Last Call

Mar y Darling, local playwright

Veer Mudambi

Worcester Magazine USA TODAY NETWORK

Worcester native Mary Darling’s play, “Good Grief,” opened Oct. 8 in Lowell for six-show run that sold out shortly after tickets went on sale. The play deals with the loss of loved ones and coping in the age of social media and has struck a chord with audiences after more than a year defined by loss. However, for the Southbridge playwright, “Good Grief ” is the culmination of several years of work and a personal journey for Darling from actor to director to writer. Darling sat down with Last Call to discuss “Good Grief,” the origins of the play and the possibility of performing in Worcester.

Is this a departure from previous work?

It’s a little more serious but I say that lightly since there’s still a lot of humor in it. A few years ago I started interviewing people on death because a friend of mine and I wanted to write a play together. We ended up parting ways after a while but we conducted a lot of interviews. I wanted to know more about grief and how different people deal with it.

One of the people I interviewed was my boyfriend’s sister about her dad. It was a really good interview but a couple months later she ended up dying — she was hit by a train — and it completely changed where I wanted to go with the play. We started going to a grief group and that was really insightful. I found myself in the role of grief supporter and I just felt so useless. I had never watched someone I love go through anything like that and it was really hard to know what to do or say. I listened to that interview [with his sister] on repeat and it would just kill me.

After that we had a series of losses, in six years it was more than six people like back to back to back. Seeing all these different perspectives, first from the interviews, then the grief group and then my personal life, the play just turned into something else and went in a new direction.

How long has this all been in the works?

I started interviewing people in late 2016, then this all happened in 2017 that gave it some more direction and then in 2019 I did a workshop in Fitchburg and that was really helpful. The play definitely grew a lot in a really good way.

Until about 10 years ago, I was mainly an actor and that was how I worked through a lot of things. That was great but once I started writing, it was a whole different level of euphoria. It works in a cathartic way where I can’t say stuff out loud but I can write it and see people react to it.

How did the transition from actor to writer come about?

Coming out of a bad relationship, I was at a low point, confidence wise, and it was difficult to want to put myself on stage but I had a lot of stuff to work through. So I was taking a play writing class and one thing just led to another. I think a lot of the stuff came out in that and I learned how to workshop these plays and develop them. I enjoy that process, I save all my drafts, I like to see how things develop, take things out and put them back in.

I still act and I like it, but the high from writing from it is much higher. Sitting in the audience watching people react to it — everything they’re reacting to is something I wrote. But it’s also a testament to the cast and crew — having had the experience of being both an actor and a director, I really respect all that goes into it. So as the writer, I try not to overstep and let them find their own way because they bring something completely different to it. For this, I actually chose not to watch rehearsals, so then I’ll be seeing it for the first time with the audience fully staged. I wrote it so I know what’s going to happen but at the same time, I don’t.

Challenges in production?

We actually had one of our lead actors quit about a month ago, but we were able to recast it and this new person, honestly, changed the show for the better. We actively re-wrote some things when they shared with me that they were non-binary. I thought that this was a great opportunity for representation to take and change this character that was originally just part of a heterosexual couple. It enhanced the show and offered up more relatability.

How do you feel now that it’s out in the world?

Sold out in Lowell, which has never happened to me and that’s pretty cool. Since then, I’ve had people reaching out asking if it’s going to be streamed, is it going to go up again, or if there’s going to be a bonus show. I think because of the subject matter that a lot of people feel and sitting in an audience with people experiencing the same thing, it gives you a chance to be in a collective and connect not only with what you’re seeing but with the people around you. It’s a really beautiful thing that live theater offers.

Do you think people are more receptive because of the collective grief that the world has gone through?

I do feel that the reception is much higher — I think people who thought they would never go through it have. Even not grieving a person but the time we lost during the pandemic, it was a life-changing event for lots of people. Going through a year of such loss — even if it’s not due to COVID but not being able to have a funeral and gathering, that just drags it out with not being able to lay their loved ones to rest. There’s probably a wider audience of people for whom the message of the play hits home.

I try to write things that aren’t platitudes, none of it is just like “oh they’re in a better place” or “this is what God wanted.” I think a big part of writing this was challenging that — we want more than just blanket condolences when these things happen. We want to say that it’s okay to not be okay. I think some people who don’t think they need to hear it do need to hear it. The thing about it is that it doesn’t wrap up in a neat bow, it doesn’t end on a happy note. Nobody goes through a full transformation where they’re saved and happy, because that’s not how it works — it’s a thing you deal with your whole life. It doesn’t say “hey, you’re going to feel 100% better tomorrow” because you’re not.

Will we be able to see it in Worcester anytime soon?

Hopefully! I’m talking to people at the JMAC/Brickbox soon about the possibility of a run or maybe one night only. If not, I may self-produce.

Plans for the future?

I’ve got a couple of things in the pipeline — a virtual play called “Connecting” that I’ve submitted to a few places. It profiles people during the beginning of the pandemic in lockdown who are all doing TeleHealth with this doctor so you see all their sessions. During the pandemic, theater became so much more accessible to people — breaking down cost barriers, couldn’t afford to come or didn’t have a car to get there, could see a show online and we don’t want to lose that just because theater’s back in-person.

Mary Darling SUBMITTED PHOTO