Interviewee: Kate Phelps

Interviewer: Kiera Feldman

Category: Theater/Women's History

Date: July 18, 2006

Location: by telephone

Word Count: 8446

Length: 1:08:58

[00:00:00]

Kiera Feldman: Well could we begin by you um introducing yourself and giving today's date and where you are?

[00:00:07]

Kate Phelps: Today's date-ooh that's a trick question. It's July 18th and um I'm sitting in my office at Industrial Economics where I'm the manager of human resources. This is an economic environmental consulting company where I've been since '99 as their first HR professional. And I've been in this particular field since god 1992. Um few years after I returned to the States. Is that what you asked? Yeah

KF: And also, could you introducer yourself-as in your name?

KP: Oh you want that [laughing]? My name's Kate Phelps and it's been Kate Phelps all my life. And I'm 55.

KF: Great so what year were you born and where?

KP: I was born in Boston in 1951 and grew up in and around the New England area, mostly following my mum, who was a teacher and then a school administrator. Um from Boston to Needum to Bennington, Vermont, back to Boylston, Mass, Concord, Mass, Wellesley, Mass. In the early and later years of my elementary and high school, living in the schools that my mum worked at.

[00:01:32]

KP: And I graduated high school in 1968. And from there, went my first year, as a freshman to Northwestern University where I was a music major. Dropped out my first year of college and moved into Cambridge. Actually lived with a high school friend in Cambridge where I did a couple of things. One I worked on the 3-11 shift at Boston City Hospital for an income. And I started working at the Caravan Theater, which was an ensemble theater company that was located in the Harvard Edward Church in Cambridge, Mass. After about a year it was understood that I was to go to college and finish at college. There was no question about that. And I applied to Brown and got in there.

KF: [interrupting] And-

KP: Yeah go ahead.

KF: What did your father do?

2:34

KP: My dad was in his earlier professional life had been a musician and was most of his life an alcoholic and doing odd jobs and just trying to survive. My mum was a teacher and then became deputy head at Concord Academy and then head of Dean Hall [sp] School in Wellesley then went on to run the Grove Club [sp?] of America. And I think her final professional position was at the Harvard School of Education where she worked with Carol Gilligan [sp] on psychology of girls. So that was the person whose professional-and personal-life kind of was a, was a model for me of being a single professional woman.

KF: And when you got to Brown, what kinds of activities were you involved with?

[00:03:40]

KP: Well, frankly I was a bit of a raver, that's for sure. I always hooked up very early-there was no theater department, but I took all the theater courses they offered. Um and I became quickly involved with George Bass, who was a extremely thoughtful, bright, and able theater director and had started I believe the Rites and Reason Theater Company. I...also, not just in terms of my kind of intellectual interest, but also personally I fell in with mostly African Americans at Brown. I was a radical. I had been a radical feminist and, if you'll remember the time when I was around college, the Vietnam War was going on. I remember watching the developments in Chile with horror. Um at the time of graduation, Nixon was finally being ousted.

[00:04:49]

KP: So...and I was very impressed and not new to the whole notion of what was going on in South Africa and the deep racism in the United States. So it was a kind of logical marriage. I identified as a feminist with what black Americans were going through.

KF: Could you explain that connection between feminism and African Americans?

[00:05:20]

KP: It's hard to because now it seems something of a stretch. But at the time I think I identified with people who didn't feel they were being served by the system. Even though I had a very privileged in terms of education, I was really fortunate and blessed growing up. I knew that what was on offer to Americans-or that was my impression-was really exclusive. And that most uh black Americans and certain American immigrants, immigrants to America, didn't have the benefits that I did. And you could really see it sharply at Brown. They had just merged with what had formerly been Pembroke and so noticeable statistics like what proportion of the student body were men and women, what proportion were black and white, um, these things...

[00:06:24]

KP: And Brown was very progressive. We had been blessed with folks like Ira Magaziner who went before us, who had come in and brought in um the option to study what you wanted, to major what you wanted, to invent your own major as I did. Mine was Creative Women's Studies. I kind of put together women's history and anthropology and psychology and theater and playwriting.

[00:06:54]

KP: And, so I guess I easily identified with the gay movement and black rights movement. I couldn't-and that was the obstacle-I couldn't be in the black power movement. It was very segregated of course.

KF: So your friends were in this movement and you were not?

