Interview of Danai Gurira, Playwright

by Madeline Monheit and Karen Marquis
McCarter Theatre, Princeton, NJ
January 5, 2012

Madeline -- I understand that in The Convert and your two plays that preceded it, you are trying to give a voice to African women. Likewise, we say that our organization's purpose is to give voice to those affected by mental illness. In fact, we have a program called "In Our Own Voice," where people in recovery go out into the community to tell their story. What positive outcomes do you hope to achieve by giving African women their voice?

Danai -- You humanize people when you give them a voice. You allow them to be included in the global discussion. You appreciate them. You shine light on people who have been ignored. There is so much richness, power, beauty, and complexity in the African experience. I am trying to bring voice to this group with the craft that I possess, which is dramatic writing.

Madeline – At Night Out with NAMI, we will be honoring Kay and Janet Lasley, two special women that we consider to be heroic. In The Convert, there are three strong women: Ester, Mai Tamba, and Prudence. Did you create them as heroines, and if so, what heroic qualities do they possess?

Danai – I guess all my female characters are heroes in a sense. There is something especially heroic about the Convert [Jekesai/Ester] herself because she pioneers, she creates a path where there was none. When you have created something new, you are always going against the grain; you're making a change, putting something bigger than yourself ahead of yourself with all the risks completely in your awareness. I love all my characters, even the ones who do bad, bad things. They are all very dear to me. The other two female characters [Mai Tamba and Prudence], they represent very different paths, very different choices. Mai Tamba is kind of a pioneer herself; they are all pioneers. That is what is synonymous with heroine, women making choices that are different than anything they've seen before and doing so courageously.

Karen Marquis -- For fundraisers in the past, we've chosen entertainment aligned to our mission. This [Night Out with NAMI at the McCarter] is a bit of daring change for our organization. What we are trying to do is to find messages in the play that are consistent with our mission of support advocacy and education. In The Convert cast interviews on the McCarter website, the actor playing Mai Tamba says "You never know what a deed or a word will do to the heart." This comment on the play is very consistent with NAMI's anti-stigma message. It's a common thread that we found. Can you elaborate?

Danai -- There is a lot in learning how to tolerate one another, learning how to understand one another, how to navigate a world that is reeling in all different directions. [Europeans are converging on the land with their language, religion and practices.] How do you learn how to get through that? How do you still retain your sense of self? When is it a good thing to let something new in? The Convert, she let something in that did a great thing for her. It got her out of a wretched situation. It changed her, but it didn't change her makeup. She was a strong courageous girl from the beginning, but it altered her desires and her focus. For her, it was the right thing; she felt that she was more useful to the world.

Madeline – Even though your play is set in a given place and a given point in history, it has a universal message. It really does. Another cast member said that the play is about tolerance. People with mental illness are persecuted. And they don't have a voice, and they're misunderstood. Can you project from the play to all oppressed people? Is there something universal that you can take away from The Convert.

Danai – Oh, definitely. You are talking about people who do not fit into the hegemonic makeup. Some of them have certain privileges that have gotten them farther along than others, but they are all outsiders. There are some that are outsiders for reasons of gender as well. There is the struggle to navigate in a world that is designed less and less for them and trying to fit in.

Karen – When you come to mental illness, there is a biological basis to all these diseases that puts people at a disadvantage to function in society, much as people in the play were at a disadvantage in a society that was evolving for them.

Danai – A society that was evolving for them and not by them and not with their permission on their land. An invasion of self and space. How do you navigate it?

Madeline – We hear the word "navigate" a lot with regard to families affected by mental illness, especially how to navigate the system. Usually when you classify a people as mentally ill, it is because they are not behaving in a way that is consistent with the culture.

Karen – Right. Culture defines this norm. So those are the threads that we see in thinking about your play. And there was one last question. We have observed, that almost all of the people who come into our NAMI education classes, when they see the statistics of how many people in our society are affected by mental illness, they are rather struck by it. It's a not much talked about disease condition and that's part of the stigma and taboo. And mental illness involves behavior, and people think you can modify behavior, so they don't understand it like other diseases. Even when I first joined NAMI Mercer (I worked in drug discovery in the pharmaceutical industry), I never really thought about how mental illness had touched my life. But as I have been with the organization, my eyes have been opened even to stories within my own family that nobody ever talked about. And we wanted to know, if you feel comfortable with it, if you have stories in your own family.

Danai -- Yes, I had a relative who committed suicide. She had suffered from, I don't even know what it was. She had recovered, but not fully.  Ever since she became ill in the 1960s, and for as long as I've know her, she lived with her parents. I'm writing a play about family now, and I'm figuring out whether or not she will come into the story. So we'll see how she enters into the narrative.  I do think it's important. Mental illness strikes a lot of people. I've come across a lot of friends of late that deal with it in their own families.