Two-time Pulitzer winner Lynn Nottage turns a triple play in New York City

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Two-time Pulitzer winner Lynn Nottage turns a triple play in New York City

Transcript¹

Two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright² Lynn Nottage has been very busy for the last few months – right now, she has both a new play and a new musical on Broadway, as well as a new opera at Lincoln Center Theater. I sat down with Nottage last month at the Hayes Theatre, where her new comedy, Clyde's, is being performed. She had some time to chat before going to a preview performance of MJ, the new Michael Jackson musical, for which she's written the libretto³.

"I will tell you, in all honesty, I haven't been getting a lot of sleep," she says laughing. "This is the dream," she quickly adds. "The dream is to really be busy doing the thing that you love, deeply immersed in making art."

Nottage has been living the dream since the mid-1990s, when her plays began getting produced by major theaters. Along the way, her dramas Ruined and Sweat each received the Pulitzer Prize, making her the first woman to win the category twice.

"Lynn is one of our most celebrated⁴ writers, and I think she has three major skill sets," explains Kate Whoriskey, who directed those Pulitzer-winning plays as well as Clyde's. "One, is she's incredible with character, and also, she's great with structure. And then I would say the last thing is that I think she has the ability to see into the future more than anyone I know, in terms of what the world is asking for." And she adds that what the world needs right now is some lighthearted comedy, albeit⁵ with serious undertones.

Nottage describes Clyde's as magical realism, and says it's set both in the kitchen of a sandwich shop and a liminal space. All the play's characters are formerly⁶ incarcerated⁷, including the shop's owner, who's kind of the boss from hell.

Uzo Aduba, best known for her Emmy Award-winning role of Suzanne "Crazy Eyes" Warren in Orange Is the New Black, plays the devilish Clyde. She admires Nottage's choice of topics: "She has done the very hard thing of giving space to faces, voices and stories that are often forgotten."

When Nottage went to Reading, Penn., to research Sweat, her play about struggling blue collar workers, she also spoke⁸ with many people who were trying to resurrect their lives after leaving prison. So, while the characters in Clyde's work a dreary⁹, repetitive job, they dream of a better future... and a better sandwich.

Nottage says the comedy is about both mindfulness and the creative process. "A sandwich is very simple, but you can assemble it in such a way that make those flavor combinations quite complicated," she explains. "And I like to think of that as a metaphor¹⁰ for what we do as artists."

Nottage lately has expanded her portfolio¹¹ as an artist, adapting her popular play Intimate Apparel into an opera with a score by Ricky Ian Gordon. Set at the turn of the last century, it's about a Black seamstress who makes lingerie, with a clientele that includes a Fifth Avenue matron and a prostitute in the Tenderloin, while yearning¹² for love herself. Nottage wrote the play when she found a photograph of her great grandmother, shortly after her mother died and while she was moving her grandmother to dementia care.

"I had so many questions and I realized there was no one left to answer them," she says. "That really broke my heart. And it made me think a lot about, particularly as an African American woman, a Black woman, that so much of our history has been lost because of the reticence¹³ on the part of our relatives, and their belief that our stories weren't important enough to document."

Gordon recounts that for this, Nottage's first opera, the two of them worked closely not just to boil down the intimate play to its essence, but also to open it up, so it evokes¹⁴ the world beyond.

"Lynn is a very deep swimmer: You don't have to worry about whether it's going to get there, make its point and grab you by your gizzard," Gordon says. "And that's the kind of writer you want to work with, because writing music is hard! And you really want to feel like if you are going to go there, you want the writer to go there."

The final project of Nottage's trifecta is a musical featuring the back catalog of the late superstar Michael Jackson. She says his music was her personal soundtrack. "I can track through all of my emotional life through the Michael Jackson songbook," Nottage says, "so I was very excited to figure out a way to bring those songs to life."

She and her collaborators decided¹⁵ to set the musical in the days before Jackson's enormous 1992 Dangerous world tour, as a jumping off point for the King of Pop to reflect on his life and career. "I was interested: How does someone who is the biggest star in the world endeavor to be an even bigger star, and to create something that's a reflection of who he is?" Nottage explains. "We talk about it as a mixtape of his life."

The tour eventually was interrupted by Jackson's drug addiction¹⁶ and the beginning of press reports alleging¹⁷ child abuse. While MJ: The Musical focuses on Jackson's creative process, director/choreographer Christopher Wheeldon acknowledges the controversy¹⁸ surrounding its subject.

"Everyone brings their own feelings, their own thoughts about Michael into the house," Wheeldon says. "And I think that's one of the things that Lynn has done so successfully, is create this piece of art that allows for some breath around those viewpoints."

While theater was on pause during the pandemic, and after George Floyd's murder, Lynn Nottage co-signed a document called "We See You White American Theater," demanding institutional change. Since Broadway reopened, many of the plays produced have been by Black playwrights¹⁹.