[00:07:15]

KP: Well I was an active feminist and I participated to the extent I could with um black students at Brown in theater productions. I fell madly in love with a black actor who had come out of the Black Panthers. And I kind of felt on the edges of the white community in Providence, even though I had some very good friends um in it. So...it was a funny time. I think I would have thought that everybody in the world was politically as active as I was. It's kind of can be a self-centered time when you're at college and I just thought well everyone's into this, everyone's reading slave narratives, everyone's getting used to-

[00:08:10]

KP: That was the time when...Angela Davis had been arrested-she was on the FBI's most wanted list. And I felt those things very deeply. I can remember being in a picnic at someone's house in Providence, black family's home in Providence, and the kind of celebration when she was released. You know so, it was a, it was a lively time. There was a lot going on.

KF: How did you come to make so many friends who were African American?

[00:08:52]

KP: I think partly through George Bass. He was a gentle spirit, and also a-obviously he was a professor. He was somewhat older. Although he married someone in my class, so that made him more accessible. And he ran workshops. I took jazz poetry workshops and writing with him. And that allowed me into a kind of milieu. We did performances in downtown Providence, which in those days you didn't go to downtown Providence from the hill because it was seedier than it is now. Um and that was to some extent an entr�e. It was definitely a personal and psychological entr�e, even though I most of the time felt like a light bulb because there weren't a lot of white people hanging out.

KF: You started to go here, but how would you say your African American friends influenced your politics?

[00:09:58]

KP: It reminded me that I was living in a very exclusive world and that, that America was not just the land of plenty. It gave me more of an international perspective too, because the folks I knew identified earlier and more often with Arabs. In those days one rarely thought of the Arab countries. But it kind of made me more sensitized to what else was going on in the world. And certainly I had a notion that there was a diaspora, that there was a world out there peopled with African people.

KF: Are you talking about Brown students or did you have-

KP: Mmhm.

KF: Did you have friends in the broader Providence community?

KP: Not so many, no. It was mostly Brown students and a lot of-not a lot, a number of the black students at Brown came from places beyond Providence, obviously. Some were from the Providence area but I think I started to know more about the South through black students. I didn't know a lot of Southern white people.

KF: Hm. And uh how would you characterize the relationship between the civil rights movement and the women's movement?

[00:11:30]

KP: Rocky [laughs]. Um, they were exclusive camps, understandably. And I for a long period dated a black student. And there was-and I'm sure I didn't know to what extent that existed-but there was um, I think feelings like 'what are you doing dating one of our men? He should be dating a sister, not a honkey.' Um, and there was as much tension not just between race but class. I was definitely a middle class girl. And um...I felt, in hindsight I'm wondering if that was just me being particularly oversensitive but I felt kind of doublewhammied by being not only white but middle class as well.

KF: And how would you characterize the relationship between the gay rights and the women's rights movement?

[00:12:38]

KP: Again, rocky. At the time-although it wasn't as widespread then-there was a lot of feeling of necessary separatism. That the women's rights movement shouldn't be watered down by a bunch of heterosexual who wanted to talk about how could they have healthier relationships with men. Um and it wasn't unusual to have women only plays. In fact, in RIFT we did talk about and eventually have women-only discussions after plays. And some were mixed and our experience of them being mixed was the men dominated. So there certainly was a degree of some lack of self-confidence and feeling of maybe chip on our shoulder about the men. They just ran everything in our estimation.

[00:13:49]

KP: So for lesbian women at the time it was don't dilute the movement.

KF: And how did you feel about that?

[00:14:01]

KP: I understood it, but I also was a heterosexual. And I wanted my cake and eat it [laughs]. I wanted to be able to feel the passions I genuinely felt about things like abortion, the right to choose, equal rights equal pay, um and not be segregated just into talking to other women.

KF: What do you mean 'you wanted to have your cake and eat it too'?

[00:14:40]

KP: Well, let me think of an anecdote that can describe it. In those days, consciousness raising groups were very popular. And like most people today might be in a book group, you know, with women who meet together once a month. I was in a C-R group with a handful of women. And I think we'd spend a healthy two hours, whether it was every week, every month, I really don't remember. And it maybe didn't go on for more than a year or so, but you know, bitching and moaning about men and faking orgasms and what jerks they were and you know how unfair things were and how they got all the perks. And then I'd go off and you know, fuck 'em for the rest of the week. It was a very disconnected orientation. And I remember thinking at the time how unfortunate that I fall for and certainly in one case was in love with someone from the enemy camp.

KF: So you did uh, you did think of the-is that the Rita Mae Brown quote, don't uh fraternize with the enemy, or something like that? Did you ascribe to that?

[00:15:59]

KP: I didn't, really. But I certainly felt duplicitous. Because I...or I felt maybe weakened because there was a lot of me that was very male-oriented, I think that was the expression.

KF: What did it mean to be male oriented?

[00:16:21]

KP: To care what they thought, to want them to love me.

KF: Well alright I'll go back to that later for sure. But I forgot to ask, were you involved in the anti-war movement?

[00:16:35]

KP: I was, yeah. I think my perception is wasn't everyone [laughing]? Yes, I was.

KF: In what capacities?

KP: Um I certainly went on my fair share of demonstrations. I had actually starting going with I think SDS [Students for Democratic Society] who was laying on the coaches that went to Washington. And I continued going to meetings they held. Although I wasn't enamored by the relations in SDS. And after um starting at Brown I felt that it was too white an organization. That sounds funny-I'm a white person. But I started adopting the expression 'white boys.' You know, that's a white boy outfit. But politically-

[00:17:27]

KP: And then I started taking the Communist Party daily paper. And that wasn't just to read up on Vietnam, which was pretty widespread and you could find stuff out about Vietnam. But the lead-up to the overthrow of the Allende government. I remember reading about in advance that it happening, and I remember thinking surely this can't happen. If we know about it, why can't we stop it? So I wasn't a card carrying member of anything but I went to meetings, I bought literature, I sold literature, I went on demonstrations.

KF: Why do you think SDS was too white, as you say?

[00:18:08]

KP: I don't know. I think it was just my um my allegiance while I was at Brown was very much with the black community, even though I wasn't a part of it. To some extent because of my uh my boyfriend and my couple of my best friends were black. I was um...by very few people, but I could feel it, was treated as an outsider by the white community.

KF: And how would you characterize the relationship between the anti-war movement and the women's movement?

[00:18:54]

KP: I think that was closer. That was the days of 'women say yes to men who say no.'

KF: What's that?

KP: It's Joan Baez, I think. Or maybe it was her sister. I think it was Joan Baez who said at this big poster, you know, effectively for the first time in our lives we were proclaiming as feminists what we do with our bodies is up to us. And then the twist on it was and you'll get lucky if you're against the war.

KF: I'm not quite sure I see the connection. Could you maybe elaborate?

[00:19:42]

KP: Well...um women would say yes to men who would say no to the war. In other words you'll get lucky tonight fella if you're an anti-war activist. And if you're not you know don't' come snooping around my door. It's very hard to explain stuff that's so distant now.

KF: That's alright you're doing a good job.

KP: [laughs]

KF: Um...uh. Ok. So what did it mean to you at the time to be a feminist?

[00:20:20]

KP: I think it meant uh...fighting for options for women that I knew, partly through my mum and some of the role models and friends that I chose, that women were very able and that we weren't yet being represented politically or at the highest level in organizations. One of the things that I watched with delight was the increase of female student ratio at Brown. But it was the right to get good birth control. They had just come out with the morning after pill which made a few women I know who took it sick as dogs. They had what was it called the IUD which carved up a lot of women. Rape was still a big problem but it took another form in the form of date rape after my era. That wasn't-we didn't even call it date rape, it was just um a danger of being-what was the term...you know, of being sexually active.

[00:21:56]

KP: So I think uh part of it was wanting more social influence and the right to do what uh our abilities should have us do. And I think underneath there, this is true for me-I can't speak for other women, there was a kind of misunderstood longing. I wanted to be able to um marry the two sides of myself which felt quite distinct at the time. Which on the one hand was my abilities and my strengths and my sense of humor and my sense of independence. And I also wanted to be able to feel safe and happy and you know like I could have a family. And that really didn't seem likely in those days. And I would look at my sisters who were you know going down the aisle and getting married, and think-well I didn't even think I'm jealous or how did they do it, I just didn't connect. Didn't see how it was possible.

KF: So why do you think RIFT [Rhode Island Feminist Theater] was necessary at a time like that?

[00:23:17]

KP: I'm-to be absolutely honest, I'm not sure I thought it was politically necessary. I had the same point of view about RIFT as I did later on when I became a playwright which is, if I'm thinking it, I bet other people are too. And I had a sense that there was a social um appreciation for having our stories told from the stage. It kind of gave it a stamp of approval. This is real.

[00:23:52]

KP: Our very first show came out of um I think whether it was me or Jessica [Murray] or somebody read an article in maybe it was Ms. Magazine about a fat camp where women go to lose weight. And it just resonated with me, that whole self image stuff, the fear of being fat, the pressure to look better. And inside the enormous resentment-why don't men have to worry about those things? So it wasn't a you know a great wildly you know political this is a necessity stuff.

