Penelope Reed, accomplished actor and executive director of the Hedgerow Theatre in the historic Arts and Crafts community of Rose Valley since 1991, has directed numerous plays and acted in even more productions nationally. She takes the lead as Mary, the senior of three bright and independent Victorian ladies who travel into the future in Eric Overmyer’s ON THE VERGE. The amazingly versatile Reed was directed by the much younger Kittson O’Neill, artistic associate at the InterAct Theatre and rising star. 

In this two-part series, Phindie writer Henrik Eger talks to Reed and O’Neill about their intergenerational collaboration. Part two features an interview with actor Penelope Reed. (Part one here.) [Hedgerow Theatre, 63 Rose ValleyRoad, Media, PA] January 8–February 8, 2015, hedgerowtheatre.org.

Henrik Eger: What made you decide to ask Kittson O’Neill to become the director of your latest production at the Hedgerow?

Penelope Reed: Hedgerow’s artistic director Jared Reed was seeking a director for ON THE VERGE.  We had thought one of our treasured directors, Dan Hodge, would be leading the team, but he was off to Walnut Street and a lead in Private Lives. Our production had been cast and some design staff chosen, but we needed a powerful director, as Hedgerow has committed to getting fabulous directors to grow the company.

We both heard simultaneously (from two separate and most esteemed colleagues) about this incredible director and actress, Kittson O’Neill. When Jared heard this and that she loved and knew the play deeply, he knew she would be perfect. I was a little anxious as, having read the play and the part, I thought, “I hope this terrific, new director will enjoy the company we’ve handed to her and that I can rise to the role of Mary.” When I met her, I was overjoyed, because her clarity, discipline and commitment to consistency were palpable. I knew immediately that we were in the best of hands.

Eger: Looking back at your many years as an actor and director, what do you remember about the first time you acted professionally and worked with an experienced director?

Reed: This is a little difficult as I had the great fortune to work with some terrific local directors with the Brandywiners, Wilmington Drama League in Delaware, among many others as a young teen. Some of these directors were terrific.  However, there names have passed me by. At 15, when I joined the Equity Summer Stock Robin Hood Theatre (now known as Candle-Light Theatre), I had the fortune of working with New York Directors Winston Sharples, Bill Woodman, Pirie McDonald, all of whom hired major seasoned actors and actresses from New York.  The work was even as we turned around a show in one week. I realized the discipline and passion required by watching these amazing professionals. While another show was running, a lot had to be learned, executed and shared in those 6 days.

After two summers (while playing throughout the school year in shows at local theatres) I went to Perry Mansfield School of Theatre and Dance in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. I discovered the actual intense study of the art form–day in day out, with extraordinarily talented other young artists, we learned under the intense professional guidance by Kingo Perry and Portia Mansfield.

But all that paled in the fall of my senior year, when my father died. My mother moved to Rose Valley, and I began to study with Jasper Deeter. This was truly mind-altering as the depth and breadth of his experience was daunting and prepared me well for basing my work on truth before technique. I received my Equity Card at the Summer Theatre and on Carnegie, too, where I spent four magnificent, intense yeas–more competitive than anything I’ve seen in theatre in the 45 years +. Off I went to The Milwaukee Repertory for 13 years and later to The McCarter Theatre and then to the Hedgerow—all the while being an actress, director, and teacher.

Eger: Compared to those days, what was different this time working with Kittson O’Neill, a younger director? 

Reed: What I love about Kittson is her depth of experience in theatre, theatre technique, and huge mind for dramaturgy, exploring character, and extraordinary sensitivity and understanding of how to get her ideas and vision across. I have never seen people as “younger” or “older” determining their quality.

All I know is that I saw her as a kindred spirit who is in sync with any cherished director—a kind, generous person for whom I would try any idea she came up with. Because of these qualities of hers, I would give her 150%, often challenging her to bring my choices where she wanted. I also saw her do the same with the other actors and designers. She has a style from which we all can learn.

Eger: Theater critic Neal Zoren praises your “thoughtful, classically-styled take on Mary.” Tell us more about the discussion between you and the director on portraying this role.

Reed: What you see is what we made together as an ensemble of four, bouncing Kittson’s take on the play. I consciously did not do any in depth thinking about the play. Not only because I was directing 60 some people in our A CHRISTMAS CAROL (huge job annually), but I really wanted to experience her take on this obviously complicated material before I made any choices. I’m sure it was difficult for her in that first week—she’d never worked with me before, didn’t know I was back onstage acting (having had much focus on keeping the Hedgerow going), having this more mature actress bushwhack, climb cliffs, skate on invisible ice working with actors half her age, while holding script in hand. Again my summer stock experience told me I could get the lines, but I wanted her vision and depth coming off what the others actors were sharing. I love ensemble work.

Eger: Describe a scene where the two of you collaborated successfully?


Reed: We had lots of laughs. I guess the funniest was the scene where Mary (my character) shares her experiences in the casino and acts out the floorshow Girls a’ Poppin.  Having never seen such an exhibition myself, I need guidance. Kittson said there was going to come a time where I would “want to kill her” for her suggestions. Never happened.

With every suggestion, I took it and ran as far as I could. We discovered pole dancing on Google, exotic dancing, etc. Kittson’s brilliance at dance gave me great ideas. I just followed. However, seriously, the most profound collaboration was Mary’s osmosing the future toward the end of the play. Images come to Mary [the character] fast and furious, and the acting job is to keep up with Mary’s words. This was much challenging fun.

Eger: How did you handle a scene where there might have been creative differences?

Reed: We didn’t have any. That’s the truth. I trusted her completely.

Eger: Where there any funny moments in your interactions with O’Neill—on stage and off stage?

Reed: Many. I remember the first time I launched into the moment where Mary thinks Cool Whip is Noxema and smears it on her face. The company wasn’t ready, but I went with it and covered my face. Cool Whip going everywhere—I have a sort of abandon when I feel free and that someone I trust I watching. Well, rehearsal had to stop for a moment as everyone was laughing so hard.

So many other hilarious moments.

The only non-happy moments for all of the [three] ladies of the entire experience was dealing with the packs and particularly the umbrella holders. So for the delight of having a great personal experience on stage, we all take it as part of the journey: Life imitating art and vice versa.

Eger: You seem to have had a great time. Describe those moments where you and O’Neill dialogued, and perhaps even changed roles during certain moments of the rehearsal process.

Reed: Kittson will use any technique to get her point across, which I love—physically or vocally. As an actress who “wants to get it right, ” I love coaching. However, she never tells you how to do it. She guides you to it. Brilliant.

Eger: I enjoyed your portrayal of the Victorian explorer, who travelled all the way into the 1950’s and then seemed to wonder whether to return to her life in the previous century.Is there anything else you would like us to know about your work with O’Neill and her colleagues?

Reed: Actually, Mary returns to her method of approaching the future. She moves ON to discover, explore, and illuminate “new worlds, within and without.” She doesn’t return to 1888. Instead, she goes with her yearning for the future into the TYVEK—with dark distances and clusters of light leading the way.

Eger: If ON THE VERGE is a celebration of self-discovery by three Victorian ladies, what did you discover about yourself as an actor-director working with a young director?

Reed: I guess what I discovered about myself was that I am as young, creative and eager to explore as the extraordinary team Jared and Kittson put together. I am so grateful every night to work with M.R. [Maryruth Stine], who teaches me risk; Jennifer [Summerfield], who teaches me grace; and Brock [Vickers], who teaches me charm and nuance.

I am grateful every night for the brilliance of Aaron Cromie, who designed and Zoran [Kovcic], who built the extraordinary TYVEK set and clock platforms. I’m grateful to Jared [Reed] whose lights changed our adventures from tropics and jungles to mountains and snow; to Patrick [Lamborn] who created character with sound; grateful to the five stalwart folks backstage who make the environment and costume changes happen. Oh, and the problem-solving prop people, who brought in many artifacts and dealt with our continuing pleas for help about our backpacks and those nasty umbrella challenges.

The only real sadness is that we opened the show, and Kittson, our leader and partner, had to leave. It is fun, every night, and we’d love to share it with her. In short . . . Kittson ROCKS!

"Penelope Reed on working with a young director in ON THE VERGE" was published by Phindie on February 2, 2015. 

Penelope Reed, accomplished actor and executive director of the Hedgerow Theatre in Rose Tree Park since 1991, takes the lead as Mary, the senior of three bright and independent Victorian ladies who travel into the future in Eric Overmyer’s ON THE VERGE. Reed was directed by the much younger Kittson O’Neill, artistic associate at the InterAct Theatre. O’Neill grew up in Connecticut and Australia, has acted in many theaters in the Philadelphia area, New York, and various regional theaters. She has directed many plays, appeared in a number of films, and also works as a dramaturge and teacher.

In this two-part series, Phindie writer Henrik Eger talks to Reed and O’Neill about their intergenerational collaboration. Part one features an interview with director Kittson O’Neill. (Part two here.) [Hedgerow Theatre, 63 Rose ValleyRoad, Media, PA] January 8–February 8, 2015, hedgerowtheatre.org.

