BILL’S NOTES

MARCH 22 – APRIL 22, 2017

the humansBY STEPHEN KARAM

When selecting the 2017/2018 season for the Stanley Industrial Alliance Stage, I looked for works that had ‘family’ as central to the piece. The season opened with Angels in America: Perestroika, where a family of sorts is formed at the conclusion of Tony Kushner’s two-part epic. Then, Mike Bartlett’s comedy King Charles III examined what might take place when certain members of a family take matters into their own hands. Our recent production of Jitters by David French centered on the theatrical family: actors and other members of the creative team that come together for the brief time when they are all involved in creating a production. And now, The Humans, which looks at an actual family (the Blakes) with all their foibles and issues as the members meet at Thanksgiving and deal with such common concerns as ‘aging’ and ‘family dynamics’. The Pulitzer Prize committee called this play “a profoundly affecting drama that sketches the psychological and emotional contours of an average American family.” The play is also timely in that the Blakes are dealing with the changing economy, and as the production premiered in the fall of 2015, the issue that one of the daughters is facing reflects what eventually led to the election of the current President.

Director Amiel Gladstone is best known as the co-writer and director of the award-winning Onegin, which is now on the final stretch of a six-month tour engagement, which included stops in Victoria, Calgary, Edmonton, Whitehorse, and various B.C. locations, then closing in Saskatoon on April 8. He has assembled a strong cast with Arts Club veterans Nicola Lipman (Boeing-Boeing/Cabaret) and Kevin McNulty (Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?) joining Briana Buckmaster, Samantha Rose Richard, Parm Soor, and Gina Stockdale. The creative team includes: Drew Facey (set), Jenifer Darbellay (costumes), Adrian Muir (lighting), and David Meisha (sound).

I would also like to acknowledge the arrival of our new Artistic Director, Ashlie Corcoran, as my final season at the Stanley draws to a close with the opening of Mamma Mia! in May. Ms. Corcoran’s 2018/2019 season has been announced and I trust you will join her in celebrating her first season for the Arts Club Theatre Company.

Bill Millerd, Artistic Managing Director

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SYNOPSIS (SPOILER ALERT!)

The setting of the play is a two-level (basement and ground-floor) duplex in Manhattan’s Chinatown. In thelower level, a folding table is set with Thanksgiving-themed plates and nap-kins. As the play opens, middle-aged Erik stands in the upstairs area and hears a disturbing “thud” sound coming from the apartment immedi-ately above. He looks up, wondering what’s causing the sound, and hears it again. His adult daughters, Brigid (who lives in this apartment with her partner, Richard) and Aimee (visiting from Philadelphia), enter. Erik, his wife Deidre, and Erik’s elderly mother, Momo (in a wheelchair and suffering from dementia), have driven into the city from Scranton, Pennsylvania, to cel-ebrate the holiday at their daughter’s new place. Momo mumbles cryptically, repeatedly: “you can never come back…” Deidre refers to this as her “phrase-of-the-day,” something Momo’s doctor has said is normal for her stage of dementia. Deirdre tries to include Erik in the conversation, but he’s staring out the window, distracted by something. He apologizes for not hearing her, and says he’s still feeling tired from the long drive. The “thud” sound starts again, and Erik suggests that Brigid call her super about it. Brigid shrugs it off: “this is New York, people are loud,” she tells her father. Deidre tries to talk about Erik’s difficulty with sleeping, but he cuts her off abruptly and says he’s okay. Aimee calls from the washroom to ask for more toilet paper. Brigid searches through their things, still mostly packed in boxes from their recent move (into the city from Queens), to find a roll of toilet paper for her sister, who suffers from ulcerative colitis. She finds it, and passes it through a crack in the bathroom door. While Aimee uses the washroom, Brigid and Deirdre talk about Aimee’s break-up with her longtime girlfriend, agreeing that Aimee seems to be having an especially rough time coping with it. Hinting that Brigid and Richard should formally marry, Deirdre remarks that “marriage can help you weather a storm…”

As Brigid looks for something in another area of the duplex, Erik and Deirdre talk quietly. They seem to be arguing. Brigid returns and jokes that they better not be “dissing” her new home. Erik says he loves it, and Deirdre agrees, but then asks why there are bars on the windows. Brigid explains that this is stan-dard for ground-floor-level New York apartments. The view looks out onto an

