As a preview to the audience talk-back scheduled for this Thursday, March 28th, UP's Artistic Director James Bosley posed questions to the playwright Anna Theresa Cascio and director Molly Fowler.
JB: Anna, I've heard you say that it was the magnification of the little everyday annoyances that first inspired you to write this play. So how did the baby enter the picture?
ANNA: I was looking for a way to put the real life experiences of dealing with a broken home appliance and a shirt the dry-cleaner ruined into some kind of perspective. And since the couple had organically sprung to life as middle-aged, self-absorbed and childless-by-choice, I thought, what better way to shake them out of themselves than by throwing a baby at them? They'd be forced to examine sorrows that they thought they'd long left behind.
JB: Molly, You have worked with Anna on this play for quite a while. How has it evolved from the earliest drafts?
MOLLY: I first fell in love with the love story. And like all good love stories, it has deepened. And as it deepened, I got to know Mike and Roma a little better. They are more willing to show me who they are by refusing to tell me in so many words. Anna has honed away at that aspect of this couple and the drama that unfolds between them. Anna loathes sentimentality. I’m more of a sucker, but I respect her need to keep it at arm’s length. But she has been willing to deepen the love without going on the nose of it. Someone commented to me that Mike and Roma kinda live in a bubble, as if they were out of touch. I think Anna has sharpened the ways that bubble bursts in the course of 90 minutes.
JB: Thank you both. I’m looking to further expand on our conversation at the audience talk-back after the performance this Thursday evening.
Special 2-for-1 Talk-back Tickets for this Thursday March 28th ONLY.
