INTERVIEW: Join writer Sophie McIntosh on a road trip through Wisconsin
Photo: Sophie McIntosh is the playwright of Road Kills, playing an end-of-summer run at Paradise Factory in New York City. Photo courtesy of Liv Rhodes / Provided by Emily Owens PR with permission.
Playwright Sophie McIntosh’s latest work is called Road Kills, and it follows the characters of Owen and Jaki as they make their way on a road trip through Wisconsin. Good Apples Collective is producing a run of the show, starting Friday, Aug. 15, at Paradise Factory on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Performances of the Nina Goodheart-directed piece continue until Sept. 6.
Owen is billed as a collector of road kill, while Jaki is described as a drunk driver needing to finish some community service. They head out on the highways of Wisconsin — six Saturdays in a row — and start to realize they have more in common they thought, according to press notes.
Recently Hollywood Soapbox exchanged emails with McIntosh, who is the co-founder of Good Apples Collective. Her recent work includes everything from macbitches to cunnicularii. Questions and answers have been slightly edited for style.
How would you describe the characters of Owen and Jaki?
Jaki is deeply reactive — biting and a little brutal — and finds power in being a provocateur. She’s only 20, but she’ll drink you under the table (and then probably go mace a stranger in a parking lot bar fight). Owen is gentle, steady and principled, drenched in grace and in shame. He’ll go to a Friday fish fry, have a pop and be in bed by 8 p.m. for the next day’s work shift.
Do the best conversations happen in cars between two people?
I think that there’s something about being in a confined space with no option to physically remove yourself that prompts a certain kind of loquaciousness. I’ve set this play in the Midwest, where (in my experience, at least) people are sort of culturally intolerant of awkward silence and will chatter endlessly to fill the void — and sometimes end up revealing more than they necessarily intended.
Is it difficult to conceptualize and theatricalize a road trip?
We spend relatively little time with Jaki and Owen in the car, as their scenes largely unfold on the side of the highway. Our scene transitions, however, exist as discrete miniature “audio dramas” of friends, lovers and family members on the road, and I enjoyed exploring how each of these could offer up a different slice of life and add more dimension and color to the world of the play.
Why set the story in Wisconsin?
Wisconsin is my home state, and I actually began writing the first draft of this play when I still lived there. I became very accustomed to the hour-and-40-minute drive between my hometown and my college town, but I never got used to the sheer amount of carnage I’d pass by on the side of the road: slaughtered deer, raccoons, opossums, skunks and inevitably even household pets. During these endless drives, I always found myself imagining the moment of collision that spawned each of these tiny tragedies — and thus, Road Kills was born.
What does the piece say about abuse and how this difficult topic comes up in relationships and conversations?
It was very important to me that this not be a “play about abuse,” and that acts of abuse never actually be depicted onstage. Instead, this is a play that explores abuse’s impact and the way that it can twist our self-perception, darken our worldview and damage our ability to connect with others. I also wanted to challenge the idea that anyone need be a “perfect victim” in order to deserve our empathy — the survivors of abuse in this play are flawed people who frequently lash out, causing harm to others.
What’s it like working with Nina Goodheart?
Nina Goodheart is kind, grounded, rigorous, aesthetically sophisticated and endlessly inventive. Our collaboration has utterly transformed the way that I approach my own craft, and I’m truly, endlessly grateful to have found in her a creative partner with whom I can dream bigger than ever before and work alongside to make those dreams a reality. She also has excellent taste in memes and is generally supportive (or at least tolerant) of my more rambunctious antics, which is a nice bonus.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Road Kills, written by Sophie McIntosh, plays Aug. 15 to Sept. 6 at Paradise Factory on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Click here for more information and tickets.
