Shifting the Terms of the Encounter - A Conversation with Playwright Nia Witherspoon about Messiah

At a Glance

Metadata	Details
Publication Date	2021-11-01
Journal	Ecumenica
Authors	Tim Chester
Institutions	Arizona State University

Abstract

Not queer like gay. Queer like, escaping definition. Queer like some sort of fluidity and limitlessness at once. Queer like a freedom too strange to be conquered. Queer like the fearlessness to imagine what love can look like…and pursue it.— Brandon Wint As a Black Queer artist-scholar, I often find myself in spaces that are not created with folks like me in mind. We are often told to squeeze ourselves to fit the narrow confines of academia and American Theatre. This can be a hostile and lonely journey. I am grateful for other Black Queer artist-scholars who nurture and inspire me, as we chart our own paths. Over the last decade, Nia Witherspoon’s friendship and artistry has been and continues to be a source of light on this journey. I invite you to read and experience what her work has done for me and many others.I spent Valentine’s Day 2019 in New York City; it coincided with the Playwrights Horizons’ production of Nia Witherspoon’s Witness, Part 1 of The Dark Girl Chronicles. I invited a Queer couple and they invited another couple. My plan to share the evening with Black Queer and Trans lovers was slightly disrupted by my then-partner having to work late. I had not seen Nia’s work in years; I felt pressure, hoping that the folks whom I’d invited would enjoy the performance. When we walked in, we had the option to sit either on the stage near the performers or in the traditional audience space. We decided to be near the performers. We were given little hand lights that we struggled to figure out. “The house lights went down” and we were surrounded by darkness, our colored hand-held lights as well as stringed white beaded lights hung throughout the theatre were the only things that illuminated the space. The darkness made the place feel holy. The space transformed into a sanctuary that privileges the stories of Black women. Through the darkness we heard Nia’s voice providing an invocation for the space: “This is not theatre. This is Black feminist church. Spectatorship is a myth. We invite you to be right here with us. We will ask you to respond. We will ask you to vocalize. We will ask you to move your bodies. We will ask you to be in communion. We invite you to queer conventions and expect to be inside your body …”Nia has a gift for transforming traditional theatre spaces as well as the people who attend her productions or encounter her work in other ways. Through Witness I found a sanctuary that welcomed Black women and Queer and Trans people with open arms. That held the love, hurt, and complexity we embody and dared to help heal us. I am forever grateful to be a witness to healing rituals that Nia stages.May 2019: I found myself once again in New York City to experience Nia’s work. My church roots instilled in me the importance of sharing “good news.” I invited more friends to come experience the La Mama production of Messiah. I was especially excited for this production because I had met Nia in 2012 at a staged reading of The Messiah Complex at the Black Theatre Network Conference. Over the years, I was able to hear about the development of the project. I taught the play in my Staging Black Queer Lives course using the recording from the 2016 BRIC production. Throughout the rehearsal process for this production Nia and I would often talk about the changes she was making with the script as well as the difficulties of directing her own work.The waiting area for the performance quickly filled with people, talking and reconnecting. The music was loud, the air was thick with humidity, and I felt the energy of a small, Queer club. Eventually someone appeared and instructed us on how to enter the space. My friends and I eagerly entered. Each cohesive seating area faced another seating area across the playing space. As an audience this seating arrangement staged us as part of the performance. I was able to see so many Black and Brown folks who do not normally enter theatrical spaces. They performed the antithesis of what I was taught to be good theatre etiquette: talking and eating. It was liberating to see folks so free on the stage and in the audience.Witness is the first play in The Dark Girl Chronicles. In this piece Yoruba deities, searching for home, find a portal into our world at the moment when Diamond Reynolds goes on Facebook live after Philando Castile is murdered by the police. This staging of Witness at Playwright Horizon includes five performers who tell the story through song, movement, and words. There are several invitations throughout the piece that beckons the audience into the world of the performance and invite them into a healing ritual. The plays in the The Dark Girl Chronicles intertwine stories of Black women warriors with Yoruba sacred texts.In this interview, Nia and I discuss the liberating power of her work and what it meant for me as a Queer and Trans person to see myself reflected on the stage through her collaborators and her writing. Nia’s theatrical rituals are experiences that one cannot keep to oneself. They share healing and power. She is the literary lovechild of theatrical form-shifting foremothers Cherríe Moraga and Sharon Bridgforth and her work is rooted in a theatrical jazz aesthetic. I hope this interview inspires readers to learn more about Nia’s work and to share it with others. T:Can you talk a bit about yourself as an artist? How did you find yourself as a creator?NIA:I think it had to do with being an only child and having to make sense of the world. I had a deep need to express. As