Interview: Miranda Rose Hall of THE KIND ONES at Magic Theatre Brings a Bold Theatricality to Characters Living on the Margins of Society

No doubt about it - playwright Miranda Rose Hall's career is on quite a roll these days. Her play Plot Points in Our Sexual Development has had well-received runs at Lincoln Center in New York and locally at the New Conservatory Theatre, she's been doing an audio series for Playwrights Horizons, her A Play for the Living in a Time of Extinction was a 2021 finalist for the prestigious Susan Smith Blackburn Prize and is about to embark on a European tour. As if that weren't enough, San Francisco's Magic Theatre is presenting the world premiere of her play The Kind Ones, which was developed through its Virgin Play Series. Her plays are known for tackling complex issues in theatrical and surprising ways. Magic's website cryptically describes her new play as "a lone Montana farmer's hopes for anonymity are thwarted when a stranger with a flyer arrives on her doorstep." But that doesn't really begin to describe the thought-provoking drama and dark humor that unfold over the course of its taut 70 minutes.

I spoke with Hall by phone just hours before her new play was to have its first preview at Magic. The Brooklyn-based playwright was in town for ten days to participate in final rehearsals for The Kind Ones. We discussed her often hard-to-encapsulate work, what led her to write The Kind Ones and why she is attracted to far-flung places that aren't often explored in the theater. In conversation, she is easily engaging and thoughtful, with a dry sense of humor. Make no mistake about it, though. Her easygoing, soft-spoken demeanor belies a boldly creative spirit. The following conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

It seems to me that your plays sometimes benefit from knowing as little as possible about them before going in. That said - how would you describe The Kind Ones?

I think of this play as a gothic thriller dark comedy about two people in rural Montana who are contending with legacies of domestic violence.

What was your original impetus to write it?

The play comes from a relationship that I formed when I was in my early 20's. I moved to Missoula, Montana to work in a domestic violence shelter as part of the Jesuit Volunteer Corps Northwest, which is an AmeriCorps-funded volunteer program, and I just met extraordinary people during my time in shelter. There's one woman in particular, who was a born-and-bred Montana gal, and she and I bonded over a dark, dry absurdist sense of humor and also a writer's disposition (she'd been a journalist). She told me some extraordinary stories about her life and her grandmother's life, and that became the jumping-off point for this play, which is a kind of mythic take on one of the stories that she told me.

I think of it as kind of a love letter to those bonds and relationships that I had in shelter, and doing my best to honor this woman who had such a big impact on my life. And it's the kind of thing where you can't stay in touch with anybody that you meet in a domestic violence shelter because there's intense confidentiality and it's just not safe to stay in touch. So I think of her as being out there somewhere and this play being out there somewhere and ...

I've read the script and I was struck by was how authentic the dialog feels. And I'm pretty sure you didn't grow up in Montana, right?

Yeah, I grew up in downtown Baltimore, Maryland and this woman in shelter would make fun of me for that a lot, [laughs] and she would sort of school me in the ways of Montana. I don't know - if she came to this play she might say, "Oh, you've gotten it all wrong. No one talks like that." But I think it's just part of my practice to listen to the ways people talk and use language. And even if it doesn't end up being word-for-word the way that she would say something, hopefully the spirit of how she would talk is within the heart of the play.

I started as a poet and I think that what interests me is constructing a kind of poetics for how people talk. And that's not like everyone will sound very poetic, but I love listening for rhythms and speech patterns and figuring out how that conveys humor and love and fear and conflict.

The Kind Ones was developed through Magic Theatre's Virgin Play Series. What was that experience like?

Oh, it was just wonderful! They brought me out, my first time coming to San Francisco, in 2019 and they gave me time and space to work. It was unlike any other new play development program I'd been a part of because they brought me out to work on The Kind Ones, but they also slipped in a reading of another one of my plays, kind of just for fun. That told me this is a really cool theater that doesn't play by the rules. Most development programs only pay attention to the one play they brought you out for.

