Eaton DC goes beyond the typical concept of a hotel. You can expect a hotel to have a restaurant and bar, but the radio station and the library are a unique perk. The yoga studio and the fine arts cinema make it one of the must-visit places for D.C. residents and visitors. Within all of these creative areas, there’s a bar called Allegory Cocktail Bar, soon to be the venue for Solas Nua’s upcoming production of The Smuggler.
With this contemporary story of an Irish immigrant living in the United States the creative team behind this show bring a new element to an already exciting space. Lead actor Rex Daugherty, Eaton’s Director of Culture Sheldon Scott, and director Laley Lippard sat down with me to talk about the show, the setting, and the radical message behind the show and Eaton DC.
The following conversation has been lightly edited for clarity and content.
How are rehearsals going?
Rex: We’ve been firing on all cylinders. I would expect to feel exhausted. Especially mentally. It’s 9000 words! In rhymes! In my head.
How did this process get started?
Rex: I knew of this space, as a person who came in and bought a drink. It’s a beautiful bar. I was impressed with the venue. I’d seen The Smuggler in New York at the 1st Irish Theatre Festival. I laughed like crazy, but it left me thinking about the themes of the show and the character, and the underbelly of the American dream that it explores.
We don’t own our own theater. We’re always looking for a venue for our spaces, regardless of whether or not it’s a black box, or not a theater venue.
I had the idea of “What if we did a show in a real bar? The character is the bartender. And because of the mission statement of social justice that [Eaton] has, and given the show’s themes of immigration and citizenship, there was already a natural mission alignment.
That’s why I reached out to Sheldon. “Hey I saw this show I’d like to do it with our company and I’d like to do it in a special place.”
Sheldon said: “Oh, we’re doing this show.”
Since then, it’s been a partnership. It felt like a pitch, but it ended up being a very easy pitch.
Eaton describes what they do in the service industry. They are in the radical hospitality industry. And that’s what it’s felt like since being their guests here. Just how open they are. They are making a bar menu that is specialty cocktails just for us, just for the show.
Can you describe this notion of radical hospitality?
Laley: Eaton is building on a legacy of what radical hospitality means. As a space that is open to any group that needs it. A true community space. It is a home for everyone. Rest and sanctuary for anyone.
Eaton is interested in what that word, ‘hospitality,’ which has been commodified and made into a capital process. Hospitality is about being generous and giving up the thing you have in excess to those who need it. In a way that doesn’t come from a culture of scarcity. It’s actually very much an arts mindset. In the way theatre thinks about itself as an equalizing force: A place where you come in and sit next to someone, in the dark, looking out at a reflection of humanity. That is what I think that terms means.
Sheldon: What it means for us here at Eaton is having a hospitality brand informed by social justice as our buttress to the idea. The way [owner Katherine Lo] envisioned it, the way we enact this is that we’re more about doing good, then doing business, rather than doing business, then doing good.
From how we treat our fellows, our most valuable assets, the human beings that make this happen, all the to how we impact the environment.
The ways in which we do that is through art, it’s through theater, film, music, food and beverage. Revisiting the concept of a hotel as community center, which is true of most hotels historically.
Hotels have always had a part in the political conversation. The term “lobbying” comes from the fact that people with special interests would be in lobbies and would catch the elected officials on their way to the Capitol. It’s even in our language, this idea, but having it focus exclusively on making it for all people for all things.
Is that a theme that is reflected in the play through the bartender?
Rex: It’s definitely a mindset of any bartender, right? Being in the service industry. And especially the idea of a bartender being, as the play says, you’re their priest. The customers tell you secrets; they confess. What’s fun about this show is that it’s the bartender’s confessional, because he’s telling his story, but it is intimate. I think of it as inviting someone in.
Laley: And you break down the storytelling into what’s a radical form of storytelling, a one-person show. The human around a fire. The original theater is coming around a hearth, and telling our stories. That’s what this play is doing.
The ideal that America has created about itself is about radical hospitality. “Bring me your tired, your hungry…” and how that has been totally distorted. The play deals with what that idea as country means.
Rex: It’s got a dark underbelly, and what the bartender does is roast it. It’s a comedy but he is roasting our assumptions of the American dream: who has access to it? Who will never be allowed to achieve it?
Have you bartended before this show?
Rex: I have not. I have worked in some service industries but I have never been a bartender. Alex Bookless, who runs the bar here, is giving me some crash courses. I’ll be making a handful of drinks.
