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| In Corina Copp's "Waltz," a woman is falsely accused, so an angel stands ready to cut judges in two: so goes divine justice. Photo by Jamie Siegel. |
Written and produced by playwrights from Mac Wellman's
groundbreaking Brooklyn College MFA program, the Weasel festival
is fast becoming an exciting platform for America's rising playwrights
to create experimental, irreverent and explosive new work. Each
playwright will riff off the stories of The Apocrypha – the
infamous religious texts that didn't make the Bible's cut. Not decreed
to be divinely inspired, the Apocrypha books are ancient Greek texts
that were ripped and pasted back into the Bible throughout history.
Filled with luminous stories of prophets, angels, intrigue and heresy,
the off-the-record Apocrypha is the perfect inspiration for a festival
of peculiar plays by playwrights working outside the canon. We talk
to playwright Corina Copp about her play "Waltz."
Q. Tell me how you came to write this play.
A. First came [my professor] Mac Wellman and The Apocrypha. It was
a coup: I wanted to adapt a short story by Heinrich Böll ("The
Lost Honour of Katharina Blum"), but I wasn't convincing enough.
It's understandable; there's a thing about Bible stories or in this
case, Apocryphal stories, and the act of their retelling that positions
them well theatrically. They already seem overheard, which allows
for a lot of freedom. The Story of Susanna was the most appealing…
I decided that Susanna and Katharina were similar - both under the
gun. I wanted to adapt the story pretty literally - not word for
word, but by plot point - to see how it shakes out now. Strangely
though, the tension that might resonate from false accusation is
leveled by other events in my play, if you can call watering flowers
an event.
I really like to de-hierarchicalize, rather than heighten, so everything, every relationship, has the potential to become significant, or insignificant, depending. And I was listening to different versions of "The Tennessee Waltz" at the time - Sam Cooke, Elvis, Patsy Cline, Patti Page, and so on - and thought that the song, too, had a history and had gone through these emotional retellings. We have these amazing musicians in the cast, so the song is becoming an emotional center of the play, and this religious triptych - Daniel in the lion's den, the song of three children, Susanna - remains so rational.
Q. Can you describe what "Waltz" is about?
A. If anything, Susanna has been an object of desire forever, bathing
in her garden and corrupting men's rational judgment. Which makes
for good 2-D, sure, not opposed, but the play is about how exceptionally
difficult it is to encounter someone with sincere spiritual belief
when you yourself feel morally and spiritually vapid.
Q. What sort of other pop culture works is it in the
vein of?
A. Tenn Waltz, as mentioned. I could source a story overheard as
part of a performance I did for artist Yelena Gluzman at PS1, called
Dear Diary, where I dressed in a bunny suit and this girl sat on
my lap and whispered a tale into my ear about a mother frightening
her children to death. That's not pop culture is it? I also watch
a lot of movies at home by myself… my favorites are Margarethe
von Trotta, Marguerite Duras, Chantal Akerman. Early 80s Euro movies
about female friendship. Most of my playwriting deals with female
friendship, so far.
Q. Tell me a little about the MFA at Brooklyn College.
A. It's boggling, honestly. How the hell are so many good writers
coming out? I think even Mac Wellman wonders sometimes. It's very
self-directed but personally held up by both Mac and Erin Courtney
- pillars I tell ya. The legacy fuels us, if I can speak for all.
Everyone's intensely motivated, and not simply in a careerist sense.
Q. What excites you most about Off-Broadway in 2010?
A. Have you seen that YouTube video of the dancing parrot?
Q. What or who is inspiring you right now?
A. Susanna, Meghan Finn, David Levine, Jean Day.
Q. Can you tell me a funny anecdote or nerve-racking
moment from the rehearsal process?
A. At rehearsal today, Maya Ferrara channeled Patti Page, and we
all fell down; actually Nick Capodice did fall off his chair. Her
singing was like revolutionary soap-opera, or something, a space
I had never been in, exactly beautiful! Exact. So excited.
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