Women In Shorts

R.M. Sydnor

A Conversation

Women in Shorts, starring Joanna Miles and Louise Davis at the Working State Theater in Hollywood, is a delicious existential collection of six short plays from six writers and six directors.  Despite all the cooks, this toothsome dish is served very well indeed. Miles and Davis’ thoughtful performances bring a singular spirit to these stories with themes of economic vicissitudes, agoraphobia, long-term family responsibility, and the limits of love.  This is great stuff for anyone who wants more than simply a night out at the theater.

What brought the two of you together for Women in Shorts?

A few years ago, Louise and I were in a play called “Chairwomen”. So, we decided to look around for something new to do. We came up with the idea of asking the writers from the Actors Studio playwright’s group to write ten minute plays for two women.

         “Women in Shorts”, rather nice paronomasia, is a collection of existential vignettes that speak to the larger issues of the roles we play in life and relationships. What makes these slices of life work for me is the comfort level that the two of you have as actresses with each other and the roles.

              It took us time to put this all together and people have asked why it took so long. We had a few unfortunate events around physical illnesses and accidents, so we decided to keep working until everyone had recovered. That gave us the benefit of growing in each role. The truth is, is there a time limit that is acceptable? It’s silly. You do what you have to do. For us it was a gift that we might not have had with a more predictable rehearsal schedule.

 It seems clear to me that Woman in Shorts is truly a perspicacious study of the complex nature of human relationships. This is certainly apparent in Sisters, Divorces R US.

I thought the playwrights would write news worthy themes because of everything that is going on today. Nicely, their plays turned out to contain those issues, but in a more personal way, as you have pointed out.

Park Strangers is certainly my favorite among these delightful pieces, an existential twist on six degrees of separation.  While watching you perform, the theater of the absurd and Albert Camus’ assessment in his essay The Myth of Sisyphus (1942) that the human situation is essentially absurd, devoid of purpose came fresh to mind.  Two women from disparate urban milieus come together in park and who lives curiously intersect in a most unique way.

Yes, I agree that the conceit of that play is quite lovely because it explores the foolishness of our values: “Vaginal Itch” and “smoking” and loss, by allowing us to laugh at ourselves and to forgive.

The two of you faced a daunting challenge of performing diverse characters from a number of writers. This is not easy to achieve, but you do so admirable.  Tell us about your preparation in each of the plays.

The theme was, “Issues of our time.” We also wanted the plays to be set in a park. In order to avoid a lot of set changes. Out of a number of submissions, we chose six plays, which was all we could handle. We met with the writers and directors of each play and shared our ideas and theirs about the content and the characters. Some plays needed a lot of time and others came together easily.

You also faced the tantamount challenge of working with different writers but six directors with unquestionably different points of view.  It can be tough just communicating with one much more six.  I envy the two of you.

At first we were going to have one director, but then decided it would be interesting to have different directors for each play. Mostly because the plays needed work, but also because scheduling rehearsals was a challenge with an exceedingly busy crowd. It was exciting to work on each play with the different styles that each of the directors brought. Some were interested in exploring the characters and the concept; others thought the character development was our job, so they primarily kept to the business and the blocking. Both worked in their own way because of the plays they shepherded. The truth is, we ended up with separate friendly fiefdoms.

Relationships are a funny thing.  They never really end because they are eternal and spiritual on many levels.  Death and divorce do not end relationships because of this eternal equality.  I felt this deeply in Divorces R US.

I’m not sure that I understand your response to “Divorces R Us” in the same way you do. As much as I adore “Divorces R Us”, for its humor and absurdity, I don’t see death in it or really divorce. I think death is more evident in ‘The Great Out Doors,” which deals with a mother and daughter struggling with the mother’s agoraphobia in response to the mother’s loss of her husband. Nice that each play appeals to a different person in a different way. That’s what theater is supposed to do.

Art and life are inextricable.  What events or relationships in your lives helped with developing characters for “Women in Shorts”?

This is a very complex and in-depth question and I would have to write a book to answer it properly. I use my mother in the “Great Out Doors”. I looked after her during her very long life. I’m playing her in all her controlling and mischievous self. “Magic Rabbit” is about my own fears of losing everything and abandonment. “Ladies of The State” is forcing me to play a woman I don’t agree with. She justifies war for it’s nobility and I think putting guns in young people hands is horrifying and doesn’t win wars. The play takes place in the past. There’s a line in it, “We’ve come so far I can only imagine what the future holds.” Today, we don’t seem to be any wiser.

       There is always growth with each role you play.  What has Joanna Miles and Louise Davis learned as actors from this experience?  How have you grown as people?

It was a terrific experience. It was an enormous challenge to learn all the plays much less perform and discover them. We often look at each other and say,”My goodness we did it.” We make discoveries all the time, and with more of a run we would continue to grow. That’s the nice thing about theater versus film. In film you are kind of stuck with what you’ve put out there, at least as an actors.

  

What is on the horizon for Joanna Miles and Louise Davis?

We would like to have this production move on and have a future life somewhere. We have had a few possibilities suggested, but nothing firm. We would also like to get it published.

I want to add that putting a play on isn’t just the writers and directors and actors, it’s the team of creative people who share in the vision and do their best to make it all happen.

Working with Tom Meleck, our set and lighting designer, has been a gift. He brought so much to our production and would have done more if we had had the money to create changes of season and weather and more.

Betty Madden, our costume designer, created those characters with us. Finding simple pieces that expressed the nature of each person we were living in.

Tom’s son Mike, was our rock and stage manager. He brought order to a certain amount of confusion, with good spirit and patience. Iris Merlis joined us later and also was a great support. Quietly doing her best to give us her time, intelligence and enthusiasm.