•• " lIil'" III "I~I • . IU IUIIO • • u l l . .

III(

ANN E BO G ART
... &1 "'lU ·1 at lu.· II

Co nvers at io ns Conversations
"U . , 1&1' . , &I .& & with Anne
w i t h A n ne TWENTY·FOU R INTE RVIEWS

lu' .1. · "T'll O ·.UI 11 . . . . • . . . ' .11.1

Anne Bogart

Twe nty -two I n t er v ie w s

"Ill t" •• 1 • nul' 'Oill . • 01111 WoOO'oll • • u, 1111'"

..---
- -
TA BLE OF CON T EN TS Pete r Sellars
April 21, 2003
Other Books ByAnne Bogart Available From TeG
Title Page Charles l. Mee. Jr.
Introduction September 29, 2003

Richard Foreman Andre Gregory

March 31, 2003 November 17, 2003

Paula Vogel
December 15, 2003

Martha Clarke
February 2, 2004

Julie Taymor
March 15. 2004

Bill 1. Jones
March 26, 2004

Zelda Fichandler
October 4. 2004

JoAnne Akalaitis
November 18, 2004

0'1.'00<
Joseph v. Melillo Molly Smit h
Novemb er 29. 2004 December 19. 2005

l ee Breuer Robert Woodru ff

February 28. 2005 September 14, 2006 l obby of A.R.T. Boston.
MA
Elizabeth St reb
March 28. 2005 Mary Zimmerman
November 7. 2006
Elizabeth l eCo mpte
April 25. 2005 Mary Overlie
November 27, 2006
Meredith Monk
May 16,2005 SITI Company
June 17, 2009
Eduardo Machado
September 26, 2005 Copyright Page

Ben Cameron
October 24. 2005

Tina l andau
November '4, 2005

Oska r Eustis
December 7. 2005

2 poges{<1 mn) lef! In Itlis dlap'er (Bod; to poge 8) 0'1.'00<

O T H ER BOO KS BY A N N E BO G ART Conversations with Anne has been in the ma king
AVA I LA B L E FROM T CG since early 2003 and it is impossible to ade-
q uately thank the numerous individuals who
The Viewpoints Book: made the boo k poss ible. Many thanks go to th e
A Practical Guide to Viewpoints and Composition artists who so generously shared th eir persona l
sto ries and artistic journeys. Hea rtfelt thanks also
by Anne Bogart and Tina Landau go to the coun tless people who helped organize
and manage the twenty-four interviews for Conver-
sations with Anne. including the SITI Company
administration led by Megan Wanlass, the ongo -
ing help of the SITI Company interns. the many
artist assistants and staff who helped with getting
approvals, edits and proofreading. the practical
support of SITI Company board members and th e
TCG publications staff for their dedicated work
over the years with the realization of this book.
Thanks also to the staff at the University of Chica-
go who arranged the conversation with Mary Zim-
merman, and the American Repertory Theater
who hosted the conversation with Robert
Woodruff.

2 poges{<1 mn) lef! In Itlis dlap'er (Bod; to page 8) I'l. .00<

IN T RO DUCTIO N reflection s of these si ngular individuals ca pt ured
in a moment in time in the mids t of their dist inct
BY A N N E BOG ART journeys.

After 9/11, I notice d that people were gravitating

with gusto toward one another to converse, to
consider. to listen and to discuss substan tive is-
sues. Peo ple gathered in town halls, chu rch base-
me nts and empty theaters. There seemed to be a
need for mutual exchange under standard light,
without artifice or the separation of stage and
audience. The communities that formed sha red
an appetite for thinking together, musing together
and considering the future in relation to the past,
to the present and to recent events.
In this spirit I began an initiative in SITI
Company's studio entitled Conversations with
Anne. I invited colleagues who I admi re and re-
spect, one by one, to engage in a public conver -
sa tion with me. Because the response was univer-
sally positive, we continued organizing thes e
conversations throughout the past deca de. At
times Conversations with Anne happened in oth er
cities, including Chicago, Boston and Baltimore.
The tran scripts of these conversations ap pear
here and I am happy to sha re t he m wit h a large r
commu nity who might benefit from t he

2 poges{l mn) H!fl 'n Ihi"hapte< (Bock 10 page 8) I'l. ,00<

Richard Foreman cheap loft on Grand Street in Ne w Yo rk City, only
a block away from Richard's the ater on Broadway
As an underg raduate at Bard College I was part of near Spring Street. Each and every evening that I
a posse of theater students who orga nized the "I had not hing else planned, I made my way to
Hate Richard Foreman Club." We were zealo us in Richard 's theater to watch a rehearsa l or perfor-
ou r dislike for the man and his work. It was the mance. Inevitably I left at the end of the evening
early nineteen seventies and we often made jour- hating the man and his work even more. But then
neys to New York City to see the work of the I would return. I returned again and again. After
Open Theater, the living Theatre , The Manha ttan about a year, I realized that not only did I not hate
Project, the Performance Group, Peter Brook's Richard Foreman , but also that he had taught me
Theatre des Bouffes du Nord and Richard Fo re- more than any other director. I finally saw that his
man's Ontological-Hysteric Theater. We relished work is perhaps the closest descendent to Bertolt
our hate for Foreman's work. Brecht's, and that Richard was developing
When Bard's film department invited Richard to Brecht's ideas forward.
speak with film students, we rounded up the "I Richard grew up in Westches ter County, near
Hate Richard Foreman Club" to face him down. New York City, graduated from Brown University
Much to our surprise, no film students showed in 1959, and went on to receive an MFA in play-
up, which left us to face and accuse him directly: writing from Yale School of Drama. Unhappy with
"You use actors like props! " At the time, we were the general state of theater and playwriting. he be-
all highly influenced by )erzy Grotowski's brand of gan to direct his own plays in New York City, of-
actor -centric "poo r theater," and Richard's auteur ten working with nonprofessionals and film-
theater seemed heretical to us. Much to ou r frus- makers as actors . Since then , he has produced
tratio n, Richard not only agreed that he treated ac- and directed almost sixty of his own plays with
tors as props, but then he abandoned us to watch his compa ny the Ontological. Hysteric Theater.
a video of his produc tion Sophia Equals Wisdom. He also received a great deal of acclaim for his
We seethed. productio ns of Brecht's Threepenny Ope ra at l in-
In 1974. freshly ou t of college, I moved into a co ln Cente r; Suzan-Lori Parks's Venus and plays

4~ P<J9"'I (51mnJ left., th,schop. (Bock.o po\lll8) I'l. ,00<

by vaclav Havel and Bot ho Stra uss at the Public France. He received an hono rary doct orate fro m
Theater; Woyzeck at Hartford Stage Company; his alma mater, Brown University. New York
Moliere's Don Juan at the Guthrie Theater; Kathy University recently acquired his archives . Seven
Acker's Birth of the Poet at t he Brooklyn Academy collections of his plays have already been pub-
of Music; and Gertrude Stein's Dr. Faustus Lights lished , and boo ks st udying his work have been
the Lights at the Autumn Festivals in Berlin and published in New York, Paris, Berlin and Tokyo.
Paris. He collaborated as librettist and director
with composer Stanley Silverman on eight music- MA RCH 31, 2003
theater pieces produced by The Music Theater
Group and The New York City Opera. He also AB: Let me start by telling my personal story wit h
wrote and directed the feature film Strang Richard. When I was an undergraduate at Bard
Medicine. In opera he directed Die Fledermaus at College in upstate New York, I was part of a com-
the Paris Opera, Don Giovanni at the Opera de pany, Via Theater, which was very influenced by
Litle. Philip Class's Fall of the House of Usher at Grotowski. We used travel to New York in a van
the American Repertory Theater and The Maggio and we would see things that really rocked our
Musicale in Florence. worlds as twenty-one year olds. Pete r Brook would
Five of Richard's own plays received Obie do th ese workshops, and we would see the Open
Awards for Best Play of the Year, and he received Theater and t he Uving Theatre and the Perfor-
four other Obie Awards for directing and one for man ce Group-and there was Richa rd Foreman. 1
"sustained achievement." He has also received hated Richard Forem an. I just th ought he was aw-
the Literature Award from the American Academy ful. We for med the " I Hate Richard Foreman
and Institute of Arts and Letters. a "Lifetime Club." This was 1973. We saw a sign at school
Achievement in the Theater" Award from the Na- sa ying that Richard Foreman was coming to visit
tio nal Endowment for the Arts. the PEN American the film students-because Richard used to work
Center Maste r American Dramatist Award, a with film students as actors. So the "I Hate
MacArthur Fellowship and. in 2004, he was elect- Richard Forman Club" all went to torture him, but
ed officer of the Order of Arts and Letter s of none of the film st udents showed up. So, Richard

41 pages (49 mn)IttfT ntMchople< (Bock 10 poge6) I'l. .00<

came in, and we said, "You treat actors like got into the thea ter as a kid beca use I was shy. I
propsl" And Richard said, "Yeah." was an actor originally. I started doing my own
So, I moved to New York, to Crand Street and shows in grade school. By the time I was well en-
Crosby, where 1 had a 10ft in 1974 for three hun- sconced in junio r high schoo l, I realized tha t I
dred and twenty-five dollars per month for three thought more interesti ng things were going on in
people. Richard had a theater which was just a othe r art. It's very perverse that I've been in the-
room on Broadway. Every time I had a free night ater and that I've been able to con tinue. When I
I'd say, "What do I want to do tonight? Well, I'm was a teenager, my friend and I would come into
going to go to Richard Foreman's and watch what New York every Saturday and would see
he's doing." I'd go over and watch either a perfor- everything--everything-and 1 would invariably
mance or an open rehearsal , and I'd leave after- walk out of the theater, hits and so forth, and say.
ward going, '" hate this, , hate that, , hate Richard "John. it's hopeless. If that's what they think is
Foreman." And then the next: free night, "What am good. how can I be a success?"
I going to do ? I th ink I'll go see Richard Foreman." I don't trust any group human response. To
And after a year I realized that, in fact, I'd learned me. group human response is what makes nazis.
more from Richard than from anyone else and To me, the task of serious art is to make every-
that I'm actually more influenced by Richard than body really understand that they don't belong to a
anyone else. That's how I came up with the the- group. It doesn't work. The group response is just
ory, which I hope is true , that Richard is actually a return to some animalist ic level, which we all
the actor version of Bertolt Brecht. have, which can make us feel good for a mom ent
Carrying on with this theme of hate, there was a but really denies what I consider the truth of the
huge installation at Exit Art this summer, and human being, which is the potential for som e
Richard's was "Ten Things I Hate About Theatre." kind of real lonely spirituality. When we sta rted
Maybe we could start with this issue of hate . rehearsing ou r play this year, Panic!, I by accident
RF: This is a raw moment to start with that issue came across this quote from Glen n Gou ld: "The
because obvious lywe all hale George Bush. purpose of art is not the mo mentary ejection of
I've always been ambivalent about the theater. I ad renaline, but rather the lifelo ng const ruction of

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a state of wonder and se renity." acto r. In the ea rly days the acto rs used to just
I'm a little less articulate abo ut it tha n I some - stare at the audience saying their lines as if they
times am because I have been thi nking for the were ta king dictatio n o n the blackboard or some -
last two days somethi ng new about what's hap- th ing, because I really wante d just the sheer phys-
pening in my work and why it does n't belong in ical presence of what was the re to be the center of
the theater. After I graduated from Yale Drama the theater, instead of looking through that and
School, I was writing plays. I was writing an imita- trying to see the intentions of the actor or trying
tion Brecht play, an imitation Giradoux. And one to see a story that was theore tically taking place
day I said to myself, "What would I really like to so mewhere else. Of course , all this was relevant
see if 1 walked into the theater right now?" I sa t to what was happeni ng in other arts in those
back at my desk, closed my eyes, and about in days. Painting in those days sta rted talking a lot
that much time I had this image-and that's what about the presence of the canvas and the pres-
I've been working on these last thirty-five years. ence of flatness , getting back to the basic gram-
That image came from a not very good produc - mar of your art.
tion that I had just seen at the Circle in the In the play I'm doing now, the actors all trudg e
Square, Jose Quintero's production of The Bal- on stage to loud music and then it stops and they
cony. I saw Shelley Winters standing and, I think it sort of look at each other, sort of move off;
was Lee Grant, standing on the othe r side of the there's a statement, then one actor grabs anot her
stage. There was a pause, and they were just so rt and emb races her and she pushes him away, and
of standing the re looking at each other. That im- he looks at something else , and then the play
age about blew my mind-a static image. develops-it's not as static as my early plays
I began writing these plays in which acto rs sort were. But I realized it was a return to this notion
of just sat the re and didn't move very much or re- that I want a laboratory whe re things come
peated each other: "My arm's heavy on the table." from-this mo ment of prese nce. Eric Bogosian
"Oh yes." "Is my arm heavy?" "My arm's heavy." said that what really tu rned his head around
It was based upon this static, nothing happening, about my theater was that the present momen t,
and on the physical presence on stage of the what was really there physically on sta ge, took

37 pages(44 mil) lefIlll ltlil chapter (Bock 10 P'Q9 8)

precedence over any allusions to story, to the go ing o n. Well what do you make of it?" The plays
elsewhere, to being transported. were desig ned to say continually to the audience,
Now, most of the theate r still, even if it's more "What do you make of it?"
ath letic in the Grotowski se nse, or your se nse, Okay, the body. present. Next stage: What the
makes a lot of allusions to someplace else. I'm plays started to reflect was the ch atte r that goes
not against being en tertained by that on occasion, through your head as you're just there. This re-
but it does not interest me as something to work lates a little bit to the way I have always written,
on. What I've been thinking was I started with this which is sort of lying on my couch every day writ-
physical presence of just the dumb actor-I mean ing a few sentences. maybe a page. maybe just
dumb in a high sense, In the early days, I was three sentences of dialogue. This sort of picks up,
writing plays and directing so that there was just a in an almost Gertrude Steinian sense, the chatter
registering of what was going on physiologically that is continually going on in the brain. Now, the
in the body-not trying to have complex psy- chatter going on in my brain is the chatter of a
chology, not trying to have complex motives. just person who feels very involved with reading and
continual reassertions . In those days, most of the thinking. "Heidegger says such and such." "Yes.
audience would walk out after twenty minutes. I'm here because I like being here. but it's big-
And we were proud: "Ha. hal Great art! People ger." "What's bigger?" "I don't know what's big-
don't appreciate it. This proves it's great." But at a ger; everything's bigger." This chatter, units of
certain point. I'd had it. So for various reasons, that chatter that came from this present body,
including what was happening with post - developed the kind of text that became very ver-
structuralist thought and a lot of mystical reli- ballyoriented.
gious thought and so forth. the language started I wanted to prove to people that I could write
getting much more developed and apho ristic and because so many people said. "Oh. he's a good
a kind of repartee--complex language. But I real- director. but his texts can be a bit nons ense. They
ized just the ot her day that the body is there , the don' t mea n anything." I thought , no the texts are
body is present. The actors are still pretty much pretty smart, so I really tried to write interesting
sta ring at the audience. saying, in effect, "This is plays. and I was gratified because people started

