Interview: Sarah Illiatovich-Goldman on Pieces

It just came bursting forth like nothing I have ever written.

PIECES Interview with Playwright Sarah Illiatovich-Goldman 

by Jasmine Chen

CHARPO: When did you begin writing Pieces, and what was the initial impulse?

SARAH: I first started writing Pieces 3 years ago, except it wasn't a play. I had gone through a huge artistic dry spell, especially in writing; I thought I would never write again! I had this Summer of trying to figure my life out, and was depressed about everything until I was waiting at the airport to visit my childhood best friend when I struck by a short story I needed to write. I started writing it and it was called “The Old Man and the Young Girl”. I started thinking about moments I had in relationships and capturing those moments in short stories. I made these two characters and exaggerated them from real life and began writing these short stories. Over that Summer,  suddenly everyone in my life started having affairs. It was this bizarre thing, where adultery was the buzz word of the day! Everything was affairs, friends became mistresses; people's parents were breaking up; friends were telling me quite candidly about cheating on their partners. I realized, this is something that happens everywhere, apparently! So I took these characters I had been developing and all of these feelings that I had about affairs and wrote a draft of this play, in the time span of about a month. That was the departure point and it has changed in  every way possible since then. It just came bursting forth like nothing I have ever written.

Eventually I hit a wall and the play was getting longer, not better. It took a trip to the Edinburgh Fringe that changed my life.

CHARPO: What are the different stages of evolution this play has gone through? 

SARAH: To talk about it concretely, it started as short stories which is now its own novel, part of which is going to be published. Then, I gave the original draft to Sheldon Rosen, who has worked with me on everything that I have written. The original play was centred very much on the crisis and the immediacy of these very high stakes. He gave me the suggestion after reading it that we would not care about these people if we didn't get a window into their lives outside of the crisis. I decided what I wanted to do was start detailing their relationships with each other through scenes in the bedroom. There are two couples, the man and his wife; and the man and his mistress. I think the bedroom provides an amazing opportunity for starkness, intimacy, and honesty. We are something with our partners before and after sex that we never are with other people. That to me was the opposite of this very intense awful crisis. So I wrote a gazillion scenes involving these two couples. Eventually I hit a wall and the play was getting longer, not better. It took a trip to the Edinburgh Fringe that changed my life. I saw so many incredible shows, as well as a lot of bad ones, but it challenged me to start at zero and forget that I knew what a play was. I started with, this is the story we want to tell and these are the characters that we know, what could happen? I started thinking about the first scene, what if this character enters the room-no wait, what if THIS person enters-no no no wait, what if BOTH people enter! Ideas like that made me really excited. I realized that so many versions of the story existed. (cont'd)

SARAH: (cont'd) People interpret stories based on how they are told. Instead of deciding how I present this story, what if I don't decide? Because all of these options existed, that excited me. What would happen if I created scenes that could be moved around and every day it would be different? That thought hit me in Edinburgh and then a few weeks later when I was home I began playing with that idea and refined it with Jill Harper my director. We distilled it down to what the main events of this crisis were, and then I went away to re-write and reconfigure them in such a way that the scenes could be placed in any order and still make chronological sense. This took months and months of re-writing, hating, throwing out, and having no idea what I was doing; then I finally integrated all the past love scenes. Then we did a month of workshops with some fantastic actors. We met once a week just to hear it in a bunch of different orders. At that time I was still convinced that it was a experiment that would lead me to the show. Our first day we chose the order and read through the play twice, but the second  I heard them read it in a different order I said, “Yes, this is what we're doing!” Because the play was so different, yet so the same; their relationships were different; where the climax happened was different; what was a fight and what wasn't a fight!

February we did the workshop and in June we presented just the love scenes at the reading festival Sound It Out which led to more re-writes. Over the summer was a lot of grant applications, and in the Fall we decided that we would be putting up the show this Spring. In October for the first time we read the entire play in front of an audience of industry people. That night told me a lot which led me to much more research and re-writing. 

CHARPO: There are 120 different versions of the play. Are you ruling out any versions?

SARAH: God no! The audience is there to watch us put this thing together. We pull the order and talk through as a group what that means; what time of day it is; when people go to sleep; what props need to be set; which costumes to use; all of the logistical details and this happens before every show in front of the audience. 

CHARPO: Since you haven't seen all of the possible versions of the play, do you worry that the story that you want to tell will get lost?

I am learning so much, I watch the actors discover things about their relationships when scenes are placed in orders that have never been done before.

SARAH: Storytelling is a weird thing. People ask me a lot and I have gotten a lot of criticism about not having enough control over the work. People ask me, what are you trying to tell? I am 25 years old and I am unbelievably lucky to be doing what I am doing. I don't have a message about marriage; I've never been married! What I am interested in is starting a discussion. I come from a generation of kids whose parents all got divorced. Both of my parents are in their second marriage. There was nothing in my childhood that was sugarcoated. To me it is about the discussion of what relationships are; what we expect from our partners; making sure that all of the characters have the potential to be seen as both good and evil (because that is what people are), and that is all that matters! 

I like when people discuss and fight about my work. I have no idea, and it would be presumptuous of me to say I know about marriage. I am learning so much, I watch the actors discover things about their relationships when scenes are placed in orders that have never been done before. Lines can take on different meanings based on where they fall in the show. What that opens up is another layer of vulnerability; another layer of need; another layer of trust, and another layer of reality. Each line should hold that much potential. That's all I need, I don't care about what message comes out. 

Because of how the show is structured, everyone is so in the moment with their performances. We could pull the exact same order twice in a row and it would still be a different show!

CHARPO: What's next for cue6? Where would you like this show to go?

SARAH: What we really want is the opportunity to keep working. We've been around officially for 4 years as a company doing film and theatre. We have a film that is heading into the festival circuit and another film that will be in post production over this year. We have a couple of different plays in the works. We want people to know who we are. We've had a lot of doors slammed in our faces because we are hard to define. We don't have a 'thing' that we do. As opposed to having an artistic mandate, we have a mandate of only doing work that excites us. If the work doesn't excite us, or doesn't excite other people, then who cares?

Every project we've done is a step up the ladder for us, and really on our own terms. This feels like our biggest step yet, but it is exactly as we wanted it to happen. It's sort of a win win! It is a huge step into the public eye, and a huge step in terms of the artists we've been able to work with. We spent a long time developing the script so that it was ready for public consumption. We are so proud of whatever this is. I mean, because of the script and structure we are in a huge state of unknowing, faith and trust, but isn't that more exciting?

UNIT 102: 376 Dufferin Street (Dufferin Street and Queen Street West)

Performances:
Thursday May 24, 8pm Friday, May 25, 8pm Saturday, May 26, 6:30pm Saturday, May 26, 10pm

Thursday, May 31, 8pm Friday, June 1, 8pm Saturday, June 2, 6:30pm Saturday, June 2, 10pm

Wednesday, June 6, 8pm Thursday, June 7, 8pm Friday, June 8, 8pm Saturday, June 9, 8pm

Tickets: secureaseat.com $20 in advance, $30 at the door, $5 for return visits