I have seen many performances of Donald Margulies’s shocking intergenerational encounter COLLECTED STORIES. I was in awe of the late Lynn Redgrave as Ruth Steiner and Karina Mackenzie as her protégée at the Grand Opera in Wilmington, DE in 2004. However, a few days ago, I witnessed an even more brutal performance with Renee Weisband as the aging professor and Kirsten Quinn as her enthusiastic graduate student at the Walnut Street Theatre Studio 5.

COLLECTED STORIES portrays Ruth Steiner, a bright Jewish professor devoted to her craft. In her drive to become a better writer and professor she gave up any private life, except for a secret affair many decades ago with the Delmore Schwartz, a famous and handsome poet and womanizer. This taboo subject in her life is one that she only talked about once, with her graduate assistant Lisa Morrison.

Steiner tells her eager student, “In my writing I try to tell the truth. Telling the truth means being as unstintingly specific as possible, for in the specific lies the universal.” Little does she realize that the day would come when her protégée would take that advice and tell the truth—lifting the mothballed veils of secrecy Professor Steiner had draped over her torrid past when she was a young, inexperienced woman.

Playwright Margulies described that situation—the center of his 1996 play—as a universal phenomenon: “Most people have felt betrayed or committed betrayal, deliberately or unknowingly.” In the mid-1960s, Jerzy Grotowski, the great Polish theatre director, revealed that “Young artists wish for inspired moments. And you find them; you take them; eager artists are bandits. Theatrical moments arrive, and you grab. Good! You know it will draw attention to you. But you aim to be more than bandits, no?” (quoted by Keith Fowler, “Student Assistant to Jerzy Grotowski Reveals Secrets From Inside the Lab.”)

Margulies described the “incredibly complex and conflicted relationship [between Ruth and Lisa]. There is a surrogacy involved, and there is a kind of mutual narcissism that I think exists in the mentor / protégée relationship, where each sees the reflection of herself in the other. Those reverberations for me have always been of great interest.”

In COLLECTED STORIES, the worlds of Ruth Steiner, the writer and professor, and Lisa Morrison, her graduate student and aspiring writer, clash in numerous ways—generational differences, jealousies, artistic license, and betrayal. Both Weisband and Quinn see the reflection of themselves in the other, a riveting performance with a role reversal that hits the audience hard.

Since 2003, Weisband, founding director of ISIS Productions and actor in many a Jewish-themed play, (including Broken Glass, which I reviewed) has gone all out to present some of the most thought-provoking plays in the Philadelphia area.  Her Professor Steiner feels existentially threatened; Weisband acts with the power of a lioness caught in a trap from which there is no escape. Her voice reaches a sharpness and hits a volume that pierced my ears and my soul with full force.

Kirsten Quinn plays Lisa Morrison with gushing enthusiasm at first, leading to a growing awareness of her own powers. Morrison has grown by leaps and bounds as a result of her studies and her work with her professor, and then does something that shatters her aging mentor.

                                                                         Literary scandal

Many years ago, I met poet and novelist Stephen Spender in London, and had a wonderful conversation with him about his time in Berlin, when the Nazis took over in 1933. I had forgotten this meeting with the sensitive and sophisticated author until I discovered his now-famous letter to the New York Times (Sept. 4, 1994), in which he accused American novelist, David Leavitt, of plagiarizing Stephen’s 1951 novel World Within World, especially its “literary structure, character development, dialogue and plot” in his 1993 novel, While England Sleeps.  

Margulies read about the literary Leavitt –Spender scandal and felt inspired to make the theme of betrayal and plagiarism the center of COLLECTED STORIES. As he sees himself as “a collagist in [his] work,” he created a riveting work, which shows a wide range of experiences, values, ambitions, by an up-and-coming young writer and an established professor of English who no longer is willing to push boundaries in her own life.

The pain of that sense of betrayal, which Spender felt so acutely, and which led to a law case where Viking Penguin, the publishers, instead of paying millions of dollars, destroyed all copies still in the warehouse, became the impetus for a masterpiece that has been performed widely, not only in the English speaking world, but around the globe. Margulies explained, “I think COLLECTED STORIES has traveled well because its themes cross cultures. Mentors and protégés exist everywhere.”

