A Conversation with Vicki Summers
by Sara Lennon
What compelled you to write a play about your grandmother Bella?
I’ve performed at Cape Rep Theater in Brewster, MA since 1986—it’s like a second home for me. In 2017, I took a playwriting class for actors offered by the theater, not knowing what I wanted to write, but feeling this was an exciting new challenge for me. Writing a play wasn’t something I’d every attempted before, although I’ve been performing as an actress throughout my life. Soon after the class began, it kind of clicked. Aha! This is what my grandmother’s story was meant to be: a play! And then it just poured out of me. For years I’d thought of writing a book about her; I took notes and interviewed her. But I think perhaps the reason I never wrote the book was because it was meant to be a play. I didn’t find it hard to write. It just seemed to fall out of me, as though she had channelled through me.
What resources did you use to piece it all together?
When I was a kid I was very, very close to my grandma, and she told me some of her story. But like many people of that age group, she didn’t like to talk about the Holocaust or pogroms, so I only got bits and pieces. I told her how important I felt it was that she was telling her story, and how much I wanted to know it. She’d told me many stories about living in Detroit, a big part of her life because that’s where she went after she emigrated, but she only told me bits and pieces of her life in Russia. The play is based on true events. When you’re writing from memory and don’t have all the pieces, you turn to photographs as well as interviewing other people, such as my mother, my uncles and my grandmother’s niece; through them I was able to gather a lot more information and colorful stories. In addition to playing Bella, I portray multiple other characters in the play based on what I learned from her and other family members.
What was she like?
Her life was very challenging in many respects, and yet she was a person who was always able to rise above these challenges without bitterness, without hatred, able to look at how lucky she was, grateful for the life she had in America. She was a great role model for all of us. Everyone said she was the nicest person they ever knew. I truly feel honored to be able to portray her, to bring her to life on stage, embodying how she spoke, how she cooked, how she moved—that feels magical.
Do you feel filled with love when you become her on stage?
I definitely do. I feel that creating this play has brought her back to me in a very real way. I used to love looking at her face, her beautiful smile and wrinkles, all a part of what made her who she was. She always looked her best, and yet she never dwelled on her appearance. I never heard her say a negative comment about her face, her body, her wrinkles. I wish that I had grown up without having that preoccupation on physical appearance that is common in this modern culture. She was a model of self acceptance. But she always made the effort to look her best, dressed beautifully with jewelry, stockings, hair just right- put together. Every week, she’d go to the beauty parlor to get her hair and nails done. I’m so grateful to have such fabulous photos of my grandma, some dating back to the 1920’s. But I especially love the photos my mother took; she was a photographer herself. My favorite is picture of Bella in her 80’s, sitting in a rocking chair with her gorgeous, shiny silver hair hanging down her back. Her hair had been silver since the age of 25— she never colored it, never. Whenever I’d see her with her hair down, I’d say, “Mama, Mama why do you always put your hair up in a bun when it’s so beautiful? Leave it down,” but she'd say, “No, I look like a hippie.” Laughs.
Has the war in Ukraine impacted the play?
I’ve been performing the show, except during COVID, since 2017. It never would have occurred to me that there would be such a similar tragedy just a few years after I wrote the play, and a little more than 100 years after my grandmother went through the pogroms in what is now modern day Ukraine- different weapons and technology, but the same horrific experience. It gave me chills, and that’s when I realized I needed to do something to share her story and raise money for Ukraine. In March, Cape Rep Theater put on a fundraiser performance of my play with 100% of the money raised going to Ukraine. In one night we raised over $7,000 with all 137 seats filled in our theater. It felt as though people just needed to do something in response to the war, much as I did. So I decided to keep doing this, using the play as a force of love. I chose UNICEF because my grandmother was a child when she went through the pogroms, and just 17 when she came over to this country. The irony and the tragic serendipity of the Ukraine crisis just hit me in the stomach, as I know it has hit so many of us. I’m having such trouble even conceiving and comprehending that this is happening again. I’m very grateful to HHRC for allowing me the opportunity to perform my play, again as a fundraiser for Ukraine.
Did you discover each generations processed the trauma differently?
At the period when my grandmother was raising her children, these things were hush-hush. Although she told me very little about the pogroms, she did tell me how she was shot in the leg by a Cossack soldier and almost died for lack of antibiotics, really on death’s door. I asked my mom, “I know you were young when when the Holocaust happened, but what did your parents tell you?” And she said, “I can’t remember them ever discussing it. But I believe they would have said, “Oh it’s nothing, don’t worry, it’s not for you to worry,” That’s why I created a scene with my mother witnessing her mother crying after learning about the Holocaust. They felt, “We suffered so the children don’t have to; we went through it and came to this country so they don’t have to go through the same thing.” My grandparents both had many family members who remained in Russia and Eastern Europe, all of whom perished either in the pogroms or the Holocaust.
Does the play cover her whole life?
I wish I’d had the opportunity to ask her more questions about her life as a girl. But she would tell me just so much. She’d say, “Why would you want to write a book about this? My life in Russia was so sad, but now my life, it’s happy, it’s wonderful.” After the horror of her childhood, she was able to build a fruitful life in America with family, friends, a career as a photographer. Everyone was attracted to my grandmother, even animals loved her! There was this energy about her that just drew people to her. Family was everything to her. Having lost both parents, her mother when she was born and her father a year later of a “broken heart”, she was determined to give her children what she didn’t have. In the play, I travel through her life journey: the hot spots, important events, as well as some of the typical family experiences and marital challenges.
Have other projects of interests come out of this experience?
In addition to telling my grandmother’s amazing story, my mission is to encourage people to learn and in some way record their own family stories, which are treasures. As we all know, when a person dies, so do their stories—and they are jewels to be passed down. Stories can be very sad and difficult, wonderful or hysterical, but they’re real people’s stories. My hope is to help others pass on their family stories for generations to come. I’ve done oral history workshops with kids, and hope to do some with adults as well, to jump-start their discovery and recording of their own family stories. I taught drama and directed plays with kids with special needs for many years at a private boarding school. One year the students in the senior class participated in a program where they learned a bit about the history of the pogroms, learned some Yiddish phrases and then saw my play. Then each student created an oral history project where they interviewed a family relative and created their own projects based on what they’d learned, which they later shared with their classmates. Some shot videos, others wrote reports or stories, and some created art pieces. There are a multitude of ways people can tell their family stories. So, that’s my mission- to inspire everyone to discover their stories and record them.
Thank you so much for speaking with me.
It’s been a pleasure. And guess what? I have a grandson on the way! My daughter is in labor as we speak, so I’m on grandma duty with my sweet granddaughter. God willing, everything goes well and we will go to the hospital to meet her little brother tomorrow. It’s so thrilling! I think about my grandma Bella, and how much joy she would feel today.