An excellent production and top notch cast helped draw attention to Wildflower, and its young, up and coming playwright Lila Rose Kaplan. Although a few reviews, including the New York Times, challenged or were uncomfortable with Kaplan's choice of ending, most, including variety and curtain up were charmed, as I was, by her characters and the tale of a mother and her unusual son who escaped from New York City to a small town known for its annual flower festival.

The cast of characters includes an ex-drag queen who becomes the family's emotional and literal source of nourishment, as both mentor and innkeeper who cooks; a hard-on-the-outside-but-soft-on-the-inside forest ranger; a misfit, bubbly teenage girl; a recently divorced, struggling mother; and her son who, while intelligent, clearly has more difficulty deciphering human relationships than your average teen. While this list certainly passes any east-village political correctness checklist, it's clear that they were not created with this purpose in mind: Kaplan weaves them together in a natural way that give the audience an opportunity to see what they all have in common, and the different paths they took to reach the same end. The beauty of these characters is their realness, even when most of them are completely out of place.

We recently spoke with Lila Rose to ask her a few questions about Wildflower and her upcoming projects...

Lila Rose Kaplan enjoying the Forest

Chicktellectual.com: How did Wildflower get to the 2nd stage theater?

Lila Rose Kaplan: Chris Burney, the associate artistic director of Second Stage, has been a great champion of Wildflower. He saw an earlier incarnation of the play at UCSD, when I was in graduate school. When Chris contacted me about producing the play, he said that it had haunted him. I was thrilled that he was interested. New plays don’t move forward without people like Chris Burney and Carole Rothman at Second Stage.

C.com: In Wildflower, it seems like there is a constant feeling of being out of place. All the characters are either transplants, or are anticipating being transplanted. How did you develop that theme?

LRK: I wrote this play a year after moving to San Diego. I lived in the Northeast my entire life and San Diego was a huge shift. I constantly felt out of place. The loneliness in the play comes from that feeling of being somewhere new and not knowing anyone or where anything is.

C.com: Aside from your own experiences, you must have had other people influence your writing style. Who were they and how did influence your work?

LRK: I have been fortunate to study with three goddesses of playwriting - Paula Vogel, Sarah Ruhl, and Naomi Iizuka. Their collective wisdom has left its mark on my writing. Paula taught me courage when choosing subject matter and structure. Sarah taught me to trust the theatricality and magic in my writing. Naomi taught me to locate the question a play is asking and keep the play focused around that question. Wildflower is a testament to all three of my mentors. The magic of the watering moment is certainly inspired by Sarah. The character of Astor is an homage to Paula and her plays. And the muscularity of the writing is a testament to Naomi’s amazing discipline. I am grateful to all three of these amazing women.

C.com: I spoke briefly with actor Jake O'Conner [who plays the son, Randolph] who said that you originally had a very different ending. If you can answer this without giving anything away, what motivated the change of endings?

LRK: One of the joys of a production is having an audience for the first time. Wildflower asks ‘what are the consequences of desire?’ or ‘when does something beautiful become dangerous?’ The original ending pulled the play too far away from those questions. After hearing the play in previews, I understood what needed to change. The play now ends a few moments earlier than it used to. I love where it ends now because it leaves the audience smack in the middle of the big questions of the play.

C.com: What projects are you working on now and what can you tell us about them?

LRK: I’m just finishing up a new draft of a play called 100 Planes. The play focuses on two women in the Air Force. It explores ambition and passion and what you’ll give up to get what you want. I’m excited to start sending it out. I also have two brand new plays brewing. One is a full length about ballroom dancing in prison. The other is a 10 minute play about panda porn. What’s that you ask? You’ll have to come see the play!

Commenting on this Blog entry is closed.