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NEWS & EVENTS >Newletters >October 2003

October 2003 Newsletter

QUESTIONING AUTHORITY:

A CONVERSATION WITH GINEVRA BULL

by Jerry Useem

Jerry Useem is a senior writer for Fortune Magazine and deconstructs the doublespeak of corporate America for a living. He is also a contributing author of Upward Bound: Nine Original Accounts of How Business Leaders Reached Their Summits.

I caught up with Synapse Artistic Director Ginevra Bull to interrogate her about being an outsider on the inside. I didn't need my glaring spotlights and duct tape, because she was so eager to talk. Big Brother will not be pleased….

Q: Is there any truth to the accusation that you are un-American?

A: It's true. I'm 100% British-from Leicestershire. My accent is sort of regionless, since I've lived all over the place: Australia for a year, here in New York for seven. One of the first people I met at University in London asked me if I had even been to school, because he couldn't understand me. So pretty quickly my accent changed. I knew it was bad when I was asked if we have pizza in the north of England.

Q: Do you?

A: Yes.

Q: London never was much of a theater town. But why New York?

A: America really is the land of opportunity in the sense that, in good times and bad, you really can start from scratch and have ambitious goals and have an actual chance of achieving them. In England, it's a little more difficult to do that… Not being weighed down by others' perceptions and expectations has allowed me to take so many more risks as an artist.

Q: That word-"artist"-seems like a daring leap in itself.

A: It's terrifying, actually…. because it comes with a responsibility. But I think being an artist is about asking questions. Ever since I was little I've questioned authority. But I mostly questioned authority because I wanted to understand it. If I can understand why you're telling me to do things, I'm much more likely to do it. If you can tell me why you're not allowed to wear white socks to school, for instance, I might be okay with it. They just said wasn't part of the uniform. So I asked, "Why not?"

Q: Like a literal approach: "Hi, authority, I've got a question."

A: I started a big petition to let the boys wear white socks. I nearly got expelled for that.

Q: So what authority have you been questioning over on this side of the Atlantic?

A [Laughs]: All of it! I think we have more sources of "authority" in America than we care to realize. The courts, the government, the media…I think we have trouble sorting them all out.

Q: "We."

A: I feel like I am part of the "We" in this country. And I recognize ways in which I'm not and never will be. There are some things about America I know I'll never understand. For instance, I know I'll never be able to complete an American crossword.

Q: Could you tell me who Gary Coleman is?

A: Is he the guy who says "Willis" a lot?

Q: Americans, you may have noticed, aren't always real keen on foreign types critiquing their country.

A: I was in Des Moines recently, talking about Synapse, and I mentioned the George Bernard Shaw quote that inspired our mission statement, "the purpose of theater is to shape the conscience of the culture." This teenaged boy asked me, "So you're going to come to my country and tell me what to think?"

Q: What did you say?

A: Well, I told him that I want to shine a light on being an American from another perspective-and that that's the only thing I can do, because I'm an outsider.

Q: Sort of the inside-outsider.

A: There's so much to investigate - I think it's going to take a whole lifetime to try to understand it. Especially now, since so much is changing.

Q: You were here for the biggest change of all.

A: September 11 was such a huge event that I can't even begin to talk about all the ways it affected me. There's no question it was a defining moment. We'd been accustomed to communicating via Email and text messaging and suddenly these abbreviated forms of communication were not enough - we're talking to more people than ever, but we're not having proper conversations. Theater, to me, is a conversation. One of the things I want to achieve is that people leave the theater talking.

Q: If you want to get people talking about today's America, why are your next two plays inspired by a dead Brit?

A: Orwell was British, but his legacy is timeless and universal.

Q: So, why "1984" in 2004?

A: Well, take "Animal Farm" first. The animals in the farmyard learn a powerful lesson-and one I think we should never forget. Basically, the authorities are moving the goalposts. The pigs write these inviolable Ten Commandments on the wall-"No animal can kill another animal," and so on-and then in the middle of the night they come in and change them: "No animal can kill another animal without good cause." Right now, we're hearing a lot about the "good reasons" why the rules need changing.

Q: Are we talking about the Patriot Act here?

A: We're talking about the arrogance of power.

Q: So would you call this political theater?

A: Well, it's political with a small "p" - talking about the ideas rather than as an expression of dissent or whatever. It's meant to poke at us and try to push our buttons until we have that conversation. That's the sort of theater I want to produce. I recently discovered that there as more than 5,000 surveillance cameras watching the streets of Manhattan at any one time - and they're only the ones we know about! Orwell's vision of 1984 is getting closer by the minute.

Q: Doesn't staging Orwell suggest, by definition, a pretty Orwellian vision of America?

A: I think the term "Orwellian" has become an empty buzzword. It has no clear meaning these days. Orwell was as inconsistent as we all are. It may be difficult to believe, but Anti-Authoritarianism has bi-partisan roots… I'm not interested in bashing people over the head with an ideology. I want to initiate thought.

Q: So in asking the questions, how do you stop yourself from giving the answers?

A: Because I don't know the answers! All I want to do is present a set of ideas, and let people draw their own conclusions. The most devastating thing of all is if people aren't asking the questions in the first place.

Q: Couldn't you get expelled from school for this?

A: I don't want to get thrown out of the country! [Laughs.] But seriously, it gets back to my whole problem with authority. Not only are the authorities giving the answers these days, but they're being allowed to ask the questions, too. I imagine some government official saying, "But young lady, what are you doing? You're not an authority on these issues. I have authority to ask the questions. I have Question Authority." What I believe is that we all have "Question Authority." And if we don't use that authority, we're basically letting other people define reality us.

Q: Is there a single playwright that most inspires you?

A: Brecht once said that he didn't write for people who "want to have cockles of their hearts warmed."

Q: But "Cats" was so heart-warming!

A: That's why I'm here! [Laughs.]

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