E

njoy your meal!” said the waiter.
“You too!” I responded thoughtlessly.
The dialogue which shapes our lives is often 
a fumble. We stutter, misspeak, offend, reveal too much 
or not enough. Once we say what we do, it cannot be 
unsaid. In a technological world, what we type is forever 
imprinted somewhere. Contemporary “cancel culture” 
ensures that what we say and write is not only permanent, 
but unforgivable. Similarly, what is unsaid in one moment 
can remain forever unsaid, and the chances we don’t take 
in speech or otherwise are rarely offered to us for an 
opportunity to do-over. 
This phenomenon, and perhaps its pressure, was one 
reason I was drawn to playwriting. Drafting the dialogue 
of drama allowed me to control speech and situation, 
making the uncertainty of reality anticipatory. The first 
piece I wrote for the stage centered on this very notion, 
called “Backspace,” my quasi-one act play had a plot 
driven by the nonexistence of a backspace key on the 
typewriter used to write our lives. Without the power to 
return in time and in text, everything, once written, could 
not be rewritten. In the end, the characters confronted 
the one-directional passage of time and developed skills 
of apology and forgiveness to progress through their 
stories. There are ways to move forward in a life marked 
with errors, as we have all been forced to do, but moving 
on does not always eradicate missed opportunities from 

our memory. 
Playwriting is attractive as a medium in part because 
the dialogue I write can achieve anything I choose. With 
that power, I can say the right thing, offer forgiveness, 
give depth to the unknown and resolve conflict.
Still, the stage attempts to proxy reality, and as such, 
does not show perfectly smooth speech. Certainly, 
there would be no purpose in drama which was gutless 
or without despair, but the truth lived on stage is a 
manufactured one in which the desired ending is reached 
regardless of contextual complexity. The act of writing a 
drama, and not simply living one, gives me a semblance 
of control.
Living, however, has provided me ample opportunity 
to misspeak. One of my most serious errors in dialogue 
happened when, as an adolescent, I took it upon myself to 
criticize the life choices of a sister’s friend through the self-
righteous gossiping in which I had learned to participate. 
After at least 30 long minutes critically disparaging her 
grades, friends and clothes at a slumber party, I was 
shocked to find out she had been eavesdropping from my 
sister’s room next-door and overheard all of the unkind 
things my friends and I said. In the tense period after the 
interaction, I took to writing the drama as I wished the 
reality had unfolded. In one version, my friends and I had 
complimented her, and she became confident and joyful. 
In another, she did not cry outside the door but instead 

laughed, taking our words as facetious and offering us 
easy forgiveness.
In reality, my 12-year-old self apologized profusely 
after a period of embarrassment-induced blame I threw at 
my sister and her friend for sneakily listening in. I could 
not undo what I had said, but I tried to offer a revision. 
Fortunately for me, she and I remain friends today, since 
she accepted my apology. But this outcome was not 
guaranteed, and on other occasions, these accidental 
unkindnesses and offenses in dialogue have had lasting 
consequences. Sometimes, we have to write forgiveness 
into the story ourselves.
Dialogue is instrumental to the unfolding of our lives. 
How many times have the trajectories of our lives been 
decidedly altered when we were brave enough to greet a 
new friend, impress the right executive or defend what 
we stand for? How many times have we failed to speak 
and so cannot know what could have been? There is a 
profound ache that comes with the regret and anguish of 
life paths not taken and the torture of wonderment they 
stir in us. 
What if I had just said “yes,” or “no,” or something at 
all? 
I have not been unscathed by the force of regret for the 
unsaid. One particular fate-induced meeting still stands 
out as a catalyst for longing. 
One night, while I was solo-traveling in Stockholm, 

I found myself stranded eight miles from my residence 
— I had been living in Iceland and forgot the sun sets 
during the night in other parts of the world. Without 
a phone or cash, I wasn’t sure how I’d hail a ride back 
across the city’s isles, but that summer I had adopted the 
Icelandic mantra, “Þetta reddast,” or “it will fix itself,” 
so I remained unconcerned. I saw a boy my age walking 
the same direction as me — using his obviously-charged 
phone — which seemed like the logical way out of my 
situation. Conveniently, he had called an Uber to the 
same district that I was staying, and I shared the ride 
with him through the city. 
On the 40-minute journey through the night, we 
talked through multitudes of the political and personal, 
finding fateful linkages of days we’d both been in the 
same capital cities, interests we shared and beliefs we 
both found inalienable. When he implored me to stay up 
through the night, to explore the posh district and race 
against the sun’s rising, I fumbled for words and landed 
on non-adventure. 
The next morning my instinct of making things right — 
or rather, rewriting the regret — set in. As I took a train 
to Oslo, I wrote the dialogue I remembered and altered 
the ending, subtitling it, “with the grace of hindsight.” 
What might have happened that night if I said yes? The 
question would weigh on me for weeks.
Most people can name a time they wanted a do-over, 

and writing for the theatre gives us a 
chance to create one. This past summer 
I co-directed playwriting workshops in 
Kosovo, and we drew on this desire for 
rewriting the personal to make peace 
with past things said and unsaid. We 
created an activity called “Goodbye 
Stranger” for our final week, where 
students were to think of an encounter 
with someone they saw once and then 
never again. They could write the interaction with any 
ending they desired. 
One student wrote of the last time she saw a former 
crush, when she wanted to accept his apology for the 
hurtful things he said. When she performed the piece 
with the dialogue she wished she had actually used, 
her voice was brave and pure. She showed me that it is 
redemptive to forgive. 
Another student rewrote an interaction she had with 
an aggressor on public transit, who threatened her with 
stares and catcalls. She reimagined the scene as one in 
which she defended herself and the women around her 
from his taunting. She showed me that it is redemptive 
to empower. 
Another wrote of the interpersonal depth she thought 
existed within her favorite celebrity, who she had seen 
once on the street. Her scene detailed his hardships 

and hopes, reminding us what we might miss when we 
take someone’s surface as their entirety. She showed me 
that it is redemptive to inquire. Making things right or 
deep or new by rewriting moments missed is a process of 
redemption and one of reclamation.
I keep writing dialogue to put the world back in order 
— to forgive myself and others, reimagine lost time and 
put an end to conflict. On the page and on the stage, the 
progression of things is in my control. It would be nice if, 
in the writing in times of war, we ended it, or in recovering 
time spent we had second chances to muster bravery. In 
fictive worlds, we can imagine these better outcomes 
and actualize them when we choose. This process is not 
as imaginary as it seems. After all, in being reminded of 
the worlds I wish to inhabit, it becomes easier to set out 
creating them.

Wednesday, January 8, 2020 // The Statement
4B
5B
Wednesday, January 8, 2020 // The Statement

ILLUSTRATION BY JONATHAN WALSH

BY EMILY RUSSELL, STATEMENT COLUMNIST

Redemption
in 
dialouge

There is a 
profound ache 
that comes with 
the regret and 
anguish of life 
paths not taken 
and the torture of 
wonderment they 
stir in us.

PHOTO COURTESY OF EMILY RUSSELL

