I’m an intravist, that is, I try to get into the interior of people’s lives – what’s driving them? Betrayal? Obsession? Madness? My protagonists are women, so of course they are testing their power and repression. Their humanity means they are at the whims of nature and fate, and yet they must shake the world they’ve been given. Like all of us, they are figuring out their path, trying to make sense out of a complex and confusing world, and if they could just get that one thing they need most everything would make sense. Well, actions have consequences. I’m trying to tell people how not to act – don’t do this because this lady’s gonna do it and watch what happens to her, learn from her and don’t f-ck up your life. Life is long, and there’s a lot of time to f-ck it up.
So, yeah, I’m figuring stuff out through my work, but I find myself adapting classics because the themes run so deep, so profound. My works aren’t pure adaptations, because I mess with them a lot. The original text is like a springboard with the set up and the archetypes from which to draw and then jump off and into a new pool to swim around in. There’s the shallow end and the deep end to explore. Sometimes the blinders are on so I’m not really knowing where I’m going with this thing. It’s a bit of a mess, but then the actors enter and the character is standing and speaking right before you. And the director has a vision of where to take this play and suddenly it starts to make sense. The physicality of the play makes it work. It’s real people with real problems that need addressing. At least it’s enough so that people come up at the dump and say how moved they were by that play. And I’m very grateful for that. Very grateful.