Jeremy 0. Harris Stave Play In Jeremy O. Harris’ provocative Slave Plry, three interracial couples seem to be acting out master-slave sex fanta- sies though we soon ral- ie they're taking partin an elaborate healing ritual called Antebellum Sexual Performance Therapy. This approach not only fails to heal their rifts, it exposes fresh layers of personal confliet—though some understandings are ultimately reached. Harris spoke with Tonya Pinkins, the Tony winning star of Caroline, or Change, about the play and about the intense controversy it tired, TONYA PINKINS: Can you tell me abou the joke that set this play in motio JEREMY 0. HARRIS: So I was at party, and this very liberal man was talking about the pleasure he was getting from a woman who demanded the roughest sexhe'd ever engiged in. Fveryone was just talking about itcasually, and I was like: This is so weird. Iwas like, “Lwant to play this though experiment with you. You identify asa male feminist, right?” And he was like, “Ves.” And Iwas like, # Now ifshe was Black, would you feel as comfortable telling all of us about this in this way?” And the entire energy'in the room changed immediately and he was like, “Uh...” And I was like, “What if she asked you to call her the Would you sill rll us about that?” And he was like, “Ub...uh...” And everyone was like, “Well that’ different.” And I said, “Flow? Is consent different when that consent intersects with the polities you perform in life? Because the consent to do this rough sexis also in opposition tothe politics you perform in life, and yet that’ allowed fora sore of casual, drunken, discursive dissection,” That's what started the thi Wow. So you were intrigued by an energy change in the room and you decided to explore itasa writer. Yes. Because there was only one other person of color in this con- hing a the discomfort tharall the white versation, and we were aug! people had at whae for us was very casual question. I was ike: This is theatre, Thisis what theatre should do: Untangle responses like this. Racism Doesn't Have a Safe Word An interview with the playwright BY TONYA PINKINS When Isaw the play wanted to writean essay called “White Supremacy 101: X-Rated Slave Play, NYTW? Tfele that the play captured very specific dynamic of what suprema Because you had white people and black people, it was white supremacy. Look, we're going to go into some BDSM talk now: The dominant person ina BDSM scenario is actually the sub. The sub hasall the control. The sub has the ability to say “more” or “less” or “stop.” And ina supremacist relationship, the supremacist wants to have the agency to decide when they're sub and when they're dom, and the other party doesn’t ‘get to choose arall; they must just respond to what the other person is doing. So in that sense, the supremacist is always a sub pretending to bea dom, but always requiring the other person tomeet their needs. [felt that the play really captured that. ‘Thank you. That rocks me in my stomach, because Tel ike that was 1 major conversation that was heing missed. lot of the response to the play, good or bad, seemed toimmediately delee the sexual dynas- ics from the discourse outside of either saying it was “provocative “salacious.” No one talked about the faet that sexual dynamics can actually be illuminating about dynamics that wehaveall the time, you know? Als, this shouldn't be that provocative to an audience who all have incognito windows up on their phone at different hours of the chy: Ifyou look at Pornhub’ demographicsin New York, one ofthe ‘most popular porn categories is “ebony” porn. And porn abou sex- ual violence is really popular. So if people are allowing that to exist in their private fantasy life, why ist so weird that someone would put ‘hatina theatre and have you process that communally? So let’ talk about the sex. Yeah! Ler doit! ellike the character Kaneisha was living my life. You have these white men who run the world, but when they come home, they want someone to run them, boss them around, She was saying, “"No, [actually want you to sub me. Ineed you to do this to me.” What made him supremacist was that he could not even, for her sexual pleasure, do that thing she asked of him beeause it messed with his sense of who he was. Isthat true?Is that what you wrote? [think char’ a the core of all three couples: the inability to listen ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT Jeremy 0. Hari’ fulLiength plays incluce: Slave gy (New York Theatre Workshop, NYT Critics! Pick, Winer of the 201 (nega eaten nee ee var, he Leaine Hansberry Playurting Aware andthe Lotos Foundation Pie inee kre snd seeaesee Baca (Vineyard Theatre/the New Group) ander Xyt Dragon and WATER SoOsre resented or developed by Pieter Space ACK, Ars Nova, the New Group NYT ‘ar nsigntiant white boys published by ara State Press) Hs work hee seen 'W Performance Space New York. and Playwrights Horsons In SO1e, soeeey Macbowot Gnen coming lity Zola wit director Janiza Bravo. He isthe Mth recipient of the Vineyard Theatres Baus Veeer eee So i a Playwitgntshcneatonia” Ohara Project Greennuse artist aresicent playwright with Colt Cw andie acer commictonhien tia mee Scott Rucin Froductions, Jeremy recently compited his final year st the Vale schocl of rome, ay had ts worl prem at New York Theatre Workshop James €. Neal artistic erettor betemy Blocker, managia ire The scene design was oy clit Ramos, the costume ceslgn wee by boas Arte tenting design mas by-Jvoun Chang, he soune design was by Lindsay Jones; the dramatstgwas Arwaute Veorrost rio in New York city on November 19, 2018, was directed by Roberto age maneger was Jnana Dustin As Boncsee marca Paris Kaneisha), Pou Alexander Nowan Win, Sliven Jones Gili) Anne MeNemers eee nee coe ee (Gustin), Ate Blenkson-Alood (Gary, Chala La Tour (Tae). and lene Sofa Lacio veccan AMERICANTH=ATEE JULYAAUGUST!