For Hannah Moscovitch, writing her plays is like exploring herself with a knife

CBC

3 hours ago

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It's never easy for Hannah Moscovitch to reveal her most devastating experiences to strangers. Nonetheless, the Canadian playwright says the results are always worth it.
"I'm prouder of the plays that I've written where I've taken a knife and I've explored myself," Moscovitch tells Q 's Tom Power in an interview. "I think that they expose truth more clearly."
Her latest show, Red Like Fruit, tells the story of Lauren, a journalist covering a high profile domestic violence case. Over the course of the play, Lauren starts to reexamine her own past experiences with men.
WATCH | Official trailer for Red Like Fruit:
Moscovitch says she understands that #MeToo politics are messy — that's why her show is about asking questions, not telling the audience what to think.
"I often want to do plays that leave you with ambiguities," Moscovitch says. "[Plays] that show you nuance and sophistication, and many points of view represented within them.… Especially in a piece like Red Like Fruit. I think a lot of people who have had similar experiences are actually struggling with the fact that it's not right or wrong. Or it's not clear to them. Or they don't know."
When Moscovitch began her career, she wanted to make lighthearted entertainment, and she wanted to act. But that was not her destiny — she was raised by ardent social activists, and her drama school teachers quickly spotted that she was better as a writer than a performer.
Now, Moscovitch is a Governor General's Award-winning playwright. Many of her works have been acclaimed for offering uncompromising insights into the unspoken experiences of women. She says she wasn't willing to delve into this complex territory at the beginning of her career — it took time to find the courage.
"I got braver and I got older, and I got more willing to be vulnerable," Moscovitch explains. "I got willing to, you know, turn my own gaze on myself in a way that I wouldn't have been comfortable with when I was a younger writer."
She's glad that she's found a way to push past her fears, and connect with people who need to be heard.
"There's something original about anything that has never been spoken," Moscovitch says. "And then there's a whole audience out there that feels so relieved that it's being spoken for the first time. And they love you for it. And you feel good."