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October 11, 2009
Talking with "Aftermath" Playwrights Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen
By Joan Brunwasser
Some people might see it as risky to give voice to Iraqis in their own words, since there is cultural pressure on us as Americans to see them as "other, "dangerous, alien--but we don't see it that way. We connected with each individual Iraqi we met on a deep and human level and believe that when American audiences hear them speak for themselves, they will connect with those stories on a human level as well.
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The documentary drama "Aftermath" has now extended its run at New York Theatre Workshop through October 18th. "Aftermath" tells the stories of eight Iraqi refugees, essentially in their own words. Erik Jensen and Jessica Blank, who also directs, have agreed to answer questions via e-mail between shows. Welcome to OpEdNews. Can you tell our readers where the idea for this play came from?
The initial seed for "Aftermath" was hatched at New York Theater Workshop's annual summer residency at Dartmouth College. Jessica was there working on another play, "Liberty City"--one day at breakfast, she and NYTW's artistic director, Jim Nicola, were talking about the fact that there hadn't been any work done in the contemporary American theater about either of the wars that America is involved in, from the civilians' point of view. There had been plays created from the soldiers' points of view (though perhaps not enough), and from the points of view of the policy-makers, but nothing that got at what it is to be a regular person who just happens to live where the war is being played out.
We had previously written the documentary play "The Exonerated," based on interviews we conducted with exonerated death row inmates, and were searching for subject matter for our next documentary play. After Jessica returned from Dartmouth, we started talking about this as a potential subject, and refined the idea. Meanwhile, we continued to talk with NYTW's artistic staff about it, and by last June, NYTW secured a grant from the Ford Foundation to send us to Jordan to do the interviews for the piece.
You interviewed 35 refugees during the two weeks you were in Jordan. How did that go? Did you run into problems being Americans?
We walked into the interview process unsure about how people would interact
with us as Americans. We were open to whatever points of view people might
have; like a journalist would, we were just looking for the story, no matter
what that story might be. It would have been okay with us (and from our
point of view, part of the story) if people had been angry with us, cautious,
trepidatious, etc. But we found just the opposite.
Our interview subjects were enormously welcoming, open and gracious. Hospitality is highly valued in many Arab cultures, and we were quite moved to find that even despite the war going on between America and Iraq, that hospitality was still expressed toward us, in a heartfelt and authentic way, by the Iraqi civilians we met. The individuals we met did not pre-judge us based simply on the fact that we are American; they treated us as human beings first.
After 25 years under Saddam, it seemed that there was a pervasive and visceral understanding, on the part of Iraqi civilians, that there is a significant difference between the policies of a government and the people of a country. This was enormously moving and instructive to us, and we realized that the simple act of speaking to each other, Iraqi civilian to American civilian, was an important part of the play.
Before the war, Iraq was a largely middle-class and secular country.
We met many, many women who'd had high-powered careers as engineers, scientists,
working for NGOs and the like. We met artists, doctors, scientists,
journalists, etc. There was not nearly as much of a cultural gulf between
the lifestyles of Iraqis and the lifestyles of Americans as the mainstream media
would have us believe.Our interview subjects were enormously welcoming, open and gracious. Hospitality is highly valued in many Arab cultures, and we were quite moved to find that even despite the war going on between America and Iraq, that hospitality was still expressed toward us, in a heartfelt and authentic way, by the Iraqi civilians we met. The individuals we met did not pre-judge us based simply on the fact that we are American; they treated us as human beings first.
After 25 years under Saddam, it seemed that there was a pervasive and visceral understanding, on the part of Iraqi civilians, that there is a significant difference between the policies of a government and the people of a country. This was enormously moving and instructive to us, and we realized that the simple act of speaking to each other, Iraqi civilian to American civilian, was an important part of the play.
In "Aftermath," you let the refugees speak for themselves. Was that a risky choice?
It was the only choice. This kind of documentary theater
work, to us, is about the subjects telling their stories in their own
words. Our job is to shape the material, to give it dramatic structure,
to turn conversation into dialogue and interview material into a play.
But these are not our stories. They are the stories of the Iraqi
civilians who we spoke with, and our trying to insert ourselves into
the material would have seriously undercut the very nature of the
work.
The play contains a translator character, who is a composite of several different translators we worked with in Jordan (the other characters are not composites and are direct representations of individuals we met). We allowed ourselves slightly more dramatic license with the translator, simply because he was a composite and serves as the bridge between the audience and the other characters, but he speaks for himself as well--about the experience of being a translator in Iraq and the particular struggles associated with trying to bridge two worlds-- and is not a mouthpiece for our point of view.
Some people might see it as risky to give voice to Iraqis in their own words, since there is cultural pressure on us as Americans to see them as "other," dangerous, alien--but we don't see it that way. We connected with each individual Iraqi we met on a deep and human level and believe that when American audiences hear them speak for themselves, they will connect with those stories on a human level as well.
You consciously chose actors of Middle Eastern background for this play. Why was that so important to you ?
