An Interview With
Jack Hanley & Christopher Eaves
Self At Hand

Jack, I understand that all three parts of your play, Self at Hand, started out as poems. Where did the initial idea for those poems come from? And what made you decide to convert them into a stage play?

Hanley: I think most of my initial ideas for poetry begin as a short line or sentence that spontaneously pops into my head. If it’s interesting, a bit lyrical and mysterious, then I begin to write a poem around it. It’s like a lost little cognitive ghost searching for a world where it has context—so I write one for it. A couple of years ago the line, “She wanted a new miracle mind,” articulated itself in some crevice of my brain while I was drifting to sleep watching Oprah. I liked it; I liked speaking it; and so began my writing of the poem, Self at Hand. For all I know Oprah said it…. Oooo, bad. That would mean I wrote a play based on something Oprah said. How delightfully embarrassing.

So that’s why I wrote the poems. Why I adapted them into one-act plays is also a scant embarrassing: no one would publish them. But more importantly I wanted to begin writing for theatre, and what better inspiration than a few of my own unpublished poems—they had a plot (sort of), they had characters, and well-defined scenes—they were practically outlines for plays. Why wait for new inspiration? And Oprah was running out of ideas.

Many of my poems have futuristic and apocalyptic motifs. The three poems I adapted especially. They all seemed to tell stories happening in the same future time frame and in the same city, and all three were sort of funny in a body dysmorphic kind of way. So I thought as plays they would be just as collaborative. As poems they were good for a quick read (you can trust me), but as plays an incredibly talented group of people made them worthy of an audience. Truly, if it weren’t for them I wouldn’t be answering your questions.

Which did you start writing first, poetry or plays? And how and when did you first become interesting in writing, in general?

Hanley: Self At Hand is the first play I’ve written. Before then it was all poetry, all the time—ever since high school, ever since I read Kenneth Fearing’s American Rhapsody. But I never wrote ambitiously until I entered an MFA program a few years ago. I was determined that the poetry world was where I belonged; it was where I would build my house of creativity. Slowly I discovered it was a world insulated and self-aggrandizing. Paradise really. But even paradise gets old.

Playwriting was a natural and easy shift for me. My partner of ten years is a brilliant director, playwright and performer, and many of my friends are hard working, talented actors. It was only a matter of time I joined the theatre pack. And I’m thrilled to be running in it. Poets these days aren’t what they used to be—no matter how drunk they get they will not get naked in public. And the drunker they get the more they’ll talk about a teaching job they wanted but some other poet nabbed. Snore.

You two live together and are longtime partners. Was it easy or difficult to strike a workable balance between your working relationship and your personal one?

Hanley: Well, it’s been okay, I mean…we haven’t had sex since he directed my play. But any day now…any day…

No, really, I love it. We very literally share our successes and our failures. We share a dream—other people have a baby; we have a play. Of course we fight—terrible fights, like call-the-domestic-violence-police fights. But the fights feel more important. They’re not over frivolous things like who is going to whose house for the holidays (no, really, we never fight over that anymore—really). We fight for the sake of our collaborative work—our shared art. The fights are good for it. And our sex.

Eaves: I was raised on a horticulture farm operated by my mother and father. I grew up watching them navigate both their personal and professional relationship. My first mime teachers, David and Carol Geyer lived and worked together. I moved to New York to study movement theatre with The Margolis-Brown Adaptors, a school and performance ensemble led by a husband and wife team. And on and on… This feels complete. I made a promise to myself when we began this collaboration: to always remember that Jack and I are souls and that the endeavor is an extension of our souls. The souls must be cared for first.

Was Self at Hand a project you always intended to work on together?

Hanley: Well, I certainly did. But I don’t know about Christopher. It all started when I submitted Tastes Like Robot, the second act of the play, to the HOT! Festival at Dixon Place. When I mailed it I thought: if it’s accepted Chris will direct it. I suppose I should have asked him first. God, he’s a martyr. Ten years of me. It’s quite an achievement.