THE HUMANSFAMILY DRAMA, ON MORE THAN ONE LEVEL

alley—or, Brigid corrects them, “interior courtyard”—littered with cigarette butts, which Deidre says is “gross.” Erik chimes in, that if they moved back to Pennsylvania their “quality of life would shoot up.” Erik observes that China-town flooded during the last major hurricane. Brigid replies that that’s partly why she can afford to live there, given rent prices in Lower Manhattan. She adds, pointedly, that he doesn’t provide her any money to help out with her expenses. Erik is offended, but Brigid adds, “No one’s gonna steer a plane into a fish market on Grand Street.” He says that he preferred her living in Queens. Aimee interjects that Philadelphia is safer than New York, to which Brigid shoots back that “not even terrorists wanna spend time in Philly” be-cause it’s “awful.” Erik notes that they also think Scranton is “awful” (both of his daughters agree on this), which he considers ironic, since Momo “almost killed herself getting outta New York…and now her granddaughter moves right back to the place she struggled to escape.” Richard enters with a bottle of champagne. Brigid says that they need to “bless” both levels of the duplex with a champagne toast, per Irish tradition. Erik begins singing a traditional song, Brigid joins in, then Aimee and Deirdre sing along as well. They hope that Momo will sing part of the song, too, but instead she interrupts with more unintelligible mumbling. After they finish singing, Brigid relates that she is spending her nights bartending, as she’s still struggling to pay down her student-loan debt. Her father reminds her that she refused to go to a more affordable state school, opting instead for a private university. Deirdre takes Momo to the washroom upstairs; they have to use the elevator on account of the wheelchair. Richard asks Erik how the lake house they’re planning to build is coming along. Erik answers that they can’t get started until sewers are installed. Richard asks about Erik’s work. He hesitates in responding, but Brigid interrupts him, telling Richard that her father has worked at St. Paul’s, a Catholic high school, for 28 years, as a maintenance worker and equipment manager. Erik tries to change the subject; he advises Richard to save money now, because expenses just keep piling up as people age.

Aimee talks about her stressful, demanding job at a law firm. Erik brags that she’s an “all-star,” but Aimee tells them that she is no longer on track to be a partner, which might mean that she will be let go. She explains that she’s missed a lot of work due to health problems, but insists that she’s financially stable, for now. Brigid suggests that Erik lead them in another toast. He talks about the importance of family and of coming together despite differences. Aimee asks her parents if they plan to break ground on the lake house this summer. “No…,” answers Deirdre, trailing off. Later, upstairs, Erik overhears an awkward phone conversation between Aimee and her ex-girlfriend. After ending the call, Aimee cries and tells Erik that she really misses her ex. He tries to console his older daughter. Downstairs, Brigid says that she wishes Richard had known Momo before she “got sick.” Richard observes that both Erik and Deirdre call her “Mom,” to which Deirdre replies, “that’s what’s

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special about marriage, Rich, real marriage…you get two families.” Brigid is annoyed that her mother keeps mentioning marriage, with little subtlety. Erik tries to assure Aimee that she’ll find someone else, and ultimately “come outta this stronger.”

A little later, Brigid and Aimee speak, away from the others. Aimee confides that her doctors have said she will need to have her intestine removed. She laments that she won’t ever be able to find another girlfriend when she’s “pooing out of a hole in [her] abdomen.” Erik, meanwhile, tells Richard the story of when he drove Aimee into New York for a job inter-view, the first time he’d ever visited the city—on September 11, 2001. He says that it took him hours to find her after the attacks had occurred. No one notices that, meanwhile, Momo has gotten up from the couch and wandered away. Moments later, they’re startled by the sound of pots and pans crash-ing down in the kitchen. They’re concerned that she might be hurt, but she isn’t. After Erik resituates his mother in her wheelchair, the rest of the family sits down for dinner. Erik begins to say grace; the others join in, including Momo. Everyone is de-lighted by her unexpected participation. Over dinner, Erik laments that his daughters are not religious; Deirdre has brought a statue of the Virgin Mary for Brigid, but Brigid says she’ll put it in a drawer, not on display. Richard suggests that Brigid tell her family about something that’s been troubling her. Brigid proceeds to read aloud from a tepid, borderline negative letter of reference from a professor at her alma mater—a letter she’d hoped would help her secure a job in her field, but which, instead, may have adversely im-pacted her prospects. She’s very upset about this. Richard comforts her. Erik jokes that she can always work retail. He then reveals that he’s been having disturbing nightmares lately, seriously affecting his sleep. Later, Deirdre reads an email written by Momo, just before her illness took hold. It’s an emotion-al letter to her family. “Don’t worry about me once I drift off for good,” she

