Obit, A Play: Getting the Last Word Is the Best Revenge

Talk about writing what you know! Rebecca Chace, a New York Times writer of advance obituaries—a specialized form of journalism in which newspapers prepare detailed obits of prominent living people well before their deaths—has penned “Obit,” a female revenge thriller about a writer of advance obituaries for the New York Times.

Starring Richard Topol and Carolyn Holding, and directed by Will Steinberger, the play is set in the dystopian future, when the global infrastructure has collapsed, and wolves are roaming the grounds of Briarwood College, where Maya Hawthorne arrives to interview college president Philip Stern about his legacy.

To many, Stern represents the best of liberal arts values. To Maya, he is the monster who let her bookkeeper mother take the fall for his financial misconduct. Her mother lost her job, and Maya lost her child-of-staff scholarship, resulting in their life of struggle.

You’re cordially invited to come for the revenge, stay for the suspense, and leave arguing about justice.

Straus Media sat down with the playwright, novelist, and writing professor to talk about the play’s inspiration, colleges as kingdoms, and whether revenge can ever produce truth.

You set the story in a college; places that have become a hot-button issue because of their politics, expense, and uncertainty about whether a degree actually means anything with grads struggling to get jobs. So, what’s your view of academia in general?

I am a believer in the humanities and the liberal arts for young people coming out of high school to be exposed to a range of ideas instead of being channeled into a career at such an early age. I think it’s really important, not just for whatever they may end up doing, but for who they become. The play is certainly looking at aspects of all colleges, maybe even all workplaces, that can become like mini kingdoms.

At what specific moment in your obituary writing work was the seed planted for your play?

When I began actually having interviews with people, fascinating people, who had these incredible careers, my theater background— I started as an actor—kicked in, and I thought, this is a really theatrical situation; how we trade status back and forth in a conversation, but they’re never going to get to read what I write.

How did that story come about; a bookkeeper framed, a scholarship revoked?

When I was thinking about the character of Philip, the complexity of a person who’s a failed artist, but has accomplished so many great things with this college.

A lot of times people [like him] play fast and loose with the numbers—take money from here and put it there—to achieve what they see as a higher goal. It’s also a way of behaving in a kingdom.

What do you think your play says about how power actually operates in academia?

There is often a real division between faculty and staff; the town and gown thing. That tension is pretty common. I was really interested in the class aspect of that. Maya and her mother are from the town.

Why set the story in the future?

It gave me an opportunity to imagine a world where the cloud could collapse, cities could become more isolated, kind of “Mad Max” land. I guess that’s my fear.

As a New Yorker, it gave me a chance to explore what it would be like to live under those conditions.

Things like that are really interesting to me, to imagine how we might go back to analog.

It also isolates Philip and his house on campus. It isolates the two of them in a blizzard and wolves roaming outside.

How did you and your director Will Steinberger keep the cat-and-mouse tension escalating in such a confined, dialogue-driven space?

We have two extraordinary actors. It comes down to these two people.

To keep it tense, the tight space is good. And there’s always this threat of danger outside. It helps having this sense of society falling apart.

And then, you have high-stakes secrets.

For him, he’s incredibly invested in his legacy. He wants this obit in the New York Times. He’s got a big ego.

And she is just as determined and passionate to get answers to what happened that made her mother get fired, tipping over her mother’s life and making her life much harder.

Stern did a bad thing to this woman who was beneath him professionally, socially, and financially, yet you give him redeeming qualities.

The more complex the characters are, the more interesting the play is; more so than a play where there’s bad guy/good guy.

The charisma, intelligence, and achievement are all often part of the art monster thing. He can be very seductive. He’s a really good fundraiser, the person who can charm the room. He did great things with this college that impressed Maya when she was a student there.

Now, the show promises the audience will leave arguing about justice. Do you have your own view of revenge?

They say it’s a dish that’s best served cold, right? But I think that the play will speak to different people in different ways, depending on their own experience of the workplace and of class power.

Did he deserve this? Did she deserve this?

You can go in thinking you’re going to get justice and walk away feeling like, “What have I done?”

Maya has a weapon and a pen. Is the pen really mightier than the sword?

I think so. She’s going to write his obituary. Whatever happens in this room, she has the last word.

”Obit” at Theater for the New City, 155 First Ave. at E.10^th St., Thurs.-Sun., from September 17 to October 4. Tickets available at obitplay.com.

Lorraine Duffy Merkl is the author of the novel “The Last Single Woman In New York City.”