By Miranda Purcell

When was the last time you questioned if the way you see the world is actually how it is? Ahead of the North American premiere of GLASS. KILL. WHAT IF IF ONLY. IMP. presented together, I sat down with cast members Ayana Workman, Sathya Sridharan, and Japhet Balaban to pick their brains about false narratives, personal discoveries, and their creative process in preparation for this provocative series of Caryl Churchill plays.

Miranda Purcell: It seems like the big theme of this quartet is how the beliefs we hold and the stories we tell ourselves, for better or worse, shape who we are. During rehearsals, have you become aware of any narratives you’ve been holding onto?

Japhet Balaban: Caryl Churchill is a big deal. It’s my first time working at The Public, so that’s a big deal for me too. Before we started rehearsals, the story I was telling myself was, “This is a really, really big deal.” But beyond the excitement, I’m realizing this is a puzzle that Caryl has written for us and we have to solve it. If I sit down and think this puzzle is too hard for me, I’ll be dead in the water. The story I’m telling myself now is that this is all changing—that we are figuring it out.

Sathya Sridharan: A story that I’ve frequently told myself—and continue to learn—is that, as an actor, it often feels like you have to do things on stage to be watchable. Sometimes I feel like I’m not interesting enough on my own. But then I’m reminded—and I think working on Churchill is like a smack in the face in that sense—that you are enough as a performer, especially when you are serving the text. Sometimes all it takes is for you to be a living, breathing human, speaking words with a point of view to be a compelling vessel for the audience.

Ayana Workman: I think I project stories onto others. I wake up every morning, making assumptions and judgments—it’s just a human thing to do, right? But as I get older, I’m realizing that everyone has their own story and their own reasons for being who they are. Now, to be a more generous artist, I’m trying to stop doing that and instead let people tell me their story rather than leading with my own idea of what it might be.

MP: You’re working with James McDonald, who premiered these plays at the Royal Court Theater in London and has been called “Churchill’s most trusted director.” How has working with him shaped your experience with these plays?

SS: He's amazing. But what I find most surprising about James is that he doesn’t pretend to have all the answers. He’s done these plays before and worked with Caryl a bunch, but it still feels like a new discovery for him every day. He has this ease with the process and the text that never feels pressured. He’s very specific, but he’s not trying to be prescriptive.

AW: Trust is the biggest thing I’ve felt since the beginning of our process. He has deep trust in us as actors and in what we bring to the text, as well as in Caryl’s words. He’s also just such a gentle, lovely, and sensitive person.

JB: I think Caryl has reached a point, as a playwright, where she doesn’t need to prove anything anymore. Now, she’s writing from a place of 'What story do I want to tell?' She and James have been collaborators for at least 20 years, so they give us so much room to play. While he’s staged these before, I feel like he’s more interested in discovering what shape this takes with our bodies rather than replicating what he did last time, which is incredible.

MP: Caryl is famous for her wild approach to language—ellipses, unfinished thoughts, and sentences that just... stop. As actors, how do you tackle this kind of text? Has it sparked any creative breakthroughs for you?

JB: It makes me feel like everything else is suddenly overwritten. It’s kind of wild because she does so much with so little. Like Sathya mentioned earlier, it’s pushing us to trust that the words will do the work because she has a very clear roadmap she’s guiding us to follow.

SS: There are sections where the language just breaks down and becomes really fragmented. For a while, I think I was fighting against that. I felt like I had to bring the language down to my level to make sense of it and make it legible for the audience. But actually, it’s like doing Shakespeare or working with heightened text. You have to bring yourself to it instead. And in doing that, it opens you up to a different playing world where you don’t control the language anymore, which is really liberating.

AW: It’s like music. It’s like jazz. There’s a melody that’s set and there are notes to play. You just follow the notes, and then every night, you get to see where the improv comes in. There’s so much freedom when you play the notes that are written.

MP: Let’s dive into the plays! GLASS dives into themes like invisibility, fragility, and the parts of us that are broken but often kept hidden. With mental health finally getting more attention these past few years, do you think this play will hit home with audiences now?

