Playwright Megan Tabaque sits down with theater artist, Taji Senior, to talk about ghosts, grief, and healing.

the older I get and, the more the more grief makes itself known in my life there maybe is more of a comfort than I realized was possible in believing in ghosts.

Taji First of all, congratulations. This piece is really stunning and interesting and intricate and intimate. I'm really struck by this invitation that you've created to make theater a site of communal emotional processing and I wondered if you could just talk a little bit about that. 

Megan This play has changed drastically. I think I wrote it in my last year of grad school, which is 2017, and then I rewrote the entire thing in May of this year because so much time had passed and so many things have changed. Knowing where we were putting the production up (at Rogge Ranch’s outdoor space) lent itself to this idea of sharing ghost stories and story about loss, but also of being haunted by the unnamable—kind of leaning into the convention of what it's like to sit around a fire and tell a ghost story and acknowledging the theater making we're doing. I always I kind of cringe when I think about how much the pandemic is influencing and changing our theater making—changing everything. It's literally changed everything, and I do want to kind of ignore it and move past it, but it is an inevitable thing. There was this idea of a collective mourning and collective loss and what it meant to bring that into the space after we’ve been through this global grief.

Taji There's a lot of work, conversation, and cultural references to healing happening right now and it seems to be a thing that we’re all collectively interested in.  What I found compelling about Decapitations is that it's not an invitation to heal. It really is quite an invitation to sit, to examine the wound, which is to be in the hurt and examine what is left after loss. I don't know that I think healing is always possible. I think there are some things and some grievances that we are always tending to. 

Megan The idea of being completely healed after loss is almost a fairy tale, right? There’s an idea of some kind of hopeful, moralistic ending.  What happens when you lose a family member, and you have absolutely no access to them? There is no space for healing a connection, and sometimes the end suddenly approaches, which is something that was repeatedly happening for my parents and my relatives who were living in North America but were not able to make the trek (home) at any given time. The specificity of that experience and the way it can echo across what I think it was like for a lot of people to lose family during the pandemic…There's again, this sort of barrier and distance that was imposed in a way that was maybe more definable than it is for families that are split across the diaspora. The fairy tale version is that you come to terms with all the unsaid and that you can say all the things that you wish to say, but that just doesn't happen. You'll see a lot of Asian-American comedians sort of making jokes about how, Asian parents  can't tell you they're proud of you.  I'm also trying to tap into this idea that there is the possibility of those feelings, of being proud, can exist even though they go unsaid and identifying haunting feelings of never hearing those things that you need to hear. 

Taji  One thing I’m curious about is what constitutes a ghost in the world of Decapitations.  

Megan  I think ghosts are literally ghosts and are the people that linger in our lives. I think the obvious ghost is the grandmother in this story who has receded from this family even before her death because she's so far away. I think for a long time growing up in my extended family, they were these distant figures that I didn't know. I grew up very as sort of a satellite in Florida when a lot of my family was living in Canada or the Philippines. So, I knew they existed, but I couldn't put faces to names. I think there are ghosts inside of the interpersonal relationships as well. These family members are trying to heal the expectations, obligations and secret needs that can haunt a family when you’re never quite able to fulfill or meet them. Because it's hard to be a human and it's hard to be in any kind of family system. Those are just unsolvable hauntings. I think that's happening a lot between Pamela and Sherry in the play, this mother and daughter who are separated by their physical appearance. There’s this question of mixed-race identity and family connection that haunts Pam in a big way that she's not able to solve. I think there's a way in which this dude/ex-boyfriend that she's going to for comfort is this horrific ghost that exists in her life in the way exes kind of linger for you. There’s also this older neighbor, this woman who is aging alone and loses her sense of self and community. She's lost her husband. She's lost her dog. She kind of becomes her own ghost in that she's become untethered from the world and is a ghost to herself. 

Taji  Not to give anything away, but there's a huge introduction of a mythical figure at the top of the play.  So, I wondered if you could talk a little bit about that and the myths we make up when we are separated from one another. 

Megan I think a lot about how we can sort of name our modern mythologies and our modern folk tales. When I think about who are the gods and monsters of contemporary culture that often manifests in the form of celebrity and things that are more pop cultural. I just finished writing this Madea adaptation through the lens of the Britney Spears conservatorship. And then this other piece that I'm writing for workshop at Texas State is about sort of Asian American stereotypes around sex and sex work and sex trafficking, engaging with the L.A. shootings and Bruno, Mars is a central figure.  I think in this play I'm trying to and I'm doing something similar.  The figure that we meet in the beginning is like a Filipino kind of like uber vampire that eats children and splits herself in two and has this long tongue and is this kind of folkloric figure that is a product of Spanish colonization and was part of Catholicism is the result of trying to discourage sex out of wedlock. I think what's happening (in the play) is like the idea of like an Asian American folktale, an idea of a Filipino American version of what this is. I'm thinking about what this split in half, bloodsucking woman represents. When I was reading about them, I was really struck by how she has to sort of leave her legs behind and has to fly away in relation to this idea and pattern of family separation and how generations immigrate. I’m thinking about what gets left behind is intrinsically apart of us. We literally have to leave pieces of ourselves behind and like sort of forge new roots. Something about our being is lost because we cannot be on the ground with our relatives and our ancestors. I think I'm trying to sort of tap into the images of this monster and find a new way to make it fit the mythology of what it means to be a first- or second-generation immigrant. 

