Daniel Holzman: Hey, Josh, is that you?
Josh Feye: Yes! Hi, Daniel.
DH: Hi! How are you?
JF: I'm doing well. How are you?
DH: I am just fine. I'm on the train back to New York.
JF: Oh, nice!
DH: Thank you for bearing with all my travel-related nonsense.
JF: Oh, of course, anytime. It is that time of year where we're all traveling. I actually just got back from a trip myself, so I totally get it. I'm glad that we’re able to connect because I got to see Berlindia! right before I left, and I feel very lucky that I got to see it. I mean, you’ve created this world where nothing is what it seems, and places are constantly changing, and people aren’t what they seem. Which kind of feels like what living in New York is like.
DH: Uh-huh, totally. It kind of just feels like what living in the world is like now.
JF: I know, I agree. So, when did you start writing this play, and what was the impetus for writing it?
DH: I started writing it in 2019. I was in college, studying in London in a playwriting program, and I wrote the first draft there. It’s hard to know what the exact impetus is. For me, writing plays is often a combination of many things. The dream that the dad has at the beginning, where he outlines what’s going to happen later, was based on a real dream I had when I was coming back from Berlin the year before. In the dream, my best friend from childhood found out his dad was living in this giant club. I wasn’t even thinking of that as the story when I began, but it found its way in. I was far from home, so I was thinking a lot about that. Many of the things that feel potent now, like the place moving, just emerged without a specific reason.
JF: Was Noah Latty, your director for this production, always attached to the project, or when did they come into the process?
DH: I met Noah on the first day of college. We went to school together. In 2019, I was in London, and when I came back, I was supposed to direct a workshop of Berlindia! at school. Noah was in my class and was also directing another project. We were both talking about our pieces. Our show was supposed to happen on March 21, 2020, and of course, it didn’t. Instead, I had a reading with my real family playing as ourselves. A couple of years later, I decided I wanted to do the play for real. It was something I felt precious about, and I wasn’t sure if I was ready. About a year and a half ago, something changed, and I knew Noah had known the play for a long time and wanted to direct something. It felt like a good fit and that it would be fun, because for both of us, it was the biggest thing we’d done so far. We wanted to work with as many talented people as possible and push ourselves into a new world.
JF: I found Noah's staging very unique and fun. My favorite scenes were the phone call scenes with Dad. I loved the way that place didn’t seem to matter. It made it even more trippy to watch.
DH: Yeah, Noah did a great job making space not matter while still having a logic to it—an illogical logic. For example, in the dad scenes, he suddenly appears in the room with them even though he’s supposed to be in New York and they’re in LA. It makes no logical sense but feels emotionally right. In the airplane scene, Burger flips her chair around to talk to Ms. M, which you can’t do on a plane, but it worked perfectly. Someone told me after the play that when they saw that chair flip, they knew there were no rules in this world, which was the perfect cue for the chaos to come.
JF: It felt like a contemporary Alice in Wonderland.
DH: Totally. Lots of Alice in Wonderland and Wizard of Oz influences. It’s a classic type of story in the tradition of weird classics.
JF: I feel like that’s exactly what we need right now. Nothing makes sense anymore, so living in an Alice in Wonderland-type of world feels right.
DH: That’s good to hear. I wanted to make something that represented how things feel without being a direct metaphor. The weirdest things in the play reflect how destabilized I feel all the time. I think absurdity is something everyone shares right now.
JF: What’s the most psychedelic experience you’ve had in the theater as an audience member?
DH: Oh, that’s a great question. Do you have one?
JF: Right now, I’m thinking of Psychic Self Defense at HERE Arts Center.
DH: Normandy Sherwood! I missed it live, but watched the video on HERE’s Vimeo. It was incredible.