                                                    COLLECTED STORIES, waiting to be told

Shaken by the powerful performance of two Philadelphia actors in one of the most thought-provoking plays, I did not take the elevators, but walked all the way from the fifth floor of Studio 5 at the Walnut Street Theatre down the steep steps, through the lobby, into an ice-cold night, hit not only by the wind and the weather, but by many questions about the stories in my life that I have not published like Ruth Steiner, and the many stories that I know about people in my family, and among my friends—all waiting to be told.  [Walnut Street Theatre, Studio 5, 825 Walnut Street] March 5-29, 2015; isisperforms.com.

"Lifting the mothballed veils of secrecy: COLLECTED STORIES (Isis)"  was published by Phindie on March 23, 2015

A different side of legendary Irish writer Oscar Wilde was recently on display at Walnut Street Theatre in a new play by Michael Whistler entitled Mickle Street.  The play revolves around a little known piece of literary history — the period in which the 27-year-old writer traveled to Camden, New Jersey to seek the advice of Walt Whitman.

In Mickle Street, we see Wilde’s wit evolve, but many of his words taste like young wine — a fledging writer struggling with his identity, convinced that he has already made it because of the many Americans who are attending his lectures, from New York and Philadelphia, all the way to Colorado — even though the press writes less than flattering reviews.

Being associated with famous people was as much en vogue in the late 1800s as it is today. David M. Friedman, author of Wilde in America: Oscar Wilde and the Invention of Modern Celebrity, provides evidence that “Wilde didn’t travel to Camden to learn how to be a famous writer. […] He went to learn how to be a famous person.”

Whistler features the encounter of the rising, if fairly inexperienced, Wilde with the seasoned and much discussed Whitman, then 62, at his house on Mickle Street in Camden, NJ, on January 31, 1882.

Right from the beginning, the play shows Wilde reflected through the eyes of Gilbert and Sullivan, the famous Victorian writers of comic operas that satirized the aesthetic movement of the 1870s and ‘80s and all that went with it: fads, vanity, and pretentiousness.

Mary, an Irish-Catholic widow, looks after Whitman.  When the tall and handsome Wilde arrives at Whitman’s humble and overcrowded home, he is all done up with his famous fur coat and pantaloons, looking like a Victorian male Madonna at a gala.  However, Mary doesn’t believe in externals.  “The crowd seemed more impressed with his appearance than his speech,” she says.

Whistler’s Mary has a fine eye for different layers of reality: “You know the paper says he lives ‘on beauty alone.’ All he asks for lunch is a glass of water for the posy he carries about.” Even when Whitman tries to explain to her the “L’art pour I’art” or “art for art’s sake” concept and Wilde’s Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood aestheticism, she doesn’t buy it.  “Suppose I were to make a pie for you, Mr. Whitman, and instead of cutting you a slice told you that ‘Oh no — this pie is not for the eating.  It is ‘complete in itself.’ I made it for the purpose of being a beautiful, aesthetic pie.’”

Mickle Street doesn’t fall into the trap of lionizing Wilde or Whitman. Mary makes it quite clear that “for all your fine words and flowers I know you for what you are, Mr. Walt Whitman: a trouble to man and woman both.” Whitman, unafraid of her, also has a few choice terms of endearment for her, “Mary, don’t be a stubborn old goat,” or “She’s a skittish trout when she’s of a mind.”  While she may not always understand the man whom she observes from her prim and proper perspective, she nevertheless serves as a balancing force throughout the play.

Audiences in Britain and the US at the time laughed at Wilde, the talented but attention-craving poet — the way Americans today make fun of the not so witty Paris Hilton and the Kardashians.  Unfazed, Wilde loves playing the role of the enfant terrible — dressed to the hilt, posy in his lapel.  In Whistler’s adaptation, Wilde even encourages the attention: “I want to shock.”

Whistler imagines a conversation between two writers: Whitman, with all his foibles, clearly has the upper hand, while Wilde’s verbal dancing doesn’t get him anywhere, except the awareness that, perhaps, there is more to life than theatrics and striking up “battles in this revolution for the Science of Beauty.”

Wilde, the dandy, throws out more than aesthetic pronouncements. There are moments when he touches on the untouchable: “We do not wear our sins as we wear our cloaks. Those we keep in a closet.”

Whistler’s Mickle Street presents some intense moments between those two men who were considered to be fluid in their sexuality, and were punished for their writing and their lifestyle—Whitman, by being denied a paid position at a hospital during the Civil War, and Wilde being sent to jail.