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giving me awards for being a playwright. Then, both possibilities are specifically not developed. I
two years ago, all of a sudden, I'd had enough agree with a French philosopher. Renan, who
good writing. So I started doing these plays where said-and other people have said-that he
just a couple of pithy phrases on tape, processed doesn't believe in development. because when
by the tape, echoed themselves. I thought of them you take a thought, when you take an impulse.
as phrases dropped down a well where they when you take the seed of a story, and you de-
would reverberate , and each phrase would seem velop it. you are automatically trapped by the
to have associations that were implied and dou- conventions of the ways we've been trained to
bled by tape, by music, by gonks and pings. The think. the way things logically must happen. So
actors would be moving in relation to that the lightning flash of a complex and contradictory
dropped phrase, The actors say a few things. but idea has it all, and to develop it becomes the trap.
very. very minimal. Through that technique, not allowing the audi-
But what I realized in the last couple of days is ence to feel. "Oh yeah. we all share that feeling,"
that it isn't so much that I was sick of good writ- you are left alone with just moment by moment
ing; it was rather that this still-present lethargic or the raw possibility of. "Yes, things could different.
frozen body is now in my work reflecting just Yes. things are like this now. but the world is so
what's in the air. what is language and thought. to vast. The world is so complex,"
present the possibility of discourse. This play this It's not a question of hate or not hate. It's a
year starts out, "He goes where no man has dared question of total disorientation. I think it's thera-
to go." The next phrase is: "I will not enter this peutic. A great American philosopher. Morse
tomb." Each of these phrases must have the Peckham. wrote a book in which he defined art as
possibility of suggesting multiple interpretations. providing a disorientation massage. We all know
You could write a play about . "He goes where no what makes us cry,We all know what we love. The
man has dared to go," But is that because he's purpose of art, I think, in these troubled times, is
stupid. because he's daring? Is that because it's to provide that disorientation massage that makes
embarrassing to go to that place? Very many you realize, "Well, things are confused. Things
possibilities. And the phrases must suggest that don't have to be this way. I don't know how they

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co uld be, but I can be lucid and feel enlighten ed Well, of course, I react to it and chan ge it beca use
even t hough it's all a mess." There has to be an all of my ideas are stupi d. Hemi ngway said th e
organization that is rigorous that allows you to artist needs a good built-in shit detector, and I
have that feeling of lucid ity in the midst of, as think I have a very good built-in shi t det ecto r, but
John Keats said, the negative capability of not we rehearse a long time and I have millions of
having this irritability reaching out after facts. ideas an d ninety percent of them are stupid.

What do you think this organization is based on So what is-I'm getting at somet hing in the
for you? organization-not stupid ?
Essentially it's based upon trying to make When there's a tension. When I see it. I become
everything-this isn't going to make any sense, tense. I work very intuitively. I do not work think-
but-totally dense and totally lucid. Everything is ing about theory or what I'm trying to achieve.
very precisely organized in continual punctu- wait until it coheres and I can recognize it.
ations and framings of all these things that might
say. "What does that mean ?" But that moment. When you first st arted working with actors, you
"what does that mean ," is framed so carefully by a worked with filmmakers, and then after a while
gesture, a noise. a change of light, a surge of mu - worked with actors , somet imes with fantastic ac-
sic. I'd like to th ink that organization into a total tor s, sometimes with am ateu r actors. Will you ta lk
minuet of all these disturbing elements, this aes- about that process?
thetic organization, the are, the composition. sug- In the fifties every American play was about how
gests a paradise of artistic lucidity. The materials we're having the terrible problem, but , you know
of this artistic lucidity are incumbent on an what? If we only loved each other. . And that
uncluttered mind. was the performance. too . I felt. The actor ou t on
stage. even if they're going through agony, t he
Do you think about it as a platonic sen se, or do performer wanted to be loved, wanted to reach
you start to org anize it, and th en react to it and out to the audience. Pe rhaps beca use I'm adopted
change it? and I did not feed at my mother 's breast , I am a

31poges (37 mn) lef!ln ltl chapTet (Bod TO poge 8)

person who does not respond to that too well, technique was basically cente red o n trying to find
even in life. I'm a reserved perso n. Part of the aes - a way to relax inside yourself so that things could
thet ic of my theater I'm sure is derived from my come through. Kate's techn ique was qu ite the
particular personality structure. You make art opposite. It all came th rough ten sion , much as, I
from your position, from what you have been giv- suppose, a classical ballet dancer operates in te n-
en . I wanted to make a theater in touch with an- sion. But she developed this technique, and there
ot her level of reality. So, I used non -actors . In was an imbalance with the non-acto rs. We started
those days, I was fascinated by the beginnings of using actor-actors to balance off of her. That re-
underground film, and that's where all my friends allywas the transit ion.
were. So my actors mostly were filmmakers, but For a long time they said, "Oh. he uses his ac-
they were overly awkward people who, instead of tors like puppets." Well, it's true, even these days.
knowing how to move, be dramatic, would come I do cho reograph the pieces. I think there are
out on stage , say a line. It was this physically mo re directors now who work that way. To boost
present reality. my ego, I like to refer to one actor I had in France
Then, quite by accident, I met my second wife, who said, "You know, Richard, it's very strange.
Kate Manheim, who became my leading actress Every one of your plays, it's like you keep me in a
for many years. She became an actress in my very narrow corr idor, but within that corridor
plays through great misunderstanding. Her father som ehow I feel freer than I've eve r felt." I'd like to
was a translator, Ralph Manheim, and when I first believe that's true. Some directo rs will say, "Well,
met her I said, "Oh . are you related to Ralph Man- Anne. this scene has to do with your mother." I
heim?" and she was very impressed and said want to say, "Anne, think whatever the hell you
she 'd be in my play. But the truth was I was think- want; invent your own internal stuff, but don't
ing of a famous Germa n sociologist, Karl hold your wrists like that. Put your two hands on
Mannheim. I accidentally said Ralph. She was not your knees." So, it's where you exercise that de-
an actress, but she developed on her own this gree of control, and all directors have the same
very electrifyin g, st rong tech nique. For a lot of the degree of co ntrol and put it in different places.
period in this country after the war the actor 's

2'9pages{35 mon)left on th schop!et (BocKto POll" 6)

I somet imes think you can see a director's body I want to make a play that has a poetic strategy,
on stage. If you th ink of Bob Wilson-all angular and the strategy of poetry is tha t words rhyme
and distan t, a little bit cold. Or you think of with other words. Words have associations with
Brook- "We're all so human here." I always othe r words in the line or the next line, and you're
thought with you it was like, "My foot hurts." supposed to be able to pick up on all that
Absolutely. Because as a kid I was very shy and I interaction- as opposed to a classical novel
felt very awkward and I still basically do. So the where you're supposed to look th rough the words
basis of a lot of my theater is stumbling over and see that they happen . If the actor is playing
things. intention or emotion too clearly-we are empa -
thetic creatures, so we get hooked by that and
What do you like in an actor? What appeals to block out the associat ion of the way his arms are
you? and how that would relate to the way her arms
Well. obviously I don't like performances that are, or the way it looks against the light and set
reach out trying to gain love, and nobody likes ac- and music.
tors who indicate, of course. I'm always telling the One thing that I used to tell actors all the
actors , in essence, do less . I was very influenced time-you're going to get my repertoire of things
by the films of Robert Bresson, who used non- actors are not allowed to do. Very often when an
actors. He called them models . He didn't even re- actor is going to come on stage he's getting sort
fer to them as actors because he felt that if they of psyched up and comes on stage with a certain
didn't use their habits , some other force would energy to carry him through the scene , and I al-
speak through them . Bresson happened to be ways tell him. "No, no, no, you can't jump on
Jansenist Catholic and so was interested in invok- stage like that. You've got to come on stage and
ing some other spiritual level. I also thought there's broken glass around you or the re are hid-
about the early performances of Yvonne Rainer, den mines, but every moment you're under threat.
who was doing dances with non-daocersc-who and you must never let the energy of your motive
was, again. loo king for a very physical presence of carryyou through the scene."
body without intention. I also tell the actors: I want you to assume that

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everything you're saying, even if it's stupid, beginning I didn't qu ite get him. I t hought he
placed where it is, it's the most brilliant th ing t hat seemed very stiff, but that stiffness was a kind of
could be said at that point -but you also have to arroga nce. I always feel that young actors have a
have t he feeling tha t tha t brilliance is being deliv- ten de ncy to try too hard and t ry a nd convince you.
ered only to the one or two people in the audience
who will get it. You must assume that most of the You don't go see much theater anymore. I'm inter-
other people are too dumb. It's like, "Just for you, ested in the issue ofintluence from the inside and
here it is-not for the rest of you." Because, for outside. When you were younger you went to see
me, what's exciting in art is the feeling that I'm everything, right? And now you're extremel y selec-
watching something where I want to poke Anne. tive.
"Did you notice that ?" We savor that , and we feel Well, not selective . I only go if a good friend is
alert and energized by our noticing as opposed to twisting my arm . I have too many good friends.
everybody obviously noticing because it's being When I was younger, I went to see everything be-
presented on this silver platter. cause as Brecht, and I'm sure other people, said:
You go see what you can steal. But even when I
I remember Kate Manheim's performances which was young. almo st everything I used to hate and
I saw man y, many times . She does something walk out of. with a few exceptions. I always like
with her eyes where you think she 's looking only things that are not successful. There were twenty
at you. It was uncanny productions I saw that had a profound affect on
In the play we're doing now, probably the mos t me: Joan Littlewood's Oh! What a Lovely War,
experienced actress is Elina Lowensohn. She has Faulkner's Requiem for a Nun with Ruth Ford,
a great presence, but she would try to show too Camino Real, Kazan's original production-which
much her intentions and what she was thinking. It I was horrified to see that he sort of disown ed in
interfered with what's most exciting for me in the his book saying, "Well, we did it too realistic; it
performer-j ust the arrogant fact of thei r pres- shou ld have been more imagina tive." My God,
ence is electrifying. I think Chris Walken's a great what was so great abou t it was the play was po-
actor, and what I admire is that arrogance. In t he et ic, imaginative, and he did it like this

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down-to-earth , real thing. I've seen other d irectors let's talk a little bit about the difference between
try to be more poetic and imaginative and it's ter- directing your own work and directing other peo-
rible. Those th ree shows-and there are others, ple's work. You have done Suzan-Lori Parks's
but off the top of my head I can't remember- Venus, the really acclaimed Th,eepenny Opera
oriented me toward what I felt was alive in the with Raul Julia, Bothos Strauss, Buchner, Moliere
theater. The o nly one of th ree of those that was
successful was Oh! What a Lovely War. But I do The best thing I d id, outside of my own work, was
like the low-down sort of pop elements, that are Moliere's Don Juan, which I first did at the
vulgar in the right way, which Joan Littlewood al- Guthrie, then did (with the Public Theater) in the
ways was. park.
I began realizing in the other arts I saw things My own work I can treat as garbage. That 's very
that I thought were much more rigorous and pro- freeing. I can change it. I don't have to respect it.
found. Martha Graham influenced me a great deal When I do another play I do try to res pect it. But I
then. The n at a certain point I just disappea red in- approach plays th rough the discou rse, through
to my work, as I think many artists do. Now I'm the language, rather than through the characters.
still trying to see influence, but from things I can I'm listening for the writer's voice, and what does
enco unter in my home: art magazines, video that imply? Take Woyzeck. I did Woyzeck with
tapes, CDs, books-mostly books. I'm terribly David Patrick Kelly in Hartford. That text is frag-
influenced. I think of myself as a person who sim - mentary and can be rearranged in different ways
ply skims the cream off the to p of this big pot of because he never really finished it. Woyzeck is a
everything in ou r cultu re that is available to me. so rt of sch izoid guy. and it was written abo ut the
sa me time that Ri mba ud was arou nd. So I
And what happens to that cream? though t. well, maybe that is the voice that this
Well, it gets put on a surface, where it dries, it play is really about, this wounded Rimbaud who
coag ulates , into little beads and then I arrange doesn't have an arena where he can develo p into
those beads in ways tha t please me. this epic-making twent ieth -centu ry poet.
For me, it was BOchne r's langu age in a

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translation. I always like the translation that we had cast so meone else in the part. So I wait.
seems the most wooden. When we d id the Havel
play, Tom Stoppard had made a translation and I That means you're listening.
thought, "Oh. it's so elegant and so phony," and That built-in shit detector-that mea ns that you're
so we took the original translat io n that had been always going to be sniffing, at every mom ent.
made for Tom Stoppard and used that , because
its woodenness, its awkwardness, seemed to me Joan Macintosh , who did Thru Ads of Recog-
to relate more to what I am interested in, which is nition , described when she'd leave for dinner
the raw material. break you'd be staring at the stage. And she'd go
Cocteau once said if you want to be really out for two hours and come back, and you'd be in
avant-garde. just try to be as classical as possible the exact same position , staring at the stage,
and your own idiosyncratic nature will come hunched over, tens e, What are yo u thin king?
through. So thai is pretty much the way I work. I It's not tense so much . It's not wanting to get out
don't think too much . I know directors who will of the mood of the play. You go out to lunch,
go through and make notes with their dramaturg come back, forget the first half hour. You're car-
and they'll have thousands of things written rying your lunch back with you. I want focus. In
down. I don't. I'll read it once or twice casually life, generally, I lie around the house and I be-
and then with the actors . What is there to think come extremely lethargic, so lethargic I think I
about? I know I'm smart. So, that's not going to must be sick. But when I get into rehearsal I get
be a problem. I just have to be there, carefully extremely focused and awake and alert to what's
watching, picking up on things and discovering happening. I grew up in a family of lawyers who
through rehearsal. "Oh . yeah, when this actress used to have long discussions around the dinner
says this line, it suggests this, and that connects table, and J was trained to be able to speak art icu-
to the way that this actress answers her." Just lately the way a lawyer would speak. I began to
dealing with the text, it's not the same because, realize that using that kind of sharp focus was not
when she says the line, the line has a different really product ive. I wanted to be focused with a
weight and it suggests a different direction than if wide-angled vision. I was there waiting to see

