Milwaukee-based theater artist Marcella Kearns comes from a proud Polish family. She remembers well what her maternal grandmother used to tell her, either while frying pierogi or rooting for the fall of the Iron Curtain:\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt takes a Pole to hold up the American flag.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Now, Kearns is directing a play about a Polish immigrant woman trying to make a life for herself in New Jersey. Forward Theater opens \u201cIronbound\u201d by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Martyna Majok in the Overture Center Playhouse on Jan. 29, running through Feb. 15.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m half Polish on my mother\u2019s side,\u201d Kearns said. \u201cMy family immigrated a couple generations back. They worked in steel, which is how they ended up in Jersey. My grandmother and my great aunt actually grew up about 20 minutes from where this play takes place.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n
\n <\/span><\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n \n <\/div><\/div>
<\/p>\n Shelley Cornia designed the costumes for “Ironbound.”\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIronbound\u201d is set at a bus stop in New Jersey, where young Darja waits for a bus that never comes. The play\u2019s timeline spans 22 years from 1992 to 2014. Through conversations Darja has with lovers and fated encounters with others, it paints a heartbreaking, heartwarming story of a single mother trying to create a new home in America.\u00a0<\/p>\n Darja\u2019s conversations with love interest Tommy, first husband Maks and a male sex worker named Vic are filled with hard truths, disarming vulnerability and quick-witted Slavic humor. Beyond an immigration story, \u201cIronbound\u201d is a story of parenthood, complicated romance and calculated dreams.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI think the thing that was most exciting about it for me was to be able to recognize hallmarks of culture and heritage within this piece, because it’s so specific,\u201d Kearns said. \u201cThere\u2019s a big sense of the given circumstances each of these characters has brought to the table in terms of the life they have lived. You can feel the humanity in everyone.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s what this play is about: choosing to move forward when things get hard and what connections that resilience can bring.\u201d<\/p>\n Assistant director Ali Mansouri, an Interdisciplinary Theatre Studies PhD student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, researched contemporary theatre in the Middle East, as well as political performances.\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Shelley Cornia designed the costumes for “Ironbound.”\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n To support the themes in \u201cIronbound,\u201d Kearns and Mansouri reached out to immigrant women in the Madison community and recorded interviews about their experiences. The video they made will be available to watch in the Playhouse lobby an hour prior to curtain. (It will also be posted at\u00a0forwardtheater.com\/show\/ironbound<\/a>\u00a0starting Jan. 29.)<\/p>\n \u201cI personally knew two of them from UW and they connected me with more women,\u201d Mansouri said. The interviewees emigrated from India, Sudan, Israel, Croatia, Iran and Ecuador.<\/p>\n \u201cSome of them were single mothers. Some had connections to the theater. By the end, we interviewed six women.\u201d<\/p>\n Mansouri and Kearns asked, \u201cWhat is your advice to women who want to move to another country?\u201d The responses: \u201cFind a community of people you can share your experiences with as a newcomer\u201d and \u201cBe whoever you want to be.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n According to Mansouri, theater is one of the few places for open discussion in Iran.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAs an Iranian, theater has always been a political space for me,\u201d Mansouri said. \u201cThis is how we learn theater, as a political tool \u2026 and it has remained a place for alternative ways of thinking.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cOf course, here in America, there is much more free speech, but theater is still a great place of conversation and community.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIronbound\u201d gives audiences the chance to walk in Darja\u2019s shoes, but the performers believe her journey is universal.\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Cassandra Bissell plays the main character, Darja, in “Ironbound.”<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI am not a mother,\u201d said Cassandra Bissell, who plays Darja and never leaves the stage. \u201cDarja\u2019s got a fight in her that Cassie doesn\u2019t always have.\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Josh Krause plays Maks, Darja’s first husband, in “Ironbound,” produced by Forward Theater.\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n
\n SHELLEY CORNIA<\/span>
\n <\/span><\/p>\n
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\nTheater as \u2018a political space\u2019<\/strong><\/h3>\n
\n
\n <\/span><\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n ![\"IRONBOUND](\"https:\/\/bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com\/captimes.com\/content\/tncms\/assets\/v3\/editorial\/3\/db\/3db04d47-097a-430a-878b-e3f0ace64f6a\/6973ac2685882.image.jpg?resize=150%2C194)
\n <\/div><\/div>
\n SHELLEY CORNIA<\/span>
\n <\/span><\/p>\n
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\nA universal immigration story<\/strong><\/h3>\n
\n
\n <\/span><\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n ![\"Cassandra](\"https:\/\/bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com\/captimes.com\/content\/tncms\/assets\/v3\/editorial\/1\/47\/14747377-cad8-4abf-af16-b6ffb0079673\/6973aab418c0c.image.jpg?resize=150%2C109)
\n <\/div><\/div>
\n COURTESY OF FORWARD THEATER<\/span>
\n <\/span><\/p>\n
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n <\/span><\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n ![\"Josh](\"https:\/\/bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com\/captimes.com\/content\/tncms\/assets\/v3\/editorial\/c\/a8\/ca8eb826-9ac8-446c-bbd2-fcfe5b26c304\/6973aac24b5b0.image.jpg?resize=150%2C225)
\n <\/div><\/div>
\n