Friedman implies that both Whitman and Wilde were publicity hounds—with Whitman even writing enthusiastic, albeit anonymous, reviews about his controversial masterpiece, Leaves of Grass. These two writers were quite a match in their desire to reach as wide an audience as possible. “Cultivating newspaper coverage and meetings with American literary giants, the tour made Wilde the second best-known Brit in the country after Queen Victoria, despite having published almost nothing,” as Kevin C. Shelly points out.

Whitman, overwhelmed by Wilde’s many statements, mixed in with his compliments, blurts out, “You have thrown more ideas at me in an hour than fifteen other men I might know. You are smart, and you see something. But you have to stop staring all mooney eyed at ancient ruins. You no more live in an ancient temple than I do. You want to live in the world—live in the world.”

Whistler’s new play, based on historical facts and imagined conversations between two famous writers (the Walnut Street production was directed by Greg Wood and starred Daniel Fredrick as Oscar Wilde and Buck Schirner as Walt Whitman), opens new doors, shows an insecure young Wilde who seems to hide behind “aesthetics and art” while Whitman teaches Wilde more than he might have bargained for, advising him, “Go see America. Go see the world. Find out what creature you are. And for all the frippery—be honest. With us, and with yourself.”

Mickle Street ended its run at Philadelphia’s Walnut Street Theatre on March 8.  With any luck this tale, which involves one of New Jersey’s most famous artists, will see a production in the Garden State in the future.

** Note, this article contains material first published in phindie.com and the Philadelphia Gay News.  Henrik Eger, Editor at DramaAroundTheGlobe.com, interviews the playwright, Michael Whistler, in our April issue. **

"When Oscar Wilde Visited Walt Whitman in Camden" was published by New Jersey Stage on March 19, 2015

Henrik Eger: Last Chance has become very popular. How do you explain that success?

Jack Scott: We love to play and sing together, and our audiences know. After each show we make sure everyone was satisfied. We keep our music fresh and varied, growing and improving all the time.

Ingrid Rosenback: Many of our jobs arise from our audiences spreading the word. All our songs are different, interesting, and exciting.

Henrik: Ingrid, is it true that you became a musician from the moment you raised your hand when your fourth grade teacher asked who wanted to take violin lessons?—at least, that’s the charming story being passed around by musicians in Philadelphia.

Ingrid: True story, but I actually studied biology first and worked with rats and mice and bugs and earned a degree in pharmacy. I then studied violin at Temple and became a classical violin teacher. I played classical music in orchestras and chamber groups for quite some time. Eventually, I taught myself to improvise.

Henrik: Jack, how did you become a guitar and banjo player, a composer, and a lyricist?

Jack: I’ve been playing, singing, and writing songs since I was in high school. I loved folk music and rock, and the Beatles made popular music even more interesting. I listened to all the great songwriters and gradually developed my own style.

Henrik: You worked as a successful lawyer, and now you write lyrics and give concerts all over Philadelphia. Tell us about that transition.

Jack: Yes, I practiced law for over 37 years, but I never stopped playing and writing music whenever I could find the time. When I reached the point where I could move into music full time, I jumped at it. As for Law, I never looked back. Since last fall, I’ve been teaching a songwriting course at Temple’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute in Philadelphia.

Henrik: Wonderful. What a great transition. Ingrid, you are a successful classical violin teacher. Why did you decide to form Last Chance and perform fiddle tunes and new songs?

Ingrid: I’m totally dedicated to my students, but I love to play for the sheer enjoyment. In Last Chance we can create our own music, style, and arrangements, record, and perform for the love of it. We’re doing what no one else is doing. Our music is original and it has a contemporary feel. We craft the songs as we see fit, and we work as long as it takes to get the sound we want.

Henrik: Fascinating. Could you describe the first performance by Last Chance

Jack: We were a duo before we had the name “Last Chance.” I entered a singer-songwriter showcase at a local arts center. Ingrid agreed to join me with fiddle accompaniment. Before we went on stage, Ingrid asked me if I was nervous. I said, “Yeah, a little. Are you?” She said, “No.” From that moment forward, I’ve never been nervous to perform a show with Ingrid.

Ingrid: Ironically, I used to suffer from terrible stage fright. All through music school, I was so anxious while performing. It’s totally different now in Last Chance.

Henrik: How did you come up with the name Last Chance?

Ingrid: We wanted something catchy, simple, and memorable. We’ve both played lots of music before, and this is our “last chance” to play music exactly the way we want. However, when we play weddings, we call our group “Rambling Heart.”

