A Conversation with The Roth Family from Theater J on Vimeo.

So you’ve heard from the 2nd and 3rd Generation in the video above. But what of the parents–authors, of course, of their own respective tellings of their own respective stories of escape and forced leave-taking from home. We know from our playbill that Dr. Chaya Roth, Clinical Psychologist, professor, child refugee/survivor/hidden child has written prodigiously about her family’s experience of the war and how that history has been transmitted to offspring and their offspring; to relatives and their progeny in her memoir “The Fate of Holocaust Memories: Transmission and Family Dialogues (Palgrave Macmillan – due out in paperback later this spring). Chaya’s response was characteristically generous and complex. Perhaps soon we’ll get it from her in our own writing. For now, trust a son’s recollection:

Chaya saw the play as a thing distinct from the history; “It was a play,” she said. “A good play.” She appreciated the pathos, the humor, the family interaction. And the history drawn from stories she told her children, she recognized that history. It was a different history than the one she lived. But then her own memories, she added, involve elements of invented synapses — connecting pieces where she’s inferred an event or an incident to fill in the gaps of her memory. And in some cases she noted, “what the play makes up is better than what I made up!” She was referring to the scene in the Central Police Station. What she said to the police about the step-father who accompanied her in the round-up of the Jews of Nice; a round-up that her mother and older sister avoided. Chaya’s version of the story is less dramatic. And has less remembered dialogue. And missing components to it as well. “It’s a better story the way it’s told here.”

She shared certain observations about the characters that caused her to reflect on how she raised her children. “The mother in the play inflicts a burden on her children; the burden of absorbing and living with this legacy. And I imposed a burden on my children. Wally and I committed to telling our children, each in our different way, about where we came from and what to happened to our families. Perhaps we told too much. Because the burden is heavy; it’s cumbersome. And our story telling evolved, as we evolved.”

Upon returning to Chicago, Chaya’s had continued complicated thoughts. I’ll let her share those. Thoughts we’ve continued to process.

Walter thought the play, as a play, succeeded because it was funny and that humor was important in offsetting the tragedy of which there was plenty. Wally responded to the angel wings. He saw in our rendering of the mother as a young girl in an Italian convent a mirror image of what he remembered of his mother, after she passed away, and how she would reappear in his window, when he was still a young boy in Germany. “It was eerie.” Walter Roth’s latest book on history is his post personal book to date. Still a practicing attorney (of counsel) at the age of 84, president emeritus of the Chicago Jewish Historical Society, and author of three books including “An Accidental Anarchist (The Lazurs Averbuch story);
“Avengers and Defenders: Glimpses of Chicago’s Jewish Past,” and “Looking Backward: True Stories of Chicago’s Jewish Past,” Walter has most recently written a memoir retrieving memories of life as a Jew in small town Germany during the course of visits to his birthplace, in his latest book “Escape and Return: Trips to and Memories from Roth, Germany.” Walter shared stories from his book with the audience, building off the foundation that the character of Nate establishes at the end of the play when he says to his son Andy, “I want to write about Jews who grew up in small towns.
As farmers; as bakers; as laborers. In Germany. The way they lived their lives.”

The moderator of the discussion was our production dramaturg; actor, published author, and resident artist on staff with us this season, Peter Birkenhead. Here are a few of Peter’s notes jotted down in preparation for the discussion:

In introducing Walter: moved to Hyde Park with family in the summer of 1938 after they escaped Nazi Germany. Graduated cum laude and editor of the law review from the University of Chicago Law School in 1952. Spent a year on a kibbutz. Upon return to Chicago became an attorney. Married Chaya in Antwerp, Belgium in 1954. President of the Midwest Region of the American Jewish Congress. Wrote extensively on civil rights and Zionism. Also active in the Chicago Jewish Historical Society, eventually becoming president. Walter’s prior books include: An Accidental Anarchist, Looking Backward: True Stories from Chicago’s Jewish Past and Avengers, and Defenders: Glimpses of Chicago’s Jewish Past.

In introducingChaya: Escaped when she was eight years old. Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, University of Illinois at Chicago. Book The Fate of Holocaust Memories: Transmission and Family Dialogues addresses the process of memory creation, in both biological and psychological terms. Examines transgenerational effects of the Holocaust. Makes use of diary entries family recordings from 1982.

Holocaust and “deep memory” vs. “common memory.”
Common memory- the imposition of coherence and narrative tropes, a natural movement towards redemption and resolution.
Deep memory- beyond articulation and therefore beyond human contsruct of “meaning.” Accessible only through poetry and abstraction.

How do we construct a “self?” From memory. How do we construct memory? Through story. How do we make room for the kind of memory that won’t play by the rules of narrative? How can we ask who we are if historical trauma renders the answer inaccessible? Is there a necessary/unavoidable hubris for the questioner Moses at the burning bush? The two sided question: who does Moses think he is? Who does Ari Roth think he is?

Chaya’s experience with neuroscience and memory. How does she make room for both “facts” and poetics? What are her thoughts on how memories are transmitted from parent to child, both in the “telling” and the “living” of them. Does she remember telling different versions of her story to Ari, vs., say, Miriam? does she recognize herself in the play? Can she pull apart the many layers of emotional/intellectual response she must have? Is any of that sharable? Ask abut fear of remembering vs. fear of forgetting.

Walter’s experience with oral history of a place. How does he reconcile differing takes on the same events? How did he reattach himself to a new place? Does he recognize the Chicago of the play? How does he feel about the necessary act of fictionalizing in order to tell essential truths? Does he see anything of the people of Roth in Ari? If so, what?

We’ll continue to update this posting as we hear more from the panelists in writing.

I wanted to share some of this acclaim with you using review links and snippets. There’s a lot of insight, a lot of smart analysis, a lot of people comparing Alexander Strain to a strangely wide gamut of movie stars (John Cusack/Marlon Brando/Woody Allen/Zach Braff), and a lot of love.

Check it out, and then add your two cents, either on Washpost.com, here on the blog, or whatever medium fits your fancy!

The Washington Post

Kimberly Gilbert, Alexander Strain, Colleen Delany. Photo by Stan Barouh

-Warmly probing comedy about the impact of unanswered questions of a child of Holocaust survivors.

