Past Issues :: 2006, June 1:: Cover Story
The show must go on: Playwright Laura Witthans surrenders to the call of the stage
Laura Witthans has an actor's face, capable of morphing from joy to worry in one seamless flow of emotion. Joy, with talk of her new play, "A Wedding in the Shyrewood L'Avant Garde de Robyn Hood," and worry, as she tries to raise money to keep it and herself afloat. One side of her buoyed by the muses, the other crushed under financial straits. She can't make rent, something she struggles with every month, and she's facing homelessness for the second time in her life.
Her most recent paid employment, doing telephone surveys, was a bust. Sitting and staring at a computer screen stifled her naturally creative impulses. She's more suited to creative interaction — even waitressing or bartending is more suited to her gregarious nature — but the lines are long for those jobs in Portland, and opportunities for solid employment are elusive. She currently sells street roots outside of Safeway at 10th and Jefferson.
But all of that is far removed from her true calling: writing plays and producing the incredible worlds she invents by mixing mythology with modern clashes between the poor and the rich. The language of her works reflects Shakespearean prose, delivering a stiff and often witty lesson for the hypocrites in the audience. Last year she produced her first play for Portland audiences, called "Ganymede's Mead," at Tribe Theater. She's currently producing, directing and acting in her new production about Robyn Hood, which she hopes will see an audience in September.
In her theatrical world, the greedy and shallow get their comeuppance, and the poor and oppressed get their day in the sun. Trouble is, community theater doesn't pay so well, so Laura, who speaks fluent French, plays guitar and piano, writes plays and poetry, and overflows with creativity, is about to lose her home, again. This isn't the drama she was looking for in life.
Street Roots: What got you interested in theater?
Laura Witthans: I started theater when I was 11 with my sister, Lisa. We were rabbits in "Winnie the Pooh." This was Portland Civic Theater years and years go, and it was like a big smash hit and everything, and we had lots of fun. We learned dance, music and costuming. My parents, they loved it. They wanted us to be creative. That lasted for about a year and then we moved on and did other stuff.
Then I started studying French and theater. I just love theater. It's fun and exciting and you meet fun people sometimes. I got in all these plays but I never got the roles I wanted. I didn't just want to be the character role or whatever. I wanted to be the heroine. And I thought if I can't be a heroine in theater, I'll be a heroine in life. So I decided to not study theater and study French and travel Europe and start living. This was when I was 21.
S.R.: You moved back to Portland for several years but you returned to France.
L.W.: I studied in Southern France when I was 27. I found this house to live in, a villa. I didn't want to leave. It was a question of work, because it's really hard to get work there. I met a professor there and he helped me live sometimes while I was studying. I learned French basically, conversationally, from him. There was a time when I first lived in France where I was afraid to ask for bread.
I love language, I love poetry. I love Rimbaud. He's a very beautiful French poet. He's very perceptive, and he's very against society, and he saw a lot of hypocrisy and I love poets that expose hypocrisy.
S.R.: Why?
L.W.: It dispels a lot of the myths about society in our world, the lying and the deceit. It's the corruption of the government that's pulling the wool over people's eyes so that they can make capitalistic gains. And it's like, that's not fair to the people who are working hard.
I think Hollywood is like Marie Antoinette: They're saying "eat entertainment." Well, that does not clothe our children or give us free medical care, or better schools or universities. And I think that's really wrong in society. I think it's a mistake. Martin Luther King Jr. said wealth should serve the needs of the poor, not at the luxury of the wealthy. And I think we're serving at the luxury of the wealthy, especially in Hollywood. I think it's a real scam, really. I think they're like pickpockets.
S.R.: Why does Hollywood bother you when it's just fluff?
L.W.: Because they pretend heroism. I'm just against the capitalism of theater. I think it's unfair that we work so hard in community theater and get paid nothing, and they get paid millions of dollars.
S.R.: When did the plays become such a part of your life?
L.W.: I started writing plays after I came back from France the last time, which was in 1995. I kind of came back for my sister, Lisa. She was seropositive — HIV-positive. So I returned to the states. I came back thinking we'll live together and I'll get job and we'll travel together and we can have fun still. I was trying to get my degree so I could be independent and take care of her. And so I returned, and seven months later she died. This was the sister I was with in the theater. We were a year and a half apart. We grew up together. It was so devastating. Every day, still — I'm still in shock. It's really hard to lose your sister. I loved her so much. She was my joy, my inspiration. We had all of our memories together.
I wrote a play about it called "Waiting till the Roses Bloom." And it takes place in modern-day Portland. And it's a play about people who are seropositive, they visit a children's hospital and they try to cheer up the children. Then it's about Kurt Cobain, a modern-day rock star. I love Kurt, he's awesome. I really thought he should live. So it's a play about modern apathy in society and how rock stars became wealthy thinking that they would take care of the garden. That was the idea, I thought. Now they've all become multimillionaires and no one saved the garden and now the world's getting polluted. It's kind of about how artists get so self involved that they forget to care about society. They think it's all about them, and not about society, when it should be about society as well.
So I returned to Portland and I started writing plays. And all these plays just kept pouring forth. One play was called "Perseus Descending," about Andromeda, who wants to study in Paris, and to do so dresses up as a man. It takes place in the 1500s. She wants to study science. It's about the liberty of knowledge. It's expressive of my own situation in life and perspective on society.
