Marin Ireland (2:52)

Oh, my God. Goodness, everything. She is funny and Fierce and a truth teller. And it feels like a full meal as an actor to sit down with her work. It really feels like I get to do everything I ever dreamed of doing as an actor. When I am handed something she wrote, no matter what character it is, that's also the incredible thing. No matter what character you're playing, no matter what play it is, I feel like everybody gets to sort of rise to the occasion and do everything they ever hoped to get to do as an artist. Truly, it sounds like a hyperbole, but it is not.

Alison Stewart (3:36)

Julia, you're on stage with a cast of veteran actors, so you're the closest to the beginning of your career. We'll say, what have you learned in this production that's been helpful to you that you think you'll continue to use in your stage career?

Julia Lester (3:51)

Wow, that's a great question. Because I look at all these people and I'm like, what haven't I learned? I feel very, very lucky to be surrounded by so many people who emulate the kind of actor and person that I want to, like, grow to be. And I've seen everybody lead this cast and lead the show with such grace and humility and kindness. And we all hold each other very closely backstage so that the product on stage feels real and lived in. And every single person has really shown me the kind of person that I am trying to grow into and how I want to hopefully be to younger cast members when I'm in a position to lead somebody or mentor somebody in that way. So it's been very wonderful. And it's the kind of thing that I look for. The kind of thing that I want to look for in everything that I do is working with good people.

Alison Stewart (4:50)

Anna, you have done this since you were a kid. Tv, stage. What do you like about stage acting?

Anna Chlumsky (4:58)

Stage acting is how I came to this entire profession. It is something that is really noble in that you're communicating a text, and it's with the hopes, in my opinion, of standing the test of time. You know, a play is something that anybody can pick off a bookshelf for centuries. You know, we still read Shakespeare, we still read Chekhov. And when you're making plays by living playwrights, you feel like you're a part of shaping culture, and that's. And then just the work of it is everything, you know, like being nerdy of being a nerdy actor.

Martina Mayock (5:44)

You're.

Anna Chlumsky (5:44)

You're into the moment to moment work. You're being present. Your every night is a bit new because you're a new human and so is the story. Even though it's the same text every single night, eight shows a week, you have to be present because that is how you make art, and that is how you communicate a text. And that's why I love it.

Alison Stewart (6:07)

Martina, in the original production that ran in 2018, there were 11 different women in this, and you had to cut it down to eight for this particular production. What was behind the decision, and how did you go about cutting down the women?

Martina Mayock (6:24)

It wasn't just the women. It was time. It ran three and a half hours in the first. Don't worry, you guys. It's a solid two hours, less than two hours. Don't worry. And actually, the women, they're still a part of the story. We just don't see them. So I focused on, actually, when I was first developing the story, I just kept falling in love with all of these women and expanding and they're showing expanding and expanding to the point as well as the actors who are playing them, to the point that I think I sort of lost control of the spine of the story, the engine of it. And so this new iteration of Queens has been trying to wrest them all into a tighter narrative drive without sacrificing the stories of the women who were and are in the basement. So there are ghosts there. They live off stage. But by not showing them, it focuses it on the people who we are present with in an effort to hopefully give as full of an experience to a singular story that is supported by a number of other women.

Alison Stewart (7:34)

Why did you choose women rather than immigrant men and women?

Martina Mayock (7:37)

Because I like higher stakes. Tell me more. I think there's a lot of pressure for women to not just do the work with their bodies to make money to support themselves, but to also support their families and also to uphold a culture and some kind of a family. The amount of mental workload, labor that that goes through to just, like, keep your life and the lives of your family afloat is rarely talked about. And I also drew inspiration from my mother's story, We Came to the country together, and the stories of a number of immigrant women that I grew up with and essentially was raised by. So the play is really an homage and a love letter to them.

Alison Stewart (8:33)

We're talking about the play Queens, about immigrant women sharing illegal basement apartment. My guests are playwright Martina Mayoak as well as actors Marin Ireland, Anna Chlumsky, and Julia Lester. Queens is running at the New York City center through December 7th. Did I get your name right? Perfect.

