A Conversation with Emily Mann: Director / Playwright

A: It was a very painful process. When I first started, it must have been about five or six hours long. There was so much I wanted to include, and I knew it could only be a third as long as it was. So it was a constant battle of distilling and cutting and shaping to find the essential form.

A: Oh, absolutely. There are a number of very important elements. One, of course, is the whole question about tracing African-American history through the lives of the sisters and the memories of their parents so that you get a very long sweep of personal history. Secondly, we're looking at American women facing the barriers of discrimination against women. These are women whose father was born a slave, and then they become some of the first educated women, black or white, in this country. They went on to become often the first in their fields to do what they were doing. They were facing both the racial and the gender obstacles. That was something I wanted to make sure was in there loud and clear because it was a part of their daily lives. Then, in terms of sticking with the social and political level, I wanted to include their memories of their parents. So we go back on their mother's side to the War of 1812.

We tend to have very unsophisticated and almost clichéd visions and images of what slavery days were about. The Delany sisters break these preconceived ideas. They challenge all of us to listen again from a very unique perspective about what happened. And because they were particularly fortunate, it puts into high relief the devastating effects that slavery and Emancipation had on other families. The Delany family had the opportunity before Emancipation to be educated—that was a big advantage. Also, their family was together. They hadn't been abused. Those things allowed them to go quickly into the professional classes. There were many intelligent and ambitious men and women who had three strikes against them when they started.

Reconstruction was an exciting time. Jim Crow destroyed the opportunities presented during those years just after the end of the Civil War. The Delanys experienced both the excitement and “the day everything changed” (the misery of Jim Crow).

Beyond the political and the social, I just cared so much about them - humanly and spiritually. In so many ways, these women really tell us how to live. They've lived so well. They know how to love. This is a partnership of over a hundred years. It demonstrates a real lesson on how to live with somebody—whether it's your best friend or your spouse or your sister or brother.

A: Well, it needed an action and an event. For that we use the element of cooking a celebratory dinner in honor of their father's birthday. I also felt that there needs to be a progression. Part of that is accomplished by having a visitor—us. There's a relationship that grows between them and us. While we listen, more and more is revealed.

I guess when I first met them what was most striking was I had never met anyone quite so old, and they were ancient women. But after speaking with them for, I would say, ten minutes, the age melted away. They were so young. They were so present, and so alive, and just looking into their eyes was not just an experience of great wisdom and experience, but so much light! They have memories better than mine, which I guess is not hard, but they remember everything perfectly! Their sense of detail is extraordinary. Their sense of humor—I mean, I'm sure that's why they've lived so long. They laughed more in the hour we were with them than most of us laugh in a week. And they clearly adored each other, and that was a wonderful thing to see. And their dynamic with Amy [Hill Hearth, who wrote the book with them] was also marvelous. There's a great deal of care and respect there.

A: They were very excited about it. They were just having such a great time with all of it. As they say, "If you can help even just one person, it's worth doing—that's what Mama always said." What I found so amazing was that having absorbed the book totally, I thought I would go and meet them and then see who they really were. But they were exactly who I thought they would be. It was just like meeting old friends—recognizing them and being with them. We just all connected on a very deep level. They're extraordinary human beings.

A: We are in a new era, with Obama now—the first African-American president in the White House. At the end of the play. Bessie says, “There'll never be an African-American president,” and Sadie says, "There will be," and in fact, now there is.

The other thing is that Bessie and Sadie have both died. This makes it like a new play: looking at who they are, and what they have contributed in a way that has to do with memory in a different way. Now, we're remembering them as they remembered their lives and the lives of their relatives and ancestors. It takes on a kind of mystical quality that's reflected in the new conception of the production. On a very simple level, the design is different. Rather than it being in a circle—going from room to room to room— we're going in one direction, and ending up in a more and more abstract space, because they are talking to us from a different vantage point.

It's just so precious to hear their wisdom now, filtered through the last fifteen years of experience. We are coming to them in a different way. I think it will engender a lot of very interesting questions about the basics of "Who are we as Americans, at this moment in time?"; "Who were we?"; "Where've we been?"; "Where're we now?" and "Where are we going?"

If I think of my plays as children, then this is my sweetest child! And there's something kind of wonderful about getting back together, and visiting with my most inspiring, comforting, and loving play.