ROB WEINERT-KENDT: Tell me about the genesis of this piece.
ELIZABETH MERVEILLE: During the big break we’ve all been going through, I’ve had time to reflect as an artist. You know, time is the one luxury none of us ever have. And I was suddenly able to question myself, and as always, I asked myself questions like: What makes sense to me? One thing that kept coming back to me was: what does it mean to be American? What does it mean to be an American woman? What does it mean to be an American artist? How can I participate in my country and my culture?
As I thought about it, I realized that the two events that had the most impact on me were the Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas hearings that I watched on C-SPAN when I was younger, and more recently the Christine Blasey Ford/ Brett Kavanaugh. Both struck me as an American, a citizen, a woman, but also artistically. The elegance and formality of the court, and these women speaking to power in the manner of an almost Greek play, like Antigone…a very similar power dynamic was at play during these two hearings.
So I downloaded the transcripts, which are in the public domain, and started reading them, and they blew me away. They were so fascinating, and so many of the same characters were there 30 years apart: Joe Biden, Pat Leahy, Chuck Grassley, Lindsey Graham.
Also, I did this little exercise while reading: I played at removing the speaker’s penis. And I found that when I did that, more often than not, the more the histrionic language, what we think of as classically feminine, very emotional language, always came from men, and the more the scientific language, what we would call classically masculine , always came from a man. women. I found this fascinating.
When we all got involved again, I started talking to Lee Sunday Evans about it. She is one of the smartest theater makers I know and she loved this idea. She built a script and we worked on it, myself and three other actors. We create a bench of actors, because it’s a very fluid piece. It’s all in-ear: We wear in-ear headphones, and real C-SPAN audio from the audiences comes into our ears as we speak it. So anyone can step in and perform the piece. We hope to be able to broadcast it across the country, bring it to schools, to community centers, so other actors can come in and out of the room.
It appears that this is not simply a textual reconstruction of the hearings.
No, it’s not hammer versus hammer; it has been edited. It’s very difficult to explain, but much more exciting to experience. It’s like music. We also play with power dynamics, with women starting to talk to men, and men starting to talk to women. You never know who is speaking until you know. So it also calls for the audience to participate in a way that I find very exciting.
Another exciting thing about this: we worked on this topic at the mercury storeand one of our first groups to watch it was a group of very young artists, high school students. They had no idea who Clarence Thomas or Anita Hill were, or even Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford, or very few of them did. But they understood perfectly what we were talking about. It was very exciting, and it’s also something for which I feel a great responsibility as a patriot, really: I want to teach our history, and our recent history, and share it with those who may not know it. not be aware, because this history has an impact on our daily lives.
I want to know a little more about this in-ear technology. Do you hear the audio and then say it out loud a second later, like a UN interpreter or something?
We try to say it at the same time, which is very difficult technically. I’ve never done it before. I’ve been a fan of the band Wooster since I was 18 and was first exposed to them; I just think they’re the greatest artists, but that was their job – I didn’t want to participate. So when Lee first proposed it, I was really resistant. But I trust her completely, so I finally said, “Well, if she feels passionate about this, then it must be something.” So I submitted to it and started doing it. At first it was horrible. I hated it! But once I put my acting ego aside, what happens is you go into a completely different experience where you’re literally channeling. It’s like you become a medium and that person moves through you; you can’t even hear your own voice, so you can’t censor yourself. You can’t try to manipulate what you do. You can’t do your acting tricks. You can only play music. It’s a truly incredible experience as a performer that I find absolutely fascinating to experience.
What I remember most clearly from Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony was her line about how Kavanaugh and his friends’ laughter at his humiliation was “indelible in the hippocampus.” This is obviously a topic that has huge political implications, but it also seems to be a question of memory, of what sticks with you and why.
That’s right, she literally explains the neural functioning of memory and trauma, how it works scientifically and neurologically. That’s a really nice point, and I appreciate you picking it up, because it’s absolutely another aspect of what we do.
What have been the reactions to the piece so far? As you know, although most people reacted with horror to Ford and Hill’s testimony, others felt protective or offended by the accused men — often but not entirely along partisan or sexist lines.