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what would pop out of me from this total feel of AB: "My foot hurtsl"
what was going on on stage. You were playing the clown. You were great , but,
you know, specifically you were s upposed to be
Tom Nelis ISITI Company member ; performed in as ludicrou s as possible.
Foreman's Pearls for Pigs, 19971: I felt that you
purposefully set up a paradox for the actors where TN: I didn't knowl
you have to become focused at being unfocused, Well, no. If I had told you to be ludicrous , you
be off-balanced. When we were in Hartford, you would play ludicrou s.
were away for a week, and you came back. You
called everybody into the hallway and said, "You AS: Antonioni says, if an actor says, "What are you
know, I'm sorry, it's been great working with you looking for?" he makes something up because if
all, but it's horrible," You said, "You look like he says what it is, then he'll get that, and that's
some absurd ist Polish theater troupe. You nailed never interesting.
everything. You put everything on the music; it's That's true. Sometimes I can't resis t, to prove I'm
all very tight and sharp, and it shouldn't be like s mart. I remember read ing an interview with Mike
that at all." Nichols- and I think Antonioni was the more
It should be tight and shar p, but it has to be interesting director-but Mike Nicho ls said, "Oh
syncopated. It has to be off the beat. God, Antonioni will actually place the acto r's
hand in a certain positio n on the table. Horrors!"
TN: I weald make my first entrance in a full frog- Well, for Mike Nichols's way of working, of
man outfit with a spear gun and a monocle. The course, but there are all d ifferent kinds of ways to
stage is littered with chairs and table s and heads, work.
severed heads, and I'd work at making this en-
trance articulate , and then Richard would say, "00 AS: Musicals and opera-you do a lot.
we have any bigger flippers? Because Tom's too Well, not as much as I would like to. It's the same
smooth out there." That becam e the aesthetic. thing. I mean , my plays have so mu ch mus ic. I
haven't done that many classic o peras. I've done

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a numb er of conte mporary o peras with co m- and Brecht's The Rise and Fall ojJ Mahagonny,
posers that I've worked with. I've really only don e which is, for me, the greatest twentieth-century
two classic operas so far: Fledermaus at Paris o pera. The whole produ ction was planned in
Oper a and Don Giovanni, which is the greatest France, in the sa me place I did Don Giovanni; it
opera , so why do anymore? The big shock for me was all cast. And, two mo nths before, the city of
doing Don Giovanni-it was really an aes thetic Lille had big political turmoil. They closed down
prob lem. I like things to be very den se and very the opera. That was a great tragedy for me be-
busy, so for an aria I have twenty ideas , and we re- cause that's the piece I had wanted to do for
hearse, put in these twenty ideas , it's great. Then, twenty-five years, ever since I did Threepenny. Af-
"Oh my God, are they still going to sing that aria ter we did Threepenny, Joe (Papp] said to me,
for five more minutes?" I mean, it just does go "What do you want to do next?" I said, " Ma-
o n. Also, the thing that I enjoy most in my own hagonny." "Okay, I' ll get the reco rd and I'll listen
work, and even in classical texts which are not o p- to it." And the next day he said, "Well, it's not as
eras, I must admit , is discovering the way to good as Threepenny." But that's the one piece that
rhythmically articulate and to keep changing the I really am still hungry to do. I have a great
rhythms. It's like composing or editing film. Obvi- production in mind. Of course, it's controlled by
ously if you're doing a classic opera, you can't do the music. But the music changes so rapidly and
that because you are controlled by the music as is so much more gestural in terms of theatrical
written. You can learn from that and it can be shape that it's easier to think of d oing.
interesting. I'd like to do more opera, but I do find
that a big problem-that somebody else is wav- AB:Were you designing that?
ing the baton, and I am not. Yes. I only worked with designers for the first ten
years or so. For F/ede.rmaus at the Paris Opera, the
AB: And when you say you'd like to do more- sets were done by Sally Jacobs, who was at that
why? time Peter Brook's main des igner. We worked
Oh. vacation. glamou r, ego trips. There are som e very well together, but I really un derstood after
operas that interest me. I was about to do [Weill that experience tha t as I'm thinking about

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directing I'm changing the set in my head all the asked Kathy. Kathy wrote--or rearranged because
time, and I'm making models myself and draw- Kathy collages things sort of like I do-this ob-
ings. They're very sloppy, but it can fall down and scene text, a big, gigantic production. And we
that can give me an idea. Sally was open to any- said. "Well, nobody's ever going to put up the
thing I would say, but it gets translated into words money to do this." So, I have an idea. Kathy was
and somehow it cuts out other impulses that very much in the art world. "Kathy, do you know
come when I'm just with my hot glue dripping on either Julian Schnabel or David Salle?"-both of
my finger. It's like finger.paint ing or working with whom were the big painters in those days, and
mud pies. A more primal you is at work, and I maybe if they painted the scenery, we could then
think in all art you have to get that primal you into sell the scenery, and we could get enough money.
the equation. So, "Yeah, I know David better, I'll ask him." He
said , "Sure, I'd love to work with you. The only
AB: I was in San Diego listening to NPR in the car, rule is, J don 't want to work in a normal theater
and there was an interview with you. You were do- way. I'll design what I think is right for each
ing a Kathy Acker play at BAM with David Salle. scene, and that 's what you have to work with." I
The interviewer said, "Richard, how's the collab- said, "That's fine with me." I liked the idea of that
oration?" And then you said, "lt' s not a collab- kind of collision. There was a sce ne, very apropos
oration . It's a collisionI" for now, of these Iranians saying all kinds of ob-
I think that in a good sense. , love Kathy Acker's scene things , and David decided it should be set
work. In her novels I don 't quite understand what on a basketball court and all the Iranians are
she's doing, and yet I know there 's a rigor there wearing big diapers. It worked magnificently. The
that's tremendous. So Peter Gordon , whose mu- first scene was a take on George Kaiser's expres-
sic I liked in those days, said, "let's do an opera," sionist play Gas, where a factory's about to ex-
, said, "Fine. But if I write it, it'll be too far out." plode. And David saw that in a chic Soho loft.
Peter said, "Who do you want to write it?" I said, That was harder to make work. But it was a great
"Well, I'm really interested in Kathy Acker's work." experience.
And Peter said. "Oh. that's my ex-wife." So we I made a list a couple of years ago of the fifteen

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great scandals I was involved with in the theate r, confusing. This administration clearly is run by
induding Fledermaus at the Paris Opera with the the people around Bush who have decided that
nude dancers, which was front page headlines for we've got to dean up the world. We have this
two days, a horrible mess. The Birth of the Poet situation which is going to, of course, bring more
was a huge scandal at BAM. After the first ten danger and ambiguity. I think of my art as ther-
minutes the whole audience was screaming out apy.
back at the stage, as obscenity would follow My whole life I've been very ambivalent about
obscenity, and people were walking out, throwing America. I know there are certain good things, but
their programs at the stage. I've always felt very uncomfortable. I almost
moved permanently to France back in the very
AB: I want to go back to this "disorientation mas- late seventies, early eighties. Then I suddenly real-
sa ge" and th e world we live in now. ized something that I'd never understood. When I
In a funny way. I think this proves my point that was young man , I read Henry Miller. He talked
I've been making for like twenty'five years. Back in about how much he hated America and how rich
the sixties. when everything was starting to break and wonderful life was in France and Greece, and
a litt le. people were saying, "Well, it's not art. then as he got to be older he came back to Amer-
What is the political content?" I said that. and I've ica. What happened? I realized at a certain point
said since then, that it seemed to me that the in France that I was an American. and some of the
forces of reaction in America come from people things that I hate about America were in me too.
whose character structure is such that they can - And I had to come back and fight my battles here.
not stand ambiguity. They want to know: Is this This is what I am . I'm a stupid adolescent as we
person good or bad? left or Right? Black or all are.
white? I said then what could help America is any-
thing that tries to create a character structure Audience: Richard, you mentioned Gertrude Stein.
where people cou ld accept living amidst ambi - What are your thoughts readin g her and its influ-
guity and knowing that you can still be lucid and ence on yo u?
gentle even though things seem complex and Fro m the time I was fifteen to the time I was

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thirty-six I thought there was only o ne person in beginnin g to end , or Tender Butt ons. I can dip into
the whole history of the thea te r who wrote decent them , just like I ca n dip into Finnegan's Wake, but
plays, and th at was Brecht . I don 't feel that way I can't sit down and read it from beginning to
anymore. I think Moliere is th e greates t of all writ- end. I t hink I have a musical se nsib ility of a cer-
ers in thea ter, but that being said: Brecht, and tain so rt, but I listen to an ent ire Bach piece, I
t hen Gertrude Stein, who I d iscovered through can't follow the sco re. I make an effort and I can
so me of the filmmakers that I was working wit h. hear what's going on, and then my mind drifts
With Gertrud e Stein, it's a quest ion of t his med i- and I return and say, "I've got to pay attent ion and
tative state of being in the present. Gertrude listen to how these lines work." And I d rift out
Stein's hom ily th at in writing you begin again, be- again, just like I would do reading Joyce, reading
gin again. begin again, rather than getting into the Gertrude Stein. I th ink that there aren't too many
flow and letting things develop. People accuse me peo ple crea ting that kind of art tod ay. I th ink it is
of being surrealist, which in a sense I'm happy to vitally important to create that kind of art , th at
be accused of because I think su rrealism is on e of maybe everybody's going to drift out. Peo ple have
the great liberating movements of the twen tieth come to my plays and said, "I enjoyed it; it wash -
century, but I felt that sur realist art tended to ride es over me, and then I sort of d rift out for awhile
the horse of that over a hilly landscape. Gertrude and then I come back to it." And maybe when a
Stein kept getting off the horse to begin again. be- person o riginally said that to me I was t hinking
gin again. Its implication for being in a con tinual kind of negative thoughts like, "Oh. if you're not
pres ent was very important for me. sma rt enough to stay with it," but no. I think it's
I did one Gertrude Stein production back in the te rribly importa nt t hat peop le have always made
late seventies in France, stu pidly enough, in st ructures that are better and more rigorou s and
French. We translated Dr. Faustus Light s the more demand ing tha n we as an a udience can live
Lights. It was the hardes t thing I've ever done . It's up to for every single mom ent. Se rious art sh ould
very, very hard dea ling with all tha t repet ition. be better than you are. I think my plays are mo re
I mu st adm it, I'm not a perso n that can sit lucid, more rigorous, tha n I, Richard , am in my
down and read The Making of Americans from life. I'm a st umble bum like all the rest of us.

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Create art that is better than you are able to ma ni- certain cont rolli ng issues.
fest in no rmal life. The play that I'm doing this year, Panicl, is a lit-
tle different. These last two years I've just been
Audience: wh at gives you pleasure working as the writing a series of aphorisms, and that's different.
director? I have written from beginning to end. It chang es a
Well. I'm basically a Puritan; I'm suspicious about lot in rehearsal, but I did sit down and write, over
pleasu re. I think that's ego gratification, but I do two days, forty aphorisms. This year I shuffled it a
know that I get the most pleasure from just get- little bit more, got things from other places.
ting up and making people start to move around.
, guess it's sort of like General Patton. I get AS: What made you dec ide not to use body mikes
turned on to doing that with the real people that in Panid?
I'm dealing with. Well, first of all, I'm so sick of buying mikes be-
cause they're always breaking and it's a big has -
Audience: Do you tend to write starting with a sle. I do not like projected voices. I like when the
conce pt? actors seemed much more intelligent, razor-like.
I nave stacks of pages, and so I will look at a play last year I did a play where no one spoke, and so
three years from now. "Okay, what am I going to 1 got rid of the mikes, literally. This year 1 felt
do? Oh this page looks interesting." It says, "my would be the same thing, but as we were rehears-
basic 1959, people pose , balcony, face." Hey, ing. I got ideas that people would say a few
maybe there's a play in a big balcony and a face things. Next year we're going to be saying more,
looking out. What other page could relate to this? but we're not going to use body mikes. Maybe
Oh here's a play about a person whose tooth I've broken into the real theater!
hurts. Well maybe that could be the head. So I put
these pages that come from different years, dif- Audience: Why did you entitle your exhibit "The
ferent sou rces, together and try to articulate som e Ten Reasons Why I Hate Theatre"?
sort of-not a narrative so much as a theme and Well, because I do hate so much abo ut the the-
variatio n, a ceremo ny. an event focused on ater: acto rs trying to sell, narrative. I profoundly

9 pages (10 mn) lef! n Itol chap,,,, (BocK '0 poge 6)

believe stories hide the truth. They set you down Audience: Have you been asked to teac h in your
the groove of normal developme nt and normal life?
expectatio n. I know a story is supposed to have I have been asked occas ionally. I have very mixed
an arc and then conclude this or tell you so me- feelings abo ut it. I could be good and turn people
thing, but I figure it hides the real truth, which, on. I also think it's a bit of an ego trip for me. But,
perhaps in my terms, is more of a psychological basically, if I don't have to teach-and I don't- I
truth or more spiritual truth. What is really vibrat- would rather be involved in other things. Lately
ing inside of you? We should not have invaded I've been thinking, Well, maybe that's selfish. I
Iraq because the whole world is going to hate us know from the way we rehearse now, people who
because the result is going to be more casualties. are interns and so forth, on those infrequent
Okay, a plot could illuminate that truth, but in go- occasions when we do start talking a lot, it seems
ing down that road I think it hides the deeper, to me that they're sort of turned on by the ideas,
more universal, more potent truth that as we do so maybe I have an obligation to do that, but I'm
what we have to do to get our guns or march for ambivalent about that.
peace. at the same time , it's: "I'm cold," or
"These people who are out here look stupid, " or AB: You actually inadvertently turned your theater
"Is this really going to work?" or "But I'm really into a school . A lot of people come through it very
thinking about that girl over there that I want to influenced by you. You make a space for them in
go to bed with tonight." Those things don't get yo ur shows. Could you say something about the
shown. And I realized that the structure that was Blueprint Series ?
much more interesting to me and seemed to re- We have a series where we give directors their
tain more of real life was that every moment there first professionally done play in New York. Some
are all kinds of associations st raying out like a riv- of them are very talented . Ken Nintzel, who was
er, many, many branches. I wanted to make an art my stage manager for a number of years, is, I
which, instead of narrowing to a head in this final think, very talented . My stage manager for many
act, somehow branched out. years was David Herskovits. who is now running
Target Margin Theater. Ro bert Cucuzza. who's in

