How would you describe 'Annie'?

Annie is smart, caring, and imperfect. Throughout the play, we witness her navigating many new circumstances.  I imagine her as a novice hurdler.  She sprints towards each obstacle and makes her best attempt to clear it.  Sometimes she makes the leap with grace but more often she stumbles, scrapes her knees, and hurts innocent bystanders such as her friends and her husband.
 
Are there any connections that you see between you and your character?

I also imagine myself as a novice hurdler whenever I try something new or scary.  And fumbles, skinned knees, and failures remind me I (thankfully) still have much to learn in this life.
 
Annie and I also share a love of cooking.  I think we both show our affection for people by cooking for them.  My husband is fond of saying “Thanks for loving me with food.”
 
What do you like most about this play?

The playwright Tanya Barfield has an ability to capture very realistic dialogue.  Characters stop speaking mid sentence, they finish others’ thoughts, and often use non-sequiturs.  As you can imagine, this makes line memorization a beautiful challenge.  The actors in this cast do an amazing job of breathing life into the dialogue, while deftly moving from dramatic to comedic moments.
 
Rehearsing this play brings me great joy and angst. Layered throughout the script are themes of identity, privilege, racism, and motherhood. Its impact on me extends far beyond the rehearsal room.
 
Do you have a favorite line?

“You want a child from Africa but you do not want Africa.”
 
How would you describe the play to our audience?

The Call is a comedy with dramatic moments (or a drama with comedic moments)  about friendship, marriage, and parenthood.  The Call also offers a feast for your senses.  There is food or drink in nearly every scene!  And even though you might be able to smell the delicious mango coulis, please keep your hands off the actors’ plates.
 
What would you like them to leave thinking or talking about?

I hope audience members talk about any of the play’s themes and events with their friends, families, and neighbors.  I hope this play prompts discussions long after people have left the theater.

How would you describe your character?
Drea is like a ball park frank but with Grey Poupon artisanal cheese on top.

Are there any connections that you see between you and your character?
Absolutely! Drea's an artist. I'm an artist. She likes sophisticated women. I love sophisticated women. Drea also seems to have a natural curiosity about the world and people around her and isn't afraid to ask questions. I value this quality in others as well as myself. What would this world be if we lost our curiosity... our desire to investigate? Pretty boring if you ask me!

What do you like most about this play? Do you have a favorite line?
I like the fact that there are no easy answers in The Call. Tanya Barfield doesn't allow the conflict to be packaged nicely and wrapped up with a pretty bow. The characters are messy, vulnerable and complex. Sometimes contradictory. I also appreciate that the dialogue is written in a way that we actually speak in "real life". In the real world we don't always finish our sentences. Sometimes we use our hands, face or body language in lieu of actual words. We also don't always politely wait for others to stop speaking before we chime in with our own thoughts. The playwright has made a clear point of writing in an overlapping rhythm with regards to the dialogue and it's also very clear in those moments when the dialogue does not overlap. Tanya's like a jazz musician in this way. Guiding our attention with rhythm. This technique, coupled with the unconventional alleyway staging will help create an intimacy that will bring the audience into the milieu of these characters' story in a way that feels real and voyeuristic.

Favorite line is when Alemu says with regards to Africa, "The continent, not the country. (He laughs) Humor: it doesn't translate."

And then again later when Alemu says, "Ah. It's 'for Africa,' the entire continent." These lines are brilliant and Tino delivers them brilliantly!

How would you describe the play to our audience?
The Call is an honest glimpse into a couple's journey through the not so warm and fuzzy process of adoption and what happens when people stop being polite and start confronting their own desires, insecurities and basic need to contribute SOMETHING good to the world.

What would you like them to leave thinking or talking about?
It would just be nice if folks are talking and or thinking. I believe that's the responsibility of storytelling. Not to tell the audience WHAT to think about or how to think about it. Just to get them thinking. Maybe spark new dialogue that they didn't have the desire or even courage to have before. I also hope they leave the theater thinking "Boy, that Jammie Patton was really good!" That is my hope for the entire production. I feel pretty good about my hopes. This team is rocking! 😊

How would you describe your character? 
'Alemu' is a very complicated character. He is carrying with him quite a lot of baggage from his youth growing up in Africa (the continent, not the country!). He however, needs to exorcise these demons while also navigating the social norms that we take for granted here in America.

Are there any connections that you see between you and your character?
Yes. I see a lot of connections between myself and my character. I too grew up in Africa, Zimbabwe to be precise, but the struggles of an immigrant knows no borders. From navigating being in a foreign country (where people drive on the wrong side of the road or the toilet water spins in the opposite direction), to language and cultural barriers, to simple social norms like knowing what might be everyday practice between immigrants, might be completely unheard of by someone who has never left the country - the list is endless. I am also deeply touched by the AIDS pandemic that has swept across the continent and agree and empathize with my character about the stigma that many here in the U.S. incorrectly assume the spread of HIV/AIDS in Africa is primarily because of promiscuity. I also feel for the character, because so many times I have found opportunities to make positive contributions to "the people in my heart" (back home), but so often, my help has been through a proxy.

What do you like most about this play? Do you have a favorite line?
I like the fact that the play unashamedly addresses some really big societal topics, like AIDS, adoption, homosexuality, friendship, multi-cultural issues and issues of race (or maybe I should say, issues of heritage/culture - because there is only ONE race ... the human race). Also, I like the way Annie grapples with the decision to adopt - it's realistic, because we all struggle with big decisions and question whether we are really doing the right thing and look to the affirmation of friends and the advice of strangers to help us along the way.

