A conversation with Director Dawn Loveland

By Cindy Mindell

Dawn Loveland

WEST HARTFORD – The 1967 publication of The Chosen by Simon & Schuster marked two significant moments in modern American literature: it was the first time a major American publisher produced a book that explored the isolated world of Chassidic Williamsburg in Brooklyn, N.Y.; and, it was the debut novel of American Jewish writer Chaim Potok, who would enjoy international acclaim for his portrayal of two 15-year-old friends, each caught between the familiarity of a traditional Jewish community and the opportunities of the wider world outside.

Set in 1940s Brooklyn in two very different Jewish communities – “five blocks and a world apart” – the story follows the two boys and their fathers, against the backdrop of World War II, the revelation of the Holocaust, and the desperate struggle of Zionism.

The book was a New York Times bestseller for more than six months and a finalist for a National Book Award (alongside Norman Mailer, Joyce Carol Oates, and William Styron). Writing in the New York Times Book Review, Hugh Nissenson predicted the novel’s lasting legacy: ‘’Long afterwards, it remains in the mind, and delights. It is like those myths that, as C.S. Lewis reminds us, do not essentially exist in words at all.’’

The Chosen would go on to sell 3.4 million copies worldwide. A 1981 film adaptation starring Rod Steiger was followed seven years later by a Broadway musical. In 1999, Potok and American playwright and stage director Aaron Posner adapted the book into a play, which premiered that year at the Arden Theatre in Philadelphia. The play was revised in 2011 and 2013, after Potok’s death.

The play is the third in the 2015-16 Main Stage season of Playhouse on Park in West Hartford, and runs from Jan. 27 through Feb. 14. Director Dawn Loveland, who also serves as education director at the Playhouse, spoke with the Ledger about preparations to bring this timeless American story to the stage.

Jewish Ledger (JL): What do you see as the central appeal of “The Chosen?”

Dawn Loveland (DL): The Chosen tells a story that is timely and important to tell because as much as it takes place in the Jewish faith, it’s also a coming-of-age story about people being influenced by their families and how they grew up, but also wanting something different, and what they learn from each other, the traditions that are passed down. In many ways, it’s a timely story that I think is going to resonate well with audiences of any faith and background.

It’s a play that’s not done that often – the book is read often – but it’s still a fairly new, changing play. It’s one that people probably have heard of but not a lot of people have seen so we’re really excited to share the story.

JL: Is the process of bringing a book like this to the stage a difficult one?

DL: I believe that most of what you need to create the play is found in uncovering the text and how the author and playwright wrote it. One of the first things I did when really starting to work on figuring out how to make this into the show we wanted it to be. Of course, I read the script a whole bunch of times and did some research on the play itself, on the playwright, and the person who adapted the play – and then I read the book because it was a book first. That gave a lot of insights about the world that they live in and filled out the characters in a way that the audience doesn’t necessarily need to see to understand the story any better but is helpful when we’re trying to make these characters and this world become real. There was a movie that came many years ago, which I purposely decided not to watch; so close to starting to work on the play,

I didn’t want someone else’s interpretation of how these characters are shown, how they talk, what they wear. I wanted that to come from our work together as a company with the actors and designers.

I’ve also been reading Wanderings: Chaim Potok’s History of the Jews, which helps to understand how he’s telling the story and what he wants us to get from it.

JL: What in particular about the story of “The Chosen” resonates with you?

DL: There’s an idea that appears in the play a few times: “Both these and these are the words of the living God.” That line introduces the script and sums it up at the end. To me, it has a lot of meanings and can mean a lot of different things to different people. One of the essential ideas, I think, is that there’s more than one right path. Not every path is right for every person and people need to find their own way. That’s an idea that I think is so important to express, that is explored really well in this play, and I love that central idea. I also love the realism of the characters: it’s a lot about the boys and their struggles with their fathers and that’s real; to have ways that you respect and aspire to be like your parents and then ways that you differ, and needing to navigate that. The boys, Danny and Reuven, are learning how to navigate that and their fathers are as well. I also love the way the story is told: it has a very realistic feel but it also has an abstract sense of it, which is tough to explain without seeing it. This is the way the story is told theatrically; I think it’s really effective for the content that it’s telling and in the culture that it’s speaking of.

JL: What struck you in particular about the adaptation of the novel for the stage?

DL: There are several things that are done on purpose. One thing that I noticed a lot when I read the book was the emphasis on sounds: the author talks about the sound of the character’s shoes or the sound of the shul or the sound of the city street. To me, the way the author created the world was done a lot through sound. I felt like that naturally carries over very well to theater and I felt that Aaron Posner was very aware of that when writing his stage directions: you hear this kind of music now or you hear sound here. The idea of silence is also huge: what’s not said, what’s not heard, and why silence can be so important and good for your soul or not – that’s sort a debate in there, but there are very definite moments of sound and silence that I imagine were inspired by the book.

JL: Tell us a little about how you cast the show.

DL: We cast both locally and out of New York. In this show, all the actors happen to be coming from New York. We schedule people who express an interest in being considered for the project, then go into New York for a day, we see them read the script, read with each other, talk to them and get to know them a little bit so that we can choose who would tell the story the way you want to tell it. One of the actors, Damian Buzzerio, who plays “Reb Saunders,” worked with us twice before: last winter, in Proof, which I directed, and a couple of summers ago in Cabaret. It’s nice knowing that this is someone we really trust for such difficult role. The other actors, we’ve never worked with before. For this show, it’s important that everyone is really passionate about the work and willing to invest in making these characters full. Damian Buzzerio and Dan Shor, who plays “David Malter,” are Equity actors, and the rest of the cast are non-union professional working actors.

