← All Of It with Alison Stewart
All Of It with Alison Stewart
John Proctor is the Villain' Captures the Lives of Teenage Girls
00:17:03
The new play "John Proctor is the Villain" earned seven Tony nominations.
Loading summary
Transcript32 lines
- [00:00]
Progressive Insurance
All of it is supported by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy to see if you could save when you bundle your home and auto policies. Try it@progressive.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states.
- [00:24]
Alison Stewart
You're listening to all of it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. The new play, John Proctor is the Villain has earned Tony nominations, including best play. But this new play is directly in conversation with an old one. In small town Georgia, a group of teenagers is reading Arthur Miller's the Crucible for the first time. Their beloved teacher, Mr. Smith, is walking them through the characters and themes. The year is 2018, and the MeToo movement takes on new meaning for these teenage girls. Among those girls is Raelynn, played by Amalia Yu. When we meet her, she's had a falling out with her best friend Shelby after Shelby messed around with her boyfriend. The thing is, Shelby hasn't been back to school in weeks and Raelyn isn't sure what's going on until secrets begin to surface. The New York Times said that John Proctor is the villain is urgently necessary. It's running now at the Booth Theater. I was joined earlier this year by playwright Kimberly Bellflower, by director Donya Taymor, who just won outstanding direction of a play at the Drama Desk Awards, and by actor Amalia Yu, who plays Raelyn. She recently took home an award for outstanding featured Performance in a play at the Drama Desk Awards. I began our conversation by asking Kimberly why she wanted to write about the Crucible.
- [01:53]
Kimberly Bellflower
Well, I reread the crucible in 2017 in the wake of the MeToo movement after Woody Allen called MeToo a witch hunt in an interview. And I went back and read it and was just really struck by how different it was than the play I remembered reading in high school. And just the power imbalances between John Proctor and Abigail mirrored a lot of things that were going on in the MeToo movement in that moment. And also the setting of Salem, of this Puritan American setting. I grew up in small town Southern Baptist Georgia, and it felt like there was a parallel there as well. And just as Arthur Miller wrote the Crucible as an allegory for McCarthyism, I felt like, oh, I think there's an opportunity to kind of continue this allegory.
- [02:36]
Donya Taymor
Yeah, Danya, the show is set in 2018, so we're in the midst of the MeToo movement. What do you remember about that time seven years ago? Think about it and the conversations you had that helped you figure out how you were going to direct this play.
- [02:53]
Amalia Yu
The thing I remember most about that time is when the first article came out in the New York Times about Harvey Weinstein. And I remember being glued to it, sitting on my couch at home, and my then boyfriend trying to say something to me about dinner. And I was like, just a minute, just a minute. And I just had to read this thing and get through it. And I just sat there. And I think what happened to many of US after the MeToo movement started to come out and all these stories came out, as we started to rethink our own experiences, and not just our own experiences, how we thought about our experiences and our lives and intimacy and desire and all these different kinds of experiences we had had. And it became actually more confusing, more murky, because we were able to look back at our experiences and say, oh, wow, maybe this was more complicated, complex than I thought. And in some cases, maybe this was actually more clear than I thought. And when we started to look at the play, I think remembering that flood of emotion, the confusion, the sort of intensity of that moment felt so important to bring into the space and remind us all. And the other thing I think came up so much in the wake of Me too, was how personal it all felt for everyone in society in different ways. And I think that's something that Kim really brought out in the play. So, well, what happens when it's not, you know, somebody you read about in the paper? What happens when it's somebody in your community who you love and respect, who has good qualities? What do you do then? And I find that to be incredibly important to wrestle with.
- [04:26]
Donya Taymor
Amalia, when we meet your character in the play, Raelyn, what's going on with her?
- [04:32]
Amalia Yu
She has been through it. She's really lost her entire support system. She has broken up with her boyfriend of seven years after he cheated on her with her best friend. And she, you know, she has some of her other friends still by her side, but really her closest anchors are lost. And she's coming to terms with that and also coming to terms with the idea that she can choose who she wants to be, and she has no idea who that is. So she's in a place of self discovery and confusion and hurt and loss. But there's, like, still a little twinkle of, like, hope and excitement, of, like, getting to discover who that person might be and who that person she. Who it is she wants to be.
- [05:31]
Donya Taymor
So this play has a lot of different reveals. Kimberly, in it, as we get to know the characters as we get to know what's been going on with them. How did you work on pacing those reveals?