My favorite line is "Yes. Yes. You must pick up the poop" ... in the context of the scene, it's just funny and awkward and fits perfectly with the odd character that I play.

How would you describe the play to our audience?
The play is about a White American couple that plans to adopt a child and when their initial plan fails, they decide to adopt a child from Africa. They have a a lot of hangups about whether they are doing the right thing, if they will be good parents, and how they will function as a "cross-cultural" family and it takes the intervention of their peculiar neighbor to convince them (in his own special way) that they are doing the right thing.

What would you like them to leave thinking or talking about?
There is so much to take away from this play. Despite the serious nature of the subject matter, it is also a comedy. So while I hope people walk away with the following thoughts, I also hope that they can get some good belly laughs in there as well.

• The challenges of conception and adoption
• Social consciousness   
• The role of Cultural Identity 
  • African American culture
  • African culture
  • White culture
  • American culture
    

I’d like to begin by asking you to talk about your choice of title. It sounds as if you intended to have the word “call” operate on more than one level.
 
Every adoptive parent waits anxiously for the call letting them know that they have been matched with a child. So, on the most basic level, that is what “the call” refers to. The other call in the play is the “deeper calling” or the “call to courage.”
 
Was there any specific experience that was a catalyst for the play?
 
A friend of mine went through severe postpartum depression. I wondered if the whole thing was entirely hormonal – or was there a psychological component too? And, if so, you don’t have to have given birth to experience it.
 
You’ve said that you didn’t want to write this play and that it is very personal and close to you. When writing a play whose situations overlap your own experiences to some degree, do you worry about the play being perceived as autobiographical?
 
Most of my plays deal with issues or topics that I either (a) think will make a terrible play or (b) am afraid to write because they feel too personal. Usually, both. In all cases, I never end up writing autobiography because fiction is so much more dramatically compelling than my real life – and after living my life once, I don’t feel the need to re-live it in story. But, there is often a seed of personal experience in what I write about. I wrote The Call after adopting two children. People almost always think my plays are MUCH more autobiographical than they are. This used to frustrate me because I couldn’t actually get credit for the storytelling. But, now, I just take it as a compliment.
 
Things have and are changing very rapidly in regards to some of the subjects that your play engages. Do you feel as if it will retain its power and relevance in five or ten years?
 
More than anything, the play is about a couple at a crossroad. When writing, I’m not concerned with the story’s contemporary details. What interests me are relationships and the ways in which we navigate “being with each other” over time.
 
You’ve spoken about how this play is different from your previous plays, in which you have written about “the African-American experience through history” while The Call is a “contemporary play.” Do you think you will write more “contemporary” plays?
 
My most recent play, Bright Half Life, is also contemporary. It’s very different than The Call. It’s a two-hander and structurally non-linear. It’s my most intimate play. I try not to repeat myself too much when writing. I don’t want to write the same story over and over. I try to challenge myself by finding new ways to explore resonant material.
 
You have spoken about the writing of this play breaking a block you were experiencing.
 
I tend to go through periods of writer’s block as I’m figuring out what’s next. Sometimes the block is quite brief and sometimes longer. Certainly, after becoming a parent, I had to reinvent myself as a writer. On a very practical level, I had very little time to write. I wrote The Call between 4am and 6am (before the kids woke up and before I went to my day job). I also found myself drawn to different themes: marriage, parenthood, midlife, etc.
 
A play like this will resonate very personally with many in the audience. Have there been any responses you have received from audience members that have been particularly meaningful to or memorable for you?
 
All responses are meaningful to me. I have been particularly struck by the high school teenage groups that saw the play. The fact that they found it moving and engaging meant a lot to me.
 
Do you ever have an impulse to revise a finished, even published, script after you have seen other productions of it?
 
Barfield: Yes, I always want to revise my plays after they are produced or published. Theatre is a living, breathing thing. It never feels done to me. So, in some ways, I don’t enjoy seeing my work after it opens because I always find things I want to rewrite. I change the script all through previews. With the NYC production, we had a very long preview period and I brought in new pages every day. The actors had to learn new lines in the afternoon and perform them that evening. So, audiences that saw the play during early previews saw a different play than those that saw it after opening.
 
How has parenthood changed you as a writer, as an artist?
 
I think I’m a better writer post-parenthood. The breadth of my life experience has grown, life has more intrinsic value to me, I’m less “me” focused. As a parent, life is joyful and painful in a very different way.
 
You describe one of the play’s concerns (“doubt surrounding motherhood”) as a taboo subject. Could you talk a little about the importance, in theatre in particular, of engaging difficult or taboo material?
 
I tend to think of the best plays as inherently boundary-pushing and confessional in nature. Even comedies. That’s why so many farces are about infidelity or secrets. We go to theatre not to see everyday as it is. We go for two hours or so to see very high moments or very low moments (the most pivotal moments) of a character’s entire life. If we’re not seeing something that’s on the edge of our comfort zone, we’re usually bored. At least, I am. I’m not saying that I like shock-value plays for shock’s sake. I mean that I like stories in which characters are trying to balance on a precipice – any minute they could fall.


Interview reprinted from DC Theatre Scene, 2015.