The Vigil or The Guided Cradle
Whenever I get a chance to cover live theater, I don’t waste the opportunity. When I heard about the rave reviews that playwright Crystal Skillman was receiving for her latest play, The Vigil or the Guided Cradle, I decided to contact her for an email interview. (Here’s a sampling of the raves “It’s shocking in a way that such a primitive idea as torture remains so much a part of public discourse in 2010, but The Vigil perversely helps us understand why it has such a hold on us, repelling and fascinating us at the same time. Skillman and Hurley’s collaboration here proves timely and incisive.” [nytheatre.com - Martin Denton]; and “Just when you thought archaic forms of torture had lost their sex appeal, playwright Crystal Skillman unearths a particularly brutal form of coercion in “The Vigil or the Guided Cradle.” [Backstage.com - Reviewed by Mitch Montgomery]). The play, presented by Impetuous Theater Group and The Brick Theater, Inc., is described as “A Medieval man tortures a terrorist in 15th Century Prague while a young tourist in the 21st Century befriends a stranger. A play about the danger of crossing over, between now and then, THE VIGIL or THE GUIDED CRADLE is a chilling portrait of the art of torture and those desperate enough to use their ability to create . . . no matter the cost.” The play runs through May 8 at the Brick Theater (575 Metropolitan Ave., Brooklyn, New York City) Thu.–Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 7 p.m.–http://www.bricktheater.com/ or www.impetuoustheater.org. Skillman and I also got a chance to discuss some of her previous plays.
Tim O’Shea: How did you come to combine these two particular periods in history with this play (given that it addresses “A Medieval mercenary tortures a terrorist in 15th Century Prague while a young tourist in the 21st Century befriends a mysterious translator.”)
Crystal Skillman: Four years ago, I was being produced at a festival in Prague, and just by chance, we had arrived there the day after the Abu Ghraib photos had just been published. Those images were fresh on my mind, when we our group naively decided to visit The Torture Museum. As the museum went on and on, we came to realize these were all the actual instruments of torture used. It was intense. The museum really hits home that there is great thought and experimentation put into the creation of these torture devices. Half way through I turned a corner where I saw a full display of how The Vigil (or the Guided Cradle) torture device was the origin of Sleep Deprivation torture, and those Abu Ghraib photos, popped into my mind. This was the same thing, and I knew immediately I wanted to write a play about that. Right away, I realized to really capture this connection between this device and what is done today the play’s story would need to cut between now and then, weaving what is learned in the story as a whole. It was a huge task, but I kinda just knew that was the right approach. I’m lucky that Impetuous Theater Group and the Brick Theater both loved this approach as well and this play – they jumped on the opportunity to produce it together, at the Brick Theater where the play is running through May 8th.
O’Shea: How much research was involved before you started writing the play?
Skillman: For the modern time, I wanted to capture my naive experience as an American tourist so a lot of my research is honestly that trip to Prague and what leapt out to me. There’s a lot of beauty and barbarity in any place you visit, but Prague is filled with such amazing stories. Beyond being inspired by the inventor of the Vigil, Ippolito Marsili, the only inventor in the museum who was named, I was fascinated by the true story of the blinding of the clockmaker who created the clock in the old town square. The clockmaker’s story inspired the character of Jan, the medieval terrorist (who Ippolito interrogates in the Vigil). In my play this terrorist is the clockmaker’s son, who tried to blow up the clock as revenge for what they did to his father. In the 21st century, the tourist learns about the clock from the translator, a stranger she meets on the street, leading to events that force her to come to terms with who she is and the legacy her father has imparted to her. The play is a delicate balance of those connections until these two time periods are forced to face one another.
O’Shea: Have you worked with director John Hurley before? As the playwright, did you have a voice in the casting process or did you defer to Hurley on that?
Skillman: I was lucky to have just worked with John on my comedy Hack for the Vampire Cowboys Saloon Series (where six writers show bits of plays once a month in a serialized way. If you don’t know the Vampire Cowboys, check them out, they are all about geek theatre/comic book culture. In a nutshell they are awesome). Hack is an I.T. Spaghetti Western about three I.T. workers who discover one of them has hacked into their hedge fund company. They scramble to pin the deed on one another as they each try to snag the gold in an ultimate showdown of The Good, The Bad, and The Geek. (FYI – I’m happy to share that Hack just got picked up by the Brick for their summer festival in June (more on that below)! Anyway, I asked John to direct Hack because I love his work (After Darwin, 12th Night of the Living Dead) – I knew he’d be perfect. He is such a grounded director, with a strong visual eye, that comes from him getting scenes up early on in the process and playing around with how they can be brought to life in the most active powerful way. It’s very similar to how I write – fast and I tend to flesh out my work in rehearsal. For these more genre oriented pieces, we make a really great combo I think. Our work tends to almost be like a graphic novel come to life in many ways (hmmm wonder where I got that influence 
[Ed: Skillman is married to veteran comics writer Fred Van Lente]) So – Vigil - John had fallen in love with the play last spring and it turns out he was sharing it with Impetuous Theater Group, where he is the Artistic Director, to consider it. And here we are! Casting wise, I was involved because John and I both have actors we love and want each other to get to know them. As we’re working on a few projects, we know that those we love we’ll get to work with on the right project so in a lot of ways we’re looking for what we need that day, but also thinking about the future. In the case of Vigil and Hack, our actors really are perfect for these roles which has been a joy.
