In The Niceties, opening next week at the Milwaukee Repertory Theater, two women have a conversation that grows increasingly fraught as they stumble into the racial fissures of American society. The older woman is a white liberal arts professor and the younger is her student, a black activist. What begins as a routine chat about a term paper turns ugly.
Eleanor Burgess wrote The Niceties during the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The tension between women who, on paper, should be on the same page politically echoes the chasm that divided Hilary Clinton from many younger African American voters. As Burgess puts it, America needs to learn “the consequences of a white woman failing to win over people who aren’t white and the consequences of a woman in her 60s failing to win over a millennial.”
And the consequences of allowing the worst-case scenario to occur? The Milwaukee Rep’s version of The Niceties stars Kate Levy as professor Janine Bosko and Kimber Sprawl as student activist Zoe Reed. Director Annika Boras—a theater and TV actress with a long resume—answered some questions about the production.
How did you come to the Milwaukee Rep’s attention?
I’ve been teaching acting at New York University for the last two years and have been directing there as well. My last project as assistant director was at the Atlantic Theater Company in New York City, and I’m in the midst of assisting director-writer John Patrick Shanley on his current film adaptation of Outside Mullingar. I flew here to Milwaukee from pre-production in Ireland. As soon as we open The Niceties, I’ll fly back to Dublin for principal photography.
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[Milwaukee Rep artistic director] Mark Clements and I connected when I was in the La Jolla production of Junk. We reconnected as he was doing it last season. I mentioned my desire to assist him, and I was thrilled when he invited me on. We had a great working relationship on Junk, and that led to him asking if I was interested in directing The Niceties here in Milwaukee. I leapt at the chance!
What does the play’s title have to say? Is it an ironic comment on our willingness to disguise social problems behind polite or politically correct language?
Yes. Exactly. Niceties mask the deeper issues, and they end up being dispensed with when the heat gets turned up.
What are the particular challenges of directing a two-person play?
Stamina. There are two actors on stage at every moment. It’s a lot for them to carry and do. This play is two scenes, each an act long, both played in real time; there’s nowhere to stop and pause. The demand to keep the energy moving and shifting and always building—that’s a real challenge, but it’s also what’s wonderful about the experience for an audience—and for the two of them—when it works.
What triggers the escalating argument between the two protagonists?
Insensitivity and disagreement. And also, in a way, the belief in what history is—whether it needs to be an imaginative exercise, which is what Zoe argues, or whether history is bound by what evidence we can uncover about it, which is what Janina argues.
What do the women reveal about their deeply held (and perhaps unexamined) attitudes?
That our perspectives are always shaped by our experiences, our position in the social order, our livelihoods and our desires. The play stages that disheartening tendency for us to not really listen to one another, always to hear what we expect, what we already know.
Does the script attempt to apportion audience sympathy equally between the two women?
I think the play is sensitive to the audience’s relationship to both of the characters and tries to inspire the audience to see themselves in both of the characters. Ultimately, it attempts to create a space where, even if the characters are not listening to each other, we are listening to them.
Is The Niceties a play likely to be misunderstood?
Probably. What holds true for the characters on stage is probably true for every audience member. Perspective is shaped by experience. I think what’s brave about the play is that it allows the space for that reality.
Is The Niceties, in part, about America’s refusal to acknowledge its past?
Maybe even more than its refusal, its inability to do so. I think it asks the question: What is really dividing us? Generation? Sensibility? Experience? Identity? What is the common ground? Is there really none? Perhaps sitting in the experience of these questions without answers is the experience most worth having. That may be the real value of any artistic exploration.
The Niceties runs Sept. 25-Nov. 3 at the Stiemke Studio, 108 E. Wells St. For tickets, call 414-224-9490 or visit milwaukeerep.com.
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