THE CAST OF THE HUMANS. PHOTO BY DAVID COOPER

writes, and urges them to “be good to everyone you love.” Everyone is teary-eyed after Deirdre finishes reading it.

On account of the bad weather and the fact that everyone’s been drinking, Aimee says that she’s going to call a car service to drive her parents and grandmother back to Scranton. Erik tries to dissuade her, but she insists. Richard offers them desserts, and Deirdre announces that, for today, she’s disregarding her Weight Watchers diet and indulging in holiday treats. Erik makes insensitive comments about her eating—clearly a sore subject. Then, he asks his daughters to come and listen, because he needs to tell them something. Naturally, they’re worried. He begins by admitting that he and Deirdre have sold their lakefront property, then confesses that he was actually let go by St. Paul’s and is consequently having serious financial difficulties. He continues, reluctantly, explaining that he violated the private, Catholic school’s “morality code”: he had an affair with a teacher from the school. His daughters are shocked by this. Erik says that he and Deirdre have worked through it, with help from their priest. He’s now employed at a Wal-Mart. Erik and Deirdre plan to sell their house and rent an apartment to cut down on ex-penses. Visibly shaken up by her father’s news, Brigid interjects, “you’re good but you’re not sleeping and Mom’s still eating her feelings / it’s freaking me out.” As the family argues, another loud “thud” comes from the apartment above. Brigid tells Richard to go up there and say something to the occupant, but then says she’ll do it instead. She storms out, claiming she needs some air. Erik tries to get her to come back and talk to him. Momo has an intense

“fit,” swearing and ranting incoherently. Erik tries to calm her down by push-ing her wheelchair around the room, as if she’s a baby in a stroller. After using the washroom again, Aimee tells her parents she needs to go for a walk around the block. Erik tries to talk to her. He mentions how scared he was that he’d lost her on September 11, when he spotted a fireman carrying a body that looked like hers. Aimee feels for her father, but needs to step out before the car (which she plans to take to Penn Station) comes to pick them up.

She comes back to tell them the car is out front. As Erik tries to get their dish-es and things together, the lights in the duplex go out. Erik, carrying an LED lantern, props a chair in the door leading to the upstairs hallway, allowing for a little more light. He tries to flick the switches in the fuse box, but nothing happens. He can hear the thudding sound overhead, louder than before and now combined with a ‘click-clack’ sound. An elderly Chinese woman wheels her laundry cart past the basement window. Suddenly, Erik has what appears to be a panic attack: he sobs, mutters a “Hail Mary,” tries to steady his breath. Brigid enters, and reminds him that the driver is waiting, and having to re-peatedly circle the block. She tries to find something to say to her father. Not knowing what, she just offers to ride along with them to Penn Station, and

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then take the subway back downtown. Erik turns off the lantern, and exits down the hallway—now the only source of light in the duplex. After he walks away, the chair holding the door open gives way to the weight of the door, leaving the apart-ment in full darkness, as the play ends.

CHARACTERS

Erik Blake A 60-year-old father and husband, who resides in Scranton, Pennsylvania, with his wife, Deirdre, and his ailing, elderly mother. Until recently, Erik worked as a maintenance person at a local Catholic high school.

Deidre Blake Erik’s wife, 61, a woman of strong religious faith, who spends much of her time assisting charitable causes.

Aimee Blake Erik and Deidre’s older daughter, 34, working for a law firm in Philadelphia. Aimee recently split from her longtime girlfriend. She suffers from severe ulcerative colitis.

