PASADENA, Calif. — "The Body’s Midnight" is a play the explores themes of navigation.
A long-married couple is on a road trip across America, but they are also navigating new territory in their lives, relationship and health. It’s exactly the kind of story artistic director Jessica Kubzansky loves to give space to at Boston Court Pasadena.
Kubzansky helped found Boston Court Pasadena 21 years ago with the mission of producing significantly re-envisioned classics and risky, adventurous new work. She is exciting to be directing this new work with a mature woman at the heart of it.
“Oftentimes even the female experience is a neglected piece of storytelling,” Kubzansky said. “I mean, we are half the population, and I’m not sure that we’re getting half of the screen and stage time.”
The play was born out of a challenge. Playwright Tira Palmquist was out with an actress friend who threw down this gauntlet.
“The next play you write needs to have a woman over 40,” Palmquist recalled her saying. “Because here I am, over 40, and the parts are just drying up.”
This is not a recent problem. According to The Geena Davis Institute, a vast majority of characters over the age of 50 on film and TV are men. Only 1 out of 4 are women.
When mature women are given screen or stage time, Palmquist feels the true breadth of their experience isn’t represented.
“If it's a woman over 40, then it must be a story about, oh, I don't know, menopause or, you know, being an empty nester,” Palmquist said. “And it's like, 'Well, guess what? There's a lot of other things that happen to women over 40.'"
That's what immediately jumped out at actress Keliher Walsh when she read this script. A longtime company member with IAMA Theatre Company, which is co-producing this play, she says playing a fully developed multi-faceted mature woman is refreshing.
“Older women are very hungry to be represented and to be seen,” Walsh said. "And I think it's a really rich field to discover because I think there are a lot of very interesting older women.”
Women who, Palmquist is quick to point out, are only getting more interesting with time and experience, not less. She feels people who program stages or produce films and TV view women of a certain age as an insignificant factor.
“And that's really frustrating as an artist and as a woman who is doing her best to tell a lot of powerful stories,” Palmquist said. “Knowing that I have been through some stuff, but I've survived, and I'm going to continue to do so, I think that's empowering,” she said.
Speaking of surviving, Kubzansky admits Boston Court Pasadena is still navigating the post-COVID theatrical landscape. Collaborating with another group like IAMA Theatre Company is part of their overall survival strategy.
“I'm quoting a friend who said, in some ways, theater makers are second responders,” she said. “We are powerfully important in the conversation, in the healing, in the deepening of understanding.”
All of which are essential at any age.