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my play now, has done some very interesting immoral.
production s. So there are d ifferent peo ple that
pass through. Audience: You ta lked about the state of presence
It's hard for them though. A lot of them think, you're loo king for-the actor just being present.
We can do what Richard does. I'm not wealthy. I Have you ever been interested in how an actor
live not extravagan tly, to be sure, but ten years be- achieves that? Or is it more that you know it when
fore my father d ied. he started saying, "Well, son , you see it?
one thing you know, you're not going to starve I don't unfortunately have any theory about act-
when I'm dead." So, I've always been able not to ing. There are a lot of technical things the actors
take any money from my theater, and when I do are doing in my plays these days. They're running
these operas and things I can put the money into around a lot. doing things . But it is still that pres-
my plays. I've been able to sustain this level of ence at the center. There have been times in my
work for that reason . I don't know if I would have caree r where I've had different ideas. In the begin-
the guts or the courage to do that as rigorously as ning I was reading an early American psycho-
I have if I had not known I was not going to analyst by the name ofTrigant Burrow, whose the-
starve. A lot of young people who come to me are ory was we have a false persona , and to get to the
not in my extremely fortunate position, and I real self. the real persona, he trained people to
don't know what will happen. Some people have have a different kind of tension, which meant that
the gumption to do it-like lee Breuer, whose they no longer focused the tens ion like that, but
work sometimes is wonderful and sometimes is were constantly registering things that were in
awful, but he is crazie r than I am as a person, and their periphera l vision. I used to tell actors to do
maybe feeding off of that craziness, he has been that, that that would create a kind of presence.
able to do that in a way that is commendab le. But 1haven't done that in years.
Since I knew I would not starve, I felt an abso lute Very ofte n we'll reach a place, at the end of a re-
ob ligation to try and do thea ter that maybe would hea rsal period, a week before we're suppos ed to
send half the audience out after twenty minutes. open the play, and I'll say, you know, "So and so ,
Anything else in my positio n I think would be that's not right." They'll say, "But Richard, now

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I'm confused. I don 't know what to do." I thi nk them. " What I'm not sure is if they know how
it's difficult and then so mehow, finally, it hap- long we rehear se. If we go under Equity contract,
pens. But I don' t know how. I'm not unhappy you're not allowed to rehearse for more than four
about not knowing. I think it has something to do weeks or so mething. But we rehearse fourteen
with choosi ng the performer. Any d irector will te ll weeks. That's because the process for me is like
you that nine-te nths of it is casting, and I think writing the play, rewriting the play. It's the only
that is true. There are peo ple who seem to belon g way tha t I can do these plays the way that I'm do-
in my world and peop le who don 't. I'm sure I've ing them now. The Wooster Group doe s the same
made many mistakes. But you have that feeling. thing over a lo ng period of time . They don 't re-
hea rse every day. often, like we do when we're
Audience: What do you feel is the minimum time developing something. And they're not Equ ity.
for a rehears al period? But if you think their work is good , it's because
That's very hard to answer. I started working with they use a simila r len gthy period to evolve these
non professionals. We would rehearse until I works. I think that's the way you have to make art.
thou ght it was ready. We'd only rehearse in the You would not tell a novelist, "You've got eight
evening for four hou rs for three mon ths. When I weeks to write your novel." Some novelists work
sta rted doing productions for real theaters, I usu - fast; other novelists may work on it for years, and
ally got eight weeks. And now-Equity has been what counts is the product . And I need that time
very good to us . We have actors and peop le who to do what I'm do ing now.
don 't speak. At a certain point so me Equity peo-
ple complai ned and Equity came down and too k a Audience: You seem to have this terrific blend of
careful look. Alan Eisenberg , head of Equity [at very opinionated views and self-honesty, so I do
that point]. came and concluded, "No, we want hope that one day you will be teaching more just
that you should be able to continue. This kind of to share that. Is there ever any conflict within
work is okay. You have your main actors. As lo ng yourself between your director half and your play-
as your extras have had no connection with Equity wright half?
ever before this, then you can continue using Fo r a long time I felt I sho uld not rewrite--li ke

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Kero uac, this is evidence of where you're at. So Pete.r Se.llars
things that embarrassed me, thi ngs that seemed
stupid, I would keep. I started off being shy abo ut The hallmark of any talk by or with Peter Sellars is
rewriting and changing things. Now I'm certainly the shed ding of tears . Usually everyone in the
just as critical at a certain stage as I am as a direc- roo m ends up crying. Emotion or, perhaps more
tor. And I am op inionated, yes, but I know I'm a accurately, passion is the baseline of Peter 's
fool. I think that's absolutely necessary to func- world. He embraces actors , audiences, friends,
tion as an alert, awake human being. We're all new acquaintances, difficult circumstances, polit-
mistaken. But we've all got to believe in what ical paradoxes and radical new ideas. Sellars
we're doing tremendously. clasps people, ideas and situations with his whole
being, with his body, with his soul and with his
mind. He often puts himself in the midst of chal-
lenging situations and then he talks until he has
achieved his objective: communion.
Sometime during the eighties I was making a
phone call at a public telephone booth at a Wash-
ington, D.C, airport and I found Peter on the
phone next to me. Of course, it being Peter, we
embraced warmly. " Peter," I asked him, "why do
you direct opera more than theater these days?"
He had two explanations. First, he said audienc es
in the United States come to the theater in a gen-
eral state of bewilderment. With little under-
standing of the history of theater or any vocab-
ulary to discuss it, there is litt le profundity or
conseq uence. He appreciated that opera and
dance audie nces arrive eq uipped with contextual

1poge «1 mn) H!fl 'n Itol chap!« (Bock10 page 8)

expectatio ns and a sha red language. Secon dly, he Handel and Saariaho. in most of the major
note d that opera audiences are generally rich and international opera houses. Rece nt t heater
powerful and have intluence. They are the peo ple prod uctions include Aeschylus' The Pm ians,
who might in fact ma ke significant changes in th e Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice and Euripi-
world. Peter was interested in speak ing directly des' Children of Herakles. He collaborates reg u-
through his work to audiences who have the pow- larly with such world-class cont emporary artists
er to impact the future . as Mark Morris. Bill Viola and Esa-Pekka Salone n.
Neither of Peter's explanations is entirely satis- All this and he also manages to be a professor of
tying because the paradox in his own life trajec- world arts and culture at UCLA, where he teach es
tory is immediately apparent in his constant and Art as Social Action and Art as Moral Action.
prolific action in the world with communities that
are not only powerful but include the disenfran- A PRI L 2 1, 20 0 3
chised and under-attended . Peter does make the -
ater of intense political and democratic dimen- AB: I would like to start with th ree little th ings that
sions. Generations of theater artists feel his influ- might provoke a conversation. One is: about ten
ence and inspiration. years ago, in one of the Washington airports, I
Peter Sellars was born in '957 in Pittsburgh. He suddenly realized t hat Peter was on the phone
studied at Harvard University, where his under- next to me, and we started talking. I said, "What
graduate productions are still legendary. Later he are you doing? " And he said , "We ll, I'm not doing
studied in Japan, China and India. He became the the ater anymcrel" And I sa id, "Why?" And he said ,
director of the Boston Shakespeare Company in "Becau se I like doing opera. You know, the ballet
1983 and, at the tender age of twenty-six, was and the opera have a language that people under-
named director of the American National Theater stand, but in t he theater we don 'L We don 't really
in Washington, D.C. Since then he has supervised have a vocabu lary, Peo ple go to the ballet or to the
international festivals in los Angeles. Austria and opera-they know what that language is. I am
Australia. He has directed operas by Mozart, more intere sted in that,"
Messiaen, Hindemith, John Adams, l igeti, Secondly: I saw The Persians in Paris in Bobigny

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about twelve, ten years ago , during the CulfWar. did n't see that," "This didn't happen," "This was a
It was like a rock concert. I felt proud for the first gian t success, " "We jus t finished a great war." In
time being an American in a European audience, t his world of spi n. it's amazing to say, okay, we're
because Peter and his company were critical of not spinning. We're all in one place together, and
the Persian CulfWar. In l.A., people were walking we can remember the feeling.
out in drove s. I'm interested in th e issue of cul- Before. t heater was about pum ping everybody
tural difference , about how something that is up; now it's abou t eliminating toxins from t he
politically engaging and critical of an American system, finding a zone for peace, finding a zon e
point-of..view is received in Europe and hated in of nonexaggeration . That's a very tricky thing.
this country. Peter is someone who mixes politics When I was growing up and doing my first show,
with art-a potent combination. people hired me and expected me to be mar-
lastly, he's doing Idomeneo at the Clynde- velous. We didn't want to do anything marvelous
bourne festival in England th is summer, and he because that was what the propaganda machin e
des igned it two years ago as th e American attack was doing. So you did something that was the
of Iraq. opposite-and people thought, Well, th ere's
Maybe taking The Persians to begin with, can nothing there. It's that whole question of public
you talk about how you engage in making art, how perception-who's receiving what based on what
you choose what you do and what framework to they are really looking for.
put it in, and how it then meet s an audience? At the Mark Taper Forum with The Persians we
PS: First of all. it is so beautiful to be in this room lost seventy-five percent of the audience every
with you. and there's a sense of community al- night. But, once they actually left, t hat was easier.
ready. One of the biggest issues in theater is just The hard thing was for the actors to go out every
remembering when you were toge ther with certain night and face a solid wall of human hatred. The-
peo ple and that feeling of we were all there at the ate r is totally about reciprocity. Life is tota lly
same time, and we all heard the same thing, and we about reciprocity. The story is about what 's hap-
all saw the same thing. Right now we are in th e pening between peop le-and what was ha p-
m idst of so much official brainwashing: "You pen ing between the audience and the actors was

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really ho rrible. There were nights the actors didn' t would be this incredible degree of disag reement
want to go out there because they were facing that within the audience every single night and you got
kind of host ility from the audience. John Ortiz, the whole place stirring. The whole place had
one of the acto rs in that show, had not don e a crazy. crazy energy. The Persians is-you know,
whole lot of theater at that time and was mostly it's boring. It was written before thea ter existed as
dealing with the protocol of the street in Bedford- dialogue . so there's just these really, really long
Stuyvesant. He was going to punch somebody in monologues. The theatrical form of it was unre -
the front row. and then he decided that he would lenting. You had to focus on the issue.
leave. and I had to really convince him to go back.
I said, "John. America is about none of us leaving You had an incredible design idea. You put three-
the room. We all have to agree to stay in the room quarters of your budget in the sound and every
no matter how bad it gets, no matter how atro - other seat had a speaker underneath it, and then
cious it is. As soon as you leave, you're not there. there was a bare stage.
And every one of us has to somehow figure out a The sound designer Bruce Odland is a tremen-
way to stay here, in this America, and not leave dous and subtle artist. The big thing was to actu -
and go right back in with people who despise you. ally give people the sound of the war, to be in the
your existence, who look at you with that much war sonically. because that is one thing your tele-
contempt. You have to be there." vision really does not represent. We stopped the
That whole question of staying in the room. is a play at a few points to describe the different types
big one. In l.A. it was kind of a beautiful thing be- of bombs that were being tested in the war: these
cause the audience would not just walk out. They bombs that suck your lungs out, that do all thes e
would walk down the aisle, throw their program things. so that the audience realizes that people
on the stage. then say, "I'll be in the restaurant!" died in a type of agony that is excruciating. It's
There was this whole other show, which was the that special thing in our weapons design that re-
audience and people's reaction to it. Somebody ally started with napalm. Napalm means that you
would laugh and someone else would turn to will die eventually, but the last two weeks you are
them and say, "Shh. that's not funny!" There in unbearable agony as your insides are burning.

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The duster bomb is another example of it, where like the gangs in East l. A., just to defy the United
you don't just want to kill someone, you want to States of America? You know nobody in your
actually create agony. We described d uste r neighborhood will live past the age of twenty-five,
bombs in great detai l-how it worked, what hap- but you did defy the United Sta tes of America
pens and then followed that with the sound of the and, on your terms, won. What is tha t kind of
experience. The sound is ter rifying. In fact, the sac rifice-cor suicide or whatever you want to call
sound sou rce that Bruce used was New York City it- about? The play was really trying to deal with
traffi c. The audience had no idea. They heard it as the fact that the war is actually at home.
the Culf War and were terrified. But, in fact. the My favorite image that I will always cherish is
whole point is that if you are going to inflict this Cordon Davidson, the artistic director of the the-
violence on the other half of the planet, do not ater, freaking out in the back row. The only way
think that you are exempt from it. That violence is we could get the performance on , and I agreed
part of every day of your life and you live in it. with Cordon about this, was for me to go out and
We actually made that show with all of the vio- talk to the audience every night before the show,
lence that is right here. The big twist at the end of to calm them down and kind of apologize for
it is that the Saddam Hussein figure was a gang what they were about to see . I was sitting with
kid from East l.A. And the audience was really an- him in the back row of the theater and, as the first
noyed by that. For me , the big question was: What bombs fell on Baghdad, Joe Haj, the wonderful
does it mean to be this person who lives only to Palestinian actor, said something like, "I curs e
defy the United States of America? John would America." The audience was beside themselves,
walk out into the audience and look at the people and Cordon Davidson said, "Peter! You can't
and say, "You're scared of me . I know you are. have that in the show! Tha t's a political
You're scared of me with your breakfast every sta tement-you can't have that ! We've got to cut
morning. You loo k at me on your lV and you're that!" I said. "Now, wait a minute, Cordon . You
scared eating your Wheaties . I scare you. The fact know, an F-16 from an Arab co untry flies over
that I exist sca res you. I've won already." What Santa Mon ica and bom bs your house, and your
does it mean to be willing to kill all your friend s, wife, Judy, is s moldering in the ruins, what are

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you going to say about the people who did that? live there, in Paris the whole idea is that anybody
You will curse them. So, that's not a political who is cleaning the metro, you don't want them
statement; that is a human truth . Can we pleas e in Paris. So, they've built these cities around the
deal at that level?" That was the fight every edges of Paris where all the immig rants are, all
night-and to keep that show from being cut, be- the Africans and Chinese and Arabs. We work at
cause it was unbearably long. the Maison de Culture in Bobigny, which is one of
It had been reviewed with enormous hostility those suburbs. The neighborhood is Arab, Chi-
by, interestingly, Sylvie Drake, in the L.A. Times. nese, Persian, African, and so that's already the
People don't know she was born in Cairo and, in vibe. If you are going to be in Paris and come to
fact, is from an Arab family. She attacked the see the show, you have to be on the subway for
production and said, "Doesn't Mr. Sellars realize forty-five minute s to get there . So, it's a self-
that Saddam Hussein is a monster, and this kind selecting audience; people who came wanted to
of thing may go over in Europe where people are be there.
less sophisticated, but it will not play here." It is a That's a really important thing: do people want
very intense thing that this Arab American, whose to be there? Or did some marketing campaign
name is Sylvie Drake, felt the necessity to make convince them to go?
an incredible atta ck on all these issues. It's always
the case when people write reviews that you don 't I'm curious how you handle ma ss exits-a-just
know exactlywhat they are responding to. But that emotionally. Does it not bother you? I don 't know
was a very extreme , like, slash -and-bum . scorched how you live with that.
earth kind of review. We had just come from Paris This just goes so far back. It's been since I was,
where it was sold out and highly praised becau se, like, fourteen . Most of my shows in this country
of course, the European position on the war was create mass exits. I am just so used to it. It's like
very different. And we were working in Bobigny, a given. But it's unbe lievably painful every single
which is a suburb of Paris. Where in America we time. You just force yourself. I've always held this
have the inner cities bombed out and gutted and image of Mayakovskv seeing The Bathhouse, the
then you force people who do janitorial work to last play he wrote. The Stalin era was beginning.

