INTERVIEW: Sara Farrington play opens new theatrical venue in Jersey City
Audience members only have a few more chances to catch Sara Farrington’s new play, Leisure, Lust, at the brand-new performing arts space for Art House Productions in Jersey City, New Jersey. The play is part of a larger work called Leisure, Labor, Lust and concludes its run Sunday, Nov. 12.
The drama, inspired by Edith Wharton and Jacob Riis, centers on the themes of labor, immigration, mental illness, sex, love and class. Director Marina McClure directs a cast of four actors.
Recently, Hollywood Soapbox exchanged emails with Farrington about the new production. Questions and answers have been slightly edited for style.
What can audience members expect from Leisure, Lust?
A totally untraditional narrative in the guise of a totally traditional narrative, a gender-bending, time-jumping, sexy turn-of-the-century story, inspired by real people in a real New York of a very different time.
What do you hope is the audience’s takeaway after a performance?
I just want people to be emotionally moved by these four characters. I would love for the desperation, longing and pain these characters go through to allow audiences to think about the enormity of their own love stories, both requited and unrequited and how they have shaped their lives. It seems to be doing that.
I hope they get a thrill also in how the play tells a classic story in a twisted way. I like to do that with most of my work. If every story’s already been told, as so many have said before, then it’s the telling itself that needs to innovate. Leisure, Lust is essentially the classic love triangle, but because of the theatrical form it’s in — the character jumps, the layering and folding of time, the sanity slips, the slow reveals — it seems new and different.
How is working with director Marina McClure?
Marina is a masterful director. We have been working together on this piece since 2014 when I got the idea for it and told her about it at a wine bar in Brooklyn. I never could have written this piece without her mind on it. Since day one, she worked with me to interrogate my four characters, investigate their psychology, their motivations, translate their silent inner-lives into choreographic movement, to break down seemingly insignificant exchanges into heartbreaking moments.
Most importantly, Marina relentlessly asks me, ‘Is this was you meant?’ I so love this question when writing a new play. It is so respectful of the playwriting process. A lot of the time, I don’t know what I mean. So Marina asking, ‘Is this what you meant?’ would open me up in a radical way. Because of this, I would feel safe to read her new scenes — she could see the kernel of ‘what I meant’ rather than ‘what I wrote,’ which is good because first drafts are always shit.
I always say I am an actor’s playwright, but she is truly a playwright’s director. We complement each other brilliantly, I think, and I often write with her in mind. Or if I’m stuck on a scene or character, I’ll go, “Oh, well, Marina will make it look good,” which I’m sure she just loves. I feel lucky to have her — and any playwright, living or dead, will tell you what a struggle it is to find a director who gets them.
What’s the theater scene like in New Jersey?
This is the first play I’ve done in my adopted home state, so I’m very new to what’s happening here. I do see a ton of space, especially in [Jersey City], which always makes me drool to make something in it. A lot of theater makers have migrated to New Jersey from NYC, and so I think people are hungry to make and see grown up and contemporary theater here. New Jersey is really just this extension of NYC, same artists, same desire to make theater. Just give artists space and time, maybe some money, that’s all it takes.
Has the play changed a lot in development?
Oh, yes, it always does. Writing a play at a computer and just ‘doing it’ is a sheer impossibility for me. It takes me several years of workshops, rehearsals, revisions, self-hating stretches where I wanna chuck it all away, before a play is any good.
The play now is Leisure, Labor, Lust (we are only presenting Leisure, Lust at Art House). But this play used to be just Leisure, which we first presented at JACK in NYC, in 2014 and then at the Mount, Edith Wharton’s estate in 2015. Leisure then became act one to what I conceived as Leisure, Labor, Lust, a three-act play. I wrote Lust next, totally out of order. We presented both plays in rep at HERE Arts Center in 2015, where I was a resident artist for several years.
At first, Lust was sort of this rambling projection of a madman’s thoughts and delusions, not nearly a play yet. I did a major overhaul of Lust after that first workshop at HERE, but I never would have recognized what to do with Lust without actually seeing it performed. It’s all a big mystery to me till I see it up there.
We did Leisure and Lust at The Mount again in 2017, and after that, I re-wrote both even further, meticulously clarifying every moment so there wouldn’t be a minute of confusion for the audience — which is hard with such a twisting, non-linear narrative. Then, of course, I wrote the middle act, Labor, which was by far the hardest one to write — it’s only about 20 minutes long, and it took me three years of writing, throwing away, writing, throwing away before I landed on something I loved.
We have never presented Labor but are doing a one-night showing of it at Art House on our closing night. I’m sure I will be raring to re-write even more after that. We are premiering the final version, Leisure, Labor, Lust at The Tank, 312 W. 36th St., NYC (thetanknyc.org) in April 2018. It is a very long and arduous journey, but I truly live for it.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Leisure, Lust is currently playing at the new space for Art House Productions at 300 Coles St. in Jersey City, New Jersey. Click here for more information and tickets.
