“This is like maybe our fifth or sixth collaboration,” says director Molly Fonseca of her working relationship with playwright Anikka Lekven. “[This is the] fifth or sixth time that that Anikka's written something that I've directed or that we've co-wrote together that I've directed or that Anika's acted in that I've directed. I think what's really special about our collaboration and our leadership is that I understand – when Anikka sends me a script, I understand it. I see it. I feel it. And it's because of how our friendship has developed and how our connection has developed, and it's aspects of every single late night text conversation that we've had or meme that we've sent each other or article that's like pissed us off. And so she sends me a script and I'm like, oh my God, I get all of this. I know what this is and let's get it on stage now.”
Their latest collaboration (number five or number six, but who’s really counting?) is A Doctor’s Visit, written by Lekven and directed by Fonseca for their production company, Broad Theatre. Lekven says the show was inspired by a true story she heard about while listening to a podcast.
“I was listening to a podcast, as one does,” Lekven says, “called Exposed: Cover Up at Columbia University. It's about an OBGYN – a very, very prominent OBGYN at Columbia University – who was sexually assaulting his patients for decades. And what stuck out to me while I was listening to the podcast was a nurse telling the journalists that she walked in on the doctor assaulting a patient, saw it happen, and realized that neither the patient nor the doctor registered that she was there. She left the room, backing out of the room, closing the door softly, and then knocking again and re-entering. And she was like, this is the first time I'm telling this story. I haven't told this to anybody. And what stuck with me is, how do you justify inaction? How do you justify witnessing something horrible like that and then not doing anything about it? So yeah, that is what this play is about.”
A Doctor’s Visit, while inspired by the true story behind Exposed, is a work of fiction and tells its own story. “It's about a nurse whose daughter comes home and tells her mother that she's being assaulted by one of her classmates,” Lekven explains, “and it's about the nurse's journey to defend her daughter and how she wrestles with the systems that prevent her daughter from finding justice.”
Fonseca says the play explores the complicated morality of exposing the truth when it could result in personal repercussions. “You know, Joy [the nurse character in A Doctor’s Visit] is a single mom, and she's got a kid who's going to a really amazing school, but she's got a scholarship,” Fonseca says, “but this new job is an opportunity for her to make more money, to really give her daughter the chance that she wants her to have. And it's like, if you say 'I saw something,' then she's losing her job. She's losing all of these opportunities and, you know, like even that struggle of do I say something and really mess up my life and what I've been working towards and trying to find for my kid, it's just all so complicated and layered.”
“Yeah, I was really curious about why do we protect systems that ultimately are not serving us? And… we all do stuff like that,” Lekven says. “We all make justifications for people that are close to us or, you know, we want to give the benefit of doubt to people and sometimes that's to the detriment of others.”
Lekven also stresses that, despite the heavy subject matter, there’s some fun and playfulness to be found in A Doctor’s Visit. “Real life is both hysterical and devastating at the same time,” Lekven says. “And oftentimes those two emotions live jointly side by side with each other. And there's something too about the vulnerability that laughter gives an audience. There’s a big prop vagina that we use at the top of the show. There is a little bit of a fourth wall break. Molly and I have a cameo as podcast hosts…”
Sitting together in the KUT studio, wearing headphones and speaking into our microphones, Lekven and Fonseca absolutely look the part, an observation that seems to delight them both. Before leaving the studio, they ask me to take a couple of photos of them behind the mics. “Yeah, this is great!” Lekven says. “We look like podcast hosts! We look so professional!”
'A Doctor's Visit' runs through November 22 at Hyde Park Theatre