“The theater, when it is potent enough to deserve its ancestry, is always dangerous. That is why it is instinctively feared by people who do not want change, but only preservation of the status quo.”
For 28 years, the plays chosen to be produced by the Contemporary American Theater Festival (CATF) all have in common the potency and change described in the above quote by Hallie Flanagan (1890-1969). Flanagan was an American theatrical producer and director, playwright and author, best known as the director of the Federal Theater Project, a part of the Works Progress Administration. All to say, people do not attend CATF plays to be entertained as much as they attend to be challenged.
Two plays in this year’s festival — inspired by actual news events — were especially challenging. As I did in Feed Your Head — Part One, following are my impressions of two of these plays as well as excerpts from my interviews with the playwrights.
After clicking on the title of the play, scroll down on the play’s webpage to read the entire interview.
A SEARING DRAMA
The House on the Hill by Amy E. Witting
This play wasn’t easy to read and even harder to watch . . . not because it was terribly written, produced or acted, but because the events of the play are based on a terrible and shocking incident: the 2014 Harris County, Texas mass shooting that left six family members dead, four of them children, and a lone survivor. The characters and situation in the play have been imagined. The two characters in the play — one of them a lone survivor — haven’t spoken in 17 years. The play ultimately asks this heartbreaking question: is it better to have died in a mass shooting or to be the lone survivor of a mass shooting? Until I interviewed the playwright, I had no idea about the losses in her own life.
What is worse? Being a victim of childhood trauma or not being able to forgive childhood trauma?
They are equally as devastating. What I love about the journey of this play is that we get to see the love Alexandra and Frankie had for each other before the incident. Not only are they grappling with that loss, but they are also grappling with the loss of their relationship. After a trauma, you become a different person.
We have empathy for victims of an awful tragedy, but seldom for the perpetrator. We rarely put under the microscope the family of the perpetrator. Aren’t they victims, too?
I struggle with this a lot, because I like to think that we are all born from goodness; that we all have an opportunity for a second chance. During some readings of this play, I received a lot of strong criticism for having empathy for a particular character. But my question is, how can you not? We all come from the same place and to not be able to empathize with someone is a way of staying paralyzed in the grip of trauma.
Do you believe in evil?
Someone can commit an evil act, but I don’t think the heart of that person is evil. When I’ve meditated and written for the day and spiritually grounded and fit, my day is very pleasant and I encounter people in a way of love. But if I wake up and rush through my day, my life starts to unravel and I experience those same people in a different way. A person bumps into me, and I get angry and then that anger turns into something else. If the spirit isn’t being fed, then I think people can commit evil acts. We all have access to peace. That’s how we’re supposed to live. It’s an energy that’s outside of us.
Read the rest of the interview to get the details about the playwright’s own harrowing experience with an active shooter.
A DELICIOUS COMEDY
The Cake by Bekah Brunstetter
Alright, I admit it: this play was ENTERTAINING as well as challenging. In fact, at moments it was downright hysterical. Della, a sweet-natured Christian refuses to make a wedding cake for her best friend’s daughter when she learns that the daughter is marrying a woman. Based loosely on the Supreme Court case, Masterpiece Bakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, the play was written by an associate producer and writer for the NBC hit series, This is Us. Yep, I had to work through Bekah’s agent to set up the interview — a first for me. I didn’t know what to expect, but I certainly didn’t expect to have an hour-long conversation with a playwright that could have gone on for another hour. Bekah was down-to-earth, wicked smart, and most of all, grateful for her talent.
You’ve said that there are lots of plays about lesbian couples like Jen and Macy in The Cake, but not so many about Della, the owner of the bakery.“I’m fascinated by stories where somebody said this stupid thing,” you have said, “and then all of a sudden, we all hate them, they’re horrible people. I always have sympathy for them, because I say stupid things all the time.”
It’s so human to misspeak, especially now. Everything so quickly gets misquoted and regurgitated and put on the internet and shared and shared and shared. One tiny misstep can explode in a way that it couldn’t before.
My dad was a politician for years, and once I started building traction in my playwriting career, he told me, “You’ve gotta be careful what you say,” and, “No matter what you say, they’re going to twist it to whatever they want it to be.” Not just “they” – the media – but also people who are out to misconstrue what you’re saying to fit it into their narrative.
When your father supported the 2011 Defense of Marriage Act, also known as Amendment One, that defines marriage as only between one man and one woman, you said that your family was forced to “really confront our different belief systems.” What was that confrontation like?
It was more like awkwardness over dinner. It wasn’t a blowout because I’m not gay. I’m straight. Since high school, I’ve had many gay friends, and my support of them and their relationships has always been a point of contention. My father helped to pass this bill; he did not create it or bring it to the table. Nevertheless, it passed and his name was on it. I could no longer ignore what was happening within myself, my family, my circle of friends, and my theater community. I could no longer be silent. So during conversations, I started to challenge my parents. But it wasn’t like a God of Carnage throw down. It was more like me simply saying, “No, that’s wrong.” which was huge for me at the time.
Why is it important for Bekah to humanize conservative values? To find out, read the entire interview.
FEED YOUR HEAD
Where in theeeee hell did THAT come from?
The tagline for CATF is “think theater” (one word) because the plays consistently make audiences members think and think again.
This past February, Ed Herendeen, the CATF artistic director, was listening to Patti Smith’s cover of Jefferson Airplane’s hit, “White Rabbit,” and latched onto the closing words of the song, “Feed your head.” Ed does not run his marketing ideas by any Board trustees (a couple of whom are skilled in branding/marketing), so we work with his vision. That being said, all of the plays this season were about memory/memories or the loss of memory, so in a way, “Feed Your Head” works. Also, CATF has a reputation for being in-your-face (why else would I have been invited to be a Board trustee?) and the insouciance of “Feed Your Head” kinda thumbs its nose, er, head, or WHATEVER, at competing theaters such as, shall we say, the Shakespeare Theatre.
The play’s the thing, people.
Mayhap it will catch the conscience of the king! If not the king, perhaps a few other consciences? Let’s hope!
Yes, let’s hope, Carol . . . and perhaps next time time, I won’t have to look up the meaning up “mayhap.” Mayhap, but who knows? Thanks for forcing me to go and re-read that entire passage from “Hamlet.” It’s stunning.