"It's a brutal, sort of cold thing to do. Anybody who looks at this program and expects that by cutting a U.S. Treasury check you are going to make 9/11 families happy is vastly misunderstanding what's going on with this program."
- Kenneth Feinberg, administrator of the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund, in December 2003, shortly before the cutoff date for filing.
Kenneth Feinberg was a high-powered lawyer who had won millions in class-action suits against big corporations when Sept. 11, 2001, cast a long, wide shadow over the country.
Not long after the terrorist attacks, he was appointed administrator of the congressionally approved $7 billion fund intended to dole out money to survivors and families of the victims of 9/11. It was a job for which he refused compensation.
But giving money away wasn't so easy. He had to figure out the amount each was to get. To receive money from the fund, victims had to agree not to sue the airlines and other entities. Along the way, he was accused of being arrogant and insensitive.
But the job made him a changed man. He shed the arrogance and learned deep empathy - and how to show it.
"A Human Equation," a play by Philadelphia playwright Peter Bonilla about Feinberg's journey, as well as those of some of the victims, receives its world premiere tonight with Winding Road Theatre Ensemble.
Bonilla was a University of Pennsylvania freshman when 9/11 happened. All through school and in the years after, he was waiting for his fellow playwrights to come up with a piece that addressed the tragedy.
Finally, he decided to wait no longer - he would write a play himself.
And Feinberg's story seemed to offer the drama and arc ripe for theater.
Bonilla read the attorney's 2006 book about administering the fund, "What Is a Life Worth?" Then he wrote Feinberg.
"I sent him a letter that I thought his 9/11 experience could make for a very interesting play," said Bonilla shortly after he arrived in Tucson Tuesday to attend tonight's premiere.
Bonilla explained to Feinberg that this would be his first play. But he must have been persuasive:
"He warmed up to the idea, and was very supportive."
Bonilla did extensive research, spending hours with Feinberg, interviewing victims, and going over transcripts of meetings - Feinberg had held close to 1,000 face-to-face meetings with individuals seeking assistance from the fund.
Those weren't easy meetings - Feinberg had determined that the range of the awards would start at $250,000 for the families of the lowest-paid workers (those who earned up to $20,000 a year) killed at the World Trade Center, to a much higher rate to those with higher earning power. This caused quite a controversy: How do you put a price on someone's life? Anyone who wanted to plead a case for a higher sum got a personal meeting. (In the end, the average death-claim payment was $2 million).
Bonilla also scoured public records, and talked to some who had lost family members in the tragedy to write his play.
One of Winding Road's founders, playwright Toni Press-Coffman, came across Bonilla's script, and she proposed the company produce it.
"This play was really good, and it was a natural fit," said the production's director, Press-Coffman's husband, Glen Coffman, adding that Winding Road wanted to do something to commemorate 9/11's 10th anniversary.
A number of the interviews Feinberg conducted became scenes in the play, as did the town-hall meetings the lawyer held.
And while names and genders have been tweaked to hide the actual identity of the characters, Coffman knew he wanted to approach the play as though it were a documentary.
"The production is very straightforward," he said in a phone interview.
"There's not a lot of theatricality to it. This is a documentary about this man's journey, as well as the stories of some of the victims and the challenges they faced, and how they managed and how they didn't."
He said the human drama and deep, deep sadness is palpable.
"It's sort of remarkable in some ways that any of the people who came out of this were able to function," he said of the victims and victim's families.
"The circumstances surrounding some of these deaths are so horrible and so shocking. And the fund, its perceived injustices, aggravated the situation."
But finally, said Coffman, he sees the play as one that "speaks to people's capacity to survive terrible things, and to one person's ability to see the world through other people's experiences."
"(Feinberg) was able to move out of the abstraction that was demanded by his profession and this particular assignment. He finally was able to empathize."
If you go
"A Human Equation"
• By: Peter Bonilla.
• Presented by: Winding Road Theater Ensemble.
• Where: Christ Presbyterian Church, 6565 E. Broadway.
• When: 7:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays through Sept. 24. No performance this Sunday.
• Tickets: $20, with discounts available.
• Reservations/information: www.windingroadtheater.org or 401-3626.
• Cast: Janet Henderson, Amy Erbe, Roger Owen, Eva Tessler, Brian Wees, Steve Wood, and Jeff Scotland.
• Running time: About 2 hours, with one intermission.
Defying the hijackers one part of lives
Sunday, Winding Road Theatre Ensemble will take a break from its production of "A Human Equation" to present a reading of Toni Press-Coffman's new play, "United."
The piece is the story of the people on United Flight 93, which was hijacked by terrorists on Sept. 11, 2001. It was thought the plane was headed toward Washington, possibly the White House. Passengers attempted to take over the hijackers, but the terrorist drove it into the ground over Pennsylvania. Everyone on board was killed.
"Out of the 40 (passengers), six were athletes, one a judo champ, another a national rugby champ. There were a lot of people who did social justice work - an environmental lawyer; one person in high school who did AIDS prevention, another woman who worked on physical disability access. And there were several people of faith on the plane. There were all these people working on the behalf of others," Press-Coffman said.
Sunday's reading is slated for 2 p.m. at Christ Presbyterian Church, 6565 E. Broadway. There will additional readings at that location 2 p.m. Sept. 17 and 7:30 p.m. Sept. 22. At 7 p.m. Tuesday there will be a reading at Episcopal Church of the Apostles, 12111 N. La Cholla Blvd., and another at 7 p.m. Sept. 18 at Live Theatre Workshop, 5317 E. Speedway.
There is a suggested donation of $10. Reservations at www.windingroadtheater.org or 401-3626.
A hug and a teddy bear inspired nationwide action, play
And another play inspired by 9/11:
The faith-based Waypoint Theatre is staging "September Bears" by Jeff Barker.
After the terrorists' attacks, a Manhattan school teacher hugged a child and gave him a teddy bear. The idea spread across the country, and 68,000 of the stuffed toys were donated and given to New York's children and recovery works.
Barker, spurred on by the spontaneous action, created a play that weaves in that and other events, poems and reflections of those at ground zero.
Performances are 7 p.m. today; 2 p.m. Saturday, and 2 and 7 p.m. Sunday at Atria Bell Gardens' Academy Hall Theatre, 6653 E. Carondelet Drive. Tickets are $18 in advance, $20 at the door, with discounts available. It is not recommended for children 9 and younger because of the sensitive nature of the material. Go to www.waypoint-theatre.org or call 616-8584.
Contact reporter Kathleen Allen at kallen@azstarnet.com or 573-4128.