[00:24:31]

KP: And if I recall correctly, and I may be wrong, but I think some women thought well these are middle class issues. Only white women worry about this stuff. Elsewhere feminists and women are thinking about how do they keep bread on their table or protect themselves from stalking-stalking wasn't the thing then, but from harm. From rape, from murder. Um so ours were maybe fairly precious notions, but I felt them strongly and it never occurred to me that other people didn't. And I'd seen uh working at Caravan Theater. I used to enjoy the conversations, the discussion groups after the plays. And women and men together would talk about 'this doesn't feel right. We can do better.'

[00:25:30]

KP: And so the actual events leading up to my thinking up RIFT was that my boyfriend had fallen for somebody else. There was some gorgeous dancer from Boston. And he'd gone off in that direction and I was dying inside. I remember not being able to eat for months at a time. And I came back from a long train ride. I'd been down at my sister's in New Jersey. And I thought 'huh. I need to do something with my senior year.' Because this boyfriend isn't there and I was always an activist-when in doubt, do something. And just on the train ride I think, I remember jotting down some notes and thinking I must talk to Jessica about this. It occurred to me 'well they've done it with Rites and Reason, they've got a good company together." There was a lot of facilities at Brown, and even it Brown couldn't help us I knew that George Bass would give us a hand. And he did.

[00:26:43]

KP: And I thought, 'let's get a grant.' That was easy-the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller foundation. People were giving money for initiatives like this. And we were all there anyway.

KF: You said 'they've done it with Rites and Reasons'-did what?

[00:27:05]

KP: Got together a theater company, you know, kind of an umbrella that could, that said this is what we're doing. We're doing black theater. And in our case I thought-and actually I think the name came to me. It just seemed such a delightful irony that the Rhode Island Feminist Theater would spell RIFT. And I thought 'well it's a no brainer.'

KF: And were you aware of any other feminist theaters at the time?

[00:27:32]

KP: Yep, the Caravan Theater in Cambridge, which I'd worked at. And I'd certainly seen a lot of ensemble companies that weren't dedicated to feminist theater but they were progressive politically. So that it didn't seem like a leap to go from ensemble theater companies that addressed sort of issues of the day um what's the big puppet theater up in Vermont? I mean I'd seen a number. The Manhattan Project out of New York City. I'd seen, there was a group out of Omaha, Nebraska of all places. So the concept of an ensemble group that works together to improvise and then develop scripts out of that improvisational work was a model that I was very comfortable with.

KF: How do you think RIFT compared to these other theater groups that you just mentioned?

[00:28:41]

KP: That's a good question. I don't think that we were as professional. We were younger. Um [laughs] and I in my kind of exuberance assigned myself the role of director. Well I was no director. You know I directed a couple of gigs at Brown, but I just had enthusiasm. I didn't particularly have skills or a great deal of knowledge. So I don't think we could have been as good. But we certainly had enthusiasm and passion and that can go a long way.

[00:29:24]

KP: And individually there were lots of talents. Mark Halliday was a good writer. Denny Sykes was delightful on stage. Jessica [Murray] not only you know was a bright um sensitive woman but could pull off a whole-she played the Johnnie Carson in our Johnnie Show. Or the female version of that. So there was a lot of available talent. Dan Murphy was a good builder-worked with us in construction and design. I mean, so there were individual talents. Certainly the actors in the group were imminently watchable. And inventive as...you know, in their improvisation?

KF: How did you gather the group of Brown students that you did?

[00:30:21]

KP: [laughs] I don't know. I really don't know. I think I knew Jessica [Murray], and she was going with Mark [Halliday]. And I'd acted with Denny and liked him a lot. He was I think roommates with Dan [Murphy]. And Lucy Winner was in a lot of my classes. And I knew she was interested in the subject matter. And how we got the folks out of Mary C. Wheeler [high school] I don't remember. Dan [correction: Fred] Radway had a great sense of humor. He was in and around the acting classes. I don't remember. Maybe it was the people who had the balls or were stupid enough to do it, but [laughs]. We just, or they might be remembering. I'd be interested to hear from them how it happened.

KF: They all say to ask you.

KP: Do they?

KF: [laughs]

[00:31:10]

KP: Oh god! Well it's funny. I just remember coming up with the idea. Which embarrassingly enough came out of you know a disappointment in love [laughs]. How can that be the basis of a feminist theater, but hey.

KF: Um, so, let's see. I should probably back up just a little bit. And if people have never heard of the Rhode Island Feminist Theater, what should they know about it?

[00:31:44]

KP: To be honest, I don't know that much about it. I only participated at its founding. Um and I had left-I got an Arnold fellowship when I graduated and left Providence in November after I graduated. So I was aware that we did three shows. Um...before I left. And I guess what I remember about it is that it was people who were not afraid to stage the turmoil-emotionally-that they were feeling. And that that resonated with our audience. And I have to say with hindsight that the...the men that participated with this must have had balls. And a good deal of patience. Because they were dealing with some very angry women. And they had to put up with our weirdnesses.