Brigid Blake Erik and Deirdre’s younger daughter, 26, living in New York City with her partner, Richard. Brigid studied music at a prestigious private university, but is now working as a bartender, overwhelmed by student-loan debt and unable to find a job in her field.

“Momo” BlakeBlake Erik’s beloved mother, 79, suffering from dementia, cared for by Erik and Deirdre.

Richard SaadBrigid’s partner, 38, a graduate student, originally from Cape Cod, Massachusetts. It is suggested that Richard’s family may be wealthy, and that they’ve set up a trust fund for him.

ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT

Stephen Karam is an award- winning American playwright. Raised in Scranton, Pennsylvania, Karam attended college at Brown University, graduating in 2002. His plays Sons of the Prophet (2011) and The Humans (2014) were both nominated for the Pulitzer Prize; The Humans also won the Tony Award for Best Play. Karam’s earlier works include Emma (2000), Girl on Girl (2005), columbinus (2005), Speech & Debate (2006), and Dark Sisters (2011). He teaches in the Drama program at New York’s The New School.

STEPHEN KARAM: “EMOTIONAL AUTOBIOGRAPHY”—LIFE AND WORK

Stephen Karam has called The Humans a kind of “emotional autobiography, but…not literal autobiography.” He explains, “I’m drawing on real things, but ultimately I’ve written a fictional play.” A brief survey of Karam’s life and work to date will help to provide a clearer picture of what exactly he meant in describing his much-lauded play in these terms.

Karam was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, in 1979, into a Lebanese-Ameri-can, Mennonite family. In The Humans, Scranton is also the hometown of the Blake family, and where Erik, Deirdre, and Momo still reside. Unlike their two daughters—who have moved to New York and Philadelphia—the older Blake generations are also discernibly religious, though Catholic rather than Men-nonite. Within the popular imagination, Scranton, a small city (pop. 77,291) in northeastern Pennsylvania, is synonymous with blue-collar America, particularly the steel and iron industries that once employed many Scrantonians; former vice president Joe Biden, born and raised in Scranton, is perhaps the city’s most representative and well-known native son.

Like Brigid Blake, Karam opted for an elite private university over a state school (as her father would have preferred): he left Scranton to attend Brown University, an Ivy League institution located in Providence, Rhode Island. There he stud-ied English, and produced his first play, Emma (2000). After graduating from Brown in 2002, he widened his experience further by serving as an apprentice at the Utah Shakespeare Festival.

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By 2005, Karam, at 26, had added two more plays to his writing credits: Girl on Girl and columbinus. The latter was inspired by the notorious school shooting in Colorado. Evincing Karam’s developing experimental tendencies, the play incorporated direct reflections from survivors and parents of victims of the 1999 massacre. columbinus premiered at the Round House Theatre in Silver Spring, Maryland in 2005, then moved on to New York, with its Off-Broadway debut at the New York Theatre Workshop the following year.

Around this time, Karam himself had also moved to New York. It was there that Karam drew particular inspiration for the distinctive setting in The Humans, from two different, temporary living spaces—one an apartment in Chinatown (the Lower Manhattan neighbourhood to which Brigid and Richard have recently moved), the other a basement duplex in the Upper West Side. The merging of these two quintessentially New York locations is perhaps the most obvious example of how he fictionalized his own life experiences in writing The Humans.

Karam’s next work was Speech & Debate, a play centered on the experience of three teenagers, hoping to revive their high school’s defunct debate club while attempting to expose a teacher whom they suspect of being a sexual predator. After being workshopped in Providence, Speech & Debate premiered Off-Broad-way at Roundabout Underground in 2007. The New York Times praised the play’s “picture of the borderland between late adolescence and adulthood, where grown-up ideas and ambition coexist with childish will and bravado.” Following from its success in New York, Karam’s work enjoyed subsequent runs in Chicago and, in 2017 (a decade after its debut), in the U.K., at Westminster’s Trafalgar Studios. Speech & Debate was also adapted, by Karam, into a film of the same name (2017), directed by Dan Harris, with appearances by Kristen

SCRANTON, PENNSYLVANIA

Chenoweth, Darren Criss, Janeane Garofalo, and Kal Penn.

