In addition to writing theater reviews for The Wire, Scarlett Ridgeway Savage also writes her own plays, two of which will be opening on the same night this week. “SHE %$#@-ING HATES ME” will be performed at the Seacoast Repertory Theater on Friday and Saturday, Sept. 7 and 8, at 8 p.m. “Dear Daddy, Love, Cassie” will be performed at Boston Center for the Arts’ Black Box Theatre the same weekend. The busy mother and playwright recently spoke to The Wire about her new plays and her forthcoming novel.

How does it feel to have two shows opening at the same time in two of the most respected theaters in New England?

Surreal. I guess things take a while to sink in for me. If you had told me this two years ago, I’d have checked your speech for slurring and your pupils for dilation. It would have seemed too big. But, now that it’s an objective that’s been reached, it’s like, “Okay, what’s next on the agenda?” Goal’s met, move on. I have this insane energy inside me and it doesn’t stop pushing, even when I want it to! My name is Scarlett, and I’m a Write-a-Holic.
  
The dialogue in your writing has been recognized on several occasions. How do you create conversations so well? Do you enjoy writing dialogue?

I love writing dialogue. Writing dialogue is endlessly fascinating to me. It’s communication. It’s the way one person gives information to another person.

The way a person talks reflects so many things—the region they were raised, their religious preferences, their educational level, the degree to which they care to create an impression, their psyche, their health, their own observational skills, their confidence level. From one sentence, you can discern volumes about a person. I’ve had bestselling writers and award winners in several different genres—novelists, plays, films—consult me on their dialogue work, which awes me. I don’t understand why it’s such a trick for other people, because it’s so easy for me. But then, they do things, like create effective linear plotlines effortlessly, which is where I sweat it out.
 
I understand that “Dear Daddy, Love, Cassie” is a rape awareness play, and that some of the profits will be going to Sexual Assault Support Services of New Hampshire. Why is this an important issue for you and what are the benefits of using theater to raise awareness about sexual violence? Also, do you think theater is an important tool for addressing social issues?  

It’s an important issue for me because not only am I a rape survivor, but I don’t know one single woman who hasn’t been violated, abused, and/or exploited in some way. Not one. And I have two daughters, so you can imagine how that makes me feel. JoAnne Dodge, of SASS, told me that this play was “necessary” for women and men to see. When a woman is raped, all the people who love her get raped too, which is especially difficult for the men. When a woman in a man’s life gets raped, what they go through emotionally is pretty damn close to rape itself. The helplessness, the rage over the loss of control, the trust that’s completely ripped from everyday life. It’s a small percentage of men who rape and the rest pay for it. I don’t think men often realize that they’ve been violated, too.

The theatre is a huge tool of communication, and that’s one of the biggest points I try to bring across in the play. And with communication comes the beginnings, hopefully, of healing.
 
“She %$#@-ing Hates Me” won both the N.H. Theatre Award and the 2006 Spotlight Award. Why do you think it has been so well received?

It’s a story about loving your family for who they are … and, most importantly, for who they’re not. I think it’s so well received because we all know what it’s like to question just how much our families and friends love us. Just how much will they accept? How big do we have to fuck up before they walk away? Or, even scarier, what if there’s something about us, some quality that just exists, that renders our families unable to accept us anymore? Just how long will they stand by us? In this play, there’s a struggle to figure that out. But, in the end, love is love. And that’s why people like this play. Maybe not all of our families operate like that, but it’s what most of us aspire to.

You often write theater reviews for The Wire. Should writers pay attention to reviews of their work? In a couple of lines, what would you write about your own plays, if you were reviewing them? 

Good question! I try hard to review as many original plays as I can. Reviewing other plays has helped me hugely as a playwright, especially because there’s so much original theater around here. You see what works, what doesn’t work, what’s been done to death, what’s no longer relevant, what rules are good to break, what rules are there for a reason, what tries too hard, what’s too obvious, what can be revived.

About my plays? Hmmm … I would probably say, “Good dialogue. Solid characters. Needs to work on her plot curve. Tends to reveal too much too soon. Not afraid to take chances and break her mold. Needs to be afraid of repeating herself. Has no fashion sense and WAY too much hair.”

I understand that you are making “She %$#@-ing Hates Me” into a novel. Is that a difficult transition to make?  

Translating is literally like giving birth. All the stuff you can show onstage, you have to go back and describe in the novel. It’s much more work, and, at the end, you’re exhausted, you’re exhilarated and you’re thrilled. But, instead of taking your gorgeous new little bundle home, this time, you give your work to someone who tries to sell it to the bidder who will “raise” it the best. And then you ask for a morphine drip.
  
How has your family affected your work?

I’ve written since I was six—long before I had children. But, after I had children, I wrote with a drive that didn’t exist before that. I knew that this was an area I had ability in, and I knew if I worked harder and learned from others I could get better, to be the best I could possibly be at something. I wanted—no, I needed—my daughters to look at my life and say, “My mom dedicated her life to something. She worked as hard as she could at it and she never gave up, no matter what happened.” I want them to understand that achieving anything in this world takes hard work and persistence, and that, no matter who tells you that you can’t achieve something, the only person who can make your success is you, and the only person that can stop yourself is you. Only you can make you achieve, and only you can stop you. I wish more parents taught their kids that. 

Most importantly, without the constant support of my best friend, who happens to be my husband, I wouldn’t have been able to do one quarter of the things I’ve done in the past five years. When we got together, we immediately wanted a family. He told me, “You’re a writer and you’re a mommy. You have two jobs. That’s plenty.” Giving me that time, both for my work and with my baby, is something few men in this day and age would do. He’s my biggest fan, but he’s my toughest critic. He holds not only our art, but our lives up to a code of honor that can be tough to uphold, but makes my art—and my life—something I never knew it could be.