Interview with Playwright Ruth Tang, in a Spreadsheet

Drama Editor Brant Russell: In the current issue of the Review, we’re publishing sections from Ruth Tang’s WORK HARD HAVE FUN MAKE HISTORY. I was first introduced to Ruth’s work when I attended the Corkscrew Theatre Festival, produced online in August 2020. I attended the festival because I wanted to see my friend Cinthia Chen’s piece Waters_of_Oblivion.exe, which is transfixing, terrifying, and soothing all at once, and you should absolutely watch it immediately, or maybe after you’ve watched the conversation below.

After having my mind bent by Cinthia’s play, I attended Ruth’s FUTURE WIFE, which was billed as a party in a spreadsheet. The play was performed by actors and artists who entered their lines into cells in a spreadsheet. The spreadsheet had different tabs, representing different rooms of a house in which the party was hosted. The backyard’s cells were all green. Audience members could wander between tabs/rooms, as they would at a real house party, and enter their own contributions into cells as they saw fit. The form was bold and inventive, and exactly what we all needed in a moment when we were trying to discover how to live more fully online.

Below you can see a real-time conversation that Ruth and I recently had, with Lisa minding the cells. Ruth is an important voice in our contemporary theater landscape, and we were lucky to be able to chat with them. Enjoy!