Karam followed Speech & Debate with Dark Sisters and Sons of the Prophet, both of which premiered in 2011. For the latter play, Karam returned to his familial and geographical roots. Sons of the Prophet follows the travails of Lebanese-American brothers in small-town Pennsylvania, struggling to get by after the death of their father; the play’s title refers to the famous prose-poetry collection The Prophet, by Kahlil Gibran, to whom the play’s fictional protago-nists are distantly related. Critics took note of Karam’s increasingly recognizable style and recurring themes; one reviewer, for instance, observed, “Through piec-es like Speech & Debate...and Sons of the Prophet…Karam has demonstrated an acute perceptiveness for the ways people lean on one another even as they get under each other’s skins.” In 2012, Sons of the Prophet was cited as a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, further confirmation of Karam’s burgeoning reputation.

The great promise of Karam’s earlier plays was fulfilled by The Humans, which again combined biographical elements with fictional ones to create a powerful, original work. Initially, Karam had intended to write a play directly concerned with the long aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the 2008 financial crisis. These larger, culture-shaping events certainly figure into his resulting work, but they are part of its contextual fabric, not its principal focus. The relationships, conflicts, and traditions within a family, spanning multiple generations, occupy the foreground of the story; the “peppermint pig” hammered apart by the Blakes, for instance, is a tradition maintained in Karam’s own family.

Initially, The Humans opened not in New York, but in Chicago—at the American Theatre Company, in 2014. The following year, it moved on to the Off-Broadway Laura Pels Theatre, and then made its Broadway debut at the Helen Hayes The-atre in 2016. Karam’s play was recognized as the year’s best at the Drama Desk Awards, the Obie Awards, and the Tony Awards. Like Sons of the Prophet, The Humans was also named as a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The Pulit-zer committee called Karam’s work “a profoundly affecting drama that sketches the psychological and emotional contours of an average American family.” By most estimates, The Humans probably would have won the prize if not for the cultural sensation of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton, the victor. Incidentally, Miranda himself later appeared in a small role in the film adaptation of Speech & Debate.

In the wake of the remarkable success of The Humans, Karam has continued his work for the theatre, penning a 2016 adaptation of Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard, and served as a part-time faculty member at New York’s The New

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School, where he teaches in the College of Performing Arts. If his impressive résumé thus far is any indication, Karam seems poised to continue producing powerful, topical, and, above all, uniquely personal plays in the years ahead. In one recent interview, he reflected that “the best piece of art a person is capable of making is the one that only they could create.” Karam’s own work is persua-sive evidence of the truth of this assertion.

AFTER THE ATTACKS: 9/11 AND ITS AFTERMATH ON STAGE AND SCREEN

The seismic impact of the September 11, 2011, terrorist attacks on American cul-ture is an essential, if peripheral, aspect of The Humans, informing the thoughts and fears of Karam’s characters. When Erik Blake expresses his uneasiness with Brigid living in Manhattan, that anxiety comes from his own experience, having visited the city with his other daughter, Aimee, then frantically searched for her amidst the post-attack chaos. The trauma of the event has clearly stuck with him, as it has for countless Americans, including many who weren’t actually in New York at the time. 9/11 and its aftermath have shaped and provoked numer-ous films, plays, and television shows produced since September 2001. This essay will consider some of the more notable examples among such works.

One of the earliest artistic responses came in the form of an omnibus film titled 11’9’’01: September 11, released exactly one year after the attacks. This collection of short films was particularly remarkable for the diversity of the filmmakers who contributed to it. They included the Iranian director Samira Makhmal-baf, France’s Claude Lelouch, Egypt’s Youssef Chahine, Bosnia-Herzegovina’s Danis Tanovi, Burkina Faso’s Idrissa Ouedraogo, the UK’s Ken Loach, Mexico’s Alejandro González Iñárritu, Israel’s Amos Gitaï, India’s Mira Nair, Japan’s Shohei Imamura, and American actor/director Sean Penn. Each short was titled after the director’s country of origin, and addressed the subject in culturally and nationally specific ways; while some of the films offered relatively abstract takes on the titular event, others addressed the events of September 11 head-on.