- [05:44]
Kimberly Bellflower
That's a good question. It really evolved over time. I mean, I've been. I started writing this play in 2018, and I think, like, the kind of core story with Raelyn and Shelby's friendship with Shelby, Shelby's kind of central reveal, not to spoil anything that was always in the play, and then stuff with Ivy's dad and other characters that were kind of these, like, micro reveals leading up to the major reveals that came around later when I was like, oh, how do I. How do I kind of. I know that I have this big piece of information coming that maybe some people are going to see coming, but how do I make it as surprising as possible for as many people as possible? And so I think that. And then that helped me then deepen the characters that were surrounding this core relationship of Shelby and Raelyn and kind of figure out, like, okay, like, what play can I make people think they're wise? What questions can I make the audience ask ahead of this thing that kind of changes everything? And then even if you do see it coming, how can I make it happen in a way that's surprising? And so it's. Sometimes it's not the information itself, but the way that the information is communicated in the moment. And so, yeah, I think, like, there have been versions where that big reveal comes earlier, comes later, and then trying to figure out, like, okay, how. And that comes from, like, from workshops, from readings, from different development stages, but kind of being, like, where is the audience's patience at this point? Like, where are they getting ahead of the play? Where is the play getting ahead of them? And how do I kind of calibrate accordingly?
- [07:21]
Donya Taymor
Danya, this is something I'm so glad I get to talk to you about, because I saw the play Saturday night, and I was really struck by the moments that each character is in the spotlight, and it kind of like the world around them shivers and their brain quivers, and everybody's got a different expression. Each character kind of has it. It's. The lighting around them is out of sync. They seem to have something on their mind. We're not sure exactly what they have on their mind. Tell us about this decision.
- [07:51]
Amalia Yu
So Kimberly's play is amazing, and it has 15 transitions. And Kimberly has so much trust for directors because she doesn't tell you how to do them. But what the play is doing is it's dropping you deep inside these teenage girls, and it's letting you experience the world through their perspective. And so these moments that we call Girl Focus.
- [08:09]
Donya Taymor
Is that what they're called?
- [08:10]
Amalia Yu
Oh, we call them that.
- [08:11]
Kimberly Bellflower
Yeah. That's our.
- [08:12]
Amalia Yu
That's their unofficial title. Are these moments where what we make external, what one of these characters is feeling internally, and we allow the audience in to what she might be feeling, even though she's not exposing that to the world around her. And my hope is that then when you look at a kid or you look at a teenage girl, you look at any human being and they're presenting one way, you might be curious to think, oh, what's actually going on underneath there? Are they? Okay, maybe it's not what it appears. And these moments of interiority with each of the characters are so intimate. They require so much of the incredible actors because they're looking at the audience. They're super exposed, and in many, many moments, it's their most vulnerable. So in the transitional language, I wanted to deepen the work that Kimberly was doing through my own directorial lens with the characters, with the design team, and make sure that these transitions were still doing storytelling without adding any information, just letting us go deeper into the souls of the characters.
- [09:11]
Donya Taymor
Amalia, can you tell us a little bit about your Girl Focus moment, conversations you had with Danya about how to portray that moment where there's no dialogue, it's just your face?
- [09:22]
Amalia Yu
Yeah, I love my Girl Focus. I feel lucky because it's the first time. Mine is the first time that it happens. And at that point in the play, we're still kind of like, teaching people how to watch the play. And it's just like. It Just conversations that we had about it just reminded me of that feeling, especially in high school, where you're hurting so bad. There's so much going on in your interior world, but you can't show it. And you have to put on a brave face. You have to get through, like, the seven periods that you still have left in your day. It's scary because, you know, we're looking out into the audience and seeing their faces. So that's kind of frightening sometimes, but it's. It changes every night. It's. It's. It's really powerful. It feels powerful in the moment, doing it.
- [10:34]
Alison Stewart
Okay, so we only see the adults.
- [10:37]
Donya Taymor
In the show in their professional settings. We see Mr. Smith and the guidance counselor, Ms. Gallagher. Daniel, what conversations did you have with the actors about how they would present themselves at work with the adult actors?
- [10:52]
Amalia Yu
Oh, well, Mr. Smith is the best teacher. He's the teacher we all wish we had. Some of us did have him. I think that he brings out the best in his students. He's really creative with what assignments that he. He gives. And I think it felt really important for Gabriel Ebert, who plays him, to bring that sense of goodness to the character. And then Molly Griggs, who plays Bailey Gallagher. She's kind of in between Mr. Smith and the young girls who are in School. She's 24. She's trying to prove herself, and she's kind of stuck between being a teenager and being an adult. And she kind of bridges that gap. We see how she is kind of of a different micro generation, even though she's so close to the girls. And we're able to see how these differences in how we take up space as women, what we feel we're allowed to say, what we've been taught, even in the span of eight years, can shift so much. So with those two characters, I just encourage them to bring their sense of goodness to the characters and then let the play take care of the rest.
