Character Work

by Paul Susi

Nearly two decades into his theatrical career, Paul Susi is cast as Chee Gong, a Chinese immigrant executed in 1889 for a crime he did not commit and buried in an unmarked grave in Susi’s hometown of Portland, Oregon. This role sets off a meditation on cultural erasure and how the act of “forgetting” can be both a survival mechanism and a trap. But the heart of Character Work takes place offstage: Susi has spent many years managing shelters for unhoused people, and out of that work grew his mutual aid project, PDX ID Assistance, a radical effort that literally gives people back their identities. His book is at once a memoir, a manifesto, and a startlingly honest account of what compassion can look like.

160 pages, Paperback

Published October 28, 2025

Reviews

[Dan Mcdowell]

“I’ve learned that the most important question that I have to answer for myself, every day, in all of the things I’m doing, is: Do I observe, or do I intervene?”

A friend invited me to go to a reading of this book at Powell’s. I had heard a little bit about the Portland ID Project but knew very little. Susi’s reading and q+a was one of the best I’ve ever attended. The book lived up to the evening.

[Asae]

Profound and approachable read about what it all means: art, injustice, mortality, racism, classicism, fascism, family, mental health…I could go on. Despite the heavy topics, joy and love are as present as rage and grief.

[Suzy Harris]

A remarkable memoir/social commentary - one person’s journey to bring theater to the incarcerated, identification to the invisible, and voice to the voiceless. A book every person should read, especially those who complain about homeless campers on our streets.

[Jill]

I can't stop talking about Paul Susi and this book. I'm excited to hear Paul and Laura Moulton at Broadway Books later this month. Just read it. You'll understand.

[Michael]

I’m very glad I read this book. The author writes a raw honest story of himself and his work on the streets of Portland. He tells of his love of theater and how it informs not only his work but his engagement with the larger community of Portland. I’m so glad I read it.

[Alissa Hattman]

These essays from Paul Susi (a theater artist, social services professional, educator, and Portland-area activist) are moving and instructive without being morally didactic. Susi says "there is no magic budget initiative or policy change or program idea that can be 'good enough.' There is only the urgency in front of us, the limited means you have at hand, and your own capacity to engage, or to dissociate, and why. Practically any choice we make can be justified by the circumstances, but the essential thing is one's own conscience, your sense of what's right and what's wrong, your own story of cause-and-effect. And it's your responsibility to string these actions together in ways that satisfy your own sense of justice" (128). He encourages people to "stop suppressing your rage out of piety or politeness. Let your rage fuel your desire to do more to help one another" (131). YES.