Martina Mayock (8:50)

Got it.

Alison Stewart (8:51)

All right.

Martina Mayock (8:52)

All right.

Alison Stewart (8:52)

Marin and Anna you're both from Poland. Your characters are both from Poland. What kind of research did you do?

Marin Ireland (9:00)

Oh, my goodness. Well, I've played a Polish character in Ironbound. I've done that play now a few times. But I will just say briefly that Anna and I, a big element of our research was learning Polish for the play.

Alison Stewart (9:20)

It's so true.

Marin Ireland (9:21)

And that took longer than. I mean, I gave myself a lot of time to work on it, but it was. I have experience speaking some other languages. It's not like anything else I've ever had to say. I spoke a few words of Polish in Ironbound, and that felt like. That was like one of the hardest tasks I had before me in terms of approaching a character from Poland in this particular way. That was a whole new element for me.

Anna Chlumsky (9:48)

How about for you, Anna, as far as just researching, you know, the experience? I mean, I think we did lean on Martina a lot. You know, we have the gift of having Martina in the rehearsal room, and nobody in our room knew what it was like to be from Poland better. So that was sort of, you know, the fast track. And for me, it's. Yeah, I'm not Polish, but I am absolutely through and through Slavic. I am, you know, so I was just jumping at the chance for me to finally play a person of a similar heritage to my own. And, yeah, the. It's such a. It's so much fun speaking in another language, just in general, and. And getting the chance to. To do a whole scene in Polish is just. It's like a dream come true.

Martina Mayock (10:40)

I love it.

Marin Ireland (10:42)

I know you have the. The Czech, and.

Anna Chlumsky (10:44)

Yeah, I speak. I speak Croatian. So, like, I. I'm Czech, and she's a Croatian.

Alison Stewart (10:48)

Yeah, we're.

Anna Chlumsky (10:48)

We're Czech. You know, we're both Czech. And then I've got Croatian and Romani as well, and so. But the Croatian helped me with the. With the language because structurally, it's still a Slavic language. So it's similar.

Alison Stewart (10:59)

Julia. The story begins with Ina. She's a Ukrainian woman. She's desperate to find her mom in America. She comes across Raina.

Martina Mayock (11:08)

There's a little bit of something that.

Alison Stewart (11:09)

Goes on with them. I don't want to give too much away. What is Julia? What do you think she's hoping to find in America? Does she want to find her mother?

Julia Lester (11:20)

Yeah, it's a big question. I do think that she is in search of. Of her mother as a person, but also just. I think she's searching for answers of why did her mother go to America? And maybe it's not necessarily finding her as a human being, but finding the reason or the idea of what was so, as we say in the show, remarkable for her to go to a different country and find something better than what she had at home. And yeah, I mean, there's a lot that goes on that is a part of her journey to America. But I think that what she is really searching for is the American dream. What is so remarkable? What is this thing that her mother left her for? And whether or not she finds it or finds the person she's searching for.

Alison Stewart (12:11)

The answer, I think it's clear things haven't gone that well for her when we first meet her. What conversations did you have with Martina about Ina's experiences when she arrived in America?

Julia Lester (12:26)

Yeah, I mean, I, I think it's, I think it's really interesting that we talk about these, these experiences that all of these women face when they come to the country. And there's, there was so much to, to play from. Actually, Martina suggested I watched this documentary called Love Me that is about this mail order bride business that people get into in order for a reason for them to come to America. And that was really helpful to watch and to see all of these stories of these women, whether or not they had a successful marriage or whether or not it was more out of necessity. And we deal a lot with the complexities of that in this show. And it was really helpful to watch that and see firsthand from the women who have experienced that to see and pull sort of from what they experienced, to see what felt real for Ina and what felt real for her for her trajectory in America.

Alison Stewart (13:26)

We're talking about the play Queens. We'll have more after a quick break. This is all of it. You're listening to ALL of IT on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. We're talking about the play Queens, about immigrant women sharing an illegal basement apartment. My guests are playwright Martina Mayock, actors Marin Ireland, Anna Chlumsky and Judy Lester. Queens is running at New York City center through December 7th. Let's talk about the basement apartment. In the apartment, the women leave behind things for other women, or sometimes they just leave behind things. Tell me a little bit about that decision.