And there was no pressure. They were like "this is all about what serves you and your process and your writing." So there wasn't pressure to have a huge public affair with a lot of pomp and circumstance. The artistic director at the time, Loretta Greco, gave me and the director the keys to her office. We just like sat in her office for a whole Saturday and restructured the play, and I had the time and space and attention from collaborators to really push the play forward. It was so refreshing after being in my bedroom by myself, like banging my head against the wall, to have people to talk to [laughs] and say, "What do you think about this? What do you think about this? I feel so confused. How do you think we can figure this out?" Which is how I like to work.

How involved have you been in the rehearsal process for The Kind Ones?

I've been as involved as I can be. It's been a bit of a peculiar process, with COVID and the fact that I wasn't able to be out here for the first few weeks. I would be Zooming in from Brooklyn because I had a staff writing gig that I was working on during the day. Because it seems that after two years of almost nothing happening, everything happens at once, and so I was tuning in virtually. Normally I would like to be in the rehearsal with everybody and watch how everything is working in the actors' bodies and in time and in space. But it's cool that at Magic you get to rehearse on the set so much.

Your director is the fabulous, and fabulously busy, Lisa Peterson.

Yes, indeed!

What has it been like working with her?

Oh, I adore Lisa. She's just wonderful. We've had the experience of workshopping together and doing some staged readings, but never had the chance to go into production on a piece, and it has been a delight. She's so sharp and funny and kind, and I find her very comforting. I can say, "Omigod, I'm lost in this part. What do you think it should be?" and she's got very clear ideas. Or she'll be able to say to me, "You know, I think you've thrown the baby out with the bathwater in this section." She's just a very good collaborator.

Your work often includes trans characters. As a cisgender person, did you have any hesitancy writing for trans folks?

I definitely don't think of myself as a writer who speaks for all trans people, but I'm married to a trans person so that is just a huge part of my life and my community. I didn't set out to like write the great trans play [laughs], but I just think about the people that I know and I love and I'm interested in spending time with onstage and in my life, and so that's why a lot of trans people show up.

Another intriguing thing about your work is that it often takes place on the margins of society, not just figuratively but literally, in terms of geography. What is that about for you?

I think that's just where I have felt very alive. The places I write about are the places that really get under my skin and in my bones and that I have felt very transformed by. Who knows - maybe one day I'll write a play that's set in the middle of Brooklyn. [laughs] It's a place that I enjoy living, but I've lived in Alaska and Montana and Baltimore and these kinds of places that are not often represented onstage, and so it feels like my attempt to call those places into the theater is so that I can spend time there, because I really love them. I lived in Alaska and felt so transformed by the landscape and the cultures and the way of life, but it's not the kind of place that I felt I could live and pursue a career in the theater, so you have to find another way of making it present for you.

It seems that your career has been accelerating recently -

Yes! Who can predict any of that? [laughs]

So what are you working on next?

I always have a small handful of projects going on. I'm working on an audio series with Playwrights Horizons for their Soundstage program. And then a play of mine called A Play for Living in a Time of Extinction is going to premiere in Montreal in March and is on a European tour. I sort of can't believe it when I say that sentence out loud. [laughs] It's going to Italy in March and it's on this three-to-five year journey with this non-traditional tour that's spearheaded by the British director Katie Mitchell, the French choreographer Jérôme Bel and Théâtre Vidy in Lausanne, Switzerland. It's called the "Sustainable Theatre?" and it's an experiment of producing theater in a more sustainable model. So this play that I've written was directed by Katie in Lausanne and then the play and certain requirements about the play will travel to various European locales where local directors and performers will realize it within the sustainability parameters that Katie and Théâtre Vidy set forth.

As a working playwright, what's the best part of your job?

Other people. Getting to work with brilliant people. And to be able to share the project with others - my company of collaborators and then the company of an audience. And then just the pure satisfaction of allowing a play to reach its final draft and feeling like "OK, I figured out how to say what I mean."

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Miranda Rose Hall's The Kind Ones runs through February 20th live onstage at Magic Theatre, Fort Mason Bldg. D, 3rd Floor, San Francisco, CA 94123. Tickets and further information are available at www.MagicTheatre.org.

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