Emily K. Lazzaro's play, Three, is the third and final play of Boston Public Works Theater Company's first season. Co-founder John Greiner-Ferris talked to Emily about her new play.
JGF:
One of the things that I personally desire when I go to the theater is that I want to discover something new about the world, for very much for the same reason I travel. Your plays have always done that for me. You give insight into the world from the perspective of women. The world you show us with Three is very much a world devoid of men. Men hardly exist at all in this play.
EKL:
They do exist, but the play is not about them. They exist though, as husbands and sexual conquest. I was really careful when I was writing Three to make sure that the plot did not revolve around men at all, and it was a challenge. But yeah, that was definitely intentional.
JGF:
Gee, what if men wrote plays like that?—as women as wives or sexual conquest? Oh wait, they do. What happens when you flip that model on its ear?
EKL:
That is the question! Also, is it the responsibility of the marginalized group to represent all people equally, like to be better than our forebears, or do we have to tell our lady stories because the lady stories haven’t been around enough yet? I decided in this case that this play was just not going to be about men. For this particular moment, that’s my contribution.
JGF:
You self-define as a feminist playwright. What does that mean? How did you come to this definition of yourself over your life? Over your writing career?
EKL:
I pay a lot of attention to gender when I’m writing. The first play I wrote was basically about me as a sixteen-year-old, but I made the character a boy because I thought it would be taken more seriously. As a woman, I feel I’ve been conditioned to think that stories about men are more serious/valuable; it’s something I’ve internalized from a very young age, and I had to fight against it. There’s something wrong with that, I think. Girls are often told their stories are not interesting, serious, or valuable. So I write plays about women. It’s not that radical, but it also sort of is.
JGF:
There’s something definitely wrong if women believe that stories about men are more important than stories about women. Where did that notion come from in your life?
EKL:
Who knows where thoughts come from, they just appear! (Ten points if you get that reference.)
JGF:
Structurally, Three is an interesting play. Three women. Three events. Three points in the characters’ lives. We’re also introduced into the world as an event is taking place—we just jump right into a conversation between Sam and Diane and also into a whirlwind of events—and there really isn’t a final ending: We just leave their world. What are you saying about this world, or about these characters, with the structure of the play?
EKL:
I have a theory that lots of people in their twenties go through three distinct phases on their journey toward becoming adults. The first is a phase I call the search for validation, when lots of people have sex to prove that they’re alive. The second phase is loneliness, when you are finally free from institutions and have to forge your own way. It’s lonely to be without an official institution containing your experiences. The third phase is when everything falls apart. Your family starts to age and die, people get sick, people have financial problems, people cheat, biological clocks start ticking, on and on and on. So that’s where the structure came from: three phases of being a twenty-something.
JGF:
That’s a pretty grim view of a person’s twenties, isn’t it? Or even life in general?
EKL:
Yeah my plays are not usually very cheerful. They’re fun, though! They’re sort of like the music of The Smiths. They have a peppy beat but they are about death.
JGF:
Let’s talk a bit about these characters’ relationships with one another? Are they friends? These women seem to crave an intimacy that’s not possible in this group. It seems almost repetitious the way one of the characters has a problem, tries to bring it up with another character, that character shuts the other character down with verbal abuse, then they apologize to one another and move on. Am I reading this right??
EKL:
They are friends. They know each other really well and there is a certain pleasure in being told about yourself by someone who has known you for a long time. They are closer to siblings than friends. Siblings are often very mean to each other, because they have been through a lot together. The fear of the characters in this play is that they will lose each other, and in so doing they will lose the only people in the world who truly know them.
JGF:
I think what’s interesting for someone my age, who’s in his fifties, is that they have no idea what’s coming in their thirties and forties when they as people will really solidify their personalities and they will forge stronger, but perhaps different relationships with spouses, new acquaintances and who knows who else. And you leave a live time bomb ticking in their midst at the end of the play.
EKL:
Yeah, this play is very much about the experience of being in your twenties. I think a lot of audience members will look at these characters with a sort of bemused smirk.
JGF:
What’s up with all the genitalia references? Or do we really have to address that part of the play? Men, supposedly, talk about tits and ass and their dicks all of the time. Is it that big of deal that women, or at least these women, do?
EKL:
These characters talk about penises because it’s fun and interesting and funny to them. And they knew each other before they had regular sex so they’ve been on this journey of sexual discovery together. When they met, I think they were all virgins. I don’t know about other people, but the friends I still have that were my friends when I was a virgin know a lot more about my sexual life than the friends I’ve made as an adult.
JGF:
There has been press that feminism is being rejected. What would Sam, Diane, or Jenni say about that?
EKL:
Ha ha. Feminism isn’t being rejected. Feminism is just the belief that women are people. That’s silly, John.
JGF:
Who is your favorite feminist playwright? Who are/were your playwriting influences?
EKL:
Caryl Churchill. A lot of my influences are TV and film writers, though. Tina Fey, Mindy Kaling, Amy Poehler.
JGF:
Given that Boston Pubic Works is about all of the playwrights producing one of their plays that they insist must be seen, why did you pick this play for your BPW play?
EKL:
I don’t think any other theater, reading the synopsis of this play, would ever produce it. The synopsis is “Three young women are friends with each other and they try to grow up.” That’s kind of it. Of course it’s more than that, but it doesn’t have robots or make especially grand statements. I didn’t think it would sell, but I know it’s a good play and I know people will like it, so I figured this was my chance.
