RED by Somalia Seaton
“With RED … what I was really writing was a play about grief. A play that looks at the debris left behind when someone leaves. A play that looks at how a young girl learns to cope with no longer having her closest friend by her side. I wanted to look at the power of our minds and how we create mini-worlds in there, that wrap their arms around us and keep us comforted from the harsh realities of the outside. RED is about friendship, loss, girlhood, and grief.” (Somalia Seaton, Introduction to RED)
I directed RED in my final semester of college, as my senior thesis project. I was as struck by these words in the preface to RED just as strongly as I was by the language, characters, and world of the play. I was instantly drawn in by a story that reckoned with memory, grief, confusion, and healing through the lens of a group of teenage girls. When producing the show, and later reflecting on it in my written thesis, I focused heavily on balance: on how to put on a thematically heavy show, and fully and respectfully engage with those themes, without centering the process or the audience experience on trauma. Together, the cast and I created rituals for ourselves to step into the rehearsal space intentionally, enter the world of the play through song, and to close rehearsals with check-ins, positivity, and gratitude. By approaching heavy themes with a light touch, I sought to creatively empower both my actors and the audience to see the play in a variety of ways: regardless of whether it matched my interpretation.
Photos by Ashlyn Quintus and Johnny James.
