Playwrights put spotlight on personal pain in two new plays
Rose Napoli, Ellie Moon discuss murky, enigmatic experiences with consent
If you see Rose Napoli or Ellie Moon on the street, on the streetcar or at a café, don’t be alarmed if you see them suddenly burst into tears.
“I’m super vulnerable right now; I cry at least once a day thinking about it. Just publicly weeping all the time, thinking about this play,” Napoli, 34, says about her most recent work, Lo (or Dear Mr. Wells). It premieres Oct. 25 at the Streetcar Crowsnest. This is far from Napoli’s first attempt at playwriting, so there are more than nerves at issue with this opening. In Lo, Napoli’s fictional drama draws on two painful incidents from her past — one as a teenager, another while working as a youth worker and teacher — involving the complex, sensitive area of consent. “I feel like every day I’m putting on the armour for what’s to come,” she said.
Moon, 24, laughed in recognition at that statement. Her documentary theatre-style solo play, Asking for It, begins its run Thursday at the Crowsnest.
Inspired by the Jian Ghomeshi trial, Moon’s play assembles many interviews conducted with women about sexuality and consent, putting theirs and Moon’s own experiences in the spotlight.
“It’s stressful because there are a lot of experiences that I don’t know firsthand and I don’t want to pretend they’re not part of the conversation,” Moon said.
Her director, Brendan Healy, former artistic director of Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, encouraged Moon to make herself more central to the play.
“When you play a character, your job is not to judge them. But it’s almost impossible not to judge yourself,” Moon said, “I think sitting in the fear is something you have to do to be comfortable with yourself and your sexuality, and it’s the same work as in the play . . . I keep telling myself that, that the fear is where I should be. And it’s also about building a tolerance for it and for uncomfortable conversations.”
The uncomfortable conversations around consent, its shifting definitions, grey areas and triggers may have become more common since Ghomeshi was charged and subsequently acquitted of sexual assault in 2016; the Brock Turner case at Stanford University and other headline-grabbing stories that have ignited passionate outcries from the public. And they’re certainly not finished.
Personal experiences with sexual consent can be far more murky and enigmatic. Both Asking for It and Lo (or Dear Mr. Wells) can be connected thematically to bigger events, but these stories are based in personal histories and invite audience reaction. So Nightwood Theatre, one of the producing companies behind these plays, is facilitating post-show reverberations.
The plays are being presented as part of the Consent Event, a symposium on Oct. 15 at the Streetcar Crowsnest that includes conversations with local experts on sexual health, legal services and social work, with a facilitator, therapist and artist on duty.
The symposium is designed to pick up the conversations in the plays for in-depth, safe, productive discussions that go above and beyond the typical post-show chat.
“If we’ve all done our job effectively and done what we set out to do, certainly what we set out to do in this work, people will be feeling things,” Napoli said. “So for those who want to talk, it’s important to have an outlet.”
For her, writing the play was reve- latory; being there with audiences as they watch the show will be a new milestone in her career.
“I didn’t even know I had written a play about consent. It’s about a woman who, 10 years later, realizes something very wrong happened to her in her youth. I went on the same journey through writing the play, realizing what consent even is,” she said.
For two young female playwrights, premiering new work brings an intense amount of pressure, let alone two plays that deal with such intimate, personal subject matter.
Napoli has felt self-consciousness about adding another story to the teacher/student relationship trope, and Moon admits to feeling guilt for putting herself at the centre of as both performer and writer.
These self-effacing and self-blaming reactions, of course, are part of why issues around consent are so difficult to face.
“I feel like I did when I was a teenager and the full circle has come to making this work. Now I see that it not only happened to me, but it happens a lot. A lot more than we see in the news or on television,” Napoli said. “Part of writing this has been me telling myself that this is not redundant; there is a need for this story.” Lo (or Dear Mr. Wells) is at the Streetcar Crowsnest, 345 Carlaw Ave., Oct. 25 to Nov. 11. Asking for It is at the Crownest Thursday to Oct. 21. The Consent Event runs Oct. 15 from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Crowsnest. Carly Maga is a Toronto Star theatre critic. She alternates the Wednesday Matinée column with critic Karen Fricker.