Latest / The Imperfect Impulse w/Bree O'Connor / Good Dialogue Ep 3: Playwright Niki Hatzidis

Transcript

Good Dialogue Ep 3: Playwright Niki Hatzidis · The Imperfect Impulse w/Bree O'Connor

• 0:00
  [music]
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: I really am dying to visit our conversation about O'Mary.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: Oh!
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, okay, yeah!
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's interesting, when we look at the point of the view of the playwright,
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: You know, which clearly in O'Meary takes center stage over the actual historical character.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yeah.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: I know you had a lot of thoughts and feelings
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: about it.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: I had a lot of thoughts and feelings about it.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_01: First off, I want to say I loved O'Meary.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: It was a really good, it was a really fun night at the theater.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: Just your good knee-slapping time at the theater.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I want to leave this really depressing,
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: horrible world behind and come into a world where I can just laugh,
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: where it's really silly on stage.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: There's lots of slapstick.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: There's lots of really raunchy jokes.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I just want to sit there and laugh and have a good time.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I did.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: It was a lot of fun.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: But then I left the theater.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I just, I was like, okay.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: Excuse me.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, that's, that was really fun.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: How do I put this?
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: I think we've talked a lot about what the function of theater is in our society.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: And it can have many functions.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you can go see a Happy Clappy Musical.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: And it's great.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: You can go see a slapstick farce and it's fun.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: But then,
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: the kind of stuff I usually enjoy seeing is something that makes me have that,
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: oh, I don't know, moment that I was talking about earlier.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: They're like, ah, don't ask me, don't ask me that.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want to, I don't want to.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: And being a nerd,
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: I like going into the theater and learning
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: and experiencing something I haven't even considered before.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: And leaving being like,
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: I want to learn more about this,
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: or I'm so happy I saw that because I don't think I would have ever have come across
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: that story before.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I think the plays, I know, the plays I write are in the latter category.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: They're not really a good time.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't characterize them like that.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: You do tackle darker topics.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: Emotionally challenging situations.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I think there's a place for both those things.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: I work with normies and they like going to see like Paddington the musical
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: and they like,
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: they like going to see something that's going to be really lighthearted and fun.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: And though O'Mary is very raunchy and it's like,
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: it's a great kind of like alternate history,
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: kind of like, what if this happened instead?
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what if this is the reason that Lincoln got shot?
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: And those are fun.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: Those are really, really fun.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: But then in thinking about it,
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: the play itself,
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: I could never write a play like that because it goes against my ethics as
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_01: a playwright.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think you have a historian's, you know, heart.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't mean to diss the playwright.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's a really, the script is really great.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's really funny.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's really clever.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: But in how I,
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: and I talked about this earlier,
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: how I approach something is I want to be as accurate as possible
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: because we're talking about,
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: in this case,
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: Mary Todd,
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: a woman that hadn't been in the spotlight that we don't know that much about.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I think the only inkling I got that he sort of like maybe
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: touched on is her alcoholism.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, okay, Then I would go like, why is she an alcoholic?
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: In this version, it's because she just wants to be in the cabaret and her husband won't let her.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: For me, I was like, okay,
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: I'm the kind of theater goer that will go and be like,
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: I wonder why Mary Todd Lincoln drank a lot and go and research that and learn
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: about it and learn about who she was as a person and maybe learn...
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: More historical, accurate accounts of her.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: What do you do for the theater goer that leaves being like, she was a mean old drunk.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: What a nasty person.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I think we have a responsibility when talking about real people
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: showing them
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: in a light, not in a light that's favorable or like whatever.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: Washed out or anything like that,
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: but in a light that's honest,
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_01: but shows them as much as we can with a whole well-rounded person
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: that I'm sure Mary Todd Lincoln was.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: And there's another play about her as well.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's called Mrs. President, which I haven't seen, which I think is more historically accurate.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: Not as big of a hit.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and then that is also that is also an aspect we sort of have to deal with
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: as playwrights is what's commercially commercially viable and what isn't.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean, that's that's a whole other topic.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I think if you're writing for a commercial success, I don't think you're doing it.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think you're doing it for the right reasons.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: It feels like Oh Mary was a fluke.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: Because to me, and and to be fair, I haven't had a chance to see it yet.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: But It's a good time.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's a good time.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: For everything I know about it,
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: it feels like Mary Todd is a vehicle for, you know, the playwrights.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: You know,
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: it's more about that experience that,
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: you know, using,
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: a historical character to play out some kind of situation that's inherent inside
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: the playwright, right?
