Facing the reality of Sept. 11 loss

Facing the reality of Sept. 11 loss

CHRIS KELLY Karen Berkowitz is part of the Tomorrow’s Promise playwriting project, which allows young dramatists to showcase their works. Performances are May 26-29 at at New Jersey Repertory Company in Long Branch.

By gloria stravelli

Staff Writer

Living in an area directly affected by the World Trade Center disaster gave Karen Berkowitz an uncommon perspective on the tragic events.

The Red Bank Regional High School sophomore told mentors at N.J. Repertory Company in Long Branch that living within range of the disaster helped her grasp its effect.

Nine-Ten, watercolor by Meera Patel, Red Bank Regional High School, ninth grade.

"I was glad I was close enough to it because I really understood the loss," Berkowitz said in a letter explaining why she wanted to participate in Tomorrow’s Promise, a playwriting project for high school students sponsored by the theater company.

"Someone who lives in California doesn’t understand how sad it is to see everything different. I know people that were there," she said.

"I talked about how I consider myself lucky because I watched my best friend cry because she lost an uncle, and my family stayed safe. I thought my dad was on the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania, and I didn’t find out for a while that he was all right," she continued.

The first-time playwright also was worried about a cousin who worked at the World Trade Center, and about an uncle who was at work in the city.

In her letter, Berkowitz also explained why she wanted to participate in the post-Sept. 11 playwriting workshop which was funded by a $25,000 grant from the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation.

"I said I thought it would be a unique experience, and that one of the things I wanted to do was to make my work something different," said the Little Silver resident.

A student in the creative writing program at Red Bank Regional, Berkowitz’s two-character play, Unfamiliar Face, is set at the funeral of a man who died on the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania Sept. 11. The widow and an unfamiliar young woman who shows up at the funeral are the only characters.

"I told everybody I wanted them to be surprised," said Berkowitz, who won’t reveal the surprising relationship between the two or her drama’s unexpected conclusion.

Theatergoers will have to wait for that until May 26 when Unfamiliar Face and five other short plays will debut at the Long Branch theater. Performances are also scheduled for May 27-29. A discussion will follow each 7 p.m. show. Admission is free, but seating in the 50-seat Dwek Studio Theater is limited; reservations can be made by calling (732) 229-3166.

At the same time, Tomorrow’s Promise art exhibit will be on display at the theater at 179 Broadway at the same time, beginning at 4:30 p.m. on show dates.

The art exhibit was added to the project to give student artists a way to express their feelings with beauty and insight about the events of Sept. 11.

Nine-Ten, a watercolor by Meera Patel was chosen for the exhibit. The freshman at Red Bank Regional said her watercolor reflects the pervasive impact of the events.

"Everyone has felt as if they have lost something — whether it is a person, an emotion or an ability," she said.

Through Tomorrow’s Promise, N.J. Rep sought to facilitate healing in the community and help young adults explore their feelings about the tragedy through their writing.

The project asked high school students to submit writing samples and, after interviews, six were chosen to create 10-minute plays in concert with professional actors, the director, James Donovan, and the playwright mentor, Michael T. Folie.

Folie noted that only two of the plays deal directly with the events of Sept. 11; three use the events as a background and catalyst for more personal stories, and one piece doesn’t mention the events at all.

"Yet all of the stories are about anger, loss and forgiveness, about picking up the pieces and going on after a tragedy," he said. "So in a way I think they’re all about Sept. 11, even when they’re not."

The students took part in a 13-week playwriting process, gathering at N.J. Rep each Saturday.

"When we started, we brainstormed ideas," Berkowitz said, adding that actors improvised around one or two of her ideas, and a broad theme evolved into a theatrical piece. "It turned into my play," she added.

"We met every Saturday as a group. It was very structured — we had a schedule. We began by throwing out ideas. We talked about what we wanted to do with the program, then we had homework for the week," she continued. "The first week we came up with a few situations; the second week, we wrote a very rough dialogue.

"After that it became working with that dialogue more and more until it turned into our play," she added. "We worked on it at home and brought it in, and the actors ran through it. Then we’d have a critique session.

"As I sat and watched, and they read what I wrote the week before, the words came to life. It was so exciting.

"Just to work with and have the respect of people like this, and have them take you seriously, was such an honor," said Berkowitz, who admitted she wouldn’t mind a career as a dramatist.

"I would love it," she confided. "Wouldn’t it be cool if I could see my name on some billboard in California?"

"The first time they ran through my play … when it was done, I turned around, and a few people were crying," the 10th-grader recalled.

"I wanted to get through to people on a level they can relate to so much that they cry. I felt so validated," she said.

Berkowitz said the main point she wants her play to drive home is that the victims of Sept. 11 were real people who lived varied lives. She is critical of efforts to portray the victims as less.

"A lot of the plays after Sept. 11 turned out to be people starting to make everyone who died out to be saints," Berkowitz observed. "They were real people, and it seems like a lot of people forgot that, and that was something I wanted to bring out."