[NEohioPAL] INTERVIEW with "The Near East" director Ansley Valentine

[Tom Wachunas]

Regional Premiere of The Near
East at Canton Players Guild Theatre
By Tom Wachunas
 
    The New Play
Conservatory program of the Canton Players Guild Theatre will present the
regional premiere of The Near East, written
by Alex Lewin, on March 30 – April 1, at the Players Guild’s William G. Fry Theatre.
The play was awarded the Quest for Peace Prize in 2008 at the Kennedy Center American
College Theatre Festival. It is co-produced here with the theatre department of
Northern Michigan University (NMU), where it was performed in February under
the direction of NMU Director of Theatre, Ansley Valentine. In collaboration
with Players Guild Associate Artistic Director Jeremy Lewis, Valentine is
bringing his NMU cast to Canton for three performances.
    This is the story
of American archaeologist Ken Schneider, hired for a controversial and
secretive mission in Saudi Arabia by Arab woman scholar Aisha Ghazali, to
assist in finding the elusive Umm al-Kitab, the “Mother of Books”, believed to
be written by the hand of God, and pre-dating the Koran. In his dealings with
Aisha and the other characters in the story, Ken, already struggling with the
death of his son and loss of his wife, must confront his own beliefs in a
volatile context of faith and mysticism, love and loss, terror and hope.
    In a phone
interview on March 21, I (T.W.) talked with Ansley Valentine (A.V.) about the
production. Here are some excerpts.
   T.W.  What in particular do you find most
significant or powerful about this play?
   A.V.  For me, the most powerful thing about it is
that it deals with issues of faith and the Middle East in a way that’s not
typical or stereotypical of ways that they’re presented in America. I think we
often characterize Islamic people as ‘the bad guys’ and we don’t really get
into the notion that these are people who are deeply religious and have their
convictions and faith just like anybody else, and these are people who struggle and are conflicted about the best
thing to do, just like anybody else…It’s a beautiful and complicated play.
There are no simple answers, and the playwright doesn’t give any simple
answers. He raises a lot of questions, on a lot of subject matter, and I think
he does it for people to think about these things and how they’re applied to
their own lives.
   T.W.   So
there’s no overly- preachy or pedantic agenda here?
   A.V.   No, I don’t think so. He (playwright Alex
Lewin) has been so smart about the people he’s picked to play opposite each
other. The characters are points of view so that you can say, ‘I completely
understand why this person would feel the way that they do.’ No one character
is monolithic, or just presenting one side. Everybody goes on a journey in this
play. And so between Act 1 and the end, for the most part I think you really
can see why they do that, and you can ask yourself, ‘What would I do if I were confronted with these
things?’
   T.W.   Was there anything especially challenging
or daunting about bringing this to the stage?
   A.V.   We have
a big theater and we actually did this play in our studio theater [note: the
Canton production will likewise be in a black-box setting]. So it was a big
challenge for my actors to bring down their performances to a very real level,
trying to make what feels like a big play fit credibly into a small space. I
think the benefit is that as the audience, you’re right there, and you
definitely feel the emotional impact of what happens to these characters much
more so than if we were in a huge theater where you have distance from all
that.
   T.W.  What do you think we might take away from encountering these
characters and their journey?
   A.V.  The characters do get into a very interesting religious debate about
how each perceives the other and how they ultimately don’t really understand
where each other is coming from. That, to me, is what is so interesting about
the play. It’s not just that we’re looking at this from the American point of
view, or that the American approach is ‘correct’… We have to get past our
prejudices and preconceived notions and then confront each other as people,
person-to-person… The character of Ken starts the play as an atheist and by the
end he’s come to embrace his faith… For me, and for the audience as they
watched it here (at NMU), I think it was a very satisfying and impactful
moment. That’s the positive – that for all the things that happened - and
happened to him in the play - he realizes that the answer is a higher power or
something outside his control. Really, all the characters become different
people,…and for me, that’s affirming – to think you can start with one idea and
through conversation and experience end up at a different place.
   T.W. How was the NMU audience response?
   A.V.  People who were able to come to the show have all had a very
positive response to it even as they were challenged by the material… Obviously
from the outset you don’t want to tell people everything that happens in the
play, and I think some were a little leery of coming to see it. But those that
did come walked away with a new perspective and were really appreciative of the
experience.
    The regional
premiere of The Near East, produced
in connection with Northern Michigan University, will be for one weekend only,
at the Players Guild Theatre, 1001 Market Ave. North, in Canton. MATURE
CONTENT. Shows at 8:00 pm on Friday, March 30 and Saturday, March 31, and at
2:30 pm Sunday, April 1. All tickets are $10. Box Office (330) 453 – 7617, or
online at   www.playersguildtheatre.com
 
    For other
commentaries and reviews by Tom Wachunas on the performing and visual arts in
the greater Canton area, please visit his blog, ARTWACH, at  www.artwach.blogspot.com
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.neohiopal.org/pipermail/neohiopal-neohiopal.org/attachments/20120321/a6e629a8/attachment-0003.htm>