Over the years that followed, several films sought to represent the moment-to-moment experience of the attacks as they occurred. Paul Greengrass’s harrowing United 93 was set almost entirely aboard one of the hijacked flights, as passengers fought to regain control of the plane. Upon its release—five years after the attacks, in 2006—many viewers found Greengrass’s film too overwhelming, knowing as they did the inexorable, terrible fate of the passengers. The film was highly acclaimed by critics. Representative of the consensus, one reviewer wrote, “United 93 is powerful not only in the way it provides hope through the actions of a few unlikely heroes, but in its ability to take us back in time to a day many of us would prefer not to remember, but

will never forget.” Another critic pithily observed that it “may be the most wrenching, profound, and perfectly made movie nobody wants to see.”

While Greengrass utilized a cinema verité-style aesthetic and cast few, if any, widely recognizable actors, Oliver Stone adopted a nearly opposite approach to the daunting challenge of depicting 9/11 on film. His World Trade Center, released in 2006 and starring Nicolas Cage, Maria Bello, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Michael Shannon, is equal parts big-budget action thriller and monumental tragedy writ large. Its reception among critics was decidedly more mixed than that of United 93, with some accusing Stone of histrionic melodrama. Neverthe-less, its New York premiere was attended by former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former New York Governor George Pataki, and then-New York Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scopetta, who expressed their approval of the film’s emphasis on first responders as selfless heroes.

As Greengrass’ and Stone’s films, among others, dramatized the actual events of September 11, other films, particularly documentaries, considered the murky geopolitical maneuvering in the wake of the attacks. Most noteworthy among these films was Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004), which examined the George W. Bush administration’s use of the Al Qaeda-directed terrorist attacks to justify military intervention in Iraq. Moore’s film was awarded the prestigious Palm d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, and received mostly positive reviews from critics upon its North American release. It was also a major hit at the box-office, eventually becoming the highest-grossing documentary of all-time, despite generating much controversy and opposition in some quarters, for its polemical treatment of then-President Bush and his inner circle. In retrospect, Fahrenheit 9/11 may be seen as an early example of the “truther” conspiracy- theory industry that continues to question the official facts of 9/11 and the U.S. government’s response to it, though Moore’s film—to be fair—is considerably more nuanced, and less wildly, dubiously speculative, than much of what’s followed after it.

Other films around this time endeavoured to capture aspects of the post-9/11 “mood,” especially in New York City. Spike Lee’s 25th Hour (2002) was one of the first films shot in the city immediately after the attacks. Lee added explicit discussion of 9/11 to his screenplay, adapted from a novel by David Benioff. Yet, the whole film—following a drug dealer’s (Edward Norton) last night of free-dom before beginning a long prison sentence—is suffused with the mournful, anxious mood of its specific time and place.

Another fine example of this approach is Margaret, written and directed by play-wright/filmmaker Kenneth Lonergan. Filmed in 2005 but not released until 2011, Lonergan’s film presented a teenaged girl’s (Anna Paquin) traumatic response

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to a bus accident, for which she may be partly responsible, as a kind of allegory for the survivor’s guilt and anguish that many felt in post-9/11 New York.

More literal than Lonergan’s work, 2007’s Reign Over Me explored similar, complicated emotions through the story of a man (Adam Sandler) whose wife and daughters were killed in the attacks. A few years later, Stephen Daldry’s Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2011, based on Jonathan Safran Foer’s 2005 novel of the same name) focused on the experiences of a nine-year-old boy (Thomas Horn) trying to make sense of the attacks, after the death of his father (Tom Hanks) in one of the World Trade Center towers. Both Foer’s novel and Daldry’s film adaptation received mixed reviews, but some readers and viewers found their evocation of a child’s limited understanding of what had happened poignant and affecting.

While films approached September 11 and its aftermath from various angles, fictional television shows also tried to confront the culture-changing events. Se-ries like 24, The West Wing, and Law & Order were compelled to work the “new reality,” post-9/11, into their narratives. Comedic shows like Arrested Develop-ment, South Park, and Family Guy found ways to deal with the attacks and the subsequent wars in the Middle East at a time when comedy and irony—so it was often said, then—had been fatally stifled by tragedy. (Incidentally, Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane had actually been booked to fly on one of the hi-jacked planes, but overslept and missed his flight due to a hangover.) Later, the post-9/11 counterterrorism efforts at the C.I.A. were dramatized in the Emmy Award–winning Homeland, adapted from an Israeli TV series.