Henrik: Have you had any memorable moments from your shows?

Ingrid: We’ve played for the WXPN Musicians on Call Program at the Philly VA, a home for veterans with very serious health conditions. When we play there, people barely conscious, come alive, start moving to the rhythm, even clapping, and moving around in wheelchairs. We’ve played for people who were at the very end of their lives.

Jack: We recently played a new coffeehouse for disabled people. We played a house concert and donated all the proceeds to Jubilee School in West Philadelphia.

Henrik: Last Chance is known not only for a special kind of music but also for its generosity, and capacity to connect with an audience.

Ingrid: Thank you. We played a house concert in Philly on the same bill with two young musicians who were on the road. We decided on the spot to donate our share of the evening’s fee to the musicians with whom we shared the bill.

Jack: Our most unusual event was for a celebration of a loving couple, diverse in every way. Ray Duvall and Ron Hunter were two gay men from the Philadelphia theater community—one was Jewish, the other was raised Christian. One was white and the other African American. Finally, one was alive, the other deceased. The event was a celebration of life and a posthumous marriage ceremony. We performed “Wouldn’t You Know” that evening, which Ingrid solos on with stunning beauty. She gets too emotional to sing that song now, and we’ve taken it out of our repertoire.

Henrik: I vividly recall those extraordinary moments at the Suzanne Roberts Theatre that night. Your music was so moving most people cried. At other concerts of yours, I have seen the audience snap their fingers and sway their bodies with an energy rarely seen elsewhere. Thank you, Ingrid and Jack!

Last Chance perform Thursday, March 26, 2015, at Lansdowne Folk Club [84 S. Lansdowne Ave, Lansdowne, PA]; folkclub.org/concert-schedule. Check out a full schedule of their shows and their albumWe Came to Play, on their website lastchance.co.vu.

Last Chance was featured on an Internet TV show, see this YouTube link. If you want to go directly to the songs, start at around 18:05. 
​
*This interview was originally published by Phindie. 

By: Neilay Shah, March 20, 2015 

The temperature in Philadelphia had been hovering around 32°F all day, leaving the roads coated in a slick icy film. It felt as though it were simultaneously melting and freezing beneath my tires. Trying to see past my wipers as they flung slush from my windshield, I wondered if anyone else would be foolhardy enough to drive through this weather to see Henrik Eger’s docudrama METRONOME TICKING at the Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church. As I walked into the chapel, clutching my scarf close to my neck, I was pleasantly surprised to find myself in the company of a rather large group of people. We moved into the pews as a violinist played the theme from Schindler’s List and took our seats in the gilded glow of the stage.

METRONOME TICKING combines extracts from the memoirs of Lily Spitz, a Jewish Holocaust survivor, with selections from the personal letters written by Ernst-Alfred (“Alf”) Eger, a young and ambitious Third Reich propaganda officer, to tell a story of love and empathy in the time of the Holocaust.

The play features Henrik Eger and Bob Spitz, the sons of Alf and Lily respectively, alternately reading excerpts from the documents their parents left to posterity. Like Frank Dunlop’s Address Unknown (2001), a play based on Katherine Kressman Taylor’s novel (1938) chronicling a gentile and a Jew through their letters just before World War II—and performed recently by Seth Reichgott and Earnie Philips at Walnut Theater’s Studio 5—METRONOME TICKING is more a curated dramatized reading than a “play” in the traditional sense.

As the narrators read, images fill a huge TV screen behind them, and audio clips provide historical texture to the experience. At first, an invisible divide seems to partition the stage. Reading their lines in turn, Eger, wearing a Wehrmacht jacket, and Spitz, wearing a Star of David armband, sit at separate desks facing the audience rather than each other.

The two live through the War in dramatically different positions. Alf, for example, reminisces over his time with Gritt in a National Socialist labor camp fondly: “We walked through the swampy woods, we sang.” Lily, however, agonizes over her fiancé’s treatment in a German concentration camp: “The men had to work in all kinds of weather without gloves . . . he was allowed to receive money to supplement his food or for buying hand cream, so we sent some. He used all of it to sooth his swollen hands.”

As Fredl toils away in Dachau and then in Buchenwald, Alf leaves Gritt to fight, first in Belgium, then in France, where he is promoted to take charge of the French press in Normandy. Lily, meanwhile, works frantically to acquire the papers necessary to get Fredl out of the concentration camp. Upon his release, they decide to flee from Austria to Italy.

