Sholeh Wolpé is a poet, writer, editor, and literary translator. A recipient of the 2014 PEN/Heim award, 2014 Hedgebrook Residency, 2013 Midwest Book Award and 2010 Lois Roth Persian Translation prize, Wolpé is the author of three collections of poetry , two books of translations, and is the editor of three anthologies. “Shame” is Sholeh’s first play, and she has worked on it for several years, tightening it the way she would a poem. Now we have the opportunity to workshop the play at the OBIE Award-winning New Ohio Theatre, in Manhattan's West Village. This workshop is a vital step to get to a full production in the winter of 2016. WHY WE'RE HERE REALLY: The greatest number of human rights violations worldwide has been and are committed against women and girls. “Honor” and “shame” play a major part in many of these atrocities. Sholeh herself comes from a culture affected by the central question posed in “Shame”: what is the cost of happiness and personal freedom? And are we willing to pay it if we are able to do so? The Iranian poet, Forugh Farrokhzad, who died at the age of 32 and is now considered one of the iconic female poets of the Middle East, poses this same question in one of her poems: "How much must one pay? How much does it cost to grow a cement wall cubicle?" Here, Farrokhzad is talking about that tiniest space in which women in so many parts of the world crave to cultivate like a plant, so that they can crawl inside of a space and be free. “The cost” often involves hurting the very people we love. What makes “Shame” complicated is that there are no villains. Not really. Every character has a point of view and is willing to defend it passionately and honorably. The audience may take sides and just as easily change sides again. At the second staged reading of the play in LA, two Iranian men got up in the middle of Scene 1 of Act 3 and stomped out of a full house. Had they stayed till the end, they might have seen and understood the arc of the characters that so offended their sensibilities. At the reception following the staged reading, the audience was abuzz discussing the two men who so noisily left the theater and how this is what theater should be able to do. It must provoke, to collectively engage, to activate, to call, to give texture, to demand, to caress, to shatter, to offend, to build and to resuscitate memory. And help us change.