Martina Mayock (14:16)

When I lived in a basement apartment when I first came to the country with my mom, we began in Greenpoint, which for Polish people was America for beginning, and then moved to Newark and Carney Harrison, basically end of the path train. And when I graduated from grad school and I moved to the city to pursue a career in playwriting, I ended up again, living in a basement apartment. And the only reason I was able to get that apart, I hopped between or amongst 13 different apartments my first year in New York City because I couldn't afford a secure. I couldn't afford the security deposit. So I was on a couch here. I was on this place there. And finally I realized I was like, I should just go back to Greenpoint and go do the immigrant hack of trying to ask people for their help who also speak my language. And they sent me to this Polish Craigslist essentially called Bazarinka. They're online now. And I found this apartment in Ridgewood, Queens, but it wasn't ready for me yet. So I lived in the basement for a little bit. And I discovered this room in the basement that remind. The whole setup reminded me of when we first came. It was a bunch of. It's like subdivided partitions, like makeshift rooms. And in one of the rooms, I discovered all these discarded objects. There were paintings, there was guitars. There were, like, random tchotchkes. And I just, like. They felt so alive to me. They felt like they contained all the stories of the people who. Why did they leave this behind? What were they trying to do when they first came here? And I think a lot of the women in the play are. They're weighing what's worth keeping in their lives in a large way and in the smallest ways between the objects. And when the newcomers come into the apartment, I think they're faced with the things that other people did not choose to take with them, and that causes them to wonder about what they will end up abandoning and what they will end up keeping.

Alison Stewart (16:19)

Marin, when you're. When we first meet your character, what does the basement mean to her? And then what does it mean to her 15, 16 years ago? Or you can do it vice versa.

Marin Ireland (16:32)

Yeah. I mean, without giving too much away, I think. I think the basement, when we first meet her, chronologically speaking, the basement is a refuge and a sanctuary. She's in desperate need of a place to stay the night. Just a roof over her head, but it also is a place. There's nobody there when she arrives that speaks her language. There's nobody from her country there when she arrives. So she's starting at the bottom of the. Of the food chain and has to sort of learn by getting thrown into the deep end how the structure of this place works, how the hierarchy works, how we do things there, how it operates. And I think. I think we watch her learn the ropes.

Alison Stewart (17:23)

She kind of comes to run the basement.

Marin Ireland (17:25)

We'll say, yeah, we won't give too much away.

Martina Mayock (17:29)

But.

Marin Ireland (17:31)

I mean, that's the only space, you know, we see her in, really, in the play. And so over many years, it becomes lots of things, but that's the space that then she feels some. She has authority in that space after a while, just after living there so long and seeing so many people come and go. So, yeah, it's a queendom for her, I think.

Alison Stewart (18:00)

When your character Anna comes on, you say, watch Reyna. You tell the other people to watch this woman. What are you referring to?

Anna Chlumsky (18:11)

Again, I think we can't give too much away.

Alison Stewart (18:13)

Too much away. But something about her. Yeah.

Anna Chlumsky (18:16)

I mean, it's funny, throughout the play there's warnings about Rania. There are warnings all over the place. And I think that as audience members, you know, anybody watching gets to kind of go along with that same curiosity of like, wait, why do I have to. The same way that the roommates would have to. The same way that Ina would have to. Any. Yeah, we're all being warned about Rania, you know, everybody who comes into, even our basement theater. And yeah, so. So I know her the best, I suppose, considering that I've known her from, or my character's known her since Poland.

Martina Mayock (19:02)

And.

Anna Chlumsky (19:05)

We discover more about their history together and Polish speakers will discover even more.

Alison Stewart (19:13)

I did want to know what you were talking about. I have to tell you. So, Julia, when you arrive at the base, when Ina arrives at the basement, what are her hopes when she gets there, when she finally agrees, okay, I'm gonna spend the night here and I'm gonna clean up and stay.