Henrik Eger: Looking back at your many theater experiences, what do you remember about the first time you directed a play?

Kittson O’Neill: Well, since I only just embarked on this part of my artistic life, I remember it clearly. My overwhelming emotion was terror, but since I am lucky enough to have always had amazing actors around me, my terror soon turned to joy. I love acting and I love watching my fellow actors so rehearsal is a blessing twice over!

Eger: Are you saying that your work at the Hedgerow was your directorial debut? That sounds exciting.

O’Neill: I was a replacement director for this show, so I didn’t know my actors well. I had met them all before we began, but some for only a few minutes, so the first day of rehearsal was a huge question mark. Would we know how to talk to each other? Would they see the play the way I did? ON THE VERGE is a big and complicated play. It asks a lot of the actors, physically and emotionally. I knew that I was going to push them and push the designers. I was delighted to find they were more than on board! Our cast has actors in the first years of their careers and Penn [Penelope Reed], who has been acting everywhere and in everything. That could make for a bumpy ride, but every one of them said “yes” to every insane thing I asked them to do. I am so grateful.

Eger: Tell us more about your interactions when directing the almost legendary Penelope Reed—on stage and off stage.

O’Neill: I honestly didn’t fully understand Pen’s history when we started rehearsal, thank goodness! And she never pulled rank in any way. It wasn’t until I googled her for fun during tech that I realized what an incredible career she has had. By then it was too late: we were all having too much fun for me feel intimidated. Also, my mother is a theater maker in Albany, NY and she and Penn have a lot in common, so all through the process I felt a protectiveness and cheekiness toward Penn, perhaps because making a play with her felt, literally, familiar.

Eger: Describe those moments where you and Reed dialogued, and perhaps even changed roles during certain moments of the rehearsal process.

O’Neill: There was a lot of dialogue, particularly as we worked to unearth our take on the end of the play, but there was never a change of roles. Because I am also an actress, I am particularly mindful of trying not to impose my aesthetic as an actor on my cast.

Eger: Were there any funny moments in your interactions with Reed—on stage and off stage?

O’Neill:I had no shame about showing Penn exactly how I wanted her to do her drunk burlesque. Watching YouTube videos of pole dancing with Penn and the rest of the cast will always be one of my favorite rehearsal moments ever! She never balked. She just looked me in the eye and said, “Do you want me to shake my booty here or further downstage?” How can you not fall in love with that actor?

Eger: If ON THE VERGE is a celebration of self-discovery for the three Victorian ladies, what did you discover about yourself as a director working with four great actors (Brock Vickers, Jennifer Summerfield, Maryruth Stine, and Penelope Reed), especially the most senior of these wonderful performers?

O’Neill: I am much more comfortable with the steering wheel than I thought I was. I asked a lot of this cast and the designers. They gave me their trust and that helped me to really trust myself and my instincts. I am still a young director, so I learned a lot for my next show, but I’m at ease in the driver’s seat. That feels nice. I also discovered that I really love goofy jokes—the goofier the better.

And that honesty really is the best policy. ON THE VERGE is a very heady play. It’s easy to get lost in the ideas, but when we came back to truthfulness and honesty, everything clicked. That’s how I work as an actor, and it was so satisfying to see my personal aesthetic working on in a full production, too.

Eger: What advice do you have for young directors working with seasoned actor-directors?

O’Neill: The greatest respect you can show actors is to treat them like actors, like all the actors in the cast. Trust yourself and your vision and they will, too.

Eger: I enjoyed your production of ON THE VERGE. Is there anything else you would like us to know about your work with Reed and her colleagues?

O’Neill: Hedgerow really took a chance on me as a young director and I think that’s because they are an actors’ theater first and foremost. Penn and Jared [Reed, Hedgerow’s artistic director and Pen’s son] saw my long history as an actor as a real qualification to direct, and I am SUPER grateful to them for that. Also, I was very lucky to have an amazing group of designers around me as well and without them and the tireless crew, we would not have the show we have.

"Kittson O’Neill talks about directing the veteran cast of ON THE VERGE" was published by Phindie on February 2, 2015  

Eger: Hold These Truths has been performed all over the US. How do you account for its success?

Sakata: I have been amazed at the response and can only guess at the answer, but I like to think that it is first of all because of Gordon himself, who seems to fascinate audiences just as much as he fascinated me when I first discovered his story.  When I began researching him, his personality just shone through the letters that he wrote during WWII, letters that were a major source of inspiration to me in writing the play.  I felt he was an extraordinary person in so many ways, but also someone with a wonderfully engaging, warm, everyman quality that audiences could easily identify with, and root for.

I also think that people are amazed to discover the story itself.  A few years ago, in 2012, President Obama posthumously awarded Gordon the Medal of Freedom, but his name is still unfamiliar to many Americans.  Simply put, his is a great and quintessentially American story, one which still speaks powerfully to our current times, with a lot of unpredictable twists and turns that I could never have invented.  It’s full of highs and lows, both tragedy and humor.  And finally, I know it’s because of the incredible artists and mentors—directors, actors, designers, dramaturgs—who I’ve been fortunate enough to work with during the development and production of the play, and who have taken the script and created such amazing theatrical magic from it.  I can never thank them enough for giving the play the wonderful life that it’s had for the last eight years.

Eger: In 2007, you first called your play Dawn’s Light: The Journey of Gordon Hirabayashi, but changed it to Hold These Truths in 2012. What made you change the title?

Sakata: At one point in the play’s progression, it was suggested by some theatre friends that the title, DAWN’S LIGHT, while being a beautiful image, might not fully reflect what Gordon actually does in the play to audiences unfamiliar with his story.  So after some brainstorming, HOLD THESE TRUTHS emerged as a title which could help do that, in a number of different ways.

Eger: What parts of your play did you leave for the 45-minute children’s version and what parts did you take out?

Sakata: Generally speaking, what we had to do with the Theatre for Young Audience (TYA) version was present the core of the story without a lot of the extra details that gave the main stage version more political, legal and social context and texture.  That was because this TYA version was designed to fit into a 45-minute class session for touring to junior high and high schools, although we’ve had a great many high school students who have come to see the full-length 90 minute show as well.

Eger: What was the response of school kids seeing your abridged version?

Sakata: Very positive overall, resulting in East West Players (EWP) reviving the Theatre For Youth tour for a second tour a couple of years later. The feedback from the teachers was especially enthusiastic, and EWP provided them with a terrific study guide about Gordon and his case, and about the Japanese American WWII experience in general. This was so important because with junior high and high school students, a lot of their response depends on how well the teachers prepare them to see the play.  And I hear the Asian American students were especially excited about the show, which meant a lot to me.

Japanese-American Relationships

Eger: What response did you get from the Japanese-American community about Hold These Truths?

Sakata: It’s been deeply gratifying to have received such an enthusiastic response from the Japanese American community to the play.  With a few exceptions here and there, stories from our community have largely gone ignored for many years, not just on the mainstream screen and stage, but also in the history books, and I’ve felt a palpable sense of relief and pride from Japanese Americans who have seen the show that Gordon’s story, and by extension their own WWII experiences, are being shared onstage.  Many people who knew Gordon personally have been grateful for the chance to remember and share their own memories of him, and many who went through the tragedies of WWII have been inspired to share their own stories in post-show discussions.

Eger: In the history of the US, we see the singling out of certain groups for discriminatory actions. Has the discrimination against Japanese-Americans stopped altogether or is it still lingering on—directly or indirectly?

Sakata: I think ANY ethnic minority group in the U.S. has to keep constant watch over racial discrimination.  I don’t think the possibility of its resurfacing never completely goes away.  It might seem to go underground for a while, only to resurface when events like 9/11 happen and suddenly Arab-Americans are under attack, or in the heated debates over immigration policy that are now taking place, or in the rampant police abuse repeatedly committed against young African-American men. There are still a number of people who believe the barbed wire camps were necessary to protect America’s interest during WWII.  There are still people who think that Japanese Americans “deserve” to have been mass incarcerated because of Pearl Harbor being bombed.  There is still the perception in parts of the country that a “real” American means a white American.

Eger: Hirabayashi suffered a great deal because of his ethnicity and courage to defy the highest authority, but he never gave up his belief in equal rights for all. Years later, he said, “There was a time when I felt that the Constitution failed me,” and “The U.S. government admitted it made a mistake. A country that can do that is a strong country. I have more faith and allegiance to the Constitution than I ever had before.”

How do young Japanese-Americans today view their status in the US? Do many of them carry Hirabayashi’s spirit, “You better make sure that the Constitution is actively operating . . . Otherwise, it’s a scrap of paper”?

