About the Play:

Beautiful Hands tells the story of a young black couple in 1930s Georgia, and their decision of how to begin their new life together. RUNNING TIME: 25 Minutes.

Beautiful Hands will be presented Saturday, July 23 at 6:30 PM.

Beautiful Hands will be presented at the Festival Finals, Sunday, July 24 at 2:30 PM.

Watch the Trailer:

About the Author:

Ean Miles Kessler is a BFA acting graduate of Rutgers University, Mason Gross School of the Arts.  He has studied and performed on the Globe stage in England, and his one act Brotherly Love received its Off-Off Broadway debut as a part of Manhattan Repertory Theater’s Summerfest 2010. Brotherly Love was published by Vintage books, an offshoot of Random House Publishing, in their anthology Shorter, Faster, Funnier, alongside works by David Ives, Theresa Rebeck, and Christopher Durang.  Ean is a lead writer for the New York City based theater company Inertia.  His work premiered in their 2010 Off-Off Broadway full length production, The B-Cam, alongside the work of playwright Don Nigro.  He would like to thank the Pope family for their story, and special love to his mother and Sam Yim for all of their support.  This production is dedicated to Mrs. Jung Sun Yim.

OOB Festival: Where do you come from (home state, state of mind, or both)?

Ean: Hamden, Connecticut, a small town outside New Haven.

OOB Festival: Give us five words that describe who you are as a playwright.

Ean: I’m a touch uneasy in answering this question, as I fear I will come across as egotistical or self absorbed.  That said, I also find it hard to deliver words that I’m comfortable with as labels for myself; and I find it just as hard to shy away from explaining my answers.  (It’s the only way I can–in some small way–mediate my propensity towards sounding like an egomaniac).

Here goes, in no particular order:

-Meticulous:  I had a teacher once say to me that with great writers, there is not a single wasted word or syllable.  Everything is exactly crafted; a piece is neither one word more or one word less than it should be.  I certainly aim for that.

-Hopeful:  I think there is an idea of hope in all plays–it’s the new stasis the character’s are fighting for.  It is the seed of their positive choices.

-Brutal:  There is almost always a threat of violence, or an act of violence in my work.  Oftentimes–though not particularly in this piece–my plays revolve around an act of violence, and the play takes it’s form from the character’s response to this act.  Either way, violence is an incredibly touching and dramatic element, and it tends to find it’s way into my work one way or another.

-Wounded:  Most of my characters are hurt or wounded in some way; and though it is a phrase I do not like to use, my characters could all be described as “damaged goods.”

-Yearning:  There is a yearning and a want that is very much basic to most of my characters, though this is a kind of given:  all characters want something.  But I think there is a pleading in a lot of the men and women that I write for, and it tends to be a yearning to be understood by other people.  This could also be easily called Lonliness, and I would gladly consider that to be a complimentary word to describe my work.  There is a vital want to connect that is inherent to a great number of my characters; plays are about interpersonal relationships, and so the desire to connect with another human being is an intrinsically important factor.  I certainly aim for this when I write.

OOB Festival: Talk about your entry to this year’s Festival. How did you come to write this play? Was there a particular inspiration behind its creation?

Ean: “Beautiful Hands” was based on a short play written by a friend of mine that was in turn based on his grandparents.  He asked me to workshop the piece with him, and in working on it I was struck by the love story—every time he spoke of his grandparent’s relationship, it made your heart swell.  I asked him if I could use this relationship as the basis for a one-act; he agreed, and “Beautiful Hands” emerged.

I was also drawn to this piece simply for the immense challenge it presented:  to find the voice of a young black couple in 1930’s Georgia.  (I’m a young white Jewish kid from the suburbs of Connecticut—I am by no means an authority on African American life).  What is more, I knew that in writing this play I would be dealing with extremely sensitive themes and sensitive language.  I’d have to write an exceptionally strong play if it was to be taken seriously, and I was extremely nervous as to how this piece would be received.

I found that my way to tap into that voice was to connect to the piece via its relationship to the American experience and the American dream.  The American experience, in my opinion, is based on two primary elements:  immigration, and the rise from hardship.  Black life has, since its very beginning, been deeply inundated with both of these elements, and both of these elements play very deeply into this story.  Likewise, the concept of the American dream—the belief that you can make the lives of your children better than your own—is at the heart of all American experiences; it is a universal truth, and this touched me very greatly.  I had discovered a common ground between myself and my characters.  This was the real connection between me and this play, and was my primary reason for writing the piece.

OOB Festival: What is one thing you hope audiences will take away from your Festival piece? Is there any information you would like them to know before they watch your work performed?

Ean: I don’t have a particular concept or idea that I would like my audience to come away with; I am always leery of layering in any kind of message into my writing.  To quote Martin McDonagh, “The first duty of a storyteller is to tell a story;” that is my only intention.  Granted, I want my audience to have an experience, and for that experience to be a strong one.  But I am in no way trying to put upon them any kind of agenda or concept.  I’m trying to write a dynamic play; that is all.

OOB Festival: What/who are some of the major influences on your writing? What’s the most unconventional place/thing that you’ve taken inspiration from?

Ean: My top writing influences:  Tennessee Williams for poetry, (“A Streetcar Named Desire” was the first play I ever read; the language astounded me).  Arthur Miller for both structure, and the tragedy of the common man, (I remember seeing “Death of a Salesman” for the first time, and being struck so deeply by the fact that each character was so perfectly crafted—none were without flaws.  It was incredible:  the perfect play).  August Wilson for transforming the words of everyday people into absolute poetic magic, (his body of work is probably the most ambitious and incredible body of work in the entire American canon of theater.  His ten-play cycle is certainly one of the biggest influences on this piece).  Mamet for rhythm and language, (until I read “Glenn Gary” I did not know that people could write dialogue like that; that it could be so measured and beated out—that you could pay that kind of intense detail to it).  Chekhov for nuance and subtlety, (the best production I have ever seen in my life was “Uncle Vanya” at Long Wharf Theater.  It was the first Chekhov piece I had ever seen, and it introduced me to what I have since come to call the “Chekhov moment:”  a moment that is both funny and heartbreaking at the same time.  It is the perfect theatrical moment, and the moment I aim to reach every time I write.)  And Shakespeare, for pretty much everything.

OOB Festival: What is your “dream play”–that is, if the more restrictive elements of production (budget, space, casting, and technical elements) were not a consideration, what type of theatre piece would you create?

Ean: My absolute dream play would be an epic, modernized re-telling of Richard III, set to the back drop of Hell Kitchen, just post 9-11.  It would by my attempt at the “perfect play”—a three act epic family drama, in the spirit of great American theater.

OOB Festival: If someone saw you on the street, what’s one fact that they would never guess about you?

Ean: I’m remarkably shy.