Signature: How did you land on the story?
BJJ: I don’t know, honestly. It just emerged.
But an initial, very important a-ha moment
came to me early on. After the characters
found what they found in the house and the
real conflict began, Rachael used to leave. She
used to go upstairs and the siblings were the
ones dealing with the objects. And I remember the day when I thought, “Wait. Why does
Rachael leave?” That led to the conversation
between Rachael and Toni, which anchored
the first act for me. I realized that the play
kept avoiding the issues surrounding the
family history, so someone had to keep
bringing them up.
Signature: Why did you want to kick off your
Signature residency with this particular play?
BJJ: I feel like it’s me closing a door on a
certain phase of my writing. I view the
residency as an opportunity to try some new
things, to experiment. Also, I think this play
is in conversation with a generation of playwrights that have been celebrated here.
Horton Foote, Sam Shepard, Arthur Miller.
I love Signature; it’s definitely a literary theatre,
which is important to me. And being somewhat literary-minded, I feel safe here. n
I ended up deciding
I would steal something
from every play that
I liked, and put those
things in a play and
cook the
pot to
see what
happens.
top: Daniel Kublick in Heart!!! at Princeton, 2006.
bottom: Chris McKinney, Danielle Davenport and Birgit Huppuch in the Public Lab production of Neighbors, 2010.
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