JL: How do your two roles at Playhouse on Park – director of education and play director – intersect?

DL: I started working at the Playhouse in 2010, at the start of the second season. I had grown up in the area and then left, gone to school; I was working somewhere else for a while and then moved back to Connecticut. I was hired to direct a show for young audiences and I was hired to stage-manage a show and got to know people here. I loved the people, the atmosphere, and I already had a background in theater education. They were looking to start an education program and asked if that was something I was interested in helping out with. I ended up staying beyond those two shows and we got the education program up and running. I’ve been working as director of education since then.

One of the first education initiatives that we started with was our field trip program. I contact or hear from schools in the area that want to bring their students to see a daytime matinee of a show. We provide a study guide, we go into their classrooms in advance to talk to them about what they’re going to see so that they have a better understanding. When they come to see the show, they know what they’re watching, how to behave, and how to enjoy what they’re seeing.

For many students, the Playhouse is their first real theater experience. For me, that’s really rewarding. My skills from teaching definitely translate into directing and vice-versa.

For this play in particular, the script is a huge asset for educating an audience, in that anything that is culturally specific is explained [sufficiently] so that you can understand it even if you don’t have advanced knowledge, without feeling like it’s hitting you over the head with “I am teaching you what this means.” I think the script itself does a really good job of that.

The world portrayed is really specific and we want to make sure we’re portraying it accurately. We have been talking to a few people in the community who we’re hoping will come in and advise us and make sure that everything we do is historically and culturally accurate. Are these shoes the shoes they would have worn in Brooklyn in the 1940s in a Chassidic culture? As much as we can research and know what we might know just from history and growing up, it’s great to get some extra perspective to make sure that nothing is overlooked and that every detail is correct.

In general, when you’re directing a play or when actors are working on it, there’s a central idea of “this is what I want to say with the text,” or “this is what my character really wants and this is how they’re trying to get it” or “this is a central idea that this piece is about” and then what you do to create it is based on that idea. Having the mentality of a teacher in terms of clarity, setting up what you’re going to say, and how you’re going to say it, is important. At the same time, working on a play or watching a play is like a discovery: people don’t want to be hit over the head with “this is what I think and this is what you should think.” For me, it’s more like “this is the main idea that we’re expressing. Let’s see if you agree, if you don’t agree,” and what each person brings to their experience of watching it.

The Chosen will run Jan. 27-Feb. 14 at Playhouse on Park, 244 Park Road, West Hartford. For ticket information: www.playhouseonpark.org; (860) 523-5900.

A talk with Aaron Posner

The following is a conversation recorded in 2004 between Aaron Posner, adapter of The Chosen, and Edward Sobel, who was directing the Steppenwolf Theatre Company production of the play.

Ed Sobel: What inspired you to adapt The Chosen?

Aaron Posner: Basically, I was interested in doing something with Jewish themes because that was something I was interested in exploring for myself.

I’d met Chaim because he had been coming to the Arden Theatre in Philadelphia [where Mr. Posner is resident director], and I had actually run into him in Chicago. A couple of weeks later, I decided to call him up and ask for advice on what Jewish works he thought might make good adaptations. I thought I should reread some of Potok’s books before I talked to him, and I started with The Chosen. I read it and thought, oh my God, I don’t need to look any further, this is amazing. The second time I read it, I realized this was a story of two fathers and two sons, and everything else could go. I called Chaim and presented him with my idea for the adaptation.. And that’s sort of how it went.

ES: One of your inventions is to have the adult Reuven as the narrator….

AP: Well, it is and it isn’t. The adult Reuven really is the narrative voice of the novel. Chaim was in his mid–thirties when he was writing the book, which is the age I suggested that the narrator should be. I thought that sensibility, the

perspective of the adult looking back (but not looking way, way back) was sort of implicit in the structure of the book. It felt like a logical way of getting at the story.

ES: In other words, rather than deciding to strictly dramatize the events, you felt it was important to maintain an external narrative voice.

AP: Yes. It was a helpful device to allow the piece to be played with only four other actors, because the narrator can play the other roles that are necessary.

It was a way of keeping the focus on the dynamics between the two fathers and the two sons. Plus, there is a sort of plainness and straightforward honesty to Chaim’s narrative, and his prose in general, that I thought was captured in the single narrator.

ES: You were able to capture the whole world of the book: the sense of place in the Jewish communities and the atmosphere of the 1940s. Did you do any additional research for the play?

AP: The bulk of my research consisted of a number of long and delightful conversations with Chaim and Adena [Potok’s wife]. I would ask the most naïve questions I could. Sometimes they would answer with this delightful sense of exasperation – “How could you not know this?” – but they went pretty far into detail. They invited some of their Yiddish-speaking friends as well. The great thing about being able to assemble a group of people and ask them questions is that they will inevitably disagree about almost everything. This was very helpful for me in the process.

ES: How do you see this story being universal enough to communicate something important to diverse audiences?

AP: Chaim was deeply proud of the letters he received from a young girl in the Philippines and young gay man in London or from non-Jews, particularly, who in someway felt that this story was autobiographical to them.