A Deep Dive Into Dissonance with Director Elizabeth Price by Ilana Jael
Elizabeth Price on set directing Water by the Spoonful
Dissonance between an outcome one expected and a divergent reality is not something that tends to be easy to deal with. And to say that things have not proceeded as Elizabeth Price initially planned when New City Players first approached her to direct a production of Water By The Spoonful slated for the spring 2020 slot in their upcoming season may be a bit of an understatement. Primarily thanks to the pandemic, it isn’t until now, a full two years after it was first scheduled, that the show is finally approaching its opening night.
“It’s been a strange journey,” Price reflects.
“Artists have been attached to the project who have moved on, and they’ve been replaced, and sometimes those artists have then been replaced . . . leading right up to the first day of rehearsals. And since rehearsals started, it’s been a challenge to overcome, difficulties of rehearsal space and schedules,” she says.
Price describes preparing for the play through a thorough creative process in which she began with practical considerations like breaking down the script and establishing a balanced rehearsal schedule, making actors aware of her game plan every step of the way.
“So they know what our work is at hand, and we’re not trying to do everything all at once and reach some sort of imagined perfect outcome right from the beginning,” she explains.
Then, it was on to more creative concerns.
“I have to come up with a concept that is my vision for this production, because each production of any given play is going to be different based on the interpretation of artists that are working on it, but that always has to start with a director’s vision. And so I’m guiding them through my version of the story, incorporating what they bring and adjusting as needed, but always maintaining the story that we’re all trying to tell and guiding their choices into something that’s cohesive, so that everyone seems to be in the same play and we’re creating something that’s unified and serving that story that I’m hoping to tell.”
Ironically enough, though, some of the characters that Price is attempting to unify in this particular piece are characters who have never even met IRL—instead, they interact onstage in an online chat room dedicated to recovery from crack cocaine addiction. And though Price feels that the play’s exploration of how characters can form profoundly meaningful relationships without ever connecting in person has taken on new resonance after the pandemic forced much of our everyday interaction into the virtual realm, it’s also posed its own practical difficulties when it comes to onstage storytelling.
“Half of the play gives us people in four different places talking sometimes over oceans, talking online over each other, sometimes never facing each other,” she says, describing the odd parameters of the play, which also includes a concurrent “real-world” storyline.
“I’ve never dealt with a play that demanded I deal with characters that were disconnected, and then a set of characters that were in person, and then how all of that could come together into something cohesive. It’s a lot of balls to have in the air and try to bring together into something that makes sense and has an emotional impact and doesn't feel disjointed.”
The result has been a process that Price describes as “ever-changing,” as well as one that has asked an unusual amount of flexibility from the cast as they searched for ways to make it all come together.
And Water By The Spoonful’s emotionally intense subject matter is also one that has demanded an unusual amount of investment from its actors, as well as from Price herself, who says that she now feels more keyed into the painful psychological dissonance that all of the play’s seven characters must overcome than when she initially approached the project.
Pryscila Cassiano Salinas as Yaz in New City Players’ production of Water by the Spoonful
“My vision is definitely now centered around an acknowledgement of the dissonance in this life, so that each of the characters has that as their task: to acknowledge the dissonance within themselves and in their lives and admit things that they haven’t been willing to admit,” she describes.
This has affected Price’s conception of the play’s soundscape, which now incorporates more of the musically dissonant jazz music that character Yaz lectures about in the play, as well as enhancing her focus on what each character must come to terms with to achieve, if not necessarily resolution, than at least a kind of redemption.
For instance, in the play’s “real world” storyline, elite university professor Yaz must examine her fear of being unable to transcend her dysfunctional family roots, while her cousin, Iraqi war veteran Elliot, must face up to unthinkable actions undertaken during combat.
Both characters also grapple with the loss of a close family member during the play, an occurrence that Price said she also became more sensitive to after experiencing a personal tragedy eight months ago in the form of the death of her father.
“I came to a much greater understanding of what that does to you, when you lose, really, the most important person in your life and the person who supports you the most. And that is what has happened to Elliot more than anybody,” Price describes.
And though the fact that she is still working through her own loss has made the rehearsal process a somewhat difficult one, she can also recognize the value that having such a frame of reference gave her when it comes to guiding her actors through the play’s charged terrain.
