Priyanka Shetty On Her Incisive New Solo Play ‘#Charlottesville’
Priyanka Shetty re-frames an infamous historical event to meet the present moment in her powerful play "#Charlottesville."
Priyanka Shetty’s incisive solo play #Charlottesville starts by asking, “Priyanka, where were you on August 11 and 12, 2017?”
Those days will live in infamy, not only for the brigade of torch-carrying, Dockers-wearing dickheads marching through the streets of Charlottesville, Virginia, but for the tragic death of Heather Heyer, killed by a self-avowed white supremacist who drove his car into a crowd of counter-protesters.
The firestorm set off by the protests and counter-protests, and the ensuing state of emergency and vehicular mass attack, was only further inflamed by then-President Trump’s tone-deaf, at best, comments in response.
On August 11 and 12, Shetty was a grad student, fresh from India, studying acting at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. In the years since, and following the successful debut of her solo play The Elephant in the Room, she constructed #Charlottesville verbatim from interviews with over a hundred community members, many whom she knew, as well as court transcripts and news reports.
The play is currently enjoying its world-premiere run at Keegan Theatre. Under the direction of Yury Urnov, and supported onstage by Dylan Uremovitch’s excellent projection and lighting design, Shetty performs dozens of parts, including Trump. She serves up an insightful, verbatim reading of his “you also had people that were very fine people on both sides” comments.
Juxtaposed against the actual statements of some of the alt-right rally organizers, which Shetty also performs, the Trump response appears even more outlandish. And that’s part of her point in putting their words onstage.
“In that sense, I see myself, the character I play, in the role of a provocateur, in the same way that the alt-right uses LOLz, I’m like, here’s my LOLz version of who you are,” she says.
And the humor is key. “Because portraying them, it’s a very thin line,” says Shetty. “You don’t want the play to become a platform for them. So for me, it was important to also add in that element of humor while still exposing how crazy they are. So, [Richard] Spencer gets an impassioned monologue. Jason Kessler gets a poetry slam. Christopher Cantwell gets a cabaret number. That’s my ‘LOL-ized’ version of them. And I know they hate that. That’s why I’m putting it in there.”
Playing Trump, on the other hand, takes a slightly different touch “It is really funny watching a South Asian woman play Trump. But I remember how differently it felt and how differently it landed prior to his reelection to now, where there is a certain danger and edge to it. Like, you wanna laugh, but you also kind of don’t want to.”
Shetty brings a similar edge to her portrayal of one of Trump’s cronies, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in a section that connects this story to the alt-right movement closer to her home. “Because we were, as South Asians and Indians, already dealing with the consequences of the rise of Hindu nationalism, even during Trump’s first election. That was what was going on back home,” says Shetty.
“And to see their friendship blossom, and their pictures hugging each other, like, lovers, what the hell is going on there? Then recently the video of Modi saying ‘Make India great again.’ It’s really crazy how things are aligning in a very bad way in this totally extreme right turn in both of these countries.”
#Charlottesville runs through April 13 at The Keegan Theatre, 1742 Church St. NW. Tickets are $59, with discounts available for students, seniors 62+, and patrons under 25. Visit www.keegantheatre.com.
Complimentary tickets to #Charlottesville are available to federal and non-profit employees who have lost their jobs during recent layoffs. Email the Box Office at boxoffice@keegantheatre.com to request your tickets.
For more info about Shetty, visit www.priyankashetty.com.
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