Interview: Trae Harris Fights for Her Life in AND I AND SILENCE

AND I AND SILENCE is not a feel-good story.

But it's one that sheds a powerful light on the racist, homophobic and sexist society of the 1950s American South, through the lens of two young women who battle injustice and poverty. The playwright, Naomi Wallace, uses a simple set of a single bed, a chair, a sink and wash bins to double as both a prison cell and the dismal apartment of Jamie (Rachel Nicks) and Dee (Samantha Soule).

The play, whose title comes from an Emily Dickinson poem, weaves across nine years as the two women become best friends and more. Trae Harris plays Young Jamie, a black 17-year-old serving time in prison with a white Young Dee, played by Emily Skeggs. They plan a day when, both free­, they could live together and find work as maids.

But nine years older and no longer behind bars, they remain trapped.

"It's a tough play," said Harris, 26, who easily passes for 17. "The main goal is to highlight a specific time in our society." A punitive society has wrecked the lives of these two women, who continue to serve time despite being freed.

"They try to use their imagination and have plans and ideas of a better society as they hope to live together and work as servants," Harris said, "a typical occupation for women like us back then."

Young Jamie tries to pass on her domestic skills to Young Dee, and in one of the play's few light-hearted moments, Young Jamie turns a dust rag into a bird to school Dee. "It's not so much they don't have the ability to propel themselves forward," said Harris, "but there are very harsh things in their everyday life that prevent them from experiencing love and happiness.

"So while in prison, Jamie comes up with a plan, and it has to be something that she's familiar with," she said. "The only real job they can do is the same job that Jamie's mother did: a servant. In prison they learned things, like how to clean silver, how to dust, how to hold your hands like a beautiful dancer. It's like being in a boxing ring. They are prepared mentally, but once they get out of jail things don't go as planned."

Jobs are scarce and poverty has beaten down the older version of the couple. "In the beginning, the two worlds are different, but then become similar once they get out," said Harris. "It's not a memory play, even though it's about memory. They both exist, but the lines between the four women get blurred." Sometimes the two women finish each other's thoughts in rhyme, a nod to the poet perhaps.

Harris and the other cast members did a lot of research, poring through material from the 1950s that enlightened them on the way things were. "So many women were incarcerated back then for things like mental illness or depression," Harris added. "Things haven't changed all that much today. We're showcasing the 1950s but it's very much like what's going on right now." The realities of prison life have recently been in vogue, thanks to shows like ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK, in which Harris has appeared.

"In truth, it's hard to come back to society once you've been isolated from it in such a powerful way," she said. "It changes people and how they interact with the world."

A big challenge for the cast was not only to curate subtle nuances among them, but also to show similarities between the younger and mature women. "For example, we did a lot of mirroring," Harris said. "Our hand gestures would be similar and our body language would reflect on the other. We'd wear our hair the same way, and we both had little moles on our faces," she said.

"A lot of Jamie's aggressiveness comes out of fear. She carries a lot of tension in her body, legs and arms," she said. "But inside she had music and magic." Their friendship is an important undercurrent of the play. "Maybe in the first two scenes the audience might wonder if their relationship would ever work," Harris said. "Jamie is completely living in fear and she notices that Dee is not afraid. That opens Jamie up to possibilities of a better life on the outside.

"I think Jamie just wants the American Dream. It's echoed throughout the play," she said. "She wants a home, a white picket fence, a transistor radio, a husband with a good job. Unfortunately those things would be very hard for her in the 1950s, or even 1960s America."

Harris was horrified to learn about segregationist America during those decades. "People were being discriminated against in so many ways, then and now," she added.

"I hope above all else that people are able to see the relevance of these issues," she said. "The subject matter hasn't gone away."

AND I AND SILENCE is at the Pershing Square Signature Center, 480 W. 42nd St. between Ninth and 10th Avenues. It runs through Sept. 14.

Photo Credit: Matthew Murphy