TheaterMania: Playwright Jiehae Park is prescient in a way, but does prescience apply in a case like her dark comedy Peerless? First presented in 2015 at Yale Rep, the play is a loose riff on Shakespeare's Macbeth, which follows a pair of Asian American twins who turn to murder when another student takes what they feel is there place at the university of their dreams.
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I read Peerless last summer (For Pre-College, funny enough.) I loved it. I thought it was so unique in its prose and in the issues it raises. I desperately want to see it done Off-Broadway. Park mentions how challenging the play is for directors and designers, and I had forgotten how complex it is, even though it has so few characters. I remember there being a house fire and a snow storm within the same show. Because the script is written similarly to freeform poetry, I am interested to see how actors portray it on stage, and I would love to hear the words out loud. The main characters are called “M” and “L”, obvious parallels to Macbeth and Lady Macbeth respectively, who do emulate the character traits of the two. Duncan’s surrogate is named “D.” The murder is committed when L intentionally withholds D’s epipen. Here, Park isn’t trying to disguise the fact that it is an adaptation of Macbeth. By placing the events in a modern world with proportionately high stakes, it brings new life to the classic story.
I read Peerless about two years ago for a dramaturgy class and was surprised it had not had an off-Broadway or New York run. I hope that when the show opens, I have the opportunity to see it and that I can read the new script to see the changes that were made. I agree entirely with Park in the fact that everyone seems to have a story about the education system. Last year during my college admissions season, everyone felt very cruel and societal pressure to get into the best school, even if it meant sacrificing what you wanted. I know I struggled with feeling this pressure from my family and in the classroom. I would love to take them to see this play if or when it opens. I hope that this play becoming more mainstream will allow audiences to question whether or not that pressure is essential so future generations of seniors can have an easier and less competitive admissions process.
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