An Interview with Suzan-Lori Parks and Bonnie Metzgar

[The following is an edited and transcribed version of a public interview with Suzan-Lori Parks and Bonnie Metzgar conducted by Joseph Roach at Yale. From the audience, Elinor Fuchs briefly joined the conversation.] Joseph Roach

We’re here today to talk about the first seven days of 365 and the balance of 365. This is a special event by any measure. I know everyone here is interested in the scope of the project. How you conceived it— imagining a play a day for a year which you wrote and then imagining a play a day for a year which will now be performed in six or sevenhundred theaters, Bonnie?

Bonnie Metzgar

I think it is approaching seven hundred. It’s very hard to know exactly how many theaters. Every day, it’s a little bit more. It’s amazing. I would say somewhere between 650 and 700 theaters.

JR

And the way in which you imagined this cycle of plays in terms of the issues that come up—the ideas, the images, the gestures, the characters— there’s a continuity, there’s connection that occurs across the weeks and months ahead. Do you want to say something about that? What from the first seven days might we see again?

Suzan-Lori Parks

In terms of subject matter? In terms of subject matter, there are recurring characters throughout the year. There are recurring themes. There are what I call tribute plays.

When I woke up one morning—it happened many times throughout the year—a famous person had passed away, like Johnny Cash. I wrote a play for Johnny Cash. Or, George Plimpton and John Ritter passed away kinda near the same time so they appear in a play together. It’s called A Play for (George Plimpton) and (John Ritter). Those are tribute plays.

Or, what I call project plays. There’s a play called Project Macbeth. There’s a play called Project Tempest, which is sort of an urban take, if you will, on some of the classics. There’s a series called Father Comes Home from the Wars. Not the same father. A different father, a different home, a different war. Repeated. Revisited throughout the year.

I would say that the through-line through the whole cycle is not the traditional through-line—we’re taught to see a series of story points as the through-line—but from play to play to play. […] The through-line through the whole cycle—instead of a series of story points—is the river of spirit or the river of the collective unconscious like Carl Jung spoke of. Every day, I had to, as I was writing this, as I was making this daily offering to theater; I had to ground myself, immerse myself in the river of spirit and it comes through to connect all of the plays and it comes through tonight when we see you all [Yale students] perform. The simple act of writing the play, organizing the festival, hooking up with Joe and Emily [Coates] and the World Performance Project [at Yale]. Without you all, we would not be here at this wonderful place, not just here at Yale tonight, but we wouldn’t be the 365 National Festival as lovely and developed as we are. So, we really appreciate you guys. The whole thing of writing the plays, of coordinating this festival, or passing it off to the first leg of the Northeast network. You guys are the Northeast network?

JR

We are the Northeast network. The “hub.”

SLP

The Northeast network, the hub, one of the hubs. That whole act is about immersing yourself in the river of spirit and letting it pass on. […] It’s about creating and letting go. You all have created and, at the end of the week, you will pass it on to the next group of people in your network. Other theaters all around the country and some internationally are passing it on to the next theater within their network.

JR

I heard you speak earlier about letting go of this project and your ambition to make this available to us, to those who wanted to put it on in a way that is not conventionally imagined in the way that we put on theater. Do you want to talk about inclusion? “Radical inclusion” is a phrase I remember you using.

SLP

I love saying that. It’s a phrase that came to me after the writing of the plays but I’m very aware that it’s something that I had to do in the writing of them. Talking earlier today, Bonnie and I used this phrase “radical inclusion.” To write a play a day, you have to practice radical inclusion. You cannot have a bouncer on the doorway of your creative spirit. The bouncer has got to walk away. You include everybody. You welcome all comers. All ideas are welcome to the table. For the 365 National Festival, we practice something very simple, radical inclusion, we welcome all interested parties to participate.

JR

It leads me to a question that I wasn’t sure that I was going to ask because it’s a question on the kind of subject that we often don’t think it’s appropriate to ask. I want to ask about religion. In your language, in your poetry, in your way of thinking and approaching the world, in the voice of your words on the page, on the stage and now in your presence, there is a language and a spirit. Would you talk about that in the work, if you’d like?

