HartBeat reading tackles modern slavery, set in Connecticut

A new play, “Bee Trapped Inside the Window” by Saviana Stanescu, looks at the reality of present-day slavery through the stories of three different women: an elitist Russian-American business executive; her Black teen daughter who is establishing her own identity; and the Asian-American domestic worker who works in a neighboring house.

Produced by the socially and politically conscious HartBeat Ensemble (which has brought half a dozen shows online since the COVID crisis shuttered its Carriage House space on Farmington Avenue), “Bee Trapped Inside the Window” began streaming on Feb. 26 and is available on demand through March 21. Tickets are free, available at showclix.com/event/bee-trapped-inside-the-window.

The play, we are told as it begins, is set in “small town Connecticut, a wealthy neighborhood with only a few houses and their large adjoining backyards.” “Bee Trapped Inside the Window” is presented as a virtual reading, so viewers have to imagine settings and props, but the actors wear basic, appropriate costumes.

The play spans over a decade of interactions among the women, but is mostly told in isolated monologues. Stanescu’s script is well suited to an online, Zoom-boxed presentation. The actors — Lydia Gaston, Erin Lockett and Jennifer Dorr White — fill the screen with their expressive faces, compelling stories and distressing situations. The playwright conveys work with words. As the domestic servant Malaya, Gaston regularly recites the household schedule, enumerates her daily duties, and explains the pride she takes in her work.

Stanescu, who is from Romania and is now based in New York, says she didn’t choose Connecticut randomly as the play’s setting. She has many friends in the state and visits often. “I love Connecticut. I go there all the time. But it can be so isolating.

“In Romania, we know too much about our neighbors,” she laughs. “But here, you don’t know anything.”

The play was first produced by Civic Ensemble in Ithaca, New York, in 2018, as part of a series called Civic Acts: New Plays Toward the Beloved Community. The co-artistic director of Civic Ensemble who commissioned the play was Godfrey Simmons, who became the new artistic director of HartBeat Ensemble last year.

“Bee Trapped Inside the Window” began as a single monologue presented at an evening of short plays at Civic Ensemble marking the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage. The monologue, in the voice of a longtime maid for a wealthy family, has been produced numerous times and is still available independently from the longer “Bee Trapped Inside the Window” script. In the HartBeat reading, the maid is played as an Asian immigrant, but the role has been also been played by Black and Jewish actors.

Simmons, a co-founder of Civic Ensemble, “loved it,” Stanescu says, “and commissioned me to expand it into a full-length play.” The play had a workshop in Ithaca, live onstage, prior to this virtual HartBeat reading.

“I’d wanted to write a three-part monologue play for a long time,” Stanescu says. “This could have gone in a few different directions.” The one she chose has a social message: “how important it is to connect with each other. When the women in the play finally communicate with each other, good things happen.”

Asked if she was involved with the casting for this production, Stanescu answers “With all my heart. Erin Lockett [who plays Mia] is a former student of mine at Ithaca College. Jennifer Dorr White [who plays Mia’s mother Sasha] is an old friend of mine.” She also pushed to have Vernice P. Miller direct the reading, having worked with her in Ithaca.

The play was strengthened by research Stanescu did into the reality of modern-day slavery. She mentions an article, “My Family’s Slave” by Alex Tizon, in a 2017 issue of the Atlantic magazine, an episode of The Brian Lehrer Show on New York Public Radio and the book “Hidden Girl: The True Story of a Modern-Day Child Slave” by Shyima Hall, all of which concern immigrants stuck in situations where they worked for no wages.

Stanescu continues to develop “Bee Trapped Inside the Window.” She’s also been receiving feedback from those who’ve already streamed the show online.

“I’m so impressed that so many of my friends have already seen it and emailed me, and not just my Romanian friends. They said the characters really resonated with them.

Christopher Arnott can be reached at carnott@courant.com.