A conversation between Dot Dramaturg Johanna Gruenhut and Director, Colman Domingo.
Learn more about Everyman's production of Dot
Johanna Gruenhut: I’ve heard you describe yourself as an archivist. I love that.
Colman Domingo: I’m a collector of stories. I don’t know, here we are, on a day of an election, where we’re trying to define or redefine who we are, and how we’re going do this [life] together. So that’s what I think my role is as an artist, which is to be an archivist. I don’t particularly consider myself an activist, but I do think that being an archivist is doing the work as well. I guess I’m trying to create these living and breathing documents of our lives. Where the questions that we have, that we’re struggling with, come to life…
When I was in Detroit recently I was so inspired to get to know the city. And I feel the same way about Baltimore. These cities are on the precipice of change, and you feel it. These cities are going to survive and the arts are there to help it, the arts are going to lead the charge.
JG: Do you understand your various roles as playwright, actor, director all in the same way?
CD: Every so often I teach. And one thing I always teach is that no one can tell you not to create. Acting, directing, and playwriting—it’s [all a piece of] an art form. It’s a craft, and the more you do, the more you learn, the more you grow. So, it all feeds into one another.
JG: As playwright, what’s your process like? Do you write everyday or do you think, I want to write a play and then carve out time...
CD: There are always questions that I have. And then I think, “Oh, that’s an interesting question for a play.” Usually the opening line of a play is a question, and that’s where the play is going to go. There are times when I get a lot of writing done and there are times when I don’t write for months. I may think out a scene before I ever write it down. And I sort of have to let these characters speak when they need to speak. So there have been plays that have taken, for a first draft, maybe nine months or a year.
JG: What about Dot?
CD: Dot took exactly two weeks to the first draft. I’m not kidding. It’s just one of those plays I was thinking about, it was on my mind. I have many friends dealing with these issues of an aging parent, so I started researching. It was a total of two weeks of work. And of course writing is rewriting. Then you rewrite and you rewrite. And you hone. But the ideas, all that Dot is, is from the very first draft.
JG: It’s interesting to me that Detroit [Public Theatre] and Baltimore are producing the play simultaneously because there are similar struggles facing those two cities and also not dissimilar from West Philly, where the play is set.
CD: I have dual regional premieres; at least that’s what I’m calling it!
When I was in Detroit recently I was so inspired to get to know the city. And I feel the same way about Baltimore. These cities are on the precipice of change, and you feel it. These cities are going to survive and the arts are there to help it, the arts are going to lead the charge.
JG: How do you mean?
CD: So I was driving around Detroit and I took pictures of all the houses, all the burned out houses and the one house standing in the middle that’s still pristine, and it really made me think of Dot. So I altered the lines a little, so that the play could echo other places, like Baltimore. I’m writing specifically about these inner cities, about how much beauty and history and intelligence is there. It’s an examination of what’s there now, what was there, what’s going to be there.
JG: In the play, what remains constant throughout is the family.
Dot is my point of view about the world. It is a family. It is an extended family. It is a blended family...We touch on everything in this play. This play has been an experiment for me, of putting my thoughts about how we all strive to come together and fight for our humanity.
CD: Dot is my point of view about the world. It is a family. It is an extended family. It is a blended family. You have your immigrant story, you have your single, Jewish girl from New York story, you have a gay couple story, you have the aging mother story, and we have a young boy who is going to take all these stories of this family—its history, its neighborhoods, its culture, its arts—and move it forward. We touch on everything in this play. This play has been an experiment for me, of putting my thoughts about how we all strive to come together and fight for our humanity.
JG: And there’s also this thread of home. Obviously people coming home for the holidays, but the larger idea pulsing through is about how home can change and what happens if you don’t feel at home within your own self.
CD: Yeah…
JG: And Dotty herself, she’s the connective dot, the connective link between everyone, but she’s not really at home…
CD: The matriarch of this family is named Dot, or some people call her Dotty, but her real name is Dorothy and she is in her own Oz. And like every great story I think Dot is about going home, it’s a home story. I mean you can always go back to The Wizard of Oz! What you’ve been looking for has always been inside you. You have to be comfortable in your own skin. I think that’s the crisis Dot’s going through. Her selfhood is slipping away.
But, actually, they are all in this search, in this struggle, looking for home. Fidel is looking for home, Donnie and Adam, the couple at the center, are trying to figure out home, or Jackie, who returns, to the neighborhood, to her parents’ empty home. I mean what happens when the home that you know so well doesn’t feel like home? Is that still home? I think every single one of us can relate to that.
Come with an open mind and an open heart and try not to research too much. I think the kind of theatre I like to make is the kind that surprises you. But I want you to go for a drink or dinner after the show. Don’t just come to the theatre and go home. Talk about it. Engage with it. Hang out. See the actors. I think that’s what theatre is really trying to do. It makes us share and brings us together.
JG: Identify with…
CD: Yes. But it’s as specific as possible to West Philly and to this family as possible. Because in the specificity it becomes universal.
JG: You write the most amazing scene titles. I’m thinking specifically about the scene titled (SL)AVERIE. You described the opening of the scene as the nexus of the play for you and clearly the title is very evocative. How did that develop?
CD: That chitlin monologue [which begins the scene] came to me one day and I knew this is a monologue for Averie. So it’s titled (SL)AVERIE. Because what I think she says is the most outlandish monologue. She’s talking about chitlins [pork innards] and how you clean them, but she’s also talking about the struggles of slavery, she also talking about the struggles of history, of holding onto heritage and culture. She’s bold. She’s brazen. And I hope it comes across with a huge laugh and a "who is this woman?" But hopefully they’ll also see that she holds the philosophy of the play.
JG: What would you like audiences to know before seeing the show?
CD: I don’t want people to know too much. Come with an open mind and an open heart and try not to research too much. I think the kind of theatre I like to make is the kind that surprises you. But I want you to go for a drink or dinner after the show. Don’t just come to the theatre and go home. Talk about it. Engage with it. Hang out. See the actors. I think that’s what theatre is really trying to do. It makes us share and brings us together.
