RETURNING TO THE SOURCE (WORK)
Faith: I actually have many questions, some of which are not related to the play. But I was reading information that you have on your website and also, in your Next Forever proposal. And I was really excited about this idea of “source work.” I imagine you get asked about this continuously. I’ve been thinking about creative methodologies, and “source work” feels like a perfect example of that. So yeah, I would love to hear your thoughts here, how it came about, etc..
Kareem: I think I was inspired by the fact that it’s actually dovetails with my impulses that are not fully as a playwright or fully as a director. Quite early in my career here in New York, I was labeled a director because that’s what I studied. They perceived it. And very early on, when I was, let’s say out in the industry, out in the world, I was like, “Oh, wait. Directors, to a large extent, are not creators, you know?”
Faith: Correct.
Kareem: They’re seen as interpreters, right? And I was really fortunate in that I really did begin to work in a different way with playwrights before I started writing plays myself. I’d have an idea that I wanted to explore theatrically, but I didn’t feel like I had the skill (or maybe the right?) to be the author. So I would work with playwrights where I felt their sensibilities were in alignment with the sensibilities of the project. And, we would figure out a way to create something together. So again, technically, the playwright was writing the play and I was directing the play, but we were creating the play in close collaboration. I did that with three different projects (probably four different projects) earlier in my career in a very robust way where these collaborations would be years long. And, in every case, I think the key thing was how to incorporate the performers in that generative process. How do you bring in an actor when there’s not even a character? How do you bring in an actor when there’s not even a text? This idea of this work, which to a certain extent came a little bit out of some of the things that I did when I was studying directing at Columbia. I would say I kind of remixed it a little bit from there. All of those projects, similarly to the project we are doing now, were rooted in a real world scenario, some sort of historical event or some sort of political event. My collaborators and I are like, “How do we glean insight from how the performers are affected by those ideas and those stories?”
We have our own set of curiosities and ideas and then the actors, because they’re different and they’re all individuals [with] different histories in and of themselves, are going to have a broader subset of their own ideas and moments of curiosity. And so by doing source work exercises, which sometimes was just like… I mean, I remember certain instances where we would just sit around the table and read an article together. And then have an in-depth conversation about what that sparked. Or, we could use things that we were curious about and turn them into improvisations that the actors would do. I remember this project I did that was related to the history of espionage in this country where these actors did an improv that turned into this silent scene that was all about withholding an object from another person while you’re sort of pretending to be their friend.
A very strange kind of experiment. But, the playwright was so struck by that events in this improvisation that he actually took that and incorporated a version of it into his play. So, you know… to be honest, I wish I was doing more [work like that]. Like, I wish I was doing more of it with this current project. I think the reason that I had to become a bit more playwright-centric over the last year is that the resources to do that kind of work, if you’re not doing it in an academic setting… it’s harder to do.
And, so, yeah, it’s still very much a part of my practice.
To read about how Kareem structures new plays, go to page 3.
To read about Riparian States, go to page 4.
To skip to the end, go to page 5.
