Lewis’ life, loss is something she decided to explore in her music.
“I think it is about grief, really,” says Lewis. “I think it’s about losing my mom. Of losing my family. The grief of losing them and people over time. Everyone carries grief. We all do.”
While loss is a part of life, it needn’t be a burden, but both a way to honor those that have passed as an expression for time spent with them as well as a reminder to seize the day. “Life is short,” says Lewis. “Don’t waste it. Go grab it by the horns.” And at 61 Lewis says she feels as confident as ever as to what she has to say and what her viewpoint and voice are as an authentic self-expression. She’s never felt more at home with herself than now, and Souvenirs is a representation of that empowered feeling. Lewis says even from the youngest of ages she’s trusted her gut. It’s not that she felt destined for any particular life, but that her gut told her feet where to go, and she’s always followed that internal motivation as it has yet to fail her and continues to bring her to far flung places. Lewis has always loved the quote from Mark Twain’s The Innocents Abroad, “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.”
While Lewis does leave her little corner of the earth often, she’s happy to call Provincetown home as living there feels like traveling without having to leave, with visitors from all over providing a similar education. Learning about other ways, cultures, and beliefs is vital to an examined life and to continue building empathy. The longer one lives in Provincetown one can focus on what’s lost and changes for the worse, or just lose sight of the magic of the place. But Lewis notes that as a younger generation and new arrivals come to town, watching them fall in love with Provincetown renews her own affection for this special place. While she became an American citizen not long ago, Lewis has always been more a citizen of the world, and at the same time took an oath to an additional nation, at least in her own mind.
“I always felt like Provincetown was its own country,” says Lewis. “When I was sworn in as an American citizen I was actually being sworn in as a citizen of Provincetown.”
Zoë Lewis presents Souvenirs at Red Room, 258 Commercial St., on Wednesday, October 15 at 7 p.m. Tickets ($41.50/$51.50) are available at the door and online at redroom.club.
