The regional premiere of two-time Obie Award-winner Susan Miller's biographical drama, "My Left Breast," will be staged by Plan-B Theatre Company in its new home — the intimate, 75-seat Studio Theatre of the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center.
Miller, who has also written TV scripts ("thirtysomething," "L.A. Law"), will be in Salt Lake City on opening weekend to participate in a panel discussion with other breast-cancer survivors.
The Salt Lake production is among the first that does not feature Miller herself performing the one-woman play. Instead, it will feature local actress Betsy West, who is being directed by Jerry Rapier. The production will also have an original musical score by cellist Marjorie Janove.
"This will be the first time I've seen another person do the play, except for a French actress in Paris," Miller said during a telephone interview from her home in New York City. "The actress and her son translated it into French, and, being a different culture and language, it was easier for me to see someone else doing the part. It was very moving."
Miller didn't put her breast-cancer journey on paper until nearly 15 years after she was first diagnosed. Her cancer was discovered in the late 1970s, when she was 36, and her son, Jeremy, now a professional screenwriter himself, was 8.
She was living and working in Los Angeles when she first felt the lump her her left breast, but the first two doctors she went to failed to come up with a diagnosis. A few months later, she had moved to New York, and her doctor there not only discovered the cancer, he said immediate surgery was necessary. "My doctor here is Peter Pressman. He was my surgeon, and he wrote a terrific guide book on cancer," she said.
But it wasn't until 15 years after a radical mastectomy and chemotherapy treatment that Miller found a way to work her experiences into a script. "The removal of my left breast," she explained, "is a metaphor for the transformations in our lives. I don't write 'journalistic' pieces. It isn't a confessional. This wasn't a catharsis. I have to have some sort of literary metaphor, and finally I was able to put the breast cancer in a structure and context of other life-transforming experiences."
One of the first sentences in her script pretty much encapsulates her entire journey — "I'm a one-breasted, menopausal, Jewish, bisexual, lesbian mom." Then, in just over an hour, she touches on everything from motherhood, her romantic breakup with Jeremy's father, her career as a writer and actress, the side-effects of her life-saving drugs and, of course, her cancer.
Miller's approach to her struggle with breast cancer is different from the recent production of "Wit," in which the central character dies at the end. "My Left Breast," which was a big hit at the 1994 Humana Festival of New American Plays in Louisville, Ky., focuses on hope and survival. (Also, the script for "Wit" specifically calls for the nudity as part of the climactic death scene, but Miller, who generally shows the audience her mastectomy scars, leaves the nudity as optional.)
BETSY WEST made the decision a few years ago that she was no longer going to pursue acting, but last June, at a performance of Plan-B's production of "The Laramie Project," Jerry Rapier, the company's artistic director, told her he had "this great script."
West wasn't sure she wanted to get back onstage, but after reading Miller's script, she said she'd do it. "This is the ultimate challenge for any actor," West said about being the sole performer in a one-person play.
You might say that Betsy has not one, but two directors. Her husband, Larry, teaches directing in the University of Utah theater department, so Betsy works with Rapier during the rehearsals, and then her husband helps her with her lines at home.
"The big challenge in memorizing 'My Left Breast' is that it's not in chronological order," said West. "Some of it has a stream-of-consciousness feel, with one thought triggering another thought, then shifting back and forth. Her lover, her breast cancer, her son . . . all of these journeys are interwoven in a frighteningly nonlinear way."
West said she would employ "fake nudity" in her performance. Instead of baring her left breast, she'll show the audience a prosthetic breast.
"There is also some strong language," West cautions. "She drops 'the F bomb' a couple of times. I did a reading (of an excerpt from the play) during a banquet prior to the Race for the Cure. Several of the women there were cancer survivors. I was sitting next to an LDS woman and I was worried about her reaction, but later that evening, several women came up to me and said they had all been there. Maybe they didn't say those words, but in their totally irrational anger, they certainly thought them. But the script isn't littered with gratuitous swearing."
West also notes that although Miller has given herself several labels ("the one-breasted, Jewish mom," etc.), "I'm none of those things, but I can still relate to being sick or losing a loved one. Even if you're none of those things, this play is about being human and how we survive being human and all that life throws at you. There are all those ups and downs, but we get through."
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