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: If the vehicle was a non-personality character,
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: You know, then it probably would not have gone anywhere.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: It would not be salacious or even as fun because,
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: you know, we use celebrity as our punching bag a lot.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: And we use characters of note.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: And once you have a certain amount of time, We feel a little bit more free to take liberties.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: Right now, we're totally ripe for a big satire about Napoleon.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: But
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: there's a lot available about Napoleon.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: Mary Todd Lincoln was the First Lady of the United States during the Civil War.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: Are there any kind of personal accounts of hers?
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: She's not the most well-liked personality.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: Which, to me, opens opportunity.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: Because that's what I had to deal with when writing Kitty Oppenheimer.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so talk to me a little bit about finding Kitty's core.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, deep breaths.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_01: She is the hardest character I've ever had to write.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: And she nearly actually, no,
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: she sent me into a tailspin because I couldn't find anything about her
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: in her own words.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if that's tucked away in an archive where I don't have like in a,
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: a JSTOR kind of like archive where I don't have access to it or
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_01: if it's all classified things.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: Even her own children didn't really talk
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: or grandchildren didn't really talk very kindly towards her.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: Everything I read about her was from the perspective of other people.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_01: And it ran the gamut from her being the most charming,
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: lovely, brilliant person to being the most vile, like, mean, bitchy person.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: From my research, she struggled with mental health probably her whole life.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: I think she was probably bipolar.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: Or some kind of personality disorder.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: She married,
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_01: her first husband was a man who fought for the,
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: fought in the, in the Spanish war, the Civil War, Spanish Civil War.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_01: And he was a communist,
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: which is why she also
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: the time had said she aligned with those beliefs.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: Not that she followed him,
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: but I think like Because they were married, it was just kind of linked.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: And then he died.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_01: Like, he died in combat.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: And then, you know, she was a brilliant scientist in her own right.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_01: She was at Berkeley as a botanist.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: And she was doing lots of experiments and stuff.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: Oppenheimer at like a cocktail party while she was married and was kind of like,
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: hey, I want you and this is going to happen.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: Tell my husband we're divorcing.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: True story.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_01: And so then she meets Oppenheimer and it is this kind of like world-run romance and
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: a meeting of the minds.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: And then he gets put on the Manhattan Project and he's the director of the Manhattan Project.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: And they move to this very remote place where she isn't just like
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_01: the professor's wife and scientist anymore.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: She's the director's wife.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: She's in a place so arid she can't even do any botany, like continue her studies.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: And everything is catering to Robert.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: Then she gets pregnant.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: For the second time with their daughter, Toni.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: And from all accounts, it's pretty clear to see that she suffered a postpartum depression.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of like really to the point where she abandoned Toni and left with her son
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: and went back to Pittsburgh where she was from for months.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: I think it was like seven or eight months.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: And so in looking at all of that,
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: You're like,
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: here's someone who is clearly very passionate, very,
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: very clever,
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: very emotionally,
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: I think emotionally intelligent, pushed to the side and
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: feeling extremely lonely.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought that was the way I could humanize her for myself and for the audience.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: And in the end of the play,
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: she sort of comes to the conclusion of,
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: like, there will always be another Manhattan Project.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: Because Oppenheimer,
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: from the accounts I've read,
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_01: promised her that they could go back to Berkeley and go back to their normal life.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_01: She's like, there's always going to be another project now.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: He's successful.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: He's done it.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_01: There's always going to be something else.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm going to be sack and fiddle to him.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: Always.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_01: So, after...
