In 1997 a modestly titled little play by Faye Sholiton was a winner of Dayton Future Fest. If you just heard the title, THE INTERVIEW, it's possible you'd make the mistake of expecting a simple narrowly focused piece about an interview. But Faye Sholiton's play is full of surprises and runs deep and wide. It reminds me a bit of another Holocaust play, Ida Fink's brilliant one-act, also modestly titled, THE TABLE. Both plays will creep up on you and will not let go. That may explain why today, some 25 years later, THE INTERVIEW continues to be produced all over the map.
On the occasion of the latest production, at Sarasota Jewish Theatre, I wanted to celebrate the accomplishment of this play by putting a few questions to the author. Sholiton was kind enough to take time out of her busy schedule to speak to some of the elements of THE INTERVIEW that caught my eye.
My not-so-hidden agenda here is that this quarter century success for this play might remind all the writers reading this of two important truths:
- The play that we care most deeply about will usually be the one that outlives us
and... - There are plays being produced all the time that are not playing in Broadway houses and those plays can have long lives making a lasting impact on thousands of theatre lovers all the same.
brief synopsis:
Fifty years after her liberation from the Nazi death camps, Bracha Weissman still suffers the aftermath of her old trauma. When she allows Ann Meshenberg, the child of other survivors, into her suburban Cleveland home to take testimony for an archival video project, Bracha reviews the legacy she has left her own daughter. THE INTERVIEW is a story about mothers, daughters and memory – about forgiving and being forgiven.
The Interview took top honors in three national new play contests and won a coveted Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence grant. It is featured in Gene A. Plunka's book Holocaust Theater: Dramatizing Survivor Trauma and Its Effects on the Second Generation (Routledge, London) 2019. The play has been performed more than three dozen times around the U.S. since its premiere at the 1997 FutureFest in Dayton, Ohio.
Questions for the author:
Tec
You wrote this play in the 1990s? And it's been produced dozens of times in theatres of different shapes and sizes. Now, for the first time we are entering a world which pretty soon won't have any Holocaust survivors left. How do you feel that fact changes the way the play is understood?
Sholiton
At the risk of sounding like Magritte's "Ce n'est pas une pipe," The Interview is not strictly a Holocaust play. It's a piece about silence in families, specifically where there has been trauma that carries into the subsequent generations. Of course, I didn't know this when I sat down to write it. I was trying to understand the impact of this particular trauma because at the time, I was witnessing so much residual pain from people that I met. Audiences have understood the dynamics of these painful relationships as something quite universal. With the passage of time, however, the stories specifically from the Holocaust have only further drawn them in.
Tec
The play includes an unexpected and quite wonderful character of Rivka, your main character's estranged adult daughter. Can you talk a little bit about what led you to want to include this character in your play?
Sholiton
Poor Rivka. For a good part of the play, she appears to be bitter and heartless. But this is only because she is being processed through her mother's guilt, a Greek Chorus, Bracha confesses, a reminder of how she failed her children. In one of my first interviews, I met a mother whose grown children didn't speak to her. And I wanted to explore what might have happened to cause that rift. Rifka stepped up to articulate Bracha's worst fears. But she also has three moments when we hear her actual voice, and we understand her desperate need to come home. Early on, I wrote a monograph for the actress playing Rifka, to explore in first person what might have gone on in her childhood home. Not a word of that document appears in the script, but it helps the actress find the love in what was clearly a troubled family.
Tec
You were an interviewer for the Shoah Foundation. Would you say Bracha is an amalgam of several different survivors you met or did you zero in on one actual woman you interviewed to be your protagonist?
Sholiton
Long before I conducted interviews for the Shoah Foundation, I wrote for the Cleveland Jewish News. Many stories involved survivors, mostly describing reunions or a return to their European towns. In all cases, I had kept detailed notes of people's stories, although nothing from the Shoah Foundation tapes was ever used in the play. There are actually four survivor stories revealed in the play - each of them containing elements from years of interviews. I noted peculiar behaviors, like the survivor who coaxed me to remove my boots and wear her slippers. That gesture took my breath away, walking, quite literally, in her shoes. When I ascribed that gesture to my fictitious survivor, Bracha, I borrowed that offer, but turned it into more of a military command. It helped define character and her rigid house rules at the very top of the play. And yes, that behavior reminded me of another survivor whose interview was done in L.A. because she didn't think it would be done properly in Ohio. In that, and so many other behaviors, Bracha was born!
