Tom: I’m sitting here with Geoffrey Hoffman who is the director of the upcoming production of Jordan Harrison’s Finn in the Underworld here at convergence-continuum and Geoff, why don’t you begin by telling the readers a little bit about what this play is about.

Geoff: The basic story is that two sisters are coming back to their old family home to clear out the final belongings because their mother’s gone to a nursing home and they’re selling the house. The house has an old fallout shelter from the cold war era and the sisters have always had a history of being scared of their own house because it’s just a little creepy to them. And one of their sons, whose name is Finn, he’s coming home to help them out and we soon discover that Finn has a connection to the house itself and this other-worldly… he’s drawn to the fallout shelter and the history that it contains.  And then we encounter a character from the past who’s there to visit, who’s known the family for a long time and develops a connection with Finn.  And then we’re sort of taken into a world of memory where they’re re-living parts of their childhood and that then blends with the present time and it becomes a mystery / horror story / thriller / love story.

Tom: You mention time there.  Can you talk a little about time, because that’s one of the interesting aspects of this play: is how Harrison plays with time and there’s, of course, clocks which are dominant?

Geoff: Yes. Yes, the play takes place in the span of one day.  But it’s not told in chronological order: it’ll jump from morning to evening to the afternoon. So you see some characters interact with each other in the beginning of the play and then later see how they first met.  And it reaches a time where we go into the underworld, as the title would hint at, where time stands still and memories take over.  And there’s also a big grandfather clock that is part of the set and pretty integral to the story as it helps the audience sort of keep track of the order that things are occurring, where at the same time being a little unclear about it too…so that the whole story isn’t clear cut.  It’s up for interpretation…in terms of what really happened…what is just the way someone remembered it…and how that is different than the way that it really occurred.  And one of the main things we see is how different characters…the character Finn in particular…interacts differently with the different people he encounters.  And I think that parallels a lot of people’s real life.  How, I, myself, act differently around my parents or my grandparents than I do with my friends…than I do with the people at work.  And I like how, for a surrealistic play, it has a lot of stuff that people can really relate to in terms of relationships with family, and your relationship with yourself.  And how your past, how your childhood, how your family memories influence who you are now. So, yeah, it’s a nice blend of the surrealistic and the realistic.

Tom: So, this is your third play that you’ve directed here?

Geoff: Yes

Tom: So, from the point of view of a director, what is it that attracts you to this play; what is it that’s attractive about it?

Geoff: When I first read the play I was attracted to the fact that I understood it…but I kind of had no idea what had just happened.  And then when I read it a second time, I saw a completely…I saw a different character’s point of view as being the main character.  So it was a completely different take on it.  And the more times I read it the more it made sense and I understood it, but I also the more questions I had. So I think the fact that it wasn’t a cut and dry beginning to end story was the biggest draw for me. Because, not only in a theatrical sort of way, it’s entertaining and confusing…it’s not just the audience wondering what will happen next, but they’re wondering what happened already that we didn’t see.  And will we see it or not?

Tom: How is this a convergence play?  You’ve been involved in…hundreds of plays at convergence…

Geoff: About twenty productions, I’ve been involved with.

Tom: So, what is it that makes this a convergence play in your mind?

Geoff: One thing is that it’s not a clear cut story. The fact that it’s edgy, it has some… I guess I’d say… sexual interaction between characters that a lot of community theaters and even other professional theaters probably wouldn’t do on stage.  Especially in such close proximity to the audience. And I think what makes it work very well for our theater is that the setting is in an enclosed space. And so the fact that we are a small theater and that confinement is one of the themes of the play…

Tom: Yeah, that was one of the things I was going to ask because the Liminis is space is, uh… comfortable…

Geoff: Yes… cozy.

Tom: Cozy.  And I was going to ask how that worked with this play.

Geoff: What makes that work well is that we try to do environmental theater…where you don’t just go and feel like you sit down and watch something that’s happening between some people that are way up on a stage far away and you can get up and go to the bathroom and leave that world and then just walk right back in.  We try to do theater that gives you the impression that you’re sitting there right with the characters sort of like a fly on the wall in the same room as them and this is just happening in front of you.  Also, the way that time jumps between scenes… I think it just goes to the type of theater we like to do.  All the answers aren’t given to you. It’s a mystery and you find out some of the answers, but not all of them.  And I think that, depending on the audience member, you’ll get a lot of different takes that some people will find certain things really funny, some people find the whole thing terrifying.  And I think it will have a lot to do with past relationships that audience members have had.  Mostly with their families. I think that if someone came to theater and maybe had a similar experience to some of the things that occur in this play… I don’t know how they might react to it… I mean, there might be a true guttural reaction. I mean, we might have audience members crying their eyes out or they might get angry.  I think this has the potential for really strong reactions and a wide variety of reactions.

Tom: It is a dark play and it does hit in some dark areas; and that’s why Harrison referred to it as a ‘gothic horror story’ it has that potential…

Geoff: Yes…and it also has…and with the way it approaches things that have happened in your past and interpretation of your own memories there…people have this sense of…even when something bad happened there’s a fondness in the memory of it, ‘cause it reminds them of a different time in their life. So, I think reflecting on bad memories is cathartic for people. Not to sound like this play is therapy for anybody, but it approaches the fact that this sort of thing, you know, can happen. People have good childhoods and bad childhoods and lots of times they grow up just fine.  Especially with the relationship between the sisters…they did not get along as children. They don’t have much of a relationship with each other now. But you see the memories they share together and how it actually brings them closer and they realize that they’re more alike than they are different…and that really, the two of them are in the whole thing together the whole time because they share those same memories together.

Tom: And you get to see a little of that coming out two between Gwen and Finn.

Geoff: Yes.

Tom: And like you mentioned, you get to see a little bit of that generational…history of a family at play because you see the tension between Gwen and Rhoda and then that kind of informs the relationship between Gwen and Finn, as well…her son.

Geoff: Right…because Finn is certainly not a mother’s ideal son. I mean, he got expelled from school, and he’s like rebellious and he’s almost Goth; I mean he’s just kind of a brat.  In one scene especially when they really start to talk to each other they find this connection that they’re so alike, and that’s pretty much the root of why they don’t get along.

Tom: So this play opens up this Friday, September 18th.

Geoff: Yes.

Tom: Here at the Liminis theater.  Thank you very much.

Geoff: Thank you.