Five questions with Wights playwright Liz Appel
iPhoto caption: Liz Appel headshot courtesy of Liz Appel.
Set on October 31, 2024, just days before the recent U.S. election, Wights is Crow’s Theatre’s latest world premiere, a provocative four-hander about language and its capacity to hurt people.
Written by Liz Appel, who was born in Toronto and educated at institutions including Yale and Cambridge, the larger-than-life social satire follows two couples steeped in the semantics and politics of academia — at Yale, no less. When brilliant scholar Anita (Rachel Leslie) begins to prepare for the job interview of a lifetime, all hell breaks loose.
Directed by Crow’s artistic director Chris Abraham and billed as “if Edward Albee and Jordan Peele had a baby,” Wights promises to leave audiences squirming in their seats.
Intermission spoke with Appel over email for a brief Q&A about Wights, now playing until February 9. Her answers have been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Can you talk a little about the significance of the title?
The play explores the power of language to shape our world. “Wight” is a contronym, or a Janus word, so it holds two directly contradictory meanings, in this case human and non-human. So the sense of the word depends radically on context, and is a little unstable. And I’m curious how instability can be a force for transformation. I’m also exploring the ability to see and know something, and simultaneously un-see it and un-know it at the same time, as a state of being.
Why this play now?
The play is set in the run-up to the 2024 U.S. election and looks directly at this particular moment of social and political division, and how we speak to and about each other.
What’s your favourite moment from the rehearsal room so far?
There was a moment when one actor accidentally professed love to another actor and it was the funniest and the best.
Is there a moment in the play you’re most excited to share with audiences?
I’m excited for the audience to enter the world the designers (Joshua Quinlan, Imogen Wilson, Ming Wong, Nathan Bruce, Thomas Ryder Payne) and the director (Abraham) have created, and not know what’s about to happen.
Who is this play for?
The play is for anyone who loves live theatre. And likes to be challenged. And likes to be surprised.
Aisling Murphy
Aisling is Intermission's former senior editor and the theatre reporter for the Globe and Mail. She likes British playwright Sarah Kane, most songs by Taylor Swift, and her cats, Fig and June. She was a 2024 fellow at the National Critics Institute in Waterford, CT.
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