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The audience streamed out of the theat er du ring cas e, it's not accidental. I am deliberately trying to
the show. Mayakovsky would insist on stan ding make something that is anti-( N N or ant i-what
in the audie nce and loo king into the eyes of every they're used to. So, of course it's going to be in a
person. And then took a long walk thro ugh Mos- language that's difficul t for them because they're
cow and committed suicide, and that was his trained to process things in a certain way, and
death. And you think-well, let's not do that. But this really disrupts tha t process. So I can't blame
when I did The Persions in los Angeles, with just them because I set out to do that. I realty have to
d roves going out every night, I actually position ed engage with them and respect them. One of the
myself in the central stairway and talked all night most important things about audiences is re-
to people as they were leaving. spect. You have to respect every person in the
room, and that's on stage, and that's in the audi-
You are a courageo us guy. ence. Every human being deserves respect, pe-
Again, it's this thing about America. Unless you're riod, start there, end there . One of the biggest
part of it, engage in it, then there is no conver- things about people leaving was getting over my-
sation. So, you have to talk to people--even peo- self and how I wanted to run away. The per-
ple who disagree with you. You can't say, "They're formers are doing something difficult, and I can't
leaving. They must be stupid." You have to find go hide while they go out and fight the real battle.
out, well, okay, maybe they're not stupid and The sense of the liberation was not, first of all,
maybe they know something and maybe we could hating the people who were leaving and taking it
learn. personalty. We're not doing this as a popularity
What is so amazing in this consumer culture, contest. You realize why you're not running for of-
where one size fits none and yet there is only one fice and therefore you can say the sort of things
size, is you have no idea what people are reacting you couldn't say if you were running for office. So
to because there are so many complex vocabu - go and have some difficult conversations. Yo u
laries going around. What people assume is the usually get somewhere. Usually there are things
given vocabulary that the work is going to occur that are very moving and surprising, and mean-
in, inevitably isn't what you're do ing-c-or in my while peo ple leave having had some real

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expe rience. But it's awfully painful. actually really interesti ng. That's to me a really
important idea to work in those places-and, al-
I read recently two different things, one I'll bring so, equally, that in the same year I am working in
up later. You said the reason you like creating three housing projects in East Los Angeles. We
opera in the opera world is that you like speaking have to demonstrate as artists t hat we are som e
to people who are in power. In other words , that of the few peop le in society that get to be in both
you choose an aud ience that is adually the most places. We can be in a corporate boardroom, and
powerful audience-politicallyand monetarily. we are working at the East l.A. Skills Center. Very
At Salzburg, the ticket price to get into a show few Americans have both things in their lives, so
that I directed is three hundred and fifty dollars or we are a few of the people who move across the
four hundred. Or there are tickets available for society and actually begin to draw a picture that
five hundred dollars apiece. I mean, I directed would never be drawn with, for and by each
that show. Is that worth it? I'm very alarmed! At group. except that we're there. That's a very, very
Glyndebourne, it's impossible to get in becaus e important responsibility. We are nomadic and we
it's the watering hole of the British upper class. can move across these lines. So, not to work at
Now they built a new theater, and you can actually these exclusive places would be, to me, a betrayal
get in. And now the British upper class are desert- of those responsibilities.
ing it, I've been told, because it's not exclusive As you said, I am about to do Idomeneo as the
enough. U.S. invasion of Iraq. You have to conceive of
Two shows ago I did Magic Flute at Glynde- things much in advance in opera. If I could redo
bourne. Margaret Thatcher and John Major were the costumes, I would love for them to be British
both in the audience on different nights. The last soldiers and not all American because it's in Eng-
show I did, Theodora, they were there. Michael land. On the other hand, that's perfectly in keep-
Portillo, who was the minister of defense, brought ing with how we have treated the Coalition of the
Bill Cohen, the U.S. secretary of defense , to the Willing. The Brits have been rippe d off on every
show. That's a show about the U.S. army, so the level and the n never given any credit. When we
idea that the secretary of defense is watching it is wanted to stage pulling down that statue, we

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hired the thirty-two th ugs that afternoo n and said, the most beautiful things abo ut the internet is you
"Hey, we'll give you ten bucks. Come here and can locate people who have a really specific set of
pull down this statue with us." They put the inte rests that are yours. It's not broadcast ing; it's
American flag on the face of the statue before narrowcasting, and that is very cool. In a free
pulling it down. I don't know why they forgot the world we have to make room for that. I am not
Micro nesian flag, you know? So the British I am ta lking about golf club memberships. I'm just
sure are used to being overlooked, but I hate to ta lking about even making art. And recognizing
repeat that American insult next week. certain things aren't for everyone--that's okay,
In art one of the cool things we can do is cut they don't have to be. That's one of the real strug-
across a lot of the assumptions about democracy. gles we've had in America. We say, "Everybody
Democracy by itself needs to be really articulated, has to get this, so if the average quote -unquote
and at the moment isn't really working about any- doesn't get this then we have to cut it." You know,
where in the wortd---like in either the major my mother's an "average person," and she's fine
democracies or the dictatorsh ips. At the moment with this.
that's the real question : what would a democracy One of the most liberating things I did was
look like?What really would it look like? Could we street theater. Instead of people telling you what
do that? That to me is the project of democracy the audience is, you're doing a performance in
that is always ahead of you. And one of the rea- front of a shopping mall. Whoever comes is go-
sons we do theater is to hold in front of people ing to come, whoever walks on is going to walk
where we are still going, that we haven't been on. All the assumptions about what people are
there yet, but we're still trying to get there. You interested in kind of all go away as soon as you
know, we're not finished with it. let's deal with start working in those conditions. I did a lot of
democracy. that when I was a younger person.
There's also something really importan t about
understanding and supporting certain types of You did somet hing recently o n th e Anish Kapoor
elites, certain types of self·identified groups of sc ulpture at the new Tate.
peo ple who do have common interests. One of Anish is designing Idomeneo. Act One is actually

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set inside an internal organ, so there is no sky. hour and the third act is two ho urs. It has d ance.
There is o nly intense red. There is not a straigh t The opening image is an Arab-Asian woman (the
line anywhere. Everything is inside some body original text is in Asia, but what tha t meant at that
part, and it is terrifying and claustrophobic and time, what part of the world that was, is comp li-
relentless and lit from behind so it's warm and cated) standing in front of the massacred bodies
pulsing and moving. At the same time, the U.S. of her father and brothers . She sings a ten-minute
soldiers, the supply crew on the aircraft carrier aria saying, "I must not hate the people who did
wear distressed army fatigues and red T-shirts. this." Then the young man who's kind of the
Then we've overdyed that and stained them with Mozart surrogate comes in and says , "I didn't do
different layers of blood which dried at different this, but I'm on the side of the people who are
times, so there's old decayed dried blood, then responsible, but please don't hate me." Four
fresher dried blood. So it's all this symphony of hours later the two of them are finally ruling the
super intense reds . Jim Ingalls, the lighting de- kingdom, and all the older generation had to abdi-
signer, is using yellow-red across the spectrum to cate. These will be the people who will carry the
blood red. planet forward. The third character in the triangu -
lation is Elektre. who's fresh from the Oresteia,
I'm dizzy already. where the issue of revenge was very real. Mozart
There are these emoti onal sh ifts while the music makes it very clear. He has Ilia, the woman , sing
of Mozart plays. which is, of course, the main the words "mercy" and "gratitude" like forty times
thing that's missing from CNN-this image of in a row.And then Elektra comes on and sings re-
national forgiveness. Mozart is the composer of venge and hatred forty times in a row, and you get
forgiveness , the composer of compassion. Every that that's the life choice. You can be this woman
one of his pieces is about forgiveness. He wrote or that woman , and then you watch them try and
ldomencc when he was twenty-five and he com - deal with their lives.
pletely doesn't know what he can't do , and so he Grace Paley said the other day at this June Jor-
is doing it all. The piece disobeys every rule. The da n memo rial. "You can either get involved or
first act is ninety minutes, the second act is an have a very unhappy life. At this moment in the

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world there's no choice; you can either be an ac- two thea ters , and your theater comp any has a
tivist or be miserable and angry every d ay." night in one of those two theaters every three
months or so. To say that they're not elaborate ly
Audience: Sometimes both. equipped is an understatement. It's just a shell
The anger thing is a hard one. Something I've where people can be together, essentially. The
been doing in the past ten years is not staging thea ter company that I was with has been in exis-
anger, angry shows . My shows used to be shat - tence since 1976, which is a long time. They have
tering, at the end you couldn't speak and thought, fifty members. The youngest are sixteen and the
Oh my God. That's horrifying. For ten years I've oldest are in their eighties , and the company of
done the opposite because there's enough horror fifty stays together. I thought, What is that? Of
every day when you watch television or read the course, their company exists since 1976 becaus e
newspaper. People do not need to know that the Bangladesh exists since 1975. These are people
world is a bad place or a horrible place or that who fought as guerillas . Then they handed in their
there's a lot of ugly stuff going on. You got that. weapons and started a theater company becaus e
A few years ago, in the Newt Gingrich period, that was the only way they could continue trying
when they were kicking the shit out of country af- to make the country they wanted to live in, to talk
ter country, they were going to abolish the NEA, I about issues of justice, to talk about what their
thought, What would it be like to live without any hope is in their lifetime to see. And that's why
support for the arts of any kind? So I decided to over twenty-five years they all come to every re-
go to Bangladesh . Americans complaining, that's hearsal and that 's what their plays are about.
one of the worst things on earth. It just drives you "Play" is a loose term . There's still some influ-
crazy. You want to say, "Please shu t up!" So I ence left over from the British, but a bunch of it is
tho ught, let's just go and be in a place where peo- Bengali cultu re, which is sung. You'll be there
ple aren' t comp laining all day. It's the poo rest or and, in one afternoon's rehearsal , they just mad e
the second poo rest country on earth right now. up four songs. The shee r creativity pouring o ut is
There are in Dhaka, the capital, two hundred the- just incredible. I was seeing this one show, and I
ater com pan ies. Not o ne person is paid. There are said to the person in the company that I was

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standing next to, "Well, you know, couldn't this t hroat- the African tradition of the praise song,
be just a little more hard -hitting a nd really get t hat the Africa n a rtist is there to praise. Did every-
right down into the problem?" And this person bod y see this movie they made of Salif Keita? You
looked at me and said, "Peter, our audience al- watch him s ing this pra ise song to Mou s sa
ready understands that life is difficult. The ques- Traore. who's like one of the all time mass mur -
tion is: What else can you tell them?" de rers and you think, "Oh God."
I've been trying to stage things that are really I was reading-and actually I would recom-
illuminated from within and that don't leave you mend it to everybody, it's beautiful-these Per -
depressed and de spairing and in a kind of cul-de- sian epic novels from the twelfth century by Niza -
sac but that propose a forward momentum. If you mi. It's written in verse, it goes on forever, it's
watch television at all you just find yourself really, illustrated, usually, with a brush that has a singl e
really depressed. That sense of despair is just so hair on it and somebody has drawn the detail on
disempowering, so you disempower yourself every insect so perfectly. The book itself is a vi-
from actually doing anything. You think , What can sion and a whole performance just turning each
I do? and blah. blah , blah . But what can you do? page. The story of it is very cool, but the story
Everything. so just do it. doesn 't begin till the eighth chapter. Chapter on e
is in praise of Mohammed; chapter two recounts
AS: Nietz sche s aid th ere's two completel y dif- Mohammed's night journey; chapter three says
ferent po s sible experiences ofl ife. One is from the how the poet is personally grateful to be Muslim;
point of view of being grateful , and th e ot her is chapter four is advice to his son; chapter five is in
from the point of view of being ungrateful, and praise of the ruler who is some horrible Sultan
th at 's really st uck wit h me. The not ion of a culture chopping heads off; chapter six is about just
of complaint or Americ an s complaining-you can rulers and how great just rulers are; chapter seven
create an e ntire life from that point ofview. is a dedication to the just rule r on han d; an d
For me, one of the biggest lessons in tha t way chapter eight is whe re the story begins. You get
is-and it is st ill hard to swallow, because the that it's better to praise somebody th a n to tell
way you're brought up, it sticks in you r them you hate them, t hey're bad at what they do