long as I can remember, I’ve been writing, dancing, singing, and using all these different media to try to understand myself—myself in context. There’s something about being an only child that makes one feel (or made me feel anyway) de-contextualized. So as long as I can remember I was always trying to piece together a story and trying to move that story through my body.I was a very annoying, insistent, precocious child. I insisted: “I need lessons,” “I need training,” from very early on, and that happened to whatever extent my parents could support. I look back and think: Oh, wow. That was probably a lot of financial pressure. But they worked it out. I took piano from the lady down the street, and took voice from the other lady down the street the other way. I took dance with Philadanco [The Philadelphia Dance Company]. I always wrote. Always. I had a novel in progress by the time I was seven or eight. It was called, “I am Ashanti, Ashanti am I,” about an enslaved little girl who ran away. [laughs] Always light themes for me! All the different media just kind of folded together, and I always struggled to make choices. Every year, we would have the same reassessment: “Alright. So, you still want piano?” “Yeah.” “Okay. You still want dance?” “Yeah.” “You still want voice lessons?” “Yeah.” And I’m still exactly the same. So, that’s kind of how I found my way. But I will say that I didn’t really find what I was looking for in myself as an artist until I was properly politicized, and that’s where I actually put it all together. I had to lose and find myself again in order to really have a voice. T:Philly has so much great art.NIA:Yes! Especially the murals and street art greeting you as you travel.T:What are some of your biggest influences as an artist?NIA:My dad is my biggest influence as an artist. He is a big storyteller, and I grew up just addicted to his voice and his manner and his way. Also church, and as a baby queer, the nightclub. Huge inspiration. Later, other artists inspired me. But before any of that: nature! I’ve always been a little flower child. I would go place my hands on the earth and put my body in places that made me feel full.As I grew, I came of age into Black feminism, into third world feminism, at the time that it was called women of color feminism. So, the godmothers: Audre [Lorde], Cherrie [Moraga], Gloria [Anzaldua], and of course, Octavia [Butler] and Ntozake [Shange] and Toni and … both Tonies [Cade Bambara and Morrison], and all of the others. As I got older, I started to investigate more ancestral spiritual traditions, and those too became a primary source of inspiration, and I think what I had been looking for the whole time. T:You might not remember this, but the first time we met was at a Black Theater Network Conference at NYU. You did a staged reading of The Messiah Complex. Afterwards, we met, and you were like, “Hey, you wanna be one of my Messiahs?” and I was like, “Okay.” [chuckle] I didn’t know what that meant. Can you talk to us a little bit about the journey of the piece? I know there was a reading in Philadelphia in 2011 and a production at La Mama in 2019.1 How has the work in the world changed in that time?NIA:It has changed exponentially. I have an issue with the western teleological sense of creative works. I believe they are living. Not only as long as I am living, but as long as they are living through other bodies, and other minds and spirits as well. For me, Messiah and all of my various works are like constellations that one can enter into. At any given historical moment, it finds its right iteration with whomever the folks are that come to collaborate. When I started it, I did imagine that it would feel finished at some point, but that’s still not the case. It’s all iterative, an interpretation of energies that are out of our reach as humans, and so every time is an attempt to grasp water.I started it in 2009 in a playwriting class with Cherrie Moraga. I had gone to Stanford to study with her. Not because it was Stanford, for the record. I just remember hearing voices in my mind as it began, and Messiah started talking to me about this letter they wrote to their mom about their dad. I was like, “Who is this person?” I have this side of my psyche called “Interviewer” and I use it to learn about the folks who are coming to me as characters or energies. So Interviewer said, “What’s your name?” And they said, “Messiah.” I was like, “Oh, okay.” [laughs] So we have a being that wants to teach something, to assert something! Over the course of that time it was a process of slow shaping and listening and humbling and trying to understand what this energy wants to say.It had several readings in different places. The first time was with Company of Angels in LA, as part of this collective work curated by Ricardo Bracho called Black Women: State of the Union.2 That was beautiful and featured so many greats, including Nataki Garrett, Sigrid Gilmer, and Lee Sherman. After that it traveled. We did a reading at Painted Bride in Philadelphia.3 We won the Audience Award at the Downtown Urban Theater Festival in New York.4 That was a big moment of realizing: “Oh, the work has an effect!” I remember saying to the director Misha Chowdury: “I would rather win the Audience Award than the Best Play Award, because I care more about what the people who were in the room thought, as opposed to the few judges.” That was a palpable moment where the work came of age. The story changed a lot since then, but it never ceased to become itself, I think. It’s hard to articulate the almost fifteen-year journey of a work, but I will say that every character that came at the beginning stayed until the end.In terms of how it changed, the character of Messiah