SLP

The spirit and God are separate from religion. I know this is Yale but I’m making these things up kinda on the fly as I go about my business.

JR

For God, for Country, for… whatever [laughter].

SLP

No, no, no. I really feel that God is separate from religion, which seems like something organized and codified with structures and rules, whatnot. And God is, I believe, bigger than any rule or set of rulebooks that we can impose on him, her, it… what have you.

I was pointing to my arm because I get very excited. If any of you speak Sanskrit, pardon my accent or lack thereof, “îśvara-prañidhânâd vâ,” which means, loosely translated, “Follow God, the inner guide”: it’s from Yoga Sutra’s 1:2:3. I have it written twice on my arm. Once in small print and once in large print. In place of a watch. So, what time is it? It’s time to follow god, the inner guide! [laughter] What do I do right now? Follow God, the inner guide. It’s right here. It has taken on wonderful significance this week because there have been stressful times and there it is right there.

The spirit, for me, is… this great coursing thing through which the plays come, the novels that I write come, the songs, the screenplays, even, come from the spirit. No, really, they have to come from there.

JR

I wonder if you would want to say something about spells. That’s a word in your practice that’s always intrigued me and it brings me into your work. I have a visceral feeling. I wonder if you would talk about that as a matter of the spirit and as a matter of technique.

SLP

A spell is… you’ll see a character’s name repeated with no dialogue. Or, perhaps there’ll be two characters. You’ll see it [the names] repeated with no dialogue. There’s a little guidebook at the start of the plays. You’ll see it. It’s this thing that I’ve been doing for years. I keep thinking that I will never do it again but it keeps [showing] up because I find that the more I write that my plays explode into silence. It’s where a character experiences their true inner state so they have an incredibly large moment with themselves or, if it’s a spell like: Joe RoachSuzan-Lori ParksJoe RoachSuzan-Lori Parks

JR

We’re having a conversation without speaking.

SLP

We’re having an exchange of energy.

JR

We’re in touch.

SLP

And the director, of course, can shape [it] as she sees fit. But it is an exchange of energy. It often precedes an emotional turn, an emotional change-up. It is that incredible exchange of energy that explodes into the clearing and that’s the spell where we are in our true mythic state. And these plays, while they are snapshot plays, they are very small, short little plays, they are [also] mythic plays. They are operas. They are huge and yet tiny at the same time. They’re these mythic characters, dealing with these mythic issues.

JR

Bonnie, do you want to comment on that as a director? Looking at a script from a directorial point of view when you are given this richness of a spell, casting it in the theater?

BM

I love engaging in Suzan-Lori’s text because it has these—I guess now they’re these—symbolic road maps for you to find. It was really interesting for us because there was a little while where the style sheet, which is this front matter that tells you what some of these symbols mean, wasn’t available to some of our participants. What I got were all these e-mails from people taking a stab at what those spells really meant, different directors from around the country. Because I myself have been involved with Suzan-Lori’s work for so long, I have, probably similar to you Joe, developed a relationship with when they come, the different flavors of spells, but it was really interesting to receive these e-mails from people with their own interpretations.

The interesting kind of questions are: Is it that they’re sustaining the moment? Is it the two actors, as if the language continued, and they are still connected? Or, is it a frozen moment, which I think is a little bit different in terms of stage time. Is there something locked between them or do they coast closer together? I would say that depending on where that moment fell in relation to what’s happening in the action of the scene that the action might be a little bit different.

We did some table work in New York of all of the plays. We worked with a number of actors who have been in Suzan-Lori’s work in New York over the years. And even they, in the way that they would engage with each other, some of them–you actually saw them—would loom toward each other. It was quite striking the difference in the way that they took on their own inner feelings, their own inner selves. I feel like there’s a lot of play inside those spells.

JR

The spell to me is so involved with the live presence of an actor. Do you think that way when writing a screenplay? In your novel? You’ve written different genres.

SLP

While I’ve only written one novel, Getting Mother’s Body, I play with space in the novel. I can make a chapter very short and enjoy the space that it leaves at the bottom of the page and play around with silence ’cause there’s nothing there. No, I wouldn’t actually write in the spell. The reader would experience an explosion into silence. And it’s great because it’s a visual—a white—field. I play around with that too as much as I can, given that you have to hand the manuscript over to a typesetter or whatnot.

JR

The spell really happens in the mind of the reader.

SLP

That’s what’s cool about a novel. In a novel, the reader is the actor, the director, the designer, the costume designer, the lighting designer. They do it all in their head and it’s great.

JR

I hope this doesn’t push too hard on the creative process but I was wondering about this work in relation to your previous work, to the development of your theater from Immutabilities and The America Play…

SLP

I naturally look in the audience for Ellie Fuchs. I want to acknowledge her, who’s here [today]. Elinor Fuchs is a professor at Yale. When you ask me how it relates, I say Ellie Fuchs is an incredible theater scholar and maybe Ellie will tell me [laughter]. Just tell me what it means.

Elinor Fuchs

I’m going to take this occasion to explode into silence.

JR

The way in which Topdog/Underdog takes earlier themes and develops them in different ways—it concentrates them, it seems as if it was getting into a smaller space. The ideas were just as big. The scope, even the stage itself, was reduced. Now, in 365, a whole horizon opens up.

SLP

It’s like I Ching—I know that I’m going to get this wrong—The Book of Change. The last one is like number 64 or something. You know when you hit the last one, you’re going to have to start at the beginning again. Topdog/Underdog was like the end one. I’ve hit these places before in my writing. Or, if you do karate, when you get your black belt, you’re starting all over again. You’re beginning again. It’s this coming down to the two-character play that’s in one room and then you’re a new person the next day. Which is about letting go. Instead of holding on to, “I’m going to write a whole bunch of two-character plays and put them on Broadway”—while my agent would be so happy if I did that, George Lange, he’d be so pleased—but instead of doing that I can’t but listen to the voice speaking to me, the spirit, and the spirit says write a play every day of the year and call it 365 Days/365 Plays. I said, okay, that sounds like fun.

It’s also about, in a way, outreach. With Topdog/Underdog, we continued to reach so many people. I went over to India a couple of years ago and we went all around India. In every college where we visited, the kids, the Indian kids, would do a reading for me of Topdog/Underdog. Kids in India. The south of India too. Indian college students too, women, did a reading of Topdog/Underdog. “I am Lincoln.” “I am Booth.” This is our story. It’s about getting out there and making a connection with people.

JR

And you’ve spread three-card monte across the world [laughter].

Audience Member

How do you know when the plays are done?

SLP

First, there’s a great essay by Sam Shepard, the fantastic, fantastical playwright. Many years ago, he wrote an essay called “Time,” I believe it is called, in which he talks about play length. He says, just to paraphrase briefly, a play should be no longer than it should be. Because people think, I have to write a play that I have to sit there to write a two hour, two act, or Shakespeare, a five act. A play should be no longer than it should be. I read that many years ago and it has stayed with me. I think that it is a brilliant essay.

Tennessee Williams. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. The character Brick. Brick drinks until he hears the click. I write until I hear the click. There is an audible click. If you’re listening in, I can hear when a play is done. And that’s when I know it is finished. The thing is these plays, some take up this much room [a small amount] on the page, some seven pages long. Some have an average [run of] three minutes. Some run for ten minutes. Some plays run forever. There are several forever plays. For example, March 29th’s performance. That play runs forever. There are some long ones in there. Just be warned.

JR

The influence of [Eugene] O’Neill is so strong.

BM

If I can just say one other thing about that question. It leads into some things that we’re trying to get at through the festival structure. I hear that [question] and I ask, why is it that our assumption is that a play is two hours long?

One of the reasons that we believe that is that the theaters, the buildings that house theater and the audiences that they sell tickets to, expect theater to be two hours long. Many writers write things in forms that are [shorter], like a thirty-five minute event. What does a writer do with something where the click happens and it’s thirty-five minutes long?

