鈥淚 was an actor who didn鈥檛 know how to be an actor,鈥� director Sarah Benson says. 鈥淚 found it torturous. It was a relief when I discovered that acting wasn鈥檛 the only way for me to participate in the theatre. There were other things I could do.鈥� Indeed there were.
Benson, artistic director of Soho Rep., has received a Drama Desk nomination as Outstanding Director of a Play for her work on Fairview, Jackie Sibblies Drury鈥檚 2019 Pulitzer Prize鈥搘inning play about race in America, the American experience of people of color. Fairview, which premiered to critical raves last year at Soho Rep., will have an encore presentation June 2鈥�30 at Theatre for a New Audience home, Polonsky Shakespeare Center in Brooklyn.
Benson, 41, has been artistic director at Soho Rep. since 2007. A native of Great Britain, she received a Master of Fine Arts degree in directing from Brooklyn College. Her directing credits include Sarah Kane鈥檚 Blasted, for which she received a Drama Desk nomination and an Obie Award; Richard Maxwell鈥檚 Samara; David Adjmi鈥檚 Elective Affinities; Suzan-Lori Parks' In the Blood; Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' An Octoroon; and Lucas Hnath鈥檚 A Public Reading of an Unproduced Screenplay About the Death of Walt Disney.
The New York Times has called Soho Rep. 鈥渙ne of the city's more prestigious incubators of avant-garde theater.鈥� Hilton Als in The New Yorker praised Benson鈥檚 鈥渟eemingly never-ending energy and curiosity,鈥� adding that her 鈥渨riters, actors, designers, dramaturgs, and sound engineers [have] rarely had a more intelligent champion, let alone compassionate architect.鈥�
Here, Benson tells 半岛体育 about Fairview, Soho Rep., her directing career, and her future plans.
Why she became a director:
鈥淚 realized that what I鈥檇 been doing the whole time I鈥檇 been acting in plays was sort of directing them from the inside. It was a huge relief that I didn鈥檛 have to keep doing that.鈥�
Her directing principles:
鈥淚 feel that the design collaboration is a huge part of where I find the center of a play, so I typically start working with designers nine months ahead of time. That process informs everything about how I think about a play. There鈥檚 something about how designers are both very abstract and very specific and concrete at the same time that cracks open a play for me. The dramaturgical work really lives in the design process for me.
鈥淲ith actors, similarly, I workshop projects. It鈥檚 about finding actors who are excited about bringing themselves to a project. I鈥檓 interested in character and person co-existing. I鈥檓 less interested in character being used as a mask. I鈥檓 more interested in character and the actual actor, the person, coexisting in performance. I鈥檓 always looking for ways to have those two things be present and feeding each other.
鈥淚 tend to work with writers where we鈥檙e figuring it out in the rehearsal process. This is a big part of the dramaturgy of the piece, and this was absolutely true with Fairview, in that we learned so much about the play and the text in rehearsal with the actors. Act 2 was in large part written in the room, in response to what we were learning from the actors.鈥�
In the rehearsal room with an actor:
鈥淚 feel like I鈥檓 less interested in naturalism. It鈥檚 an amazing tool that we have in the theatre, but it鈥檚 deeply conventional. I鈥檓 less equipped to be able to talk about what a character ate for breakfast. Questions like that are not what animates the process for me. We don鈥檛 do table work. We tend to stage really, really fast. I learn by seeing scenes on their feet. Later on in the process is often when we鈥檒l sit and talk about what does it mean to be doing this play, what does it mean for us as a group of people. I feel that at the beginning of the process everyone鈥檚 just figuring out what it is.
鈥淚 often try stuff a million different ways, just as a true experiment鈥攖ry opposite versions of things. Try the bad ideas as well, things that feel like they won鈥檛 work, just because sometimes that can open up unexpected territory. Everyone feels able to fall on their face and flail around. It鈥檚 also, in a way, preparing for a giant improvisation. You design the piece, you cast the piece, you research, you ready yourself, and you get in the room, and then it鈥檚 so much about being attentive to what鈥檚 happening in the room.鈥�
A mistake she made that she learned from:
鈥淭here was a short period in my life when I did a lot of shows back to back, and I learned from that process that that鈥檚 not how I enjoy making work. So I鈥檓 committed to these deep long processes with artists, and that鈥檚 where I feel that my work really thrives and where I can contribute.鈥�
About Fairview:
鈥淛ackie and I worked on the play closely together. When we started there were just ideas for what Jackie was interested in writing about. We workshopped it for 18 months or so and it was during that time that it started to hone into view. It started out being a piece about surveillance. It was originally called The Untitled Surveillance Project. We started reading material together.
鈥淚t was at some point during our research that we read this book by Simone Browne called Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness, which looks at the intersection of surveillance and race. And that really pivoted the whole direction of the piece, and it became specifically about the way black people and people of color are surveilled is so dangerous.
鈥淭he play also deals with the history of blackness in the theatre. It looks a lot at how white people appropriate blackness in performance, in all of the various ways that that shows up in Act 3 of the play. There鈥檚 some sort of naturalism in the first act, and then there鈥檚 the commentary experiences in Act 2, and then the collision of those acts in Act 3.鈥�
About leading Soho Rep.:
鈥淎t Soho Rep. we鈥檙e always looking for work that鈥檚 destabilizing in some way, and I think about this a lot in my own work as a director too. I鈥檓 looking for work that鈥檚 destabilizing my own assumptions and hopefully can do the same for others. I have to feel that there鈥檚 something in the work, whether it鈥檚 unsettling or baffling or embarrassing鈥擨 have to feel that the writer is asking questions of themselves that they鈥檙e wrestling out through the work. It has to feel active like that鈥攁nd also that it can only happen in a theatre.
鈥淥ne of the most important things about the work at Soho Rep. is that it is truly using the medium of theatre. That it鈥檚 not a play that can also be a great TV show or exist in another form. It鈥檚 really work that demands that it be in a live format and demands that the audience form a relationship as an important part of the whole experience. Those are some of the things we look for at Soho Rep. when we鈥檙e finding artists.
鈥淎 big part of our philosophy is giving artists a lot of autonomy in the process. Directors and writers and designers鈥攚e really try to transmit as much autonomy to them.
Her future plans:
鈥淔or the future, we just want to be doing more of the work. We have an austere budget, and we鈥檙e working really hard to share our work with more people, which is why Fairview is such a great example. In our theatre we鈥檙e seating only 65 people, and it鈥檚 very exciting that thousands more people will get to experience Jackie鈥檚 play at TFANA.
鈥淭hat鈥檚 emblematic of what we鈥檙e trying to do at Soho Rep.鈥攇ive artists opportunities to create something with a lot of artistic freedom. And then we鈥檙e trying to get that work out there and give them the most far-reaching platform we can, sharing it beyond the walls of our theatre.鈥�
