Dramaturg's Note

by Margo Skornia, dramaturg

Stars and Stones is a play of contradictions and disappointment. The systems set up to protect Leah cause her harm. Determination crumbles into melancholy. Memory is more bitter than sweet; and again and again, promising roads lead to dead ends. The homey comfort of a loaded coatrack clashes with sterile plexiglass barriers spattered with jagged shapes.  

Unfortunately, this is what studying history is like. It is never neat and rarely easy. For every inspiring story and clear throughline, there is a mess of horror and confusion. Fredric Jameson said history is what hurts. Leah knows he’s right. Her experience with research is painful, and people keep coming along to rub salt in the wound.   

This isn’t to say the play is miserable. A thread of humor stitches the scenes together. Leah’s keen eye is quick to spot the opportunity for satire, and she rarely lets the opportunities pass her by. Joy and love glimmer from deep within the text. If I can contradict myself, Stars and Stones is a play about finding hope.  

Leah is met at every turn with confrontation and hostility. Her attempts at connection are met with aggression or lechery. In the end, a swell of ghosts – a warm blanket of history – surrounds her. She recognizes that she is not alone; indeed, she never has been. She comes unstuck in time, to borrow a phrase; she’s at once pulled backward and launched forward. History overlaps and blends like a watercolor. She finds her own strength, true, but she learns to lean on others. At long last, she is met with grace, with generosity, and with the clemency she has hungered for. Hang up your coat, the play asks her, stay a while.