On Dramatic Structure in Svich's Plays:
Svich has described her dramatic structure as episodic and based upon the concept of collage. But her technique of shaping a play in time and space is also informed by her experience as a songwriter. She says "Literally and structurally, I think of plays as composition: theme and variation, point and counterpoint, melody line and rhythm line, image and counter-image, motion and stasis, silence and noise. Plays live in space and time, as music does."1
On the Music in her Plays:
Music not only informs the structure of her plays, but the plays typically include songs as well. Very often she finds that songs serve a given dramatic moment more effectively than speech. She notes, "Songwriting frees you to go anywhere in a short time. It's freeing as a writer, because lyric writing demands precision. Images and words have to be cut just so. You get to the grain, yet you also can fly. There are so many different kinds of songs you can write, so many musical worlds you can inhabit, that will immediately set tone and mood in a play."2 Music often enters her work in a rather intuitive fashion as characters simply "start singing instead of speaking and I know then that the play will use music. It's a mysterious process. Mystery is good. Also, I love the sound of the human voice in song. There's nothing like it. There's an access to direct emotion you can't get anywhere else, not even with the most eloquent speech. Songs life and sometimes cut through a scene, fast-forward through a character's mind, or function in a choral mode, in the Greek sense, when a choral character or group comments on the action."3
On Recurrent Themes in her Work:
Svich tends "to put rebellious women at the center"4 of her plays. She is interested in "giving voice to dispossessed voices" as a way of "seeking transcendence and spiritual transformation in a world not yet gone wrong."5
Svich on Theatre:
Svich espouses a strong commitment to theatre. She welcomes technological advancements in theatre, but her own concerns center on the work of the poet: "voice and space, voice in space."6 She is attracted to theatre because it "centers on human engagement. No matter how abstract you get, you cannot escape the human flesh, blood, breath, and soul it is the root of art. Robert LePage talks about 'vertical space' in theater. I believe that as well. In theater, you make a work on a horizontal plane, so it can live in a vertical one, so it can speak to and connect with the heavens."7
Works Cited
1. Svich, Caridad. "A Conversation with Caridad Svich." With Anne Garcia-Romero. The Dramatist. 3.3 (2001): 28 35
4. Grossberg, Michael. "Svich's Ghostly Drama Addresses a Woman's Grief." The Columbus Dispatch 15 Feb. 2001, Features - Weekender: 22.
5. Svich, Caridad. "The Writer Speaks." Out of the Fringe: Contemporary Latina/Latino Theatre and Performance. Eds. Caridad Svich and Maria Teresa Marrero. (New York: TCG, 2000) 395.