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or they're monste rs because you have to have a At the end of this amazing story, where amo ng
way to continue the conversation. Begi nning the other things you finally realize how to live your
opposite way. there's not going to be a very long life, the people in tha i story decide, in order to
or interesting conversation. And, if you're in it for rememb er what has happened to them, to only
the length of a medieval Persian epic, then you wear clothing of that color for the rest of their
better make sure that the conversation begins lives. These colors and everything are all abou t
propitiously. Every human being has a whole lot alchemy and cosmology and the seven pavilions
going on. So, which side of someone are you go- are the seven planets and it is all built aroun d the
ing to address? Their best side or their worst inner and outer structure of the universe. It's a
side? Can you give them permission to show that time when the main activity of the scientific world
side, and can you encourage and nurture that was in the Islamic world, and this was an inter-
side? face with Islamic astronomy and understanding
The text itself is one of the most beautiful what the message of the planets were for your life.
things, and I am kind of dying to stage it, but I And then, while he's been in these pavilions
don't know. It's stories of this young prince grow- enjoying these lovely stories, his kingdom has
ing up, like those epics , fantastic hunting scenes. gone straight to hell. Evil viziers have been run-
Then there are seven princesses waiting for him ning it in a corrupt and horrible manner, and the
in seven pavilions in his palace. Each pavilion is a Mongols spot that and decide to invade while the
different color. Each princess in each pavilion is kingdom is at its weakest. He's going to respond
from a different part of the world. So the Chinese and he goes to the treasury and it's empty! And
princess is in the black pavilion; the Arab the army-they've all deserted. He has to leave in
princess is in the white pavilion; there's a Greek disgrace and go and live as a beggar for on e year.
princess; there's an African princess. The known A Kurdish shepherd teaches him all thes e life
world--each has a pavilion and a color. Then he lessons, and he goes back to the kingdom and he
goes into each pavilion and each princess tells says, "Okay, I'm king again." He ope ns the prison
him a story. which is like an incredible moral and takes seven prisoners ou t of t he dungeon and
teac hing tale, but also just an amazing adventure. has eac h of these prisoners tell their story of why

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they were arreste d, to rtured and condem ned, and How do you dem onstrate that? How do you test
that gives him the wisdom to tu rn the kingdom that, how do you make it real and not an idea in
around ! Because, of cou rse, you can find out you r life?
what's wrong with a country by ta lking to its pris- I teach a class at UCLA catted "Art as Mora l Ac-
oner s. The Mon gols are repulsed , and the king- tion." I did a se mester on the eye of eq uality. For
dom is prosperous forever. The idea that th e wis- th e final they had to write a fifteen-pag e paper : a
dom of ruling comes from seve n princesses and portr ait of somebody tha t you think that you are
seven prisone rs is a really intense and amazing better than. Get real. But that's what we do in the -
image. ater. That's why Mozart gave really great m usic to
I just talk about it in terms of praise. It's all really te rrible people , Shakespeare gave really
done as praise for the ruler to really beguile th em. great poetry to really horrible peo ple. Yes, it's a
Let's begin with respect. Let's begin from that terrible person doing something awful but. in
place. That's the African tradition as well. At first fact. if you really look at it furthe r, the Hindu thin g
you think it's shallow and cheap, and later if you is not recognizing it as good or evil. There is
think about it a little more it's like Jesus saying, ignorance and awareness or enlightenment or
"love your enemies," or Buddha talking about the however you want to put it, but it's not evil. It's
eye of equality. ignorance. So you don't judge them. Then you
can work with that and engage with that and not
AS:What is the eye of equal ity? from a vantage point of supe riority but some ba-
Welt, the eye of equality is actually an old Hindu sis of equal ity. It's one of the mos t impo rtant
thing. It's in the BhagallQd Gita and it finds its things in working with actors and discussi ng
way into a bunch of Buddhist texts. I'm obsessed character. That usually involves yin and yang han-
with it because we live in America and the thing dling skills beca use a lot of yin has to pile up over
that made America d ifferent from any coun try that there and you have to make sure a bunch of yang
ca me before us is this phrase "all men a re crea ted wilt pile up over there. You have to const antly be
equal." What does that really mean if that's what ad just ing to create and ensu re eq uality.
our cou ntry is founded on? How do you prove it?

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AB: That brings me to the second shocking thingl presumed idea of style is that you're trained to
In the program in Chicago for The Merchant of not actually look at the material but to say, "I
Venice you said you're not interested in virtuosity know my moves," and then to execute those
in acting now. I thought, That 's alii think about in moves . I am really tired of watching most actors
actingl who earn their living by selling soap products on
Well. the context for that -we're going to put two commercials having feelings they don't really
of Anne's comments together for sensation effect! have. Most American acting is very, very sophis -
One is my saying that opera and dance are far ticated and convincing-and actually in the ser-
superior to theater and I'd rather work in that. In vice of something they know is simply not true.
theater anyone can walk in and say, "Hey, I'm an The whole veneer of that acting already leads me
actor:' whereas , if you try that as an opera singer to some very false place, usually. I respect people
or as a dancer. forget it! There's just a basic level who have that "techn ique" quote-unquote, but if
of skill that means the audience has to respect you can cry for an AT&T commercial then what is
you, your moral right to say something, because the value of a human tear?
you have sacrificed years of your life in order to There's a Bill Viola show that I recently wrote an
be able to do this . That's impressive and that has essay for, in the catalogue published by the Getty.
a moral power. A big sect ion of it is about tears and what is in-
On the other side, in theater, I was really cam - side certain tear s. When your recite the Koran
paigning against this idea that there is a way to you're supposed to make people weep. What are
speak Shakespeare. The nightmare for me is audi- the natu re of those tears? And really differen-
tioning routinely, which I did for Shakespeare and tiating among the different catego ries of tears-
just recently Euripides . I have to plead with peo- tears of self-pity which are tears oftotal paralysis,
ple. "Please do this the way you would have don e refusing to change your life, wanting to just wal-
it before you went to [uilllard." Wait a min ute and low in yourself but in fact totally indulging your-
look at this and find some connection and go self, versus tea rs of repentance, which are the first
from there. rathe r than a presumed notion of ste ps toward chang ing your life. The re are these
what style is. One of the hardest things about that am azing traditions about tears. Cathe rine of Siena

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wrote abou t tears. In my shows people cry all the That is why I love Amer ican melodrama-but they
time. and I want the audience to cry all the time, never really questioned the system enough for my
but what do those tears come from? Are those taste , which is t he difference between Dia n Bo uci-
tears ta ngible evidence of a really deep and visible cault and Shakespeare. In Shakespeare th ere are
thing? Are those tears some way of going on the same tea rs, but it's also questioning the
record, even to yourself, that you have certain whole system. But Boucicault's plays are incred-
feelings and that you want to do certain things ibly theatrical, fantastic.
with your life? That's one of the biggest things
about Koran recitation and stuff like that. You see AB: Have you done an y of tho se?
something in your life and you can see your way I did Eugene O'Neill's father's version of The
through it-those tears. And also the tears of Count of Monk Cristo at the Ken nedy Center with
what you did wrong and the arrival of a type of the American National Theater. That is truly som e
knowledge or understanding. acknowledging you over-salted. over -buttered popcorn! The Dumas
can't go back, and that now you must go forward. has some great things in it, but the adaptation is a
little thin. and so I put in gigantic chunks of Byron
AB: And then t here are Spielberg tears, which are and the Bible. Suddenly people found themselves
horrible. in tears because the text really moved to this
It's the propaganda tears that Goebbels special - whole other level, and people were saying words
ized in, to make everybody cry and feel that they that have this incredible. shocking power and
are sensitive but not responsible. The tears of a people thought it was the melodrama-but it was
certain kind of American melodrama of the early an astonishing group of actors unleashed, declar-
twentieth century, which gave everyone the ing great spiritual truths .
strngth to go back cleansed into thei r sweatshops
after a good cry. It was important to do that, to Audience: For example, David Warrilow.
see Bertha. the Sewing Machine Girl, weep and And. excuse me. David Warrilow is saying t hose
weep, and then go back, cleansed, to your hor- words, or Richard Thomas, or Patt i LuPone, or
rible sweatshop and sit at your sewing mach ine. Roscoe l ee Browne. I gave him also all of Psalm

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thirty-seven in the middle of a tacky melod rama o n and they would say o ne line and the lights
s peech . Or Byron' s poem o n da rkness , which is would go off again for a while. O n the one side,
just terrifying, so intense ! Also, I added a heap of you put in everything you can think of, and you
mus ic-Beethoven's opus ninety-five quartet, want it to be as rich as possible and full of tex-
"Seno so" and the Schnittke Second Quartet. ture, and on the ot her side you get to that po int of
necessity. which comes through a bsolute poverty
AB: All this with a melodrama? and dep rivat ion and which you only understand
You want the texture to have all the moral force it through poverty.
can have. It was also audie nce deprivation. All ou r
entert ainme nts, all our news, everything is meant AS: For The Children of Heroldes in Boston, you
to flatter you and to flatter your worldview. Every- had one theatrical device for the entire evening,
thing is designed to flatter you into buying. Most and the evening included an hour discussion be-
Americans have everything at their fingertips. Dr. fore, then a coffee break, then the play, Children of
Maher Hathout. one of the founders of the Is- Herak/a by Euripides, and then dinne r and then a
lamic Center of Southern California. speaking film and literally one theatrical "effect," and when
from experience said, you know, if you've been in it came it was really shockingl
an Egyptian prison and not had water for three The way that theat rical effect was done was so
days and on the third day you have a glass of wa- simple. There's no slight of hand. It was just a
te r, you'll never forget the taste of water for the woman in a white T-shirt who had a cerea l bowl
rest of your whole life. How do you get an Amer- with fake blood in it. She was being sacrificed.
ican audience to tas te water-for the first time? and when her th roat was cut she took the cerea l
So I did a lot of the show turning the lights out so bowl and pou red it, and the red liquid went slowly
you cou ldn't see the action. Things were hap- down her front on her t-shirt an d stained it. It
pen ing and you knew that because I put gravel o n dripped o n the floor and there was this big piece
the stage and miked it. So you could tell that peo - of plastic and she was wrapped up in the plastic
ple were doing things-you just could n't see and carried away like it was a body bag, and the
them . Everyon ce in a white the lights would come plastic was dear so you saw all this really scary

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crap in there like blood and stuff, her feet sticking antipatriotic. It was the same deal they went
throug h it. As a theater effect it was so utterly, ut- through with the Arab news channel: no question
terly simple, and it was really, really honest in that about, "How can you commit these atrocities?"
you saw it coming. Just, "How can you show them on television?" So
Ken basically took all these photos up and down
AB: Actually dumb and beaut iful. along the highway of death, and nobody would
In the age where Steven Spielberg has the special pub lish them. I got his number and said I'd love
effects budget, it is really important that it's a ce- to use these photos in this performance. He gave
real bowl and that you're pouring it on a T-shirt, us permission to use them. So I got these photo-
that it's totally transparent. We are dealing with graphs, and these photographs are so shocking. I
absolute transparency in what we are doing, and mean, you could see people dying, and you could
the image is powerful for other reasons. Now see that their last moments were unbearabl e-s-a
what are those other reasons? That interests me a type of agony that is indescribable and horrifying.
lot. The other reasons are what we are really doing I couldn't use them . I couldn't. I mean, there's
in theater, all the invisible stuff we do that isn't nothing you can do on a stage with that
seen. projected-it was obscene. So Miroto set up an
In The Persians we did the entire Iraq Army with altar in his dressing room and before each perfor-
one person, Martinus Miroto, who was the great - mance we would place a different photograph on
est refined dancer in central Java ten years ago. the altar and pray to the soul of that person and
He also specializes in spirit possession dance. I try and contact that person who died that way and
was obsessed at the time with all the images of ask permission to dedicate the performance that
the war that Americans didn't see. In the first Gulf night, to give some peace to their soul. He would
War, there was a photographer, Ken Jarecke, who channel that soul into his body, and then he
worked for Time magazine. You may rememb er would go out on stage and enact the person being
that the Observer in London published one of hit by those bombs using on ly classical Javanese
these photos and there was such a hue and cry it da nce--not realistic but the op posite. That was
sh ut down the Observer. It was deem ed the reason why the American audi ence felt so

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much close r to the Gulf War than all the tele- and pouring it on a L shirt is no big deal. By itself
visio n footage. They co uldn't tell what it was that it's not hing. It's like in dan ce--move your hand
was bringing them so close to t his war th is way. okay. so what? When does it becom e an
expe rience--they d idn't know what t hat was. empty gestu re and when does it beco me a life-
There's an emotio nal and s piritual level from in- changing moment? That's the oth er side of th e
side t hat show because of the s pirit ual prepa- tec hnique thing. Once you dedicate it that way, it
ration that goes into it, and you can't possib ly removes your ego. It lets the performa nce rise to
know about, and you're not supposed to. a whole other place because it's dedica ted. Dedi-
cation is a really great word .
AB: James Joyce calls that "the secret cause."
It's the ceremony. This is not a show that you AB: Through the act of making theater, things
clap or not clap at, you like or don't like, "loved happen and connections are made. Something
him, hated her." We're here tonight to do a cere- happened to me when I was watching The Chil-
mony, to appreciate the spi rits of the people who dren of Herokles , and I told yo u about it after see-
died and hope that people won't have to go ing it, There were some projection s of text, and it
through that again . It's what , in Tibetan tradition, completely opened up the experience to me like a
are called dedications . It's what Orthodox Hebrew flower, and I saw everything differently. The text
tradi tion is-you tie your shoe a certain way be- that said something like, "Cod created Adam and
cause you dedicate that action to people who are Eve and t hey screwed it up; Cod created Moses
not present. When you do something the long, and he screwed it up; Cod created . . ." and dow n
complicated way. it is because we are not being t he line about how we've screwed things up--
exped ient; we're living in another way for invisible behind a woman playing an extraordinary musical
peo ple based on a whole set of demands that we inst rument. It might be worth s haring how that
have to meet. You are making co nnect ions th at came abou t because it's a real t hing that hap-
are really deep , and so the simplest gestures on pened.
stage o r in your life have incred ible weight and In t he cen ter of tha t production is a woman who
conseque nce . Taking a ce real bowl futl of blood is a musician, Ulzhan Baibussynova; sh e co mes

