Heather, a young teacher, is tidying up her desk at the end of a long school day when there’s a knock on the door. Corynn, a mother, arrives for her scheduled parent-teacher conference. Seems like a mundane situation.
Except that the 11-year-old boy, the subject of the conference, has recently killed himself.
To the teacher’s consternation, the mother has arrived to keep the appointment.
She’s determined to find out what really happened. Was her son Gidion driven to self-violence through cyber-abuse? Was he an abuser himself? Are the overwhelmed teacher and school system at fault? Is the parenting?
As the two women face off, those are the raw and highly charged questions at the heart of Gidion’s Knot, the riveting drama by award-winning playwright Johnna Adams that’s receiving its New England premiere at Collective Consciousness Theater (CCT).
Allan Appel Photo
Meghan Magner and Ilayda Muftuoglu face off as teacher and parent.
The play — its tough subject matter is not recommended for kids under 14 — opens Thursday at CCT’s Erector Square Studio D building 6 West theater. It runs April 9 to 12 and 16 to 19, with the curtain at 8 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday matinees at 2 p.m.
“The play is timeless, beyond the themes like cyber-bullying,” said its director, Jenny Nelson, who is also the associate director of CCT. She, CCT’s director Dexter Singleton, the set’s designer (and Independent reporter) David Sepulveda, and actress Meghan Magner, who plays Gidion’s teacher Heather, all have teaching in their backgrounds.
Nelson said that part of what intrigued them about the play, as educators and artists, is that the dead child and his mother are both creative people, writers. The child’s extensive suicide letter is gorgeously written, echoing the language of literary stories his mother, Corryn, has told him.
How much has the boy’s creativity led to his being an isolated outsider? If mother and son shared language, why could the boy not communicate to his mother what was going on? Should the teacher have picked up signs?
Magner (pictured), who is a new performer with CCT, said one of the biggest challenges of her character has been to “separate it from your own life.” Magner has taught drama, which helped her understand Heather’s need to maintain self control at all costs during this dire conference, until she no longer can.
Ilayada Muftuoglu, who plays Corryn, said she found it not unusual and even natural that her character would keep the posthumous appointment. That’s what she admires most about the character — her loyalty to her own beliefs, the need to get to the truth of what happened, by her own aggressive methods.
So the feeling of the play is one of a terrible see-sawing struggle between the two woman.
“We talked a lot about war strategy, who has the high ground. It shifts from moment to moment,” said Nelson.
In the end, the play dramatizes all the possibilities for what happened, and they all are compelling. Yet, heartbreakingly, none can explain the tragic mystery of this human behavior. “There’s no [single] person to blame. [The play] cracks it open. We’ll never know,” said Nelson.
Producer Singleton and lighting designer, Jaime Burnett.
Singleton said he chose the play not only because of the power of the writing, but also the timeliness of the issues engaged, which is part of the mission of the company.
As he did with last season’s successful production of Dominique Morriseau’s Detroit ‘67, Singleton is reaching out to schools to come to the shows. Several talk-backs, hosted by New Haven educators, are scheduled for the first Friday night and Saturday and Sunday matinee performances, he said.
Sepulveda, Singleton, Burnett in the play’s classroom.
Lighting designer Jamie Burnett, who also illuminates Elm Shakespeare Company productions, singlehandedly rigged a ceiling full of new lighting in the Erector Square space, and David Sepulveda, recently retired from 30 years of teaching himself, has transformed the the entire theater into a bright, poster-festooned classroom “to put everyone on the hot seat” as soon as you enter, he said.
“We even thought of tardy passes” to hand out to late audience members, Nelson added, but thought better of it.
This is the kind of classroom and conference you wouldn’t ever want to enter in real life, as a parent. But as an audience member — don’t be late.
Click here for tickets and further information.