Nottage is optimistic... but: "We have to not allow ourselves to go backward," she says. "And some of that onus²⁰ is on us as artists, some of the onus is on producers and people who work in the industry. But I also think some of the onus is on the audiences, because they have to come out and support us."

And for those who want to support it, remaining performances of Clyde's will be live-streamed throughout this weekend.

1 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

2 playwright   

n.剧作家，编写剧本的人

参考例句：

• Gwyn Thomas was a famous playwright.格温·托马斯是著名的剧作家。
• The playwright was slaughtered by the press.这位剧作家受到新闻界的无情批判。

3 libretto   

n.歌剧剧本，歌曲歌词

参考例句：

• The printed libretto was handsomely got up.这本印刷的歌剧剧本装帧得很美观。
• On the other hand,perhaps there is something to be said for the convenience of downloading a libretto in one's own home rather than looking for it in a library or book store.但是反过来看，或许尤为重要的是如果网

4 celebrated   

adj.有名的，声誉卓著的

参考例句：

• He was soon one of the most celebrated young painters in England.不久他就成了英格兰最负盛名的年轻画家之一。
• The celebrated violinist was mobbed by the audience.观众团团围住了这位著名的小提琴演奏家。

5 albeit   

conj.即使；纵使；虽然

参考例句：

• Albeit fictional,she seemed to have resolved the problem.虽然是虚构的，但是在她看来好象是解决了问题。
• Albeit he has failed twice,he is not discouraged.虽然失败了两次，但他并没有气馁。

6 formerly   

adv.从前，以前

参考例句：

• We now enjoy these comforts of which formerly we had only heard.我们现在享受到了过去只是听说过的那些舒适条件。
• This boat was formerly used on the rivers of China.这船从前航行在中国内河里。

7 incarcerated   

钳闭的

参考例句：

• They were incarcerated for the duration of the war. 战争期间，他们被关在狱中。 来自辞典例句
• I don't want to worry them by being incarcerated. 我不想让他们知道我被拘禁的事情。 来自电影对白

8 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

9 dreary   

adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的

参考例句：

• They live such dreary lives.他们的生活如此乏味。
• She was tired of hearing the same dreary tale of drunkenness and violence.她听够了那些关于酗酒和暴力的乏味故事。

10 metaphor   

n.隐喻，暗喻

参考例句：

• Using metaphor,we say that computers have senses and a memory.打个比方，我们可以说计算机有感觉和记忆力。
• In poetry the rose is often a metaphor for love.玫瑰在诗中通常作为爱的象征。

11 portfolio   

n.公事包；文件夹；大臣及部长职位

参考例句：

• He remembered her because she was carrying a large portfolio.他因为她带着一个大公文包而记住了她。
• He resigned his portfolio.他辞去了大臣职务。

12 yearning   

a.渴望的；向往的；怀念的

参考例句：

• a yearning for a quiet life 对宁静生活的向往
• He felt a great yearning after his old job. 他对过去的工作有一种强烈的渴想。

13 reticence   

n.沉默，含蓄

参考例句：

• He breaks out of his normal reticence and tells me the whole story.他打破了平时一贯沈默寡言的习惯，把事情原原本本都告诉了我。
• He always displays a certain reticence in discussing personal matters.他在谈论个人问题时总显得有些保留。

14 evokes   

产生，引起，唤起( evoke的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• The film evokes chilling reminders of the war. 这部电影使人们回忆起战争的可怕场景。
• Each type evokes antibodies which protect against the homologous. 每一种类型都能产生抗同种病毒的抗体。

15 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

16 addiction   

n.上瘾入迷，嗜好

参考例句：

• He stole money from his parents to feed his addiction.他从父母那儿偷钱以满足自己的嗜好。
• Areas of drug dealing are hellholes of addiction,poverty and murder.贩卖毒品的地区往往是吸毒上瘾、贫困和发生谋杀的地方。

17 alleging   

断言，宣称，辩解( allege的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• His reputation was blemished by a newspaper article alleging he'd evaded his taxes. 由于报上一篇文章声称他曾逃税，他的名誉受到损害。
• This our Peeress declined as unnecessary, alleging that her cousin Thornhill's recommendation would be sufficient. 那位贵人不肯，还说不必，只要有她老表唐希尔保荐就够了。

18 controversy   

n.争论，辩论，争吵

参考例句：

• That is a fact beyond controversy.那是一个无可争论的事实。
• We ran the risk of becoming the butt of every controversy.我们要冒使自己在所有的纷争中都成为众矢之的的风险。

19 playwrights   

n.剧作家( playwright的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• We're studying dramatic texts by sixteenth century playwrights. 我们正在研究16 世纪戏剧作家的戏剧文本。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Hung-chien asked who the playwrights were. 鸿渐问谁写的剧本。 来自汉英文学 - 围城

20 onus   

n.负担；责任

参考例句：

• The onus is on government departments to show cause why information cannot bedisclosed.政府部门有责任说明不能把信息公开的理由。
• The onus of proof lies with you.你有责任提供证据。