The play contains a translator character, who is a composite of several different translators we worked with in Jordan (the other characters are not composites and are direct representations of individuals we met). We allowed ourselves slightly more dramatic license with the translator, simply because he was a composite and serves as the bridge between the audience and the other characters, but he speaks for himself as well--about the experience of being a translator in Iraq and the particular struggles associated with trying to bridge two worlds-- and is not a mouthpiece for our point of view.
Some people might see it as risky to give voice to Iraqis in their own words, since there is cultural pressure on us as Americans to see them as "other," dangerous, alien--but we don't see it that way. We connected with each individual Iraqi we met on a deep and human level and believe that when American audiences hear them speak for themselves, they will connect with those stories on a human level as well.
You consciously chose actors of Middle Eastern background for this play. Why was that so important to you ?
For several reasons. First of all, we realized as we went through
the interviews and the multiple steps of translation involved in the
process, that translation itself was an integral part of what the play
was about. So much of the chaos that's gone on in Iraq has to do with
failures of translation; the failure to reach across the linguistic and
cultural gulfs between our two cultures. In order to deal with the
question of translation in the play, that meant the script needed to
contain some Arabic. So first of all, we needed actors who had some
facility with the Arabic language.
Secondly, we believe that the trend of casting people of color
fairly interchangeably--when the material is as culturally specific as
this--is a fairly odious trend, one that glosses over real and
meaningful geographic and cultural differences. South Asian cultures
are not the same as Middle Eastern cultures are not the same as Latino
cultures, and with material as culturally specific as this play,
it would be sloppy (not to mention problematic) of us to treat those cultures as equivalent or interchangeable. It would have been impossible to hire an entirely Iraqi-American cast--there aren't enough actors in New York City of Iraqi descent--but the fact that our cast all has family background from the basic geographic region enables them to bring a sense of cultural specificity, rhythm, language and gesture to the piece that we believe is an integral part of the play.
That makes perfect sense to me. You're enjoying back-to-back successes with "The Exonerated" and "Aftermath." Did your wild success with "The Exonerated" open doors for you this time? Or did it put more pressure on you to succeed?
Given the logistically complicated nature of international research (especially with a language barrier), the costs were also higher, and we still wound up spending some of our own money on the research and equipment; but it was enormously valuable and comforting to have a single grant that covered the vast majority of the research costs and enabled us to hire translators, etc. We also traveled with the wonderful Marla Keenan from the humanitarian organization Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict, who had done work with civilian refugees in Jordan before, and knew her way around.
When we returned to the states, NYU professor Sinan Antoon listened to the recordings of our interviews and translated the Arabic word-for-word, and then NYTW set us up with a network of interns who transcribed his translations. NYTW then sent us to their annual workshop at Dartmouth University, where we were able to workshop the transcripts intensively with a group of student interns and a cast of professional NYC actors hired by NYTW.
With "The Exonerated" we basically improvised our process as we went along, and brought people on board one-by-one along the way, relying on kismet and spontaneous generosity much of the time; with "Aftermath" the process was more structured, with NYTW providing a stable foundation for all our work, and that wouldn't have been able to happen without the track record of "The Exonerated."
Let's pause here. When we return, Jessica and Erik will discuss audience and critics' reactions to "Aftermath" and their plans for the future. Please join us!
***
Aftermath website
it would be sloppy (not to mention problematic) of us to treat those cultures as equivalent or interchangeable. It would have been impossible to hire an entirely Iraqi-American cast--there aren't enough actors in New York City of Iraqi descent--but the fact that our cast all has family background from the basic geographic region enables them to bring a sense of cultural specificity, rhythm, language and gesture to the piece that we believe is an integral part of the play.
That makes perfect sense to me. You're enjoying back-to-back successes with "The Exonerated" and "Aftermath." Did your wild success with "The Exonerated" open doors for you this time? Or did it put more pressure on you to succeed?
When we're doing this kind of work, we try not to put any
pressure on ourselves to "succeed" in the conventional sense--the
stories that the piece tells are so much more important than any kind
of illusory "career" type pressure we could put on ourselves. Our
responsibility is to the stories and to the people we've interviewed,
not to our own careers or to "success" in the professional world.
To our mind, we've succeeded if we've translated the powerful experience that we had hearing these stories in the interview room skillfully enough that our audiences can have a similar experience watching the play in the theater, and if we've faithfully communicated the personal stories of the people who appear in the play, as well as the larger story we heard in all the interviews that didn't make it into the final piece.
We very much want the play to have a long and vigorous life nationally and internationally---so that many more people can experience these stories and become aware of the impact of war on civilians.
To our mind, we've succeeded if we've translated the powerful experience that we had hearing these stories in the interview room skillfully enough that our audiences can have a similar experience watching the play in the theater, and if we've faithfully communicated the personal stories of the people who appear in the play, as well as the larger story we heard in all the interviews that didn't make it into the final piece.
We very much want the play to have a long and vigorous life nationally and internationally---so that many more people can experience these stories and become aware of the impact of war on civilians.
In terms of the first question: the success of "The Exonerated"
meant that our research process didn't have to be quite as scrappy this
time around and that we had more structural support with the many
research-oriented tasks associated with making a documentary piece.
