Reykjavík Grapevine - 14.08.2009, Síða 10

The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 12 — 2009
10
Exploring the Grey Area
A conversation with Pulitzer Prize winner Paula Vogel
Why such heavy topics?
[I write about] things that bother me.
I know people say that they’re heavy
topics and then I think people are
surprised that they’re laughing. It’s
not anything I intend. I think it’s just
my family and the way we told stories.
There’s always a lot of comedy; funerals
in my family are always very fun – fun
and funny. We tell stories, we laugh.
And it’s the way I approach theatre. I
think it’s really a desire to examine a
story or a journey together collectively.
I don’t know if I would be a novelist or
a poet or a journalist. I think I crave
company. I’m in it for the company.
But what drives you to write rather
casually about these things –
paedophilia, incest, AIDS – that
are widely taboo and not spoken of
casually in society?
They’re not talked about casually. In
fact, they’re not talked about. When
I started writing there were very few
women writers, particularly in theatre.
Now there are many women writers
so I feel in great company. But when
I was in my 20’s there weren’t stories
told from women’s points of view that I
could see on the stage.
Let’s take the topics of paedophilia
and incest [in “How I Learned to
Drive”]: I didn’t even think about the
story. I knew it was a story there but I
was thinking as a young woman when I
read Lolita, asking ‘how would a woman
write about this?’ ‘How would I feel
about Humbert Humbert?’ ‘Would it
be different if a woman wrote it?’ and
‘Would it be different in a play?’
Now, obviously, Nabokov is a genius
and there’s complexity to that novel
that no theatre and no play can do, but
again I rely on being in good company.
What I did notice as I started to read
about the topic, as I continued to think
about Nabokov, is that I would walk
into Times Square in New York and I
would be bombarded by Ralph Lauren
and Calvin Klein ads of basically young
boys and girls in underwear. And I
would think, ‘are we noticing how we’re
sexualizing the bodies of children and
adolescents in our culture?’ So not even
saying ‘incest’ or looking at something
that happens in one family, but let’s look
at what is in the presence of everyone,
in the company of all, in the way we
sell merchandise. I’m not talking about
rape. I’m talking about the grey area.
Not the black, not the white. The grey
area.
How do audiences react to you
exploring this grey area?
[After a performance] it’s a strange
feeling of relief and everybody in the
audience saying, ‘yes, this is happening,
this is in our midst. I have experience
with this, I have experience and I’ve
wondered about this.’ There’s a sense
for me of an uplift, or feeling lighter.
I feel burdened when things aren’t
talked about, when they aren’t looked
at directly. And this isn’t to say that I
don’t think the work is political; I think
all theatre is political. I think when
we gather together it is a political and
spiritual act and that’s why I hope I get
to spend the rest of my life in theatre.
While some are uplifted, some must
be feeling otherwise. Do you ever
encounter negative feedback?
When you write something you have to
be responsible for the response. I would
never not do my work somewhere but I
would want to be there so that if people
were angry they could look me in the
eyes and tell me what they think.
Have people done this?
Yes, of course. Not as much with this
play, although there have been people
who say, ‘I am not ready to see this.’
There are people who will write to me
or talk to me and say, ‘I heard about
your play and I really can’t come see it,
I hope you understand.’ People I know.
And I say, ‘I’m really glad that you’re
not seeing it. I think that’s great and I
wouldn’t want to hurt you in any way.’
In an earlier play [The Baltimore
Waltz], which I wrote about my brother’s
death from AIDS, I really wanted to talk
about it. At the time that he died in
1988 there was a great taboo and shame
about dying from AIDS and I thought
my brother met death with absolute
courage and humour and was a model
and I refused to be ashamed. No women
were talking about their relationships
to HIV. I wrote a play about a character
named Anna, who is a sister and who
has this mysterious disease. A lot of
people were furious that a woman, at
that time, would write with a sense of
humour about this – the humour that
comes from my experience with my
brother, as well as the grief. I had a lot
of people come up to me and say, ‘how
dare you as a woman write about HIV?’
When I was younger I used to think
it would be marvellous to be hissed
and booed at, at least that meant you’re
provoking and getting under the skin…
I’m not so sure anymore! I still prefer
that to indifference, but I don’t go
out of my way to provoke. I’m scared
when I write. I’m scared when plays
are produced. I’m scared when things
upset me, but I think we should run
toward things we’re scared of.
