MEET THE PLAYWRIGHT: Charlotte Lang-Bush

Our Second Annual evening of parodies and homages returns with Cocktails and Classics.  Learn more about the playwrights and performers in this blog series.  

First up, Charlotte Lang-Bush, whose play, "Lachesis," fills us in on what the Greek Fate does on her nights off from weaving the stories of our lives.

Tell us a little about yourself!
I’m the type of person who doesn’t have a canned response to this question yet, even though I probably should. I love intersections, of the old and the new, the classy and the ribald, and the ultra-feminine and the emotions that aren’t “for nice girls.” Liminal spaces, places, and stories fascinate me. Ghost stories, resilient women, and making people laugh are things I love.  There’s an anecdote my parents love telling of me as a child chasing down family members, arranging them in a room, and feeding them lines to say. They never tell me about the script, so I can only assume I’ve grown since then.

What inspired you to write your piece?
Lachesis came from an impulse to challenge myself, and just let one person talk for as long as I possibly could, and then to push it a little longer. And the middle Fate always gets a bum rap- she doesn’t ever get as much to do. She has all that knowledge, and power, and longevity, and yet you never see her doing anything without the other two Moirai, who get the more glamorous jobs. I like thinking about the resentments of women in classical mythology. Lachesis has a sister piece about the Erinyes.  

What's your favorite thing about theatre?

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I want to go on a long aesthete’s rant about art and its ability to grow empathy where there is none, or about how performance is inherent in the human soul, but in all honesty, it’s Occam’s Razor. It’s the way I’ve been telling stories, pretty much since I’ve been old enough to tell stories. Moving people around, and making them say the words I need to tell a story. It’s the way that feels the most right, making stories that live and walk and breathe and thoroughly depend on others to exist. I like the communality of theater more than I can really say. All the people you need to create and watch good theater is a pretty profound set of connections. It’s not particularly revolutionary or edgy, but happiness in this time is a radical act, and theater seems like the best way to mainline that beauty. There’s a Phillip Larkin line “what will survive of us is love.” I think theater, with all its visual power, is often the best path to that.  

Why are classics and new takes on classics still important today?
I’m the wrong person to ask this- I trained as a medievalist, so I’m always going to be the person who says: “Why do we still have to ask this question.” To be human is to be nostalgic to some degree, and it’s on the artists to deploy nostalgia responsibly. Nostalgia is one hell of a drug. I think refracting the classics (not making retreads, mind you, but refracting) is a great way of examining our wistful impulses, and interrogating what pasts we’re culturally yearning for and why we’re yearning for them.

Anything else you'd like to tell us?
Thank you! I’m absolutely honored to be a part of Turn to Flesh! There are some absolutely lovely humans here, and I’m so glad they’re letting me in on the fun.

Bio
Charlotte Lang-Bush is a playwright, educator, and disability rights advocate living in Brooklyn. Her most recent play, Parlor Tricks, (a semi-historical comedy of sex, sisterhood, and séances) was performed a the South Oxford Space earlier this year, and will soon be available on the New Play Exchange. She has also written for AMIOS’ SHOTZ! series, and CAPS LOCK Productions’ PUSSYFEST. Follow her on Twitter @charlottevarlet to keep up with her particular brand of girly Grand Guignol. Thank you again to Turn to Flesh for letting her in on the fun!