28 Apr Interview with a Playwright: Angelica Chéri
Before she arrives for our last Rough Reading of the season, we got to chat with playwright ANGELICA CHERI about her play, Berta, Berta.
Monday, May 8th 7:30PM – Roble Hall, Stanford University campus
Tuesday, May 9th 2:00PM – Custom Made Theatre, San Francisco
How did you start writing plays?
Formally, I wrote my first play at age 14. There was a workshop in my 9th grade English class called “Playwrights in the Classroom”. I wrote a one-act play called Life Behind A Curtain. Such teenage angst! Informally, if you ask my dad, I started writing plays at age They were devised pieces with Barbies, and usually evolved from an episode of Yogi Bear. So, as you see, it just depends on who you ask.
Where do you usually find your muse as a writer? Berta, Berta is based on a prison chain gang song – did it come to you, or did you seek out a particular history?
I find that my muse varies from piece to piece. I’m usually inspired by some bit of truth or true-life experience, whether it be personal or historical. In the case of Berta, Berta, I was sitting in an Off-Broadway theatre in NYC watching a production of August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson, and I heard the song “Berta, Berta” for the very first time. Live. It pierced me in a very haunting way because it’s a song form that we don’t typically hear performed live anymore; field songs are chiefly a thing of the past. The song sat on me for over a year and it kept reappearing in various forms. I wanted to know more; I felt there had to be an origin story for the man who created this haunting ballad and his lover Berta, but I found nothing. So I decided to make it up!
What did you set out to explore when you started writing Berta, Berta?
I was most intrigued with the idea of a sealed fate. Berta, Berta derives from a prison song, so we know it will end with our leading man, Leroy, in handcuffs. The mystery became exploring Leroy’s psychosis. What led him to make this life-altering, essentially fatal decision? And, after having sealed his fate, what does coming to Berta mean? Is she a place of refuge or is she a fantasy of redemption?
You have written two plays for a series called The Prophet’s Cycle. Characters in Berta, Berta fight about escaping fate. You seem to have an interest in writing about the indomitability of Fate over human will. Is that an accurate observation? What is the relationship of the characters you create to Fate?
Right on par with the last question! I am fascinated by Fate and the things that are seemingly inescapable, whether through prophecy or some other controllable force. I think we all wrestle with “making things happen” that are often times not meant to be; in relationships, career choices, moments etc. I’m fascinated with what we cannot control and how we come to peace with it, and live in the space of awareness and openness. This is the essence of Leroy and Berta’s relationship. They are constantly fighting against Fate’s ticking clock, knowing Leroy will soon be carted off to jail. The play boiled down is a swelling of moments in which they fight against the inevitable, and moments where they indulge in the time they have left together, milking it for all its worth.
Name one secret thought that once occurred in your writing process of Berta, Berta.
Without giving too much away, I wonder if Berta had married Leroy instead of the other man, would any of this have ever happened?
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