changed, I think primarily as language changed around gender. T:Yeah.NIA:Messiah was always a masculine of center person, but used to be described with she/her pronouns. The play is set in two timelines: 1996, when Messiah is sixteen, and then 2006. In 2006, they/them wasn’t as much of a thing. Were Messiah in 2021, Messiah would perhaps use they/them, you know? It’s been hard to try to read back. I’ve had conversations with so many folks, especially TGNC folks, around how language has shifted over time and how that affects how Messiah sees themself. I started calling Messiah they/them in the script, but it mostly appears as stage directions. Messiah’s girlfriend calls Messiah she, because Messiah’s girlfriend doesn’t know any better, and Messiah doesn’t have another option to tell her, yet—not until Messiah completes their journey at the end of the work and claims, “I am a man.” That is one thing that really shifted over the course of almost fifteen years: the expansion of language we can use to talk about gender now. Just having more words that leave room for the complexity of the ways gender is experienced is incredible.There was always a question around how to be faithful to the time that the play is set in, and where Messiah’s coming from, and what kinds of language they felt comfortable using. Visually, it’s very hard in a play to show a difference between 2006 and 2019 (when it premiered at La MaMa). We ran into some dramaturgical hiccups, because it was like: “Why is Messiah being mis-gendered?” We’re not far enough from 2006 yet to articulate that difference. We were trying to tell a story about what it was like then, but the then looks so close to now. T:Yeah. Language has changed in so many ways since then.NIA:And will continue to.T:Yes, yes.NIA:We will never be caught up. Like adrienne maree brown [said] in the intro to Emergent Strategy, when you all find better ways to say what I’m trying to say, please offer that grace, and just understand that I’m saying whatever it is you’re trying to say now. That’s what I’m saying.T:Yeah, yeah.NIA:I feel that way about this piece! I want a header in there for posterity that says: “Whatever y’all say, I wanna say. However y’all use language now … Just do it. I believe you.”T:Definitely. Speaking to that production in 2019 at La MaMa. You directed that production. How was directing your own work? What were some challenges and some fun aspects of it?NIA:Thank you. Yes, let’s talk about joys and challenges. I’ll start with challenges. Aside from what I just named, which was a huge challenge, the logistics were quite challenging! As director and writer, I had to both give the orders and receive the orders. I felt torn in a million pieces. Even though I had an amazing team, including a creative producer, a lot of the labor on me, a queer, artist so and to the piece and the with care was really myself with care at the same time felt actually I was out after What did I just read not I really that I felt and were some deep challenges around the of especially myself as a not being I for the whole I for folks for whom I embody their But that came and things that I’m through to and learn Even though I had the script in with and artists since the very first and every iteration there were things that come up happened that up a different set of I’m with and I actually done with the script since then for that the The piece is so for me, though it’s various different that Black folks in The way we the way that we our bodies, the the the the of the that is space for us. As someone who was never as a to go on the was my It was my or every that way for a lot of Black folks which is this moment has been so we like to as Sharon Bridgforth We like to see and be We like to have our and and That space was always what I The Messiah Complex to the power of that space to us and us and us. It was just a to to see that of the aspects I remember about that production at La Mama was the It felt like a it felt like a It felt like a experience in a way. I the to see the people across from me as they experienced it, on that The I was I believe it was Messiah’s they and got and came back. They were very much inside of the piece and it felt really whole came and it was They out every The who Messiah at La is a like the and so the were This is another of the this has happened in every hear the person playing Messiah did you know my did this come And time I’m like, the It beautiful to know that there is something that is something that’s coming through to folks who are having those The play a way for the of the folks who play these characters to see them in their Black queer or for the first time the show has in an at of or with The piece a portal and an for through the process of That is to my own space for me to be as well. It happened in the BRIC it happened in La it happened at the reading at The There was this moment where the that was playing Messiah had been from their and we the because mom ran on stage and just started her and they both down had just happened with Messiah and the mom character on in the There are so many like that that I really T:Can you talk about the importance of a an not just but before and you for I put so much around how to the terms of the as I say in my My made fun of me for myself the other but I really know how to say it, so say it the terms of the The ways that we know and are to have they are at the or with the or in any kind of are and of those of encounter is how has been in That’s in my Dark Girl the first of the play “This is not this is Black It’s so to the terms of encounter from the moment a show Black as queer and folks, we have so little space where it’s our world. We have so little space for Even in our own in