>to a Black person. I grew up as one of the only Black kids at the school I went to, and then I went toa theatre conservatory where 1 was one of the four Black men that they let into a 52-person class, at a school where Black students every year—for as long as Black students have been going to DePaul University—had been asking 10 do more work that looked like them, and every year they weren't listened to, So I chink that part ofthe energy of this play was look- ing at BDSM dynamics as not even liberatory but just illuminate ing about the dynamic that I fel I'd scen in my life from every type ‘of white person Iinteracced with, and dynamics I've seen in other people’ lives consistently: Because as anyome who is at all fmil- jar with how any type of BDSM work knows, listening isthe No. 1 ‘thing. You have to be listening or you won't hear the safe word. So wanted to put listening atthe core of the dramarurgy of this pay. Right, and that's what saw. The domis the servant,and the dom must listen, look, see, and do whatever the sub requires. ‘The white people in this play were not very good doms. Noy they're not Even though inthe world they are doms. They are the domsin the world; they could not dom in their relations Exactly. Or, if they do listen, like Alana, ehey listen wrong, you know? They're listening tothe wrong, cues, which also informs another type of macro- and mieroaggression to the Black body in our country, right? And that entanglement is something I think, in 4 sor of post-Obama liberal spucs, lot of people thought we had escaped. We thought, “Oh, now we listen to Black people. We had tolisten to one for eight years as president." And I was seeing that {heirabilty to listen to the leader of our country wrong for eight years was another really great example of the need for white peo- ple to always dom every situation they're ever in So Inced to ask you this. A lot of Black women felt really really hhurtby this piece. Has any Black woman expressed to you what hurt them ahout seeing Kaneisha in this situation? And what is yourresponse? heard disparate things, and it was really difficult co navigate how one responds to a work of the imagination, and to its ability to hurt, when there are other people wito said that it had healed them in some way or made them feel something they felt they had never had an abiliy to feel publicly. When we did the show at Yale the firs thing I said was thot we couldn't do the show unless we got an intimacy director, a feral intimacy director. And my director and I, with the help ofthe administration, got Claire Warren and Ali- cia Rodis vo come to the Yale School of Drama to make sure that everyone was taken care of. ThatS an action the school hada't done professionally before, ro reach how one builds sex scenes like the ‘ones in Slave Play, anil to do them with care for the psychologies of ‘the pcople who are performing them. Another thing I said at New York Theatre Workshop was, “I would really lke to have seme facil- ‘ated talkbacks afterward so people can process however they're feeling about the play.” Because we couldn't have talkback every night, we decided to have two facilitators come in every night. We put up trigger warnings as well. But the two intimacy directors you broughtin are white ‘women, so that’s challenge for Black women to once again have thei behavior, their feelings, be policed by the person who is the oppressor. 100 percent. Intimacy direction isso new that there are onl tain amount of people who are trained to do it, but one thing they did is chat one of the assistants insce their company who is work- ing to become the next Alicia and Claire is a Black woman, Teniece Divya Johnson, and she was an assistant on both productions, and so there was care and rigor around trying to postion Black women in and around that space of how we staged the sex. Thave observed that many African American actorsand. audiences are mute with outrage over what passes as Black theatre in America, Why do you think that outrage unmuted for Slave Play? For me the outrage was really meresting and informative about the new landscape we'rein cuiturally, where fa thing cn become ameme, you don'thave to engage witht, buryou do getto respond toit. And theres something really exciting about the fac that a play engen- dered a lot of big responses and engendered thinking or thoughts. ‘The thing I'm excited about i, if this play has another life, what ‘ype of thoughts ean happen now that the memes have died down? Because I think that in our country, the people that have to process the most are Black people. That’ one of the reasons why Black Thieter sso attracted to memes, beeause memes dsl eom= plex thoughts into a thing you can respond to immediately, and I ‘think the complex thought about what Twas doing is, “Who does ‘this boy think he is playing with our history'in front of white peo- ple?” And think chat asa really good question for people so ask ‘me and for me to have to think about. My response is: [think T'm Jeremy O. Harris, and I think that whats important for me, Jer ‘emy O. Harris is toave a conversation in my place of work right? And my place of work in New York inside ofa history of literary ‘theatre is going to be in conversation with white people. And I'm excited about th fact that now I geto think even more completely about what the conversations I'm having in public might fel like toother people. Z Slove Pay ig copyright © 2019 by Jeremy 0. Harris Al nqutis regarding right sho Prot New Yo Rr NY 10G2S, (Iz) 856-3798, rweinersiempar nes. lineuging Rots Weiner c/o [CM Partners, €5 East Sth Stros Iwarnee tat performances of Save Play ere subject “and o all ccuntres eovereg bythe ntemational Copyrgnt union unries covered by the Pan-American Copyright Canvestion ang the Universal Copyright Convention and of al countles with wich the United States nas reciprocal copyright relations. allrghts, neudng prtessional, 'smeteut motion plture, recitation lecturing, publ Universal Musie Plshing Grou JULYAUGUSTS. AMERICANTHEATRE jing, radio oroagcasting, feproduétons such as ior maton storege aha retrieval systems ang pnotocopying, ana the rights of a Particular emohasisis ald upon the questi of eacings, permission fa whien must be secured rem the author's agentin writing, "Wr Matthew samuels/Aubrey GrenamvAllen Riter/Robyn FentyiMarco Mol/Rupert Thoms sion, vdeo ot sound tanh {S'sonyiaTv Muse Pubishing LLC WarneriChapoell Must. Ine