[00:32:54]

KP: I remember we rehearsed in a gym at one point. And at break time they'd pull out a basketball and shoot the net for you know to ease the tension. And we the women would even bitch about that [laughs]. We had a lot of stuff we needed to work through and we were lucky we had each other to do it with, in my opinion.

KF: Can you tell me more about why you were angry?

[00:33:30]

KP: I think partly it was the stage of our lives. There was the sense of enormous opportunity and responsibility as women. We knew things were beginning to crack open for us-that scholarships and fellowships were becoming available, that options to go on in medicine and law were beginning to open up. Uh the opportunity to hold more senior roles in you know business organizations, although that didn't interest me particularly. The opportunity to be political leaders and writers and all of that was opening up. And yet there was an almost ancient pressure on us to couple up and have babies.

[00:34:23]

KP: And our sexuality was on the one hand either something that you you claimed as your own. And I recall not without some embarrassment that my idea of appropriate sexual behavior was to do whatever the guys did. And if that meant sleeping around well sure, if they can do it I can do it. But I couldn't-and to some extent I really enjoyed myself. I won't pretend I didn't, but it wasn't entirely what I wanted. What I wanted was to feel secure and loved. And to have this independence and success. And I feared deeply at that age that I couldn't have both. That you either had husband and family, or you had a career. And I think that was the hangover of the generation that went before us. Maybe that was just me, but I felt very insecure about making a commitment to any man because the notion that once married I'd have to change my name, you know I wouldn't have rights over my own money, I wouldn't have rights for the kinds of birth control I wanted. There was all kinds of um tension between uh the choices that were beginning to be available.

KF: So why explore these issues through theater?

[00:36:05]

KP: It's what I knew. I think of theater as-that's what it's for. It's for human beings to take, to communicate with those understands that we share socially. We're a social creature. And theater is a way of sharing our passions and our fears and our choices. It's just what I knew.

KF: And on a similar vain of thought, how were art and politics related do you think?

[00:36:42]

KP: Inseparable.

KF: How so?

KP: I can't imagine one being without the other. Um because art is an expression of our social experiences and hopes. That's in fact what politics is. It's an expression of how we interact. And so I...and in fact when I was that age-although I liked a lot of theater, the theater that resonated with me was almost by definition so-called political theater.

KF: What-when you say political theater, what's political theater?

[00:37:39]

KP: Well now I think it has a broader embrace. But I I think I had in mind, you know, traveling companies that go up and down performing at community centers or street theater or strike theater or prison theaters or you know activist theater. And I was also a lover of Bernard Shaw and Eugene O'Neil, which I also found very political.

KF: How do you think your reasons for wanting to be in a feminist theater compared to the other members in the group?

[00:38:27]

KP: I don't know. I guess we all had our own reasons and that's what made it happen. I...I can remember a tension amongst the women of...that I believe we shared, which is we wanted to think of ourselves as lovable beings, but we didn't want to be taken advantage of. And working in a feminist theater and starting one and writing our own material gave us a certain um...power over our own lives. And the extent to which we could be open and vulnerable about what our fears and hopes were empowered women in the audience and sometimes men. And that felt great.

KF: How would you describe RIFT's relationship to a broader feminist movement?

[00:39:34]

KP: ...Um I guess any political or artistic development is-beginning and end-a pretty subject experience. People do it because they feel the need to do it. It's self serving in that it helps you address things that are buzzing about in your heart and brain. And it's also-you feel like you're doing some level of service to other people who are maybe experiencing the same stuff. Nothing's more fun than going to the theater and being able to laugh at yourself and feel certain comradeship with the folks who have written the play. So I don't think it is-although our focus might have been couldn't have been otherwise. It was reflecting a kind of privileged layer of white youngsters in the middle of a pretty tumultuous period of time. And not for nothing-we were having to invent things which touched very intimate places. I mean it may be that my mum's generation talked brazenly about faking orgasm but we wrote papers about it, you know [laughs]. We thought we were discovering stuff. And there weren't a lot of role models for being independent. There weren't a lot of role models for um having as much sexual choice as we did then.

KF: Did it seem problematic that as you said you were a bunch of white youngsters but most of your friends were African American?

[00:41:34]

KP: I-yeah it was in a way. But I was extreme-I felt connected and a lot of that had to do with George and Mona Bass. That sounds odd to say because they didn't participate in what we were doing, but in terms of a kind of role model. There was permission and encouragement to explore what was problematic for us. It wasn't yes you're black you have these problems. It was yes you have issues that you need to explore.

