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Playing for the unseen: ?Alfred?

Hannah Sayle ?08, winner of a campus playwriting competition, explores disability and character in her work

Hannah Sayle ?08 recently witnessed a staging of her play ?Alfred? as part of her first-place award in the annual campus-wide McClenon Clark Playwriting Contest.

What is your play about?

It is about a character, Alfred, who is deaf and blind. You never see Alfred on stage. It is essentially about how everyone around him reacts to him, and what their responses are.

Were you nervous at all about portraying a disabled character?

Yeah, I was actually kind of worried about that. I thought that some of the focus would be turned away from his disability by virtue of the fact that he never shows up on stage, he?s never an object of ridicule ? His presence brings out the character of the other people around him.

What inspired you to write this?

It was an assignment, but I guess I just wanted to play with the idea of having a character that you don?t see, so that you can just bring out the personalities of the characters around him, to see how people react to certain situations.

Did you know how it would end when you started?

Certainly not ... I had this idea to find someone who would make enough of an impact on people that he could be offstage.

How did you feel about the reading? What were you feeling when the lights went up?

I felt pretty nervous about how people would receive it ? the question came up as to whether or not I wanted it to be played straight or over the top and I wasn?t sure, those were things I hadn?t thought that much about when I was writing it out. That was actually one of the hardest parts with talking to Tom [Oosting, director] was that he asked me a bunch of questions that I didn?t really have answers to. It seemed a little ridiculous because I did write the play, but I didn?t have it all worked out in my head about staging and stuff.

Playwriting is unique because you write something and then you have to give other people control over it. Are you going to keep playwriting or stick to creative writing you can keep as your own?

I do have control issues, and I do like to have some control and that?s something I enjoyed doing in this production, since Tom asked me my opinion on things ? but not having control is just an aspect of playwriting that you just have to suck it up if you want to do playwriting -? With a play, it?s a little more obvious that people are misinterpreting your work because you?re in the theater with them ? but that?s something that happens with any form of writing, that?s something you have to gamble with. That?s kind of a risk with expression in general, I think.

The stereotypical playwright wears a black beret and is depressed . How are you dealing with your new role as a playwright?

If you?re asking whether I have a black beret and purple velveteen coat, no. I?m a little too modest for that, I think, I don?t really consider myself a playwright. I tried my hand at playwriting, I took a class on playwriting, but it?s a little too ambitious to call myself a playwright.

?interview by Sarah Pierce and Sarah Mirk

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