10 questions: Hannah Moscovitch

1) What the fuck is going on?
I’m writing a lot.

2) Why do you write plays?
Oh I don’t fucking know.

3) Do you tend to feel satisfied with your final drafts, or do you obsess over what could have been better?
I’m always engaged in refining my work. I’m holding off on publishing one of my plays because I want to continue to work on it. Some of the plays I’ve written I know are complete so I don’t obsess over those ones.

4) How do you feel about the idea that Canadian theatre panders to a “cultural elite”?
Panders to a “cultural elite” as in “intellectual elite”? I hope theatre does that. I tend to like the theatre that assumes as a premise an intelligent audience. I think we often pander to the Euro-centric financial elite, is that the question?

There’s a historical relationship between the affluent classes and the artist and that hasn’t changed. And theatre, as it arrived in Canada, is a European art form. It’s hard to shake that off.

5) How much of your work is informed by a sense of anger?
The satires I’ve written are.

6) How interested are you in the marketing side of the theatre business?
I’m interested in the way my work is being represented, and what demographic the marketing and publicity is targeting. I produced my own work for the first years of my career so I marketed and publicized it myself. I pay attention to it.

7) Would you prefer to be known as a “revolutionary” or an “evolutionary”?
I don’t know. I write the work. It’s the work and not me that determines which of those I am. I may have a sense of what I’m trying to accomplish with my work but I don’t think it’s for me to decide questions like that.

8) What’s one of your fondest memories of your time in the 2006 Tarragon Playwrights’ Unit?
It was a clever group of people. I liked our first meeting as a group. We talked about the projects we were going to work on during the Unit. We were very distinct. I was impressed by the fact that we all approached the work in a markedly different way but that we were all able to articulate our approaches so intelligently.

9) Who are some of your favourite contemporary Canadian playwrights and why?
John Mighton, George F. Walker, Judith Thompson, Daniel MacIvor. Because I admire their art.

10) What are some of the questions that on your mind these days?
Has evil triumphed in our time?
What form will the revolution take?
To what degree are we responsible for the other people in our society?
Is nationality still the locus of identity?
Does art have to be a formal experiment to be a good piece of art?