KF: Why do you think there weren't black members in RIFT?

[00:42:18]

KP: Never occurred to us that they would want to be in it. And I don't imagine to this day that they would have wanted to be in it.

KF: Why do you say that?

KP: They had their own theater. Rites and Reason. And I think our focus was as I say um on ourselves.

KF: Let's see, so about including men in the theater. You said that they had to have balls to be in the theater. So my question would be why did you think it was important to have men in the theater?

[00:43:02]

KP: I-well for one thing, it was easier than portraying um the male/female dynamic in drag. We wanted to have the real dynamic there. Plus, you know Denny and Dan and Mark and Fred-these were friends of ours. We liked each other. And I'm sure with hindsight that they didn't have as loud a voice as we did. But they had their own interest and they brought a male dynamic to this tension. It was a real tension.

KF: What were some of the tensions that arose from having men in the theater?

[00:43:57]
KP: Were they being used by us to tell our story? What was their role in the discussion groups? How did they walk that fine line between being assertive and being direct and saying what they thought, and overwhelming us. And then we'd criticize them for being arrogant or bossy or overpowering.

KF: How did you resolve those tensions?

[00:44:27]

KP: [laughing] I don't think we ever did! I think we just lived with them and staged them.

KF: So what role do you think sexuality played in RIFT?

[00:44:41]

KP: Um...I think I don't know, but my impression is that we were all at the time heterosexual. And I think that played a big part in the decision not to just do a lesbian theater. And in a way that gave us permission to-I had more things to laugh at with...men in the group because they introduced me to more ways of thinking than I could have conjured up myself. And they also...helped, forced, the women to look at themselves a bit more closely. We might have gone more easy on each other as women had there not been a male participation. Because the inclination is that we would--understanding why we behave in sometimes opportunistic or low self esteem ways, we couldn't do that. We had to shine a pretty bright light on all of us.

KF: There's a quote of yours in the Brown Daily Herald in '73 that says um 'we have to learn something about men to understand the movement. What did you mean by that?

[00:46:25]

KP: I'd say I'm not sure except I personally didn't have brothers and had never or for a long time live with a father, so I really didn't understand what made them tick. And so that's just speaking from my own peculiar background. But I think in the same way as some of the conversations I've had with blacks who never had to know whites as well as they had to know them when they went off to college. It's hard to understand the enemy until you get to know them. Or what you perceive to be the enemy. You think well why do they behave this way, why do they play basketball, why don't they have long talky relationships like us girls do. What makes them so ambitious, why do they orient themselves towards power. And not understanding, or why are they less than interested in babies and married. Those are archetypes, but maybe not so true anymore. In those days I did not understand why men were the way they were.

KF: And um how did you think lesbianism related to feminism?

[00:48:00]
KP: I think the...the support that the women's movement and the lesbian movement could have had-and did, to some extent have-um towards each other. We were under a gun. And there was a pressure to kind of put down anything that budged that was going to change the status quo. I don't mean conscious, I just mean a natural reaction. Power wants to stay in power. And if you start having a long and a widespread and large movement that's trying to unsettle-destabilize that power, a normal reaction is to divide and conquer. So I think that folks in the women's movement and lesbians in their own struggles felt that pressure to be divided. You know it was kind of like if you were a socialist, people would say well go move to Russia. And if you were a feminist people would say well what are you, are you a dyke? It was an intimidation.

KF: Could you maybe talk a little more about separatism and how you felt about it?

[00:49:36]

KP: I first understood the concept in terms of the uh black power. And I believed at the time-I appreciated, understood the need for it. I actually believed you could water down a movement by having it bought off. And maybe I inherited some of that from the folks I knew. Um I my inclinations were I was pretty radical. And oftentimes reached for the biggest stick. And so I believed that lesbians had their right to a separatist movement.

[00:50:23]

KP: And that you know when there were-my first month when I was at Northwester, I remember that there was a political action on campus because some black students had been expelled. Which in those days meant those folks were going straight to Vietnam. And there was a hunger strike. And I attended the hunger strike and had to sit with the white people. And the black people sat with the black people. And I absolutely saluted and obeyed the orders. I thought that it was too bad but that's the way it has to be. So I was right in step with separatist thinking in my earlier years.

[00:51:03]

KP: So when I moved to England and you know started going to women's stuff, I remember thinking oh these girls aren't as hard as we are in the States, man. They're colluding all over the place. And in fact was welcomed, the collusion. I welcomed the strength what in England to me was a strong Socialist movement and um black rights and gay rights and women's rights were all marching side by side with the miners and steelworkers. And I just thought 'ah, this feels so good.' It was such a relief from the kind of defensive and scary separatism that existed in the United States.