our own bodies. What it to assert so that all the places in which we are and can these to see what our world could to imagine it and to other inside of this with For the production of Messiah that you came one of the out the and to the “This is not your then them through the of two performers into an room that we called to set an for the that every person that into the space it was sacred and their for being This is from how one the of a of After the audience the and as they the the work In this we into the sacred space that we have been with really do always have to see other and encounter the that they are inside of a where it is not only the on stage that are to be We see This in how we close space and did air for the never make sense to me. You can feel the palpable of to these You can feel the of it, because every time it can a with the is or not they are to and always up For of I said, we have a Black person the I want that that’s always He be That’s not what people are here This is a Black space. need to be met from the moment they It can There had to be a of because this was my folks into something called a for Black and that of house is not the that we want to When about and talking about space and it’s not the art you’re into the ways I space how we are to experience which is as and not as In the performance is like this when that’s not what I’m after at I’m not after When you’re a that that’s not the It’s What is work. We are you There is a It’s called the to the of course, but I try to move that through all the different aspects of the piece from the production to the performance. The Messiah there are playing Messiah. Can you talk a little bit more about the of And and Messiah in to with Yoruba of I’ve always made of before I I that in Yoruba the is into When all are in our bodies. But when we and lose this they go back to one with the one with the on the and one is Just that just makes me feel that always be a part of any of is always with the we love, a part of us that is always free and and a part of us that’s always with our What could I was inspired by that in these different I’m really in of the they talk about the of which but it is as a one can be in, a of It from and so when a a part of you is still part of you in that up until that part is back and can That’s what they and All of these things were in my mind as I was or I about them so that I could it. That’s where the come In terms of the Messiah is the part that to be back. is the that Messiah’s mom but from very they being called Messiah. Eventually in the Messiah’s dad calls them by that and they have this big moment where Messiah’s dad is able to his and they have this “I am a I am a I am a I am a and For it’s about experiences at a both but being at this moment of their first That’s when goes to first then when their mom is It’s a few for this child and they end up something their own the journey of Messiah their gender as a person and then them and more But in that like you they experience and Can you talk about it was it for you to this, and what are some of the you made on how to stage into the and your What were the and care around you. I talk about of care with all of my works in the rehearsal What that looks like for us is that there is always an and a space to and a space to We do a lot of after and and where we know that could be We talk and think about what we will stage and I’m talking about so many productions of the same piece right and staged it at different on different creative as well as and remember that in the production at BRIC directed by of the was it was just the was but there was That’s one We would talk about what to do you feel like people need to do you feel like it to It’s a collective process and a collective it’s we do something, we say, was The folks help other you know? that too we need to It’s a process of in and much like the way any process and so that’s part of the care our We work through the together, and we and we and we at other and say, wasn’t okay.” We do our to come back together in the of out this How to (or not how to the that we are about and inside of a continues to be something that I’m and with more so now with really that we as Black folks are able to process through have the to process as and as we do in our process out to the As you in Witness, I’ve become more about it, I need you to do this, and now do this, and now Black folks come with me, and now We need to these out of our because we are all and that’s the I think that or not always it, we are so much both from our and our collective So, I feel called to us in through and out of our bodies, and that calling up can see the ways it we move it which is in our and We are not given the to all that we receive by of the by of and that do not have our healing at the or as a For me, it’s about us ways to receive what is what we have but to This is our this is our we are How can we learn to move through it so that we can be better for and so that we can it to So that we can our on what we need to be got me all up in all … I’m in my like your had a I was I was this are the I know But something about music have to believe in or at but it just me to a place that I can never give it up. That’s the thing the was that always the words in my to fit who I and to my own as the that talking is are you coming … you coming to you coming to New York to see my is your and talk about want you you’re is so the time I’m like: “Why are you I wanna know what you I want to know how you the because that me. I have a of about seven people that I want to talk through some of these of the piece with and you’re on on that But this about you. So,

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.5325/ecumenica.14.2.0248