Is there any topic that scares you to
the point of not wanting to approach
it?
There have been things that I have
put aside because I didn’t think I had
the skills to do it. I wrote a play about
domestic violence [Hot ‘n’ Throbbing]
that took me a while to write, it was very
hard to write. I was scared. I literally
had to write it by staying up all night
I couldn’t sleep while I was writing it.
I’m proud of it but it still scares me, it
makes me shake. But, if I’m really so
scared I can’t do something it probably
means I don’t know how to do it yet.
American playwright Paula
Vogel was in Reykjavík recently
attending a performance of her
Pulitzer Prize winning play “How I
Learned to Drive,” which showed
at Borgarleikhús throughout
May. The award winning play
touches on themes of incest and
paedophilia as it tells the story
of one girl’s relationship with an
uncle who molests her at the age
of eleven during a driving lesson
and continues to do so throughout
her teen years. Vogel’s other
works spotlight such topics as
AIDS, domestic violence, gender
inequality, pornography and
homosexuality. They’re comedies.
Early (for a Saturday) on May
23rd Vogel and I, both a little worse
for wear after a Friday night out in
Reykjavík – the playwright’s first
and only – sat in the comfortably
minimal lobby of the Plaza Hotel to
discuss why the adjunct professor
and chair of the Yale School of
Drama chooses such heavy topics,
what topics scare her and the
struggle of making it as a female
playwright.
We've been sitting on this Paula Vogel inter-
view for a while now. It's great to fi nally get to
print it. Ms. Vogel is pretty smart and fun to
read about. Try for yourself!
Opinion | Sigurður Kjartan Kristinsson
Sigurður Kjartan - one of Reykjavík's fi nest -
is threatening to leave the country. Thanks,
unfettered crony capitalism!
The Icesave quarrel,
prosecuting the Icelandic
racketeers, returning or
receiving the IMF loan, joining
the EU or any other of these immensely
important issues that are discussed
here on a daily basis post-crisis (and
the only issues generally discussed for
that matter): I don’t give a fuck.
You could easily say I’m one of the
lucky few here in Iceland. What do
I mean by that? Well, I’m part of the
generation that got away. No mortgage,
no car loan or any other ludicrous
financial commitment loitering above
my head, increasing the number of
my already many grey hairs by the
day. No sir. Didn’t lose my job, don’t
have to declare bankruptcy or file for
unemployment benefits either. Not that
I wouldn’t have gone down that road.
Don’t get me wrong; I ain’t claiming any
superior foreseeing wisdom—I probably
would have danced along with the rest.
Then there is my lack of patriotism.
It plays a role in my not-giving-a-
fuck attitude. People talk about re-
establishing the Icelandic legacy, shit
like that, and although it’s a valid thing
to fight for it doesn’t feel like it’s my
fight. I don’t look at being an Icelander
as any sort of privilege—I look at is as a
fact. I don’t plan spending all of my life
on this forsaken rock. And although it
has provided me with decent education,
some common sense and a lot of other
good odds and ends, I’m pretty sure I
could’ve obtained these things in many
other places. Not everywhere though;
I’m godawfully thankful for coming
from a place where luxuries most
people never experience are taken
for granted and I don’t mean to come
off as an ungrateful asshole at all, but
nevertheless: I don’t get a hard-on
when Icelandic independence heroes
are quoted and I don’t brag about
per-capita records. That being said, it
should be abundantly clear that I don’t
really have great interest in spending
my earnings to-be paying down some
daft debts my government is obtaining
as we speak.
Some wise men have talked about
the biggest threat Iceland faces is a
drain of young Icelanders, and speaking
as one, I can affirm: it’s true. There are
quite a few of us that aren’t really the
flag-waving fighter types. So what to
do? For my part, it’s to try my best to
scrape some money together for a one-
way-ticket far, far away and take it from
there. Maybe we’ll see each other in
fifteen years or so, who knows? But for
now: See ya suckers, good riddance.
Why I Don't
Give a Fuck
Interview | Theatre
CATHARINE FULTON
JULIA STAPLES