Hannah Moscovitch

Can you tell us a little bit about what inspired East of Berlin?

I read books of the testimonies of the children of Nazis. The testimonies of the children I read were based on interviews conducted by a Jewish journalist and a psychologist who were the children of Holocaust survivors. The psychological circumstance of these children of Nazis during the interview process seemed theatrical to me. Not only did the child have to reveal the details of their often painful relationship with a loved/hated parent, but they had to reveal those details to a victim of their parent. It meant that the testimonies became either an abject apology or a self-defense. I thought it would be interesting to put that onstage: the son of an SS doctor telling his story to an audience whom he believed was hostile to him.

How has the script developed since East of Berlin was first produced at Tarragon?

I’ve rewritten a little between the premier and the remount. I wanted to polish the dialogue and make a few moments in the play clearer. It’s a luxury to get to go back after an opening and further develop the piece using the discoveries I made during its run. I haven’t made substantial changes to the plot, but I have adjusted the relationship between two of the play’s three characters.

What has the experience of revisiting East of Berlin with the original cast members and director been like?

Normally rehearsing a play is a painful as well as a pleasurable process. I spend a lot of time before each premier asking myself if the play I’ve written has any value. It’s a valid question but it’s an uncomfortable one. With a remount like this, I am freed of those type of questions and I can just concentrate on the art.

What have you found to be the largest challenge or more difficult part of the entire process from our Playwrights Unit to the remount and tour?

There have been a series of challenges, of course, but mostly I feel very grateful. I worked with collaborators who I feel a great deal of artistic kinship with and who I deeply admire on this project. And I feel very lucky to be working at Tarragon. Tarragon remounts and tours work, which contributes to the sustainability of playwriting as a career.

How do you feel this piece fits into your body of work?

It’s the first full-length play I’ve written, so my body of work is limited to East of Berlin and the shorter pieces: The Russian Play, Essay, Mexico City and USSR. It’s hard to comment on your own preoccupations as a writer. I tend towards dark humour, I use coming of age stories and love stories to write about broad systems of thought. I like unusual slants on old topics, complex stories, and unheard voices. I tend towards theatrical stories, ones that involve presentational elements such as direct address. East of Berlin feels like a part of the process of me discovering how I write plays.

How many plays are you currently developing, and how diversified do you need to be as a playwright?

I’m developing more plays than I should be at one time these days. I don’t know how diversified you have to be as a playwright first hard. Right now I’m just playwriting but I imagine I’ll migrate towards other mediums at some point.

Rosa Laborde

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Can you tell us a little bit about Hush that you are currently developing for Tarragon?

Hush is the story of a man who enters into the dreams of his young daughter in an attempt to free her from her recurring night terrors.

What was the inspiration for Hush?

In passing it had been mentioned to me that there was a field of scientific research concerning emotional memory in DNA. So not only are blue eyes and weak hearts among the myriad of physical traits passed down through our genes but this line of research implies that the impact of our emotional experiences - positive and negative - from genocide to true love - are passed down through our genes as well. I find this idea fascinating, on a personal level but also what it means on the larger scale of our continually evolving collective consciousness. But the basic inspiration for the story began and remains “A man enters the dreams of his young daughter.”

How has Hush changed through its development so far?

Where do I begin? It’s not so much that a piece changes but that - through trial and error - it finds itself. There have been constants: my male protagonist; Harlem, his daughter; Lily, a man he works with; Andre and a woman he loves; Talia. These four fixtures have lodged themselves permanently since the beginning. Every single and I mean EVERY SINGLE other detail has been altered dramatically at different points in the process. From what they do to who they are to what the true nature of their relationships are to how it begins to how it ends. Complete and utter flux. And still moving.

What have you found to be the largest challenge or more difficult part of the process?

Uh … the actual marrying myself, pen in my hand, don’t you dare get up and do something else writing. Yeah. That. But with a piece like this the ideas rock me - I’m fascinated, I’m excited, I want to play, I want to crack my brain open and swim in other dimensions, I want to understand...but it’s ultimately incomprehensible to me, it’s the mystery of life and I don’t get it, I can only muse and so then I hate myself for trying and so I end up kind of paralyzed and often thoroughly disappointed with what does end up on the page because it seems infinitely lacking in comparison to these amazing possibilities in my head.

I read this quote earlier this year:

It seemed to me that I had undertaken too lofty a theme for my powers, so much so that I was afraid to enter upon it; and so I remained for several days desiring to write and afraid to begin. Dante

That’s how I feel. I am in no way comparing myself to Dante! Just God Bless him for being candid enough to say that.

How does this piece fit into you body of work?

Well, we’ll see won’t we? Maybe it doesn’t. But there is a line of thought my mind is most prone to follow and that is how we came to be here, what is our purpose and what are we doing...these are the questions that occupy most of my wondering time and so although each piece I embark on will be different in theme and the universe I’m exploring, I think that these basic musings will underlie the world of the plays.

How many plays are you currently developing, and how diversified do you need to be as a playwright?

I am currently developing two plays and a short film script. And I have a chalkboard of possible worlds I’d like to follow when I have the time... I think to make a living as a playwright you need a few irons in the fire but far be it from me to say how diversified a playwright should be. I’m not a fan of the shoulds. Shoulds have cut off my life force and made me obsess about how much and what exactly and to what degree and so on and so forth I should be accomplishing. And I find I’m spending a lot more time thinking about what I should be writing then actually doing the dirty work of writing. For me it is fantastic to have more than one project to work on at a time because inevitably I’ll hit a wall with something and need a break from it so that it can breathe and I can come back to it with new eyes and it is vital for me to have another piece to pick up so I keep the creative juice flowing.