On Yom Kippur, the day of atonement and the holiest day of the year, Jews account for our sins in the first person plural. We have lied, we have oppressed, we have done harm. As a child I struggled to understand why, on a day that is about looking inward to make an honest assessment of our individual moral failings, we should be allowed the comfort of “we”.
But the more I perform the ritual, the more I understand its value; in the Jewish conception of wrongdoing, we are all responsible for the ways in which our communities fail. This “we” does not absolve me of personal responsibility. Instead, it calls me to take responsibility for my own shortcomings and for the ways in which my community (and, by extension, the world) falls short of its potential.
In the theatre, I am reminded of the push and pull between “I” and “we” that I first experienced in worship. Rather than hide in the comfort of “we”—in the vague notions that somebody else is to blame—the theatrical “we” calls us to take collective responsibility. Theatre provides opportunities for reflection and transformation, for renewing our moral and civic commitments, and for radically imagining what the future could be if we held ourselves, and each other, more accountable.
And so, I strive to create experiences of reckoning—emotional, moral, political—that inspire people to take up the common cause of justice; to see themselves less as individuals who will succeed or fail purely on their own merits, and more as parts of a whole that is broken, but redeemable through collective accountability and action. I make those reckonings fun, because I believe fun—which eclipses obligation, disrupts routine, and requires rigorous presence—is an under-appreciated tool for radical transformation. So, too, is imagination (to build something new we must first imagine its blueprint) and so I invite my audiences to do imaginative work. This invitation is, I think, the essence of theatricality.
On Yom Kippur, we form our hands into fists and beat our chests once for each of the sins we have committed. We do this not only to demonstrate our contrition, but also to awaken our hearts so that we might enter the new year more attuned to our aspirations of greater moral integrity, more sensitive to the world’s suffering, and more resolute in our attempts to restore and repair wherever we go. I hope that audiences feel the plays I make like a fist to the heart, so that they might leave the theatre similarly transformed.
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In terms of content, I’m especially interested in plays that explore the subjectivity of human perception and experience by blurring the lines between interiority and exteriority; plays about inherited trauma and its effects on the psychology of individuals and families; plays that deal with Jewish identity, culture(s), and diaspora; plays about work, workplaces, and the absurdity of late capitalism; plays concerned with lineage and legacy; and plays that propose alternate histories and imagine radical futures.
In terms of form, I’m attracted to theatre that borrows from structures common in other live events, theatre that demands a significant imaginative investment from its audience, theatre that moves faster than the speed of thought and in so doing confronts me viscerally with truths that can’t be understood through intellect alone, theatre that acknowledges the people who have come to see it and maybe even gets them talking to one another.
My work tends to be physically rigorous, rhythmically precise, and emotionally honest if not “realistic”. I have a soft spot for the absurd, the embarrassing, and the effortful, and I highlight these most human qualities in everything I do.
Lately I’m curious about the role that loneliness plays in contemporary life, and in the ways that our loneliness can be politically advantageous for those who would oppress us; I believe that theatre, done right, can combat loneliness, and I believe that this fight is as political as anything else we do on stage.