The war wears on everyone. Alf’s “sensibilities” begin to fade and his head throbs “like a hand grenade.” Lily feels drained of hope. Then, Henrik and Robert, the men we see on stage, are born into the story—nine days apart. In moments like these, Lily and Alf seem to experience the ups and downs of life quite similarly. Each rejoices in the prospect of becoming a parent; each struggles through the strains of childrearing and maintaining a marriage. Both pray for peace to return to the world.  It seems that Lily and Alf share these experiences simply by virtue of both being human.

However, their brief moments of joy are quickly followed by more hatred and despair. Alf becomes firmer in his prejudices, recounting in his letters his commitment to wiping the “red vermin” (Communists) and “gold kings” (his code phrase for Jews) from Europe. Lily, realizing her mother has been taken to a concentration camp, sinks deeper into depression. “When I read the card I started to shake. I had no control of my arms and legs and I could not speak coherently. Robbyle in Fredl’s arms started to cry and poor Fredl was desperate.”

Just as Lily seems to have reached her darkest moment and Alf his highest, the play takes a turn. In the dimmed light of the interval between Act 2 and Act 3, Eger and Spitz exchange roles, trading their desks and outfits.

Lily’s story begins to focus on the compassion she receives from Italians, Germans, and others while hiding with her husband and son Robby from the Nazis. An Italian Priest pretends to solicit German lessons from Fredl so that he may pay the Spitz family some charity. A German ignores clear evidence that Lily is Jewish and chooses to give her food and cookies for her child rather than report her to the Nazi authorities. Acts of mercy and tenderness, though often punctuated with tense, uncertain moments, fill Lily’s portion of Act 3.

Lily and Fredl are liberated with the arrival of the Allies in Italy, but must struggle through the destitution of Cinecittà, a refugee camp outside of Rome, before, years later, they can receive American immigration papers and start their lives anew. During that time, Lily gives birth to her second child, who dies in her arms of diphtheria.

Alf’s ideological commitment is itself a third character in METRONOME TICKING, and swings through Act 3 in a sweeping arch into a tragic denouement. Early in the play, Alf is convinced of the Nazi ideology and its accompanying prejudices. “Hucksters, hucksters. Jewish Hucksters! Yecch. Jewish!” Alf howls in disgust, “Leave it to those Jewish merchants to get confused and get lost in the holes they created while knitting their own stockings. We’ll sew up their Lord and laugh through this hole.” Though Alf does confess his “pity” for the Jews, “these typical victims who had believed that gold rules the world,” it is clear that he remains convinced of the Nazi ideology that justifies their imprisonment.

We are introduced to Alf as a young man, writing to his fiancée Gritt. Poised to begin his career as a journalist, he is ready to leave his impression upon the world: “Now the light falls onto my gold fountain pen, my gold fountain pen with which I will conquer my new profession,” he writes to Gritt, sure of his future. As Eger recites these lines with a befitting bravado, a handsome portrait of Alf fills the screen behind him.

The portrait introduces the audience to two Alfs: Alf the hopeful young man and Alf the hateful Nazi. We see him posing in his military uniform, his cap cocked to the side. His features are sharp, but his gentle expression betrays a cherubic warmth. Beneath this inviting visage, tucked into the corner of the photo, rests Alf’s swastika armband. Throughout the play, I struggled to reconcile this symbol of inhuman violence with the very human man that bore it.

Next, we hear from a young Lily living in Vienna, Austria, who is falling in love: “There was a charming, good looking man in his 30s who asked me often to dance with him, and we started to talk . . . I think I begin to fall in love with him. There was no doubt in my mind that he liked me also very much.” Spitz reads his mother’s lines in their German syntax and with an Austrian accent, filling them with a twinkling optimism. He sits beneath a faded, sepia-toned portrait of Fredl, Lily’s soon-to-be fiancé, as the first few bars of a Viennese waltz play from the speakers, inviting the audience to share their romantic moment.

Though two distinct characters, Alf and Lily’s narratives quickly entwine, crisscrossing over particular historical moments and mirroring each other’s themes, slowly eroding the barrier between their sons on stage. Love, marriage, forced separation, reunion, birth of a child, and loss of a loved one—we watch as Alf and Lily each experience these cornerstones of life. While World War II determines the chronology of the narrative, the drama of METRONOME TICKING emerges from their personal experiences.