-That Roth, longtime artistic director of Theater J, manages to mine the confusion of an anguishing legacy for knowing laughs is one of the higher achievements of this embraceable play

-The winning embodiment of questing Andy is mastered here by Alexander Strain, who as the evening’s tireless anchor gives one of the strongest performances of his Washington career.

-Playing Andy’s mother, Raya, who’s resonantly maternal and a teensy bit scary, Jennifer Mendenhall, too, offers the type of textured portrayal that fully inhabits the Goldman Theater stage at the D.C. Jewish Community Center.

-Andy’s nuclear family, completed by Stephen Patrick Martin, Colleen Delany and Kimberly Gilbert — plus Veronica del Cerro as Sarah, his patient (up to a point) fiancee — exists under Daniella Topol’s deft direction in a convincing whirlpool of alienation and affection.

-Roth’s rhythms…combine the confessional tone of Arthur Miller’s “After the Fall” and the wry reflections of Woody Allen’s “Annie Hall.”

-It’s difficult to imagine an actress better equipped than Mendenhall to bring out the yin-yang of Raya’s downy-stony personality. She and Strain create an admirable illusion of parent-child intimacy, the complex kind in which emotions are strong — and yet certain lines cannot be crossed.

-touching… As the women in Andy’s life, del Cerro, Delany and Gilbert are guided by Topol to appealing portrayals elevated by their fealty to truth.

- As Roth’s comedy unlocks Andy’s insecurities, Theater J just as commendably makes the keys to the playhouse more accessible to the city’s writers.

Broadway World

-very darkly funny

-Roth uses a cascade of storytelling techniques-from flashbacks, to flashforwards, visions and interviews and an ill-fated “play, aka screenplay, within a play”-to get at the subtexts of this family through the ever-present medium of dark comedy.

-Director Daniella Topol has woven a tight and versatile ensemble cast who fluidly embody the Glickstein family and a host of other incidental characters.

-A polished and witty production

DC Metro Theatre Arts

-effervescent

-a formidable and moving imprint of the far-reaching reverberations of the Holocaust and the consequent displacement of the Jews – externally as well as internally – on the second generation of survivors.

-Jennifer Mendenhall gives a powerful performance

-Ari Roth’s Andy and the Shadows is bound to become a work of outstanding artistry.

Washington Examiner

-There are many extraordinary moments in “Andy and the Shadows,” the most stunning of them involving Andy’s mother as a young girl.

-moving and credible.

-The humor is sharp, incisive and, as the excellent Strain portrays Andy, more than a little manic and obsessive.

-The play is capably directed by Daniella Topol, whose sterling cast creates an intense constellation of people surrounding the central star, Andy.

Washington City Paper

- warm and woolly… winning

-I could not stop thinking of Roth’s hyperliterate memoir-with-benefits… as High Fidelity

-it’s got duende to spare

Washington Jewish Week

-Bridging history, fantasy, memory and imagination, the work navigates the thorny quest of a son seeking his place and voice in the world and reconciles his identity as a child of survivors who have succumbed to comfortable middle class.

-Part Woody Allen neurotic, part scenery-chewing Marlon Brando, Alexander Strain’s Andy can’t come to terms with his mother’s history, nor can he settle on a wedding date with his fiance, Sarah

-Roth has borrowed from other major playwrights, too, it seems, ranging from the standard Clifford Odets kitchen table family drama scene in act one, to an Arthur Miller-like monologue and fluidity of time, and a Tony Kushner hospital scene (with a black male nurse to boot) and that dream-like, girl-child angel, which recalls Kushner’s Angels in America. And like a Tennessee Williams play, there is hidden tragedy woven into the very fabric of the characters’ lives that initially hampers Andy from moving forward, until his breakthrough discovery, which arrives while he’s jailed overnight for filming without a permit in a synagogue parking lot.

-Roth’s smart and erudite dialogue, which is reproduced under director Daniella Topol’s care, elevates a very personal story filled with internal obstacles, twists, flashbacks and detours that his Andy character strives to overcome.

-…Read Miller, or Williams or Kushner and you can easily take a certain measure of each as both a playwright and a man, tracing characters back to experiences they have lived. The same holds true for Roth.

Washingtonian

-The hijinks transition into a satisfying reveal of the Glickstein’s family secret.

-Director Daniella Topol leads the stellar cast

DC Theatre Scene

-In Ari Roth’s Andy and the Shadows, obsessive filmmaker Andy Glickstein doggedly searches for the momentous, globe-spanning history buried beneath his quiet, suburban life. As the complex, time-shifting drama unfolds, it becomes clear that nothing – including family, wedding plans, and even the truth – will stand in Glickstein’s way.

- Roth’s canny writing reveals much about each character in this first exchange.

- Playwright Roth has seeded Andy’s mind with deep, Woody Allen-level angst that clouds his blessings with worry and doubt.

- Andy and the Shadows  is a vivid examination of how we view our parents, our culture, and our personal history, all curated with an artist’s touch

- Director Daniella Topol and her talented cast pull it together to mirror the perfect imperfection of family life, with all its pitfalls and heartwarming surprises.

Jennifer Mendenhall and Alexander Strain. Photo by Stan Barouh

Maryland Theatre Guide

-a good story…about how one confronts one’s own family history, deals with it, and carries it on.

-a comedy of dysfunctional domesticity amid the struggles of growing up and moving on, but also a discovery of a deeper, sobering family secret.

Here’s an opportunity also to read of other productions students might have seen this semester they’re burning to discuss (or at least get a couple extra credit points!). Go Blue!

Alisha Ridley-Frost, Unipark’s Office Manager, told us that they are still not sure  what happened and that they will let us know where we can send condolences as soon as they have that information.  Alisha said:

“Desmond was one of our best employees and a dear friend. I know he thought highly of the DCJCC staff and enjoyed working there.  He will truly be missed. We appreciate your kindness to him while he worked there.”

Last night’s performance of ANDY AND THE SHADOWS was dedicated to Desmond. He will stay in our hearts as long as we think of our good experiences at the theater.

