By Danielle Mages Amato

Playwright Keiko Green

Keiko, would you talk a bit about the inspiration for Empty Ride?

Keiko Green: When the Globe first approached me with a commission, I knew I wanted to write a ghost story, but one that felt a little different. I was interested in the idea that sometimes the beings that are the most scary are actually the most scared. Then, late one night during rehearsals for Exotic Deadly, my husband and I were watching an episode of “Unsolved Mysteries” about this area in Japan where, after the 2011 tsunami, a hundred percent of the taxi drivers reported picking up a ghost passenger. That area is personal to me, because my grandma lived in Sendai, in the area where the tsunami hit. It was really devastating for the whole region. I remember going there just a year or so later, and in certain areas, they had rebuilt quickly. But my mom and I also saw places that hadn’t quite recovered in the same way. There was just a sadness there, and I thought: oh, haunting is about more than just ghosts. We’re haunted by devastating events that happen to us. We’re haunted by loss. That felt very rich, and it was a piece of recent history that a lot of people don’t know much about that is very personal to my family and where we’re from.

Was it difficult to write something so close to home?

KG: I was resistant at first! I remember sitting with my brother at a cafe after the tsunami hit, feeling completely helpless, waiting to hear if our Obachan (or grandmother) had survived. But when I decided to give in to that, I actually ended up giving in to a more tender play that is different from a lot of my other work. My plays are usually really fast and whimsical and silly—and I think Empty Ride has a lot of those things as well—but it’s also a departure from some of my other work. An act of choosing to be brave.

Director Sivan Battat

Sivan, what about the play made you want to work on it as a director?

Sivan Battat: Well, I love a ghost story. When someone tells a scary story around a campfire, I’m captivated. And the whole play feels like that, like a ghost story that keeps unfolding right in front of you. But I think the thing that really called to me about the play is how limber the text is. It’s able to move from place to place in a lean and focused way, almost like a taxi—it feels inherently theatrical. I also find it really funny. As I was first reading it, I laughed out loud, and I gasped. I actually had to step away from my computer for a few moments after one of the ghost stories, because I had shivers up my spine. When a play leaps off the page like that, when I can hear the way it sounds and see its colors and sense how it moves, I always want to direct it.

What are the challenges and opportunities of the play that you’re discovering as you get it on its feet? 

KG: Like Sivan, I also love listening to someone tell a ghost story. One of the big challenges that I set for myself with this play was this: what happens if we just let an actor on stage tell a long, complicated, but really good ghost story? How long could we sustain that? How would it land? When we first heard the play out loud at the Powers New Voices Festival in 2024, we realized that it did work. Entertainment is a big thing for me—I want to make sure everyone is entertained. And also I want characters to change internally, to be brave, to connect with each other. So it’s a constant, delicate balance of making sure we’re doing the characters justice and also making sure that the play is as entertaining as it can be.

SB: One of the challenges and opportunities of the play to me is it’s telling a sort of insider/outsider story. Kisa feels like an insider in this place, her hometown, but she is also constantly facing her own outsider-ness as she comes home after a long time away. I think many of us can relate to Kisa’s journey through the play and that insider/outsider tension. Questions like: Where do I belong? Is this my place? I want to call this my place, but why don’t I feel fully whole here? I want everyone to be able to go on the journey that Kisa is undergoing with grief, with loss, with transformation, with self-discovery, with feeling like she wants to be in the metaphorical and literal driver’s seat of her life.

What were you looking for when it came to casting the play?

KG: This play can be actually quite tricky to cast. I wanted to write a story about Japanese people in the way that I experienced them, which is often very different from how that culture is represented in media. So we have a female protagonist who has a real dark side. She’s not perky or submissive. We have a young man who’s really flirtatious and, I don’t know, maybe a little sleazy? We have a dad that’s just goofy and funny and warm. So we were looking for actors who are slightly strange—and I mean that as a compliment to the people we cast. They each have a unique sparkle to them that feels outside of stereotype and brings so much complexity to the roles they play.

SB: We also needed actors who have a real agility with text. The actors in this play need to be able to chew the language, to really use the language, because this is a language-driven play. The language is what takes you on the journey of the play. In this piece, there aren’t big scenic surprises that come out of nowhere; there aren’t stunning automation moves that take your breath away with their height and scale. Here, the language is what takes your breath away. So we needed actors with the ability to play text with rigor, the rigor with which Keiko wrote it.

What are you hoping the audience’s experience will be like?

KG: I don’t come from a family of artists. My dad is an engineer. My mom is a translator. I get annoyed when art feels like it’s only for artists, when it feels exclusive. So I’m always thinking about how to make sure that everyone is welcome, truly. Whenever I get stuck, I imagine myself sitting in the audience, and I wonder: what is the coolest thing that could happen next? What would be really satisfying and surprising to me as an audience member? I want people to be leaning in. I want people to be curious. I want them to be buzzing after the show and walk out the door deep in conversation. I know an audience never has one, unified experience, but in the theatre they say that people’s heartbeats start to beat in unison, that they start breathing in unison. This play is not horror, by any means, but it is a ghost story, and I think that there is something about feeling a little chilled together that is an amazing shared experience. It’s just as good as laughing together at a comedy.

SB: And hopefully the audience will have both while they watch this play!