[ssba]
The Neurology of Trauma and the Qualities of Mercy
Playwright Martin Zimmerman discusses his play, Seven Spots on the Sun
By Deborah Klugman
Playwright Martin Zimmerman
In Seven Spots on the Sun (Boston Court Performing Arts Center through November 1), a doctor in a war-torn country discovers that, with a laying on of his hands, he can cure a plague. One question in Martin Zimmerman’s play is, given the doctor’s grief and rage at how local politics has decimated his purpose in life, does he really want to be a miracle worker? Zimmerman discusses this, and other aspects of his play, his writing, and of human love and cruelty.
STAGE RAW: The play takes place in a Latin American country. Is the scenario inspired by events in a particular country or no?
MARTIN ZIMMERMAN I’m Argentine-American, so my awareness of events such as the ones depicted in Seven Spots On The Sun began when I started learning about Argentina’s military dictatorship, which ruled the country from 1976 to 1983.
But I chose not to locate the play in a specific country because there are so many other countries in Latin America where the government, often under the control of a military junta, has waged war on its own people – where it continues to wage war on its own people to this very day. Chile, Uruguay, Colombia, Peru, Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador are just the ones I can name off the top of my head.
SR: What inspired you to this story? Was it personal or something you read about?
MZ: A lot of the ideas that the play wrestles with came out of a research trip I made to Argentina in 2007 during which time I interviewed family members of people who were disappeared by the military dictatorship.
I went to Argentina to investigate the relationship between justice, redemption, revenge, and forgiveness, but when I returned to the U.S., I struggled with how to interrogate these ideas dramatically and theatrically.
It was during this struggle that I heard the most chilling story about perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide dying during cholera outbreaks in their refugee camps. As soon as I heard the story, I knew I had a central story structure for my play.
Of course, from there, the work on the play was far from over. I worked on the play for the next several years trying to render a world that is vivid and visceral while also epic and larger than life.
SR: Tell me a little about the plot.
MZ: It’s set in an unnamed Latin American country in the aftermath of a brutal civil war. In the village where the play is set, the doctor has stopped seeing patients and become a recluse because of something that happened to him during the war.
But when a massive plague starts sweeping the countryside around his village, the doctor must decide if he will try to intervene. The rest of the play takes off from there.
Is there something that makes this pivotal character unusual?
I think of this as an ensemble play about a community, so I don’t know that that there’s one pivotal character. But, because the story converges around him, I suppose many people would consider Moisés – the doctor – as the pivotal character.
I think one of the many things that makes him unique is that he remains deeply skeptical about the meaning of the magical – even miraculous – events around him. While others greet the magic with wonder and joy, he is afraid, and wants to know what price he’ll have to pay for it.
Can you say something about the other characters and their conflicts?
Two other vital characters are Mónica and Luis. They are a young couple whose lives revolve around their passion for each other. Then Luis joins the army to help improve their economic circumstances. The play follows the many unforeseen consequences of Luis’s decision.
SEVEN SPOTS . . . at Boston Court. Photo by Ed Kreiger
Are there insights into human behavior you are trying to offer?
I don’t know if there are specific insights I’m trying to offer so much as questions I’m trying to ask. Questions about how we derive meaning from loss that is far beyond our control. Questions about how we try to move past debilitating violence. Questions about the human capacity for forgiveness – and what must precede forgiveness in order for true forgiveness to take place.
Is there a significance to the title?
In the Roman Catholic tradition, which is the religious tradition in which most of these characters were raised, people often report strange things happening to the sun when they witness a miracle. So that’s partly where the title comes from.
But in terms of the meaning of the number seven or the particular phenomenon of spots on the sun means, everyone seems to have a different interpretation. And that’s my intent.
What message do you want people who see this to come away with?
I’m not sure I want them to come away with any message but instead to come away with empathy for all the characters – and to be thinking about the questions I mentioned above.
I think an effective play (or any work of art) should be a strong vessel that can carry the many different meanings and associations every audience member brings to it.
The play has an historical backdrop but there are elements of magical realism in it. Do you often employ this element in your work?
This isn’t the only play of mine that features events one might describe as “magical,” but magical elements aren’t necessarily something I employ in all my work.
I tend to make very different stylistic choices with all my plays, but the one thing that’s consistent among them is that these stylistic choices serve the purpose of bringing the audience closer to the characters’ emotional experience of the world.
Magic seems appropriate for the world of ‘Seven Spots On The Sun’ because these characters are grappling with loss on an epic scale, loss caused by events far beyond their control. So magical elements seem an appropriate way of communicating what it might feel like to have one’s life changed violently and irreparably without warning.
These characters are left trying to make meaning of that loss, which is exactly what humans do when they experience seemingly magical events – they are left asking themselves what that magic means.
What’s also important to me is that the magic not easily resolve these characters’ predicaments, which in this case, I don’t think it does. The magic raises the stakes of their encounters with one another. It puts them under more pressure. It forces them to examine themselves more deeply.
Photo by Ed Krieger
Do you see this as a political work?
I do see it as a political work. I see all work as political. Even work that tries to remain apolitical (something I believe to be impossible) is inherently making a political statement by trying to avoid politics.
You deal with moral issues in this play. Several characters make choices that affect others in drastic life-or-death ways. Would I find this in other plays of yours? Do you view this moral aspect as an important element in drama?
You would absolutely find questions of ethics in any and all of my plays.
I believe that the purpose of storytelling is to help give meaning to life which often feels meaningless and needlessly cruel. And while that assertion might seem fanciful, like something storytellers say to justify their existence, there is increasing scientific evidence to support my assertion.
I recently read an astounding book about trauma (research for another play) that explains how trauma literally shuts down the part of the brain responsible for converting sensory experience into narrative.
Trauma robs its victims of the ability to construct a narrative out of their traumatic experiences, thereby guaranteeing they will remain fixated on those experiences and stuck in the past.
So, neurologically speaking, it seems that we need to be able to tell stories about troubling events in order to process them and remain healthy, functional beings. Denying the troubling aspects of our existence only guarantees we will continue to re-experience them.
So I view it as absolutely imperative that I tackle such difficult, ethical issues in all of my work. Otherwise I’m not doing my job.
Seven Spots on the Sun is a co-production of the Rattlestick Theatre Company and the Theatre at Boston Court. It is directed by John Michael Garces. It performs at the Boston Court Performing Arts Center through November 1.
For tickets go to https://web.ovationtix.com/trs/pr/942944.
Martín Zimmerman is a multi-ethnic, bilingual playwright whose plays include Seven Spots On The Sun, White Tie Ball, The Making Of A Modern Folk Hero, The Solid Sand Below, and Let Me Count The Ways.
His plays have been produced or developed at The Kennedy Center, the Goodman Theatre, the Cincinnati Playhouse In The Park, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, the La Jolla Playhouse, and, Philadelphia Theatre Company, among others.
Awards include the Terrence McNally New Play Award, the Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award Citation, the Humanitas Prize New Voices Award, the Sky Cooper New American Play Prize, the Carl Djerassi Playwriting Fellowship, the Jerome Fellowship National New Play Network’s Smith Prize and others.
Zimmerman is currently a playwright in residence at Teatro Vista and a resident playwright at Chicago Dramatists. He has been Artist of the Month for the Alliance for Latino Theater Artists (ALTA), and was a member of the 2011-2012 Playwrights’ Unit at Goodman Theatre.
He recently worked as a staff writer on the first season of the Netflix TV series, Narcos.
Zimmerman earned an MFA in Playwriting from the University of Texas at Austin, and a BA in Theater Studies and BS in Economics from Duke University.
