An interview with Susan Soon He Stanton

The Playwrights’ Center’s 2015-16 Ruth Easton New Play Series continues February 1 & 2 with SEEK by Core Writer Susan Soon He Stanton. Associate Artistic Director Hayley Finn talked with Susan about why Agatha Christie fascinates her, creating work about historical figures, and what drew her to writing for the stage.

On the title pages of your script, you have a photo of Agatha Christie next to a photo of a Hawaiian man. Did those pictures serve as inspiration for your play?

Absolutely. The Hawaiian man is Joseph Kahahawai, from the Massie Affair referenced in the play. [Kahahawai was a Native Hawaiian man accused of the rape of Thalia Massie and killed by Thalia’s relatives after he was acquitted.] I was very captivated by him and he was a model for one of my central characters. Separately, I was thinking about Agatha Christie, and the way she was portrayed during her disappearance and after. In the photograph, she is portrayed as a domestic figure, a loving mother with her husband and daughter. So that was the inspiration: taking these two sensationalized and different stories of people trying to figure out their lives during a tumultuous period of time.

Had you been interested in Agatha Christie for a while?

It’s funny how I got into Agatha Christie. I never read any of her books growing up. My father was researching the artist Edward Gorey, and Gorey was very interested in Agatha Christie in his art and in his illustrations. Gorey read all Agatha Christie’s books. And then my father started to, for his research of Edward Gorey. She has so many books and suddenly they’re just in heaps around the house. And you know, you can read them cover to cover in an evening. So I just started to read her books. This was about four years ago. Then my father told me the story about the 11 missing days and the whole issue with her husband, and I was very compelled by the story. Everybody thinks of her as this older woman, this authoress. But she began writing very young, as a young socialite, a vibrant, confused woman. At the time of her disappearance, she was in the middle of her life, the middle of her career, and the love of her life had just betrayed her. She didn’t know what to do next. 

How much of the play is based on the research that you did and how much comes from your imagination?

Agatha Christie went missing for 11 days, and the events of my play are not what happened. I was not interested in writing a biopic. I wasn’t interested in exploring exactly what happened. That said, almost everything in the play Agatha says about her life is based on my research. I wanted to transport an authentic-ish Agatha Christie into a new landscape. People have asked me why I did not create a fictional character, inspired by Agatha’s story. But I am very interested in the identity and life of Agatha Christie specifically. She never wrote about the 11 days in any of her autobiographies (she wrote several). I was fascinated that this particular author ran away from her life and no one will ever know exactly what happened or why. I was inspired by Young Jean Lee’s approach to 19th century poets in The Appeal, and I gave myself the same permission to write freely about Agatha. 

You had a chance to workshop SEEK here last year. What did you learn from that workshop, and what are you hoping to work on this time?

The last time I workshopped it, I focused on the shifts between the two tones in the play, one more realistic and the other arch and farcical, and I wanted to explore how those pieces fit together. So tone remains a huge question I have. I was also tracking Bulli, the Hawaiian man’s story and agency through the play.

For this year, I want to keep the question simple. Why is this woman doing this? In certain ways this play is very complicated in terms of all the different worlds, and the greater messages—about colonialism, about sexuality and British women. But there’s something raw and fundamental at this play’s core, about identity and connection that she was facing that I want to bring to the surface.

You started by reading her books before you wrote the play. Have you returned to her books after having worked on the play for a while?

I took a little break. You know, she has so many. But I’m back, in preparation for this workshop. I just went to a used bookstore, and I bought six or seven more. I also have audiobooks of them on my phone. So I’ll be on the subway listening to one book and then at home reading a different one and sometimes I get the murders mixed together. A lot of her stories start to feel similar, but there are certain turns of phrase that she uses or certain observations where her writing is really quite startling, I think. Even though she wrote these things very quickly and they’re very popular, I think there’s a reason why she was so popular and widely read. And she’s extremely influential. Even though I portray certain aspects of her in an unsympathetic light, I have great admiration for her and identify with her. This play is a tribute and an attempt at understanding the struggles of her life at the midpoint.

She’s a fascinating character. I love the other picture that you have in the script with Agatha wearing those different disguises. Could you talk a little bit more about those?

It was in a newspaper during her disappearance, and they titled it “Mrs. Christie Disguised.” It resembles a terrible, terrible pre-Photoshop mockup of what she might look like in various disguises. It’s almost like a Mrs. Potato Head Agatha Christie with different disguises on her, and it’s ludicrous. They ran that in the paper during her disappearance in case she was going about in different disguises, so someone might be able to identify her. It was one of the largest manhunts of all time. Over a thousand police officers were assigned to the case and hundreds of civilian volunteers. At the place where they found her car, people were selling fake locks of her hair. These activities enhanced an already-sensationalized story. The funny thing is, she wasn’t disguised at all, but hiding in plain sight. 

What would you like the audience to go away with after seeing this play?

I’ve been thinking about uncertainty in art, in that I tend to write plays about things I don’t understand. I heard a playwright talk once about how her plays make the audience feel a certain way. She seemed very sure about how she wanted people to feel at the end of the show. My plays are an amalgam of humor, sorrow, and absurdity. They are about life. Life is very complicated. I’m not sure how you should feel about life or my plays, but my hope is that it stirs up something.

In terms of SEEK, I want you to think about Agatha not as an ancient, best-selling author, but as a person. I want you to think about her uncertainty, trying to find her way through like anyone else. I also want to shine a light on this Hawaiian man who is based on Joseph Kahahawai but is also an amalgamation of various uncles that I’ve had and people that I’ve known growing up. As a single father, this man is struggling to raise his son in an environment where it’s very difficult for his son to have a future. There are very limited options. It’s also exciting for me for a Minneapolis audience to hear characters speak Hawaiian and Hawaii pidgin with each other. A story like this isn’t always told outside of Hawaii. 

What other projects are you working on?

I’m working on Today Is My Birthday and it’s inspired by live radio. It’s about difficulty connecting with people. So every scene is on a voicemail or phone calls or live radio or through an intercom. Nobody’s ever in the same space at once. And it’s about connectivity and building community. That play is also set in Hawaii, but I feel like it could be in any hometown.

I’m also working on a play called The Things Are Against Us with Washington Ensemble Theatre this spring. I have a workshop production of a play of mine called cygnus with Women’s Project Pipeline Festival this spring.

I’m in the early days of a collaboration with Caitlin Sullivan and The Satori Group in Seattle. I’ve never created an ensemble-driven show before, so I am excited. 

What drew you to writing stories for the stage?

I have an interest in people and their various stories. That’s always what I’m most drawn to—seeing how change is told, or even how our history is created. It’s fascinating to look at a historical event that seems very set, or a larger political movement, and then break it down and explore the dynamics between various individuals and their specific wants.

Theater is so scary. Best case scenario it’s amazing, and then you lose it—it’s very ephemeral.

I like collaboration. I’m motivated by working with directors and designers and actors. I’ve never wanted to direct my own work. I enjoy the collaborative process and discovering my work by collaborating with other people and having a greater understanding of it that comes from building a play with an artistic team.

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