EDGE Boston

"In a thousand years, future generations will look to what we’ve made to find out who we are today," writes New Exhibition Room co-founder and theatrical director Nora Long at her blog, Boston Turg Talk.

"The greatest societies of all time are marked by their art," Long continues in a posting that dresses down a Georgia politician who has made the egregious assumption that artists are not "real" people.

Adds Long, "We wish to be in those ranks."

For Long and her collaborators in "Shh!" a new play about censorship in all its devious, destructive forms, politics and expression are necessarily entwined. But while the play outlines the greater social struggles around freedom of speech, the combative nature of the marketplace of ideas, and the lamentable--but essentially human--reflex to squelch the opposition’s viewpoint, "Shh!" also zeroes in, unerringly, on the hardest nub of that struggle: the process of self-censorship--and the costs of failing to filter one’s responses to the surrounding environment.

Cases in point: at one point in "Shh!," a gay man quietly confides his confusion at how he avoids coming out at work. He’s not afraid of losing his job or being ostracized--he’s just deeply anxious around the issue in general. The play asks us to consider how hobbling and unnecessary such deeply-instilled self-stigmatization is.

On the other hand, another scene shows a group of compulsively vulgar people trying to overcome their inability to restrain profane outbursts. It’s a filthy and funny piece of work that celebrates a certain four-letter fecundity of language, but mocks it at the same time by having the characters resort to long-winded, circuitous, and ultimately absurd locutions in their efforts to say the very same thing in a less offensive manner: a pretense so ungainly and forced that it invites even greater scorn than the offending words and phrases the characters are trying not to utter.

At every turn, "Shh!" amuses and invites serious reflection. Would it kill us to hear out someone with whom we utterly disagree? Are we even sure we understand where the other party is coming from, or have we cut off the conversation before adequately defining the terms and the topic?

Nora Long chatted with EDGE about the play, which is a work in progress--much like the national conversation (and the silent spots in that conversation) which "Shh!" examines.

EDGE: Was the play workshopped a lot in advance of rehearsals? Did you start with an outline, or maybe with a list of possible angles and comments on the topic of censorship, and work from there?

Nora Long: I had been working on creating a piece on censorship for several years now. I’ve always been interested in the Constitution, and as artist, have been particularly invested in the legal issues around self-expression.

Two summers ago (when, not coincidentally, I started working at Suffolk and had access to a talented pool of actors and free rehearsal space) I did a two-week workshop both to test out some ideas for the piece and some devising techniques.

Last summer I did a slightly longer workshop with a much smaller cast which culminated in our piece for FeverFest that year. We borrowed and expanded from our work last summer, but as that piece was only about 7 minutes, there was a lot of room for new ideas.

There were aspects of censorship I was particularly focused on, but other aspects that really stuck out for the cast. Each day or so in rehearsal we would explore another idea and see what we could come up with. I had a loose idea for a framing narrative device, which mostly fell by the wayside.

We also had a generous rehearsal period (6 weeks) to really play around, which was invaluable. We all did a lot book reading, movie watching, and keeping up with current events.

As for comments about censorship, one of the things that really drew me to the subject was how broad and nuanced it is and how many engaging questions arise from it. I read this interesting article about swearing recently, where this scientist said, "If we focus on the moral questions--is it good or bad, it keeps us from trying to figure out why we do it in the first place."

I think that question--what do we censor in our free society and why were our guiding principles--[is key]. I felt pretty strongly that I didn’t want to make something too preachy or too serious. I firmly believe "smart" and "fun" are not mutually exclusive qualities, and found a group of collaborators who excelled in being both.

EDGE: How much did the play develop during rehearsals?

Nora Long: Honestly, we are still making changes to the play now. So much of the play is so timely, that we are literally following developments in the news and incorporating changes as needed (the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell scene, for example).

We also constructed some of the scenes to allow for more improvisation. Since we built most of the play out of games, it was a fun way to keep that spirit through the run. The second scene, what we call "audience training" for example, is different every night. We were inspired by live television broadcasts, where they send out a comedian to warm-up the crowd/instruct them how to behave as a "live studio audience."

I think the night you saw, Chuong and Nate pitched it as a reality show. Another night, Alex and Nate did something more infomercial-style. Saturday, Hannah and Melissa did a very successful cue-card based training. While there is an obvious benefit to us to get the crowd engaged, we were also curious about the censoring implications in instructing an audience how to react to the show.

EDGE: As the director, how much input did you have in shaping, developing, and trimming the material?

Nora Long: I feel so fortunate to have the smart, funny, creative and talented friends I do, and that I was able to lure them into this show. They developed and/or scripted most of the material in the show during rehearsals.

We made most of the decisions collaboratively, but there sometimes when I was forced to make an "executive decision." Some directors are really skilled at manipulating actors into coming ’round to their way of thinking--I’m not that clever.

