Signature: What is your history with Signature?
MG: I first worked here in 2002 doing a wonderful John
Guare play called A Few Stout Individuals. John and I
knew each other from Williamstown but hadn’t worked
together before. I was an extraordinary fan of his writing—
working with him was one of those dreams you never
think will come to fruition. But I got the call and was
knocked out by the play, then was really happy with how
...a fantastic thing about preparing
for the play has been reading about
visitations and visionaries and the
validation process. In Rwanda,
but also around the world.
everyone at Signature found the resources the play needed.
I returned to Signature in 2006 for a revival of John’s play
Landscape of the Body. It was a great reunion with John,
and after a very good production at Williamstown, I got a call
from Jim [Houghton]. It was a large, complicated show, and
once again, John and I felt beautifully supported by this institution. Then in 2010 I had been working with Tony Kushner
on a premiere of a play called The Intelligent Homosexual’s
Guide…, and soon after we closed I got another call from Jim.
I was thrilled to hear that he was reviving Angels in America
and asking me to direct it. It was an extraordinary opportunity
to do those plays in an intimate setting.
Signature: What is your history with Residency Five
playwright Katori Hall?
MG: I had seen things she had written! I saw The Mountaintop
and was really impressed, like so many, with her imagination, ambition, and craft. Then I saw Hurt Village at Signature,
which took me places I didn’t expect to go. I was given a very
brave and truthful account of a young life struggling in a very
tough place, and was impressed with her ability to depict a
fascinating, complicated community. I’m always attracted to
writers like Katori who use language richly rather than sparely.
Signature: How did you feel when you first read
Our Lady of Kibeho?
MG: I thought it was a thrilling subject for a play. What a wise
and sly way of getting at a terrible moment in history. I love
plays that examine the years before an explosion, the cataclysms you don’t see but should be able to recognize.
Signature: How much did you know about Rwanda?
MG: Probably as much as most interested Americans. I knew
of the genocide. I knew about it in relation to a series of cataclysmic genocides occurring at the end of the 20th century.
The story of the visionaries was completely new to me, and a
fantastic thing about preparing for the play has been reading
about visitations and visionaries and the validation process. In
Rwanda, but also around the world. It’s interesting that there’s
a confluence of “visits” around this time in other regions (such
as Bosnia-Herzegovina) where horrific civil wars and
genocides took place.
Signature: The play has a lot of design challenges/
opportunities. How have you and your team tackled them?
MG: Yes. There are supernatural events in the play, events
that defy the natural world—that’s always challenging to
depict theatrically. The first thing I talked to Katori about was
the level of theatricality. How much did we want to let the
audience in on the illusions? Because certainly there’s a way
to depict supernatural events in a language that allows the
audience to see how they’re happening. We decided instead
to put the audience in the same position as the characters, so
the audience sees the same things these young girls are seeing. Since then we’ve gone about working with illusionists and
magicians to try and make those things work.
Signature: What, in your words, is Kibeho about?
MG: I’ve been describing it as being about three convent girls
who are visited by the Virgin Mary, who ultimately, surprisingly, begins to warn them about the impending genocide. I’m
hoping to direct the play in a way in which people see that it is
also about how necessary it is for people to believe in a future.
To believe that their children will live in a better world. I think
that our lead character is struggling to believe that a better
world is to come on Earth, and not in a heavenly sphere. It’s
remarkable that in this religious setting in which most of the
characters believe that the rewards of this life are in the next,
he’s looking for a world in which the rewards are earthly.
Signature: This is your first time direct