DAY 3: NYTW Dartmouth Residency - Perspectives

Have I expressed how much I absolutely love working with collaborators? Directors and writers who invite actors to the table with mutual respect for the other's craft, skill and point of view. Collaborators who aren't threatened by but welcome a dialogue, at times robust, but never brusque, and always enlightening in a mutual discovery of new material? It takes a very special and confident director and playwright to welcome others to the table and I believe it makes for a richer, deeper and more expansive, meaningful end result.  

Today our director GT, writer Jen Silverman, dramaturg Sarah Lunnie, fellow actor Michael Braun and I sat around the table and dug into the meat of the play. As I've exposited before, the play is about the struggle of two brothers in the fringes of society who are caught in a tussle between the past and the future, of power dynamics, entitlement culture and the role of the minority. At one point, in trying to articulate a particularly confounding moment in the play, GT shared a 

personal story about an incident many years ago at a party that made her feel objectified, while simultaneously finding empowerment within that when she went on to use it to her advantage.  She tried to describe the complexity of that feeling: of shame, guilt and triumph all in a singular moment; and a deeper dichotomy of deep-seated feminist rage and loathing to be tempered only by humor and wit. I found this incredibly profound and beautiful.  I don't remember the last time I worked with a director (with the exception of Josie Rourke), who demonstrated and shared such an intimate understanding of the material with me. That depth of understanding was infectious and it inspired us all to approach the material with even more humility while mining it for nuance and paradoxes with renewed vigor. At that instant I was so grateful that this play, ostensibly about people on the fringe, marginalized and coping, was being directed by one who, as a woman familiar with the complexities of standing outside of the dominant hegemony, was so uniquely suited to shepherding this play to a place of such rich, empathic, complexity. I thought of how much richer the theatrical landscape would be if we begin to let more different collaborators to the table. People with unique points of identification and entry to a particular piece, especially ethnic minorities and women that might continue to push the boundaries of our collective imagination. America is such a melting pot of talent, it would seem such a pity that these perspectives, these histories, these points of views aren't expressed or represented. I think of how robbed we would be of these exhilarating voices if we continue only to hear from the dominant hegemony, especially in the theatre arts. 

The thinker and writer Chimimandie Adichie said it best. I've included a link to her Tedtalk about the dangers of a single story here. I found this profoundly inspiring. I hope you do too.