My World is My Stage

Molly Smith Metzler’s Elemeno Pea was by far my favorite play of the entire festival. Was it the most well written script? Probably not. Did it feature the best direction? No. Was I blown away by the performances? Not really? So then why was it my favorite? Because it spoke to so many experiences and it seemed like the only play that asked me questions without answering them before I had a chance to.

In the story, Buffalo born Devon and Simone have a sister’s weekend in Martha’s Vineyard where Simone has become the personal assistant to a woman who has married into her wealth. Devon’s first day in the Vineyard everything seems to come to a crashing halt when Simone’s boss, Michaela Kell, finds out she is getting a divorce. Questions about class, race, and the cost of “perfection” are all brought to the front and Molly Smith Metzler asks the audience to draw their own conclusions.

One of the best moments in the play is when Michaela reveals that she had a late term abortion and that decision is what is behind her husband wanting to get the divorce. She reveals that the reason she choose to have the abortion is that after finding out the baby would be a dwarf the husband was insistent on forcing the child to undergo surgeries that would make him “normal” and fit in to the “Martha’s Vineyard Society.” She was unwilling to put her child through that type of pain and scrutiny, so she decided to abort the child. She couldn’t bring up a child in a world that forces you to live up to this false sense of “perfection.” Up until this point, we’ve only seen Michaela as a bitchy, over-indulgent, self-rightous woman who we shouldn’t feel compassion for although Simone insists that she’s a good person. 

Not only did I appreciate the play, I really appreciate all of the material they provided about the writer. Here are a few excerpts:

On her seemingly sterotypical characters:

I think if you only read the first half of the play, you might think it was just a stupid, rich-person comedy. These people aren’t the stereotype you think they are at the top of the play- or that I thought they were at the top of the play. All three of these women surprised me in interesting ways as I got to know them.

Some of my colleagues stayed in the mindset of the first 10 pages. Yes, the broad style in which she chose to (and I don’t think the direction helped out much either) introduce us to the characters did make it hard to like/appreciate them so when the play goes to those emotional places later on, a lot of the audience was there with her. I think Metzler may also speak to another issue; script submission policies, especially first 10 page reads. If someone only read the first few pages of this work, they may (or already may have) passed on it. 

Talking about the play’s concepts and why she wrote it:

…I’ve been thinking about you gain entry into that world; what you give up to be in that world; what it feels like to wake up and live in the houses I saw

The theatre world. Being of that world. What do I have to give up to be there? Am I there? Am I sleeping and waking up in the same glass houses I’ve been throwing stones at? Already? Am I on that path? Do I want to be?

Responding to why she has minimalist stage directions:

I don’t want to be too specific. I’ll write something like “the couch is very confident” and let them figue out what that looks like. I love collaborating; that’s why I’m not a novelist. I love the idea that the four or five of us sit down and realize this world, and I fund that thrilling.

Speaking about the parallels between Simone’s perception of herself as more than an employee and Michaela’s position as a wife but more as a contractor:

One of the things I observed [the summer she worked on Martha’s vineyard] is that if you are magnificently beautiful, like Michaela, you can get in. But if you come in on that boat, it’s a very different game. The “trophy wife” is very different than the “moneyed wife.” It is kind of like being hired because you have a very specific skill set: you have to do four hours of Pilates every day and be gorgeous. It’s very lonely to me because you don’t actually get to make any friends; you don’t have anybody’s respect. It seemed to me a very sad and lonely gig.

She wrote about her experiences and those around her. Why do people of color get demonized when we do the same thing? When majority writers do it, they are “emphasizing the specific in order to highlight the universality” but when POCs do it, they are being too “culturally specific” and not speaking to the greater human race. Explain that too me!