S.R.: You've developed a new mythology of your own through your plays, haven't you?
L.W.: I love writing plays that are against the illusions of society. I like writing in worlds that have no technology. There's another play I have that's called "Mask of Innocence." It takes place in Rome in the year 3000 when there are no trees left. There are these young orphans that are either sold into debauchery or live on the streets in poverty. It's against the corruption of Catholicism and religion, and about liberty of spirituality.
But first I wrote "Savage Angel" about this young woman in Southern France who gets raped by a gardener, yet they fall in love and try to escape the kingdom. The strength of forgiveness lends to liberty. He was a good guy, he just needed faith and love. So it's about love against society. I kind of call them a trilogy.
These are darker plays. My more modern plays have found more humor. I've seen that people like humor more.
S.R.: What has been your experience with homelessness?
L.W.: I was homeless for like four months in winter, two years ago. That was the first time. I had three jobs at Christmas time and I thought at least one of them would hang in there and I lost all of them after Christmas. And I just got so depressed. I probably could have lived with my parents, but I just didn't want to for some reason. I just had a kind of pride that God wanted me to travel through this journey for some reason. This was 2003 in Portland in winter. It was really cold, freezing cold.
I met a man named Ben. He worked at the mission and he gave me a blanket. I had nothing. I didn't know anything. I ended up sleeping on doorsteps sometimes. I couch surfed, and sometimes I had nights with friends, and then sometimes I was just freaking cold. It was terrifying. I slept in Laurelhurst Park. I slept there for a few weeks. It was fun waking up there. It's really beautiful. I actually liked living there. Then they catch you and you can't live there anymore.
S.R.: What's the process like to get a play produced?
L.W.: A lot of work — we work day and night. "Ganymede's Mead" was like a gift from a lot of people. I'm working with Sarah Morrigan through Divina Communis and we're producing "Robyn Hood" together.
S.R.: You've mentioned before that you love the philosophy of theater. What is that philosophy?
L.W.: For me it's rather complicated. The philosophy of theater firstly is to reflect society — its fables, its weaknesses, its intelligence, strengths — yet also to mirror it to say this is where you're going wrong, and to say that there's got to be something better, something happening in the world that's better than this. I think it's theater's job to reflect society and try to make the world better and not be afraid to make fun of people and their weaknesses and foibles.
One my characters, Seastar the fairy, says, "Men are artless artisans of twilight's beauty." That men are not taking care of the world, they're not taking care of God's love of nature, and they're destroying it rather than shepherding it. I think society should be learning from theater. In Greek times, theater was portraying society to make it better. People would see the same play over and over again, just to get that same lesson and the catharsis of learning. And it wasn't there for the actors to get rich; it was for everyone to profit from learning the philosophy of a better world.
S.R.: That must be very frustrating. You're always struggling for money, yet you'd rather be gathering money for plays than for rent.
L.W.: I'm flat broke all the time. I have a gift to give people and I think people would like it and I think my actors come out thinking they learned something. I love the worlds I create in my theater. "Ganymede's Mead" is a real utopia.
S.R.: So how to do you break through and make a living as a playwright?
L.W.: I have no idea (laughing). A lot of it is the idea that I want to have my own theater, and have my own group of actors and we get paid for rehearsals and performances and have a theater that flows well. And it's just so hard to find. I try to knock at other theater doors and they're always busy with their own productions. Nobody wants to produce another play.
S.R.: How much does your economic reality work into your plays?
L.W.: They show the economic hypocrisy. It just bothers me that I'm in theater and see all these movies stars that get paid millions of dollars and they stride around like they're better than other people. Why can't I just get paid $7 an hour just for writing so I can keep the roof over my head? I'm starving. I have no way to pay the rent.
I feel frustrated sometimes. I look for jobs every day. Every week I put in resumes and applications, and it really gets depressing and frustrating. But now that it's spring, being homeless won't be so terrible. I think I have a place where I can sleep in someone's yard, so I'll be safe. As long as you have a safe place to sleep, homelessness isn't so terrible. You're vulnerable under bridges and in the park. You can be raped at any time.
S.R.: Were you attacked when you were homeless?
L.W.: I was attacked several times, in different ways. It was frightening. And the people you have to deal with sometimes is just so terrifying. Even dining. There are some really creepy people that you have to be around. So I'm trying to avoid being in ignorance and poverty. It's really ironic, me trying to write about society's ignorance by being intelligent and studying at university, and yet I'm still homeless.
S.R.: But you're so optimistic. Doesn't reality make you cynical?
L.W.: I don't know, maybe it's just the good weather. One thing about being homeless is I don't have to pay rent, and that's kind of good right now, since I don't have a job and I'd like to just work on my play. Yet it really angers me that I can't make a living through my intelligence. I might as well have worked the night shift — be a lady of the night. That might pay the rent better than trying to be intelligent. It's just an example of how society doesn't honor intelligence, especially in a woman.
S.R.: What do you want people to take way from your plays?
L.W.: I want people to take away decisive compassion. To be deciding to be more compassionate toward poor people. To help intelligence of the world, learn something and hopefully find joy. I'd like to be like Ganymede, that people might learn something from my witticism, and maybe make their lives better, see their faults and be honest about it. Like, yeah, I could be nicer to people, and bring more generosity.