- [11:58]
Donya Taymor
Amaya. The characters are so into Mr. Smith, some more than others, but they're really into him as a teacher initially. What do they love about him so much?
- [12:09]
Amalia Yu
He listens to them and he takes them seriously, and that is like the best thing that someone could offer these teenage girls. You know, there's a line where we say he actually. He treats us like adults. Like he. He doesn't treat us like. Like preschoolers, like all the other teachers do. And his assignments are fun, and he allows everyone to be their truest self in the classroom. He creates a safe space where even if you don't always have the best thing to say, you don't always know the best thing to say. You're still invited to say things and speak up in class. And he just. He sees every single one of the students and makes them feel like a light.
- [13:03]
Donya Taymor
Kimberly, I want to talk. There are also boys in this play. They're so genius. The boys are so great in this play. What did you want to explore about what it means to be a teen boy and also teen boys just as they're turning into young men.
- [13:19]
Kimberly Bellflower
Yeah. Thank you for asking that. I love the boys at our play. And there are two teenage boys, Lee and Mason. And I think that we see in them kind of they're both at this crossroads. Especially Lee has been given a very narrow definition of what it is to be a man in the world. And I think growing up in the rural South, I saw that happen to a lot of boys. And, you know, like, men, like, don't show their emotions and don't talk about their feelings and, you know, like, keep it down. And, like, strength, like, means one thing and one thing only. And in Lee, we see this person who has suppressed all of these, like, really complicated feelings because he doesn't know how to talk about them. He hasn't been given the chance or the instruction of how to talk about them. And we see those feelings kind of curdle and start to become anger and these things, and he's, like, acting out instead of dealing with the feelings. And then we see Mason, who is, like, kind of joins this feminist club, like, kind of accidentally. And then we see him, like, and he says the wrong thing. A lot of the time we see that maybe he has also been given narrow definitions of things. But then we see him being willing to learn and willing to change in a way that Lee is not. And so I think we see. We see these two boys kind of, like, start to. It is like, just the first steps down different paths, you know, like. But, yeah, we talked about that a lot of, like, Mason never stops trying. Even when he says the wrong thing, even when he messes up, he never stops trying. Like, his, like, last action of the play is, like, supporting these girls. So, yeah, I think. I hope that the boys in the play make people think about, like, the ways that we talk to young men about their feelings and about what it means to be a man and about the possibilities of being a person in the world. Yeah, I love them.
- [15:23]
Donya Taymor
All right, I'm going to read from the playbill for Amalia. It says Amalieu is thrilled to be making her Broadway debut. Born and Raised in New York City, she played Luna in Grief Camp at the Atlantic Theater. On screen credits include no Hard Feelings, Netflix's Grand Army.
- [15:38]
Alison Stewart
She also played Joey in an Off.
- [15:39]
Donya Taymor
Broadway production of slut the play, NPR's Green Space Downstairs. My guy represent. She's a Proud Alumna of LaGuardia High School. LaGuardia is not your average high school, but in many ways it is. I have friends, kids who go to LaGuardia, they go to high school. What do you remember from your high school experience that you use every night?
- [16:02]
Amalia Yu
It's crazy that 2018 was when I was a junior, and now I'm playing a Jr. In 2018 on Broadway. I think the friendships that I had in high school that I am lucky enough to still have today, I think about that. I think about those friendships every single night and how even when you feel so far away from your friends. There's still a connective tissue and there's still so much love because you have all of this shared life together and it's such a precious time. And to get to spend that with other people who know you better than you know yourself is really a gift. And yeah, I think about that. I think about those friendships every single night.
- [17:02]
Alison Stewart
That was my conversation with playwright Kimberly Bellflower, director Donya Taymoor and actor Amalia Yu. We discussed their new play, John Proctor Is the Villain, which has earned seven Tony nominations. Coming up, it's time for musicals. We'll talk about gypsy with Audra McDonald and hear live music from the cast of Real Women have Curves. Stay with us.
- [17:24]
Progressive Insurance
How many discounts does USAA Auto Insurance offer? Too many to say here. Multi vehicle discount Safe driver discount New vehicle discount Storage discount? Legacy?
- [17:33]
Kimberly Bellflower
How many discounts will you stack up? Tap the banner or visit usaa.com autodiscounts.
- [17:37]
USAA Auto Insurance
Restrictions apply at RXBar they believe in simple nutrition without the BS. That's why they said no to artificial ingredients and yes to deliver intentional, transparent nutrition. Try their original 12 gram protein bar, the Nut Butter and Oat bar, or minis. RXBar, the proud sponsor of no BS. Use code RXBar on RXBar.com for 25% off, subject to full terms and conditions and to change. Valid until September 30, 2025, and may not be combined with other offers. See rxbar.com for full details and limitations.