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from Kazakhstan and she's twenty-eight years old Europe and America in this moment. So it was a
and she is from one of the oldes t shaman fami- whole new world for her and particularly fo r the
lies in Central Asia. I wanted to connect this with elders of Kazakhstan. Then one of the old men
Greek drama. The contemporary link is obvious. said to Ulzhan, "Come visit me next week," and
The ancient link is harder. What is it that speaks she went, and he took from inside his breast
across the centuries? What is it that lets you know pocket a little piece of paper. And he said, "These
that this is the voice of your ancestors? This are the real words of this song; they haven't been
song-it's incredible because the whole history of revealed for one hundred fifty years, and it's now
humans' messing things up-God created Adam time to reveal them. You have permission to sing
and Eve, Cain and Abel, then it goes to Moses, this song in this performance you are doing in the
then it goes into Jesus , and then it goes into U.S., but only if the words are projected." And so
Mohammed-it covers a lot of territory. It literally what Anne saw was this one-hundred -
handles all of the monotheistic religions, all of fifty-year-old tradition that had been hidden, be-
them, in one song . As you've said, it's an emo - cause in Kazakhstan they had to hide their real
tional moment. It's a moment of such shocking culture from each wave of invaders. Once again.
clarity. It goes past emotion into this real state of the audience can feel it. but you can't put your fin-
consciousness and recognition. That song was ger on it. This is one of the biggest issues in the -
not in the show when it started. Ulzhan was ater: Can you feel. simulate, a moment of enlight-
singing that same music but with other words. enment, or can you create a moment of enlight-
We had a break before we went to Italy and enment? Are you acting like you are going to
France, and she went home to Kazakhstan, and change your life, or are you going to change your
she descr ibed the performance to elders. And life? How close can we get to making in the world
they were really moved to know that this tradition the thing we want to actually happen so it's not
was being passed forward. The songs had a new just a simulacrum. it is the thing in itself, as
life in a certain way outside of Kazak tradition , Shakespeare would say.
were now a part of another tradition as well, con-
necting to Greek drama, connecting to theat er in Audience: When you are working in theater---not

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in opera but in t heater-you essentially circum- in rehear sal- for example, the first week of Mer-
vent the actors and depend on Miroto or Ulzhan chant of Venice, we went through that play. Essen-
or other people who 've bee n invited into the tially the entire cas t was quote-u nqo ute "people of
productions. What happens in a theater company color," who previou sly had never don e Shake-
like Anne's or a cast like Merchant afVenice, and speare and were only playing pimps and things
s udde nly you have to depend on the actors to on television. The question, "What is rhythm in
achieve this? Where do we look for thos e actors Shakespeare?" is a really inte rest ing t hing to ask a
that we don 't have to work around? young Panamanian or Brazilian acto r, for whom
What's interesting to me about actors is that ac- rhythm is really interesting. Why am I going to lis-
tors are taking in stuff and are drawing out of a re- ten to the Royal Shakespeare Company tell me
ally deep place. How that place is accessed and what rhythm is when the British are the lea st
how that place is discussed is, in my experience, rhythmic people? let's ask a Jamaican about
not the same with any two performers. Then it's rhythm in Shakespeare. That's what I meant abou t
about creating collect ive structures where we're received virtuosity. The first week of Merchant of
all part of something that's larger than anyone of Venice we went around the table and we would
us. stop at every single line and every person in the
room would share a personal experience tha t that
Audience: But how do you ide ntify t he capa city for line reminded them of. It took one week to read
t hat response, th at vibratio n, t hat th ey need ? through the play once. But that meant that every
It's tough. I hear you. Part of it is that I work with sing le line had an association for every single per-
the same people over and over again. Part of it son in the room, and every single person in t he
is-s-and I've gotten it wrong plenty of times- room was aware of how many ot her associations
som e people you know and you feel it and it's there also were. We were gradually creating ou r
t here. Auditions you can only run so m uch, so a own collective lexicon of shared experience tha t
lot of peop le I cast I've see n in so mething or we co uld then d raw on in rehea rsa ls to groun d
somebody's told me this is an amaz ing person everything. The seco nd week was reading the play
who will really go th e dista nce. But once you are again but within the room we had the

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Dhammapada, the Koran, Noam Choms ky, Man- great est living exponen t of Chinese theater and
ning Marable's How Capitalism Underdeveloped kunq u, was partnered with Michae l Schuma cher
Black America-so that all the stuff that was going from t he Frankfurt Ballet. You were having two re-
on in Shakes pea re we were ope ning out into Ed- ally d ifferent moving vocab ularies. So I do n't go
uardo Galeano. We crea ted another lexico n tha t around t he acto rs, but I do try an d creat e a total
was not made up of our personal experienc es, environment-something tha t is larger than just
and we were also recognizing what Shakespeare acting professionally.
was referring to and what the consequences of
that were--discussion of the word "ghetto" and Audience: What do you do with self-doubt or
where it comes from. doubt and frustrations that arise? What's the
Another strategy is learning from amazing per- place for that?
formers. In the Greek plays I've cast a deaf actor Be grateful for it. Doubt is a really, really impor-
named Howie Seago , who 's really, really an amaz- tant thing. Donald Rumsfeld doesn't doubt him-
ing performer but also an amazing person. But self. If doubt has been sent into your life, it's a
everybod y has to learn how to communicate with gift. My big lesson from my great master. Liz
Howie, and just that act in rehearsal is one of the leCompte. was that everything comes from what
biggest tests. I invite a bunch of people into the you don't know and can't say a nd don't under-
room who can't have a conversation necessarily. stand. and that 's the actual source of your mos t
and then the rehearsal process is about: Will a important work.
conversation be possible or not? We never start
to make a show. It's always about: Can we te st AB: She must have gotten that from Brecht.
t hese issues with these people and see if Brecht was clear about that, that doubt is the gift.
communication is possible? Sometimes I am way Doubt is where you find the sweet stuff because
off, and other times people have breakthroughs up until t hen it was merely "effective." I've always
t hat astound me . Peony Pavilion is a really intens e been t rained to distrust effectiveness, which is
exam ple of that, th ree acto rs playing each role in why I like large portions of my shows to not be
two d ifferen t vocab ularies. Hua Wenyi , t he "effective." Everything on te levision IS so

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effective, and Ho llywood movies are effective, what I ca re about every day, and t he rest ta kes
and I want to declare t hat we're not going to be ca re of itself. So I never t hink of it as leaders hip. It
effective for t he next half hour. That doubt of was just trying to do something I really wanted to
yourself when you're in the noneffective zon e is a do and I need to do in order to exist. Like, you
really beautiful thing, and it is a gift. The doubt is can't live in this cou ntry without saying certain
your greatest empowerment as an artist. The key things in public. I can' t be an American and not
to your artistic identity is the natu re of your say these things. I can't live every day and not try
doubt. and make some noise about these questions. I'm
not really looking around and saying, "Who can I
AB: Someo ne sa id if you look at an y kind of cer- lead?"
tain ty and you take it to its end point, it always Because of my apprenticeship I've learned from
ends in violence. a very young age to invite people much better,
Wow.That's intense much more skilled, than I am into the room and
so, by working with certain peop le like Miroto, by
Audie nce: You started out as a leader in theater at inviting certain artists, certain extraordinary things
a very young age, and since you were speaking are going to happen . It's never about me . . .
abo ut trying to not to be better than anyone else I that's one of the reasons I moved to California.
was wondering what th at experie nce was like for Living in New York, having to think about the
you. American theater every day, would just drive me
I started off as apprenticing at the lovelace Mari- crazy. In L.A. I don't think about theater. If I
onette Theatre in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania , when I choose to do theater, it always comes from some-
was ten years old. When I went to high school it thing I want to say at a moment and am not say-
too k too long to teach people how to work the ing it as a message or a piece of propaganda. It's
puppets, so I started doing shows with people in just like I have to explore it and deal with it and
t hem and started directing because someone had invite really amazing people into a room and work
to organize stuff. When I was fourteen I mad e a through it, because I can't live unless I've mad e
consc ious decision to o nly do what I love and that commitment.

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The show itself is the afte r-effect of t he im- t humbprint or imprint kind of stands out- not
pulse, which is to try and solve something in life because you want to stand o ut. So man y peopl e
or deal with something in life, and the n you figure aren' t working from their gift, and so t hey are do-
out the show tha t will do t hat. Most shows it's ing this genera lized thing. And if you're not actu-
usua llythe other way aro und. No rman Frisch told ally speaking in your own voice, then no one is
me to read Children of Herak/es seven years ago, going to recognize that tha t's you r voice, because
and he was right. I read it and was very moved by it isn't. I would say search and keep looking, and
it. but it wasn't until after September 11 and Amer- you'll end up in a place that you didn't expect to
ica turned into this other thing that I said, "Well, end up in-in a great collabo ration, nobody's
we have to do Children of Herak/es," because it fingerprints are on the material because you've
was about responding to what America was do- created a genuine shared experience
ing.
Audience: You sa id that the most important thi ng
AD: Norm said the most profound thing. I've quot- is how you treat your collaborators, t hough earlier
ed it. We were having dinner around The Children in the even ing you talked about a lot of artists who
ofHerakles, and I was working on La Dispute and I know for a fact treat the ir collaborators in the
this big prologue th at wasn't working, and Norm most offensive and hateful manner, artists that we
sa id, "There's always som eth ing I wanted to tell both respect and love.
directors, and it's t he truth, and ifthey listened to Respect anyway.
me they'd be fine," And I said ,
Audience: Obviou sly this is a contradiction.
"Tell met" And he said, "Yeah, but you' ll never lis- One of the reasons I do old plays is tha t not
ten to me." And I said, "What?" And he said, "00 much has changed in the history of the world.
t he play'" Verydeep. The other side is a lot has changed, and it's really
But it's a good place to process. If you are doing impor ta nt for each of us in our own lives to make
work you are about. then it is utterly unm istakable certain vows that we are not going back there.
from anyone else's work, and so your artistic There are some people-c-l see that every

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da y-that, to m ake th eir wo rk, they have to be- you and wants to kill you? Th at's something
come ho rrible and hu rt somebody. God knows , in Americ a's got to deal with now, and we're not
the da nce wo rld it's like a ru le. It is like any other dealing well with th at. These a re no t just nice
addictive behavior. You have to see it, reco gnize Pollyanna ism s of how I'd like to live. It's really the
it, a na lyze it a nd swea r it off. It's a lso a message deepest is sue of be ing an Ame rica n in the twenty-
from our generat ion that we' re no t go ing to be first century. How do you behave with people
t hat way. You don't have to be horr ible to be an who hate you and wa nt to wipe yo u off the face of
artist! the earth ? (Firs t off, can you curtail som e of you r
O ne of the most important things about wo rk- own presu m ption s an d da m aging behaviors) That
ing in this new period is reaffirm ing everything we is the issue for the next three ge nerations: Can we
do as a collecti ve action , and recognizing the re's find some type of res ponse that is inclusive an d
no such thing as indi vidual genius, and recog- cre at e some basis for shared space that per m its
nizing that the art of the twenty-first century is th e us to be face-to -face ?
creation of shared space. It's how many ways and
how creatively we ca n share what we have an d ev-
e ry one of us ha s some missing part of th e pic-
ture. That's the im age we have to give to politi-
cia ns . It's the ima ge we have to give to the
media-that sophisticated adults have come to-
gether to work on something really complicated
across lots of a reas of agreement an d disagree-
ment but ag ree to share the s pace.
In th is era of forced globa lizatio n, we have got
to insist o n sha red s pace across borders and t he
real e limination of lot s of offensive wor ds an d ac-
t ions no t th ro ugh viole nce but thro ugh friend -
ship. How do you deal with so m eo ne who hates

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Chari•• L. Mee,)r. mu ch that he sees and exper iences. He incor -
por ates da nce and m usk into t he fabric of his
Chuck Mee is t he closest I wi ll ever come to hav- plays. He chooses de light an d love as his gu iding
ing a me nto r, guru, wise sage, cou nselor or muse. principles. He once wrote thr ee plays in a row
O r pe rhap s what we share is s imply a rem ar kable a bout love: First Love, Big Love a nd True Love. He
frien ds hip a nd love. Whenever I lose faith in th e was of co urse, at the time, in love. Whe n t hat love
wo rld. I (all him up and ask if we might get to- affair e nded, he convinced himself t hat his life
gethe r. Somehow by the end of any meat we was finished. But Chuck, remaining eve r open,
share. my spi rits are lifted and I am inspi red to go next met the beautiful and ta lented Mic hi Ba rall,
back to my life with renewed gusto. mar ried her, his life completely renewed.
I often forget that Chuck is dependent upon Chuck writes with a historian's perspective and
two canes to get around . He somehow makes me he looks at the world with the eyes of a philoso-
forget this. I remember in 199\ driving around in pher. Between 1972 and 1993 he wrote eleven
a beat -up Toyota with Chuck and Annie Ham- books on world history and American interna-
burger (the founder of En Garde Arts, a producing tional relations. He has four children from two
organization devoted to site-specific thea ter). We marriages and for many years supported hims elf
were looking for an appropriate site to stage as an editor for the arts magazine Horizon. Chuck -
Chuck's play Anothu Person Is Q Foreign Country. 's work is now made possible by t he generosity of
At one point Annie pulled up to what looked like Jeanne Donovan Fisher and Richard Fis he r.
an enormous junk heap nea r the East River in I am fortunate to be one of the di rectors with
Ma nhatt an. Before I could even get out of the whom Chuck chooses to collabo rate often. He is
back seat of the car, Chuck had ma naged to climb also a SITI Company me m be r. Other directors he
to t he top of the hill. 1 loo ked up to see his a rms wo rks with often are Robe rt Woodruff, Mart ha
stretched wide, the width further exte nded by the Clarke, Tina l a ndau , Ivo van Hove a nd Daniel
line of his two canes, and he shouted down at us, Fis h. His plays incl ude adapta tio ns of Gree k
"Isn't this beautiful!" plays: Orestes 2. 0 , The Baccaae 2.1, Agam emnon
Bea ut iful indeed . Chuck finds delight an d joy in 2. 0 , Trojan Women 2.0, Big Love, True Love a nd

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Iphigenia 2.0. Hotel Cassiopeia, bobrauschen - Street and Central Park West in an old, dilapidated
bergamenco. Soot and Spit and Under Construction building that was the first cancer hospital, 510an-
each explore the work of a contempo rary artist: Kettering. We went to all kinds of places with An-
Jose ph Cornell, Robert Rauschenberg, James Cas- nie and her beat-up car to try and find where we
tle, Jason Rhoades and Norman Rockwell, respec- were going to do this site-specifically. We got to
tively. Other plays include Queens Bou lelJOrd, Par- one place with literally piles of junk---like moun-
adise Park, The Inllestigation of the Murder in EI tains of garbage. It was somewhere near the East
Satvador. Tim e to Bum, Full Circle , Summertime , River. We got out ofthe car, and by the time I got
Fir;t LOlle, Wint ertim e, Vienna Lusthaus , Umonade out of the car, Chuck had already climbed the en-
Tous tes j ours, Salome, A Peifect Wedd ing, Belle tire mountain and was standing on the top with
Epoq ue, Fett:s de 10 Nu it, Ma il Ord er Bride and his crutches in the air like sticks, going, "Isn't this
Gone . Chuck is the autho r of a beautiful memoir beautiful?" That changed my life. What I under-
about his early years entitled A Nearly N ormal stand is that he stands up on the detritus of our
[if' · society and says , "Isn't this extraordinary? Isn't
this amazing?" When I look around, I see junk,
SEPTEMBER 29, 20 03 and I see things that make me really sad or
discouraged or numb, but he just looks at it in
AS: Chuck is, for me, a constant inspiration, and ways that opens it up. So, Chuck: You're standing
whenever I lose faith in the world, I end up in a on this big mountain of junk, which is the world
conversation with him and gain it again. Years ago we're living in today. As a theater artist, what do
Chuck and I were doing a play called Another Per- you see?
son Is Q Foreign Country. Annie Hamburger and Cl.M: I'm not sure I ever know what I see until I
En Garde Arts were producing it. We were looking start making a play, really. I th ink I write plays half
for a site . It was a very complicated piece that in- and half. Half, a story comes out in my head and
volved a lot of people with various disabi lities or the c.haracters come out of my life and friends
abilities, and also it needed to be a very particular and stuff like that , the way most playwrights write.
environment. We ended up doing it on 136th The other half c.o mes out of plays tha t I've stolen.