From Michael Rohd of Sojourn Theatre: Tony, you are passionate about democracy. Your stories ask us to consider our private, public and collective souls. If you imagine artists engaging in the practice of democracy beyond their role as storytellers, bringing their assets as makers of meaning, as collaborators, as problem solvers, into public process, what do you imagine?

from Marin Academy’s David Sinaiko: As a decidedly analog art form in an increasingly digital age how does theater stay relevant – not just in content, but in the cultural aesthetic?

From DC playwright Nicole Burton: Working and middle class Americans, when given encouragement and opportunity, LIKE to attend theater. They they the liberation of ideas. In Tony’s opinion, what does a transformational American theater look like in our times?

Here’s how Tony responded–Tremendously optimistic! Full of faith (and a little bit of envy) in a new generation of playwrights like Annie Baker and her uncompromising confidence in addressing that shift from analogue to digital in her latest play, The Flick…

And then Tony ended with this flourish:

“Finally, [theatre] is always just these people on the stage in the light talking to these people in the dark. It’s completely not capital intensive. It’s not labor intensive. It doesn’t last. We always need an unsuccessful illusion. That’s what theatre does. It teaches critical consciousness. It is a model of the human predicament. Things are and are not what they seem at the same time. And the only way to live in the world, to able to read the world, is to interpret it, to take meaning from it. And the only way to do that is to not be fooled by surface appearance. And film creates at this point, a visual manipulation, an increasingly overwhelmingly, perfect illusion.

I think we’ll always need theatre. We’re always going to be caught in this dilemma—of being in a world that we both inhabit, are born into, and create by existing in and demands our interpretation. And theatre, whatever else it teaches, and it can teach many things, is always teaching that. It teaches empathic imagination and at the same time gives you reason to doubt. It gets you locked in that cycle and being locked in that cycle is critical consciousness. I don’t think we can live without that.

quotation notated by Theater J friend, Kurt Nemes

By all accounts, it was a good session, and Tony was generous, erudite, unpretentious and deeply insightful. In time, we’ll annotate his answers. Here are the questions, framed by a bit of an introduction, and ending with some crowd-sourced questions culled from my facebook page comments.

TONY 25 YEARS AGO, AND TONY NOW
Notes in preparation for an April 9th conversation with Tony Kushner on the night of the final preview of ANDY AND THE SHADOWS…

GWU President Steven Knapp, Tony Kushner and Ari Roth

The pleasure, the honor, the excitement, and the nervousness… the unworthiness and feelings of massive unpreparedness are all mine now before you—As we all gather (and good it is to be together as brothers and sisters, as the Hebrew “Hiney Ma-Tov” goes) to keep company with Tony Kushner, model and mentor, artist, activist, citizen, author, History Buff, and Current Events Scribe, commencement speaker extraordinaire, ubiquitous and then for months reclusive and illusive, agnostic, Jew, embattled-Israel engager, editor, screenwriter, best friend of Steven Spielberg AND Maurice Sendack (ala v’shalom) Intelligent Homosexual, and so much more.

My job tonight is to effectively represent the myriads of us who look up to you, Tony; the colleagues who are inspired by you, the activists who beseech you to lend a hand, to show up, to write… We all have relationships with you, of which you know only a little about. So we’ll share a bit of that; what you’ve meant to us and how you’ve inspired and emboldened us, but also perhaps confused us; how we’ve possibly misinterpreted you (and the trouble you’ve gotten into, from time to time); tonight let’s set some records straight. And since we’re on a college campus, and since I’m opening a show tomorrow night that’s very much about a 50-something year old man looking back on a younger self—let’s make some effort to remember yourself as a striving young artist as you reflect on where you and we are now.

As a writer cut from some of the same cloth—that of The School Of Over-Sharing—perhaps my job here tonight is get to know the less revealed and articulated parts of the public you; the parts that draw inspiration from the private/personal/familial you; a reservoir that’s been always there for you to draw upon but perhaps—because your other achievements have been so singular; so necessary; and your prowess so conspicuous, we haven’t as much time as we might like looking at the portrait of the artist looking back to when he was a young man…

Or (since, of course we have, in CAROLINE, and ANGELS) perhaps we haven’t spent as much time as we’d like looking back at the artist as young questing artist; the striving, hungry, frustrated artist and how he nourishes the soul (and slurps from the same trough) of the older practitioner—always an extraordinary artist, but perhaps one who’s DNA is less well-known.

What you’ve meant to playwrights in the field — those who were coming along and coming of age as you were bursting forth on the scene:

-My own Memories of first learning of Tony…. Reading the A BRIGHT ROOM CALLED DAY review in the lit manager’s office at Arena Stage in 199o while in rehearsal for BORN GUILTY — a project Zelda interviewed you for but you couldn’t do it…

- On the M4 bus on Central Park North, 1991, reading ANGELS part 1 in American Theatre Magazine, just before or after the LA production… Socked in the solar plexus on the line “My wife.” Roy: “Your wife.” How disappointing… What a non-starter for a career boost.

- Later, playwright Donald Margulies reflecting that Kushner “has moved the goal posts back,” defining success and ambition and the playwright as public intellectual — “it just got that much harder to impress.” So there was initially this jealous intimidation… But in time, above and beyond the admiration and inspiration, came this permission to equally audacious; to fuse the political more explicitly; to be more rampaging and innovative… Kushner’s success has been good for the diversification and proliferation of the American playwriting field.

With all that, it hasn’t been this intimate a dialogue as we’re having tonight. It’s been a dialogue conducted from afar; virtually before there was internet or facebook. We’ve known you and haven’t known you, and so it will remain when we’re done today. But we’re gonna get closer, we’re gonna try. Because your success and your astonishing contributions to our culture matter tremendously to all of us. No one has made the Lincoln/Obama connection more expressed, more deeply explored, more politically urgent than you. Tonight, we students and faculty, artists and administrators, activists and appreciators, say thank you–but we have our questions. So let’s begin with them.

1) Talk about family growing up and how we’ve seen that in the art you’ve made, transformed/contorted and when you’ve set the record straight. What are the autobiographical works? Caroline and Angels… and…?
Portraits of Mother (and the pocket watch) and Father and his instrument… to clarinetist and conductor William Kushner and bassoonist Sylvia Deutscher in Lake Charles, Louisiana

2) – Portraits of you as an undiscovered artist; undergrad at Columbia (Medieval Studies); Grad Student at NYU… let’s talk about who you were once you graduated. Getting started. Founding that theater company. Bring us back there, and how have you carried those dreams, ambitions, and relationships going forward?