O’Shea: Vigil was just named a semi-finalist for Castillo Theatre’s 2010 Mario Fratti-Fred Newman Political Play Contest . Is it riskier (from a marketing standpoint) to delve in political theatre, or do you think with some consumers, it’s the hook that draws their interest in being engaged/entertained?
Skillman: That’s a great question! I know it’s a hook that would draw me in as an audience member. But of course, the first step is hooking producers who believe in the piece and feel that there’s an audience for it. And there are a lot of producers that are jazzed by what a piece is saying or doing politically and there are a lot who aren’t at all it seems. What I have found sad challenging with theatre is that there seems to be a dependence on plays that are political to be really traditional (like a journalist telling his story on stage or having it dramatized on stage) or message oriented in a way that just tells you what you already know. I go to the theatre to discover and question – I’ve found as a writer using facts to inspire fiction helps unfold more a truth that an audience can be moved by. Perhaps because it engages their imagination on a whole other level and it’s easier to see how these plays might mean something to their own lives? I love plays that are bold but also really grounded in their honesty like Ruined by Lynn Nottage (at MTC last year), Viral by Mac Rogers (Gideon Productions, in the most recent NYCFringe), Enron by Lucy Pebble (Royal Court, currently on Bway). The best political theatre asks us to imagine why these problems being written about exist, and how intended or not, we’re a part of them. That’s what I hope Vigil does.
O’Shea: Unlike a novelist, a playwright creates a work that can evolve or change drastically depending on how the actors and director interpret your writing. Is it more nerve-wracking or exhilarating (or some other sensation) to see where the actors take your work?
Skillman: You hit the nail on the head. Actually to me, it’s totally nerve-wracking and exhilarating at the same time! But that’s how you know you’re possibly creating something great. I’ve found the secret to good collaborations (with actors, directors and producers) is to work with strong collaborators who will always tell you the truth. I only work with actors I trust and in doing so must listen to them. If there’s a line that they can’t say after they’ve been through it a few times or a section is not working, you have to think: is this really working? The balance is to know when certain things are what they are, and need to stay. But always, keep an ear open to listening. If you’re trying to create pieces that have a sense of truth, you must be open to hearing it yourself. The original ending of Vigil was great, but didn’t totally work for this production. I changed it radically before we opened. I couldn’t have done so without our team and in working with John. It was totally nerve-wracking and exhilarating, but I know we made the right choice and I’m really proud of it.
O’Shea: Is this your first play with Impetuous Theater Group & The Brick Theater or have you worked with them before?
Skillman: I’m so honored that this is my first time working with Impetuous and the Brick. And honestly it’s been like a dream. They are both such great theatres doing such great work – it was like a Voltron team up of awesome. It really helped make Vigil the strong production it is. John Hurley, James David Jackson and Josh Sherman, who head up ITG along with company manager Janet Zarecor, are a really great team. At the Brick I’ve gotten to know Co-Artistic Director Michael Gardner really well who has been really passionate about Vigil which has been lovely. He heard about the play from the amazing Jeff Lewonczyk and Hope Cartelli, a big part of the Brick and who run Piper McKenzie Theater, as they asked to read Vigil and fell in love with it. Impetuous had been considering the play all year so when the chance came to team up it was like – game on! The whole experience has been pretty magical. After years of development with the play, these two companies jumped on board in February to produce it in April/May! Kinda amazing actually.
O’Shea: With your play The Sleeping World, it delves into the death of a friend and its impact on his fellow playwrights. It sounds like a play that deals with a lot of pain and mourning-strong emotions. How taxing is it to on the playwright to delve into such turmoil for its subject?
Skillman: The Sleeping World is my most personal play even though it’s fiction. It’s inspired by the loss of my friend playwright John Bellso who died in his 30s in 2006. At his funeral, a lot of things came up among friends – these realizations are used in the play though no character is based on one specific person. It was through losing John I myself realized – I was so wrapped up in writing, and creating worlds of fiction, that I was losing sight of what was happening in my life and really missing certain moments. It made me think a lot about what we do as playwrights: our job is to create fiction but how do we live our lives? Become less about what we do and people again? Connect? These writers keep trying to find the secret in this last unfinished play their friend who has died has left behind, but it makes them face who they are. We just did an amazing private workshop of the play with Woodshed Collective with a great cast directed by Daniel Talbott, who I work with a lot as a director as well – he directed my plays Nobody, Birthday and Telling Trilogy for Rising Phoenix Rep. It’s great to see that play getting so close to being done. The history of these characters in the play is going deeper and deeper, growing beautifully simple but complicated. It’s been emotional to write, so for sure taxing in that way, but also very easy at the same time because these people, this work, this world I know so well.
