Your play, 'nami, uses the post-tsunami Indonesian sex slave trade as a starting point and takes off from there. Tell us a little more about the play, and where you got the idea for it.
The idea for ‘nami was actually three-fold. The first came from a conversation I’d had with my business partner, Molly, shortly before the opening previews of my first play. I described to her a recurring mental image I’d been having involving a hysterically-pregnant woman. The woman (who later came to be named “Lil”), so haunted me that I had unconsciously begun writing a monologue for her in my mind, and when I recounted this to my partner, she smiled, shrugged, and asked me what I was waiting for.
That wait ended two weeks later, following an epic article in the New York Times Sunday Magazine regarding the aftermath of the Indonesian tsunami. The article claimed that after death and famine, the abduction and enslavement of orphans of the disaster was the most devastating after-affect. I clipped the article, re-reading it several times before the idea began to take shape.
The final “click” came when I read an article in the Daily News about a Korean prostitution ring which had recently been broken up in Corona, Queens (apparently the unfortunate beginning of 2005 was great fodder for my writing). The article described a virtual prison for up to twenty illegal Korean immigrants, many of whom had been deceived and enslaved by their captors, and forced to work off their immigration costs via prostituting themselves. The piece closed with several quotes from horrified neighbors, many of whom claimed absolutely no knowledge of the goings-on in the house just up the street.
The theme of ownership runs through 'nami, specifically the claims people stake on owning other people. What interested you about exploring that theme?
That actually came after the first draft of the play, which had taken shape remarkably quickly. My initial instinct was to just write a great story and have some solid actors read it, but I was having dinner with a mentor/friend who’d read the draft and casually remarked that he’d noticed a semi-theme running through the play. I left the idea alone, figuring it was just another artist attempting to put their stamp on someone else’s work (physician, heal thyself!).
It was later at a flea market in the Lower East Side that I found the doll that inspired that connecting of the dots. I’d long had the idea of using a doll’s head, half buried in sand, as the primary marketing image for the postcards and posters, and when I found that doll (for $3, I might add), I figured I’d found what I’d been looking for. I returned home, set the doll on a shelf over my bed, and found myself staring at it throughout the course of the day. I was walking to work that night when it clicked, and I realized that the theme of the play was ownership, but more specifically, the notion of loving something too much (perhaps, even, loving something to death). In the first scene of Act II, Keesha has purchased a doll, on the street, for her captive little girl. Lil notices the doll (much to Keesha’s chagrin), and says “I had a doll like that when I was little. My favorite doll ever. I loved her until she fell apart.”
I read something a while ago that suggested that it’s nearly impossible to write a theme. In my experience, that’s true. You start out with a good story, and if things fall into place, the similarities and common threads sort of stand out on their own, and if you’re lucky and have surrounded yourself with the right people, POOF! It materializes on its own. (I make it sound easy, of course, as the threads usually only reveal themselves after far too many sleepless nights and chewed fingernails.)
You were an actor for many years before you segued into playwriting. What prompted the switch, and, for you, how do those two disciplines affect each other?
I actually wrote privately for a long time before I aired anything publicly. In fact, my first theatrical memory is a short play I wrote during a stormy recess in the first grade. Years later, a close friend and mentor, Robert O’Hara, read some short stories I had written and was actually the impetus behind my taking a stab at my first play. When I suggested that I had neither the knowledge nor the skill, he pushed me to write a monologue, which, upon completion, found a home in the first scene of my first play, …a matter of choice.
The play was in really rough shape for some time, until I brought it up to our company’s annual summer artistic retreat. We read the first act in front of the group, and on the long ride home some of the actors pushed me to write the second half, which I did in just under two weeks. We read it publicly at our first annual “Welcome Mat Series” to surprisingly positive feedback, then selected the piece to kick off our 2005 season.
It was during the writing of ‘nami that I had an epiphany of sorts, acknowledging that while I was always a capable, competent actor, my forte truly lay in playwriting. My work as an actor affected the dialogue I was able to write, as I quickly recognized what rang true and believable vs. what I believed to be canned and contrived. I also remembered what was missing from many of the scripts I read during my acting years, and have accordingly been able to fine tune my own writing to incorporate those missing elements. Because I have the good fortune to have a fantastic company of talented and positive actors at my disposal, developing my work is arguably quicker than most; throw in the support of my business partner and mentors and it’s easy to see how my playwriting has been affected by my environment and history.
You are the Artistic Director of your own theatre company, Partial Comfort Productions. How long has the company been around, and what kind of work do you do?
We’re actually celebrating our fifth birthday on February 22. Molly and I met just before September 11 in 2001 via a well-placed Backstage ad (all her doing), and after months of talking and toiling and figuring things out, we took the reigns and made it happen on our own.
Our work can best be described as bare-knuckle theater, and the two of us have taken to informally suggesting that the pieces we produce have heart, teeth, guts and claws. While that might be somewhat vague, it definitely is the closest thing we’ve been able to come up with regarding a description of the kind of work we do. We also do our best to produce work by our company writers and primarily written with our company members in mind. Of the ten Partial Comfort plays, seven have been written by company members, two by a member of our Advisory Board, and one by a contest winner. The work we do always seems to fit in nicely alongside our informal company motto that “Everyone is welcome…but no one is safe.”
How did you decide on the name Partial Comfort Productions?
It’s actually the title of a Dorothy Parker poem (which seemingly has absolutely nothing to do with the poem). During the tentative first stages of the company, there was a group of us who met bi-monthly to read plays and talk them through. As the group solidified, we set aside one evening to suggest names and discuss our group aesthetic; Molly threw it out there and I leapt at it, realizing that it was perfect, encompassing everything that the two of us wanted in a company. (The rest of the group didn’t feel as passionately as we did, and when we branched off on our own some months later, deciding upon the name took less than a few moments.)
The notion that the audience be only partial-ly comfort-able (or uncomfortable!) and therefore unable to totally sit back, let their collective guards down and rest in their seats was most enticing to us. We’d both openly objected to those plays where the audience watched safely for 90 minutes (or longer!), only to leave the theater for dinner or drinks and never have the piece cross their minds again. Almost like a bowl of unflavored oatmeal: perfectly satisfying, but utterly unremarkable. You can like our work or hate it, but we’re almost certain to elicit a reaction, and we vow that our audiences will never leave a Partial Comfort Production without a strong opinion of sorts.
You are also a teaching artist at both the New Victory Theater and the Stella Adler Conservatory. Tell us some more about what you teach and just your overall experience doing this type of work.
I was a nine-year administrative assistant at an investment bank (which shall remain nameless!) and had my position eliminated in April of 2006. Synchronicity is apparently the law of my universe, as in May of that year I was hired to direct the summer teen program at Stella Adler Studios. I was introduced to a fellow teaching artist from the New Victory Theater at a wedding last July, and after auditioning found not only a fantastic job but a wonderfully supportive community of fellow teaching artists. These two jobs have not only invigorated my professional life, but have opened other doors for me, as I now have teaching residencies at schools in Spanish Harlem and Washington Heights.
I basically teach assorted aspects of the theater arts. Stella Adler had me directing both teenage actors and third year students from NYU. The New Victory position involves doing pre- and post-show workshops with member public schools, whereby TA’s visit schools in any of the five boroughs and lead students K-12 through theatrical activities that open students up to both the performance form and teaches performance skills. The public school residencies vary by location, but each involve teaching various elements of theater, ranging from theater and improv games to improving literacy via the theater arts to directing students through short story theater presentations.
What's up next for you and Partial Comfort?
Up next is Sam Marks’s play Nelson, which opens at The Lion Theatre at our home at Theatre Row Studios. This is the fourth play of Sam’s that we’ve produced, and we’re pleased to continue to provide him with a home for his incredibly unique (and ever-improving!) voice.
Following that, we’ll stage our third annual Battle of the Bards theatrical competition on April 20, then produce a week of Susan Lori Parks’s 365 Days, 365 Plays in July. The company will attend our fifth annual artistic retreat later in the summer, and we’ll conclude our season in September with a project conceived, developed, produced and performed by the entire membership ensemble of Partial Comfort Productions.
Interview with Chad Beckim was conducted by Michael Criscuolo February 2007.