“(Be)Longing” belongs to two well-established traditions at New Haven’s International Festival of Arts & Ideas: it’s a world premiere, and it tackles provocative social issues.
The show, which was co-commissioned by the festival, has two performances June 17 and 18 at the Long Wharf Theatre. It was created by New Haven-based playwright Aaron Jafferis and avant-garde composer Byron Au Yong, who grew up in Seattle. Their previous collaboration, “Stuck Elevator” was at Arts & Ideas in 2013.
In separate phone interviews last week, Jafferis and Au Yong described the process that created “(Be)Longing.”
Au Yong says that he and Jafferis were working on “Stuck Elevator” — based on the true story of a Chinese delivery man who was trapped in an elevator for a weekend — when “I heard about the shooting at Virginia Tech. I saw the news, and had this sinking feeling that ‘Stuck Elevator’ was part of a trilogy.”
Au Yong, an Asian-American, feels a special connection to stories about other Asian-Americans who may feel “intense anger or isolation.” The third piece in the proposed trilogy is also based on a true story — of Vincent Chin, who was fatally beaten in an apparently racially-motivated incident at his bachelor party in Detroit in 1982. The connecting themes of the trilogy are “fear and oppression,” Au Yong says.
Jafferis and Au Yong were at Arts & Ideas in 2014 when British writer David Greig’s play-with-music about a mass shooting, “The Event,” was staged. They were both impressed with that performance, which involved actors and local choral groups, but Au Yong says “it was about the murderer, not the victims. It was different from the sort of story Aaron and I wanted to tell.”
“We’re calling this a ‘choral/hip hop theater forum about coming of age in an age of guns,’ Jafferis says. He elaborates: “‘Choral’ because it has singing, rap, beatboxing. … ‘Theater’ because no one knows what an oratorio is — including me when I started this project. ‘Forum’ because it’s about a community recognizing its problems and exploring potential solutions. It’s a sort of town hall meeting where the actors are interacting with each other — and the audience is also invited to take part.”
“Maybe if you’re someone who’s an early music scholar, expecting an oratorio,” Au Yong suggests, “you may go, ‘What the hell?’ But it’s a useful structure to begin with.”
Jafferis says “(Be)Longing” has “a loose structure, but I wouldn’t say it is a narrative show. It’s a meeting, with various people giving testimony.” He and Au Yong arrived at the format, he says, “in part from thinking about choral music and hip-hop. We can tell a story without a lot of staging. When we decided we wanted this to be a choral piece, it allowed a lot of people to participate.” Au Yong concurs: “We knew we wanted a big group, and to work with local performers. It added a different dimension.”
Violent acts are discussed in the show, but not depicted. Jafferis says he learned from a previous musical he wrote, “Kingdom” (about street gangs), that stage violence is not very “convincing.” He says “(Be)Longing” is “cerebral but also emotional. We spend most of our time with what comes before and after, the potential moment for intervention and change.”
“I don’t know that we’ll be rewriting ‘(Be)Longing’ every place we do it,” Jafferis continues. “Some of the words and places that audiences contribute to the raps during the show are the main ways the piece will change from city to city.” The built-in variations have gotten a real test. “We developed this show in eight different states, in stretches of one week to one month.” Following the Virginia Tech, Miami and now New Haven performances, “(Be)Longing” is in the planning stages for productions in San Francisco and Boston.
Working in his home town of New Haven has been especially fruitful, since Jafferis has been an active part of the city’s arts scene for decades. He was in the ensemble for Cornerstone Theater Company’s production of “The Good Person of New Haven” at Long Wharf Theatre in 2000, performed a Shakespeare-based rap at the International Festival of Arts & Ideas and worked with the community-based Bregamos Theater in the Fair Haven section of the city.
“One of the exciting things about casting this piece in New Haven,” the playwright says, “is that there are many people in it whom I knew already, but none of whom I knew as theatermakers. They’re teachers and organizers who also happen to be amazing singers and rappers.”
(BE)LONGING is performed 2 p.m. June 17 and 18 at the Long Wharf Theatre, 222 Sargent Drive, New Haven. Tickets are $20 to $55. artidea.org.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct the city where Byron Au Yong, grew up. Au Young grew up in Seattle.
