Sometimes a common theme in childhood inspires one's art. Such is the case for Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright and author Suzan-Lori Parks, who grew up in a military family. Her father, an army veteran of Korea and Vietnam who later became a college professor, was always coming home from battle when she was very young and that image stuck with her. "If your life is a piece of music and has a groove or a recurring motif, that was the recurring motif of my early childhood, and I sort of wrote along to that music."
Her critically acclaimed play, Father Comes Home from the Wars, Parts 1, 2 & 3 (Theater Communications Group, June) is about a slave offered freedom if he follows his master to fight for the Confederacy. It touches on some major themes. "It's a beautiful story about some people who were in difficult times—very different from our own, but somehow strangely there are a lot of similarities to the time in which we are living right now. They have to make big decisions about who they will follow. Where is freedom—that's a big question. What do you believe in, and the difference between being honest and true, and being faithful is another thing that keeps coming up in the play."
She originally envisioned Father Comes Home from the Wars as a collection of nine plays. "Some of my friends said, ‘Oh no, it's the road to madness. Eugene O'Neil tried to write a nine-part thing and he went crazy!' People were telling me these stories, and I said, ‘Let me see what happens,' so we'll see what happens." She laughs and adds, "It might be 12 parts, or 96!"
Parks has a long relationship with Theater Communications Group. This is her sixth play published by them. She notes, "They do such beautiful books. I enjoy when my plays are performed and when my plays are read. There are a lot of communities, including wonderful academic communities at prestigious colleges, who do not have the funds to put on a Suzan-Lori Parks play, but because of TCG's brilliance, they can take the play into their classroom and read it aloud."
The writer has been at BEA before and enjoys seeing all the different books out there. "It's very exciting, because these days people are trying to convince everybody to read everything on their phone, and I read a lot on my phone, but we're still human beings, and the tactile—the sense of touch—is an important sense, and just to hold a book in your hand and imagine..."
You can do the very same with her play as Parks will be signing finished books at the TCG booth (650A) today, 1–2 p.m.
This article appeared in the May 28, 2015 edition of PW BEA Show Daily.