Eaves: His logic perpetually stupefies me. And his amygdala. Don’t even get me started on his amygdala. I should’ve known it would happen…but our collaboration evolved in an almost imperceptible way.

Let's talk about the show's overall design concept for a moment. Self at Hand featured an evocative use of sound, and all of the action was lit with video projections. What was the idea behind these decisions?

Eaves: Each of my works has employed the integration of sound and stage action. While studying theatre at Towson University I collaborated with composer Paul Mathews on my first full-length work. He introduced me to the works of Glass, Lucier, Reich and Cage. This exposure enabled me to start listening to sound in a new way. Paul lovingly refers to my sound design efforts as “plunderphonics.” I enjoy experimenting with disassociating and re-associating the human voice through microphones and pre-recorded passages. This artifice allows me to suggest spatial and temporal shifts. As we move through our lives, our brains maintain a sonic equilibrium to help us focus upon what we perceive to be most important. In performance the artist can manifest alternative sonic equilibriums to emulate and disturb this aural state.

I could say that lighting Self At Hand entirely by video projection was the ultimate happy accident. But there was a method…and the happy accident was that it worked. When we started pre-production on the piece, I was thinking about how I had applied video projection in the past. I realized that I had been moving the video projection surface closer and closer to the actors with each subsequent work of mine. I had also been refining ways of how to employ video (an image that is usually larger and brighter than the actors) without unintentionally siphoning the audiences’ focus away from the stage action. The next logical choice in this trajectory was to project video directly over the actor; but to do this meaningfully was the challenge. Why? Because the video projection will be the only light source and it will be used, sometimes, to simulate conventional stage light. This application of light has opened a new aesthetic avenue that I will continue to explore.

Christopher, in addition to directing and designing Self at Hand, you were also in it. What made you decide to do that, on top of all your other responsibilities? And how easy or difficult was it?

Eaves: Before I ever directed or designed sound and video, I was an actor. I began performing publicly when I was twelve years old and by fifteen I had created a mime show that I performed regularly at special events. When I’m performing I have the sense that I am “complete” and also that somehow I’ve disappeared. I think that I will always have the desire to perform onstage and truthfully I believe it makes me a stronger director.

Being onstage in this work was a challenge because Module I—The Myth of Not to Be (the act in which I perform) was continually being revised as we took it into the space. Also, I could not view the stage action nor could I see how the video projection was reading while rehearsing. Thom Sibbitt and Cary Curran gave valuable input during that juncture. I am lucky to be working with these two intelligent and generous actors.

You are also the Artistic Director of Eavesdrop, the company that produced Self at Hand. Would you mind telling us a little bit about its mission?

Eaves: Eavesdrop is the entity that houses my performance, arts education, sound and visual design work. Eavesdrop also serves as an Internet destination (eavesdrop.net.) Part of me hopes that the future brings Eavesdrop a board of directors and a core company of actors and designers. Another part of me is wary of traditional organizational models and prefers to continue creating within an environment unencumbered by titles and bylaws. In either case, Eavesdrop will continue as the production entity for my solo and collaborative efforts.

Who are each of your artistic influences? Who, or what kind of work, do you draw inspiration from?

Hanley: Well, of course Oprah. And since I was inspired by my own poems, I would have to say myself as well. Of course there must be others. Hmmm, let’s see…myself, Oprah--I’ve said them…who, who, jeez, who else… Nope. I guess just me and Oprah.