3) What remains from those seminal relationships -
- Stephen Spinella, then and now… (these relationships mean something to us; we measure our own artistic relationships in some relation to your relations…)
- Oskar Eustis, then and now
- Michael Greif… EAGER TO HEAR ABOUT BRIGHT ROOM CALLED DAY then… how it unfolded… where you situated yourself after the reception, and what happened next…

(Reflect on what you miss from that time, in the mid and late 80s as you were developing as an artist — and obviously this is the time that AIDS is radically transforming the artistic landscape and you are responding to that, publicly and privately…)

Those past relations and ideals are with you in so many ways… Extraordinary continuity between past and presemt.

4) We’re aware of the social Tony. Tony aligned with causes. Tony in Relationship to other great artists like ANNA DEVEARE SMITH (and Ariel Dorfman, so many others)

But give us some snapshots of Tony alone with his books and his television, his marriage, and his English muffins. Fascinating to read that portrait in the would-be novel, before I-Ho became a play, it was something else; a memoir; and it revealed the self-questioning, frequently fetishizing Tony Kushner, obssessed with hair length and the aging process. Writing about the private self. You’ve exhibited some restraint. You’re not on facebook. You’re not publishing your diaries. Or did I-Ho, in fact, turn out to be wildly personal and revealing.

How much self-revelation do you disguise? Is disguise important?

5) How have your opening night rituals changed since you share with your readers those Chinese dinners you’d go out on in those unforgettable introductions to both ANGELS and PERESTROIKA

6) Tony and Arthur Miller — Tracing the development of this relationship, and how it speaks to your development/evolution from the empower resistance FRINGE of American Theatre, do being a standard bearer…
Editor of the Library of America series.

Understanding that moment/evolution… or my MISUNDERSTANDING when you were a little bit at war or hostile to Miller (as the White Male Monolith with the big head who sat in front of you at The Tony’s…)

TK from an interview:
As I started to write plays, I reread “Salesman” and “View from a Bridge” and there’s a magnificent sort of erratic construction in these works. They serve as the greatest structure of dramatic events this country’s ever produced. And I think in terms of social advocacy, Arthur is important as a model in two ways. In one way because he doesn’t write polemic, he writes drama, which is really different. And the plays are not plays that present problems and provide answers for those problems, they’re deeper and more complicated and more tortured than that. That’s when they’re at their best. And as it progresses, they become more and more what we would call personal, and less and less obviously political.
At the same time Arthur used his immense fame for social good. He was a brave, tireless fighter, a scrupulous and courageous public intellectual, an advocate. Those are important things. I think he remains the luminous example of a writer as a citizen. It’s always good to have role models and certainly for me, when faced with a choice between doing something political and doing something that I really enjoy doing, I say to myself, “What would Arthur Miller do?” I knew him a little bit but not well, but the Arthur in my head is a very interesting and valuable figure.

Returning to material as it and you have matured…

6) On the use of war wounds, frustrations, and unfinished business (and scripts)

7) Refer to the ANNA DEVEARE SMITH INVERVIEW … “WHY GET OUT OF BED?” (“Because I love life?”) What gets you up now? Is there still the same fire? To remake the American Theatre?

7a) The threat and the gift of Hollywood—What’s aging done to Mamet; What Hollywood taught him; what it’s given you and what conveys back to the theater? (you said recently, unbelieveably, that you can’t make a living in the theater — TRUE? OR FALSE?)

8) The Lincoln Achievements and Debates… Factuality? Would it have been different in the theater? Were you robbed?

9) As a producer of HOMEBODY/KABUL… we’re still in Afghanistan; how have kepy up with an old/new subject? How does the play hold up?

10) ANGLES TODAY — REVIVED ANEW ON ITS 20th ANNIVERSARY + IN BUDAPEST, HUNGARY
“Theater lasts longer,” Mr. Kushner said when he heard about the Budapest production, “and speaks to more people and travels better over time when it hasn’t been created exclusively for the purposes of provoking.”
His “Angels in America,” after all, was never a piece of agitprop for increased funding for AIDS research or beating on the doors of the Capitol.
Ultimately, the ovation that the Budapest audience gives Mr. Alfoldi and his colleagues may be less a celebration of the play and performance than a demonstration of political support — looking for angels wherever they may find them, even in the theater.

11) Tussling with the right on the presidency, and Israel.

12) Washington then (the 1994 tour of ANGELS — the coldest shoulder) and now…

CROWD SOURCED QUESTIONS:
I would ask him how he thinks we can cultivate the theatre audience of the next generation, and if he’s hopeful or pessimistic!

From Michael Rohd of Sojourn Theatre: Tony, you are passionate about democracy. Your stories ask us to consider our private, public and collective souls. If you imagine artists engaging in the practice of democracy beyond their role as storytellers, bringing their assets as makers of meaning, as collaborators, as problem solvers, into public process, what do you imagine?

Jared Eberlein: Abe Lincoln v. Roy Cohn…who wins in a fight?

David Sinaiko:
1.) If you could have a wish granted that would improve and expand the development of new American plays and playwrights, what would that wish be?

2.) (Dovetailing or elaborating on Brenda Jean Foley’s question, above) As a decidedly analog art form in an increasingly digital age how does theater stay relevant – not just in content, but in the cultural aesthetic?

Eric Peterson: Just my prurient curiosity but … that moment in LINCOLN, when the President’s aide (in bedclothes) asks Abe if he’d “like some company” – was that a nod to those who believe that Lincoln was what we in the 21st century would call gay?

Nicole Burton: Working and middle class Americans, when given encouragement and opportunity, LIKE to attend theater. They they the liberation of ideas. In Tony’s opinion, what does a transformational American theater look like in our times? Cheers.

“Crucial Questions, Critical Fault Lines, Necessary Conversations”

All drama is predicated on a question. The more incisive the  inquiry, the more penetrating the drama. Ours is an artistic home where heat and light, respect and learning are being sewn into the fabric of a community quilt we’re creating together. We’re not hammering out position papers or policy platforms; we’re painting portraits of who we are in times of tension on a path toward more clarity and understanding and something close to resolution.

