Last week Playwrights Local sat down with Les Hunter, author of To The Orchard, Dale Heinen, who directs, and Kelsey Angel Baehrens, who plays the principal character, to discuss the production.
Playwrights Local: So tell me about To The Orchard.
Kelsey Angel Baehrens: It’s a play about seeking the courage to live your own truth. And redemption, some might say. Finding your own orchard. Which could be any number of things: being able to tell the truth to the people you love, or to be accepted where you are, finding joy.
PL: And who do you play in the play?
Kelsey: I play Rachel Bergman. Who is the young writing student at Brooklyn college, who is gay and also Jewish. Which doesn’t work very well where she’s from. And she has to reconcile her sexuality with her family and the future that she wants.
Dale Heinen: The context is that of an orthodox Jewish family, living in Brooklyn. And the mother, Rachel’s mother, has just passed away very shortly before the play starts. So the play deals with the aftermath of that and what it means to her husband and her daughter.
Kelsey: It’s a sad show. But it ends with hope.
Les Hunter: It really does end on a hopeful note. All of the characters are wrestling with their past and who they are, and looking for ways to go forward. And, often, not finding them. But I think by the end of the play they have all found their own tenuous way to start groping forward. Fair?
Dale: Absolutely. And it’s worth pointing out that there’s an element of magical realism to the play, and a lot of humor to the play. There really is a lot of lightness there.
PL: Robert Plant and Virginia Woolf make appearances?
Les: They do make appearances. Not in the same band. [laughs]
Kelsey: That would be cool. Virginia and the Wolves, or something.
Les: Oh, that’s good, Virginia and the Wolves.
PL: You said this was your MFA thesis. Has it undergone some pretty radical changes since then?
Les: It has. It has. I think it’s a much better play than it was then. It had some issues. But I worked on it a lot this summer and got a lot of really good feedback on it. It’s much more streamlined. I’m excited. I think it’s going to be a great show.
PL: Did you get the opportunity to have it produced?
Les: In 2007, when I initially wrote it, it got what was then called a National Foundation for Jewish Culture Award. And they gave me $3,000. Which we immediately used on a very elaborate reading. [laughs] And I’m not exactly sure why. But there was a lot of free wine after. [laughs] And we also had a reading at Boston University where I did my MFA. And we had another reading at Brooklyn College for their Building Bridges Festival. Which was cool because a part of the play takes place at Brooklyn College. Actually, a lot of it takes place at Brooklyn College. I did my masters at Brooklyn College.
PL: So this is the first production at Playwrights Local.
Les: It’s the world premier of the play and it’s the first production that Playwrights Local is doing.
PL: That’s a lot of firsts. How has that been?
Dale: It’s also my first full production in Cleveland. I’ve only ever done workshop productions in Cleveland. But working with them has been great. Playwrights Local is a new company, and there’s always a learning curve when producing for the first time, in any new place. But the good news is that there is also a lot of collective experience in the company. Which is unusual. There’s a lot of background experience there. And another very real benefit is that it’s experience drawn from working in different cities, and the way things are done there. We’re learning a lot. And so far it’s just been really, really wonderful.
Les: It is really exciting what the company is doing. Trying to do something different than what anybody else, really, is doing in Cleveland right now. I think the challenge has been that, because it’s a new company, we don’t have a lot of stuff. [laughs]
Dale: That’s true. And so we need to acquire lighting equipment and sound equipment.
PL: And, Dale, is it challenging rehearsing in a space that isn’t the performance space?
Dale: We have the exact proportions of the stage laid out in the rehearsal space. Which is all you really need for the first few weeks. And we’ll have the set almost as soon as we move into the performance space. So, I would say, no, it’s sort of ideal, really. The only better scenario would be actually working on the set from day one. But that never happens.
Kelsey: And the cool thing, too, working with such bare bones is that we only have the text, really, and each other to go off of. This is one of my first professional shows ever anyway –
PL: Congratulations.
Kelsey: Oh, thank you! And then to be in the world premier of anything just makes the experience of working feel very purist and important, I feel fortunate to be able to come into rehearsal with my own ideas. It’s really gratifying. Immediately gratifying.
Dale: And of course it’s been wonderful that Les has been here. As we’ve been working very diligently to understand the world he’s constructed. Where is this play set? The world of the play. Because it’s not a world with which people are likely to be familiar. There’s a lot that we didn’t know, that we’ve had to learn in order to give the world its proper dimensions. The life of this community, the life of this family, the way this religion is practiced, the set of beliefs that go with it. And, of course, because all of the back story of these characters is embedded in this religion, we’ve had to also look to the history of this religion.
Les: And all of the dialects. There’s Yiddish, and there’s Brooklyn-ese, and there’s Hebrew.
