In Other Words will be at Just The Tonic – Mash House – The Attic at 4.00pm for tickets go to http://www.edfringe.com
In Other Words explores the idea that language shapes identity and emotion — what first sparked your fascination with the power and limitations of words?
I like to say this whole play started because of a letter. A birthday letter. The most profound birthday letter. My dear friend Max sent me a birthday letter in which he was kind enough to lend me his point of view of me, and described me with the most beautiful and complex adjectives one could hope for.
I couldn’t ignore how the words made me feel. I felt like I was being created through them. I started writing the play the moment I finished reading it, tears still in my eyes. Words are that powerful, huh? I figured I had to do something about it. And theater felt appropriate, because where else can words become true just by being said out loud?
The play seems to blur the boundaries between playwright, performer and character; how did you approach creating multiple versions of “Maya” on stage without losing emotional honesty?
Planning my Edinburgh trip has made me feel how much being the performer, writer, and producer requires different hats. That tension between the different Mayas bled into the work.
As the playwright, I get to sit in hotel lobbies – my preferred workplaces – and type into the night, red wine in hand. But as the performer, I get to experience all these big emotions for an hour… and that’s all.
I started feeling like Maya the playwright owes something to Maya the performer/character: give her an opportunity to pour her heart out! And of course, the other way around: Maya the performer has the duty of speaking truthfully the words Maya the playwright wrote for days, weeks, and months. The honesty comes from letting that tension show.
As someone who is bilingual, do you feel there are certain emotions or experiences that exist more truthfully in one language than another?
Oooooh boy, I do. In the show, I refer to this feeling as bumping into “The Wall”, a wall that’s called “There’s no word in English for that!”
There’s a quote I love: “Language is the window through which a culture reveals itself.” I mean… there’s such a direct relationship between a set of words and a culture, and when words don’t overlap, it creates gaps. And those gaps fascinate me. How can there not be an English word for bon appétit? It shows you how the food culture is different between English speaking cultures and the French, simply because that word is missing. It’s fascinating!
The show moves between comedy, surrealism and existential questioning — how important was humour in making these bigger philosophical ideas feel accessible?
I’m a serious hard worker, and I love to talk about serious matters – but in a completely unserious way. Because at the end of the day, theater is make-believe. We all sign an invisible contract when we go to the theater in which we suspend our disbelief. Of course, train sounds and someone pretending to hold a subway pole don’t really mean there’s a train on stage. But we all agree to believe there is one!
You need a certain amount of humor to go to the theater, so the subject matters I talk about have to feel humanistic too. I don’t want to feel dreadful at the theater. Let’s ask the most existential questions and find a way to laugh at the answers. Together. That’s theater for me.
Your play imagines a world where inventing words is illegal; do you think modern language and online culture are expanding the way we express ourselves, or limiting it?
I think our dependence on words, and on how we say things, is worse than ever. We get hung up on words, definitions, interpretations. The way you phrase something could be the reason you’re praised – or canceled. There’s a pressure to say something in the so-called “right way”, and I feel that pressure daily.
If I feel like I didn’t use the exact right word, or someone used the wrong word in relation to me, it feels huge. And words carry different weights in each culture (I don’t have to tell you about the difference between American and British English…). Communicating feels harder than ever. I hope my show can spotlight this and give us all a little more freedom, and grace, with words.
In Other Words asks whether a person can exist outside the language used to define them — did writing the show change the way you think about your own identity off stage?
This is such a great question. Yes and no. On one hand, I really do love words. When words feel accurate, it’s the most satisfying thing in the world. Do you know the feeling when you’re trying to think of a specific word, and then suddenly, finally, it arrives? To me, that almost feels euphoric.
I love when I can define myself using words that feel accurate, words that precisely encapsulate parts of who I am. But the other side is coming to terms with the fact that words will mean something to you that they won’t mean to someone else. So working on this play is my never-ending journey of letting go of validation, and letting my identity be shaped by me.