Q & A: An interview with the Playwright of Durango
By Mae E. Klingler

How did you get started in playwriting?

I owe my start in playwriting to Constance Congdon, a playwright who teaches at Amherst College. I took my first class with her and she was so supportive and encouraging. I’d taken writing classes before in poetry and prose and struggled through them. But I remember how my first play just felt right. It felt like I’d come home.

Where did you get the idea for Durango?

One inspiration was a Julian Shepard play I saw in New York called Buicks. It’s a road trip play and I thought that was such a great idea: to take something classically cinematic and put it on stage. And then I thought about other classic narratives: the family car trip, Death of a Salesman, the American dream. And I started to be intrigued at the idea of inserting an Asian American perspective into these themes. Would they still feel universal? Would the themes emerge intact or shift slightly?

What prompted you to write a piece about fathers and sons?

I’m not sure how to explain it but, early on, the voices of Isaac and Jimmy came to me, and there was something so fully formed about those two — how they related, how they talked — that it was clear this was a play about brothers. But also, prior to Durango, I’d written plays that were more female-centric and I wanted to give myself the challenge of writing for men. I wasn’t sure if I could pull it off, but I think that’s a good place to start a play from; you want to be outside your comfort zone.

What's the takeaway message for this production?

I don’t think plays are very good conduits for messages — no one wants to see a didactic play. But what theatre is great for is inspiring empathy and getting an audience to know intimately what it is like to be someone else. If this production can get an audience to go on a trip with this family, identify with them and care about what happens to them, then I’ll consider that a job well done.

You're from Arizona, and you don't speak the language your parents speak, which is Korean. These are some striking resemblances to Durango. Is this a more personal work than some of your others? How did that experience and knowledge contribute to writing Durango? And what was your family's response to this work or your career choice in general?

I’d say all my plays are personal and Durango does mine a familiar terrain. But I’d also say I deliberately make my plays not autobiographical so that I can tell the truth better. A play needs to be true to itself, not to some idea of reality. Most of my plays are born out of exploring not what happened, but what could have happened. My family, happily, has been very supportive of my writing. I think they’re surprised — we’re not a family of writers or theatergoers — but they couldn’t be more proud.

What is the overarching emotion of Durango?

I think it’s the same as most of my plays: happy/sad. Usually I’ll write a play and someone will read it and say, “It’s so sad.” And I’ll respond, “I was trying to write a comedy!”

Someone once wrote that "playwrights love road trips, with their forced intimacy amid unfamiliar surroundings—they're a way to throw characters together so that they can discover deeper truths about themselves and one another." Did the road trip accomplish something that couldn't have been achieved in any other setting?

I absolutely agree with this. Drama happens when there’s conflict. And there’s nothing that aids conflict better than trapping people in a confined space. One of the ideas in Durango is that this is a family of men that normally don’t talk. They lead separate lives even though they live in the same house, and they reveal very little to each other. The road trip makes it possible for the first time in their lives to confide in each other. In the house, a conversation would only go so far before someone turned on the TV or left the room. But on the road, the conversation can go much farther and deeper.

Do you have a Cho family road trip story for our readers?

I do remember one trip to the Grand Canyon where my father thought it’d be fun to walk down to the bottom. I guess no one told him that the trip takes all day, and most people hike down and then camp overnight. We hiked all the way down and then had to hike all the way back up. We left in the morning and, by the time we returned, it was late, it was dark and we were exhausted. We’d brought no food, no water for the hike. I don’t know how we made it back up. For some reason, I remember it as a happy memory. Ah, family.