Gustavus plays encourage thought

Three political one-act plays designed to prick the brain

By Sarah Johnson, Special to The Free Press

ST PETER — A global conversation is going to be center stage in St. Peter when Gustavus Adolphus College’s theater opens its season with three provocative one-act plays.

Department chair Amy Seham is directing two plays by Carol Churchill, “Far Away” and “Seven Jewish Children,” and a third play, “Seven Palestinian Children,” by Deb Margolin.

“Carol Churchill is perhaps my very favorite playwright of all time,” Seham said. “I find that she’s really incisive about political issues, but she does it in such a creative and entertaining way that it’s very vibrant theater.”

Seham has been drawn to “Far Away” since it came out, she said. She says the play “imagines us in a not-so-distant future. I don’t want to give away the surprise ... .”

The script works well with the department’s mission: performance for social justice and personal transformation. In “Far Away,” Seham said, “there are people making elaborate hats that then get used in a very strange way — an unexpected way later. I think (the play is) about our complicity with the corporate world and the way in which we can make something seem important without recognizing the integral connection with a larger global context of oppression or exploitation, and then just zero in on the ridiculous, petty things that people think they care about without stopping to think, who made this thing, where did it come from?”

The script is great, she said. But the clincher was having the other compelling script, “Seven Jewish Children,” also by Churchill.

“Seven Jewish Children” is a controversial play that has been read and performed around the world. It has been criticized as anti-Semitic, and it has been praised for bringing up challenging issues.

“In response,” Seham said, “playwrights started writing, or posting on the Internet, response plays. I found at least 10 of them. It’s become a whole genre in itself.”

As such, the department decided to also put on a response play and chose “Seven Palestinian Children,” by Margolin. She calls her play “Seven Palestinian Children: continuing the conversations with Carol Churchill.”

“Hers is one that is not trying to prove Churchill wrong, or say ‘Wait wait, you don’t get it. Here’s the right way to look at things in this situation,’” Seham said. “She is trying to say, ‘OK, and, here’s some more things to think about that broaden the perspective.’”

After the three performances, there will be a talkback session between cast members and the audience. Seham said that her goal with the talkback session is to engage in a conversation with the audience about these very complex issues.

Sally Morrow, 13, a seventh-grader at St. Peter Middle School, will play the younger Joan character in “Far Away.”

“She sees something, and she wants to find out what’s going on from her aunt, but her aunt doesn’t want to tell her what’s going on,” Morrow said. “So she’s really nudging her to try and get something out of her. She knows that there’s more, but she’s not being told.”

Joan’s aunt, Harper, will be played by Gustavus senior Andrea Gullixson. This will be Gullixson’s sixth performance on the main stage.

“I really go through a change in the course of the play,” Gullixson said. “In the beginning, I’m a woman who believes in a cause; I believe in the cause of my husband. I really believe I’m making a difference, that I’m making things right, even though what I’m doing is actually, in reality, terrible.”

The three plays work well together, Seham said.

“You could make a made-for-TV movie, or a realistic genre, where the result is that you feel emotionally sympathetic for someone who’s suffering injustice,” Seham said. “(But) the more political perspective is to say, ‘I don’t want your sympathy. I want you to be shocked, and to recognize that this isn’t right and this isn’t how the world should be.’”