Sakata: Of course I can’t speak for all young Japanese Americans, but the ones who have come to see HOLD THESE TRUTHS have seemed very appreciative of the chance to learn more about what their grandparents went through during WWII, as well as excited to know about Gordon.  A number of Yonsei, or fourth-generation Japanese Americans, have come up to me and told me how much the story meant to them, and I like to think it may be because they are often around the same age that Gordon was when he decided to protest and challenge the government’s actions.  They may not be living today under the extreme racist conditions of WWII, but they have shown great awareness of the racial discrimination that still exists, not just against Asian Americans but other ethnic groups as well.

Writing Historical Plays and Scripts

Eger: What advice do you have for young playwrights who want to tackle a historical subject?

Sakata: For me the challenge of doing this kind of play was that it is was very easy to get overly didactic with the storytelling, or to get so caught up with the accumulating and presenting of historical facts that I’d start to lose the heartbeat of the play.  When I first began working on HOLD THESE TRUTHS, I was in a playwriting group hosted by the brilliant writer José Rivera and I never forgot his advice:  “Just remember to stay with Gordon’s heart.  If you stay with his heart, I think you will be okay.”

Eger: Is there any chance that your play could be translated and performed in Japan?

Sakata: Possibly, and I hope that happens someday!  That idea has been brought up more than once, so we’ll see.  It depends on whether we can find the right venue and audience there, as well find the resources to have the translation done.

Eger: Your play is so powerful that I could see it up on the screen. Are you working on a script for Hollywood or an independent production?

Sakata: That is definitely on the list for possible future projects!

Hold These Truths in Philadelphia

Eger: Is there anything else you would like to share?

Sakata: I’d like to thank [director] Daniel Student and [actor] Makoto Hirano and everyone at Plays & Players for presenting HOLD THESE TRUTHS in Philadelphia, as well as everyone there who has contributed to and participated in the related talkbacks and other events.  I’d also like to let everyone know that if they’d like to read more about Gordon, to check out the recently published memoir, A Principled Stand, a collection of writings in Gordon’s own words, edited by James and Lane Hirabayashi, his brother and nephew.  Finally, you can keep up with the latest news about HOLD THESE TRUTHS via our website holdthesetruths.info.

And thank you, Henrik, for this interview!

Eger: Thank you, Jeanne. 、ジャンヌ、ありがとうございました。

"A 'real' American isn’t just a white American" was published by Phindie on February 27, 2015.

GROWING UP IN A CRAZY, YET CREATIVE WORLD

Henrik Eger: You were raised in a Jewish family. Tell us more about your upbringing and your love for the arts.

Denise Shubin: My family was quite secular, but it was clear that they wanted my brother and me to know that we are Jewish, identify with that heritage, and take pride in that knowledge. Both of my parents were born and raised in Philadelphia, and I was born here, too. However, my family moved to Southern California when I was three years old, and I lived there for 28 years.

But life growing up was not all that wonderful. My father was an alcoholic, and my mother was a prescription drug addict. Our world was wrought with domestic violence. They divorced when I was eleven years old.

Eger: Given that background, how did your appreciation and love for the arts develop?

Shubin: My attraction to the performing arts has always been quite innate. However, even with all the madness in my childhood world, I can now see where many of my talents were nurtured in a weird kind of way.

My father was hugely charismatic, possessed a huge presence, was a natural MC and comedian—one of the funniest people I have ever known or have known of. He would grab a microphone whenever there was one in sight and sing and sing and sing. He never actively sought life in “show business,” but I know that is always what he wanted to do, and he found his way to take the stage, any stage, whenever he could.

My mother was gorgeous, deeply troubled, and charismatic as well. She expressed her artistic side with drawing, painting, and creating a beautiful home. My mother taught Latin ballroom dancing for a time at Arthur Murray’s. And both of my parents were great dancers. My fondest memory of them was of them dancing together.

Still, it was a crazy world. It is a wonder that any of us survived. But I can tell you, that as far back as I can remember, I dreamed of dancing and singing.

Eger: How did you transition from dance to theater?

Shubin: I didn’t. I am still dancing, and will continue to dance as long as I am able. I believe the call to the dance to be a spiritual one. One never stops being a dancer as it is part and parcel of who one is. The wisdom of the body informs everything I do. Whether I dance, sing, act, or decorate the house, it is within the body where the truth lies, not the mind. Dancers have to be extremely comfortable in their own skin, presenting the totality of who they are with a perfect balance of body, mind, and spirit fully present in the moment.

Actors are supposed to be doing this, too. However, we see bad acting with inappropriate facial expressions, and awkward, contrived gestures. These performers are not fully in the moment because they are thinking and not being. Dancers can’t get away with that. Whether one is dancing, singing, or speaking a role, the “being” has to be there.

SHUBIN THEATRE: STEPPING STONE FOR NEW THEATER COMPANIES

Eger: You are one of the few people on the East Coast who turned her house into a theater. Tell us more about the evolution of the Shubin Theatre in Philadelphia.

Shubin: My husband Don Martinelli and I didn’t exactly turn our house into a theater. We selected this building at 407 Bainbridge Street with the intention of creating a theater on the ground floor before we moved into the house. So it was not an afterthought. We were in a position of acquiring our first family home, and it occurred to me that it might be a good idea to select a storefront with living space above, as opposed to buying a conventional home.

Growing up on the West coast brought me back here with fresh eyes. I saw Philly differently than lifelong residents do. A property like this in a like location would cost millions in L.A. or New York, but here it was doable. And I could be free to explore and express my passions and energies in a way that was constructive and, hopefully, be of service to others as well.

Eger: What were the highlights of your experience as a producer and host to many individual theater artists and small theater companies in the area?

Shubin: I don’t know where to begin! How can I possibly document nearly 30 years of experience? Mostly it is the joy of simply being able to do something that you always wanted to do. I have produced my own shows, and have worked in collaboration with many other artists.

We had triumphs and failures and all places in between with many lessons learned and the growth that comes with such experience.

Because of the low overhead we always maintained, gazillions of independent artists and small theater groups could afford to perform at the Shubin. We knew from the very beginning that we didn’t want our lives to be about fundraising. We never wanted a board of directors, and did not want to become yet another non-profit vying for what little grant money is out there. We never applied for a single grant. I have always joked that I am a true non-profit. I never made any money! I have no regrets about any of those decisions.

Altogether, I’m happy that far more artists [who produced their shows at the Shubin Theatre] were able to make their dreams come true than I could have ever imagined.

“WE ARE NOT NEARLY AS SPECIAL AS WE THINK WE ARE.”

Eger: You apparently faced some difficulties in producing hundreds of shows.

Shubin: Mostly just poor behavior on the part of some of the theater renters. For example, trashing the space and in so many other ways treating us, and the space, disrespectfully. For all the kind words that have been expressed in the wake of announcing that the space is closing, we have had to endure at least as many denigrating comments over the years. And, of course, there is the betrayal of false friends. People are people. I had to learn that “artists” run the range of human characteristics, just like any other profession. We are not nearly as special as we think we are.

Eger: What made you decide to close your theater after 29 years?

Shubin: I accomplished what I set out to do. And now it is time to move on. We no longer want to contend with liability issues, and would just like to have our house to ourselves. As romantic as it may seem to live this lifestyle, it really wears on you over time. We tiptoed around upstairs so as not to make any noise during shows, while we had to endure the noise downstairs. We couldn’t have our family, or even a couple of friends over for dinner for fear of making too much noise, and our poor dogs have been pounced on should they have had the audacity to bark! And we have not been able to leave town for a couple of days on a whim, as it would be irresponsible to leave should there be some sort of a problem or an emergency.

We are not blaming anyone for this situation. We quite consciously created and chose this lifestyle. We just don’t want to live like this anymore. And there are many uses we have for both what was the theater space and the basement that now would radically improve how we live and free up space upstairs. We did not come to this decision lightly. We have been thinking about it for a few years now.

PERFORMING ON STAGES ALL OVER PHILADELPHIA

Eger: You have performed in quite a few productions in Philadelphia. What was one of the most memorable performances for you?

Shubin: I was the first actor in Philadelphia to perform The Search For Signs Of Intelligent Life In The Universe [by Jane Wagner, Lily Tomlin’s wife], produced by Gary Day’s The Daylight Zone at the Actors Studio in the Bourse (Sept. 1995). I actually got a great review there from Neal Zoren. He told Lily Tomlin about my performance and she almost made it to the show, but the theater was dark on that night. She wanted to remain incognito so Neal couldn’t tell us she was coming or we surely would have gone on! Later we brought the show here to The Shubin for many more performances.

Eger: You developed a close working relationship and friendship with Ed Shockley, playwright, actor, teacher, and community activist.

Shubin: Yes, I have worked with Ed on numerous projects, including another one-woman show, Martha Mitchell In Mostly Her Own Words, which documents the tortured life of the woman who tried to blow the whistle on Watergate and suffered severe character assassination as a result of her honesty and openness.  She was drugged, beaten, forcibly institutionalized, and lost everything, including her life, aged 57.

I am especially proud of performing in a play written by Bill Rolleri (Ed Shockley directing) which dealt with the attempted genocide of the Armenian people by the Turks: The Armenian Question. This was performed at an Armenian church to a full house of both native and transplanted Armenians —a deeply moving experience.