Dale: There really is a lot. There’s quite a bit of Yiddish in this play. And it’s always specific and contextual. And the actor has to learn to say it, and to say it in such a way that we become convinced that he’s speaking the Yiddish as if he’d been born in Brooklyn. [laughs]. And, so, Michael Regnier, who plays the Rabbi [Isidore], he’s been working with a dialect coach –
Les: Who lives in Sweden. [laughs] A really excellent dialect coach, who I know from New York, but who is currently living in Sweden. So, they’ve been Skype-ing.
Dale: And, again, for a deeper understanding of what Michael has actually been saying in Yiddish he’s been speaking to a Hebrew scholar, a preeminent Yiddish Theatre scholar –
Les: Debra Caplan. She teaches at Baruch College, one of the CUNY schools. She also teaches at Harvard.
Kelsey: She just also teaches at Harvard.
Les: I know. She’s very impressive.
Dale: We’ve been very fortunate to have her insight into what the Yiddish actually means. And then we talked to a local Rabbi to get Michael to understand the kind of religious underpinnings to the story, and the way a Rabbi might actually behave, and what he might actually believe. Because this is a character who has Alzheimer’s it’s so important that we try to understand this aspect of his unraveling. How much of this is, for him, a function of the disease, how much of it is old age, or his individual personality, his unique way of communicating?
Les: And the actor doing it, Michael [Regnier], he asks really, really intelligent and insightful questions. He’s been exploring this character intensely. And he’s been doing it all with a lot of humor, and self-deprecation. He’s been very charming to work with.
Kelsey: And, then, he takes his time in deciding what he’s going to say. [laughs]. I mean, because you’ve got Rob [Branch] and then you’ve got Michael [Regnier], and they’re on the complete opposite ends of the spectrum. It’s a fun cast to be a part of.
Dale: And, finally, the fourth character is Tracie Braggs. Tracie is a professor, she is Rachel’s professor, at Brooklyn College.
Kelsey: Who I have a small, big, lesbian crush on.
PL: Oh?
Kelsey: Yes. It’s rather large. Well, I guess we’re making this decision, now, about whether Tracie likes her back or not.
PL: Oh, is that not –
Kelsey: So, you’ll have to see in the show. It’s ambiguously written.
Les: Intentionally so. [laughs]
Dale: In what way does she like her? She definitely likes her.
Les: Tracie is an African American Gender Studies professor at Brooklyn College. She is actually from the neighborhood that becomes the setting for the play. And it’s a fascinating neighborhood – Midwood, Brooklyn – because it is this amazing confluence of cultures: there are Orthodox Jews, and a large Caribbean component, there’s a Pakistani portion, and there’s an African American part of the neighborhood as well. And it’s all kind of smooshed together into these couple blocks of Brooklyn. And Tracie grew up in that neighborhood. She’s left to go do her studies and now she’s come back to teach at Brooklyn College. And when we meet her in the play she’s facing this dilemma with one of her favorite students, but her career is also falling apart at the same time.
PL: The research aspect of this production sounds intensive and very impressive, also, this attempt to try to be generous in portraying the characters in your play. Les, how much of that did you have to undertake alone, in the writing of it?
Les: I definitely did a lot of research. Some of it’s from my own life, I did attend a Yeshiva for a while. But I didn’t grow up in an orthodox Jewish family, so, there was a lot of stuff that I didn’t know. Especially to do with the intersection of the gay community and the Jewish community, I didn’t know anything about that. I spent a lot of time reaching out to people who do come from that world, and who’ve struggled with that splitting of identity. I spent a lot of time with an organization called Orthodykes [laughs] who were very helpful. They were awesome, actually. And, uh, so there was a large research component, certainly.
PL: The show will run from May 27 – June 12, and it opens at Waterloo Arts. But there is also going to be one weekend, that last weekend, where it will play at Dobama. From a production standpoint, was that a challenge, having to direct for two different venues?
Dale: Well, I think the biggest challenge has been for the designers. And, for the same reason, for the actors. For instance, the lighting design is going to be completely new from one space to the other. But there are advantages to working at Dobama as well. For T. Paul Lowry, for instance, who’s designing the projections for the show, he’s going to be able to achieve much more at Dobama than he will at Waterloo Arts. So, yes, there are certain challenges to working with two designs. But there are these opportunities, also, that come with that. Of course, Les is also in the Playwright’s Gym at Dobama. [The Playwrights GYM is a program that provides local playwrights with the opportunity to workshop new work.]
PL: Yes, what about that? You had a reading at Dobama recently, didn’t you? [A reading of Les’ play Down By Contact took place on May 2nd. It tells the story of a former pro quarterback who, in retirement, struggles with the debilitating effects of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE). The play is based on the lives of former football players and their families and embodies the onset of degenerative brain injury through increasingly expressionistic staging.]
Les: I have a show up in New York right now, too. It actually closes this weekend. It’s called You Are Now The Owner Of This Suitcase. It’s a children’s show.
Dale: Who’s doing it?
