A Conversation with Director Jude Lucas, “If All the Sky Were Paper”, Porticos Art Space, by James Scarborough

Jude Lucas’ direction of “If All the Sky Were Paper” affirms her grasp of theatrical storytelling with its blending historical reverence with innovative stagecraft. With her background in theatre and education, Lucas brings Andrew Carroll’s exploration of wartime correspondence to life with a balance of authenticity and artistic vision. The play looks at the letters written by soldiers and their loved ones and requires a directorial touch that honors the emotional weight of these real-life narratives as it maintains a compelling dramatic arc. Lucas delivers.

Lucas’ experience in directing over 100 musicals and plays.  Combined with her work in community arts and gang intervention through theatre, this positions her to handle such material with sensitivity and depth.

She understands the human condition. The performances she elicits from her cast embody the layers of emotion - separation, hope - embedded in Carroll’s text.

The production design uses minimalist sets to focus attention on the actors’ performances and the letters’ content. This choice enhances our engagement. It allows the raw emotions conveyed in the correspondences to resonate powerfully. Lighting and sound design further accentuate the play’s themes, creating an atmosphere that shifts fluidly between the past and the present, between war zones and home fronts.

Lucas curates an experience that immerses us in the lived realities of those who have experienced war firsthand. Her scholarly approach, informed by her academic background and practical expertise, ensures that “If All the Sky Were Paper” is not only a theatrical production but also a poignant educational tool. By fostering a deeper understanding of the personal impacts of war, Lucas invites us to experience such themes as service, sacrifice, and human resilience.

JS: In your approach to directing “If All the Sky Were Paper”, how did you balance historical accuracy with the need for dramatic storytelling?

JL: The production of If All the Sky Were Paper is inspired by history and as such, we have a weighty responsibility. The piece serves as a conduit between our present and the past. The letters represented are not fictional accounts, not a melding of fact and fiction, and as such are a strong testament to the reality they represent, a reality not far from the ones we are experiencing today in so many parts of our world. Since we are being brought into the inner most thoughts of our letter writers, breathing life into their words and emotions allows the audience to experience their moments of pain, anguish, turmoil and glory.

Research involved in this production has been extensive and not without rigor. Whereas some historical narratives focus on culture, socio-political context, either past or present, and relationships of the characters portrayed, the focus of this production is certainly on historical facts but more importantly, these letter writers express their deeply personal response to the historical situation they find themselves in. This provides not only the historical foundation but also the dramatic backbone of the production. This balance between historical accuracy and narrative storytelling is a delicate balancing act and creative liberties can often diminish the power of the spoken word. Theatre can deliver historical narratives that resonate with current audiences.  In this production the goal has been to bring the words and emotions of actual persons on to the stage without the theatrical conventions that traditional historical narratives implement.

JS: Given your background in educational theatre and community arts, how did these experiences influence your direction of this play?

JL: Every piece of art, whether it is Theatre, Dance, Music, Visual Art and New Mediums, has a message, a lesson for us. In these days of a divided community, I find that choosing material that highlights and celebrates the fact that we are all in this world together provides the foundation for the delivery of these lessons and messages.   While we have the voices in the letters, spanning human communication for centuries, listening to the voices around me, my actors, the global and surrounding communities influenced me to find the common message that all can relate to, that many will find hopeful and will educate us all. This production is more than just a play; it's a journey through time, a deep dive into history and a poignant reflection on the enduring impact of significant events as experienced by actual persons.

Typically, the educational strand of theatre teaches method, theory and/or the practice of performance alone. Directing choices made integrates both art and education to examine and develop an understanding of the challenges faced by those who lived through the history in the letters. As with all learning activities there must be a call to action. This piece  gives a road map to reflect on, where we have been, and contemplate the path forward. 

JS: Discuss the significance of using wartime correspondence as the basis for the play. How did they shape your directorial vision?

JL: I began to look at the possibility of introducing this subject during the pandemic. Having read Andrew Carroll’s War Letters and Letters of a Nation I wanted to explore the personal thoughts and experiences of those in the midst of conflict, hoping it might illuminate our own societal conflicts and challenges.

The correspondences highlight the simple emotions, concerns, challenges and hopes that we all endure, although in the play these are heightened. This serves to provide an opportunity for audience members to empathize in the lives of these people.

My vision for the piece was to remove the ordinary theatrical conventions and make the production as simple, forthright and compelling as possible. I was not looking to add the usual trappings of stage productions but wanted to rely on the written word and simple delivery of the material. I want the audience to receive the messages as they are intended by the letter writer, the recipient of the correspondence, making them an important part of the theatre/education experience. They are not simply voyeurs but active participants.

JS: What challenges did you face in staging a play that deals with such emotionally charged and personal material? How did you overcome them?

JL: The challenges presented were resident in the emotional toll experienced by the letter writers. Often the material was so difficult to digest as it took actors, director’s and support personnel into the darkest times and events in our collective past.  Working diligently to find the hope and promise for a better future in these great pieces of human communication was an ongoing challenge as actors easily find the sorrow and anguish inherent in the material. The fear and concern were that audience members would be overwhelmed. Their ability to connect and think through the material would be hampered. These deeply personal stories took on a larger-than-life relevance to all who worked on this piece but especially the actors as they researched each letter writer and took on the results of their trajectories. The actors in this production have been courageous, dedicated and excel in their craft as artists in bringing this production to life. It could not happen without them and their dedication to the work. It was through the humanity that the writers brought that we found a place to reside in and be still.

JS: How did you collaborate with the cast and crew to ensure that the portrayals remained authentic and respectful to the real stories depicted in the letters?

JL: Collaboration was certainly the important word and work for this piece. We began by close reading and researching not only the wars, the letter writers, their lives and experiences. From the physical embodiment down to the constraints of the time the writers lived in. No detail was too small to consider and address. This was not my own platform. It was a mutual act of making theatre matter, a communal ownership of the work.

