Local playwright Patricia Loughrey is anxious, scared, excited and completely exhilarated these days. She’s also feeling quite vulnerable and for very good reason. The San Diego State University School of Theatre, Television and Film will premiere her latest play in April of this year. It comes with a most intriguing title: Lord Derby’s Giant Eland.

As is the case with many authors, this playwright has reached down into her emotional, dark-gray soul for the guts of her drama. Her female protagonist is haunted by memories of abuse; recollections surfacing after a long, dark journey into the painful, troubled world of familial incest. In the process of writing this play, Loughrey has continually confronted her own childhood memories of incest. This theatrical presentation of her work is a purging of hidden feelings and suppressed emotions as well as a realization of academic achievement.

Loughrey began her career at the New Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco after getting a B.A. in Dramatic Arts at U.C. Santa Barbara. She was a playwright in residence at Redwood High in Marin County and has written other plays for young audiences such as Nicaragua USA at the New Conservatory Theatre and Not Who You See, But Who I Am at the Mark Taper Forum’s Improvisational Theatre Project.

She braved New York for awhile, developing a theater company called the Actor’s Club Theater where she lived in a loft in Brooklyn with no heat. Loughrey welcomed a return to the Santa Barbara warm weather at the Actors & Playwriting Theatre. That’s where love bloomed and then died after a three-and-a-half year sojourn. Somehow she kept traveling further and further south, through Solana Beach and then to San Diego.

During her meanderings in the southland, there were nightmares as well as discovery, disability and healing. But there was always writing.

Loughrey and I talked recently about playwriting, parts of her life journey and what the future holds for this talented San Diego writer. She seems to be looking less over her shoulder to the past and more towards the future; one that bodes of promise, fulfillment and hope.

GLT: Your play, Lord Derby’s Giant Eland, is somewhat biographical, correct?

Patricia Loughrey: Yes.

[Patty takes a deep breath and purses her lips together, but doesn’t shy away from the question. Her simple “yes” answers my question head-on, with a strong resolve that seems to almost cry out and confront some of her past demons.]

GLT: Has the process of writing assisted you in lessening the pain of your experience with incest?

PL: The pain remains; it continues to haunt, but putting down the words for this play has helped me to leave some of the hurt that I have had to endure and get on with my life.

GLT: Lord Derby’s Giant Eland is an interesting title. How did you come to pen this one?

PL: Well, I will tell you that Lord Derby is an English naturalist and an eland is from the largest African antelope family.

GLT: How does that title work into your storyline?

PL: The character of Elizabeth has a revelation while visiting the zoo. It’s a visionary thing that somehow brings about a connection to her experience with intimacy.

GLT: Can you tell us a little more about the play?

PL: It’s a journey, amongst strangers, about the affects of incest on a young woman. She wants to free herself from the haunting memories of abuse. But in so doing, she needs to resurrect and confront them as well.

GLT: I take it this is not a drawing room comedy?

PL: I developed the story around characters that are uniquely interesting and funny in their own way, but ones who carry their own secret pain as well, tucked smartly into the linings of their own souls. It’s not a comedy.

The cast of characters in Lord Derby includes an old landlady by the name of Dolly, along with her four tenants, including one very interesting male tenant called Martha, whose life is governed by his wardrobe. The other characters include a gardener, Silly, a Man In Brown, and a young woman named Elizabeth. Most of the action takes place within or around the confines of the house, which is almost a caretaker in and of itself.

GLT: The character of Dolly may have summed up the overall message of the play when she says, “You think this house is a hiding place from the world? There are no hiding places from the world.” Is that part of the theme of the play and your own experience?

PL: It was certainly a part of my own emotional recuperation; a part of how I will look to the future and face the world. And Dolly’s right; you can’t hide from the world.

GLT: There’s another line that struck me, as the character of Elizabeth says “…He swallowed me right from the beginning. I live inside him. I look out… through him. Everywhere is him. Everyone is him.” Is this your way of saying that bad experiences almost continue to haunt the individual in some way and never go away?

PL: Yes, you have to work on minimizing the haunting, if you will.

GLT: Some of your earlier efforts in dramatic form involved educating youngsters about HIV. Can you tell us about that experience?

PL: I have written three HIV education plays to date: Secrets, produced by Kaiser Permanente; The Inner Circle, translated into five languages to date; and Hungry.

The experience with all of the projects taught me the value of good writing and a method of communication that can connect effectively with the younger crowd.

GLT: You’ve touched quite a few youngsters with your published works. Have they been limited to California?

PL: Over 3 million individuals worldwide have seen my HIV education plays. And some of my works have been translated into Dutch, Afrikaans and Spanish.

GLT: After the success of Lord Derby, what does the future hold for Patricia Loughrey?

PL: I hope there will be some comedies in my life in the future.

Loughrey appears not to understand the words “take it easy.” Not only is she actively involved in the nightly rehearsals of her play, but she continues to work on her thesis to capture that elusive Masters in Theatre Arts. When she has an extra moment she reads new plays for the Old Globe Theatre and has just obligated herself to help newly appointed Diversionary Artistic Director Dan Kirsch in his literary department.

Since there isn’t a playwriting program on the SDSU campus, the production of Lord Derby’s Giant Eland has partnered with the Department of Women’s Studies to find an even larger forum for an open discussion about incest that will follow some of the performances.

Lord Derby’s has the smell of success written all over it. It’s a work that speaks on many different levels and dare I say it’s entertaining as well.

Lord Derby’s Giant Eland will play at SDSU’s Experimental Theatre April 7-9; call for ticket information at (619) 823-5868