From Page to Stage: Lisa Dillman and New Plays
Our fourth show this season, Half of Plenty, was written by playwright Lisa Dillman as part of ATC's Relatives program. This program was established to foster relationships with Chicago playwrights and provide them a forum for developing new works. Here, she discusses how her latest play came into being.
Could you talk about The Relatives program, and how you feel American Theater Company supports new works?
I've been a member of ATC's Relatives program since its inception. I've used the program to develop two of my full-length plays (one of them, Flung, ATC produced in 2002; the other, Half of Plenty, will premiere at ATC in spring 2007) and showcased a number of my short works in anthology evenings. The Relatives program gives ATC a strong link to the larger theater community through a wide network of skilled, committed actors, directors, and writers; in turn, the program provides that network of outside artists with a creative home of sorts, a safe place to explore and experiment through readings, workshops and other types of performance. And from any standpoint, exploration and experimentation are essential for the creation of new work for the stage.
What was it like to see Flung produced at ATC, and how did your vision fit the theater's mission and ensemble?
I have always been interested in family--how we build it, create alternatives to it, escape it (or try to), return to it, deal with it, destroy it, remain influenced by it, and so on. And over the years, I have noticed that ATC's ensemble is uniquely suited to plays that hinge on family dynamics. In fact, there is something quintessentially familial about acting ensembles in general, and this one in particular.
Flung is a really personal play--and definitely a play about a family. While the piece is not strictly autobiographical, I wrote it in part to explore my response to the death of my father. An important factor in casting the play was to create the believable sense of a group of siblings who had grown up together and then grown far apart. They're brought back together to memorialize their father, a situation that pretty much requires each of them to haul their past and present baggage right along with them. ATC seemed like just the right family of actors to represent the family of the play. I cherished the experience of seeing them bring that play to life.
How is Half of Plenty different from Flung?
Well, Half of Plenty is also about a family--in this case, an emotionally and financially imperiled one--but it explores issues of community, class, heritage, and personal responsibility as well. It was written in response to my growing unease over where we are as a nation (and where we seem to be headed), our increasing isolation from the world community, and the insidious effects of the Patriot Act.
Can you say more about how you perceive the world has changed and how that is reflected in your work?
I look back at the late 1990s when I wrote Flung and it's as if I'm looking back thirty years. Not that the American sociopolitical landscape was so simple back then--it certainly wasn't and it never has been--but in many ways it does seem to have been a much more innocent time. And the more we learn about what's going on, about where we've been and what's been done in our name--both with and without our knowledge--the scarier the path ahead becomes.
Is Half of Plenty a 9/11 play?
I hesitate to call Half of Plenty a 9/11 play, although I suppose that had 9/11 not occurred, I most likely would not have written it. It's not a response to 9/11 unless I broaden that criterion and say that it's a play about how America seems to have changed in response to its deep fear of powerlessness, and a resultant (or at least concurrent) fear of the indefinable "other." We are living in a culture of generalized fear and anxiety, and also a place of inherent me-firstism and willful amnesia. It's a volatile combination.