Researched and Written by AndreAna Canales, Maxi Rojas, and Emily Moreno
A “Best New Play” award winner, the play Keely and Du has held an enigmatic ambiguity since its original creation. Written by a never-before-seen, “reclusive” author, many have speculated “Jane Martin” to be an alias for the long known producer and theatrical director, Jon Jory. Jon Jory, the previous director of Actors Theater of Louisville and the founder of the Louisville Festival of New American Plays (i.e The Humana Festival of American Plays), denies any and all claims that “Jane Martin” is his creation. However, many critics have speculated that Jory has utilized the “Jane Martin” alias to explore his outlook on femininity and women-related issues, based on a statement he made in reference to “Jane Martin,” wherein he claimed “Martin feels she could not write plays if people knew who she was, regardless of her identity or gender.” Many also suspect that “Jane Martin” even further extends to the work of his wife, Marcia Dixy Jory. Especially in the case of Keely and Du, it is believed that both of the Jorys have collaborated on the multiple women-focused pieces “Jane Martin” has authored.
The Jorys’ playwright work showcases an inclination towards a politically-charged and socially-questioning framework, with Keely and Du being no exception. Focused on the lives, experiences, and beliefs of two female main characters, Keely and Du brings into question a number of moral and social quandaries, but provides seemingly no conclusive answer of what is right or wrong. In the beginnings of the play, Keely and Du’s individual and highly polarized characterizations seem to be a clear indication of difference between the two, a form of such distinct disconnection that a viewer must choose a side in the perceived opposition. However, as the play evolves, a clear connection and understanding is developed between the two leads, showcasing not only the sameness in their experience as women, but the stark parallels that have led them both to their current point in time. This sense of clashing ideologies, but evident empathetic, close connection the main characters’ formulate, highlights the purposeful ambiguity of the authors’ intent.
The Jorys’ lack of clear time and place in the piece then further illuminates their ending resolve of the play, insinuating that this specific happenstance with this specific outcome warrants no specific setting to be understood and grounded in the real world. The Jorys, in writing this Pulitzer-nominated piece, wanted to make it clear that both the circumstance and relationship of Keely and Du is boundless in its relevance to society, in both its surface meaning and its deeper one. Surface-level, the play explores the nuances of both the pro-life and pro-choice realm, and either sides’ differing perspectives on morality. However, through the aim of the authors, the play further extends to the idea of women stuck within the bounds of their politicized sides, caught within their own perceived separation, but faced with the connecting experience that comes with living as a woman. This overarching theme, paired with the use of no distinct historical limitation, showcases the Jorys’ insistence that such a politically conflictual, but irrefutably intense interconnectedness between two women is nebulous and limitless in its social relation.