As the war wages on, though, Alf begins to lose faith in its premise. “I look at the tanks in the streets below twice,” Alf confesses to Gritt, “once as a soldier who wants to destroy the enemy, the second time as a human being who accuses the warmongers.” He turns his criticism towards the whole project of modernity, lamenting, “the German caterpillar tanks destroyed seed and limbs. Oh ye miracle of technology, oh you outsmarted humanity, your pride, your work, your motorized destruction—how far have you progressed? Why doesn’t the caterpillar monstrosity pull a plow in order to feed all of you?”

Despite his grievances, Alf continues to support the war effort until he witnesses his own people commit a mass execution. We learn from the voice of a narrator that this experience shatters Alf’s worldview and leaves him shrinking into himself, “disturbed, afflicted, and lifeless,” until he disappears entirely, “missing in action” on the Russian front.

Lily’s guilt about not having saved her mother serves as METRONOME TICKING’S fourth character. It begins when she realizes she cannot afford a third ticket to Italy. With a heavy heart, Lily promises her mother that she and Fredl will return. After the young couple arrives in Milan, Italy, they learn that the War has broken out, the borders have been sealed to Jews, and “all of us foreigners” would be interned. “We must have come on the last train,” Lily realizes. Even decades later, she admits, “The guilt feeling that arose in me for betraying my mother has never left me.” Throughout her life, Lily would wear this guilt as a shroud.

METRONOME TICKING opens with both actors reciting an invocation, originally written by Alf, but equally fitting to Lily: “Read more than my letters. Read that which I did not write. Read that which could shatter my heart.” This docudrama puts it to the audience to do just that. To read Alf not simply as a Nazi, but as a loving husband, a proud father, a starry-eyed young man caught up in his own lust for success, who eventually realized what his hatred had done to others. To read Lily not simply as a victim but as a woman who fought the Gestapo and an oppressive concentration camp regime, and who found and gave love, even in the darkest moments of her life.

To let go of the caricatures we might have expected with a Holocaust drama; to read the humanity into each character we encounter with a generosity and empathy that could shatter my heart: these, I found, to be the most moving challenges of METRONOME TICKING. In an age when pundits toss around words like “Nazi” and “Holocaust” to end conversations before they even begin, METRONOME TICKING is a refreshing respite. 

[Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church, 625 Montgomery Avenue, Bryn Mawr, PA] March 1, 2015; 
For more information, click this link: DramaAroundTheGlobe.com/metronome-ticking.html

"Human beings on both sides of the Holocaust" was published by Phindie on March 20, 2015.

Quiz for bright guests on a late night TV show: “What comes to mind when you think of Oscar Wilde?” (A) Famous and wealthy Irish writer. (B) Author of witty plays and epigrams. (C) Dandy, darling of London society. (D) Famous Victorian writer to be condemned to two years hard labor for gross indecency. (E) Destitute and deserted by his lover, dead in Paris at 46.

Philadelphia playwright Michael Whistler’s latest play, MICKLE STREET shows a different Wilde: 27, searching for an identity, and seeking out advice from the famous Walt Whitman. We see Wilde’s wit evolve, but many of his words taste like young wine—a fledgling writer struggling with his identity, convinced that he already has made it because of the many Americans who are attending his lectures, from New York and Philadelphia, all the way to Colorado—even though the press writes less than flattering reviews.

Being associated with famous people was as muchen vogue in the late 1800s as it is today. David M. Friedman, author of Wilde in America: Oscar Wilde and the Invention of Modern Celebrity, provides evidence that”Wilde didn’t travel to Camden to learn how to be a famous writer. [. . .] He went to learn how to be a famous person.”

Whistler features the encounter of the rising, if fairly inexperienced, Wilde (played with indefatigable exuberance by Daniel Fredrick) with the seasoned and much discussed Whitman, then 62, at his house on Mickle Street in Camden, NJ, on January 31, 1882 (played by Buck Schirner with the frazzled maturity and knowledge of age).

Right from the beginning, we see Wilde reflected through the eyes of Gilbert and Sullivan, the famous Victorian writers of comic operas that satirized the aesthetic movement of the 1870s and ’80s and all that went with it: fads, vanity, and pretentiousness.

Mary, the Irish-Catholic widow who looks after Whitman (played by Sabrina Profitt with the conviction and charm of a housekeeper who has seen more than is good for her moral standards), opens the play. Before his arrival, full of impatience, she sings a song from the popular opera Patience, caricaturing Wilde:“Conceive me if you can/A Bombty-bomp young man/So ultra poetical/so etty-quette-tetical/Out of the way young man.”