The questions we’re asking are about loyalty and representation; the right to life and the right to choose; whether we acknowledge, refute, defend, or apologize for the ravages of war; whether we place our faith in God—and whether we believe that fate, luck, or good works determine our ultimate future.

2013 – 2014 SEASON

The Argument
Our Suburb
Yellow Face
The Admission
Freud’s Last Session

SPECIAL EVENT PRODUCTIONS

Woody Sez
The Prostate Dialogues

These are the questions being asked by our playwrights; unafraid authors and performers who enter the arena of our fiercest cultural contretemps, whether the subject be The Blacklist, race and ethnicity, collateral damage from Israel’s War of Independence, or the existence of a deity.  Our playwrights are slugging it out and finding the light, presenting well-argued plays about people caught along a precarious seam of earth splitting underneath their feet.

One playwright, Tony Award winning David Henry Hwang, even writes a play with himself in the drama, as his name’s sake gets caught in the cultural and political crosshairs and indictments against him grow, extending to his entire family, involving questions of national security and the scourge of dual loyalty.  It’s his Pulitzer-finalist play Yellow Face and marks the first time Theater J has looked at the Asian American experience in America, a parallel story to the Jewish immigrant family sojourn and that generational drama of growing up in the Diaspora.

All our plays this season underscore the theater’s function as a place where The Big Questions are not just asked but enacted in story, debated not just in dialogue but in action, wrestled within the audience as plots unfold, and discussed after performances–not with policy-analytics but with the experienced emotion of a humanized debate informed by character and complexity. The conversations extend beyond our theater and lobby, onto our social media platforms in surprising, enlightening, engaging ways.

We’re offering an entertaining, hard hitting season, full of variety and relevance, tackling history and the present, birthing plenty of new but paying homage to some of the most established literary talent on the scene today.

Once again we’re local, international, and national in scope, recommitting to our twin signature festivals, “Locally Grown: Community Supported Art” and “Voices From a Changing Middle East” offering workshops, readings, Arts & Ideas Symposia, and inspired partnerships, this year with Arena Stage (in conjunction with their world premiere production of Camp David) and the Herzliyah Theatre Ensemble in our collaboration of The Admission.

One new innovation: Our Monthly Directors’ Forum where we will host an up-close look at each of our directors’ careers and their vision for their respective production currently in rehearsal with us.  We’ll feature a special segment this fall on Female Directors of DC–proud that we’ll have three great female directors working with us this season.

It’s a privilege to make theater in this city, in this Community Center, with this wonderful company of artists, for a spectacularly engaged and intelligent audience.  We’re full of thanks and appreciation for making a season like this possible.

Do join us!

Ari Roth
Artistic Director, Theater J

By Amy Herzog  (regional premiere) Directed by Derek Goldman Featuring Nancy Robinette The brilliant, promising Emma Joseph is primed to follow in the footsteps of her progressive political family. But when she discovers a troubling secret about her blacklisted grandfather, Emma must confront her family’s legacy, and her own path. A bold and moving play from the Award-winning author of4,000 Miles (The New York Times – Outstanding Playwright), staged by the director of our Helen Hayes nominated production of Our Class. “American’s most interesting young playwright.” - The Wall Street Journal back to top	A newly commissioned 2013 edition by Alexandra Gersten Vassilaros Directed by Associate Artistic Director Shirley Serotsky Sophie, a charming, vibrant artist, and Phillip, a loyal, solid businessman, are a 40-something couple whose new relationship is rocked when Sophie learns she is pregnant. As each fights for the only future he or she can imagine, they are both forced to recognize the profound cultural differences between them. And when the word “abortion” is introduced into the debate, all bets are off.  The Argument chronicles the arc of a relationship with humor, passion, brutality, and up-to-the-minute relevance. From the co-author of the 2004 Pulitzer Prize-finalistOmnium Gatherum. back to top
SPECIAL EVENT PRODUCTION Devised by David M. Lutken  with Nick Corley A special encore presentation of the three-time Helen-Hayes nominee. “Bound for Glory!” raved The Washington Post of last season’s sold out production. This boisterous musical celebrates America’s troubadour, the man behind ‘This Land is Your Land,’ ‘The Ballad of Tom Joad’ and more, with musical numbers, ample humor and heart-break from Woody’s rich life. Followed by rousing weekly hootenannies after select performances. back to top	A world premiere By Darrah Cloud  Directed by Tony-award winning actress and Broadway director Judith Ivey An homage to Our Town, this world-premiere invites audiences to suburban Illinois in 1977, when the Nazis marched on Skokie. As the Major and Edelman families prepare for Christmas and Hanukkah, Ricky and Thornton fall into an interfaith teenage romance. Off to embark on exciting futures both inside and out of their suburban hamlet, the teenagers find themselves absorbed in a growing menace that turns into heartbreak, surprise, and headlines involving the whole community. From the author of The Stick Wife and adapter of O Pioneers. back to top
By David Henry Hwang  (regional premiere) Directed by Natsu Onoda Power A satirical comedy about political correctness. When a Caucasian actor is cast as the Asian pimp in Broadway’s Miss Saigon, Hwang leads a public outcry protesting the cultural insensitivity. But when Hwang himself unwittingly casts a white actor to play the Asian protagonist of his new play, he must confront his own hypocrisies. As he struggles to ‘save face’ amidst family politics, international intrigue and government investigations, Hwang explores timeless questions surrounding cultural identity, dual loyalty, and responsibility. By David Henry Hwang (Tony-Award-Winning playwright of M. Butterfly and librettist for Disney’s Aida).Staged by the visionary director of Astro Boy and The God of Comics. back to top	Voices From A Changing Middle East Festival An English language world premiere By Motti Lerner  Directed by Sinai Peter Produced in collaboration with Herzliya Ensemble Theatre Featuring Michael Tolaydo An Israeli homage to All My Sons set in Haifa during the first Intifada. Giora is a young professor engaged to Neta but in love with Samia, the Palestinian daughter of a family friend who becomes troubled when Giora’s father’s company begins building on the site of a battle that took place 40 years ago. Giora struggles to find the truth about his father’s war-time secrets, confronting the causes of his brother’s death and how Giora came to incur his own war-time injuries in Lebanon. As Giora’s family presses him to look forward, not back, the play asks how we can move forward toward peace while still wrestling with the ghosts of war. From the author of Pangs of the Messiah and the winner of the Prime Minister of Israel Award for Writers, and staged by the Theater J’s director of Return to Haifa with designers from the Israeli premiere. Presented in cooperation with the world premiere of Camp David, by Lawrence Wright at Arena Stage.  With Festival readings, workshops and discussions. back to top
By Mark St. Germain  (regional premiere) Directed by Serge Seiden  Featuring Todd Scofield The celebrated long-running Off-Broadway hit stages a clash between intellectual giants Dr. Sigmund Freud, the legendary psychoanalyst, and C.S. Lewis, author of The Chronicles of Narnia. On the day England enters World War II, Freud summons then unknown professor Lewis to his office for an impassioned exchange about God, love, sex, and the meaning of life. From the author of Camping With Henry And Tom and inspired by Harvard’s Dr. Armand M. Nicholi Jr.’s best-selling book The Question of God. back to top	SPECIAL EVENT PRODUCTION Part of Locally Grown: Community Supported Art Festival World Premiere Written and performedBy Jon Spelman Directed by Jerry Whiddon Commissioned in Theater J’s 2012 Locally Grown festival, this dynamic solo performance by renowned story-teller John Spelman explores masculinity and mortality in the face of disease with humanity and humor.  Drawing from personal experience and interviews, Spelman examines the effects of prostate cancer and treatment on sexuality and relationships with warmth and candor. back to top