JGF:
One of the things that I personally desire when I go to the theater is that I want to discover something new about the world, for very much for the same reason I travel. Your plays have always done that for me. You give insight into the world from the perspective of women. The world you show us with Three is very much a world devoid of men. Men hardly exist at all in this play.
EKL:
They do exist, but the play is not about them. They exist though, as husbands and sexual conquest. I was really careful when I was writing Three to make sure that the plot did not revolve around men at all, and it was a challenge. But yeah, that was definitely intentional.
JGF:
Gee, what if men wrote plays like that?—as women as wives or sexual conquest? Oh wait, they do. What happens when you flip that model on its ear?
EKL:
That is the question! Also, is it the responsibility of the marginalized group to represent all people equally, like to be better than our forebears, or do we have to tell our lady stories because the lady stories haven’t been around enough yet? I decided in this case that this play was just not going to be about men. For this particular moment, that’s my contribution.
JGF:
You self-define as a feminist playwright. What does that mean? How did you come to this definition of yourself over your life? Over your writing career?
EKL:
I pay a lot of attention to gender when I’m writing. The first play I wrote was basically about me as a sixteen-year-old, but I made the character a boy because I thought it would be taken more seriously. As a woman, I feel I’ve been conditioned to think that stories about men are more serious/valuable; it’s something I’ve internalized from a very young age, and I had to fight against it. There’s something wrong with that, I think. Girls are often told their stories are not interesting, serious, or valuable. So I write plays about women. It’s not that radical, but it also sort of is.
JGF:
There’s something definitely wrong if women believe that stories about men are more important than stories about women. Where did that notion come from in your life?
EKL:
Who knows where thoughts come from, they just appear! (Ten points if you get that reference.)
JGF:
Structurally, Three is an interesting play. Three women. Three events. Three points in the characters’ lives. We’re also introduced into the world as an event is taking place—we just jump right into a conversation between Sam and Diane and also into a whirlwind of events—and there really isn’t a final ending: We just leave their world. What are you saying about this world, or about these characters, with the structure of the play?
EKL:
I have a theory that lots of people in their twenties go through three distinct phases on their journey toward becoming adults. The first is a phase I call the search for validation, when lots of people have sex to prove that they’re alive. The second phase is loneliness, when you are finally free from institutions and have to forge your own way. It’s lonely to be without an official institution containing your experiences. The third phase is when everything falls apart. Your family starts to age and die, people get sick, people have financial problems, people cheat, biological clocks start ticking, on and on and on. So that’s where the structure came from: three phases of being a twenty-something.
JGF:
That’s a pretty grim view of a person’s twenties, isn’t it? Or even life in general?
EKL:
Yeah my plays are not usually very cheerful. They’re fun, though! They’re sort of like the music of The Smiths. They have a peppy beat but they are about death.
JGF:
Let’s talk a bit about these characters’ relationships with one another? Are they friends? These women seem to crave an intimacy that’s not possible in this group. It seems almost repetitious the way one of the characters has a problem, tries to bring it up with another character, that character shuts the other character down with verbal abuse, then they apologize to one another and move on. Am I reading this right??
EKL:
They are friends. They know each other really well and there is a certain pleasure in being told about yourself by someone who has known you for a long time. They are closer to siblings than friends. Siblings are often very mean to each other, because they have been through a lot together. The fear of the characters in this play is that they will lose each other, and in so doing they will lose the only people in the world who truly know them.
JGF:
I think what’s interesting for someone my age, who’s in his fifties, is that they have no idea what’s coming in their thirties and forties when they as people will really solidify their personalities and they will forge stronger, but perhaps different relationships with spouses, new acquaintances and who knows who else. And you leave a live time bomb ticking in their midst at the end of the play.
EKL:
Yeah, this play is very much about the experience of being in your twenties. I think a lot of audience members will look at these characters with a sort of bemused smirk.
JGF:
What’s up with all the genitalia references? Or do we really have to address that part of the play? Men, supposedly, talk about tits and ass and their dicks all of the time. Is it that big of deal that women, or at least these women, do?
EKL:
These characters talk about penises because it’s fun and interesting and funny to them. And they knew each other before they had regular sex so they’ve been on this journey of sexual discovery together. When they met, I think they were all virgins. I don’t know about other people, but the friends I still have that were my friends when I was a virgin know a lot more about my sexual life than the friends I’ve made as an adult.
JGF:
There has been press that feminism is being rejected. What would Sam, Diane, or Jenni say about that?
EKL:
Ha ha. Feminism isn’t being rejected. Feminism is just the belief that women are people. That’s silly, John.
JGF:
Who is your favorite feminist playwright? Who are/were your playwriting influences?
EKL:
Caryl Churchill. A lot of my influences are TV and film writers, though. Tina Fey, Mindy Kaling, Amy Poehler.
JGF:
Given that Boston Pubic Works is about all of the playwrights producing one of their plays that they insist must be seen, why did you pick this play for your BPW play?
EKL:
I don’t think any other theater, reading the synopsis of this play, would ever produce it. The synopsis is “Three young women are friends with each other and they try to grow up.” That’s kind of it. Of course it’s more than that, but it doesn’t have robots or make especially grand statements. I didn’t think it would sell, but I know it’s a good play and I know people will like it, so I figured this was my chance.
