Interview witH
Whitney White and Stacey Osei-Kuffour

The following is a lightly-edited transcript of a conversation between Williamstown Theatre Festival Artistic Director Mandy Greenfield and Animals Director Whitney White and Playwright Stacy Osei-Kuffour. To listen to the conversation, click play, above.

 


Mandy GreenfieldAs we invite the listener into the world of Animals, where do they find themselves and what can they expect?

Stacy Osei-Kuffour Animals is about two couples, both interracial, being forced to work through their own trauma and their own uncomfortability around race, love, sex, and politics.

Whitney White I find Animals to be about four people who have to deal with the lies they tell themselves and the lies they tell each other—these lies that they built that become lifetimes. You know, you tell one lie about yourself, and then, all of a sudden, you're married to someone, and it's your whole lifetime. And so I find it to be about four people who are forced to confront truths about themselves and how they really see themselves with regard to race and intimacy.

Mandy Greenfield To me, Animals is a comedy both because Stacy writes very comedic dialogue and because we don't have a tragic end to this play. And yet it really is looking at and interrogating some really difficult emotional terrain and very tense, fraught themes. Talk a little bit about finding that balance and how we can be in a world that, on the one hand, does cause us joy and laughter and, on the other hand, is interrogating some of the darker contours of these characters' emotional lives.

Stacy Osei-Kuffour I just think it's the way life is. That's why it is funny—because sometimes you're looking for your favorite skirt when you realize you're not in love with someone anymore. Sometimes, you know, it feels like life or death to get dinner right. And if you don't get dinner right it means your whole life is a lie. I think those things are funny. Those are things that I have gone through in my own life and I love to write about because they're so true. I just think it's the way the world is—the dark and the light, the funny and the sad, the sweet and the sour—and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Whitney White I love that. I think we as human beings are just hot messes. We're messy. People are messy because life is messy. Life is circular and sometimes nonlinear, and sometimes people have these huge reactions to mundane things, like Stacy's talking about, and then sometimes also have these very blasé reactions to Shakespearean or Greek things. To me, the hilarity of the piece just comes from the size at which people react to things. It really rings very true to me.

Mandy Greenfield Let's talk about space. The play was conceived for the stage, to take place in one room. It is stepping into the tradition of American dinner party plays where the arrival of one couple interrupts the status quo of another couple. The tension of keeping those two couples in the same space is part of the ignition of the play. And yet, as we translate into audio, we are removing space.

Stacy Osei-Kuffour I actually think it's even more visceral being able to hear it because you pick up on so many tiny things. Whereas, if you're in a theatre, you're not going to be able to pick up on everything. That was really a joy and a surprise. And pushing the actors to places that maybe they weren't always comfortable... But then what we got at the end was so amazing and worthwhile and fun and surprising. I think that this process really surprised me, and I want to know what it's like to do it with other plays, for sure.

Whitney White Theatre is an imperfect art form, which makes it exciting. There are many intimate things that you lose, but there were these little things that we could bump up in this medium. On a stage, you would only get the kind of visual, physical journey of that. So there are things that the aural experience definitely triggered that were really, really thrilling.

Mandy GreenfieldJason, Aja, Madeline, and Will. Talk about this quartet of human beings who came together around Stacy's play.

Whitney White They were four actors that I personally had admired a very long time. It felt like a dream-ask to try and get them all in one play—especially in a pandemic, and in the non-traditional theatrical form—and they said, “Yes.” They're each so unique and individual, but the cohesion, I thought—I remember Stacy and I talked about how they just really found cohesion. They had a company aesthetic, they were in dialogue with each other, they were generous with each other. They were great listeners and extremely active at the same time. It was such a gift to be able to do this with them.

Stacy Osei-Kuffour Being able to have, not only actors but actors of this caliber to do my work—I think I found new things all the time—things that I didn't realize I had put on the page that they discovered and that they played with. And that was really amazing to witness. I just feel very grateful that they all were down to play and take part.