I also performed in another of Ed’s productions. Forces of Darkness, exploring the infamous case of the Rosenbergs, executed for treason in the early 1950′s. After the Shubin farewell party, Ed, who is working on overcoming the effects of the stroke on his language, saw a dance photo of me and reiterated that he wants me to perform Indubitable, the new movement-based piece he is working on. He said, “I know you can do it.” I can’t tell you how much I appreciate his faith in me.

Eger: Great. You were also featured in the Fringe festival.

Shubin: Yes, I performed in a number of Fringe productions, including Lure at Plays and Players in 2006, which dealt with the issue of addiction. Lure was interesting in that we had two playwrights and two directors: Todd Holtsberry and John D’Alonzo co-directed, and Robert Kangas and Alex Dremen co-wrote the piece. The Jesse Schurr band in that production made for a most interesting and highly popular show.

And the past two years, I have worked with REV Theatre Company, doing our delightful Graveyard Cabaret, performed at the Laurel Hill Cemetery—a national historic landmark.

Eger: And you collaborated with a number of Philadelphia playwrights.

Shubin: Yes, I have worked directly with numerous playwrights, including Alex Dreman, Quinn D. Eli, Bill Hollenback, Robert Kangas, Kate McGrath, Debra Leigh Scott, Sam Toll, Mark Wolverton, and, of course, Bill Rolleri and Ed Shockley—just to name a few. I honestly never kept track of all that I have done.

Eger: How did those collaborations work?

Shubin:I was just fortunate enough to be cast in some of their plays and many of them have written for me personally. And, on occasion, I reached out to some of the playwrights, asking them to write for me, and never once did any of them decline my invitation. They considered it to be jolly good fun to consider me as their muse! They are all quite gifted artists and some of them have become very good friends. I am deeply appreciative of our work together.

PHILADELPHIA THEATER COMMUNITY: STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES

Eger: Given your experience, what do you consider the greatest strength of the Philadelphia theater community?

Shubin: Its diversity. There is SO much going on here.

Eger: Absolutely. However, I understand that you also have some concerns about the Philadelphia theater community.

Shubin: It is no secret that the Philly theater community is quite cliquish. There is a definite hierarchical structure within it. And the powers that be within this system decide who is considered somebody or who is not—depending on whether or not one chooses to climb that ladder. Talent, or the lack of it, has nothing to do with it. It really has more to do with who you know, and to what lengths one will go to be known.

Eger: Thank you for your willingness to address a sensitive subject. To balance the picture, a number of writers featured your work as a legendary patron of theater arts. It’s heartwarming reading the many wonderful things people all over Philadelphia have said about you, for example, “She made people’s dreams happen” (Rich Rubin), or “a lovely human [being] and gifted lady, a true Renaissance renegade! Wild Woman of the Art Universe, and most treasured Soul Sister” (Oni Lasana).

Shubin: I am deeply appreciative of any and all of the kind words that have been expressed in the wake of closing my theater. I think all of us, if we are emotionally and psychologically healthy, would like to think that we have had a positive impact on the world, no matter how big or how small. My concern is that my legacy is simply that I provided an affordable theater space. That is a good thing, and while I am very happy about that, there is a lot more to me—and anyone else for that matter.

I have been performing in Philadelphia for 33 years as a dancer, singer, and actor—and sometimes as a producer, director and writer. Yet, few of the theater critics or other notables in the theater community—again, making reference to that hierarchy—are even remotely aware of my work as a theater artist. And I am not the only one.

Eger: There are other theater artists who feel neglected?

Shubin: So many of my colleagues—actors, writers, singers, dancers, directors, designers, and many other theater artists—are just ignored by the powers that be. We are not Barrymore eligible. However, we are neither inferior beings nor inferior talents. And many of these colleagues are highly accomplished on many levels, including having received prestigious awards. We live, breathe, and have our own followings. We make people think and move them to both laughter and tears. We are, at the very least, memorable to those who have seen us, and we make a positive difference in this world.

The business of this “business” is something that has never set well with me, but this is just what I see going on, based on the culture of pandering in Philadelphia that folks feel forced into in order to be taken seriously. I realize this is just the nature of doing business, any business. I just had the tremendously naive notion that life in the arts would be different.

MOVING FORWARD

Eger: What could change that culture in our community, and what would you like to share with the next generation of actors, directors, and theater artists to enrich the cultural life in Philadelphia?

Shubin: Don’t prejudge anyone based on their credentials. Instead, experience people directly. See if it is possible to scale down your budget. It is inspiring what can be produced on a shoe string. So many companies had to throw in the towel because of having to feed the fund-raising beast. But most of all, BE TRUE TO YOURSELVES! You, and everyone else you know, will vastly benefit in the long run.

SING! DANCE! RECOVER YOUR JOY. That is what I intend to do.

Eger: Wonderful. Let’s dance. Is there anything else you would like us to know?

Shubin: I have tried in this interview to communicate a balanced view of my lie in the arts here in Philly.  All in all, it has been a most positive experience and I am at peace with all that we have done.  I wanted to tell the truth, and I sincerely hope in so doing, that others will be served by these comments.

Eger: If only you knew how many people, myself included, feel enriched by your very presence—on stage and off stage. Thank you for everything, Denise Shubin.


"We are not nearly as special as we think we are!" was published by Phindie on February 25, 2015

This is different in THE METAMORPHOSIS: the audience is seated and the action unfolds on a stage. But I think all theater events involve gathering people together in a room to make a sort of temporary community, and all plays are communication actions that require both the performers and the audience. So there are commonalities. There are also a bunch of secrets in THE METAMORPHOSIS staging. Depending on where you’re sitting or what your eye is drawn to, you may or may not see, for example, the charwoman [cleaning lady] poke Gregor, or Greta doing her hair when she goes out to work, or the first appearance of the Chief Clerk. So there’s still some freedom of viewership.

Eger: In her Philadelphia Inquirer review, Wendy Rosenfield claimed that your production had lost “some of the absurdist humor in Berkoff’s script.” Could you give some examples of your cutting, or re-interpreting of his script?

Wright: We didn’t cut anything from Berkoff’s script. [However,] we also didn’t completely honor his staging, as it was so clearly the result of his own collaborative devising process with his own company. It made more sense, in this context, to take the stage directions as prompts, to interpret them for tone and storytelling potential, and to come up with our own choreography and versions of the moments. I respond very strongly to the comedy and drama of awkwardness, both physical and emotional, so perhaps we skewed more towards the awkward than the absurd.

Eger: The same critic also claims that you traded “Berkoff’s more didactic, Marxist elements (pig masks, for one) to illuminate the human tragedies. [. . .] while the story’s political message gets less attention, Gregor’s more universal existential agonies are displayed for all to see.” Could you talk about your process of interpreting Berkoff’s script?

Wright: We chose to weave in the characters of the Charwoman and the Woman in Fur—such important figures in the novella, who didn’t make it in to Berkoff’s adaptation at all. For us, they were vital and informative presences. Berkoff’s script is brilliant. He also seems interested in the well-worn Daddy Issues lens on Kafka, which interests me less than the network of familial relationships as a whole, and the tragedies born therein.

Henrik Eger: What were your greatest influences on your work as a director?

Rebecca Wright: There are lots of directors I admire and lots of artists who inspire me. I love Ariane Mnouchkine, Pina Bausch, and Declan Donnellen. I also love Richard Sera, Shary Boyle, and David Wilson’s Museum of Jurassic Technology. I’ve worked for a long time at the New England Literature Program, one of the most pedagogically radical education programs in the country. It’s like boot camp for collaborative art­making and has deeply informed my process. And I love George Eliot. Her sociological fiction is a gorgeous example of translating life into art. I hope to keep encountering new influences as well, with an open heart and a spongey mind.

Eger: When was the first time you realized that you had truly come into your own as a director? What created those breakthroughs?

Wright: I think as soon as I figured out that I should say “I’m a very collaborative director” and explain a little bit about what that means for me on the first day of rehearsal, I started a gradual process of coming into my own. Also, when I realized that I should always wear pants to rehearsal: if I’m going to ask actors to roll around on the floor, I’d better be prepared to do it as well.

Eger: Your company, Applied Mechanics, is based on the philosophy that “art is not a commodity, and that theater is, at its core, inclusive. We make art that dreams a different world into being and invites you into it. Our process is highly collaborative and based on a commitment to organizational and artistic innovation.” Describe the process of collaboration in your Quintessence production of THE ​​METAMORPHOSIS.

Wright: The entire ensemble participated in creating movement, staging, and choreography for the piece. So, I would give prompts like “make a two-person bug” or “make a seven-person bug” and they would come up with all these proposals. Then we would work together to weave them into an order. Gradually, we developed a physical vocabulary for the piece that we could draw from as we discovered how each of its moments wanted to work.

Eger: Your group presents theater as a “radically democratic performance space, performers and audiences come together to explore new forms of community that exist beyond, beneath, or beside current realities.” How does that work?

