By Timothy DuWhite
On August 1st, director, actor, and playwright Zhailon Levingston’s play The Hole: A New American Play will have its world premiere at the New Ohio Theater in NYC, during the Ice Factory Summer Festival of New Work.
Described by Levingston, “The Hole explores the relationship and personal struggles of two inmates in solitary confinement. A loose riff on Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, this play explores the illusions, memories, nightmares, dreams, and delusions of two inmates locked in ‘the hole.’â€
I feel particularly fortunate to be able to conduct this interview, given that Levingston was also the director for my one-man show Neptune that has just reached its completion. To see his brilliance in action firsthand on my work, and to now see all that brain power concentrated into his own project is truly exhilarating.
Even in the midst of his very busy, very laborious schedule, he still managed to take a moment and chat with RaceBaitR about what being stuck in “the hole†really means for folks like us.
Timothy: Okay, so you know I’m new to all this theater stuff right. So I just looked up Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and see that it’s a play from the 50’s featuring a whole bunch of white folks. How did you manage to come up with such a Black ass play inspired by that?
Zhailon: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof takes place on a plantation. And it’s a play about “lies and liars,†yet the biggest lie of the play is that the family fighting inside the walls of the house earned any of that property without the work of African slaves. Toni Morrison talks about how when it seems as if Black voices are absent, it is the absence itself that is the sign of their presence because it takes acknowledgment of them being there to erase them in the first place. So I started to ask the question, “How would some of the themes of this story play out through the lens of a black perspective?†Which led me to write a play that takes the characters of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and sets them in a contemporary plantation, which is the prison industrial complex.
There are more Black men in American prisons than anywhere else in the world, therefore it made sense to me that my characters reflected that reality. Something that was very taboo when Tennessee Williams was writing Cat on a Hot Tin Roof was the sexuality of the main character Brick. What I found interesting while doing research for this play is it was not taboo for two men to have a sexual relationship with each other in prison, the taboo element was the question of their love for each other. Can people who have been marginalized in a very particular way experience love and survival as non-mutually exclusive things? My play is an attempt to examine the consequences of what happens when people can’t.
T: So you do so much! Director, actor, fashion icon haha. When did you pick up playwriting? Is The Hole your first full length play? How does it feel?
Z: I still feel like I am not a “real†playwright, because I didn’t go to school for it, and because I haven’t written a ton of them—it’s so damn hard to get right. This is the first full length workshop of a play I’ve had in New York and it’s so exciting and so nerve wracking.
T: So your show is set in “the hole†which is another name for solitary confinement. When I first heard the description of the show I immediately thought about Kalief Browder, and all the other Black folks inflicted by such devastating “punishments†from the state. While writing this piece, in what ways did stories like Kalief and folks like him inform you?
Z: Â There is a scene in the play where a seventeen year old boy who is in an adult prison is taken advantage of by the CO of that prison. There’s no way around the fact that watching that scene done in rehearsal inevitably takes me to the story of Kalief Browder every time.
It’s interesting because stories like his completely informed me and yet my characters are fictional. What’s really happening is a calibration of me honoring the voices of those I don’t see on the stage, my own imagination, and me hiding my secrets behind characters—which I think ultimately is what a lot of writers are doing all the time.
T: I love what you said in the show description, “When the walls of prison rub up against the walls of identity, love can be a violent thing.†I thought a lot about this line while reading the narrative from the character Gooper’s mother. She mentioned something about Gooper laying “funny in her stomach†while she was pregnant. And I have a Black mother, I know what they mean when they say a kid is “funny†haha. It’s usually a comment on the child’s sexuality, and this case wasn’t any different.
Given that the play is so grounded in spirituality and searching for God, I guess I’m interested in how this moment of “mother’s intuition†plays into all that. For you, what are the implications of Gooper’s mother knowing her boy was “funny†from the womb, in relation to the life we eventually see unfold for him. I feel like you touch a lot on the role the parent plays here, and I would just like to hear more.
Z: The scene you are speaking about in the play is a kind of Genesis story, wherein we learn about the environment the two main characters come from. The title of the scene is called “Dream†and it’s really about the dreams parents have for their children and the choices they make once the reality of their children’s lives rub up against their own expectations.
It’s always fascinating to me when I hear people say “we always knew he was gay,†yet still act surprised when the child inevitably learns it for themselves. What we know to be true and the story we tell ourselves about ourselves can often be in conflict and im exploring what happens when we pass that conflict on to our children.
T: This is piggy backing a bit off my previous question, but the theme of God, and searching for God shows up a lot in your play. Why is that? What are your thoughts on God, Black folks, and solitude?
Z: I mean Black folks are God. I know that’s a strong statement but the history of Black people in America carries in it a kind of Black spirituality that starts from the inside and works its way out manifesting itself as resistance, liberation, art, grace, love, and forgiveness. Oh, and lets not forget rage. I think my characters know this in some way, even though the world around them have not validated the God within them.
One of the characters in my play Brick, talks about initially not believing in God but then falling in love and realizing that in the space between he and his lovers eyes God was somehow created, “And Eden and Heaven and all that stuff becomes real right between each other’s eyes.â€
He refers to love, like God, as “a thing you don’t believe in but then you do.†This is a kind of radical theology when put up against a more popularize prosperity gospel. I believe that the lived faith of Black people in America historically leans towards Bricks understanding of God in his life.
T: So, you have a character named Officer Thomas in your play. I don’t want to give too much away, but basically, he stresses me the fuck out (to say the least). What was the experience like having to write from the perspective of those who wish us harm?
I mean, the impulse is to just make them horrible and that’s it. But in reality, as the writer, you can’t allow them to be one-dimensional. You have to make sure that they also maintain some sort of humanity, no matter how warped it all may be. How was the experience of really having to get inside that man’s head?
Z: Honestly, it’s embarrassing to know that someone I can hate so much, I can also force myself to understand so clearly—and that’s true of Officer Thomas. Not to give it away, he does some pretty messed up stuff, to put it lightly. I was forced to understand how a person like Officer Thomas comes to be, and my job as the artist is to hold a character’s feet to the fire while in some mysterious way love them at the same time.
T: Aside from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, who or what are some of your other inspirations?
Z: My collaborators inspire me daily and not just the people helping me to create my play but also my friends who make the choice to support me in every move I make. The couches they let me sleep on, the spaces they give me to laugh deeply, and the way they make sure I stand in my integrity all finds its way to the pages of my play.
T: What has been the most difficult aspect of creating “The Hole� And inversely, what has been the most pleasant?
Z: The most difficult thing about writing the “The Hole†is writing “The Hole†haha. The most pleasant thing is finishing it.
T: What would you hope for your audience to leave with after watching your play?
Z: HOPE, made material, able to fit in pockets and purses and packages sent to loved ones who stories we don’t listen to enough.
The Hole: A New American Play premieres August 1st at the New Ohio Theater in NYC, during the Ice Factory Summer Festival of New Work!  Get your tickets HERE!
Timothy DuWhite is a black, queer, poz-writer/artist/nigga based out of Brooklyn, NY. A majority of his work circles around the intersections of state & body, state & love, and state & mind. All Timothy desires is a different/newer world for his sha-daughters, and believes the written word is one tool that could be used towards achieving that goal.