SPECIAL PROGRAM Get to know the talented directors of Theater J’s 2013-2014 season in a series of intimate discussions presented in the style of ‘Inside the Actor’s Studio’. Each of our directors will discuss their body of work, their process and their upcoming Theater J production – select dates, Sep 2013-Jun 2014.Available as a subscription add-on back to top

SPECIAL PROGRAM Theater J is dedicated to taking its dialogues beyond the stage, offering an array of innovative public discussion forums, readings, and outreach programs which explore the theatrical, psychological and social elements of our art throughout the year.Purchase a Beyond The Stage PASS and get unlimited access to all Beyond The Stage programming including Tea@2 Readings,Voices From A Changing Middle East Festival, and Locally Grown Festival Readings.back to topTo subscribe, click here

]]> http://theaterjblogs.wordpress.com/2013/04/06/rolling-out-theater-js-new-2013-14-season/feed/ 3 tellari http://theaterjblogs.wordpress.com/2013/04/06/as-our-new-play-begins-previews-many-important-premieres-around-town/ http://theaterjblogs.wordpress.com/2013/04/06/as-our-new-play-begins-previews-many-important-premieres-around-town/#comments Sat, 06 Apr 2013 13:59:17 +0000 Ari Roth http://theaterjblogs.wordpress.com/?p=4843 Continue reading →]]> Today’s Weekend Feature in The Washington Post Arts section profiles five playwrights reflecting on the process of writing and revising their Charles MacArthur/Helen Hayes Award nominated new plays.

We’re particularly proud of Renee Calarco and the wonderful reflecting on the process of making THE RELIGION THING; an 8 year process that led to a highly successful run last winter.

As ANDY AND THE SHADOWS enters into a weekend of preview performances, let’s pay homage to some other new plays recently opened, or soon to open around town.  We’ll give folks a chance to respond to the spring awakening of many engaging new works, including:

Mike Daisey’s AMERICAN UTOPIAS at Woolly Mammoth…

Tazwell Thompson’s MARY T. & LIZZY K. at Arena Stage…

And soon to be opening at Round House Theatre, HOW TO WRITE A BOOK OF THE BIBLE.

Will let student subscribers and others share their opinions here about these new productions, and possibly any other new work bursting forth this month.

First, the press:

From TheatreWashington on “The Search for Duende“

From Washingtonian Magazine, “On Making Art in The Shadow of History“

and from The Forward, on “A Playwright Confronting His Shadows”

As for the previews, 290 folks over 2 nights have taken in good shows, on their way to becoming better and better as we continue to rehearse, introducing new cuts and bits of new text today. Let’s check out the comments for follow up from students who saw the Design Run two weeks ago. And from others too!

And finally, photos! Thank you to photographer Stan Barouh. Check out some pics below and find more, including production designs and costume sketches, on the Theater J Flickr website HERE.

L-R: Kimberly Gilbert, Stephen Patrick Martin, Jennifer Mendenhall, Davis Hasty
Photo by Stan Barouh

L-R: Colleen Delany and Alexander Strain
Photo by Stan Barouh

L-R: Alexander Strain, Jennifer Mendenhall, Colleen Delany, Stephen Patrick Martin, Kimberly Gilbert
Photo by Stan Barouh

March 6
Gratifying first read of ANDY AND THE SHADOWS, some 26 years in the making. Cried a lot, early, often, and late in the read as well. A good sign. It meant something. It means a lot to have reached this day with a wonderful company, making art from life over time. And now our Crazy Weather Karma continues – as with our workshop reading on October 29 (which had to be canceled cuz ‘a “Sandy”), today’s we’ve got Snowquester shutting down the J. We’ll see if we’re meeting for rehearsals. Hope so. Work to do!!!

March 7
Day #2: 6 hours of table work – nothing canceled – actors present and accounted for – same for audience (mostly) – RACE goes on – the J is closed but the entire theater staff shows up to do what we do because that’s who we are and that’s how we roll – unbelievable dedication from everyone – that’s got to inspire, right? Onward! Cuts and restores, insights and clarifiers, progress and, every so often, a Stump The Playwright Moment – those are fun! What we can’t answer at night, reveals itself in the morning. Let’s see if that’s true! An early rise to tackle some tough stuff. Ready for revelation — And coffee.”

March 8
Day #3: More intensity – another straight six at the table – we go from working on relationships, one at a time, to eventually adding the whole company, finding strategic changes in Act I that must be folded into Act II – that stitching keeps me up too late – after taking students to see the 3 hour THE CONVERT @ Woolly. Guess what? They lied! For whatever reason, the 3 hour show came down at 11:15 and the parking lot closed at 11 and… the lot waited, thank God, but I regret bolting out during the 2nd part of the curtain call. Guess why that’s why I was up too late making changes. More to come. More coffee too.”