Wright: In Applied Mechanics productions, the audience is free to move around the space and watch from whatever angle they want. Many scenes are happening simultaneously, and the audience is surrounded by the show. So it’s democratic in the sense that the audience and performers are sharing space and each audience member can choose her own path through the piece.

Eger: Do you or your group have any political agenda, or are you more interested in theatre, movement, etc.?

Wright: I’m interested in theater as a form, and live art as a medium. My personal politics (far left, feminist, anti-capitalist) have a relationship with my aesthetics and my working mode, but I wouldn’t say I have an agenda other than to make art that I think is cool—by which I mean, create things that I want to exist in the world, engaging in a process I believe in, with people I respect and adore.

Eger: What did you see as the main difference between your interpretation of THE METAMORPHOSIS and Berkoff’s?

Wright: His is minimalist (no props or literal set) and masculine (focused on the father-son conflict). Mine is busy (table! chairs! food! violin! Sure, all these objects are the same color, wrapped in muslin, and the chairs are floating on the walls, but they’re there) and feminist (cross-gender casting, presence of the female characters, depiction of women’s daily labor). We also incorporated the “brown liquid” and the “sticky stuff on Gregor’s feet” alluded to in the script, in the form of “the goo” (actually a soap-based concoction developed by Katherine Fritz) that shows up more and more over the course of the show.

Eger: Berkoff’s version of Gregor’s room, which becomes a cage, symbolizes the confined space in which basically all human beings are born into. His transformation into a bug frightens even the people in his family, so much so that they are ready to disown him, deprive him of his humanity, and even kill him. What were some of the experiences that the artistic team shared in discussions with you about their sense of limitations?

Wright: The ensemble is made up of incredibly empathetic artists. Everyone responded strongly and emotionally to the plight of a person who feels alienated and lonely. We talked about our adolescences a lot—such a time of change and bewilderment for everybody.

Eger: Usually a director would either take actors and designers from her ensemble or the best theater artists that had gone through the audition process. Apparently, you went a different route and chose actors and designers from these groups: Applied Mechanics, Bearded Ladies, New Paradise Laboratories [NPL], and The Riot Group. Tell us about that process.

Wright: Actually, I did hold a pretty rigorous audition process and cast an ensemble I believed in who I thought would work well together from the large number of incredibly talented performers who showed up.

My experience is that auditioning is less about finding “the best” and more about finding the rightest for the work. No surprise that the rightest for this work include people who already have lots of experience working in physical and collaborative modes. I want to note that the ensemble also includes members of Found Theater Company and Lookingglass Theatre. I’ll also add that I have long term collaborators in Applied Mechanics and members of the Riot Group. One of my favorite things as an artist is to have ongoing creative dialogue and process with people over time. So engaging Maria [Shaplin] and Adriano [Shaplin] is partly about building on an already rich vocabulary and artistic rapport that’s been years in the making. Kristen Bailey and I have also made more than half a dozen shows together.

Eger: What did you do to prepare for this fantastic piece of world literature where Gregor transforms in front of the audience from a regular young man into a beetle with umpteen legs and wings, all flailing and flapping desperately—performed by your team of actors, crouching over and under Gregor?

Wright: I read a number of different translations of the novella. My favorite two, I read several times. I spent time with Berkoff’s script. I had lively conversations with my design team (assembled, for the most part, before the actors were cast). I did a bit of research on Kafka. I dreamed of bugs and looked at lots of pictures of them and images of artworks engaging bugs (Louise Bourgeois, Shary Boyle, etc.).

Eger: What skills did this team bring to your version of THE METAMORPHOSIS​?

Wright: This team is made up of terrifically inventive, playful, imaginative, generous artists. Everyone had great ideas, a keen sense of storytelling, and a willingness to depart from the literal in service of the truth. They’re also all tireless workers. I knew I needed Maria and Adriano because of their astute ability to communicate shifts in time and emotional reality with sharp aesthetic choices. I’ve been eager to work with Katherine Fritz (costumes) again ever since we worked together on Vainglorious, for which she and Maria brilliantly thrift-costumed 26 performers in historical garb. I knew she’d be down to figure out the way to bring in period silhouette and goo alike. And I’ve admired Colin McIlvain’s sets for years.

I knew I needed actors who could help me solve the puzzles of the script. So I was looking for folks who were physically adept and down to explore and communicate. I lucked out to get seven people who are all so great at doing all these things at once. Doug Hara (Mr. Samsa) has a huge amount of experience in this realm. Julia Frey (Woman in Fur/Lodger) and Lee Minora (Charwoman/Lodger) both are versed in the mode from their work with NPL and Found [Theatre] respectively. Gracie Martin (Greta) started working on physical theater and devised work while she was still at University of the Arts. Anita Holland (Mrs. Samsa) worked with Applied Mechanics on We Are Bandits, so I knew something if her great idiosyncratic physical performance mode. Alan Brincks (Chief Clerk/Lodger) just blew me away in auditions: he was so playful! But they all were, really, and that’s a key thing. Not only do Kristen Bailey (Gregor) and I have a lot of experience working together, but when she came in for Metamorphosis, she was willing to throw all that out the window, start fresh, and just play and make new discoveries.

Eger: Tell us more about the multiple metamorphoses that have taken place in this production: Gregor becomes a beetle and dies; his unemployed father who lived on Gregor’s income, throws apples at the beetle to kill him, and gets out of his role as an unemployed clerk; Gregor’s beloved younger sister who always spoke up for him completely turns against her brother, while she herself matures from a little girl who likes the violin to a young woman who becomes a skilled violinist.

Wright: Your description of the metamorphoses is interesting. I think there are many transformations within the piece: each of the family members has a journey, and then each ensemble member plays multiple roles and takes on multiple shapes—a series of theatrical metamorphoses. Everyone, at some point, is a bug.

Eger: You said that this play is a story where every character transforms and deals with isolation and miscommunication. You also reminded us that all human bodies change and that, no matter how dramatic and extreme, changing is part of being alive. How did you translate these insights into visual, audio, and dramatic theater?

Wright: We played a lot with isolation in the lighting: Maria [Shaplin] designed a plot that enabled isolating certain areas, including following Kristen [Bailey]‘s climbs on the wall. Adriano [Shaplin] enhanced and distorted certain lines of Kristen’s to add to the miscommunication effect; a lot of miscommunication is written into the script as well. Each actor worked carefully to pronounce certain individual physical transformations. The shifts in and out of bug body are one example, but Doug’s posture changes gradually throughout the piece, and so does Gracie Martin’s. Her costume changes rather strikingly as well, and Anita Holland’s gestural language shifts from nervous to grounded over the course of the play.

Eger: You presented the outside world in form of medieval characters that looked in through small windows—done brilliantly by lighting designer Maria Shaplin, as if Rembrandt himself had designed those light and shadow effects. Tell us more about that process.

Wright: The feeling of the outside world pressing in on the characters was very important to me. It’s a big presence in the script and the novella alike, and we wanted to represent it physically. Colin McIlvain and Maria worked together to make the window-scrim concept work. Sometimes the outside world peers in from outside, and sometimes it invades the Samsa home more directly, like when the Charwoman comes in to clean, or the Chief Clerk comes to call, or during the dream.

Eger: Had you seen or heard of productions in which Gregor is played by a woman, or is this the first production of its kind, as far as you know?

Wright: I haven’t heard of a production in which Gregor is played by a woman before.

Eger: In your Director’s Notes, you did not bring up the androgynous aspect of your production. Why is that? Tell us more about your choice of Gregor being played by the amazing Kristen Bailey, a young woman with an androgynous look.

Wright: I thought about putting something about the cross gender casting in the Notes, but then I wasn’t sure what to say. I’m tired of seeing shows with a majority of white male bodies on stage. That’s what most shows are. It’s become inherently boring to me. We’ve entered an age where it’s more and more generally acknowledged that gender is a performance. The female body has a lot to say about transformation, what with menstruation, pregnancy, and menopause.

Gregor is often seen as a kind of Everyman. If that’s true of the character, then he’s a kind of Everywoman as well. I auditioned lots of women for the role of Gregor, but Kristen was the best. She’s a phenomenal emotional actor, as well as a physical performer. Not everyone gets how to access realistic psychological feeling while engaging in expressionistic physical movement, but she does. The show is not really about gender, though, which is why in the end I didn’t mention it in the Notes. It’s about people and their daily lives and something extraordinary that happens to them.

Eger: Kristen Bailey, the star of THE METAMORPHOSIS, grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah where she saw friends coming out, and “their families treated them like a giant beetle.” Going by the long applause and the standing ovation at the end of the show, I had a sense that the audience related, not only on an artistic, but also on a personal level.

Wright: In the end, I think the cross­gender casting makes Gregor more sympathetic and accessible. With Kristen in the role, Gregor really speaks to everyone.

Eger: According to your latest blog, “Applied Mechanics is in development! [. . .] We are not yet sure where it will all land, but we have been throwing lots of ideas up in the air, checking out which ones float.” Where do you see Applied Mechanics going, given the ever shrinking support from funding agencies?

