An interview with playwright, Susan Soon He Stanton

Q: Tell me about the Kennedy Center workshop for the underneath. Did it change much in the process? And how did the Yale Cabaret fit into the process of developing the underneath?

SS: the underneath was a commission by Kumu, and so I wrote it with Kumu’s intimate space in mind, for a local audience. I began writing the underneath at Yale. We did a 45-minute version of the play at the Yale Cabaret, and it was more light-hearted and over the top. It was a lot of fun. But, after the fact, I felt like there were still essential themes I didn’t address, in terms of why I wanted to tell the story of an older brother returning home to search for his younger brother.

At the Kennedy Center, I added the Auntie Evie character (played by Kati Kuroda in the Kumu production). I also explored the idea of flashbacks and the role of memory in the play. The Kennedy Center was an amazing and very intimidating place to workshop a play. I had a badge, and I was walking around the red carpeting and gigantic pillars, thinking “whoa.” I also workshopped the play at Rising Circle’s INKtank, with a group of wonderful writers and with Kumu. I think some plays come quickly, and this is one that had to marinate for awhile, and I did that with the help of some of finest collaborators I know.

DA: Your other plays set in Hawai‘i, as far as I could tell, center around people who arrive here for the first time (Seek, Navigator) or who’ve lived here all their lives (Whatever Happened to John Boy Kihano?, Art of Preservation). Am I right in thinking the underneath is your first play about someone who returns to Hawai‘i after a long absence? And -- forgive me if I’m reading too much into this -- it strikes me that the underneath is a different kind of personal expression for you, since you yourself went away, for college and your career.

SS: Good question! I’ve been thinking that a lot of my plays, especially plays about Hawai‘i, involve missing people. I believe my kuleana is that of a story teller, and it’s a special and important privilege to tell stories about Hawai‘i, new stories that reflect my childhood and experience here. There can be a guilt and a yearning that happens when you are displaced from your homeland for a long period of time. The home in the underneath is not the home that Col remembers, and his aunt is partially invalid. Home and the people in it are shabbier and sadder. He has an urge to contribute and make things better, but he lacks the time or ability to make any real changes. I think this guilt, whether real or imagined, is something that a lot of kamaʻāina living abroad face.

DA: This isn’t the first play of yours with an all-lowercase title. What’s going on there?

SS: Paula Vogel is my mentor and she’s taught me a lot about the way plays should look and feel on the page. Every single one of my plays has a different font and specific cover art. I think especially with the themes of the underneath, an all-lower-case title felt right. Although another play of mine, TAKARAZUKA!!! is in caps.

DA: That’s a perfect segue. TAKARAZUKA!!! and the underneath both have their first performance before an audience on the same night. It must be wild to have two productions going simultaneously -- that’s a credit very few writers can claim. How has it been? An embarrassment of riches?

SS: It’s been a wonderful and interesting challenge, because I wanted to give my full energy to both productions. the underneath is a world premiere at Kumu, and new plays always need a lot of work. However, it is the West Coast premiere of TAKARAZUKA!!!, and that play has undergone extensive rewrites and even new musical numbers I’ve written with my composer, Nathan Wang.

At times, I’ve felt a bit schizophrenic leaping from one world to the other during this process. the underneath is a mystery set in Hawai‘i and TAKARAZUKA!!! is set at a theater in 1970’s Japan.

My full-length drama Whatever Happened to John Boy Kihano? was produced at Kumu in rep with my one-act romantic comedy Art of Preservation. I think, even though it is daunting to be presenting two plays at the same time, there’s something comforting knowing they are both happening at once, on either side of the Pacific. It makes me feel very lucky.

DA: Besides the obvious fact that they were written by the same person (you), are there any threads -- in theme, style, subject matter, etc. -- connecting TAKARAZUKA!!! to the underneath?

SS: I think both plays are very much about displacement and identity. TAKARAZUKA!!! explores the life of a woman performing as a male-player at the Takarazuka Revue who is about to retire at age 25. Her identity, as an actress performing for thousands of people, is about to change, and she is struggling to reconcile with her new off-stage identity. Also in the play, is a hapa documentary filmmaker, who is struggling to understand his identity, and has come to Japan in hopes of a greater understanding of his place.

the underneath also explores identity, through childhood and memory. Col leaves his brother, Jem, for ten years. There’s a sense that even as Col is searching for Jem, he won’t be able to find him, because Col left a boy who has now become a man. I think the hapa theme comes into the underneath, even though Col isn’t specifically hapa. Growing up in Hawai‘i, I always had the fear that I wasn’t local enough and didn’t belong. I didn’t speak pidgin as well as my relatives or neighbors, I didn’t surf, and so on. I kept searching for superficial ways that I could look or act more local. There’s a pervading sense in the underneath that Col does not belong there, or he should not have returned. But at the same time, abandoning his brother and his home is how all of his problems began in the first place.

the underneath is a very important play for me. Beyond the themes of identity, displacement, belonging, it was also loosely based on the disappearance of a friend’s brother. And so there’s something very real about the issues we are exploring, even though we do it in a fun and dynamic film-noir-esque kind of way. It’s been a joy to work with director Taurie Kinoshita and the cast to explore ways we can have the heightened style of the play, while still hitting the play’s deeper emotional core.

DA: Any advice for Hawai‘i playwrights just starting out?

SS: Read all the plays you can, classics as well as new work. It’s important to know what your contemporaries are writing. See everything you can. If you love something take note, if you hate something, also figure out why. I think everyone has that one big play in them they have to write first. Don’t fight that. You don’t have to write every day, but write often and create deadlines. I try to write a new play a year to submit to Kumu and other playwriting contests. Once you write a play, find friends to hear it out loud, the play is very different on the page.

I like what Ira Glass says that beginners starting out have good taste. But there’s a period of doing work where you become discouraged because your taste exceeds your ability, and you have to fight through that phase. Glass says, “It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions...It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”