Whitney White Yeah. And I think the one thing I'd add is that the conversations we had were, I mean, they really were incredible. The conversations we had offstage, or off-mic, rather, with Stacey were so enriched. We were talking about sensitive things in a time where everyone was being forced to look at some of these issues of sex, gender, and race. They were all so professional and generous with each other. I feel like I learned from them, in so many ways.

Mandy Greenfield This play is about two couples—it is about two interracial couples—but the center of this play is Lydia. She has a professional life, she has a history, she has a history with another character in the play. And she's coming into a moment, I think, of self-actualization over the course of this play that we are witness to. And even with mess, she survives, right? That's Lydia's trajectory. We don't often see that story on stage, we don't often see this character on American stages. Let's talk about what it meant for you two, as black artists, black female artists, to be telling this story and to be telling it on a global platform.

Whitney White When I first read the play, I was so grateful to Stacey for making an imperfect black female lead who was no one's mother, who was no one sister, who was no one's whore, who was no one's—she was none of the tropes that you experienced so much in entertainment, TV, theatre, or film. She was her own complicated, messy person who's made mistakes, who's going to make some more mistakes in the future, but who's going to survive at the end. She's not a tragedy. She's not your news headline. Do you know what I'm saying? The play gave me a black woman—a contemporary black woman—just trying to live her life, and going about it in a messy way. And so I was immediately just, like, relieved of that, because it's so rare that our characters can just be contemporary people dealing with their battles that are very, very, very theatrical already, without the guise of tragedy or violence and all this crazy trauma. There is trauma in the play, but it's a kind of contemporary trauma, which I appreciated. I'm always appreciative when characters can just be human because when you see people represented on stage in a human way, it matters. It affects how people look at me on the street.

Stacy Osei-Kuffour What was interesting for me is I didn't realize I had written something revolutionary—and I want to say, I don't think that I have. I think that a black woman going through something should be normal. But I think what Whitney is saying—and what I had to come to realize—is that it's not. This woman felt so close to me and felt like someone I had seen and hung out with and spent time with every day, so what was the issue? But I think the more I submitted the play, and the more I worked on the play, and the more that actresses worked on it, they would come up to me and thank me for writing this character. I never understood why they felt the need to do that. I realized over time it was because we rarely get to see these women. We rarely get to play these women. We rarely get to see a woman that is messy, that is cultured, that is sexy but fragile, and strong but weak, and all these things that we're used to seeing white women play. Also, working on this play, I got a lot of questions about the white woman. People were often, you know, “What's her backstory? Why is her character so small? Why haven't you given her as much as Lydia to play with?” And I found that so frustrating because she's not the lead. I hopefully gave her a world and colors and all that, but I have always been focused on Lydia. So it's been a journey, understanding that this is not the norm. But I think that's my goal as a writer—to continue to write women of color in this way, where people don't feel the need to come up to me and thank me for something, where it can be normal, and it can be expected.

Mandy Greenfield Terrain around race, gender, class, sex, and the complexity of these issues, in our macro-culture, and how, in our macro-culture, our micro-cultures are impacted by it, is actually very unique. You did not write this play for this moment, but this play lives in this moment in a very rich and resonant way. What's your hope, for the play, in the ears of our listeners? What do you hope they take away? What do you hope they remember, as a byproduct of this piece?

Whitney White I hope people love it in this form and digest it greedily. And I also hope it makes some listeners who might not have come see the play want to come see the play in the future.

Stacy Osei-Kuffour What I hope is that people see themselves—that they walk away with more understanding, whatever that means to them. I want people, obviously, to have fun, and find the joy and the levity in it, but also learn something—learn how to be a better partner, a better quote-unquote “ally,” a better friend. This has been a hard, insane year, where I think all of us, no matter your background or your beliefs—we have all learned so much apart and together. I think that is what makes theatre so incredible—what it does for people. Theatre, you know, you're in a room with people who are white or black or young or old, and we all have similar reactions to things that are happening on stage, and I just want people to keep in mind that we are actually all in this together. We're all trying, and trying desperately, to figure this thing out. So that's my hope—that we continue to remember that.