Wright: Applied Mechanics is in early development stages for a new piece. We’re also working to arrange a tour of the piece we premiered last summer, We Are Bandits, a big immersive feminist punk play with original music. There are some amazing funders in Philly, like the Wyncote Foundation, who have consistently believed in our work and supported us. We believe in what we’re doing and have to have faith that the money will come. We work very hard on fundraising, and so far have been able to grow our budgets and our income pretty steadily. But our focus is on people and art.

We throw bi­annual community dinners—free meals, anyone is welcome to attend—and share a home­cooked meal together at every rehearsal—so people are always taken care of, even if the budgets are small. We’re in early development stages for a little piece, After Bandits, which was huge, and Vainglorious, which had 26 performers. We’ve started wondering what tiny versions of immersive theater might look like.

Eger: Thank you, Becky. Keep us all posted. Just one confession: I have few regrets in my life. One of them is that I missed your production of Vainglorious: The Epic Feats of Notable Persons in Europe After the Revolution, the much talked about panorama of all the greats during Beethoven and Napoleon’s time—a theatrical masterpiece, by all accounts. If ever you remount it, please let me know. I’ll buy the first ticket. 


"Meta-morphing Kafka’s Gregor" was published by Phindie on February 23, 2015.

One of the most shameful aspects in modern US history took place during World War II, when large numbers of Japanese-American citizens of all ages, including babies, were forced to leave everything behind and move into internment camps. Traumatized, many Japanese-Americans didn’t dare to talk about the subject for decades. One of the few exceptions was Gordon Hirabayashi (1918-2012), a young pacifist and student who defied the order and took the case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. He lost the case in 1944 and was sent to jail.

Many decades later, in 1987, Hirabayashi’s convictions were overturned, because evidence showed that the Supreme Court arguments had been based on “rumored incidents” of non-existent Japanese American sabotage, instead of facts. In 2011, the Acting Solicitor General officially confessed error in that regard. In May 2012, President Obama awarded Gordon Hirabayashi posthumously the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America’s highest civilian honor.

Jeanne Sakata, a well-known Japanese-American actor, met and interviewed Gordon Hirabayashi, and spent years in writing and fine-tuning HOLD THESE TRUTHS, a creative docudrama in form of a one-man show about the life of the courageous yet unassuming young hero of the Japanese-American community.  HOLD THESE TRUTHS is being performed all over the United States and now premieres at Plays and Players, running February 13 through March 1, 2015. [Read the Phindie review.]

Henrik Eger: Which experiences of your childhood and adolescence influenced your career choices the most?

Jeanne Sakata: I loved to read when I was a kid, and I always had my nose buried in a book.  One Christmas, I remember that someone gave me a children’s adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women—I think I was in second grade—and I just buried myself in that book and fell in love with Jo and wanted to grow up and be a writer.

So it’s nice that that’s actually happened, finally.  I never seriously entertained the idea of being an actor until college.  I was an English Literature major when suddenly I fell in love with many of the performing arts—singing, dance, storytelling, puppetry, acting.  I started taking classes in all of them, and then realized that the theater was a place where I could make use of all these things I loved, as well as immerse myself in great dramatic literature.

Japanese-American Relationships

Eger: When you grew up as a young person of Japanese-American descent, did you experience any negative attitudes—either personally or through what you read or heard through the media?

Sakata: I grew up in a small farming town just south of the Bay Area, but it had a large and prominent Japanese American [JA] community, so I didn’t experience overtly negative attitudes on a daily basis, but of course I noticed that there weren’t a lot of faces that looked like mine in the media—on TV, in the movies, or in magazines.  I certainly was aware that there were racist people out there in the world, though, and that my family had experienced that racial hostility in the past, but I didn’t know the specifics till later in life.

Eger: Was there a defining moment when you first strongly identified with the plight of Japanese-Americans?

Sakata: I had a wonderful Asian American Studies professor at UCLA, Yuji Ichioka [1936–2002, American historian and civil rights activist who coined the term "Asian American" to replace the widely used derogatory term “Oriental”]. He was an exciting, fiery, passionate mentor.  Yuji’s class was definitely a seminal moment for me in terms of really digging into my family’s history, and by extension, the history of Japanese Americans, as he assigned us to write a personal history of a Japanese American and set it against the larger backdrop of Japanese American history.

I chose to write about my paternal grandfather, Harry Kyusaburo Sakata, and I’ll always be grateful to Yuji for that assignment, because that was the beginning of my full realization of what had happened to my family and the JA community during WWII.  Also, there was a huge Asian American student movement that was happening in the 60’s and 70’s, and that served to educate me as well.

Eger: When you initially heard about the internment camps in the US during WWII, what was your response?

Sakata: As I grew up, I learned that my family on my father’s side had been in the Poston, Arizona camp during WWII, but my father, aunts and uncles never talked about the camp experience.  I’m sure because they were too traumatized by it and just wanted to bury the past as best they could.  As I started to learn the details of the forced removal during my college years, of course, I was angered and shocked over what had happened, as well as very sad.

Eger: What were the most shocking, but also the most moving discoveries you made about the plight of Japanese-Americans being forced to live in internment camps during WWII?

Sakata: The most shocking thing I learned was that the US government demanded that even babies in orphanages who were of Japanese ancestry be sent to the barbed wire camps, and that included babies who were of mixed blood.  That still takes my breath away.

They had their worship services in their living rooms, just sitting together and waiting for the Spirit to move someone to speak or offer up a prayer or passage.  That practice would have been very unusual for Christian Japanese Americans of that time, since most of them belonged to the big established churches like the Methodists and Presbyterians.  Also, Gordon’s mother was a brilliant and fiery spirit who was elected Vice President of the local Japanese Association and for a woman to have that position was almost unheard of.  So Gordon always said that his unusual parents and upbringing provided some “icebreakers” that ultimately influenced his own actions during WWII.

Eger: What struck you the most about him as a person?

Sakata: Gordon had a tremendous sense of adventure, an enormous appetite for life, and an insatiable curiosity, zest for travel, ideas, and learning.  He had a wonderful light within him, too, a kind of spiritual warmth that you could feel even when you were on the phone with him.  He had a keen and incisive intellect, and a marvelous sense of humor and irony. And he was a great storyteller!  You sensed that he had an iron will, which, of course, figures into HOLD THESE TRUTHS.

Development of HOLD THESE TRUTHS

Eger: Becoming a successful actor all over the US is a tremendous achievement. However, to conduct research and interviews demands specialized skills. Few theater artists manage to make the transition from acting to writing. You did. Tell us about the hurdles you had to overcome in the process of writing your first fact-based play.

Sakata: Since HOLD THESE TRUTHS was my first attempt at writing a play, I made a lot of attempts at a first draft that ultimately landed in the wastebasket!  It was a tremendous challenge to distill all the historical facts of the play and weave them into the personal narrative of Gordon’s story.  And since I was also pursuing an acting career while I was trying to become a writer, it was a real challenge to juggle the two.  I couldn’t write very well when I was acting, so I’d put the writing aside when I got an acting job. And then, when I returned to the project, it took a while to get back into the world of the play.  And I really didn’t know how to be a playwright in terms of the business side of things.

However, I was incredibly lucky to have wonderful mentors who helped me along the way, because they believed so much in the play, like Len and Zak Berkman, Morgan Jenness, Chay Yew, Jessica Kubzansky, and countless others who read the script, gave me invaluable feedback, and helped me shape the play. The same is true for organizations like the Epic Theatre Ensemble, Lark Play Development Center, New York Theatre Workshop, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, Asian American Theatre Festival, Center Theatre Group, and the Antaeus Company, who hosted readings or workshopped the play, which led to our world premiere at East West Players in 2007 and all the productions that happened after that.

Eger: During your extensive research and writing phases, how did the sacrifices you made in terms of time and engagement impact your personal life?

Sakata: I don’t really feel it was a sacrifice!  Though it was very difficult to write a play for the first time, especially a historical one, and though it was incredibly hard work, the story was such a thrilling one, and one that I was so passionate about, that the hours would just fly by.  It was really a labor of love, and I remember feeling incredibly alive when I was working on it.  And because of my family’s history in the camps, the whole process felt deeply healing and redemptive.

Eger: When writing your play, you dealt with literally hundreds of different documents and information from interviews—a huge task. What criteria did you use to cut it down to the size of the play that is now being performed all over the country?

Sakata: This is where a terrific mentor steps in and helps you, if you’re lucky!  I had this huge 3 ½ hour rough draft and had no idea how to shape it.  One of my mentors, Len Berkman [professor of theater at Smith College], suggested I put two words up on my refrigerator:  “Gordon’s actions.”  He said that if what was on the page reflected Gordon being active and driving his story forward in a dynamic way, that’s what I should keep.  And if that wasn’t happening, I should look for cuts in those parts.  And that was just incredible advice, and once I understood, I started whittling away and began to see the play emerge.

