INTERVIEW: For director Halena Kays, humor is the best method of understanding
Photo: Do You Feel Anger? features, from left, Tasha Ames and Paula Rebelo. Photo courtesy of Jeff Lorch / Provided by Lucy Pollak PR with permission.
The play Do You Feel Anger?, written by Mara Nelson-Greenberg, had its premiere a few years ago at the Humana Festival at the Actors Theatre of Lousville, and now thanks to Circle X Theatre Company in Los Angeles the comedy is receiving its West Coast premiere. At the helm of the new production is Halena Kays, a theatrical artist out of Chicago.
The show, which is running at the Atwater Village Theatre, delves deep into a serious subject matter: the toxic masculinity and unsettling workplace culture at a debt collection agency. However, perhaps surprisingly, Nelson-Greenberg’s play is not a drama. It’s, in fact, a comedy, and that’s exactly what Kays loves about the piece.
“I was lucky enough to see the very first production at the Humana Festival at the Actors Theatre of Louisville, and I was blown away by the text,” Kays said in a recent phone interview. “I couldn’t believe someone was able to thread this needle of talking about feminist issues and workplace environments on the heels of the #MeToo movement with such humor and absurdity and aggression. I just had never seen anything like it, and Mara, the playwright, really found a voice with a sense of humor and an eye on the specificity of this kind of experience that women often have in the workplace and around language and their identity. And the whole experience truly blew my mind.”
Kays said the play made her laugh more than any other performance in recent memory. She walked out of the theater at the Humana Festival realizing she had experienced a new American comedy that hit her hard, and the play and its characters stayed with her a long while after.
“Ever since that time I’ve just been keeping my eye on the script, hoping to get an opportunity to work on it, and then COVID hit,” she said. “And we all know what happened for a while, and then my cousin, Jen Kays, who is the artistic director of Circle X, sent me the script, which she does sometimes. … And the minute she sent it to me, I said, ‘Oh, I know this play. I’ve been watching this play. Let’s talk about it. I want to come out there and work on it.’ That’s how the conversation started, so it just couldn’t have been more ideal or joyful.”
The director was curious and excited how the playwright was able to use humor to tell the story of Sofia, who is an empathy coach hired by the debt collection agency. When she visits the business, she finds that the employees struggle with almost everything, including how to identify an emotion.
“For me, humor is the best way to make a point and to push me emotionally and intellectually to think about an idea, and whenever comedians or comedy writers are able to point at something in society and lift it up and make us laugh and then maybe cry, I think that’s the best way to make us all look at the world a little differently or perhaps change a little bit about how we move through the world,” said Kays, who is an artistic associate with Neo-Futurists and a founding member of The Ruffians.
Kays said her interpretation of the play is different from the original production she saw at the Humana Festival. She has a particular sense of humor and approach with the actors in the room, and so her lens provides a unique take on the comedy.
“I think through that lens and my absolute pleasure working with actors and allowing them to create and find these characters through their own lens and through their unique experience and point of view, then I think there’s no danger that it’s a repetition of anyone else’s performance or ideas,” she said. “We’re all these individuals bringing our own specific experience to this piece and our own senses of humor and the light and fun and play, so I think I came at it with that confidence. Not I got to make this my own and put my stamp on it, but how do I lift up what Mara has written and make it specific to me and our audience here.”
Nelson-Greenberg is an in-demand playwright with a busy schedule, but the writer made herself available to the Circle X Theatre Company throughout the rehearsal process. The playwright and director had numerous conversations, and they discussed how the script when through several revisions.
“She’s one of the most collaborative, fun and interesting people to have a conversation with and just endlessly giving,” Kays said, adding that the ensemble of actors is equally giving. “This is my first time really working with all actors I haven’t worked with before because I’m in from out of town. … We get told in the Midwest that all the actors here are only on TV and film, and I have found the complete opposite — live performance lovers, beautifully trained, amazingly hard-working, grounded and practical. This is one of the best rehearsal experiences I’ve had in my whole career, and thanks to these performers.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Do You Feel Anger?, directed by Halena Kays, is now playing at the Atwater Village Theatre in Los Angeles. Performances of the Circle X Theatre Company production continue through Feb. 25. Click here for more information and tickets.
