An Interview with Mark Cassidy (Playwright/Director): Part I

What are some of the most interesting/important aspects of the story for you?

Thematically, I am interested in the whole notion of survival - life vs. death. I am drawn to the mystery of what allows some individuals to pull through an experience while others do not. One part of this formula, which I hear survivors refer to again and again is fate, luck. But what else?.... inner resolve, faith, imagination, courage? How is it that "bottle" after "bottle" of a family's world, what they hold dear, can be shattered and yet they endure?

Another really important aspect of the book for me is the notion of family - that somehow the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Lately, a question I have been reflecting on in developing the script is, is it necessary to shut down your own sense of vulnerability or open-ness, in order to make it through your struggle with dark forces. How hardened, how bottled-up emotionally, must you become? And once you have come through the oppressive experience and regained your freedom, is it ever possible again to express these feelings you've been holding in? Is it possible ever again to trust?

What elements of the novel were challenging to adapt to the stage?

The book is very strong on plot, visual description and evoking the inner thoughts of the narrator, Nini. The contrasting worlds of Vienna and Shanghai create an amazing backdrop for the story of the Karpel family as they struggle to survive the situations thrust upon them in wartorn countries in Europe and the Far East. What we needed to do to turn it into a play was get inside each of the main characters and focus on the drama of the events which are being depicted. Throughout the process of adaptation, we asked what is potentially theatrical here, what is essential, can this be expressed more effectively through text, movement, set, sound, music, lighting? Being truthful to the book was not a question of simply cutting and pasting chunks of narration and having characters utter it on stage but rather absorbing the story and reinterpreting it with our own style and sense of theatrical truth.