I created this venue in New York called Joe’s Pub. One of the things that we did at Joe’s Pub was we asked all the artists out there who were doing these things that were weirdly shaped, “Come and do it at our place.” We wanted [Joe’s Pub] to be a place where you’re always surprised about how long something is, what it is, what the nature of it is.

One of the things about 365 that is so amazing is that suddenly we are all asked, how do I create a relationship with something [like] that? It’s a really, really long play that takes a year. How do I go to it as an audience member? How do I approach it as a designer? If I’m only doing seven plays, do I look at all of it? It gets us to ask questions about what is theater and what can theater be. How do theater buildings and institutions need to expand their minds to be able to imagine different kinds of theater, shapes of theater so that we can make room for different kinds of things than just the two-hour, two-act play?

AM

What advice would you give to an aspiring playwright?

SLP

I am a morning person so I choose to get up in the morning and write. But I would suggest for those folks who are night owls or afternoon types, choose your favorite time to write. Don’t try to get up at 5am, if that’s not your thing. We were out very late [last] night at the launch in New York and, today, I was up very early, at four, walking around in NYC. It was a beautiful morning but I was up because—like Rebecca Rugg said—I was catching… the plays as they flew by because they’re out at 4am and you just walk around with a net and scoop them up.

I am a very disciplined writer. In this country, we tend to think of it as beating yourself up. Discipline is just a lattice on which a beautiful vine can grow. It’s a beautiful and loving thing that assists you in your efforts. It helps you show up at your desk every day. There were plenty of days that were difficult. Those are the days when you find out what kind of artist you are, when it’s difficult [and] you show up anyway and get the work done. Those are the good days.

AM

What do you do on difficult days?

SLP

There were several, many days like that. There were many days. One of those days, when I woke up, I decided that I didn’t have any ideas but that I would have to go through the motions. So, I sat at my desk and wrote, “Going through the motions.” And then I thought wow, the motions could be a mountain range and the play could be about people going through the mountain range, a mountain range called the Motions. And this became the play for the day. It sounds silly. When we did the table work in New York, David Patrick Kelly, who is an A-list fantastic, fantastic actor—he does stage and screen—said he loved that play because, as he said to us, this is a play written on a day when all you had was the commitment, all you had was the commitment, and you wrote anyway and he loves it for that.

Some days all you have is your commitment, especially as an artist. Or, as a spouse. Sometimes all you have is the fact that you said, “Through thick and through thin,” and that’s all you have. It’s a beautiful moment when you can show up and be present even on a difficult day. Sure, there were days like that.

AM

Prior to the publication of the book, what was it like to work with artists who could only see one piece, seven days or fourteen?

SLP

You look at the years that bracket your life and you think, “This is your time.” That’s what’s exciting. To root yourself in the moment. To root yourself in the present moment that is the challenge. To allow yourself the resonance. Each one is about exactly what it is. If you have seven, work with seven. You know what I’m saying? My grandmother used to say, “Work with what you got.”

EF

I’m trying to imagine the year that you spent doing this. One is that you got up every morning and it was a kind of meditation exercise. Or, maybe this was like one of those extended performances from the late ’70s or ’80s—I’m going to sit in this window for six months. What was your life like during this time?

SLP

It was kind of like endurance art but it was really, really trippy because it was endurance art done in private, without an audience. Very few people even knew that I was doing it. My very dear friend Bonnie Metzgar knew. I told her. My husband Paul. Other than them, nobody. It was endurance art done in private.

No, it was not a play a day for 24 hours. I would write the play in the morning. We were opening Topdog/Underdog in London. I was on my book tour for my novel. I was premiering Fucking A at the Public Theater in New York, and I was writing other things. I was writing a movie for Brad Pitt. I was teaching full-time at CalArts. Busy, busy, busy. This was my little treat that I had in the morning. Actually, it was not an offering to me. It was an offering that I made every day.