AW: Caryl is doing something beautiful here, telling almost a fairytale about these young people. You begin with a girl wrapped in bubble wrap, told to be fragile and broken, that others must handle with care or she'll break. But as the story unfolds, you realize she’s the one people lean on. She’s the strong one, but because she’s been boxed in her entire life, that ultimately ends up defining her.

JB: We had a few Zoom calls with Caryl, which were very cool. During those, we talked about how GLASS is Caryl reflecting on her grandkids, the worries she has for them, and what the world is like for young people today. To answer your question, I think we all have little ones in our lives in some way. And the universality of it is that we all have people we’re concerned about, especially in terms of how they’re coping right now.

MP: In KILL, we're faced with heavy themes like incest, cannibalism, and homicide—topics that make us question how we've come to normalize cycles of violence. As you work with this material, has it reminded you of any real-life stories of brutality, from the media or elsewhere, that have really stuck with you?

JB: It makes me think of the war machine and the justifications we hear for why war happens. In the framework of this play, there's one God who admits she doesn’t exist and who talks about how all the gods push people to do these things. By the end, I’m always left feeling like it’s all just so silly and senseless.

SS: I’d add that the language in KILL is so unsparing. It’s presented objectively, like something we’d see in the news or on social media. The way it’s right in your face, constantly circling back on itself, makes it hard to trace the originating thread. There's an absurdity to the violence that leaves me with a sense of hopelessness.

MP: WHAT IF IF ONLY looks at grief, loss, and possibility through abstract characters like “Present” and “Future.” As actors, how do you bring these non-human characters to life?

AW: It’s hard. We keep joking in rehearsal with James, “How do you embody socialism?” How do you bring such a huge concept to life? I play Future and I’m still figuring it out. How does this look in my body? How do I project this energy? But a lot of it comes down to believing in Caryl’s writing and fully committing to what I’m saying.

SS: What’s really cool is that even though they’re abstractions, these characters are still grounded in human characteristics. They all feel like they have a need, a drive, something they’re striving for—which is inherently very human.

MP: IMP is the longest play in the quartet. I thought one of the most interesting parts was the literal imp—a tiny creature living in a bottle guarding the protagonist's hidden secrets and desires. How did you imagine the imp looking?

JB: At least in the scene where I interact with the imp, my character is approaching it with the mindset of, “How seriously should I take this? Is the imp even real?” It’s fun to explore that because it ties back to the question of “How much of the stories we tell ourselves are exaggerated?” But to answer your question, I picture the imp with a mean little face.

MP: Circling back to our first question—about the stories you've realized you've been telling yourselves—after digging into this material, what are some new stories you think we should start telling ourselves as a society moving forward?

SS: Everyone has their own context and baggage. As Ayana mentioned earlier, it’s easy to write people off and assume their motives. But it’s much harder to take the time to understand who they are, to see things from their point of view, and to meet them where they’re coming from. I think we could use a lot more of that in our world.

JB: I'm excited for these plays to be landing now, in this allegedly post-COVID world, where we’re all still navigating high stress, high fatigue, and the damage of everything we've been through. I feel like these plays are speaking to this moment—addressing grief, fragility, and the need for connection. I’m really excited about that. My hope is that they spark a conversation that helps people shake off some of what’s been weighing on us, so that we can see each other more clearly.

AW: I wish for everyone to be able to tell their story, especially in this climate where people are constantly being told what their story should be. It’s really hard to wake up every day and see how people are being told that their experiences aren’t valid or real. It’s infuriating. I hope these plays remind us that we should be curious about each other.

GLASS. KILL. WHAT IF IF ONLY. IMP. begins performances on Thursday, April 3 and runs through Sunday, May 11. Click here for more information on the show and how to get tickets.

Miranda Purcell is an actress and writer with experience in the Puerto Rican film, theater and communications industries —including award-winning projects and major news outlets. She is a member of the 2024-2025 cohort of the BIPOC Critics Lab at The Public and is pursuing a master’s in journalism at Harvard University.

This piece was developed with the BIPOC Critics Lab, a new program founded by Jose Solís training the next generation of BIPOC journalists. Follow on X: @BIPOCCriticsLab.

Pictured: Adelind Horan, Ayana Workman, Sathya Sridharan, and Japhet Balaban; Japhet Balaban and Sathya Sridharan; director James Macdonald.

Photos by Joan Marcus