Signature Stories Vol. 17 | Page 10

What are you looking forward to in your residency here at Signature? Seeing how the landscape has changed since I initially created and had these plays produced. That’s interesting. I mean it was such a surprise with The Death of the Last Black Man, seeing how it’s become more rich. I’m looking forward to seeing how the landscape has changed. It kind of feels like the culture’s caught up to the work which is really an amazing feeling. It’s like the work was a tree in the field and the culture has grown up around it, literally the up and coming artists that I’m working with on this project – there are some awesome established actors in our cast in Last Black Man, there are also some up and coming folks and they have literally come up around this play. So that’s exciting to see how the landscape has grown and also to do new things. How did Founding Artistic Director Jim Houghton approach you about joining Residency One, and doing a season of your plays? He rolled them all out at once. I think that was the way to do it. The whole idea of having a Residency One at Signature, to me, was like “No thanks,” because I go forward very well. I like to work, which to me means go forward and do things that are slightly beyond what I did last time around. It’s not by design but it’s kind of where my energy is. So when Jim came up to me and says, “How would you like a Residency One?” …that’s not something that I was really interested in doing. Then what happened? We were just sitting in the give him more days on the planet or whatever, but I can give him this. I can give my work, what he might enjoy.” So he said Last Black Man and I was like... [gesture of bewilderment]. And so far it’s the smartest thing that I’m doing this year. The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World is the first play in your residency. How would you describe what the play is “about”? It’s about a man and his wife, and the man is dying. So it’s about them, but think of jazz music first of all, think of like free jazz – it moves like that. It’s not like a tidy, well-made play that we’re accustomed to seeing in traditional theatre. Think of poet’s theatre, slam poetry, hip-hop, like a poetry slam. This man is dead and his wife is basically trying to find his final resting place. There’s a reoccurring question in the play: “Where’s he gonna go now that he done dieded?” And what they find at the end is that his final resting place is a play called The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World. It’s like a funeral mass in a way. Every actor who came into the room to audition was down with it... Everybody came in with a familiarity and ease with it. It was in their body, it was in their hands, it was in their minds. They knew how to break it down. RESIDENCY ONE of me when I was a young man, and I didn’t have the heart to let him down.” And that’s what I felt. James Baldwin thought something of me when I was a young person, and I didn’t have the heart to let him down, and I still don’t have the heart to let him down. So, here I am [laughs]! What was the process of writing this play like, and then revisiting it now in 2016? I started writing this play in 1990. When I wrote this play I was listening to a lot of Ornette Coleman, The Shape of Jazz to Come, which is a brilliant, brilliant album – and it very much has some jazz motifs in it. So the play does as well. It dovetails very much with current language today. This street language, urban language, creative language that we use. But it’s also dovetailing with some of the current events, the difficult current events that are going on in our country today. They weren’t so apparent and on the surface back in 1990. It was always there, but I’m looking forward to seeing how the landscape has changed. It kind of feels like the culture’s caught up to the work which is really an amazing feeling. It’s like the work was a tree in the field and the culture has grown up around it... What led you to writing for the theatre? I wasn’t a playwright when I started with Mr. Baldwin, I was a short story writer, novelist, wrote songs. And then he suggested writing for the theatre, because when I read my short stories aloud in his class I was very animated. Like I would do what the stupid theatre people did, like “Laaa Laaaa Leyy! And Read Alouddd! And tell the characters and then paint the scene! And do all this stuff!” And these were short stories. So Mr. Baldwin said, “Ms. Parks, have you ever thought about writing for the theatre?” And gave me that look… I started writing for the theatre that day, that very day. So, he was very encouraging. I’ve had other people encourage me along the way, but he was the one I always felt like…that from Mr. Baldwin I got a golden kiss on the forehead. He wrote me an evaluation that said, “Suzan-Lori Parks is…” I forget what he wrote, but it’s a quote that still kind of makes me embarrassed. But it was very positive and very affirming. He thought I might amount to something as an artist. There’s a quote that Abraham Lincoln said, “Someone thought well 9 Waverly Diner and I could hear very loudly the voice in my head telling me the 500 really brilliant reasons why I didn’t need to do this. I’m sort of hearing my own reasons very clearly and I’m just listening to Jim say, “it might be good for you, it might be good for people…” You know, all the reasons why. And suddenly I stopped talking. I wasn’t talking talking, I was talking in my head. I stopped talking and I started listening. I just looked at him and I could hear very clearly, “This will be good for you.” Just like when James Baldwin said, “Have you ever tried writing for the theatre?” One of those voices. And it cut through – his generous offer, request, suggestion – cut through all the chatter in my head and I said, “I suppose we’ll just step forward on faith.” I said, “What would you like to see?” He smiled and said, “Oh, I might not be here,” and I, of course, said, “Of course you will.” And he isn’t and he is. Right? [Editor’s Note: Jim Houghton passed away on August 2, 2016, three days prior to this interview.] But I wanted him to choose, and again I wanted to stop talking and listen to what he wanted. Because I thought, “I can’t (opposite) S. Epatha Merkerson and Daphne Rubin-Vega in Fucking A at The Public Theater, 2003. (top) Charlayne Woodard in In the Blood at The Public Theater, 1999. (above) Don Cheadle and Jeffrey Wright in Topdog/Underdog at The Public Theater, 2001. 10