Julia Lester (19:31)

Yeah, I think more than anything, I think she's faced with the idea that nothing is safer than where she is right now. Whether or not that's because of the person who lets her into the basement or just the idea that there's like a bed and a place to stay for the night and there's a lock on the door. So I think that it's more of she stays there out of necessity rather than desire. But, yeah, I mean, I think that there's kind of nothing. She doesn't really have any other options. And so it's either this or continuing her journey that she's already on and sleeping outside and facing what's on the street. So it's sort of out of necessity that she has to stay.

Alison Stewart (20:16)

Martina, English isn't the first language for any of the women in the basement. Poland, Ukraine, Afghanistan, Honduras. What did you learn about these various languages? In order to understand how these women might Speak or learn English differently.

Martina Mayock (20:32)

I've always thought that there's such beautiful poetry and what some people consider broken English because of how I grew up. When I first came to the country, it was a multicultural immigrant landscape. And so everybody, when people's children were learning to walk, they were learning to talk, speak English. And the way that people make meaning when, like, I'm fascinated by concepts that don't exist in other languages and how telling that is about what we value in what those cultures value because they have a word for it or how people make sense of how they put their sentences together. And so I find a lot of like, beauty and also drama of people putting together with their limited understandings. They're trying to communicate. The whole thing is dramatic conflict. They're trying to translate something that for them lives in a different language to other people. And so like, for example, in Polish, like, there are no articles, there's no the. There's no that. Like, so, like then in translation for English, like, that's missing and, you know, certain sounds and letters that don't exist in people's mouths from their first year, the first years of learning. I think it just makes this beautiful music together. And I loved hearing different, different dialects, different accents together, because to me, that was the soundtrack of my childhood and also what I understand the best of America to be. And I wanted to share that with an audience.

Anna Chlumsky (22:00)

Marisa, your godmother. Yeah, Martina's godmother is from Poland. Even now.

Martina Mayock (22:06)

Yes, she lives there. She just came for the mom.

Anna Chlumsky (22:08)

She just came for this. And she speaks very little English. And so we were trying. And I even said I was so silly. I was just like, I was like, we like. I was trying to say, like, we love Martina, but I was like, we like. And then she said, oh, I am in the sky is what she said. And that's.

Martina Mayock (22:31)

I'm so happy I'm in the sky.

Anna Chlumsky (22:32)

Yeah, she said that I'm in the sky. And that's. Yeah, and we got it. You know, that's what's so great about understanding all the different ways that we communicate and all the non verbals and, you know, you can be somebody who doesn't share a lot of language and still completely understand each other's experience just from trying.

Alison Stewart (22:51)

Of course, immigration is big in our politics today. Just a few weeks ago, we saw ICE conduct raids on Canal street right here in New York City. How do you hope this play speaks to our current moment?

Martina Mayock (23:04)

We were in tech rehearsal during that week because ICE was also in Times Square which is where our theater is, closer to where our theater's located. And the company management gathered us all around and we were like, oh, what do we do? It's certainly our fault. And they told us this information so that we'd be we'd need to call who we needed to call and be careful ourselves. And most of us burst into tears because I don't understand why this administration is coming after people who for the most part are just trying to embody the ideals of what the American experiment's supposed to be. They're trying to create a fuller life for themselves and oftentimes contributing very, very deeply to the culture that they, that they are moving into. And for people that are just seen as headlines, I hope that this play contributes a deeper portrait of human beings that are actually very similar to the people that are in the audience. It's a story about friendship and about sacrifice and cost of dreams. It's funny, it's fiery, it's feisty, like it's daughters, mothers, families. I think we're more alike than we are dissimilar. And this play, endeavoring to include and welcome people that may not think that they have anything in common with the people that are on stage and for the people who are similar to people on stage, to make them feel welcome and to make them all feel less alone.

Alison Stewart (24:40)

That was my conversation with playwright Martina Mayok, actors Marin Ireland, Anna Chlumsky and Julia Lester. Their acclaimed play Queens is running now throughout the December 7th. And that is all of it for today. I'm Alison Stewart. I appreciate you listening and I appreciate you have a great weekend and I'll meet you back here next time.

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