When we started the interviews for "The Exonerated," we literally made
cold calls to organizations and individuals to find our interview
subjects, then rented a car, threw our dog in the backseat, and drove
around the country sleeping in the car at rest stops as we
conducted the interviews.
We started with a small amount of seed money from the Culture Project (which ultimately produced "The Exonerated" beautifully and with great dedication) and we spent what tiny amount of our own money we could (we were pretty broke, and late on the rent a couple months in there). We raised some additional money during the research process for car rental and a couple of plane tickets to Georgia and Texas--but it came in fits and starts, pieced together through a patchwork of haphazard generosity: friendships and personal connections and a mailing we did to Jessica's parents' friends, and some "angels" from the New World Foundation who appeared at just the right moment.
We transcribed all the interviews ourselves with the (extremely valuable) help of some NYU interns who we found on the internet, and enlisted our actor friends to come read the transcripts out loud with us for free. It wasn't till the play got further along in its development that its production had structural support.
With "Aftermath"--in part because of "The Exonerated"'s track
record--the process was a little more formalized and stable from the
beginning. The play came out of an initial conversation between Jessica
and Jim, and further conversations between Jessica, Erik, Jim and Linda
Chapman (NYTW's Associate Artistic Director). NYTW helped to secure a
grant from the Ford Foundation to pay for our travel to Jordan. We started with a small amount of seed money from the Culture Project (which ultimately produced "The Exonerated" beautifully and with great dedication) and we spent what tiny amount of our own money we could (we were pretty broke, and late on the rent a couple months in there). We raised some additional money during the research process for car rental and a couple of plane tickets to Georgia and Texas--but it came in fits and starts, pieced together through a patchwork of haphazard generosity: friendships and personal connections and a mailing we did to Jessica's parents' friends, and some "angels" from the New World Foundation who appeared at just the right moment.
We transcribed all the interviews ourselves with the (extremely valuable) help of some NYU interns who we found on the internet, and enlisted our actor friends to come read the transcripts out loud with us for free. It wasn't till the play got further along in its development that its production had structural support.
Given the logistically complicated nature of international research (especially with a language barrier), the costs were also higher, and we still wound up spending some of our own money on the research and equipment; but it was enormously valuable and comforting to have a single grant that covered the vast majority of the research costs and enabled us to hire translators, etc. We also traveled with the wonderful Marla Keenan from the humanitarian organization Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict, who had done work with civilian refugees in Jordan before, and knew her way around.
When we returned to the states, NYU professor Sinan Antoon listened to the recordings of our interviews and translated the Arabic word-for-word, and then NYTW set us up with a network of interns who transcribed his translations. NYTW then sent us to their annual workshop at Dartmouth University, where we were able to workshop the transcripts intensively with a group of student interns and a cast of professional NYC actors hired by NYTW.
With "The Exonerated" we basically improvised our process as we went along, and brought people on board one-by-one along the way, relying on kismet and spontaneous generosity much of the time; with "Aftermath" the process was more structured, with NYTW providing a stable foundation for all our work, and that wouldn't have been able to happen without the track record of "The Exonerated."
Let's pause here. When we return, Jessica and Erik will discuss audience and critics' reactions to "Aftermath" and their plans for the future. Please join us!
***
Aftermath website
Authors Website: http://www.opednews.com/author/author79.html
Authors Bio:
Joan Brunwasser is a co-founder of Citizens for Election Reform (CER) which since 2005 existed for the sole purpose of raising the public awareness of the critical need for election reform. Our goal: to restore fair, accurate, transparent, secure elections where votes are cast in private and counted in public. Because the problems with electronic (computerized) voting systems include a lack of transparency and the ability to accurately check and authenticate the vote cast, these systems can alter election results and therefore are simply antithetical to democratic principles and functioning.
Since the pivotal 2004 Presidential election, Joan has come to see the connection between a broken election system, a dysfunctional, corporate media and a total lack of campaign finance reform. This has led her to enlarge the parameters of her writing to include interviews with whistle-blowers and articulate others who give a view quite different from that presented by the mainstream media. She also turns the spotlight on activists and ordinary folks who are striving to make a difference, to clean up and improve their corner of the world. By focusing on these intrepid individuals, she gives hope and inspiration to those who might otherwise be turned off and alienated. She also interviews people in the arts in all their variations - authors, journalists, filmmakers, actors, playwrights, and artists. Why? The bottom line: without art and inspiration, we lose one of the best parts of ourselves. And we're all in this together. If Joan can keep even one of her fellow citizens going another day, she considers her job well done.
When Joan hit one million page views, OEN Managing Editor, Meryl Ann Butler interviewed her, turning interviewer briefly into interviewee. Read the interview here.
While the news is often quite depressing, Joan nevertheless strives to maintain her mantra: "Grab life now in an exuberant embrace!"
Joan has been Election Integrity Editor for OpEdNews since December, 2005. Her articles also appear at Huffington Post, RepublicMedia.TV and Scoop.co.nz.