This is an immigrant story. How do you connect to today and how restaurants serve as a haven for immigrant employees?
Rex: Ronan Noone is the playwright and he is in an Irish immigrant. He teaches playwriting at Boston University. When he first immigrated here, he was in Martha’s Vineyard. He was struck by the dichotomy of a very wealthy class of people who lived there for a long time, who owned everything, who were in the country clubs. And how everyone who makes that life possible by working in the service industry, and how many of those people were undocumented.
Where do you feel you make the most powerful connection with the audience?
Rex: It’s peppered throughout. He has these moments as he tells his story that he gets on this kick. The first line in the play is “I am American. I may not sound like one, but I am.”
Laley, how much do you direct Rex?
Laley: I think this has been an incredibly experimental, playful, free, and trusting room. That room happens to be in a bar, which has its own inspired qualities. I think we’re just trying to get to truth.
Tim (Rex’s character) himself has a series of things he’s taking you through in order to prepare you for a reversal. Just finding all of the way that happens. It’s honest and delicious language.
Care to talk about your company?
Rex: I run Solas Nua, which mean ‘new light’ in Irish. Next year will be our 15th anniversary. In the early 2000s, there were so many great contemporary Irish writers and artist who just weren’t getting any exposure in the U.S. We’ve just plugged into that and are one of the only organizations in the United States that does exclusively contemporary Irish work.
Does Smuggler diverge in any way?
Rex: This show is set in the United States. It is more an immigrant story to the United States. A lot of our shows have taken place in Ireland. I’ve produced shows about people leaving Ireland. Ireland has a long history of emigration. And a history of emigrating to the United States. I don’t know if we’ve produced a show that quite deals with the American dream and how immigrants clash with that.
What were your first impressions when you first read the play?
Laley: I loved this sort of subtly subversive “spin a tale, bring you in, draw you in” and then have a really hard reversal that asks some deeply penetrating questions about our culture right now. I felt that the script really did that. I love comedy. I love play. I love the essential nature of one-person shows.
Sheldon, what was the experience like when they showed up with this idea?
Sheldon: I think I’d said “Yes” before they’d finished their second sentence, “Yes this has to happen.”
Having immersive theater in this space has always been a part of the vision. It’s one of those things that we had an opportunity to dive in. It was just brought to me. Everything laid out right there.
I just thought of the idea of using art as an access point to some very complicated ideas. When we first started talking about it, immigration was certainly a discussion but it wasn’t at the level that it is right now. The timing is almost absurd, the fact that Eaton can see itself in that whole landscape in the sense that we’re providing a space for something like this to happen but also providing a space for audiences to engage in that work.
Is this your first in the space?
Sheldon: This is our first real theater production. We’ve had some play readings, but nothing like this.
How is the staff helping out?
Sheldon: The Allegory team just fell in love with the idea. Everyone who comes to work at Eaton knows that this is not your typical work environment. It wasn’t a super hard sell to get people invested in the idea. The beautiful thing is that people have been able to take it and run and contribute to it in a meaningful way: the drink menu, having the recipes. Working with Rex to make sure he’s a convincing bartender.
Rex: It’s only 30 seats, we could sell more, but because we want everyone to have an intimate experience, we capped it. People can feel “Wow, I’m right across the bar from this guy.” The story is delivered to me. It is about creating something special for the audience.
Laley: There are six nights that we are gonna have some invitations to the conversation, feedback and conversation that will be curated by the Eaton team.
Sheldon: Eaton House and Eaton Impact are getting together with to create the post-show conversations and discussions.
The Smuggler takes place around the Allegory Bar from September 8 – October 6, 2019. Details and tickets
What were the surprises working within a bar?
Laley: I came in thinking we would have some challenges and instead it was, “What are the gifts?” We have an entire props closet in there that we’ve been generously given. Rex can become Tim in his own bar. There is all this opportunity for play and involvement in the way that a real bartender has all of the odds and ends to create a drink.
Rex: And a theater would never be able to build this. The Kennedy Center would never build this detailed a bar for any production.
Laley: There’s this gorgeous mural in there. It already has an entire story that you cannot build. You’re already in a weighted, significant room. Just being able to live in that and know that it’s gonna affect the audience in ways that are so profound. Literally there has been no challenge.
Rex: Unlike a set, which you can break, audiences can continue to have a relationship with this space, which doesn’t happen in the theater.
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