This Q & A with Anna Kohler, Senior Lecturer in Theater Arts was published by Sharon Lacey on the Arts at MIT webite.
Anna Kohler (Senior Lecturer, MTA) spent a good portion of the Spring semester merrily knocking idols off pedestals. With comical derision, she toppled eminent poets Byron, Coleridge and Wordsworth, and took a couple of her own heroes, Bresson and Matisse, down a peg in three recent productions.
In March, she directed Pullman, WA and The Appeal, two exciting and subversive plays by Korean-American playwright Young Jean Lee, for the MIT Dramashop and Theater Arts in Little Kresge Theater. Kohler says, “These plays are about humor, letting go of preconceived ideas, and encouraging independent thinking.”
Pullman, WA confronts the culture of self-help gurus, TED Talks, fitness fanatics, and televangelists. In this disturbing yet funny play, characters challenge the notion that we need to “fix” ourselves in order to be better, happier, thinner or more successful. The actors forcefully delivered the countercultural message that we should just accept who we are and get on with things.
Young Jean Lee wrote The Appeal as a challenge to herself to tackle her least favorite subject – British Romantic poets. Rather than create another respectful biographical portrait, Lee transformed these revered poets into silly sybarites and skewered intellectualism itself in this irreverent comedy. The cast portrayed these literary icons with verve and impeccable comic timing.