We discussed the play like a relationship. In the beginning we were casually seeing lots of scenes, but we didn’t want to get too serious about any one scene until the last few weeks. Then we decided which scenes were worth going all the way with, and which scenes we were better off just being friends with.

We developed probably 50 scenes, and kept half of them, so it had the potential to be pretty brutal. Some of those scenes were really difficult to cut--we had some music parodies we all loved. But, ultimately, we had to keep and build on the material that fit together and told a cohesive story.

Dawn [Simmons, co-artistic director for New Exhibition room] was really helpful from a dramaturgical perspective, acting as an outside eye in our later rehearsals to help us from being too insular.

EDGE: I noted that the set featured books--a natural reference given the subject of the play--and also hoola hoops. It seemed that those two elements were present to remind us of the balance that has to go into making the process of social debate both decorous and mature, and not allowing it to turn crude and ugly or else be reduced to child-friendly pablum.

Nora Long: One of the things I love about the design for the set, and Christina’s [Watka, set designer] work as an installation artist, is the layers of interpretation that it allows.

I wish I could take credit for your insight, but the more I think about it, the more I agree with you. My conversations with Christina were somewhat mundane. I really wanted her to have the freedom to use the ideas from rehearsal to shape a physical world for the piece--incorporating elements that would be used in the scenes.

Christina was influenced by the work of Judy Pfaff (I could be spelling her name wrong) who builds these really bright, spectacular installations incorporating toys. Hula hoops filled our practical concerns (they are cheap and quick and easy to install) while incorporating the sense of play that was intrinsic to our scene work.

They also create a subtle diagonal line that cuts across the stage, reminiscent of the "no" signs (No Smoking, No Crossing, No Swimming, etc.).

As for the books, Christina could likely articulate her thinking better. For me, I have a desperate, unrequited passion for books. My mom is a librarian and I was clearly instilled with a deep reverence for literature. If I have one clear, unwavering opinion about censorship, it’s that banning any book is wrong and dumb. So, I see the books as a bit of an homage to the history of ideas, good, bad and indifferent, that make up who we are.

EDGE: One laudable aspect of the play is how it incorporates different viewpoints. Was it a tough job to ensure the play would be (as they say) "fair and balanced?"

Nora Long: Being in Massachusetts and all fairly liberal arty-people, we did worry about a uniformity of opinion and bias.

One of the famous lines from a first amendment Supreme Court decision (and incidentally the title of one of our source books) is the idea that if we are really in favor of freedom of expression, it means we must ensure "freedom for the thought we hate." I’ve never been a big fan of Howard Stern, for example, but he is doing more to protect the first amendment than most.

Again, I think the fact that we didn’t have a concrete, uniform message, like "censorship is bad" helped us to explore different perspectives.

EDGE: In one scene, a proponent of "reparative therapy," which claims to "cure" gays and make them heterosexual, gives voice to a common complaint from the political right, in that they feel the media are too left-leaning and don’t cover the news in a way that gives enough exposure to more conservative views. But the right-wing media has a way of censoring, too, simply by seeking to out-shout everyone else. Was this distinction in different, ideology-based forms of censorship part of the general thinking behind the play’s message and presentation?

Nora Long: In our research we discovered that one of the most frequent ways that censorship manifests politically in our free society is through ideology. "I think "x" because of "y" and I’m convinced I’m right and am terrified to acknowledge the value of the opposing view and therefore must dehumanize the other."

So, the right calls the left hippie, baby-killers and the left calls the right superstitious neanderthals. While the behavior is an extension of our individual battles to censor ourselves so we can function properly in society, it doesn’t really help further an exchange of ideas, which is the heart of the democratic ideal.

One of our challenges was to find sympathy for ideas or opinions we fundamentally opposed and find a way to make them compelling to us and our undoubtedly liberal audience. I think this would be a much different play if we were developing it in Kansas.

EDGE As you mentioned, when I saw the play, it was framed as a reality show; what a wonderful, satirical jab at the cynical assumption that news and policy are forms of entertainment or matters of mere contest. In that particular case, of course, the reality show device spoke to the terrible fear on every side that one’s own "group" or interests will be "eliminated" or "voted off" the national debate.

Nora Long: One of the things that makes me crazy about debates on issues like gay marriage or abortion, is the rampant "them-ing." "I don’t think they should" fill-in-the-blank. I never hear "I don’t think I should be able to...."

The amount of political marginalization that happens around voting constituencies is almost as maddening as the construction of "reality" programming to elicit the worst of human impulses in the name of good television.

But, in the interest of full disclosure, that last statement may have more to do with my fury that they canceled "Pushing Daisies."

"Shh!" plays at The Boston Playwrights’ Theatre, located at 949 Commonwealth Avenue in Boston, through July 25.

The show is free of charge; donations are appreciated. Reservations are available via www.brownpapertickets.com (please note that reservations expire 10 minutes before curtain time).