Review Fix Exclusive: Nina Kethevan Talks ‘Dress of Fire’

Review Fix chats with playwright Nina Kethevan about her new production “Dress of Fire,” which is set for a three-night run at the Dorothy Strelsin Theater in New York City June 28-30.

About “Dress of Fire”:

DRESS OF FIRE is a fast-moving theater piece that walks two fascinating lines: 
It delves into the psyches of the major players of the Trojan War while delivering a 
subtle subtext regarding our own crumbling society.
In these days of surreal politics — when candidates fancy themselves emperors above the law — 
Ms Kethevan’s witty and pointed dialogue reads like 
a secret government transcript – one that would be named “Twilight of Empire.” 

Review Fix: WHAT MAKES THIS DIFFERENT OR SPECIAL?

Nina Kethevan: Writing Dress of Fire I soon realized that I was writing the ancient story of The Iliad as pretext for telling the story that was unfolding around me and that continues to unfold around all of us. If this play had been produced twenty years ago it might have been seen as prescient but now with every day that passes it appears to resemble reality television—.What makes it different and special is that despite its hard-hitting theme it is an uplifting play thanks to the beautiful spirit of its characters who, even though their ship is sinking, leave their essence of greatness and beauty. As John Keats has told us: “A thing of beauty is a joy forever.”

Review Fix: WHAT DOES IT FEEL LIKE TO BE PART OF SOMETHING LIKE THIS?

Kethevan: What makes me most happy about being involved in something like this is the enthusiasm and the ease with which the actors, many of them very young, connect their humanity to the humanity of my characters. Twenty-five year old Alice Kremelberg (Cassandra) finds herself totally resonant with the following quote from American poet, Mary Oliver: “The subjects that stir the heart are not so many after all, and they do not change… Expect to feel intimate with the distant voice.” I believe the actors are happy to be part of Dress of Fire because it gives them a chance to escape the poverty of imagination that is inflicted on us all by our consumerist, corporatist culture.

Review Fix: WHAT WAS THE INSPIRATION FOR THIS PROJECT?

Kethevan: Years ago I remember listening to lectures on the Iliad by Gil Bailli (who studied with Rene Girard),—in which he declared Helen to be an utterly fascinating character. It was the way he pronounced utterly fascinating that impelled me to write a novel in order to try to discover what it was about Helen that made her “utterly fascinating”. In the Iliad there are very few lines describing her so I set about imagining what was missing. I laid out the novel in three parts, Part I for Helen, Part II for Cassandra, Part III for Hecuba. When I finished Helen’s story I felt such affection for her that I could not imagine writing about another woman—but then Cassandra presented herself and when her story was told I thought: This is it—I cannot top this woman. And then Hecuba (who at first I did not like because of her seeming lack of empathy for both Helen and Cassandra), demanded that her story be told from her point of view. Paradoxically I ended up giving her the most elaborate woman’s role in my play. And even though our worldviews are polar opposites and I believe her on the wrong side of history, I cried for days after finishing her story because somehow I felt her loss as my own.

When I came to the end of it I had no clue as how to get my novel published. In Paris I had adapted Nijinsky’s journal for the stage and because the reviews were unanimous in their praise I was invited to perform it (I played Nijinsky) for two nights at the National Theatre in London. But now I was living in upstate Ithaca and knew no one to send it to. One afternoon I was thumbing through an old address book and found the name of someone I had known in my twenties when I lived in Switzerland. Believing it to be an exercise in futility I nonetheless mailed him my novel and to my amazement even though we had had no communication of any kind for decades, he answered me by the next post. Unbeknownst to me he had been for twenty-seven years director of Swiss television and an international lecturer on Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

Having always been involved with the theatre in some capacity or other he immediately spotted the theatrical possibilities of my novel and we began adapting it for the stage in French over the phone (Ithaca/Geneva.) It was read as a play in a Geneva theatre over a year ago. Following the reading, a well-known Swiss actor of stage and film and membre de La Comédie Française came up to me and said: “There is no way you could have written this in under ten years.” He is not the first person to have observed this. It was easy enough on my return to New York a little over a year ago to rewrite the French stage adaptation of my novel in English, its original language. Barbara Kahn of TNC was very helpful in steering me toward a stage adaptation more actable for Americans which included more dialogue, more action, and less narrative (it had after all begun as a novel.) Despite changes in language and in genre, everything essential to the novel has remained unchanged.

I have to thank the wonderful Romanian actor, Ioan Ardelean, who immediately understood the scope of the play and carried it around with him for months even when he was in Romania. On his return we had playwright/director consultations and realized we did in fact share a vision for the play and that he would be well able to direct it. I have saved him for last because I cannot describe my gratitude to Austin Pendleton for his interest in my play and for his willingness to play King Priam on whose shoulders the “fate of humanity” lies.

Review Fix: WHAT’S YOUR CREATIVE PROCESS LIKE?

Kethevan: I studied with Lee Strasberg and many other fine teachers in New York City and appeared in several plays on the Paris stage. Both experiences helped me to enter more deeply into the inner lives of my characters—which I believe to be the reason the actors feel comfortable with the words I have given them. I researched libraries in the U.S., France and Switzerland and discovered that thousands of years ago international trade was extremely sophisticated…The kings in the banquet scene of my play all have their share of reality. The King of Hatti’s feet really did bother him and he had to miss an important meeting with his peers because of a foot ailment. The King of Ethiopia was indeed described as “black as ebony, the handsomest man alive” and according to the Amarna Letters The King of Egypt had become enamored of the color blue (cobalt blue.) I researched the history of weaving and of dye-making. Roald Hoffmann (1981 Nobel prize in chemistry who teaches at Cornell), read the novel and wrote me: “I felt I was in Troy, and in a part men don’t come to…. I am interested in pigments, so I was glad to see described the preparation of indigo.” I learned that thousands of years ago palace grounds were very noisy places with a constant clamor from the shops of smiths, carpenters and potters.

This sort of research gave me a firmer footing for my novel. But I never set out to write a historical novel—this would not have interested me. That is why I chose as a frame story one for which there exists little historical documentation—making mine the words of Finley Hooper: “The poet is not after facts; he searches for the mystery of life. And he often finds it locked inside old stories, for they are the best stories and never really old at all.”

Review Fix: WHAT DID YOU LEARN ABOUT YOURSELF THROUGH THIS PROCESS?

Kethevan: From writing this play I realized that I was able to honor the humanity of people very different from myself. I learned to that this play is like an onion (like life), you remove one layer to find another and another.

Review Fix: WHAT DO YOU THINK YOUR AUDIENCES WILL ENJOY THE MOST?

Kethevan: I believe that the audiences will enjoy the interactions between the characters, some of them quite amusing and whimsical. (One director said of Dress of Fire: “Basically your play is about family dynamics.”)

Review Fix: WHAT ARE YOUR ULTIMATE GOALS FOR THIS PRODUCTION AND FOR THE FUTURE?

Kethevan: Van Gogh wrote: “Art must deepen our inner life.” Because our culture offers us so little of this dimension—and with the collapsing of many of the institutions and life systems we took for granted, more and more people are beginning to ask the deeper, broader questions—It is therefore my hope that many people, perhaps especially the young (or young in spirit of course) can see it.

Review Fix: WHAT’S NEXT?

Kethevan: I really prefer to live the Kairos moment (the now, eternal moment) as much as possible rather than the Chronos moment (as in chronological time.) But probably once I feel Dress of Fire has been given the opportunity to make its way in the world I will simply to continue to write and to do my tiny bit toward saving our planet.