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: Many, many drafts.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: I think, no, definitely Oppenheimer was in that scene.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: He was like my only male in the play.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: And everyone was like, you need to get rid of him.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, no, like how else am I going to show this relationship?
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_01: Like I fought you guys a lot on it.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: And then I was like, I remember.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I fought a lot.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, no, he needs to be in the play because of this relationship.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: And then when I finally kind of latched onto her loneliness after like draft 12,
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, okay, fine.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: I'll cut him out.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: And she's, yeah, she's in the play.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: She's there talking to their German nanny about how much she loves her husband
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_01: and how that's not enough.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: I think what is so striking about setting this guy on fire is honestly the depth
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: of how relationship is an anchor for every woman in the play
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: That they're either seeking that anchor or having difficulties with that anchor and
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: the absence of the men is actually really striking.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's quite illustrative of what it means to find your place in the world as a woman.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: You know, while the world is literally exploding and, you know, around you.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: Writing the wax scene was really interesting for me because, again, they're so young.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: They're so young.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: And this is like their first time away from home doing something that means a lot.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: That's really important.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know...
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of the people around them are like, oh, you're going to meet your husband there.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: Like a lot of the higher ups equated it to like summer camp.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: And they were just like, yeah, it was fun.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_01: We have like parties every weekend.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, they had shows for us and all this kind of stuff.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, like, you know, the food sort of rotted by the time it got to us.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: And like, you know, you couldn't keep a cake from...
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: Falling flat and all this stuff.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: And then, you know, all the secrecy and things.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: And then you're just kind of like, but it was fun.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: It was fun.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I was just like, maybe my public school education.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't realize the scope of the project.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_01: And when I read like a lot of the wives got like their husband came home one day
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: and was like, yeah, so we have to move.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_01: Can't tell you where and can't tell you for how long,
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: but it's for my job and we got to do it soonish.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, let's go.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, I'm sorry.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: What?
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: And the thing is that they did.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: And the only thing that sort of kept that going was like,
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_01: oh, we're helping the government win the war.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I don't think you could do that nowadays.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: We could not.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_01: Like, rations?
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_01: I can't have red meat and wine and whiskey.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what?
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: Because of your war?
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: Our eggs got expensive and we lost our minds.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: We should.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: Eggs shouldn't cost $12 a carton.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: They should not cost $12 a carton.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_01: To tell people that like, oh,
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: like people,
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: people planted freedom gardens and,
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_01: you know, they rationed metal and gasoline and all this stuff.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm just kind of like, that would not fly now.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's the day of the Trinity test.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: They're finally ready to test the bomb.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: And they're going to do it.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: They've been,
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: it's been about a couple,
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_01: maybe a couple weeks where there's sort of,
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_01: Chat around the facility because they're preparing a site called Trinity,
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: a few, like a good, I think 200 miles, like it's pretty far from where they are.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: And they're preparing the site because they're going to test the bomb.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: But no one, only a selected few
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: know it's a bomb.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_01: And a line that I read in a novel I was reading about this was,
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: One day,
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: my husband came home and was like, hey,
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_01: I need a change of clothes and a couple sandwiches,
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_01: going off to do something for work.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: But hey, if you stay up late enough, you might see something.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_01: Putting yourself in that time period,
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: you don't know what the atomic bomb looks like and what it's capable of.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_01: Also, the scientists didn't know that.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_01: They didn't know if it was going to work.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_01: And a funny little...
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: Funny little tidbit is like Niels Bohr was taking bets on whether they were going
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_01: to blow up New Mexico or completely annihilate the atmosphere of the Earth,
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_01: ending all life.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_01: Talk about gallows humor.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: That's funny, it's like, how are you going to call that bet?
• 18:22
  Yeah, yeah.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_01: He's like, either...
