Seeing red for the good of all this planet's apes| MARK HUGHES COBB

Several years back, I wrote to Terry Pratchett's representative Colin Smythe — if there's a more properly English name than that, I would dearly love to hear it — inquiring about rights to perform a theatrical adaptation of "Wyrd Sisters."

This was a request for Improbable Fictions, the staged-reading group run through the University of Alabama's Strode program in Renaissance Studies, a spin-off from our summer Shakespeare company The Rude Mechanicals, which, by the plugging way, will be performing "The Tempest" June 1-4, and "Much Ado About Nothing" June 22-25.

After co-founder Nic Helms moved to a tenure-track job, it was rebranded as The Alabama Shakespeare Project, under direction of Elizabeth Tavares. I was looking forward to working with that group last year on Thomas Dekker's "The Shoemaker's Holiday," but pandammit. Here's hoping the not-so-horrible ASP can re-launch soon.

"Wyrd Sisters" is a go-to suggestion for first-time Pratchett readers, partly because he'd really, as a novelist, hit his stride then, and partly because the mingled tales within can feel familiar from the bang, blending elements of "Macbeth," "Hamlet" and "KIng Lear," told through the eyes of a gaggle of not-so-wicked but utterly in control of their mountainous kingdom witches.

Mr. Smythe wrote back promptly and smartly, with sincere regard for our humble little endeavor, because of course he would, with the delightful news that rather than pay Sir Terry directly, we should instead donate to save orangutans. Pratchett readers will know the obvious homage: One of the wizards at Unseen University was changed, by magical accident, into an orangutan, known simply as The Librarian, because everyone seems to have forgotten who he was before. The Librarian resists all efforts to revert, as he's found that 7-foot arm span handy for re-shelving, among other things.

Never been happier to set money sailing, 'cause I've always had a thing for redheads. This could trace back to the day I first held my godchild, her peach-fuzz noggin nestled in my palm, fat little feet barely tapping my antecubital fossa. Her hair that day of birth ran a deeper shade than its current dazzle, but it shone, as I bent to give her a soft kiss on the forehead, and of course, being the evil fairy godfather, to whisper "Rebel."

The verb, not the noun. As in rage against ... whatever. Possibly everything. Any great artist begins by mimicking those who came before, until a singular creative voice rises from within those cover songs, reproduced paintings, copped and copied moves and words and sculpted elements.

In pre-kooky Marlon Brando days, from "The Wild One" (1953):

Mildred (Peggy Maley): "Hey Johnny, what are you rebelling against?"

Johnny (Brando): "Whaddya got?”

Producer Stanley Kramer ("On the Beach," "Inherit the Wind," "Judgment at Nuremberg," dozens more) stole that and other gems from biker gangs they interviewed, along with repeated refrains of "Just gotta go," as in "Where are you going?"

Don't know. Just gotta go, man.

I'm proud to say my ... prediction? Advice? Curse? -- held, as the kid's blood runs crimson, her ferocity fiery, her depth of feeling richer than ripest burgundy.

Redhead love might also be traced back to Ann-Margret. Viva Las Vermilion. It's a shame Rita Hayworth and Maureen O'Hara ever had to work in black and white.

I've dated several redheads, but honestly can't say how much is coincidence, being that they make up only about 1 to 2 % of the world's haired population. Might almost seem I seek 'em out.

Discounting for a moment the bevvy of contemporary beauties, fierce, funny and fertile minds seemed installed standard issue under these flaming locks: Lucille Ball, Carol Burnett, Madeline Kahn, Jimmy Cagney, Myrna Loy, Red Skelton, Mark Twain, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Vincent Van Gogh, Leonardo da Vinci, Mark Twain, D. H. Lawrence, Vladimir Lenin, Margaret Sanger, Antonio Vivaldi, Andrew Jackson, Sylvia Plath, Ezra Pound, Eiríkr Thorvaldsson (aka Eric the Red), Oliver Cromwell, George Bernard Shaw, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander the Great, Queen Elizabeth I, Winston Churchill, Bram Stoker, Richard the Lionheart, Florence Nightingale, Boudicca, Galileo Galilei, George Washington, James Joyce, Bram Stoker, Redd Foxx, and believe it or don't, Malcolm X, who likely inherited the recessive gene from his white grandfather.

Even if you overlook Lizzie Borden, L. Ron Hubbard, and that Sheeran banshee whose hideous wailing haunts gyms, doctor's offices and elevators, that's an outstanding group.

If by some freakish circumstance a comet, zombie, or world-wiping plague should destroy all but redheads, I can't help thinking things would turn out, following a Sheeran purge, to be an inspiring, eccentric and intriguing place. Come on zombie comets!

And that's coming from me, as boring a brown-head as possible. Maybe I could rename the coif, say, chocolate? Chestnut? Buff? Cocoa? Umber? Amber? Sienna? No. That's just gilding the haystack.

Just last week, several thousand turned out at the Amp for a dude formerly known as “red-headed stranger.” Willie Nelson’s head has been white long as I can recall, but there’s little doubt he nestles well within that pantheon of copper notables.

I could also trace my regard to reverence for another free-flowing ginger, writer Tom Robbins. Not the gung-ho you-can-do-it guy with oil-spill hair and killer whale choppers, but the Pacific Northwestern oddball outlaw, coincidentally aligning with another of Willie’s descriptors. In “Still Life with Woodpecker,” Robbins wrote: “Humanity has advanced, when it has advanced, not because it has been sober, responsible and cautious, but because it has been playful, rebellious and immature.”

Robbins rhapsodizes about his follicular tribe: “His hair was red then, red being the colour of emergency and roses; red being the prelate’s top and the baboon’s bottom; red being the blood’s colour, jelly’s colour; red maddening the bull; red being the colour of valentines, of left-handedness, and of a small princess’s newfound guilty hobby. His hair was red, his cowboy boots muddy, his heart a hive of musical bees.”

He also wrote “It’s never too late to have a happy childhood,” and “A better world has gotta start somewhere. Why not with you and me?”

After our little donation, The Orangutan Foundation wrote back a thank you, underlining where donations go, what they may benefit:

• Protection of critical orangutan habitats including Tanjung Puting National Park, the Lamandau River Wildlife Reserve and the Belantikan Hulu region (home to the largest remaining populations of orangutans in an unprotected area).

• Education and awareness raising both in Indonesia and the UK.

• Capacity building and development of local partners.

• Sustainable livelihood projects run with local communities.

• Orangutan Release Programme and Veterinary Care Programme.

• Scientific research.

Now and again, traveling up to the Magic City to visit one redhead or another, I'll sit for a spell with Oliver, Lipz and their daughter Nairi, born at the Birmingham Zoo on Dec. 11, 2011. Oliver will be 42 this summer; Lipz recently turned 40. Can't say I wouldn't rather see them in a rainforest, but zoos also work toward preservation of this critically endangered species.

Sumatran orangutans live, on average, about 35-40 years in the wild. These gentle, shy giants' habitats are under threat of deforestation for production of palm oil, processed in food and beauty products. An easy aid? Only buy from those that use sustainable palm oil production. The Cheyenne Mountain Zoo (in Colorado) makes a fine app that can help discern such products; see www.cmzoo.org/conservation/orangutans-palm-oil/sustainable-palm-oil-shopping-app.

Do something to start that better world spinning today. Help out a big beautiful red-head.

Reach Tusk Editor Mark Hughes Cobb at mark.cobb@tuscaloosanews.com, or call 205-722-0201.

This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Seeing red for the good of all this planet's apes| MARK HUGHES COBB