INTERVIEW: ‘Midwives,’ a bestseller, receives theatrical adaptation in NJ
Photo: Midwives stars, from left, John Bolger, Molly Carden and Ellen McLaughlin. Photo courtesy of T Charles Erickson / Provided by press rep with permission.
In the novel Midwives by Chris Bohjalian, the character of Sibyl faces a devastating incident in the middle of a snowstorm while she’s helping another woman give birth. What was supposed to be a routine at-home pregnancy turns into a high-stakes situation that finds the midwife making a difficult decision to save the baby’s life.
This gripping events of this night, and the resulting repercussions, made Midwives a bestseller for the author, and now he has adapted the narrative into a new play, premiering at the George Street Playhouse in New Brunswick, New Jersey. The stage adaptation, directed by David Saint, runs at the revamped theatrical venue in Central Jersey through Feb. 16, according an official press release.
Amongst the cast members is John Bolger, a veteran of the George Street Playhouse, having previously appeared in The Trial of Donna Caine, American Hero and Good People, among other productions. The actor has been with this production since the early days.
“We did a reading, and the author and a whole bunch of actors and production people came,” Bolger said in a recent phone interview. “We worked on it for five or six hours, and then we did a reading that evening. It was very compelling, and since that time, I know the [author and director have] been working steadily on it.”
Before joining the project, Bolger had heard of Midwives, which was published in 1997 and eventually selected for Oprah Winfrey’s Book Club. That selection by Winfrey cemented brisk sales (more than 2 million copies in print), and the story became widely debated amongst readers.
“I had heard of it, but I had not read it,” Bolger said. “Consequently I became a fan. The novelist is a really lovely man and a very smart guy and a great collaborator. It’s both new to me and wonderful to be a part of transforming something that’s a work of art in itself, the novel leading to a play, which is a whole different animal, same story but different mechanics that go into presenting it — telling the story in two hours instead of however long it takes to read the book. That’s a whole different kettle of fish.”
Bolger plays a couple of characters over the course of the evening. For starters, he plays Sybil’s husband and is involved in the aftermath scenes when the midwife must face legal repercussions for that evening in the snowstorm. He also portrays the father of another character, Connie, who is something of a narrator in the play.
“I have more of an orbital role,” he said. “The results of whatever happens sort of go out in waves and affect many, many people. I’m certainly one of those people whose life is very much changed by this event, so it’s interesting. I guess you would call it a supporting role. It’s supporting in a way that I’m part of this nuclear family and part of this community where the event takes place.”
During the rehearsal process, like any world premiere for the stage, the actors didn’t quite know where the audience might gasp, cry or laugh. They needed the 300 people to file into the George Street Playhouse and let the creators and performers know the rhythms of the piece.
“It’s actually the beauty of getting a live audience for the first time,” Bolger said. “They’ll tell you that, so we have to be really attuned. And that’s the great thing about being on stage is that once you get into a house with 300 people in the dark, you start to know when people breathe and when they stop and when they respond. Thankfully it’s what makes live theater so great. I both look forward to and anticipate the audience telling us when we’re going to slow down and speed up a little bit because the great thing about a live audience is they are a character in this. I mean, they come in, and they are participating by their presence. So we have to be very much aware of them as well, so it’ll be a very exciting discovery for both us and the audience.”
Although Midwives tells a singular tale about a midwife in Vermont, there are greater issues at stake, and Bolger hopes that attendees will pick up on these issues, converse about them, push back a bit and honestly debate.
“I hope because there are so many issues in and around women’s rights, childbirth, the confrontation between the established medical community and people’s own rights to dictate what happens to their health, to their bodies, I think there’s enormous contemporary pertinent issues that this play touches upon,” he said. “It asks a lot of questions because no medical system in this world is perfect, but it’s the attempt to try and care for people and give them good care and to do it in a way that is magnanimous and hopefully equal — that’s hopefully, but that never really happens. I think this play definitely addresses a lot of those issues, and also it has a great deal to do with when a tragedy of any kind strikes a family. What are the repercussions? Who pays the price?”
He added: “At one point Connie says at the end of the play to my character, Rand, that she became a doctor out of atonement, and that the burden of carrying what had happened to her mother and the fallout from that goes on into the next generation. And right or wrong she takes up this mantle of paying the price for her mother’s sins, or perceived sins. So much of it stems and is founded in, at least as far as Sybil is concerned, just her love of being a mom, her love of babies, her love of pregnant mothers who have taken care of them, assisting in that and bringing life into the world. That’s a deeply personal calling for her, whereas to many people in the medical profession, it might have been that at some point, but then it becomes about mechanics. Then it becomes about speed, and how many births can we have and get in and out of the OR, how many people do we need. It becomes about numbers and dollars and money, and somehow humanity gets lost in the process. And I think this play really speaks to the heart of, in this particular case, what makes these people incredibly human.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Midwives, featuring John Bolger, plays through Feb. 16 at the George Street Playhouse in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Click here for more information and tickets.