In addition to film and television works, numerous notable plays attempted to address the effects of 9/11. Anne Nelson’s The Guys centered on a newspaper editor assisting a New York Fire Department captain in writing eulogies for the many firefighters who died at the Ground Zero site. Since premiering Off-Broad-way on December 4, 2001, Nelson’s play has been performed in 48 of America’s 50 states, as well as in several countries overseas.

The playwright/filmmaker Neil LaBute’s The Mercy Seat (2002) told the fictional story of a man who worked in the World Trade Center, but happened to be away from the office, engaging in a tryst with his lover, at the time of the attacks. Re-alizing that he’d be presumed dead by his family, the protagonist contemplates setting out with his lover to start a new, secret life. LaBute first conceived of this story during a long bus ride, from Chicago to New York, after his September 11 flight was cancelled. Liev Schreiber and Sigourney Weaver starred in The Mercy Seat’s Off-Broadway production, a critical and commercial success that sold out its entire run at New York’s MCC Theatre.

Veteran playwright Sam Shepard delivered his take on 9/11 in The God of Hell, which premiered at The Actors Studio Drama School in 2004. Notably, Shepard’s play is set not in New York, but Wisconsin. Its concern is less the attacks themselves than the increased government surveillance and attempts at silencing political dissent in post-9/11 America. The disturbing story attests to the wider, sociopolitical impact of September 11, felt well beyond New York and Washington, D.C.

Finally, Wajahat Ali’s The Domestic Crusaders presented another side of the tragedy—the increased hostility directed at Muslim Americans following the attacks. Ali’s play aimed to show how the circumstances of a suburban, relative-ly well-off Pakistani-American family were starkly impacted by 9/11. The Domes-tic Crusaders opened—on September 11, 2009, at the Off-Broadway Nuyorican Poets Café—to great acclaim, attracting vocal celebrity admirers such as Toni Morrison, Emma Thompson, and Dave Eggers. Eggers, the Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius author and McSweeney’s founder, wrote: “The Domes-tic Crusaders is fast, funny, whip-smart, and both constantly surprising and deeply edifying. If you see only one irreverent, hilarious, profound, furious, and big-hearted play about a Pakistani-American family living in a post-9/11 world, make it this one.”

More than a decade and a half removed from the attacks, their many conse-quences continue to inform the thoughts of artists working in nearly every creative medium. As in The Humans, the day itself is often presented as a pain-ful, unshakable memory, one that created a violent dividing line in time—an ostensibly more innocent “before” and a markedly changed “after.”

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SPOTLIGHT ON: ME AND YOU

April 12–May 6, 2018Goldcorp Stage at the BMO Theatre Centre

Me and You is a new play by Melody Anderson, receiving its world premiere. As one of Canada’s most accomplished mask designers, Melody has designed and constructed 3,000 masks for 50 productions, over the span of 30 years. She has also worked in collec-tive creation. For Me and You, Melody embarked on a new creative journey, writing and designing masks for a play that charts the lives of two sisters with humour, heart, and theatrical ingenuity.

Through a series of defining moments, Me and You invites us into Liz and Lou’s relationship. We watch as they develop separate but intertwined identities, navigating childhood, adolescence, careers, relationships, parenthood, and old age. Liz plays by the rules, while Lou breaks them. Liz remains in their home-town, while Lou travels the world. Liz becomes a biologist, while Lou becomes an artist. The sisters transform before our eyes through versatile performances and detailed, expressive masks. Their trajectories both oppose and mirror each other in surprising ways. Additionally, Liz and Lou mature against the backdrop of seismic social and political changes, which cleverly bubble up throughout the play. Ultimately, Me and You asks how we can discover who we are as individu-als, while navigating the family bonds that define us.

We have been developing Me and You for several years and are excited to be sharing it with audiences. This is a chance to experience something quite unique: a fresh exploration of sibling dynamics that hinges on the talents of a celebrated mask-maker. Both playful and affecting, Melody’s masks work in tandem with her words to capture two vivid, interconnected lives.

ME AND YOUSIBLING RIVALRY IN A DOUBLE-EDGED COMEDY

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