Tec
The play sticks to the somewhat formal structure of an archival interview and yet, miraculously never feels stiff. It really does play like a fully realized encounter between two women who are poised to misunderstand one another. Can you talk about some of the specific techniques you employed to keep the play alive?
Sholiton
This encounter had to have its share of drama, stemming from what each of the two women hoped to accomplish through this testimony. Early on, Anne (the interviewer) shows her hand: she wants to hear stories her mother never shared. Bracha, for her part, is ambivalent about her own reasons for dredging up old memories. What emerges, as the two women attempt to get what they need is a back and forth transfer of power. Anne is an historian by profession but comes up short with some of her questions. Bracha doesn't help with withering comments that would set any visitor on edge. In my own experience, I told one survivor who spent 30 minutes in our pre-interview answering the question "What was your father's name?" that he'd have to try to give briefer replies when the tape rolled. His reply: "If you don't want the answers, don't ask the questions." That's something Bracha would say. And you can bet she does. We can talk about humor in a little bit.
Tec
A prominent theme running through the entire play is the tug of war between order and control on the one hand and disorder and chaos on the other. Was this something you knew you wanted to explore in the piece or did it emerge as you wrote?
Sholiton
Actually, I don't think I thought in those terms, although it's an interesting way to frame this subject. How does one make order out of chaos? And isn't that what we do when we take survivor testimony? In our Shoah Foundation training, they talked about the impossibility of putting events in chronological order, suggesting you could in some way order chaos. So the journey is less about finding order, and more about finding hope.
Tec
Without naming names could you share one of the most surprising or strange misinterpretations of your intention you've ever seen in a production of this play?
Sholiton
In more than one production, I saw efforts by designers and directors to bring Auschwitz into Bracha's living room. For me, the play is about the post-war family that got away, either by death or disappearance, and finally opening the door for a reconciliation.
Tec
Humor is an essential element of the play. And I feel I recognize your unique style of pointed humor in some places, especially in the voice of Bracha. Can you talk about the importance of humor in theatre, especially in a work dealing with this serious subject matter?
Sholiton
I can't live without humor, in life or in my writing. It's astonishing how humor kept some survivors going. I interviewed children of survivors to ask (among other things) was your mom ever funny? Their humor tended to come from irony, but it was still as hilarious as it was unexpected. About four years ago, I interviewed a 90-year-old survivor who was preparing to record one of the few holographic testimonies for a local museum. They needed his baseline story, so we took the testimony in the same way we had, decades earlier. On the day after our taping, I called to see how he was doing (something that we always did, in follow-up.) "Actually," he said, "I'm in the hospital." "What?!" I said. "Yes. In the psych ward. Thanks a lot." And that's how you live to be 90.
Tec
When can we next see this play and where can we go to buy a copy of the script?
Sholiton
The old Drama Book Shop (of blessed memory) carried it. While I look for the courage to get it back on their shelves, I have copies (electronic and published, in an acting edition) to share. You may find me at fsholiton@gmail.com. At this time, there are no upcoming productions in the works., but I welcome all queries.
FAYE SHOLITON is a stage- and screenwriter from Cleveland who played with Roland Tec for seven years, while serving as Dramatists Guild’s Ohio Regional Rep. Close to home, she has developed her work at Cleveland Play House and Dobama Theatre; and in the years before social distancing, in rehearsal rooms around the country. Ten years ago, she founded and remains artistic director of Interplay Jewish Theatre in Cleveland. Roland has tapped her as both reader and writer of monologues, a skill that mercifully requires a shorter attention span. THE INTERVIEW, now 25 years old, was her first produced play.
Faye's monologue, WHAT WAS THE QUESTION? will be featured in the Hear Me Out Monologues Some1Speaking Series on Monday April 4th at 6PM. Tickets are available now.