Les: Theatre 167, who are in Manhattan on the upper west side. It’s actually the second time that theatre has done that show.
PL: That’s kind of a nice problem to have.
Les: It is nice. And they’re talking about doing some sort of tour with it. Which I really don’t know how that’s going to happen, but, we’ll see. Maybe.
PL: Going back to the projections, because you’ve peaked my interest. What part do the projections play?
Dale: I mentioned the magical realist part of the play. It’s not completely settled yet, but we have a series of ideas that we’ve been experimenting with. And, without giving away too much of the imagery of the play, I’ll say that we’re using projections to help create a sense of place. There’s three projection surfaces on the stage and, for that reason, the stage itself is quite plain. Things will start off in more a restricted palette, with more monochrome hues, and then will gradually add color as sort of an echo of this family’s moving toward healing, moving away from grief and towards an integration of what’s been lost. This impulse is also about bringing in something more of the imagery of magical realism. In the play, the etrog, which is an incredibly vibrant yellow, and which is the fruit of the orchard, is really important. [The etrog is a yellow citron used by Jewish people during the week-long holiday of Sukkot.] And because Rachel takes for herself the name Lily, for the new person that she wants to be, lily flowers are also an important visual component. In one scene it happens that lily flowers are falling in the garden, and we’re using projection to help achieve that effect.
Les: I love that movement, from the simple to the more vibrant colors.
PL: Dale, do you enjoy being the first to handle a new play? Is that a professional thrill?
Dale: Oh, very much. Yes. And for many years now that’s been my focus. I love to work with new writing, new plays. I’m also a dramaturg, so, often, the two go hand-in-hand. I help to develop a play and I then get to go on to direct the first production of it. What’s nice about working on To The Orchard is that it was largely finished. So there wasn’t that, you know, getting new pages everyday and things being subject to such constant change. It’s taken a lot of the stress out of the process. Les has also continued to be very involved, and has made himself available to answer any questions I might have had. It takes a lot of the guesswork out of being a director.
PL: Working with the playwright? Because some directors insist they’ll only work with dead ones.
Dale: But as a director you’re trying to reconstruct somebody’s thought process retrospectively. Meanwhile, you’re performing this gesture of interpreting the work which, because it’s a creative gesture, adds something new to it. For me, with the first production, you want to keep particularly close to the writer’s own impulse in the writing of the play. And with Les there I’m able to ask what informed his decisions, so that I can then try to bring that out more forcefully.
Les: And, for my part, they’re bringing out so many dimensions in my work that I certainly had no idea were there and it has been great to be present, to be able to see that development.
Kelsey: That’s really good to hear! Because from an actor’s perspective – and it may just be from a young actor’s perspective but – the idea that I’m performing a character I’ve never seen anyone attempt before, I often wonder, am I doing the right thing?
Les: You’re doing the right thing. [laughs]
Dale: Les was even at the auditions. He was at the designer interviews. He’s been very involved.
Les: Thank you for having me at everything. [laughs] It’s been fun. We’ve gotten an amazing cast and crew.
Dale: We’ve been fortunate. People who work all the time are taking a chance on this new company.
Les: And that’s a good way of putting it. Some people have told us that they’re actually keen on working with someone new because they want a new challenge.
Kelsey: In five years, Cleveland’s gonna be an absolute Mecca of work. [laughs] Maybe six years. Give it six.
PL: I can remember talking to a friend of mine after the first Playwrights Local event, this would have been in November. And he was pointing out that the people who were in attendance for that evening of readings became a kind of who’s who of Cleveland theatre. And, as Playwrights Local begins to take on full productions, it makes sense that those same people would want to be involved. But it is very exciting. It’s very heartening.
Dale: It’ll be interesting to see, too, if we’re able to attract an audience to Waterloo Arts, in Collinwood, because it’s such an emerging neighborhood. I was very pleased to see how popular the Play Labs were in April, how well attended. We’re hopeful.
PL: Well, it’s an arts-heavy neighborhood. But there’s really no theatre to speak of. And I guess the hope is that Playwrights Local is going to be filling a need there. That, maybe, people don’t even know they need yet.
Les: Right. [laughs]
Les Hunter is Assistant Professor of English at Baldwin Wallace University. He received his M.A. from Brooklyn College, his M.F.A. from Boston University, and his Ph.D. from Stony Brook University.
Dale Heinen is an award-winning director and dramaturg, and is currently Director in Residence for Playwrights Local. Dale has a BA from Northwestern University and an MFA in theatre directing from Middlesex University.
Kelsey Angel Baehrens is entering her final year at Baldwin Wallace University, where she studies acting, directing, and creative writing.
To The Orchard is Playwrights Local’s debut production. It opens Friday, May 27th at Waterloo Arts in Collinwood. Tickets can be purchased here: http://playwrightslocal.org/to-the-orchard-tickets/