Eger: Did all the organizations and individuals that you contacted support your work, or were there some closed doors?

Sakata: As with any written work, you get rejections, and I certainly got my share when I was trying to shop the play around. However, I was incredibly lucky in that once we had our premiere with East West Players, and with each production after that, there was always someone who came up to me or contacted me and said, “I loved the play and I want to recommend this play to so-and-so,” or “I want to help bring it to my city.”  And that’s how the journey of the play has been—people bringing it to their theaters and communities, largely on the strength of word of mouth.

Eger: Jeanne Sakata, it’s an honor to welcome you and Gordon Hirabayashi to Philadelphia with Makoto Hirano reliving the life of one of the finest Japanese-Americans in US history. Many thanks. Dōmo arigatō.

"However Painful the History" was published by Phindie on February 13, 2015.

Eger:  As a result of the “Loyalty Questionnaire,” the Japanese-American community split into two opposing groups—“loyal” and “disloyal”—during and after WWII. One side cooperated with the American government, renouncing all ties with Japan and fighting as American soldiers. The other side refused to renounce their Japanese heritage and refused to fight in the U.S. Army. “No-no status was stigmatized after the war, and many have remained reluctant to tell their stories,” according to the Densho Encyclopedia. Is it true that only Japanese-Americans who refused to give up their Japanese loyalty were interned, or did all Japanese-Americans located on the West Coast live under the threat of internment during WWII?

Sakata: The orders were that anyone of Japanese ancestry who lived in designated Military Zones on the West Coast—including the Nisei [Japanese-language term for second-generation children born to Japanese people in the new country], who were American citizens—had to leave their homes and be imprisoned in the camps, including the elderly, the feeble and sick, and as I said before, even babies in orphanages.  In Washington state, where a great deal of Hold These Truths takes place, the orders were that anyone with 1/16th Japanese blood had to go.

Eger:  Gordon Hirabayashi, the central figure in your play, was treated as a second-class citizen—as were most other Japanese-Americans during WWII. It took decades before his actions as a resister and human rights activist were recognized and validated. How were your family members and their friends treated during WWII?

Sakata: Since my father’s side of the family were all living on the West Coast in California, my father, my grandparents, my aunts, uncles and a couple of older cousins all had to suddenly leave their schools and jobs and go live behind barbed wire in Poston, Arizona.  My mother’s side of the family lived in Colorado, and so did not have to go through that tragedy, but they nevertheless experienced plenty of racism where they lived.

Gordon Hirabayashi: Japanese-American internment history

Eger: Describe the steps you took to research Hirabayashi, the hero of the Japanese-American internment history.  

Sakata: In the 1990’s, I saw a wonderful PBS documentary, made by John de Graaf, called A Personal Matter: Hirabayashi vs. The United States, where I first learned about Gordon’s story, and was just enthralled and fascinated.  I was determined to contact Gordon and meet him somehow, and as luck would have it, I got Gordon’s phone number from a young student who had just interviewed him in Seattle for a paper she was writing, so I called him up and told him I would love to meet him and try to write a solo play about him, and would he consent to a series of interviews?

He was very gracious and welcoming, even when I told him I had never written a play before. He invited me to interview him at his brother Ed’s place in Glen Ellen, California, where he was going to be visiting.  Then we did another round of interviews in Edmonton [Alberta, Canada], where he was living with his wife Susan.  And of course, I read everything I could get my hands on about Gordon, and watched other videos that mentioned his case.

Eger: Hirabayashi acted as an exceptionally mature young person with a great belief in the American Constitution and human rights. He became one of three Japanese-Americans to openly defy internment, writing on his draft registration card: “I am a conscientious objector.” He was convicted to serve time behind bars. As the government refused to pay for his transportation, he actually hitchhiked to the prison in Arizona. Given the pressure on Japanese-Americans during WWII, what do you think gave him the ability to defy the most powerful decision makers in the US, even at a young age?  

Sakata: Gordon always attributed a lot of this to his parents, who were role models for him in that they had already bucked tradition in many ways by belonging to the Mukyokai, a small Japanese religious sect, founded by Uchimura Kanzo, that was pacifistic, democratic, and non-denominational.  They were very much like the Quakers, in that they had no religious hierarchies to speak of, no pastor, no “traditional” church setting.

Michael Hollinger is a much-produced Pennsylvania playwright and associate professor of theater at Villanova University, writer of three short films for PBS, and co-author of the feature-length Philadelphia Diary.

He has written eleven full-length dramas, eight of which saw their world premiere at the Arden Theatre. He has also written eleven plays for young audiences. His works have been performed in many different theaters, including five productions in Europe and Asia. He received numerous awards and fellowships all over the United States.
In the 1990s, he worked as a dramaturg at the Wilma Theater, Philadelphia Festival Theatre for New Plays, Arden Theatre Company, 1812 Productions, InterAct Theatre Company, Delaware Theatre Company/Roundhouse Theatre, and Philadelphia Young Playwrights/Philadelphia Theatre Company.
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His latest world premiere, UNDER THE SKIN, got under the skin of quite a few audience members, perhaps because of the serious nature of the play—kidney donation within a dysfunctional family. (Read the Phindiereview.) Audiences were also concerned when the lead actor (Craig Spidle), who played the father who needed the transplant to survive, fell seriously ill and spent several days in the hospital before the world premiere. The Arden has since hired Douglas Rees as the permanent replacement for his role.

Henrik Eger: As a dramaturg in Philadelphia and other cities, you helped in the production of world premieres of well-known and respected authors like Chaim Potok, Joyce Carol Oates, and Bruce Graham. How did those experiences shape your own writing?

Michael Hollinger: Reading hundreds upon hundreds of play submissions, and watching scores upon scores of rehearsals and performances, helped me strengthen my dramatic “muscle” and increase my sensitivity to what works and doesn’t work in the theatre.  In my view, there are no hard-and-fast rules beyond “Don’t bore the audience,” but this period allowed me to absorb and test the basic principles of this art form.

Eger: You participated in a number of script development workshops with directors, actors, and fellow writers. How did they shape your own development as a playwright?
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Hollinger: My early workshop experiences taught me to be as bold as possible when a script is in development, to try as many variations as I can in search of the right story, scene or moment.  Once a play reaches production, and audiences are in attendance, the scale of revision has to diminish, so I try to take advantage of the time when I can use the crowbar and saw rather than the sandpaper and varnish.

Eger: When you started as a young playwright submitting your scripts, how did you build and develop working relationships with theaters? What worked, and what advice do you have for the next generation of playwrights?

Hollinger: It was extremely advantageous that I was a literary manager, because my colleagues at various theatres around the country had to read the plays I sent them cover to cover, since they knew they might run into me at a conference or festival.  (This didn’t mean they had to like them; my plays still got turned down many more times than they were accepted, like most playwrights.)  But by submitting my plays very broadly early on, I came to distinguish between the theatres where my plays were near-misses from those where they were long shots, and continued to submit where I’d received the encouraging rejection letters, sensing that perhaps these organizations shared my own vision.  Over time I’ve developed a group of theatrical “familiars” around the country, places and people who I know will seriously consider my next play, even if they ultimately opt not to produce it.

Eger: You have won numerous awards all over the US. What impact did they have on you as a playwright and as an individual?

Hollinger: It’s certainly fun to win things, and an artist’s life is so inherently filled with doubt that an award (or several) can momentarily affirm that you’re on the right track.  But they don’t make the next play easier to write. I think most playwrights would say that the most exciting moments are when you think there are no solutions to the play at hand and suddenly one presents itself.

Eger: How do you explain your extraordinary relationship with the Arden Theatre Company where everything seemed to just click from the very beginning, leading to eight world premiere productions?

Hollinger: From his first encounter with my work (An Empty Plate in the Café du Grand Boeuf in 1994), Terry Nolen seemed to get precisely what I was going for—how I approached language, and character, and the use of space, and the balance of light and dark. His biggest aim, and the Theatre’s mission, is to tell Great Stories, and my main intention, with every play I write, is to take an audience on a really good ride. So our visions are very similar, and as a result, we’re confident that we’re both working towards the same ends.

Eger: What does a typical week as a playwright, associate professor of theater at Villanova University, and family man look like?

Hollinger: It’s very full! Since my wife, Megan Bellwoar, is a professional actor as well as a theatre teacher and director (at Abington Friends School), our shared Google Calendars are pretty packed. For me, this means that doing rewrites or marking up student work sometimes gets pushed to the “bookends” of the day, which can be tiring. But I also find that I’m happy to be with whoever’s in front of me at any given moment, so the sheer variety of activities packed into any given day helps keep me refreshed.

Eger: You described yourself as “this irreverent theater guy who’s been brought into the fold of a Catholic institution, and whose function may well be to poke it in the side every now and then and generate laughter.” Give some examples where you tested the limits at the respected Villanova University.

