In December of 2015 Volcano held a reading of Infinity at the Koffler Centre of the Arts. They were tickled pink with the show, so they followed up with Infinity playwright, Hannah Moscovitch to find out a bit more about her and her work.
Koffler: What is your “work ritual”?
HM: I get up and go to a coffee shop and I sit there and write until I have some momentum. Then I go home and work in my home office. Later in the day, when I can’t write anymore, I try and answer emails (I am terrible at answering emails).
What do you hope to live to see in the world?
I’d like equal rights for the gay community to be the orthodoxy. Slavery is unthinkably wrong to us now and I’d like to see denying marriage to gay people become as morally unconscionable as slavery.
What would you tell your younger self?
I’d tell myself to calm down about life.
What do you feel is worth fighting for?
It’s worth fighting for the lives of others.
What is your favourite simple pleasure?
Coffee. It’s how I get myself to put my clothes on and go and write my projects. I tell myself there’ll be coffee in it for me.
How do you change the world?
I think you do it incrementally. Gently if possible. Seductively. Democratically.
Where do good ideas come from?
I don’t know! It’s mysterious, isn’t it? From nothing and nowhere? From the subconscious? From the work of others?
At the end of the day, what really matters?
I got diagnosed with a chronic degenerative illness once (which I didn’t have) and it was more frightening than anything. Your health matters. And I miscarried last year. I was sad in a pure way about it, a way that wasn’t familiar to me. So I get the sense your children (if you have them) really matter. My work matters to me a lot. My life has meaning because of it. My husband matters to me a lot, and knowing that if everything collapses, I love him and he loves me, and that’s a solid thing.
What is your favourite thing about words?
Their opacity.
What is your favourite thing about pictures?
I like that I don’t understand them, because I work with them less. (I work with images but that’s a little different I think?) When I see art that is pictures I admire in a more open-mouthed way. Art made of words and/or story I admire because I know what it took to make it, but it means I am deconstructing it rather than just letting it work on me.
What is your favourite city and why?
I live in two of them and they are both my favorites: Halifax and Toronto. Halifax is beautiful and quiet (and inhabited by very kind people). Toronto is full of art, glamour and culture. And it’s multicultural so I feel less weird about being Jewish in TO.
What does success mean to you?
Success is making work that’s meaningful to me. And collaborating with talented artists. And having a functional family life.
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