AN INTERVIEW WITH T. ADAMSON, PLAYWRIGHT OF USUS

What sparked the idea of this play?

I was trying to come up with an idea that would work well in Winterworks – which is done in a studio with minimal design. When I learned about the Spiritual Franciscans and their practice of simplex usus (on a podcast called “In Our Time”), that seemed to me like the perfect subject for a play in the Winterworks format. Doing the play as a full production has been interesting in that regard because we’re trying to retain the economy of gesture while also telling a more specific and fuller story. I was also just really interested in the argument the Franciscans engaged in, not about whether it was right or wrong to own private property but about whether or not it was Christian. This is the only play I’ve ever written that comes out of an ethical argument, but I just thought the different sides of that argument were immediately compelling and complex. My parents are both lawyers so I think there’s something about a long debate over precedent and exegesis that I find delightful. In a way, it’s also like doing table work on a script, parsing out the specifics of a text and trying to extract the most effective interpretation.  

You first wrote and developed and staged this play in 2018/19. How have the intervening years, both globally and personally, informed this current production and script?

Globally, I think the parallels between our world and the world of Usus have only become more obvious, which is also why I’ve tried not to belabor them too much in the script but simply have the monks inhabit their own ways of thinking and interpreting the world. Personally, I’ve gotten older which changes my relationship to the idealism and purity of belief exhibited by the monks in the play – they feel less accessible in my own life which makes me admire them more.

This play has a lot of different languages within it. Why, what are they, and why do certain people use certain languages?

I love language! It’s my job. Our language is so unstable, it’s always evolving and mixing up with other languages and modes of speaking. I’m interested in the different resonances that different forms of English give to modes of speech we often take for granted. They feel like archeological layers to me. The languages we use in Usus are:

Contemporary English: the most common language in the play. Everyone speaks this so we can understand them!

Even More Contemporary English: JP speaks this, because he is the youngest.

A Slightly Different Version of Contemporary English: Latin X speaks this, a more luxurious and cosmopolitan version of English.

Pig Latin: They use this when they curse.

Early Modern English: The monks speak this when they quote the Bible. They quote from a translation known as the Wycliff Bible which is very important in terms of the history of translating the Bible into English. It is contemporary with the historical epoch of the play and is meant to help us hear how much the meaning of certain phrases and passages of religious text have changed (or stayed the same) over time.

Latin: The legal and ecclesiastical language of the world of Usus.

Hebrew: Very briefly.

The Poetic Language of Prayer: Elevated, for God.

This play is deliberately peopled with actors whose identities clash with historical accuracy, in terms of race, creed, gender, presentation of sexuality, etc. Why is this an interesting tool to you?

I don’t think medieval people thought about race and gender and sexuality in the same terms that we do now, so any casting of these characters with contemporary American actors is already an abstraction. These monks are mostly citizens of a kingdom (Arles) that no longer has political existence, and they would’ve been speaking some form of medieval romantic dialect which I’m rendering into contemporary American English. It just made sense to me to render their bodies into contemporary American bodies as well, which to me is exactly what you describe in your question: people of different races, creeds, genders, sexualities, etc. I also think we’ve cast the play this way because in today’s world the Catholic Church is truly global in scope. When I watch the play, it’s easy for me to imagine that any of these people could be in a monastery or some other congregation somewhere right now. We’re grafting these people onto medieval French and Italian characters but the Catholic Church has also grafted its narrative onto over a billion people around the world.

See Usus at Summerworks – May 16 through May 28, 2024