O’Shea: With another of your works, 4 Edges, you construct the following dynamic: “A young and unknown American photographer in search of raw, authentic images, sets off for a remote village in a foreign country. Unsettled, injured and very much the outsider, she slowly becomes part of a ritual between a woodcutter and his wife that she herself doesn’t understand – and it is more than it seems to be.” How hard was it in a theater setting to convey the photographer’s craft, or was that an element you did not have to address, given the play’s main focus (her injury and its impact)?
Skillman: Capturing the visual side came easier for this play for me. I actually studied photography as a major for a long time at Parsons School of Design, the Hartford Art School so it’s very personal in that sense. The imagery described in this fictional country I created is very clear and evocative, as is the staging of a violent act Palmer, the photographer captures. But her struggle with the image she’s captured and how that affects her relationships and the world of this play has been the harder journey. The play is so visually stunning it gets designers really excited which is wonderful, but I’ve spent time on the play to have the visual side of the play really mirror what’s going on internally with these characters and being more clear about that. 4 Edges and Vigil are siblings in some ways. They are both big and sprawling stories told in an intimate way. Both are visually very striking – as I’ve continued to work on them my goal has been to strengthen what these characters discover in the play, which makes this imaginative and visual approach mean so much more. In 4 Edges the simple act of taking a photograph changes this world and these characters. The theatrically comes from hitting home how the simple choices we make can affect the environment around us, leaving our own sense of self incomplete, until we learn to give back. Which may sound easy, but is so, so not.
O’Shea: Can you talk about your involvement with the Women’s Project Playwrights Lab? Am I correct in thinking that your involvement in such labs have a positive impact on your creative process, particularly given that The Sleeping World, came out of your work with the Lincoln Center Directors Lab?
Skillman: These labs, which are groups of theatre artists or just playwrights who share work, are amazing. Lincoln Center gave my team a week to work on Sleeping World which was so great. With that time the director of the workshop Scott Ebersold (who I also love to work with) staged half the play! I learned so much so quickly and was able to rewrite much faster. Women’s Project lab has been so cool too – they assemble producers, directors and playwrights together for two years at a time to get to know each other. I’ve now found so many new collaborators – for instance producer Amanda Feldman is producing the full Hack at the Brick this summer! Also all the WP Lab playwrights, are being featured in Out of Time and Place, an anthology being put together by WP playwrights Christine Evans and Alexis Clements (who are true rock stars for editing this baby). Other upcoming WP Lab events include a staged reading of a new work we’re creating together at the Julia Miles theatre Off Broadway for July 15th. You can keep posted on what we’re up to at: http://www.womensproject.org/
O’Shea: A couple years ago, you tackled the Telling Trilogy, would you ever want to try a trilogy of that nature ever again, or is once enough? What was the biggest challenge in the construction of that work?
Skillman: You know, it was actually pretty easy because Daniel Talbott had the idea of doing a trilogy of ghost stories as short plays at an amazing restaurant/bar on the lower east side (Jimmy’s No. 43). He asked me to be the writer and we ended up doing one a year. We were able to really craft each piece separately (though often in a short period of time which I love!) and share with a small audience. We ended up getting fans from the piece, which was so much fun, and were honored that all three pieces, as one whole play, was selected for Plays and Playwrights 2008, so it lives on forever in print. My new play Another Kind of Love, is about three sisters who are part of a failed rock band that have the chance to re-record their one-hit wonder in Woodstock. I can see that family, which is pretty fucked up and living under the shadow of their mother, a famous singer and alcoholic from the 60s (fictional of course, you know me …), being a trilogy of full length plays. But gotta finish the first play first. This summer I hope!
O’Shea: You also do some musical theatre, do you ever find yourself working on a play taking it in one direction and then decide to explore it as musical theatre (or vice versa)?
Skillman: I’ve been honored to write book/lyrics for a great project That’s Andy, about a boy who wants to play Annie (Bobby Cronin is the conceiver and has done additional material and Kevin Carter is the composer/additional lyricist – both are incredible collaborators by the way!) And I’m happy to say That’s Andy is currently a finalist for the NAMT Festival this year so keep your fingers crossed. But most often what I’ve thought is a drama has stayed a drama. Though I have a play Flow, that is a kind of ghost story about those that died while building the Hoover Dam and the son of the first man who died who chooses to stay there that I think would make an awesome musical, especially with a score that evokes that period.
O’Shea: Anything you’d like to discuss that I did not ask you about?
Skillman: I’d love to encourage folks to come out and see The Vigil if they’re in NYC – it runs through May 8th at the Brick Theater and is a great production. It’s currently a critic’s pick for Backstage. Then mark your calendars for Hack! The Live DVD Cut the comedy I chatted about earlier busting out this June at the Brick’s Too Soon Summer Festival. John, Amanda, the great cast, and I will be constructing the play as a night where you pop in a DVD to watch these episodes where the audience gets to pick the extras – from commentary to deleted scenes! Details for both plays can be found at the Brick Theater’s site.
As well Hack has it’s own Facebook page which we’ll be updating as we go.
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