How Lynn Nottage and Her Daughter Are Exploring Their Relationship in Writing
Can you collaborate with your mother, a Pulitzer-winning playwright, and develop your own voice too? Ruby Aiyo Gerber wasn’t too scared to try. Ruby Aiyo Gerber: For so long, I rebelled against wanting to be a writer, fearing that admiring any part of you was to be forever in your shadow. I had a lot of fear when starting the collaboration [on the opera “This House,” with the composer Ricky Ian Gordon, which premieres next year at the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis; based on a play that Gerber wrote, it’s about a brownstone in Harlem and its inhabitants over a century] that I wouldn’t be able to be my own writer, that I’d be like a version of you, that my words would turn into yours. Lynn Nottage: In both librettos we’re collaborating on right now [for “This House” and another forthcoming opera tentatively called “The Highlands,” with the composer Carlos Simon], we’re dealing with intergenerational trauma, intergenerational love. A daughter grappling with her legacy, a daughter grappling with her relationship to her mother, a daughter trying to decide if she wants to take this gift that her mother has offered her. Embedded in the themes we’re exploring is our relationship.culture banner More
