by Casey Fleming

“PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE DON’T TELL ANYONE HOW THIS PLAY ENDS!” reads the page two playbill note of For Want of a Horse, staged by Atwater Village’s Echo Theater Company. 

Here is where I would put a brisk, snappy summary of the play for you – an implied promise that I won’t be perfectly keeping, because I’m not quite sure how I would explain this world premiere. This, I believe, is a compliment to the audaciousness of playwright Olivia Dufault who, in her “darkly comic, deeply human exploration of love, desire and unconventional relationships,” brings to the stage something challenging and deeply, unusually original.

From the Echo’s website, continued: “Calvin is devoted to his wife, Bonnie. But if Calvin is going to move forward, he needs to open up their relationship to include his new romantic partner. One complication: that partner would be Q-Tip – and Q-Tip is a horse.”

Put simply and likely predictably, it’s a shocking play. It is a testament to the writing, direction, and performance of the play that its innumerable shocking moments never felt played for the sake of shock alone, and even a note as direct as the plea in the playbill felt entirely warranted. Leaving the show, I heard two audience members say to one another that they’d have so much to talk about on the car ride home. What other marker of success should we determine theatre by? I don’t know exactly how to explain this play to you, nor to myself, nor what it made me walk away thinking, exactly. But I did walk away asking myself a multitude of questions and for that, I am grateful.

Prominently among these questions – on my way out and still now, as I sit writing – was why does it matter that a trans woman wrote this? As evident later on in this piece, I was able to send questions to playwright Olivia Dufault following the performance. I’m not sure I could tell you why, but I didn’t choose to ask a single one about gender. Sitting in the audience watching, my own trans-ness surfaced and stayed top of mind, and I felt my own interpretation of the play deeply and monumentally ground itself in what I heard the show say about gender, from its first line and every moment forward. What did it change, to me, knowing that this show was written by someone who shares an aspect of this identity? Everything. Nothing. Or in truth, something, somewhere in the murky space in between quiet relation and direct confrontation and a long, long road adorned with familiar waypoints, headed into the unknown.

In addition to being trans, I’m aromantic- & asexual-spectrum – a set of identities that, upon their declaration, outline an even greater gulf between me and what/who this play works to portray. The profoundly distinct and distant experience I have with all types of romantic attraction thoroughly colored the type of attention I paid to this show, most explicably manifesting as what I think I’d term ‘heightened awareness’ of the questions it was asking in the moments and motions they were asked. An early line from Bonnie (played by Jenny Soo) about her reckoning with a difficult schoolchild echoed over and over again in my head: ‘as long as you’re not hurting anybody.’ As long as you’re not hurting anybody, as long as you’re not hurting anybody. You could take any word of that sentence and challenge it with this play. What is hurt, exactly? Who decides? How am I, the person sitting beneath the house lights, currently making that decision? “Anybody” accounts for who? What are the limits to empathy?

To dive further into the answers this play offers, and really, what challenges it strives to leave unanswered and openly on the table, I was able to send some questions to playwright Olivia Dufault who shared insight into the evolution, intention and staging of this world premiere.

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Casey Fleming: Olivia, I read that your inspiration for this play came from your own reaction to an atypical interview (a New York magazine article entitled “What It’s Like to Date a Horse,” published in 2014). What, within your own experience reading and engaging with the article, made you feel that you HAD to write this play? 

Olivia Dufault: When I first read the interview that inspired this play, my immediate response was shock, horror, and perverse amusement. But as I continued, I began to feel terrible pangs of empathy for everyone involved in the tragic situation – the husband, the wife, the horse. I found myself conflicted by these emotions; to what degree was empathy an appropriate response in this context? From this internal wrestling, this strange play emerged.

Casey: Walking out of the show, I heard a pair of audience members discussing how lively their conversation in the car on the way home would be. What two questions do you hope audience members walk away from this show asking themselves?

Olivia: What are the benefits and perils of empathy? And what exactly goes on in the head of a horse? 

Casey: What did you learn about yourself over the course of working on this play?

Olivia: I have a high tolerance for discomforting topics. Audacious subject matter invites audacious collaborators. And that it’s shockingly easy to write from the point of view of a barnyard animal.

Casey: How does your idea of what a playwright should do or be responsible for doing – universally, at scale – inform your approach to writing For Want of a Horse?

Olivia: Honestly, I wrote this play ten years ago, and did so very much for myself. That’s always been my relationship with my work. This play was made to challenge and amuse me; I hope it does the same for others.

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I was lucky enough to get to speak with another artist who was challenged and amused by For Want of a Horse – director Elana Luo. She spoke directly to her experience working on the play and the practical, emotional, and logistical learnings that accompanied. 

Casey: In interpreting “challenge” to mean both content and technical ask, where were the areas of greatest challenge while directing this play? How did you approach and guide the cast/crew through them?

Elana Luo: The play moves quickly between scenes in different locations, so we had to figure out how to utilize and transform the space accordingly, or perhaps not. It was a feat of coordination between all departments – Alex Mollo’s set, Leah Morrison’s costumes, Matt Richter’s lights, Alysha Bermudez’s sounds, and the actors who had to wrangle it all. I’m very grateful to my cast and crew for their collaboration and ingenuity.

Casey: Over the course of working on For Want of a Horse, what part of your understanding of the show shifted the most between table read and opening night?

Elana: I got to understand each of the characters much more intimately. Steve [Steven Culp], Griffin [Kelly], Jenny [Soo] and Joey [Stromberg] all brought their own perspectives and truly embody their roles, which has added more layers and realism to Olivia’s already well-drawn characters.

Casey: How has For Want of a Horse changed your approach to directing or helped you grow?

Elana: I’ve never directed a horse before. Lots of poop and subsequent mucking thereof. It’s a very humbling experience for a big and important director such as myself.

Casey: If you were to break down your vision for the technical design of the show into a few key words, what would they be?

Elana: Beautiful. Beastly. Hopefully Disney doesn’t come after us.

“For Want of a Horse,” written by Olivia Dufault and directed by Echo associate artistic director Elana Luo, runs at the Atwater Village Theatre through May 25th. For more information and to purchase tickets, call (747) 350-8066 or go to EchoTheaterCompany.com.

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