'Degenerate: the DeJarnette Project' is an original play by the Staunton arts organization 'The Off Center.' It incorporates a variety of performance styles - including clown cabaret and experimental puppetry - to explore the legacy of American eugenics at Staunton's Western State Hospital under the supervision of Dr. Joseph DeJarnette, a eugenicist who forcibly sterilized dozens of patients in the early 20th century. WMRA's Calvin Pynn spoke with co-writers Diana Black - who conducted research for the story - and Davey White, who directed the play.
Davey White: So, when I moved here, the Western State Hospital and that legacy was such a shadowy thing. I kept asking people about it, and I'd get different stories. And I mean, it's such a something that kind of lowers on a beautiful community. Like it was one of the first things that I thought about doing when starting a theater company. And we had to wait two whole years until the time was right, until we felt like it was something that we could tackle. You know, we didn't just want to do a story about: “OK, this is a person who…” you know, we didn't want to do just a linear story because that didn't feel like it would investigate what we wanted to investigate. For me, I think at the core is a community trying. It's a community trying to deal with the hard history. Trying to deal with things that maybe there's a little bit of shame - there's a lot of shame - trying to deal with that and trying to still be positive and still have love and still have an identity. And I think that's specific to Staunton. But then when you sort of blow it up like that, it's more universal and a little timely as well.
WMRA: The timeliness aspect is something I'd like to touch on later if we could. With the research process, what source material did you go through to build the story and what stood out.
Diana Black: Well, one of the amazing resources that's available to just about anybody is the Eugenics Archive, which has a treasure trove of primary source material. You can look at things like advertisements that were run by the American Eugenics Society around 100 years ago. And you can look at newspaper clippings about fittest family contests or fitter family contests, baby betterment contests. I think a lot of people who see degenerate think perhaps we're exaggerating there, but that was a real thing that was done. And it was fascinating in doing the research to see what a sense of theatricality eugenicists had around this time and the kind of spectacle tactics that they used to popularize this ideology. And so making it into this dark carnival that we have was not all that difficult, not that much of a leap, because there is an incredible sense of awe and dazzle in a lot of what we were looking at, the primary source material. Also have the incredible resource of Library of Virginia in Richmond, the holdings of the University of Virginia, and the spectacular array of different scholarly sources on eugenics. But there is not that much about eugenics in Stanton specifically. Dr. [Elizabeth] Catte’s book was so valuable for that reason.
WMRA: And what's Dr. Catte’s book?
Diana Black: Pure America, Eugenics and the Making of Virginia.
WMRA: Okay. So, the style of theater, what's it called exactly?
Davey White: Well, names are things that we put on things to teach college classes. But we have borrowed from, the following. There's something called clown carnival. That is a word that has been used before. I don't know how well defined it is. Or a clown cabaret. Elements of commedia dell'arte are borrowed from different kinds of puppetry, shadow puppetry, Indonesian Wayang Golek, and sort of an emulation of the Bread and Puppets-style of big head parade puppets, masque. So, there's a lot of it's a I think everything we do as a company is a mix and match, trying to sort of use various techniques and tricks to reinvent our own creative process.
WMRA: Yeah. Going back to something that Diana had mentioned about how this style in some ways was, you know, touching back on the theatricality, the, you know, the showmanship that went into promoting eugenics, if that's if that's the right word.
Diana Black: Absolutely. That's the right word.
WMRA: I mean, one thing that I really found striking, you know, just doing a little bit of my own research before our meeting here was that it was, to a degree, it seems mainstream.
