Arts Listings

I was on a break at the Public Theatre in New York,” said Eisa Davis, playwright, actor and South Berkeley native, “during the second week of rehearsing Passing Strange, when I got a voice message from the actress who played the lead in Bulrusher, and she was crying. ‘Have you heard the news?’ I jumped up and screamed!” 

Davis, a Berkeley native, was recalling how the news broke that her play, Bulrusher—which opens tonight in a Shotgun Players production at the Ashby Stage—had been nominated for this year’s Pulitzer Prize in drama. 

“I called up my mother—and faked her out, telling her in a deathly tone that I had big news,” Davis said. “It was a great day. I celebrated with the others in the cast of Passing Strange. It’s a wonderful feeling to receive national recognition, especially along with the other nominees, whom I admire, as I do the jurors. It’ll be a sticker on my gravestone: ‘She was a finalist!’” 

Davis arrived in town last weekend to attend the final rehearsals, the opening and a fundraiser for Shotgun on Tuesday, “Breaking It Down,” where she’ll sing her own songs from her latest album, read from Angela’s Mixtapes and recount how Bulrusher was inspired and written. 

Bulrusher takes place in Boonville, Mendocino County, in the mid-’50s, during the time of the civil rights battles in the South and Washington, D. C. The title character is an African-American woman, an outcast and a clairvoyant, who falls for a visitor from Alabama. The script is “peppered with” Boontling, the special jargon of that part of the Anderson Valley, spoken by locals and German-American farmworkers since the late 19th century. 

“My aunt [activist, author and educator Angela Davis] was always looking for someplace to write quietly, and gradually inched her way up from Marin to Mendocino County. It became a family tradition from the ’80s for my mother [civil rights attorney Fania Davis] and me to go up with her. In a winery along Highway 128 I saw Charles C. Adams’ book about Boontling. It’s harder to do a play that has special requirements in terms of language; it has to be put on in a balanced way. The New York Times critic wrote about being frustrated, having to both watch and look in the glossary that was in the program. But I think you can pick up the flavor, pick up the meaning from context. There are enough inferential qualities; if you grew up with slang, it shouldn’t be hard. Shotgun has an installation comparing Boontling to Berkeley High slang. Or, as one character says, when the visitor from Alabama doesn’t know what they mean, ‘You don’t have to. It’s just another part of the scenery.’” 

The play began as a series of poems which a composer friend of Davis’ requested for a song cycle. “The first poem ended up as the first monologue for Bulrusher,” Davis said. “There were eight poems, and the plot emerged, along with all the characters except one, in the poems. They were so strong, I thought the play would end up presentational, in the style of [Dylan Thomas’] Under Milkwood, but it didn’t come out that way—it came out more fully formed; it wanted to come out in dialogue!” 

Bulrusher was something of a departure for Davis. “Almost all the plays I’ve written tend to be based on or inspired by real incidents. But not this play; only one incident here really happened. I was probably filling in from my experiences, or those of my family and friends. But it was more of a feat of the imagination—of letting my imagination go, to see what could happen in that town, in that time. I discovered what my themes are as a writer, what archetypes populate my landscape.” 

Davis is happy with the play being done in her home neighborhood. “It’s what’s great about working with Shotgun, with Patrick [Dooley]. They have such a great sense of community. I didn’t even know the old name of the neighborhood until they did Love is a Dream House in the Lorin. I thought it was just where I lived! Marcus Gardley, from Oakland, who wrote it, requested me as ‘mentor’ (I put that in quotation marks!) at New Dramatists, and is now a colleague. And Aaron Davidman, who directed, I’ve known since high school.” 

Davis, who was born at Alta Bates and declares herself “Berkeley all the way,” participated in student-run productions at Berkeley High and is an alumna of the UC Young Musicians Program. She’s sung here since moving back east and performed in Stew’s musical play, Passing Strange, at Berkeley Rep late last year.  

“It’s great to do the play here,” she said. “Theaters in New York liked the play, but said ‘What can we do with it? Why would people in New York be interested in it?’ It finally had its world premiere at Urban Stages last March; the artistic director there has spent a lot of time out here. And various networks here helped get the play a hearing in New York.” 

BULRUSHER 

Presented by the Shotgun Players at 8 p.m. Thursday-Sunday through Oct. 28 at the Asbhy Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave. $17-$25.  

842-6500. www.shotgunplayers.org. 

“Breaking It Down,” a fundraiser at the Ashby Stage for Shotgun, featuring Davis singing songs from her latest album, reading from Angela’s Mixtapes and talking about Bulrusher, will be held at the Ashby Stage from 6:30-8:30 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 25. $50.