JF: Any time you add puppetry or fabric…
DH: Totally. Two things come to mind. First, Joan of Leeds, a fringe show I saw in London while writing Berlindia!. A handmade rock opera about a lesbian medieval nun. Everything was made of cardboard, and the backdrop was a shower curtain. Three-quarters through, it opened to reveal a full, realistic modern kitchen. There was a wordless 10-minute sequence showing her trapped in domestic boredom, and making toast until it rotted before escaping. It was never acknowledged again. Second, The Comeuppance by Brandon Jacob-Jenkins. At the end, a character plays a sound only younger people can hear. One by one, you look around and watch as each audience member descending in age order (and in some ways order of dying) stops being able to hear the sound. Then the lights go out, and they play “Graduation (Friends Forever)” by Vitamin C. I left feeling devastated and inspired.
JF: Okay, that’s incredible. When you write, do you consciously aim for the psychedelic, or does it just happen?
DH: It just happens. I try to make myself laugh or cry when I write. I talk out loud, say the lines, and work myself up until I find the right words. When I was younger, I sometimes felt the impulse to “weird it up,” but I’ve learned it’s better to let it emerge naturally.
JF: You’re an Aquarius, right?
DH: I’m a Virgo with an Aquarius moon.
JF: That’s interesting. Virgo is ruled by Mercury, the planet of communication, so being a playwright feels cosmically right.
DH: I kind of agree. I feel very at home writing plays.
JF: Well, what drew you to the theatre initially?
DH: I loved theatre growing up, but I loved film more as a kid. I started writing plays in high school because it was easier to make than making a film. Eventually, I realized I felt most comfortable writing plays. Reading plays like Aleshea Harris’s Is God Is, where the text on the page is used to create imagery, showed me how free the form could be. In college, I read two plays a day for a year, which gave me a solid base.
JF: In the script of Berlindia!, your sister, Neena, did illustrations. How involved were you in that process?
DH: Very involved. We were inspired by Shel Silverstein. After the original production was canceled due to COVID, we decided to turn the play into an illustrated object. My sister is a painter, and her work has always been part of my plays. We read the script together, and when she felt moved to add an image, she did. Some text in the play also gets “animated” on the page. We haven’t done anything as illustrated since, but her work always appears in some way.
JF: I love the multimedia approach to an actual script. It kind of reminds me of Seven Methods of Killing Kylie Jenner. I hope everyone reads the play.
DH: Thank you.
JF: Before we wrap up, because I gotta go try to get Shakespeare in the Park tickets, I have a couple of fun questions. Have you heard Madonna’s new album, Veronica Electronica?
DH: Not yet, but someone told me about it recently.
JF: Okay, it’s very Berlindia! It’s her Ray of Light album reimagined as EDM techno. It has spiritual lyrics with high-energy beats.
DH Okay, I’m in.
JF: Do you have a favorite film about theatre?
DH: All That Jazz is on the top of my head. You know what I kind of love? Have you seen Hamlet 2?
JF: No, but I remember seeing trailers for it when I was a kid.
DH: It’s one of those movies. There’s a particular genre that my best friend Nigel and I watch all the time together. He’s an actor, writer, and director. These are movies that aren’t necessarily very good, but they’re about the theatre, and because of that, we enjoy them. We watched Me and Orson Welles recently, and I thought, Who is this for? Other than us, sitting there watching it on Tubi. Oh, also, the documentary Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened about the original run of Merrily We Roll Along. That one is one of my favorites.
JF: And lastly, what are your dreams for the future of the American theatre?
DH: Oh my God, just… more good plays. Maybe that sounds like a stupid answer, but I was talking about this with a friend of mine recently. We were talking about doing Berlindia! and then my friend Kallan Dana’s play Lobster, which was also produced recently at The Tank, and was amazing. We realized both of those plays were just plays. They weren’t trying to be anything else, just really good plays. And it feels rare that we get that, something that’s simply embracing the form without trying to morph into something else. I have no negative feelings toward other types of shows, but I’d love to see the downtown scene really embrace good plays, in all shapes and sizes. I wish I had something more specific to say, but honestly, I just think that would be great.
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