“It’s been more necessary than I ever thought it would be, because unless you’ve experienced it in your life, then you don’t really know what people are grappling with,” she says.
Price also found her personal experience informative when it comes to the play’s investigation of addiction.
“It resonates with me personally, and I think that it’s a story that more people live out than maybe we all like to acknowledge,” she says.
The quintessential Elizabeth Price pose
Along with noting the relevance of the play’s exploration of addiction to our current nation-wide crisis, Price also found the play’s narrative uniquely valuable in that it focuses on characters on the road to recovery rather than in the midst of a downward spiral.
“What’s interesting is, I think generally speaking, people know more about the disease of addiction than they do about recovery from addiction. And I think recovery is the fascinating part—what leads into recovery, and then what recovery looks like. So that’s a big thing for me that’s emerging, and something I’d rather audiences know that they’re gonna get. There’s a lot of really dark movies and dark plays about somebody just descending into the depths of their addiction, and then the movie ends when they’re finally like, this is a problem. But this play charts a lot of what happens after you come in,” she describes.
She also noted the unusual authenticity of playwright Quiara Alegría Hudes’ portrayal of the harsh realities that an individual must come to terms with as they conquer early recovery, as becomes evident when new group member Fountainhead is taken to task by some of the more seasoned characters.
“When newcomers come into a room trying to recover, they are often greeted with more truths, and harder truths, than they are initially ready to face. And it can be surprising and shocking, but it is absolutely necessary, because the first step in twelve step programs is based on honesty. This play reflects that we don’t come into recovery and everybody’s just like, “oh, everything is rainbows and unicorns” but you have to face a bunch of truths first.”
But Water By The Spoonful also certainly isn’t all doom and gloom; another realistic touch that Price appreciated in the script is the inclusion of plenty of lighter moments even in the midst of its life-or-death landscape.
“When you sit in a room of recovering people, one of the things that is most surprising is how much laughter there is. . .I think audiences might actually laugh more than they might think, because the characters are using dark humor to navigate through their journeys,” she explains.
Tyler Fitch as Orangutan in New City Players’ production of Water by the Spoonful
Another seemingly dissonant touch that ended up melding unexpectedly well with the play’s themes was the inclusion of a non-binary actor as the character Orangutan, who Hudes conceptualized in the script as female. Though the change was initially inspired by the practical limitations imposed by the character’s Asian-American identity, it’s one that Price grew to see as a great choice for Orangutan after a talented non-binary performer came forward for the role.
“Because they are really struggling with their identity, and who they are, and where they come from,“ Price describes the character.
“And they have a desire to fit in, but that is more difficult than they realized. So I think that we’re able to use the actor that we chose, and tell a different story that is still in keeping with the playwright’s vision,” she reflects.
And now that Water By The Spoonful’s own muddled road to the stage is finally nearing its finish line, Price hopes that the experience of connecting to the play’s characters as they work through their personal demons can be a cathartic one for its audiences.
“I think the play is compelling, and electrifying, because we see seven characters in crisis dealing with things they haven’t wanted to deal with, in conflict with themselves and each other that’s in service of a coming realization. For an audience to see a new self be born in each of these characters is powerful,” she says.
“Each of the characters in the play reaches somewhere new by the end of the play, a place that has less suffering in it. And so I think that the play helps us acknowledge that difficulty is part of this process.”
It’s all pretty on-theme for New City Players’ stated mission of creating community through transformative theatre, and certainly all the more reason that Price’s long-awaited production is not one to be missed!
Water by the Spoonful
April 28-May 15 | Island City Stage
Somewhere in Philadelphia, Elliot has returned from Iraq and is struggling to find his place in the world. Somewhere in a chat room, recovering addicts keep each other alive, hour by hour, day by day.
The boundaries of family and community are stretched across continents and cyberspace as birth families splinter and online families collide. Water by the Spoonful is a heartfelt meditation on lives on the brink of redemption.
Our Water by the Spoonful blog series is sponsored in part by Reco Intensive. To learn more about Reco Intensive, a Delray Beach addiction treatment center whose holistic and compassionate approach aligns with NCP’s vision of helping South Florida to become a more empathetic and thoughtful community, visit their website.