Shortly thereafter, the tall and handsome Wilde arrives at Whitman’s humble and overcrowded home, all done up with his famous fur coat and pantaloons, looking like a Victorian male Madonna at a gala. However, Mary doesn’t believe in externals: “The crowd seemed more impressed with his appearance than his speech.”

Whistler’s Mary has a fine eye for different layers of reality: “You know the paper says he lives ‘on Beauty alone.’ All he asks for lunch is a glass of water for the posy he carries about.” Even when Whitman tries to explain to her the “L’art pour l’art” or “art for art’s sake” concept and Wilde’s Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood aestheticism, she doesn’t buy it: “Suppose I were to make a pie for you, Mr. Whitman, and instead of cutting you a slice told you that ‘Oh no—this pie is not for the eating. It is ‘complete in itself.’ I made it for the purpose of being a beautiful, aesthetic pie.’” No wonder the audience chuckled many times, especially in the first part of the play.

MICKLE STREET  doesn’t fall into the trap of lionizing Wilde or Whitman. Mary makes it quite clear that “for all your fine words and flowers I know you for what you are, Mr. Walt Whitman: a trouble to man and woman both.” Whitman, unafraid of her, also has a few choice terms of endearment for her, “Mary, don’t be a stubborn old goat,” or, “She’s a skittish trout when she’s of a mind.” While she may not always understand the man whom she observes from her prim and proper perspective, she nevertheless serves as a balancing force throughout the play.

Audiences in Britain and the US at the time laughed at Wilde, the talented but attention-craving poet—the way many Americans today make fun of the not so witty Paris Hilton and the Kardashians. Unfazed, Wilde loves playing the role of the enfant terrible— dressed to the hilt, posy in his lapel. In Whistler’s adaptation, Wilde even encourages the attention: “I want to shock.”

Whistler imagines a conversation between two writers: Whitman, with all his foibles, clearly has the upper hand, while Wilde’s verbal dancing doesn’t get him anywhere, except the awareness that, perhaps, there is more to life than theatrics and striking up “battles in this revolution for the Science of Beauty.”

Wilde, the dandy, throws out more than lava of aesthetic pronouncements. There are moments when he touches on the untouchable: “We do not wear our sins as we wear our cloaks. Those we keep in a closet.” Whistler’s MICKLE STREET  presents some intense moments between those two men who were considered to be fluid in their sexuality, and were punished for their writing and their lifestyle—Whitman, by being denied a paid position at a hospital during the Civil War, and Wilde being sent to jail.

Friedman implies that both Whitman and Wilde were publicity hounds—with Whitman even writing enthusiastic, albeit anonymous, reviews about his controversial masterpiece, Leaves of Grass. These two writers were quite a match in their desire to reach as wide an audience as possible. “Cultivating newspaper coverage and meetings with American literary giants, the tour made Wilde the second best-known Brit in the country after Queen Victoria, despite having published almost nothing,” as Kevin C. Shelly points out.

Whitman, overwhelmed by Wilde’s many statements, mixed in with his compliments, blurts out, “You have thrown more ideas at me in an hour than fifteen other men I might know. You are smart, and you see something. But you have to stop staring all mooney eyed at ancient ruins. You no more live in an ancient temple than I do. You want to live in the world—live in the world.” 

"MICKLE STREET: There is more to life than theatrics (Walnut)" was published by Phindie on March 1, 2015.

Oscar Wilde was one of the wittiest gay playwrights, poets and writers of epigrams in the English-speaking world, and the author of the groundbreaking novel “The Picture of Dorian Gray.” Wilde, the darling of British society, was sentenced to two years hard labor at Reading Gaol for “gross indecency” — even though there was no evidence

other than some love letters of his to Bosie, the young Lord Alfred Bruce Douglas, son of the homophobic John Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry. Eventually, Wilde was allowed pen and paper in prison, where he composed one of the most moving letters ever written by a man to his young lover — “De Profundis (From the Depths).”

To this day, people are traveling to the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris to pay their respects to Wilde who, penniless and unknown, only 46, died of cerebral meningitis, in Room 16 at Hôtel d’Alsace — deserted by his lover, who did not want to be disinherited by his wealthy, albeit ruthless, father.

