INTERVIEW: ‘MsTRIAL’ puts legal system on the stand

Photo: Alan Trinca and Dep Kirkland star in MsTRIAL. Photo courtesy of Jeremy Daniel / Provided by JT Public Relations with permission.

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MsTRIAL, a play written by and starring Dep Kirkland, finishes up a limited engagement Feb. 2 at off-Broadway’s New World Stages. The show, which was written more than a decade ago, looks at the troubling circumstances involving an office party and a chauvinistic lawyer who only “plays to win,” as press notes indicate.

Kirkland, a native of Savannah, Georgia, where he once served as chief assistant district attorney, plays John Paris, one of the lawyers at the center of the narrative. In the play, which is directed by Rick Andosca, his character decides to celebrate a big legal victory with a party and some drinks. Joining him is the firm’s legal team, including Karen Lukoff (Jeannine Kaspar, after original star Christine Evangelista departed for another project) and Dan Burks (Alan Trinca). What transpires at the party involving John and Karen is what sets the rest of the plot in motion and should remind viewers of the current #MeToo movement.

“I don’t know where it came from,” Kirkland admitted during a recent phone interview. “I know from my background that this is an issue that has been floating around, how the legal system deals with these cases.”

After workshopping the piece in the early 2000s with fellow actors, MsTRIAL started to take shape as a vehicle to explore the issues of desire, consent, winning and losing, according to press notes.

The playwright said the social environment of the early 2000s was quite different than today’s society, when the criminal case involving Harvey Weinstein has made almost daily headlines. Many industries — and society in general — have gone through a necessary reckoning about predatory male behavior and the history of assault, rape, misconduct and harassment against women. The entertainment industry may be the most high-profile industry to come under the #MeToo spotlight, but every facet of the global workforce has changed since the allegations started to surface a couple years ago.

“Back then, it was just a concept,” Kirkland said. “It was an idea that I thought was interesting. I thought, well, let’s write a play about it. Let’s see how it does. … You start with writing a scene or two, and you pull it up in class, and you get some people together, and you do a little reading, and you say what do you think about this. People are like, oh my goodness, that’s really something.”

The playwright said the reaction to the production this time around was to be expected because these issues are at the forefront of the culture, but in the early 2000s, these conversations were largely not happening. The questions that surfaced were still relevant 17 years ago, but the topics were hardly discussed, Kirkland said.

“What’s interesting is the impact that it had back then because back then people didn’t talk about this as much as they do now, so the reaction that we got from this play when it was put up back then, in New York and in L.A., was overwhelming because people tapped into things that they really didn’t talk about in public,” he said. “People didn’t feel like they could come forward as easily as they could today, and I got a lot of responses back then from people who said thank you for writing this because this is something we don’t talk about. And we should talk about it. Now 17 years later everybody is talking about it, so it’s interesting.”

Much of the drama in MsTRIAL is centered on the legal system, which has let down victims in the past, and that’s part of the subject matter that comes to light in the play. To dramatize the legal proceedings, Kirkland relied on his expertise as a former lawyer.

“Things should be discussed, and these things, sexual assault, any kind of assault, should be reported,” he said. “These things should be reported. People should feel free to talk about it. They should feel free to come forward, which they’re doing now, with the #MeToo movement. That is absolutely the case, and no means no. And I think one of the points of this play that’s made by the fictitious victim, Karen … the point she makes in her own argument with the D.A.’s office is it doesn’t matter what you do. If you want to have a couple of drinks, and you want to dance around, and you want to flirt with somebody, you should be able to do that. It doesn’t mean that it’s open season on me, and that’s the truth. However, what’s not covered quite as much, is the legal system isn’t really good at handling this stuff.”

He added: “People come out of this play, and they’re angry, which is a good thing. They’re upset, which is a good thing. … I don’t tie things up at the end and give you the answer so that everybody feels happy and goes and has ice cream afterward. It doesn’t work like that because that’s not the way the world works, so when people come out of this thing, and they’re upset, and they’re disturbed, and they’re asking questions, and they’re having arguments, that’s a good thing in my estimation because I think that’s what art does. It should spark people to look inside of themselves and look at things and ask questions, and that’s what this thing does.”

By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com

MsTRIAL, written by and starring Dep Kirkland, continues through Feb. 2 at New World Stages in Manhattan. Click here for more information and tickets.