March 9
Day #4 – The ecstasy and the agony – Happiest days of table work ever; laughing uncontrollably every hour (and I’m not even alone in this); so much that the back seizes in spasm; lets go – truly painful laughter – as we fix and probe and contradict each other and agree – and press forward. Develop a mysterious rotator cuff pain after driving home from Woolly that’s still with me Saturday morning – can’t lift my arm higher than 80 degrees – with a chiropractor appointment at 9:30 and 2nd act rewrites before and after. Table work ends today with a new read of the whole play at 5. Then maybe I get to decompress as Daniella stages? (or not so much)”

March 10
An exuberant ‘Fanny and Alexander’ brings Bergman’s Ekdahls to the Kennedy Center
http://www.washingtonpost.com
“Day #5 reflections: Remember laughing so hard that my arm fell off? Or crying early, late and often during the read through? Doesn’t happen quite the same way reading through the script again, after we’ve gotten all our laughs out; after we’ve gotten all our tears out. Funny thing about the theater, and the rhythms of rehearsal. As we get done with table work–and we spent longer than we intended at the table until we got up on our feet–and many more cuts now remain, and other new insights expose themselves–so there’s only more to do, with a next phase of the process breathing down. The chiropractor identifies rotator cuff and deltoid muscle strain–I’d call it shredding, but it may not be–the exercises I get only increase the pain–the Advil I take, on the other hand, doesn’t. Up till two working on producing stuff and cuts and watch the clocks spring forward. Back at it again at 8 and feeling focussed on losing some precious stuff that needs to go–And finding linking detail from bath-tub scene into Young Raya the Angel. Got a feeling it’s got something to do with yellow knee socks, lamb chops, and cutting the religious cards. (Those would be ‘notes to self.’ Aren’t these all?) Onward to morning coffee and reading yesterday’s review of “Fanny and Alexander,” so much the inspiration for the magic realism in “Andy…” Only sorry I couldn’t see it at the Ken Cen’s Nordic Cool Fest. Rehearsals…”

March 11
Day #6: Staging in the dance studio. Locking in the text for bedroom, bath and convent scenes. Sublime to finally see how a mother washing a son’s hair on stage is going to look and feel. Amazingly real day. Great culmination to a major week. Onward!

March 12 – Day off!

March 13
Week #2 rehearsals: I come three hours into the company’s work after a late afternoon panel at Georgetown on Grace and Politics featuring Anna Deavere Smith, EJ Dionne, Mike McCurry, and Imam Mohamed Majid, followed by reception, FOLLOWED by dinner for 60 hosted by GU president John J DeGioia. Which was pretty spectacular. Spent dinner talking with one extraordinary dynamo, civil rights attorney Judith Browne Dianis, co-director of Advancement Project (one extraordinary organization). Bottom line, couldn’t leave dinner until 9 pm! Got back in time for Daniella and company to show me first stagings of the dream and garage roof hopping sequences. This morning, cuts and restores on a piece of… the garage roof hopping sequence. And so it goes. No more fancy dinner parties for a while, Mr. Playwright!

March 14, 2013
Rehearsal Report #8: Spectacularly productive. Finished staging Act I, text in place (at least, shall we say through designer run next week when we hear it altogether once again – I think). Amazingly, this director wants her playwright in the room the whole time! It’s a new way of working – figuring stuff out – rewriting for action (as in changing “you’re dressed!” to “you’re not even ready” if you figure out that the action would be better served by the dude actually doing something after he’s gotten out of the bath). Lots of good little things everyday. Tomorrow we present 45 minutes from Act I and Congregation Tifereth Israel. They feed the entire company!

March 15
Notes from Rehearsal #9
Reverting to longer note form for this report, cause so much happens in a day. That’s the point really. A lotta peaks and valleys in the course of 6 hours of intense work. It begins with the recognition that second act changes will be due on Thursday and then again on Friday as Daniella stages all of Act II over the next 3 days before putting it all together on Sunday, so we see where we are, the whole show fully sketched out in its staging. And I know that I teach for three hours Thursday night and that all day Friday I’m busy, the entirety of the day and night (with our rehearsals at T.I., and then the dinner, service and presentation), plus morning chiropractor and a staff reading of a new musical at 10:15 am. If rewrites are going to happen, they’re going to have to happen late Wednesday night and as much of Thursday morn as I can muster before rehearsals.

Well, I decide to miss some rehearsal so I can get through the entirety of the Act. That’s what needs to be done. And I take my time upon completion of the revisions (which take hours and hours, but I’m up late and then again early, so I’m done before noon) and waltz into rehearsal, showered and shaved and confident and happy at 12:30, and the company’s been slogging away on the opening film-within-the- play sequence of the act and, while most of the ensemble is buoyant and full of energy as they work through the Pirandelian mischief, at the center there’s a bit of hang-dog unhappiness at how the opening monologue-work went in my absence at the top of the day. Dramaturg, lead actor, and director need to communicate with me that the opening paragraph is still confusing and that for all the nice writing, I still didn’t eliminate the challenge of opening with our Andy at 50 and then segueing into his being 25 once more, on location for his film shoot, talking to his actors. I’m invested in this reflexivity. It’s the framing device of the whole show. But there’s confusion as to why we need it at the top of Act II. Why not just have the framing at the beginning and the ending of the play? It’s confusing enough, with all the Pirandelian mischief I’m throwing at artists and audience! So my beloved collaborators are signaling quite clearly that they’re not thrilled that, in my vaunted rewrites, I didn’t remove the Older Andy moments at the top.