Okay, I’ll try to be a bit serious. Being influenced I don’t think is a conscious happening. So I find it somewhat spurious to try to identify one’s own influences. I would prefer to leave it to critics. I hope I’m influenced by writers who I admire but—please God, no—it may be the blog I was poring over for hours last night. So, who do I hope influences me? A lot of poets. When I’m blocked I usually open Fernando Pessoa. His heteronyms, the fictional personas he created as the authors of his poems, are brilliant psychological schematics of a discrete and alive personality. His poems are subtext. They are the substrates of the spoken text and behavior of a play. I think a helpful exercise for playwrights when they are in the process of creating a character is to write poems as if they are the character. The playwright-as-character should write poems about his/her personal beliefs, world outlook, his/her work and general mood. It’s a great exercise. I’ll have to try it one of these days.

And other writers who I hope seep into my creative vision: Elizabeth Bishop, Louise Glück, James Baldwin, Marguerite Duras, George Orwell, CK Chesterton and all the writers of the original The Twilight Zone episodes.

Eaves: For my 14th birthday, my parents took me to see Marcel Marceau at the Morris A. Mechanic Theater in Baltimore, MD. In one piece Mr. Marceau compressed and silently communicated (what I perceived to be) the essence of humankind’s history in a single passage from upstage to downstage. That was the first time I cried at the theatre. That performance changed me forever and made me aware of what I needed to do.

Many teachers and mentors have influenced me: Dr. Maravene Loeschke, Harvey Doster, Karen Bradley, Dr. Ronald Wainscott, Kari Margolis and Tony Brown, choreographer and director Donald Byrd, Steven Wasson and Corinne Soum. Some influenced me through an academic voice, some through a professional demonstration of their art, while others influenced me through personal guidance.

I studied the corporeal mime technique of Etienne Decroux for years as well as studying other movement techniques inspired by Decroux’s research. Much of my directorial and performing impulse crystallized during this training.

Steven Wasson and Corrine Soum’s Theatre de l’Ange fou is one of only a handful of companies on Earth to still represent corporeal mime in its purest form. They’re an international treasure, and should be recognized as such.

Robert Lepage’s work resonates strongly with me because he understands both theatre and visual storytelling. Often artists have studied performance but don’t understand or at least don’t exercise the potential in image, or they are great visual storytellers but don’t understand the fundamentals of theatrical performance.

A book that I’ve returned to again and again over the years is Kandinsky’s Concerning The Spiritual In Art. This book is a trove of inspiration. And while it speaks primarily of visual art, it underscores the interconnectedness of music, visual art, writing and performance.

The most inspiring performance I’ve experienced recently was Pina Bausch’s Für die Kinder von gestern, heute und morgen at BAM. The profound beauty of that show overwhelmed me. Unfortunately, Jack didn’t like it and walked out. Our difference of opinion is an asset. It forces us to be open to another perception while providing us with the opportunity to articulate our own.

Other strong memories of performance: Penny Arcade at PS 122 bare-breasted while chopping onions in front of video of her Sicilian grandmother. Aiden Shaw reciting a poem to his mother while standing naked except for bunny ears among the audience at The Manchester Gallery of Art. Karen Finley performing while simultaneously breastfeeding her daughter at a Creative Time event. I am fully charged when I witness artists exercising the political potential of the body in performance.

Ultimately perhaps I am most inspired by those who articulate the truths within the machinations of our (as Wojnarowicz called it) one-tribe-nation. And finally, magical realism. I am happy in the folds of magical realism.

What are you both working on now?

Hanley: We are working on a theatrical adaptation of the short story, The Ledge, by Lawrence Sargent Hall. We’ll be presenting it as a work-in-progress at Dixon Place in late March.

Eaves: I have been mentally stewing several themes. When I found my birthparents I also found my Native American heritage. I have been learning about and ruminating upon the Native American Indian, genocide, Earth owning and land hunger, and the hilarious lies of the American social studies textbook. I have also been visually drafting a mime show in which I don’t wear white face and I talk. I’m joking, maybe. Americans hate mime but Americans have no idea of what mime is…and so…back to my roots. We’re meditating on the possibilities.

Interview with Jack Hanley and Christopher Eaves was conducted by Michael Criscuolo January 2006.

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