Diana Black: Oh, I wouldn't even qualify it that way. I would say it was extremely mainstream. And I remember. When we first went to hear Dr. Catte lecture about this book together, Davy and I back in March, Davy had a really great follow-up question to her talk, which was: “where was the pushback? Was there any at this time?” And her reply, essentially, I'm just summarizing here, but it was very little. And the two factions that she mentioned were some Catholic communities who felt that sterilization was tantamount to abortion and some Jewish scientists who had ethical objections and who were suspicious of racial hierarchy because they always somehow ended up at the bottom. So, in so many ways, I think that the most kind of worldview-altering realization I had in doing this research was just how mainstream. How mainstream eugenics were 100 years ago in the United States because it was in universities. It was at county fairs. It was in high schools. It was in the law. It truly. And so to try to think of it as something that was marginal is just incorrect. And in fact, I think that Dr. Catte and other experts in eugenics would say it's still very much with us.
WMRA: Yeah. Evelyn Abbott is the protagonist of this play. I understand that she's a composite character of patients. I'd love to know how this character was created. I guess, first off, why that name?
Davey White: We went through a couple names.
00:06:34 Diana Black Yeah, we did. I settled on Evelyn because I am a little wicked. And Evelyn Magruder DeJarnette was the mother of Joseph DeJarnette. And she famously... She famously was a writer in something that was at the time - and this is very hard for me to say, but in the ‘Negro’ dialect. She was a prolific writer, and he was immensely shaped by her. And I thought that it would really bug him to know that we were taking his beloved mother's name and using it to tell the story of how much harm he did. So it's a little bit of me being wicked.
WMRA: I did not make that connection before. That's so interesting.
Davey White: I would say she's an avatar for a lot of stories that can't be told.
Diana Black: She's also heavily inspired by the true story of Carrie Buck, who was at the center of a really crucial Supreme Court case that created the kind of untouchability of eugenicists. who wanted to conduct sterilizations because her case goes to the Supreme Court. DeJarnette is celebrating at the time, and he, in fact, testifies against her and says, this woman deserves to be sterilized. She's the daughter of a promiscuous woman who's already in an institution. She's had a daughter out of wedlock herself. And famously, one of the Supreme Justices declares, three generations of imbeciles are enough, which is a phrase that we bring back quite a bit in the show. Because it haunts me. And I think it says so much about how these individuals were thought of as this burden to society instead of as people.
WMRA: I want to, because I touched on it earlier, talking about how this story is tied to the times that we find ourselves in now. 1925 to 2025. How would you all...
Davey White: Well, recently. I think we could talk about this for hours, but in this week's news, we learned that Brian Kilmeade, and I guess he said this a little while ago, and it was certainly not on my radar, but he suggested lethal injection for unhomed people.
WMRA: I saw this, yeah.
Davey White: He's apologized, which, you know, at least there's that. But the idea that a person on a show that the president watches could say that and keep his job, it may not be, you know, one could argue that it's not textbook eugenics or motivated by that, but it is the impulse to control who gets to live on this earth. And I think that's what's wrong with eugenics at its root. It's controlling who gets to live on this earth, and it's right. And it's, when I read that, I curled up because in, you know, in working on this play, you know, there's just realizing how close it is.
Diana Black: Which I think has been part of why, for me, for Davey, and I'm fairly certain for the cast, it has been emotionally demanding and quite affecting.
WMRA: Yeah, that was something I was also wondering about, you know, throughout the writing process, throughout the rehearsals, you know, getting into, you know, such heavy subject matter. How did you all deal with that?
Davey White: Well, the rehearsals were interesting. We have an incredible ensemble. These are people who we've worked together and we care about each other. And we started there. And, you know, the... I find... the clown cabaret aspect of the show very successful. I'm very pleased with how it's turned out and how and what these performers have accomplished with it. But we would be, you know, we're doing clown workshops and physical exercises to to prepare for this performance. And then we sort of we run the scene and we're like: “oh, yeah, that's what we're doing.” And in a moment of exhilaration, you know, like we kind of we would kind of catch ourselves. And and whereas in other productions like that sort of that sort of exciting bit of discovery and play has led to like a real kind of celebration moment. This one caused some uncomfortable reflection. And, yeah, and it's just been, you know, coming home from rehearsal and like, and feeling a bad mood. And, like, and just sort of being reminded of some of the terrible, most terrible things that have happened.