Hollinger: Villanova has traditionally given its Theatre a long leash, which has allowed my department to produce a wide array of work over the past half century, including some rather controversial plays. My own plays Incorruptible and Red Herring were produced there in recent years, and both goose the Church in different ways. But then, all big, well-heeled institutions—religious, political, and commercial—need to be goosed now and then.

​Eger: Tell us about people you knew who were organ donors or recipients and how some of their experiences might have influenced UNDER THE SKIN.

Hollinger: Most of the donor/recipient stories I collected were between family members, and, unlike my play, were marked by a deep underlying generosity from the start. Perhaps my most striking encounter, however, was with Marie Manley, Transplant Assistant at Lankenau Hospital, who spoke about her journey as an organ donor. Some years ago, she had just moved to a new parish and saw a notice in her church bulletin that another parishioner needed a kidney. Marie decided on the spot that she wanted to donate to this unknown fellow human being. This example of blind, extravagant altruism helped develop the “counterweight” in my play to the main character’s resistance to donating to her own father.

Eger: Who do you consider “kidney-worthy”? If your wife, children, or Arden’s director Terry Nolen needed a kidney and you were a match, what would you do?

Hollinger: I don’t think I’ve evolved to the point where I’m ready to go on a donor website and pick out a stranger to receive my kidney, but I’d happily share one with any of these people, and others in my life, too.

Eger: In 2014, you described the stages of development of Incorruptible, as “requir[ing] many drafts, many readings, and two major workshops of the play in order to find its final form.” As a result, it became a popular play. What was different in the development and composition process for UNDER THE SKIN?

Hollinger: If only many drafts, readings and workshops always resulted in a popular play! (Unfortunately, one can work just as arduously on an unpopular play.) The development of Incorruptible took place at a variety of different institutions in many different cities, and I was a much greener playwright trying to crack the hardest dramatic form—a screwball or farcical comedy. You might say that writing and revising Incorruptible was my graduate degree in playwriting, as it gave me the opportunity (i.e., forced me) to solve the most fundamental problems of the form: How to compress time, space and personnel to allow the dramatic action to generate as much pressure as possible? How to create character as something dynamic (changing over time) rather than static? How to move characters in and out of scenes so as to continually refresh the audience’s eyes and ears, and keep the rhythms and dynamics of the play varied? And, of course, using a trial-and-error process to land as many laughs as possible.
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UNDER THE SKIN was a much shorter process, and more focused, beginning with a first-draft reading at Theatre Exile in Philadelphia and continuing through four or five more readings at the Arden (some closed, some with an audience). Happily, the first draft of the play was closer to its finished form than Incorruptiblewas, either because I had 20 more years of experience behind me, or because the play is smaller in scale and not as complex. (Incorruptible includes many large scenes, with up to seven characters, while Under the Skin never goes above four, and smaller scenes have fewer character trajectories to manage.)

Eger: Could you describe the collaboration between you and director Nolen?

Hollinger: Terry and I have always seen my plays very similarly, and this latest process was particularly smooth in terms of our collaboration. He also knows that I am not at all precious about my work, and am eager to incorporate useful ideas from any source, whether that be from him, an assistant stage manager, or an audience comment at a public reading. I learn a great deal from hearing good actors read a new draft aloud, so we designed a development process that allowed me to hear my latest rewrite every few months, make a few changes on the fly, hear it again, then leave to work on the next draft armed with information and helpful questions from him, dramaturg Sally Ollove, and the cast.

Eger: UNDER THE SKIN shows an average family that could be considered dysfunctional. You open closets with quite a few hidden secrets that most people don’t dare to talk about. What experiences, whether personal or from literature, shaped your writing of Raina, the deeply troubled and angry daughter who bases her contempt for her father on false or incomplete information?

Hollinger: Both my own family and my wife’s have had significant estrangements between parents and children, and these experiences have been enhanced by observing the families of many of my friends over the years as well. (My uncle actually “divorced” his entire family with a formal letter to his father, mother, and sister, and remained out of contact for 25 years, including through the death of both parents. Finally, late in life, my mom began sending him a Valentine every February; after seven years, he replied, and they were in a relationship again for perhaps a decade until their deaths within two months of each other.) As I see it, Raina has displaced her grief for her mother into rage against her father, and she cannot reconcile the latter until she gets to the bottom of the former.

Eger: You described UNDER THE SKIN as a play where “the clock was ticking—if it’s not solved, a guy dies”—a potentially tragic situation. Yet, your play contains quite a few black comedy situations, making the audience laugh. For example, when the patient’s daughter was a little girl, he bid her goodnight with Brecht’s“Mack the Knife.” What did you do to keep this tragic-comedic play balanced and not make it a soap opera?

Hollinger: It’s one of life’s remarkable qualities that nothing retains the same tone or mood for very long. Any good news I receive was probably preceded (and will be succeeded) by something bad. Terrible things happen at weddings, and hysterical things happen at funerals. Since art is based on life, I believe this variety of tone is therefore essential—that a little levity helps balance out, and, indeed, accentuate the gravity and vice versa. Finding the proper balance of what I call “ha-ha-ouch” can be tricky, but rewarding once found.

Eger: A number of people consider UNDER THE SKIN a comedy. However, I saw it more as a comedy with strong tragic undertones. How does this dichotomy in Under the Skin relate to some of your other plays? Do you see a pattern evolving in your work?

Hollinger: All of my outright comedies have moments of real pain in them, and the dramas have moments where the audience is encouraged to laugh. Again, I think these contrasts refresh our nervous system, like the alternations in hot/cold, savory/sweet, crunch/smooth that one might find in the various courses of an elaborate meal. I always saw the structure and major plot twists in UNDER THE SKIN as comedic, though the deeper I got into the play, the more I felt obliged to plumb the depths of its characters’ suffering as well.

Eger: You present two main characters: the father, a problematic man (originated and played movingly by Craig Spidle), and Raina, a predominately unforgiving young woman who rides a roller-coaster of emotions, filled with disappointment, hate, and a few moments of conditional forgiveness (played with feverish energy by Juliana Zinkel). The surprise revelations near the end of the play give everyone the opportunity to reflect. Yet, Toby Zinman of the Philadelphia Inquirer wrote of the ending, “For a play that seems to want to say something about the importance of family ties, all it can manage is a soapbox speech, directly addressed to the audience, arriving at the pronouncement that ‘blood is thicker than water’.” How did you come up with Raina’s unexpected speech to the audience at the end of the play, which appears abrupt and as a sudden about-face of her character?

Hollinger: I have not read the review you mention—I’ll read all of them with my graduate playwriting class in April, to allow my students to assess whether and where there may be consensus among critics, and where they contradict each other (a useful pedagogical tool for young artists)—though the quote above is mistakenly cited. Raina’s “thicker than water” reference takes place not to the audience but in the previous scene, to justify her decision to her father. The fact that she adopts a cliché as part of her justification is a clue that, despite her apparent certitude, she’s actually deeply mistaken about the facts of the situation, which will shortly be revealed.

The direct-address speech at the very end of the play is something quite different. Here Raina, who’s been so stuck in her head that she made a two-column plus/minus list to decide whether to give her father a kidney, moves below the neck and is able at last to act (and speak) with the heart. Human beings make “rational” decisions methodically, by accruing and weighing bits of information, pros and cons; but Raina’s ultimate decision is not “rational,” because she doesn’t make it with her brain—no more than Marie Manley rationally decided to give her kidney to a perfect stranger. One might say that the heart opens unreasonably.

Eger: Henrik Ibsen would have turned UNDER THE SKIN into a tragedy with Raina as a lovable, misunderstood, young woman. Brecht did the opposite. He tried many times to roughen up Mother Courage’s character to make her as unsympathetic as possible. What did you intend when creating Raina’s character?

Hollinger: I love both Ibsen and Brecht, and Raina, too. Both playwrights were fascinated by their characters’ flaws, by their blind spots and brokenness, though they treated them with different degrees of judgment and compassion. In UNDER THE SKIN, Raina says that her yoga teacher has described her as “a Young Soul,” and I find this touching. She knows that she’s short-sighted and emotionally messy, but also aspires to be a better person than she is at the moment. She’s on the same journey we’re all on, at all different stages.

Eger: UNDER THE SKIN was inspired by a letter written by a brother and sister to columnist Randy Cohen, asking for advice on who could donate a kidney to their father. Did you ever contact them about your play, and if so, what were their responses?

Hollinger: No, I was not interested in the particulars of their story, only the interesting nexus of forces at work. (The original title idea, Rock Paper Scissors—a phrase which came up in that article—suggested something to me of the timeless game of dominance and submission among three equal forces.)

Eger: Some of your plays made it into non-English speaking countries like France, Greece, Poland, Slovenia, and Japan. Were they performed in English or in foreign languages? What were the reactions of the directors, actors, audiences, and the press to your plays overseas?

Hollinger: These foreign productions have all been produced in translation, not in English. Alas, I haven’t been able to see any of them (yet), so I don’t know how they were received.

Eger: Thanks, Michael. Give my best to all the characters, especially Raina.

This article was originally published by Phindie on February 13, 2015.