Emily Mann

How did you decide to produce The Bells at the McCarter?

When I first read it, maybe three or four years ago, I was interested in what Theresa was trying to do, but it was in a form that didn’t work for me. I thought she had started on an exciting idea but had a long way to go. It had gone through different developmental workshops, but I liked it enough that I thought if we committed to it that Theresa would finish the work. Development work started with Liz Engelman as the dramaturg, and then Janice [Paran] and I worked with Theresa as director and dramaturg, as editors, pushing her to finally get down on the page all of her very interesting, complex ideas.

So, when a new play catches your eye, and you decide to produce it, you need to get the script to a certain point before you can begin the rehearsal process. Could you speak for a moment about what exactly that pre-rehearsal development process is for you as a director?

Each play is different, because each writer is different, and often, writers are different depending on which play they’re working on. So what we try to do is to do what’s best for the play given all of the possible scenarios. Maybe because I’m a writer myself, I like to do readings of drafts so that the playwright can hear what she’s got and you don’t have to wait until first preview to see if what you wrote can be followed by an audience or has the humor you think it has. I like to expose the play to some kind of audience early. Sometimes I’ll even have open rehearsals.

What is it about this play that engages your directorial mind?

It’s an extraordinary American story about the Yukon, about the gold rush, about greed, about the need for money, about committing murder and living with that by living in a state of denial. There’s so much of that going on right now in the world, there’s so much of that going in our own politics at home—just a denial of culpability that I find it extremely interesting to be looking at that theme right now. The landscape is also so interesting. It takes place basically in that silence, in that white, frozen wilderness where the internal landscape and the external landscape become one. It’s a ghost story, and it works on a very believable level.

Is there anything in the play itself, as opposed to the production, that you’re hoping to still solve, or that you and Theresa are still grappling with as you approach the start of this rehearsal process?

Not that I know of. I think there are trims, and condensing, and things like that that she’s very good at and she needs to hear it to know how do that kind of final polish, but in terms of the big questions: not that I know of, and I’m being very honest. Often in rehearsals, you’ll realize that there’s a big strand missing that you didn’t realize before, or a set of questions that, if they’ve been posed, haven’t been deeply enough explored. I don’t know what those are now, if there is anything. Right now, it seems to me, we need to learn what it is as a play on its feet. All of our readings have been sit down readings, not staged readings. The staging is actually much more difficult than one might think, reading it on the page. It’s very tricky.

Can you describe how you work with a playwright on a world premiere?

In an ideal situation, the playwright can approve every step of the design and the casting, as Theresa has, so when we get into the room together, we can work on different things, simultaneously. When I worked with Steven Dietz on Last of the Boys, for example, he wanted to cut and trim and rewrite. He took his own notes during the first few days when we were at the table discussing things. Then he’d go away to write and once we got the play up on its feet, he came back to rehearsal and gave a few more thoughts and ideas. Then he’d go away again, and then he came back again. It was really quite perfect; when he left was good and when he came back was good. So Theresa and I will have to find our rhythm, for that.

The other thing that we are able to do when the playwright is in the room, is to ask her questions directly: “I don’t understand this line. What is this referring to? We thought this was funny, is it ironic? Or, is this an upsetting moment?” I’m asking these questions as much as the actors are. Maybe because I’m a writer, I want to fulfill what the writer wants and possibly even give her more than she hoped for. But always giving her her play, what she hears in her own ear, what she sees in her own mind’s eye. It’s a thrilling process. I love to be in the room with writers.

This is a play about a very specific moment in American history, really a part of the American mythology. What kind of research have you been doing to prepare?

I have been reading Jack London non-stop, and that has been the most useful reading about the period I’ve found. Somehow Jack London captures for me, and I think also for Theresa, how resonant and how profound living in the wilderness can be, how it forces you to face yourself. There’s nothing out there. It’s wind and snow and when you breathe, your breath crystallizes in the air. The sense of being alive is so intense because you can be snuffed out in a moment. There’s a kind of adrenaline rush. And since you’re living on that edge of life and death, you’re living on the edge of madness. You know people are going to drop like flies, you know this. In fact, in one of the great speeches that Theresa writes, one of the guys says: “You know, there was one winter where we didn’t know whether we were going to be eating each other. I’ve never seen a horse who committed suicide before. Just jumped into the ravine.” There’s something thrilling about that landscape, and there’s also something terrifying about learning about the willingness of the human spirit to face death in order to get rich. I think it is very American. I may be wrong, but it hits a lot of chords with what I see around me in this country.