Taji One of my favorite lines in the play is “Do you know how long a human can survive in just one hemisphere of themselves?”  That incredible question feels like it’s asking us to consider how long we can continue not being tethered to our entire selves and the things that makes us, us.  

Megan It's a big question. I think part of what the mythology of this play brings us to is asking how we can use spiritual belief or the idea of ghosts and the afterlife to connect us to the ghosts of our own lives. How can we make peace with what’s not in the physical realm anymore? I think that's kind of what grief asks us to do. It asks us to build and reconnect and put ourselves back together again even though there is something we’ve lost can never get back.  

Taji That's a really beautiful question and sentiment and acknowledgment. In my own personal experience with grief there's always a push from people who are trying to make you feel better about what's ahead or how much better things are going to be or whatever. Sometimes I'm like, it's not about that. There is a loss there. There is an irrevocable loss there. And it is about how do you build around it or how do you manage that fracture. I'm so grateful to be invited to meditate on that in this play.  My last question for you is: do you believe in ghosts?  

Megan I always respond to this question in an honest way. I don't like saying I believe in ghosts out loud because I don't want them to make themselves known to me! Actually, I believe in my inner heart like, yes, they exist, but like, no, they don't exist. And I'm not the conduit. Please leave me alone. Look, I'm not strong enough to be the interlocutor of ghosts. As a kid though I was told whenever someone far away died that their ghost was coming. Like when, you know, an uncle or whomever died, people would say “He is going to come visit us.  keep an eye out,” and I would be like, “No, I don't. Please don't make that invitation,” but I guess like the older I get and, the more the more grief makes itself known in my life there maybe is more of a comfort than I realized was possible in believing in ghosts. And so maybe I think I'm softening in terms of that belief, but I still am, like, really scared to encounter one. I haven't had a direct encounter yet. So, I think they're being really kind to me. 

Taji Maybe the ghosts in your life are friendly ghosts or like really chill ghosts. 

Megan Yeah. We’ll find a soft way to like, say “hi” someday. 
Taji Well, Megan, thank you for this. Is there anything else you want to add before we end? 

Megan No, I think that's great. This was lovely.  These are, like, really lovely observations and questions, and thank you for digging in and helping me see my play in a new way. 

Taji Of course, I'm so grateful to have had the opportunity to read it and I am insanely jealous that I won't get to be a part of this. Again, this is a really lovely communal gathering that you’ve facilitated through this play. What you've created is one of the best things about theater in terms of why it’s something you have to come and be present for. You have to bring your body and yourself and be here and be with other people and experience this together. And I think that's really exciting and not easy to do. 

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TAJI SENIOR IS AN ACTOR, THEATRE MAKER AND CULTURAL WORKER. HER ARTISTIC PRACTICE AND FIELD OF ARTISTIC INQUIRY IS ROOTED IN THE EXPLORATION OF BLACKNESS AS AN IMPOSSIBILITY.

Her practice and aesthetic are most influenced by the pioneers of the Black Artists Movement of the 60s, the work of Black scholars and sociologists such as Saidiya Hartman, Fred Moten, C. Riley Snorton and Tressie Mcmillan Cottom and the work of Black women visual artists: Faith Ringgold, Kara Walker, Carrie Mae Weems and Zanele Muholi. She is specifically interested in exploring the sonic and temporal elements of world building.  Her work as a cultural worker is an expansive tapestry of professional creative experiences including serving as an Audio Producer and Logistics Coordinator for theGrio Black Podcast Network where she produced episodes featuring George M. Johnson, Tarana Burke, Da’Shaun L. Harrison, Tamika Mallory and more. You can listen to some of the episodes she produced here.

Taji most recently served as the Literary Associate for New York Theatre Workshop and was a NYTW 2050 Administrative Artistic Fellow. During her time as a fellow, she had the opportunity to observe rehearsals led by Les Waters, Tamila Woodard, Whitney White, Chay Yew, Lee Sunday Evans, Will Davis and others. She also holds a B.A. in journalism from Texas Tech University and worked formerly as TV News Producer.