A visible woman

Aishah Rahman

Aishah Rahman has a lot of experience bringing new plays to Providence. As an associate professor in Brown Universitys Program in Creative Writing since 1992, she has been in charge of the annual new plays festival. But it is only now that she is having a brand-new play of her own open in town, as Only In America premieres at Perishable Theatre.

Rahman has authored four full-length plays, two one-acts and two "plays with music." They have earned productions at New Yorks prestigious Public Theatre, among other places, some glowing critical reviews and numerous awards, including a Rockefeller Fellowship and a stay at the Yaddo Arts Colony. A collection, Plays by Aishah Rahman, has recently been published.

She spoke last week about her work, sitting in Perishable facing the faux gilt and taxidermy of the set. Here are excerpts of the conversation.

Q: In the introduction to your collection of plays, this play is described as creating "a language for America's invisible women." Has this always been a concern of yours?

A: Yes, I would say it's always been concerned of mine to write for people who are considered voiceless. When I look back at my plays that are more well-known, they are about the invisible women whose voices have been whited out. People who have been marginalized. Black women who are not in the mainstream. And other people -- black men, people of color.

For instance, in The Mojo and the Sayso I knew about the case of this 10-year-old boy who shot down by a policeman. What the play is about is not the actual shooting but about how the people survived, how does one survive such a terrible tragedy.

Q: Your first novel is coming out next year (House of the Spider). What's it about, and why did you choose to treat the subject in a novel rather than in a play?

I was attempting to write a coming- of-age story about a foster child's search for identity in the Harlem of the '40s and '50s. I wanted to write the story about the Harlem I grew up in. In all of the stories that I've read, I have never seen the Harlem that I knew, the Harlem of my childhood, the people that I knew.

It was always in my mind as a novel -- that was the next step, as a writer. It was something I had wanted to do for long time. I had wanted to try that theme and try that canvas. And it always frightened me. The canvas was always so intimidating to me. I don't know -- novelists say the same thing about plays.

Drama was a first thing that I did. I've been writing plays ever since I was a little girl. I've always been drawn to the dramatic form. Doing skits, performing in the kitchen -- that's the way we amused ourselves. Television at that time didn't have the place in American lives that it has today. So we were always putting on skits, and I was always the writer and the director. And then also, I was an avid comic book reader. For some reason, the structure of the comic book, the way it's laid out, each picture to me was a scene. That's how I saw storytelling.

I was around so many people who were so dramatic, such natural performers and natural storyteller's. The kitchen was a stage; the living room was a stage.

Q: Music comes into your plays a lot.

My first professional play, which was produced in 1972, was a musical -- I hate to say musical. I don't write musicals, I write plays with music, because music is such an important part of my life and such an important part of my culture. And the people that I'm talking about, there is music in the way they speak, in their body gestures. I grew up in the '40s and '50s, in the Golden Age of rhythm and blues. That was so much a part of how we related to each other. I guess it permeates the way that I write. When I was down in the Village, I knew the jazz greats: Charlie Parker, Max Roach all of them. These were my heros. These were my superheros.

Q: Did you make a special point to premiere this in Providence? Did you try to get it produced elsewhere?

I finished the play in about 94 and no one would touch it -- well, that's not true: there were people who wanted to direct who I didn't want to direct it. My agent and I just decided to let it sit. I moved here from New York in 1992, and one of the lessons that I learned as a native New Yorker is that New York is not the world. There are a lot of things about Providence that make it a very .livable city for me. It's definitely in a re-birth, and the artistic community is growing. You can find your niche. Each year I get more involved in Providence. I have students here, and I just bought a condo. So yes, there was a very concerted, conscious decision that, yes, I want to be produced in Providence -- because this is my home.

-- B.R.

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