[00:51:53]

KP: But at the time when I was in Providence, I accepted it as the norm and understood the reasons for it.

KF: What-I'm not quite sure I understand the reason for it though. Why did you think it was necessary to have you sitting with the white people at the demonstration or you know the lesbians having their own...?

[00:52:22]

KP: Um I don't now. I think it was a way of acknowledging that experiences are different. And that if um, I had experienced many times people saying 'don't...don't try and confuse your interests with mine. You're not black, you're not a lesbian, you can pass, you can get advantages elsewhere, I can't.'

KF: Um let's see, before that you said that you considered yourself a radical feminist. So what did radical mean to you?

[00:53:13]

KP: ...I guess that I wasn't afraid to identify myself as a feminist or write publicly or speak publicly, to... And that if you're thinking what the list of demands, it was equal representation, equal scholarships, equal opportunities, equal pay, uh...right to choose, um you know the biggies.

KF: And what kinds of things were you reading at the time that either influenced you politically or artistically?

[00:53:57]

KP: Oh I hardly know where to begin.

KF: List them all!

KP: I think I was reading Leroy Jones before he was a Amamu Baraka [sp]. I actually was in a couple of his plays. I was reading Gloria Steinem. I was reading what's her face from England-Germaine Greer. I read the Woman's Room. I read, I'd started reading slave narratives where were just being...no maybe that wasn't in those days. It was kind of lists of books about African American history that were de rigueur, you know. Angela Davis, a number of the writers from the Harlem Renaissance I was reading. And I was reading a lot of newspapers. Was it in those days? I think so-certainly the Communist Party paper and the, not the new left review magazines. That's what I can think of right off the bat.

KF: Ok. And back to that idea of radicalism. I have a quote of yours from the Brown Daily Herald again, um and I think this was after the first show-after Taking It Off. That you said um 'One half of me is still ready to talk radical rhetoric, but the other half wants to pause a second and see the movement as one for everybody.' So what did you mean by that?

[00:55:55]

KP: I think I-well when I listed what radical feminism was to me, it didn't mention a whole lot about our friends or children or neighbors who happened to be men. And I...um...and also, my orientation was when it came to equal pay or free abortion is I wasn't talking about, or my focus wasn't on well-funded health clinics for women. My focus wasn't on health protection or safety for battered women. I embraced that, but that wasn't where my drive was, I say with some embarrassment now. I mean I was a middle class girl. And I was touched by what touched me. So I did understand because of fortunate perspective that um the passions of my politics weren't number 1 for other people. And it used to cause me some pain but I did understand it when black female friends would say 'you know black is what defines me more than female.' And...

[00:57:31]

KP: There was something at that age that I understood to be the human condition-that [phone dialing sound interrupts]-

KF: Woah! No! Who's...?

KP: Oh no it wasn't me!

KF: Sorry I'm calling...from the radio station and someone must have picked up the line.

KP: No no! [laughs] It's ok, you got the idea.

KF: So let see what did you mean by 'human condition'? Could you finish that thought?

[00:58:08]

KP: I think the human condition takes a lot of forms depending on which human you're talking about. And right now maybe the woman in the office next to me, maybe her human condition is how is she going to get the budget finished. And for another woman down in New Orleans, will she ever be able to move back into her flat? Or for my mum her human condition is you know how many more months am I going to be alive? I mean it's very different.

KF: Hm. So about that quote, when you meant-it sounded like you were saying 'one for everybody' meant men and women and radical meant women only. Is that a correct understanding?

[00:58:55]

KP: I'm sure, I'm sure it is. Yeah, I mean I'm not back in my brain then but I think yeah.

KF: Ok. Um and...so we've been kind of skirting around this, but what did you hope to accomplish with RIFT?

[00:59:15]

KP: [laughs] I don't know. I just wanted to do it. I think I wanted to have a vehicle for staging the stuff that moved me.

KF: And do you think you accomplished that?

[00:59:37]

KP Yes. Yeah. I...I took on some challenges and I learned a lot and to one extent I think I was right not because I was right but just 'cause I was lucky that yeah, there were a number of people like those of us who formed the company and those who watched the shows who wanted to talk and think about these issues.

KF: What kinds of things did you talk about in the discussions after the shows?

[01:00:14]

KP: Oftentimes things that started with the subject of the play and very quickly went into whatever was on someone's mind. You know, their boyfriend, their little sister, rape, rights, the passing of the new laws, abortion was a big issue. So it always took off.

KF: What kinds of people were in the audience?