Not everyone, though, knows about the 27-year-old Wilde, who — wealthy, intelligent and with a tremendous desire to make a big name for himself — went on a tour through the United States, giving well-attended lectures on art and literature, determined to meet as many famous American writers, including Walt Whitman, so that he could not only bask in their glory, but also learn from them.

David M. Friedman, author of “Wilde in America: Oscar Wilde and the Invention of Modern Celebrity,” provides evidence that “Wilde didn’t travel to Camden to learn how to be a famous writer … He went to learn how to be a famous person.”

America’s oldest theater with the world’s largest subscriber base, the Walnut Street Theatre just premiered “Mickle Street” by Philadelphia playwright Michael Whistler, which features the encounter between the rising, if young, Wilde (Daniel Fredrick) from Britain and America’s seasoned and much-discussed Walt Whitman (Buck Schirner), then 62, at his house on Mickle Street in Camden, N.J., on Jan. 31, 1882.

Right from the beginning of the play, we see Wilde reflected through the eyes of Gilbert and Sullivan, the famous Victorian writers of operettas that had become big-box office successes both in the United States and Britain. Mary (Sabrina Profitt), the widow who looks after Whitman, sings this musical caricature of Wilde, the upper-class dandy from the popular Gilbert and Sullivan operetta “Patience:” “Conceive me if you can/A Bombty-bomp young man/So ultra poetical/so etty-quette-tetical/Out of the way young man.”

Shortly thereafter, the tall and handsome Wilde arrives at Whitman’s humble and overcrowded home, dressed to the hilt with his famous fur coat and pantaloons, looking like a Victorian male Madonna at a gala.

Unlike the American singer, Wilde plays the poetic wild card: “I come as a poet to call upon a poet,” he proclaims at his arrival — to the delight of audiences who experience a battle royale between the poor and aging American star among poets: the wild young Wilde, who made up his lack of experience with panache, and Mary, the simple Irish-American soul with great convictions that clash with both men and their lifestyles, at least the way she sees them.

She warns Wilde about Whitman’s predilection for working-class young men, including the famous Pete Doyle, a streetcar conductor whom she calls “the trolley man,” one of Whitman’s favorite companions:

“He rides the trolley all day to be near him and talk — day finishes they come here and drink. Pete doesn’t leave — there’s not a liberty Pete doesn’t take about this house. There is not a liberty that Mr. Whitman doesn’t take with Pete.”

Showing Wilde more photos of Whitman’s favorite young men, she exclaims, full of consternation:

“Sailors, peddlers, soldiers — ah! An 18-year-old boy he gave a ring to. I thought to put [these images] aside as company was coming. It appears I needn’t have bothered. T’isn’t natural. It’s an inversion. But the man is what he is, and my hiding a few photographs won’t change that. He’ll tell you it is all a part of his ‘cosmology,’ that it is a part of a ‘new country of comrades.’”

Seconds later, reflecting on Wilde’s effusive behavior toward Whitman, the old widow issues a warning: “So you be sure you know where you might end up when you start into flattering and flirting and all this ‘cosmology.’ When he’s got his rand up I can smell it on him like a perfume. With all your talk of jardinières and amarylli, yer a fancy boy yourself.”

When Whitman returns from the kitchen with a “working man’s treat — Milk punch!” (whiskey and milk), Mary stiffens her back and leaves the room, with Whitman buddying up to the young Wilde: “Well. We’ll continue, just us boys then. We two boys together clinging, one the other never leaving, up and down the roads going.”

Wilde plays along and brings up the controversial “Leaves of Grass” collection that he had read in London, quoting Whitman’s references to “manly attachment,” “adhesive love,” “love of comrades” and “the life that does not exhibit itself.” Some moving discussions ensue, including one nasty review that describes the content of the poetry collection as “a sin so vile that it is not spoken by Christians.” Little did Wilde know that he would be accused of a similar crime, end up in prison and, shortly thereafter, die way before his time.

Whistler’s new play, based on historical facts and imagined conversations between two famous writers (directed by Greg Wood), opens new doors, shows an insecure young Wilde who seems to hide behind “aesthetics and art” while Whitman teaches Wilde more than he might have bargained for, advising him, “Go see America. Go see the world. Find out what creature you are. And for all the frippery — be honest. With us, and with yourself.” 

"Wilde visits Whitman in world-premiere play" was published by Philadelphia Gay News on February 26, 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.

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.

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.