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: There'll be a giant hole where New Mexico used to be.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_01: Another fun thing was that, like,
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_01: the first attempt didn't work and someone had to climb up on the tower to check
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: the bomb.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, God.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_01: Someone,
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_01: and it's in the play,
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_01: someone had to spend the night with the bomb so that no one tampered with it
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_01: because they were afraid about that.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_01: And so much of that makes me go, ha,
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: ha, ha.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_01: What?
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_01: So there's a lot of chat around the site,
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: a lot of the upper,
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_01: obviously everyone who has a higher clearance knows what's going on.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: The people lower than that have heard that like if they get a good spot,
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_01: they'll be able to see something interesting.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: Oh boy.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: So they,
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_01: some of them hike up on the mountain,
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_01: some of them stay up all night facing south because they know that's where
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: the test site's going to be.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_01: And there's a lot of like waiting.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and historically, like on the night, it rained.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: So the test got pushed back until like four or five in the morning.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_01: And so everyone's out and staying up and waiting for this and they, they want it to work.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_01: Whatever it is, they want it to work because if it doesn't, well,
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: there are some characters that don't want it to work,
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_01: but they want it to work because that would mean that all this hard work,
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_01: all this sacrifice,
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_01: all those like really long hours have culminated into something that's going to end
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_01: the war because they were getting reports on how many were killed on the daily,
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_01: on the weekly,
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_01: like, and The sooner this would work, whatever it was, would save lives.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: Those were the stakes.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: Like, we will save millions of lives if we get this right.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_01: But then we see the mushroom cloud for the first time.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_01: And
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_01: I have to wonder what that felt like for people,
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_01: having seen that for the very, very first time.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_01: And knowing what that meant.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: And just thinking about it, like, I get upset.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what does that mean?
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: Like, that.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, do you celebrate it?
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_01: Which some did.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: Some did.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_01: Some still do.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_01: Some still do.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: Some were really horrified.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know,
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: the play isn't about this bomb being built and whether or not we were meant
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: to drop it.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there are Characters in the play that do talk about it because they know it's a bomb.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_01: The point of the play is that this project where we hear about Oppenheimer
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: and Niels Bohr and Fish and all these men,
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_01: there was a literal army of women that made it also possible, for better or worse.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: They were there.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_01: They contributed to And it's important to acknowledge their contribution.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's complicated.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's complicated.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: And it sets the stage for, you know, the American century.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_01: You know,
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_01: we had the Industrial Revolution,
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_01: but this is really where things technologically and socially really speed up
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_01: for us post-World War II.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: To me, that's the beauty of theater is...
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: We are such an interesting animal that,
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: you know, early on in our existence, we went, you know what?
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: We should all gather in a space and tell stories that make us feel things and think things.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: And then we get to sit with that and we can talk it over.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: And the idea of story is it gives us this much distance.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: So that we can look at things we wouldn't be able to look at if they were closer
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: to our bodies and closer to our nervous systems and closer to our hearts.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: And it's happening right there.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's happening right there.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: And we share this experience with the people sitting next to us.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, the point of theater is it's a gathering.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_01: And we're collectively experiencing the same thing at the same time.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_01: And the beauty about theater is that it's never the same twice.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: And that there is a give and take between the audience and the performer and
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: the text that makes that evening specific.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: And to me,
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: as a playwright,
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: if you leave the theater having seen one of my plays and are like,
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_01: I've got questions.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's the Best.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm going to talk about it with someone who just saw it with me.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: And we're going to see if we have the same questions.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what drinks are for afterwards.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'm always excited to chat with you because these conversations are always enlightening.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: And exciting.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: And it's always like, what about this?
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_01: And because we're writers, we don't often talk.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_01: To other people,
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_01: so this is really fun to just say,
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_01: you know, how often can we sit and talk about our work
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: in like the real world?
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_01: We have all these normies around me and like sitting
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: and having these like conversations about theater and history and what it means
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_01: and how important it is.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, it's just, it's my happy place.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_01: Music.
• 24:31
  We'll see you next time.