Riven: Interview with Playwright and Director Marina Zurita
“Riven” is a new play that is enjoying its world premiere this spring via the space of NYC’s Sure We Can. Written by Marina Zurita, the play is a site-specific production that is being staged at an actual recycling center in Brooklyn; the opening is set for June 15.
“Riven” focuses on the lives of waste pickers — a community of people who pick and sort recyclable materials for a living. The show follows coworkers and friends Melina and Alessandra, two black women from the south who work toiling away at the accumulated discards of a society that has failed them while also promising to survive and support one another.
Marina Zurita recently discussed her experiences writing and directing this piece.
Meagan Meehan (Q): How did you discover your talent for theater and did writing or directing come to you first?
Marina Zurita (MZ): I definitely discovered my love for theater as a child. I was born in São Paulo, Brazil, and grew up going to the theater often. But my first memory of a play that truly struck me was actually created by friends/peers of mine when I was about 9 years old. They were all enrolled in this extracurricular theater program and I remember attending one of their performances and thinking that was the coolest thing ever and the best part was that they created/devised the whole thing together. The play was about time. Past, Present and Future were all characters — siblings. Their mother was also a character. A tired mom who spent all her time performing domestic duties, such as ironing clothes over a human ironing board — the character Time. In Portuguese the verb Ironing is PASSAR, the same word used to describe time passing.
Passando roupas = Ironing clothes
Passando tempo = Spending time
The play began with a revolutionary event: the Mother character decided to go on strike and stopped ironing clothes — ensuing a catastrophe over Time, and the presumed linearity of between Past, Present, and Future. Almost 20 years later, I still think this was one of the best plays I’ve seen in my life. It was so cohesive, relevant, fun and alive, made by children to other children to watch. I still struggle to define myself as a playwright or director, because the reality is that what I love doing is making theater in collaboration with other people. So, I see myself more as a Maker.
Q: How did you find out about “waste pickers” and prompted you to write a show about them?
MZ: Waste picking is an incredibly common profession in the Global South. Catadores (the Brazilian term for waste picker) are an integral part of São Paulo’s landscape. There are hundreds of waste picking cooperatives spread across the city and street pickers walking around the city collecting recyclable materials. In Brazil, just like in other countries in the global south, waste pickers are also politically organized in movements such as the MNCR (Nacional Movement of Waste Pickers). I don’t remember a time in my life when I didn’t know about “waste pickers”. But I guess at some point my artist brain became interested in learning more about this reality of people whose livelihood depends on the value of recyclable materials. I was interested in understanding waste picking as a lifestyle at the edge of capitalism. So I started conducting interviews, and I got hooked by people’s life stories; The different yet interconnected ways that each of them became involved with waste picking; The need versus the choice of laboring with recyclable materials; The pain of often being treated as invisible and of not being recognized for the tremendous contribution that they give to the planet / society by really being the basis of the entire recycling industry across the globe.
Q: How long did it take to write this play?
MZ: I would say that it took two years to dive into research, conduct the interviews and assemble the stories that are in the play right now. Then three years of writing and working on developing the iteration we will be presenting at Sure We Can.
Q: What’s your favorite part of the play and why?
MZ: I don’t think I have one favorite moment to be completely honest. I do believe that this piece honors the fact that theater is first and foremost a ritual with a story in it. So, the moments of ritual threaded in the play are definitely some of my favorites for sure.
Q: How tough was it to get this staged in an actual recycling plant? Was that always your objective?
MZ: It wasn’t always an objective. But it’s definitely the most effective way to stage this play, in my opinion. People from Sure We Can have been incredibly welcoming to our team, so in this sense it wasn’t hard to stage the show there. But there are many challenges around producing a site-specific show. But the team has definitely been rising to the occasion and I can’t wait for audiences to see what we have created.
Q: What do you hope audiences take away from this performance?
MZ: I want people to have a good time — dance, laugh, cry… and get curious about the life stories of the people who collect and sort our recyclables. In the context of NYC, we are also aiming to inform people about the redemption system of beverages, and the proposed changes to the current Bottle Bill.
Q: What is some of the best feedback you’ve gotten about this piece thus far?
MZ: That the play is alive. Which I think it’s true. It’s alive because it came from real stories, and the team and I were able to craft a process capable of holding these stories while also remaining true to the unpredictable nature of theater.
Q: What other projects are you working on right now and/or what themes might you tackle in future works?
MZ: Accumulation is a theme I am curious about in general. I also really enjoy beginning a process with interviews. So, I’ll definitely keep these two threads going in my future works.
Q: What are your ultimate goals for the future and is there anything else that you would like to mention?
MZ: My ultimate goals for the future…. To continue to be curious about the people around me. To grow and expand my capacity to listen and collaborate. To make and tell stories that help us feel the pulse of our shared humanity. And to have fun in the process!
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RIVEN runs June 12 thru 27 at Sure We Can (219 Mckibben Street in Brooklyn, NY 11206). Tickets are available at www.eventbrite.com.
Photos credited to Alex Korolkovas and Gabriela Amerth.