Diana Black: Yes, she is sort of standing in for people whose stories were subject to complete erasure. And so we have a lot of this kind of grotesque and, dark and sometimes very disconcerting material, but she has to be the beating human heart of the piece. And without her, it falls apart because people need to see themselves in her. And I think she's been incredibly successful at making that happen in tandem with Davy working together. And that was so important because it can't just be in a general sense. People were harmed. There's a way in which the story is much more impactful if you have a particular individual with particular circumstances that the audience can really feel with their whole heart what they're going through.
Davey White: And I think that we felt that responsibility. It was hard. It was hard to write her scenes. Very. There was too much pressure on the scene often. And they came, you know, in first drafts of the scenes, on both of our parts I think came out stiff you know came out uh uh because it's difficult as a writer you're you're the first actor you know true you're uh you're playing the character in your mind and it's hard to do that with something that's so painful.
Diana Black: And that active imagination is is crucial but one example of where it became really frightening was we arrived at this idea that probably quite a few people are declared quote-unquote feeble-minded because it's this blanket term that essentially means nothing it can be arbitrarily assigned with very few really rigorous metrics there must have been quite a few people who found themselves in such institutions and knew that they were there under some kind of absurd you, pretense. And we thought many of them must have been defiant, enraged. And then when you think about how would that show up, you start to realize that it's asking you to put yourself in a situation you've never even approached. And that's where it becomes daunting. And you have that sense of responsibility become in some ways a little paralyzing. Telling that kind of story.
WMRA: And playing that kind of role, I mean, I can barely wrap my head around it. It’s striking.
Diana Black: Yes, it is a big ask. And all the credit in the world to our actor, Marissa Strickler, who is absolutely sensational in the role.
WMRA: What's been the reaction from audiences that, you know. Any that have stood out, you know, from people who are seeing this and maybe learning about this for the first time?
Davey White: I was really scared of how audiences would respond to this. I think we're asking a lot of the actors, ourselves, and we're asking a lot of the audience. And it's an overwhelming show. I think a lot of people have been overwhelmed. A lot of people have been excited. But I've heard several people say things to the effect that they are inspired, that somehow looking at this in the way that we have gives them some sense of hope. And that's something I would never have necessarily expected or hoped for myself. But I was really moved when someone said that. The audiences have been really surprisingly engaged. Not that it's even more engaged and even more sort of receptive to this strange way to look at this uncomfortable legacy.
Diana Black: I've been absolutely... I'm really thrilled with the reception of the show. One of the things that meant the most to me, you know, I'm a nerd and Elizabeth Catte - Dr. Elizabeth Catte - is probably the person in the world right now who knows the most about this. And, so, her opinion - her good opinion - of the show meant so much to me and it was beyond anything I could have hoped for. And something she said, I think will probably live rent free in my head the rest of my life as a huge, just something I can always hold on to. She said that she started off by saying how criminal it was that there isn't a memorial to these people who were harmed. And that's something that I'll come back to in just a second. But she went on to say that our show was a living tribute to them. And that just took my breath away because it's exactly what I had hoped to do, but I didn't quite dare to dream that anyone would quite take it that way. And talking about people feeling inspired. When she said that, I thought maybe this will help motivate people to make that memorial something more permanent. I would love to see that..
WMRA: Absolutely. Are there plans possibly to maybe show this production again in the future, or maybe even take it beyond Staunton if there's a chance to do that?
Davey White: That sounds like a discussion to have.
Diana Black: We've been approached. We'll leave it at that. We've been approached by a number of people.
00:18:30 Calvin Pynn Wow. Davey, Diana, thank you so much for coming in and discussing this. I mean, this is an important history.
Diana Black: Thank you so much for inviting us.
Davey White: Thank you, Calvin.