[01:00:45]

KP: Uh mostly middle class white people. Students, professors, you know folks who lived around. We did have our first audience out-where the hell was that church? It wasn't on the east side [of Providence]. And our hope was that we would get community people to come in. And in fact I think mostly people from the hill went out [laughs]. But people were curious and students were curious. This was I believe, Rites and Reason had a professional theater and we were a professional theater in the sense that we charged ticket prices and we weren't sponsored by university. So I think people were curious to know whether we could pull it off.

KF: And what do you think were some of your biggest successes?

[01:01:39]

KP: ...I think producing the shows we produced and getting an audience. I think forging a link with Rites and Reason-at least it spoke loudly to me. And that may not have been other people's experience, but it was a way of tipping our hats at people who had gone before us. It was another opportunity for kids on the hill [College Hill] to get off the hill. That was important.

[01:02:15]

KP: And I could still-I mean and I went on to work in the theater for another 10, 15 years-10 years. The final scene in Taking It Off was one of the better theatrical moments that I can remember. I mean there were some really good theater.

KF: So I know you were only with the theater for a year, correct?

KP: Yeah, just about a year.

KF: There were three performances-so there was Taking It Off, the Johnnie Show, and what was the third?

KP: We took something up to Wellesley College and I can't remember what it was called. It was different vignettes. It wasn't Sterling Theater...I think there was a conference up there and I don't remember what it was called.

KF: Was it Clown U? Does that ring a bell?

KP: Yeah. That might have been it.

KF: Ok so even though it was only a year, year and a half, how do you think RIFT changed over the course of that time?

[01:03:21]

KP: I honestly don't know. I know so little about it after I left. I went-I moved the country and I wasn't in touch with anybody so this is all new to me.

KF: I mean the course of the time you were in the theater, from when you started to when you left.

[01:03:38]

KP: Um...I think we became a much better ensemble group. We knew each other's strengths, we knew how to work together. I think we also pissed each other off. We had anticipated all the-as much as we would you about each other after a year. I remember feeling frankly embarrassed when I-I was delighted but I was embarrassed-when I won the Arnold Fellowship. And I'm sure some degree of being awarded it was because I was seen to be a leader, that I could get together a theater company like this. And I remember thinking inside, 'well shit I couldn't have done this by myself.' I mean I was you know young and ambitious so I was glad to get the award and delighted I didn't have to worry about grad school [laughs]. But um that I don't know how many others-I think Jessica was also up for an Arnold and didn't get one. And I remember that night going to rehearsal and thinking 'god I wish I didn't have to be here.'

[01:04:55]

KP: I also remember being extremely proud of the men in the company, that they withstood some of the-I don't know whether they got taunted, but some of the stuff that I'd felt when I'd been the only white in the company of blacks, you know. Even though they weren't outnumbered they still, it wasn't just about them. And that was unusual for young men in those days to do that.

[01:05:34]

KP: And I felt really endeared. I remember at different times Nancy [Buell] and Lucy [Winner] and Mary K [Fox] exploring stuff that for them was difficult to explore in improve. You know we were touching on real nerve endings that we didn't have the knowest to know what to do with it except explore it. And sometimes that found its way into our scripts. And I was really filled with admiration.

KF: What kinds of difficult things?

[01:06:11]

KP: How it feels to be heavy. How it feels to be made fun of by men. Wanting to be more confident than we were. I think Jessica came off as the most confident of us. And there was a certain youthful harshness to her confidence and that...that was um...that was hard to acknowledge that we weren't such a pretty picture ourselves.

KF: Well let's see I'm a few minutes over time already but I wanted to quickly return back to the idea of how RIFT fit into a broader kind of feminist movement. Like how it was related, or how it was similar or different. What were your perceptions of it at the time?

[01:07:25]

KP: I think we were one reflection of it in the sense that there were many. Some of the feminist movement took the form of changing the abortion laws and some of it was the right to have custody of children and some of it was the right to be a lesbian. And ours was you know a striving for independence and connection from and to the menfold in our lives. And meanwhile this was all going on in a much hurlier burlier environment. After rehearsals we would go and watch the Watergate hearings. I mean there was a lot going on.

KF: Well I should probably let you go now.

KP: Yes go back to work! Go back to work! [laughing]

KF: I know...[laughing]

KP: It's been so much fun talking though. It just takes me back and it's so funny because my life has not been there in a while. So this was really a fun journey.

KF: Well thanks so much for talking with me.

KP: Yeah, thanks for doing it. And send me an email and if we have a reunion you're cordially invited.

KF: [laughs] Thank you very much.

KP: What year are you?

KF: I will be a-[cuts off, "junior in the fall]