But I’m confident and zippy because I’ve finished all my homework and the stage manager has made copies of the new act two, and I know that the most difficult stuff has been, indeed, wrestled to the ground in this rewrite and that we’ve taken a significant step forward. “Don’t be taking me backwards, dudes, and raining on my parade,” I think to myself. I don’t say that, quite precisely, or even at all. But I’m wondering, as we go back to track through the entirety of the film-within-the-play sequence, and I witness now the actor once again struggling to make sense of how to show the transitioning from 50 to 25, and then asking WHY the transition from 50 to 25, it begins to frustrate. They’d like a clean opening; no confusion. I’m interested in the fluidity of the 50 year old artist struggling to say something which is difficult, and only working his way into his 25 year old persona as the personal wrestling takes us through the end of the first paragraph. At a tense break, I review my intentions with the director. The bracketing of the play. The doubleness that we’ve invested in at the opening and ending of the piece — it’s OF a piece with what this Act II opening section wants to be. As usual, my director hears me. She’s presented her case; her reading; her confusion and uncertainty as to how to stage what’s on the page, but she’s open to listening. We talk. I depart. I go up to my office to check in. I scribe some tart little comments on my computer journal. I’ll share them here, why not?

“Dangerous to walk into a room with confidence in this business. The second you enter with it, they’ll wanna rub it out of you with doubts; with skepticism; nothing rallies a group more than shooting down a little individual gumption and aggressiveness. Not until that assertive charge is codified externally and labeled “vision;” or “bravery;” given the mark of “Quality.” Only then do you receive permission to hurtle forth. And hurtle forward you all do, onto the next horizon and creative challenge. And all is good. But it was that confidence and clarity amid the fog that got you to the next landing. Remember that.”

So there I am. Stewing in my own juice. Back at a familar place with a chip on the shoulder. And I come back to the room, back from our 20 minute lunch (again, I’m a minute late; not good), and they’re just beginning to re-work and this time, as they run from the top of the act, the opening flows. It starts in that private creative clotted place and bursts forward to a wild and lunatic and very funny expression, all within that opening page, and the actors playing actors in the scene all assemble and perform their enthusiasm and sincerity with gusto, and it’s thrilling to see and hear Daniella embracing the intentions of the scene and figuring out the elaborate road-map to guide the entirety of the sequence toward its lunatic tour-de-force realization. It has a shape and a logic — even as — by the end of the day — I’ve been forced to discover a whole other component of the film scene that is an internal contradiction — as in, what kind of ending for the film did our protagonist envision? He seems to have wanted two different endings. A happy and a tragic one. A redemptive and a critical indictment. How can it be both!!? Or in wanting (unwittingly) for it to be both, is that why the film short-circuits, the actors turn into haunting Freudian ghost specters, and our protagonist winds up arrested for assembly without a permit? I’ve learned something totally new that we’ll address in some new moments. And that’s exciting and thrilling and humbling. Mr. Cocky and Confident who had all these notions of Intentions and Purposeful Fluidity, has just been shown and taught something he didn’t realize in his own play! And there are things to address. And he will. And he’s grateful to the company—and especially that smart director—for embracing the first intention to lead us forward only to discover something new we didn’t know that needs to be addressed as we move further down the road to realization.

So it’s a great day, as we gather near the end of rehearsal, to read through the critical big scenes later in the act that I’ve rewritten. And they pass muster. They aren’t perfect–there’s now some new tweaking to do but it’s finer, smaller, the big cuts and reshaping is in place–and we’ll be working on staging these scenes today (on Friday) and it’s good. We’re moving forward. There’s more to share on events from after rehearsal. Some exciting news. I’ll share them in a follow up. Onward.

March 16
Notes from Rehearsal #10: The reading at TI last night of the first 50 minutes of Act I went really well. So grateful for the laughter throughout. Really the most gratifying. Leaned a LOT. About needed restores in the bath tub scene and tweaks here and there, and plenty of nuance and rhythm issues for performance. But what we presented last night was a reading at music stands — going backwards, in a sense, from the staging with scripts in hand we’ve already been doing. Still it was a useful check-in for all of us as to how we’re doing as story-tellers. And where, o where dear playwright, will another 5 minutes of cuts come from? Or are you giving up on this fruitless search (I speak to myself a lot in the 3rd person these days)? No giving up!!!!

March 17
Rehearsal Report #11: We’ve finished blocking the whole play. Today at 2 we walk/run it altogether, from beginning to end; see what we have. The relief is that the rewrites came in and continued and resolved in fairly elegant fashion yesterday. Got a lot done on the car and hospital scene. I missed the wedding staging, out at a wonderful dinner party for Katie’s best-friend’s mother’s 80th b-day. A fun night. Left my bag at the theater. Came back at 10:45 to pick it up, and saw that we’d had another Sold Out performance of RACE. Yesterday was one of most lucrative days at the theater — and RACE has now brought in 5,600 patrons with TWO FINAL SHOWS TODAY (at 3 and 7:30). Our hit encore production of NEW JERUSALEM: THE INTERROGATION OF BARUCH DE SPINOZA brought in 5,700 last season. We’ll probably be breaking that today. Not too shabby.

March 18 – Day Off!

March 21
Update from ANDYLAND Week 3: Designer Run tonight. Because of a syllabus snafu, I’ve wound up needing to invite my entire “Theater of Politics and The Politics of Theater” class to attend the run-through together with the design team. CRAZY teacher/playwright/producer! But the students have been prepared for what they’re going to be seeing (and not seeing; no costumes no sets; some scenes off-book, mostly not). We’ll be like kids in a clown car, stuffed into a community hall. How’re we doing? We’ve cut 5 pages off the play in the last 8 days. A couple key consolidations in each act. Killed off a cute line or two (kinda like a kid or a puppy; something’s gotta get nipped). We’ll be stepping back from further tweaks for the next stretch as we move to commit the play to memory. Still 9 days before tech. Set’s getting loaded in. Working with real furniture pieces. It’s becoming REAL (but it’s still a fiction). Two interviews today (with TheatreWashington and The Forward). Two more next week. The real star of this show, however, is our director, so I’ll be sending every reporter over Daniella Topol’s way.

March 23
Last day of tweaks and cuts – script to freeze after today’s rehearsal through tech run 8 days from now. What a process ! There have been 30 batches of rewrite pages distributed over the last 3 weeks. 6 original pages from the 1st day of rehearsal remain in place, out of an original 106 pages; 100 pages have been revised. The current script is 7 pages shorter than it was 19 days ago. That’s what a Daniella Topol rehearsal process on a new play looks like: Lots of blood on the floor, and a happy company, and a better play. Onward toward our weekend run-through tomorrow, one week before tech!