men say, “What’s the deal? What’s the problem? to be true. In an instant, an audience could look at ultimately. I feel no devotion, no dedication to an
I am sorry your Father was tough but take it easy.” them, or a reader and say, ‘I don’t believe that, that audience to make them feel comfortable. Not like
You don’t know why you write what you write. It couldn’t happen.’ I don’t care, I mean you care you want to connect
comes from a variety of places. I’m sure over the last with an audience, but I don’t want to coddle them in
decade I have seen or been able to recognize more of You often have to explain your work or your any way. I want to give them more credit than that
myself or my upbringing filtering into the work and characters, should any artist have to do this? and I also think that they are smarter than they
saying, ‘oh yeah I tap into certain things that have think they are.
shaped me.’ But certainly portraits of people will be I don’t know if there is a hard and fast rule on that.
speckled with the past. It’s some sort of hybrid Because I don’t mind talking about it. Because I So particularly in the theater, I am as interested in
Jamba Juice. If they weren’t funny enough then add spend so much of my time alone, it’s actually nice to audience dynamic as I am on what’s happening on
some humor to it, and if they were too angry then say ‘let’s talk about that, or how do you do that?’ I stage. There was a theater review recently in the
I will leave some of that out. I end up being a don’t have a problem with that. But I am also quick New York Times that said, “It’s still the place where
psychologist. I study the behavior of people who to leave things untied or events, themes or impulses we come to be alone together.” I like to try to break
happen to not exist. But they still absolutely need unchecked so an audience can think what they will that safety to say we know your there, [and] we can
still disrupt your relative serenity. I think that is
ultimately my job: to be the town crier, to wreck a
perfectly good evening, to raise questions and not
necessarly have answers. To be that annoying guy
that says, “How come?”
So in one way theater is one the last realms of
intimacy.
Public intimacy, which is a different thing. In the
same way I think the Internet has removed a form of
public intimacy. There is none of that public contact
we’re removing a whole lot of that. And I think there
is something good about bumping up against each
other, you know, we see what were made up of.
What was it like to see someone say your words
on stage for the first time?
I realized even at that age how important the actor
was, how much they brought to it. And I realized
where my gift was, I could write, I could hear a voice
and put it down succinctly. I can’t count the number
times, well four, (laughs) that I have an actor that
may be speaking about themselves or about another
actor go, “You know when I read this I thought it
was so cold but actually it is very human.” Even
with the most wildly charismatic crazy dictator
you’re (still) trying to find that they are human.
You don’t believe that they are a monster. They
are [just] someone who went awry.
I did a play with Ed Harris recently, we did it for a
few days here, it was a one-man show. He is one of
the best people I have ever watched work on stage.
He’s also fantastic in films, he doesn’t do that much
stage anymore, and he is unbelievably good. He tells
a love story, now it happens to be about his mother,
because it is obviously a take on Oedipus. He was
able to take essentially a parlor game to say, “Hey
surprise!” And turn it into something profoundly
human. This guy stands up at the end and says,
“Tell me that what I felt for her is not love.” Or
you could look at that and say how could that be
love, how could you essentially lie to someone for
thirty years and the very reason for the two of you
finding each other was deception. Yes I have made
the last thirty years comfortable and secure and all
those things but the centerpiece was “I have never
told you the truth, I am your child.” Is that really
love? That is hopefully what people take home and
talk about. So that is a neat trick to be able to do.
And he was doing it with my words and that’s when
you go, ‘This shit is powerful’, this is amazing that
you can put these few things together and people
get angry or moved or laugh their asses off, that’s
a job that I like. It seems ok by me.
34 / 96
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