It’s very interesting. We had a fundraiser of sorts last week and invited a few guests to watch some of the play. E. Jean Carroll was there. The conversation we all had after some of the work was presented was absolutely fascinating. Some young women said, “Part of me can’t relate to this, because I would never allow this kind of behavior.” “We really opened this up and were able to talk about it, which is really helpful to talk about in an intergenerational way, because we all tolerate it collectively – we all internalize misogyny and experience it and participate in it every day. . So none of us can say, “Well, I I wouldn’t,” because it’s happening, and we need to discover that in ourselves and with each other and talk about it.
I’m so ashamed of it, but there’s still a part of me that rolls my eyes when I hear the name Monica Lewinsky, because I was at an age where my internalization of misogyny was still functioning, and I believed the lie. that a 22-year-old woman somehow had more power than the President of the United States. This is my own internalized misogyny. We need to unpack this, because all of this leads to the loss of bodily autonomy, which is where American women find themselves today.
What is there about performing this live in the theater that can’t be achieved by watching a recording or reading the transcriptions?
This is a good question, because it is not a textual reconstruction. Lee took the transcriptions and constructed this piece, and it’s less than 60 minutes long – it’s not a three-hour job for the whole process. Dr. Ford and Dr. Hill stand side by side in the center of the stage, and we cut between the testimonies of each of the women, where they both had to stand and recount their experience – the most intimate things and the most private things that have ever happened to them – in front of the whole world, in the most public forum possible. In the theater space, we can put these women next to each other. They don’t speak, but it plays out like a piece of music, where Anita makes a statement and Christine immediately follows. They live in a parallel world.
And throughout the article, these echoes hit you, when Joe Biden makes a statement that echoes something that Clarence Thomas said earlier, or Lindsey Graham makes a statement that Dr. Ford said earlier. There are things that happen because of the nature of theater presentation, like the ability for us to swap the sexes – to put the words of Dr. Ford and Dr. Hill into a male body, or to put the words of Clarence Thomas in a female body. body, which is a fascinating exercise in itself. You can’t do it in any other form. And nothing else can offer citizens, the polis, the same cathartic experience in a common room.
Also, an important element of this play is that we have discussions after each performance. Honestly, for some people the show can be a trigger and don’t want to send people off without processing that; we want to keep a space after the show for people to talk.
I was intrigued to learn that you would be performing for members of Congress in Washington DC. But I imagine most of your audience, at least in the show’s first run, will be pro-choice urban liberals. So who is this piece for? Are you trying to persuade anyone, or are you (pardon the cliché) preaching to the choir?
Part of this is preaching to the choir to galvanize the choir. Part of the exercise is to educate, to share our own story. This is the initial impulse. Yes, we wanted to do this piece and present it before the election while everyone was listening – not to influence people in any direction, but simply to involve them in their civic duty. That’s also my motivation: simply to get people to engage, as Americans, in their patriotic duty in this democracy. I feel like I’m made from American fabric. I am an American artist and I want to speak, participate and fulfill my civic duty. That’s what I feel like I’m doing with this group of artists: a civic service.
Will you play the role of Dr. Ford in a recognizable way?
All these voices have their own music, so when you channel them, what you’re trying to do is play the music: they clear their throats, they stutter, they stumble over the words. We do it very loyally. We play their music. But I don’t play Christine per se. She has such a specific way of speaking, and it’s honored. But what about becoming a people? No, we are ourselves.
I know you do 24 Hours plays on Broadway Soon.
Yes, I love this project and I love everyone involved in it.
And you are doing a number of film and television projects…
I’m shooting Mr. Spielberg’s new film, which I’m very excited about, and this wonderful independent film called Run crazy.
But we missed you on stage. Your last piece was A long day’s journey into the night in 2022.
You know, I’m addicted to theater. I can’t leave him alone for long. I usually go a year or two between plays, at most. I can’t not go on stage.
Rob Weinert-Kendt (he/him) is the editor-in-chief of American Theater.