JS: Elaborate on your choices regarding the minimalist set design. How does it contribute to the impact of the play?

JL: Minimalism to approach the world of this play doesn't require the actors and audience to move into a preformed concept. Instead, it encourages and supports them to be less attached and focus on what is presented for meaning making. The richness afforded by  visual opulence, the result of a fully formed scenic vision,  can be matched by a carefully devised concept and precise staging that gives a lot of thought to the audience’s experience. The result is not scenic restriction, predetermined mise-en-scènes,  or rather freedom to engage the actor and audience in using the words of the letter writers to create a vibrant place for the action, individually, constructed by each participant, whether on stage or in the audience.

JS: In what ways do you hope the production will resonate with audiences, especially those who may not have direct experiences with war?

JL: Wars make for good stories. They continue to resonate, even though in the modern, liberal world almost all of us are spared the violence. We love stories. We follow them, create them, and embody them as a way of meaning making, consciously and unconsciously. How do we make meaning out of war? This search is an unavoidable part of human cognition. We build stories daily. We watch children create their own inner worlds as they too build stories and seek meaning through play. Our storytelling process: if this, then that. We excel at working to understand our world and our place in it to the extent that we define our group identity. This identity becomes pronounced in the face of death. War stories provide a clear sense of identity, shared meaning and a shared cause. The letter writers are self-aware. They submit to the struggle to make meaning of meaningless actions, asking how these deficiencies and failings can be explained.  Many in this audience may not have a firsthand knowledge of the wars presented. I certainly have not although my father did, my friends did. My understanding is as a bystander- protected.

I hope that audiences will see and hear that youth fight wars, not grown men who look like George Clooney or Brad Pitt. Idealistic and ready, but we forget. Often the struggles of coming to terms with the subject matter moves struggling communities into forgetting and indifference. We cannot afford to alter or conceal the complexities of wars and what they bring into the most private of thoughts and relationships. We have all been affected by violence, whether on the battlefield, on the streets of our communities, our places of worship and schools. I am hopeful that this material and the direction of the piece resonates and reinforces theatre as a thought provoking scrutiny of the laws, rules and conflicts in our society/communities, moving them to question and form their own opinions at its conclusion. As stated by one of the writers in the piece: - At some point- it just has to stop.

JS: How does your background in conflict resolution and youth intervention through theatre inform your work on productions like this one?

In my theatre studies and doctoral research I remembered a deep study of Augusto Boal’s work Theatre of the Oppressed. New York 1979. Doctoral research on addressing the need for intervention became clear as students worked to address the reason for their actions. Learning skills for this empowerment exists in the theatre. Students/ actors begin to discover their own truth and are better equipped to learn, filter, reconstruct and evolve. That’s what theatre does, not just to the actor but also to the audience. In a Brechtian fashion, it is of paramount importance that the actor/ student/ youth is able to not only speak with power but also be emboldened to examine, understand and change.  Theatre provides the safe format for these explorations. There is not a simple answer to this question as there are many strands involved in this area of education and production. Stripping bares the problems, issues or characters until nothing exists but the obvious solution which can be deeply transformative.  Boal’s work presents ways to promote social awareness of the current social situation; its limitations, attitudes, traditions and how that affects body, mind, soul and us. Through addressing social justice, conflict resolution and empowering marginalized communities, no matter where they may exist, this theatre methodology is a powerful tool and can have a deep impact on all who come in contact with it. I use these theories in the classroom and in the theatre. Whether I am successful is up to the viewer.

JS: What is the role of theatre in preserving and conveying historical narratives, especially those as personal as war letters?

JL: Theatre transcends through the ages. This may be a tool for entertainment, but it is much more than that. It began as a teaching tool. What better way to teach about the personal history of war, not through the words of a textbook but by a participant, brought to life on the stage?  I must thank Andrew Carroll for his dedication to preserving this rich collection of the world’s greatest literature. Theatre at its most divine serves to unmask flaws, expose the negative and promote the positive through social change, tolerance, and improvements of broken education systems. The role is important and often overlooked as a powerful tool in the educator and society’s toolbox. We as theatre artists and historians owe the preservation of these important and compelling first-person accounts to future generations. We owe it to the courageous men and women who wrote them, often anonymously. We must retain the humanity that shines through in these narratives to instruct and hopefully change our communities and society for the better.

JS: Are there other historical or literary works you are interested in adapting for the stage? What draws you to these projects?

JL: Oh My!!!  So many plays!  So little time! I’ll give you a quick idea of where I am going with this question.

I have been working on our fall production, an adaptation of Shelly’s Frankenstein by Robert Kauzlaric, a Chicago-based playwright, actor and director. The piece is a study in grief, not your usual horror/monster story although grief has its own sense of monstrosity.

Another piece I have yearned to produce and direct is a bi-lingual version of Fuente Ovejuna by Lope de Vega. This piece has intrigued me since I first came across it. The examination of a community and the implementation of justice are fascinating and timely.

Thank you for engaging me in this conversation. Putting my thoughts onto the page has helped me to find a new clarity and purpose for my work.

The show runs from June 21 to July 7, 2024.

Performances are:

Friday at 7:30 p.m. on June 21.

Thursday at 7:30 p.m. on June 27.

Fridays at 7:30 p.m. on June 21, 28 and July 5.

Saturdays at 3:00 p.m. on June 29 and July 6.

Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. on June 22, 29 and July 6.

And Sundays at 3:00 p.m. on June 23, 30 and July 7.

Tickets are $35. Students, seniors, and veterans $25. Porticos Art Space is located at 2033 E. Washington Boulevard, Pasadena 91104. For more information, click here.