Communication senior Catherine Mounger was inspired to develop and direct “The Canary” after reading “Caucasia” by Danzy Senna. She and assistant director Kenya Hall, a Communication sophomore, spoke with The Current about the process of developing an original play through improvisation and the issues the play explores.
The Current: What was the process for creating the production?
Catherine Mounger: We created the play through a process of improvisation, discussion, movement, lots of journaling. Everything that is in this play, the cast wrote. We started out to explore the topic of diversity and social and cultural barriers.
Kenya Hall: It was difficult to do that without creating archetypes of characters and also, just including every single cultural barrier, especially here at Northwestern, where there is such diversity.
The Current: What are some ways the audience will be involved?
CM: After the show, we’re going to have a post-show discussion about the play and about barriers that Northwestern students face. That will be in small groups. We have members from the Diversity and Inclusion Task Force coming in to facilitate conversation. [http://www.northwestern.edu/inclusion/about-us/meet-inclusion-task-force.html JK]
The Current: Where did the idea of doing a play related to diversity come from?
CM: I read a book my sophomore year … and it dealt with a multicultural family. The two daughters were biracial. Reading the novel, I just realized how necessary it is to talk about people’s experiences, their history, their background and how they identify racially and culturally, and if you don’t talk about those things, then you really don’t know them and have a full relationship with them. Around the same time as I decided to direct this show, there was all this energy and conversation about diversity around campus, and that was another thing that made me realize this needed to happen.
The Current: Where did the title “The Canary” come from?
CM: The title is actually taken from the book “Caucasia.” The main character is biracial. Her father is an African-American academic. He studies racism. He tells his daughter the mixed person in America is like a canary in a coal mine. The way people treat a biracial person is an indication of how race relations really are, and so that quote really captured me.
The Current: How do you direct a play created through improvisation?
KH: It’s kind of like a workshop I guess. Most of our rehearsals in the beginning were just coming in and doing ensemble-building activities. We started off journaling about stuff that was very related to diversity. Like, “When was the first time that you noticed people were different from you?” Out of that, we started doing improv.
CM: The play has a lot of internal expression from the characters. So you’ll see them interacting with other characters and then expressing something a lot more vulnerable to the audience. So there’s this juxtaposition of what they show to the people in their lives and what they’re actually thinking.
The Current: Was there anything that surprised you as you prepared the play?
KH: It’s always interesting to be around a group of people that come from such different places and to see how they interact with people and approach things. Finding out how someone’s experience can be very different but also parallel to your own was interesting.
CM: I was surprised just at the similarity of struggles that we kept coming back to and talking about in terms of finding your self-worth and your identity. It kept coming up organically in conversation without me even bringing it up.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