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It always seems to me that it's not a hard thing to around a lo ng time because it spea ks to every-
write a play. If you don't have an idea, then you body at almost every mom ent. Find in that what
steal-and then remake it, which is what the speaks to you in the moment. Bring it inside your-
Greeks always did, and what Shakespea re always self and inside your own time and see how it
d id. comes out. And in see ing how it comes out, you
You start by grabbing hold of Iphigenia at see what you notice about your own time. You see
Aulis-Agamemnon is about to go to the Trojan that you remember a speech by Paul Wellstone.
War, and the gods won't give him a breeze to sail You see that you remember looking at Seventeen
by until he sacr ifices his daughter. You think, if magazine and how it socializes young women to
you set it today, what does that mean? Then you do what Iphigenia volunteered to do for her fa-
think-I mean, I just make this up as I go along- ther. "I will be sacrificed." She's a perfectly soc ial-
Paul Wellstone, in1991 , the first Persian Gulf War, ized young girl in Greece, just as young women
got up and said on the floor of the Senate , when today are perfectly socialized to fill a certain role.
asked to vote in favor of the war, "I asked myself You start noticing stuff about the time that you
if I would send my own children to fight this war, live in. So, in a way, the theater is my guide to
and I wouldn't. So I can' t vote to send anybody what I notice in the world.
else's children to fight the war." You think of
Agamemnon, you think it wasn't that the gods I look at the world, I think it's too much. If you
were saying, "We won't give you a breeze unless take the lens of a play and see it th rough that, you
you hurt someone." What the gods were saying can actually see it better. But yo u ta ke the next
was, "You can't go to war to kill other people un- step, which is you eat the len s, and then you
tess you're willing to take the person you love the regurg itate something new.
most and kill her first. You make the first sacri- That's a nice image. I say this to myself all the
fice, and then everybody else will go." time , over and over- I believe Aristotle was right
So it's so easy to take some story by one of the to say that human beings are socia l animals,
Greeks or by Shakespeare or Moliere, some story which is to say they exist in relat io nship to one
that's been around a tong time-a nd it's been anothe r and they do n't otherwise exist. The

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horrible thing about Philoktetes- I mea n, he's on relat ionships in the forms that have been given to
an island, he's been abandoned because he has you, the forms of Ibse n-who was a great, play-
this horrible, loathsome wound , and it pro bably wright, but we know what he did-what could we
sti nks. So they put him on an island. Then they find o ut? The way to find out is altering the form
come back to get him to fight in the Trojan War and the way of creati ng theater. The reason for
because they need his abilities as a killer. He's avant-ga rde theater is to d iscover what else is
been spurned and despised and abandoned and possible for human beings to be. That's the on ly
dumped on this fucking island to die. Why would way I learn anything . The only way I know is by
he go back? Because, the Gree-ks believed, if working.
you're not in relationship with human beings ,
th en you're not a human being. You're an animal. Chuck was originally an historian , and moved
So for him to live alone on a desert island was to- through being an histor ian to being a playwrighL
tally out of the question . If I had to equate you with any other playwright, I
We find out who we are in our relationships would say Heiner Muller. It's something about the
with other people . That is to say, if we're cruel or way you sample history and use the detritus about
kind or passionate or homicidal or vicious or you and reprocess it.
backstabbing or devious -then that's who we are. I graduated from college in 1960 and wrote for
The art form that reveals more clearly than any Off-Off-Off-Off-Off-Off-Off-Broadway And then I
other art form what it is to be a human being is got very caught up in anti-Vietnam War politics,
the theater because it's the art form of human got caught up with writing stuff, which led to writ-
relationships. In the theater is where you see-what ing stuff about the Cold War. which led to
it is to be a human being , and what people can history-historical stuff about the Cold War. I be-
make in the theater is what is possible for human gan writing historical stuff abou t American for-
beings to be, what relationships exist and what eign policy and America in the world. I did that for
relat io nships might exist. It's just infinite. The twenty years. I quit writing for the thea ter. I too k
reason for working in new forms in the theater is this detour in life, which I never meant to do, and
exactly that. If you cont inue to cast human spe nt all that time dea ling with history. It never

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felt like my real life, and it finally became kind of fate, destiny, chance, wheel of fortune. The the -
unbearable. I think the biggest reason it was ater that I grew up in, theate r from Ibsen to Arthur
unbear able and exhausting was that-a nd I think Miller, is a theater tha t believes a ll hum an behav-
there are great historia ns, and I still enjoy reading ior and activity can be reduced to psycho logical
histo rians who got past this problem in a way I explanation . What st rikes me as deep ly mistaken
never did-as a form history believes that it's about that idea-and pernicious-is tha t if there
possible to frame rationa l sentences and para- exists from the natural world a set of norms to
graphs that conta in the reality of the world, even which all hu man beings conform or are to be
tho ugh the reality that's contained ma kes most found deviant, abno rmal, wanton, then you're
people want to shriek and cry out and tear their trapped. You've already lost the gam e. You're al-
hair out and run through the streets. It seemed ready caught in somebody's totalitarian system
fundamentally to me untrue. The theater, where that won't allow you to breathe. So I think even
you get to use your head and your heart, seems to though people like Arthur Miller tried to be writ-
me more likely to get at something that is actually ing about politics, accepting the frame of under-
the truth in a relationship. So that was why, I standing human beings as he did, which was so
think. I was uncomfortable writing history rather diminished from the understanding that the
than writing for theater . Greeks had, that Shakespeare had. that Moliere
But what I bring with me from writing history all had. that it made it impossible for him to ever
those years is a belief, which other people have actually write a political play. What he reallywrote
arrived at in different ways, which is that Freud is were psychodramas where peop le were bothered
really a crock of shit. The discip line of psycho logy by politics and projected personal beliefs onto the
doesn't adequately describe what it is to be a hu- situation.
man being. Human beings are not shaped on ly by
the psychodynamics of early childhood, but also Those restr aints or shackles in a way are some-
by history and culture and genetics and random thing that I learned from you, part icularly working
accidents and all those ot her things that the on bobrau schenbergam erica. It was hard for us as
Greeks knew-th ings like calls from the gods, a compan y because we are very obsessed with

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discipline and doing things right and going deep wonderful to me. And it seems that it must be
and starting on time and working really hard. Your true. And then I ask myself, 'Then why don't I feel
approach is, "Well, let's do what feels good." The good?" I think how peo ple feel rea lly is how a lot
last line of the play is, "That feels good to me." I of peo ple settle. II's not a simplification. How you
think the reason that you chose Robert Rauschen- feel really is thinking and feeli ng with your reaso n
berg is Rauschenberg's notion of freedom. Cer- and your instincts and your hunches and your
tainly I was irrevocably changed by working on childhood memor ies and what you had for lunch
this piece with you because you actually asked us and your cells and your neurons and stuff. It's a
to be in touch with what feels good. What feels very complicated system of unders tanding the
good seems to release the restrictions of psy- world. It's immensely sophisticated. So that's a
chology in a way. Where did that come from? more likely way of really getting at som ething as
It's part of what I learn from the Greeks and complicated as human life.
Shakespeare and history. So many systems of
framing understanding are reductionist. I mean, less so now, but you're never r~any afraid of us-
there couldn't be mathematics if there weren't ing violence and inapprop riate, sometimes polit-
reductionists. It's a system of unde rstanding ically incorrect, characters, situat ions, language-
relationships in a supremely, exactly distilled vicious language. Where does that come from in
fashion. But for understanding of the world. hu- you? Can you talk about the uses of violence and
man life. these reductionist systems just incapac- where that's gone in your work?
itate people for getting through their daily lives Well. I think when my work was full of blood, vio-
and understanding what the fuck is hap pening to lence and nastiness it came from a lot of personal
them and where they are. There was this won- rage. which I did feel with some intensity. I had
derful thing when Oliver North appeared before polio when I was fifteen and immediat ely sort of
the cong ressional subcommittee. Rep resentative settled that as an issue and decided that I had to
Dante Fascell from Florida asked the most won- figure o ut how to make my way in the world and
derful question. He said to Oliver North, "I lis- had no time to think about that. I really set it
tened to everything you said, and it all sounds aside. I did none of the emo tional work of living

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throug h that experience for another te n or fifteen Tragedy, you can kind of ded uce what might have
years-after I'd already drunk every fo rm of alco- been Shakespeare's play. At least, you can deduce
hol available, had every drug available in the six- the story of it. He steals the story of Don Quixote.
ties, engaged in all sorts of high-risk, nasty, Everything he ever wrote--except Midsum mer-
destructive to myself and others behavior. Some he stea ls the storyline. Then you set it 2004 in
of those plays came out of the tail end of that, or Queens or something. So, we're about ready to
they contained what much of the feeling of those commence to think about considering starting to
years was. Now, it doesn't sort of consume my work on this play. Stephen 's in Berlin, at some ad-
psyche. vanced institute of something. He wrote me this
I just got an email from Stephen Greenblatt. email this morning . He said, "I haven't had time
Stephen Greenblatt has to be the most brilliant to think about the play, but I had this dream last
Shakespeare scholar in the world. Aside from be- night that feels as though I'm beginning to feel
ing incredibly sweet, adorable, funny, warm, he's stirrings of anxiety." So he tells me this dream.
unbelievably smart. We were talking a couple of And I think, "Right. No brainer. There's the first
years ago, and he said that it would be fun for soliloquy for this piece." You take Shakespeare's
him to watch me write a play. I said, "Stephen, storyline. You stick that dream in somewhere.
you sit in a chair and watch my fingers go." So I You don't know how or where. And with that grain
said we could write a play together, and that of sand in the oyster the play begins.
would be really fun-take one of Shakespeare's Robert Woodruff some years ago said that he
lost plays and write it. So we've taken this lost loved to work with the designer George Tsypin
play of Shakespeare's, which is really kind of because Tsypin always designed a set that you
interesting called Cordenio. It's taken from several couldn't produce a play in. In trying to overcom e
chapters of Don Quixote. It seems kind of reliable the obstacle of the set design you' re forced to do
that he wrote this play-and then the play disa p- something smarter than you would have before.
pea red. There's another play based on Shake- So always when I start out to work on a play, I
spea re's called The Second Maiden's Tragedy. So take stuff at random that I throw in the middle of
between Don Quixote and The Second Maiden's it, then you have to make it work. If you have to

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make it wo rk. then you're forced to be resourceful theater is incredib ly tedious-really replicating
in ways normally you wouldn't wan t to be. You'd the real world in so me fas hion. But the ater tries to
rather be lazier. So I sti ll t hrow into plays appro- take truly th e material of our lives an d render it as
priated text- st uff I see online, Seventeen maga - halluc inat ion o r night mare o r in so me way that
zine, the National Enquirer, Ariann a Huffington 's gives it anot her life above the floor on t he stage
s peeches. You throw t hat in an d the n you have to t hat you can launch yourself into and live in. That
figu re ou t how to co ntain it. It forces you to be frees you, so you can live in this world that isn 't
hone st. You can't take everything from the real quite bound by the rules of the newspaper t hat
world and filter it through your own psyche, edit Ernst cut it out of. Thai'S how you co nnect your-
it. rewrite it, reconfigure it before you put in on self in a realm of freedom to explo re who you can
t he page. You have to rip it out and stick it down. be.
You don't get to fuck with that. That goes ver-
batim. So you're forced to do bits and pieces of Your intention is not to control, but to release-e-to
th e world as it is today in whatever you're working make so met hing smaller than yo u, but to bring in
on. objects of text or whatever that actually mess you
up and actuall y ma ke you bigger. Then there's the
So what makes it yours? issue of the big T word , which is hard to talk
Just the way you arrange it. We should talk about about because it affects everyth ing, eve ry choice
bobrauscbenbcrgomcrica, but the other pe rson I've we make about who we work with , how, our taste.
always thought about a lot is Max Ernst who, in a One of the reasons I'm drawn to you is that your
way, invented the co llage toward the en d of World intentions are bigger than mine and yo ur taste is
War I. His idea initially was to take scissors and somehow distasteful to me at times and at other
cut th ings up, newspapers and catalog ues and times incredibly tasty, What are we doing, in re-
stuff like tha t, pas te it dow n on paper, then maybe hearsal? Are we trying to control something, or are
add a little someth ing-but to take the materia l of we trying to relea se something?
t he real world. then to ren der it as hallucination. It's related to the idea that either you believe wit h
That 's wha t all theater as pires to do-except Freud that there are a set of rule s that govern

2l pages (26 mil) left III thil chopter (Bock!Cl PJIle 6) 11'l. ,00<
behavior and those rules are rooted in nature it- open process - not afraid of where it might ta ke
self and they are universal and eternal. Or you be- you, not already sh utting off possibilities becau se
lievewith Richard Rorty, who talked about how we you do n't want to discover certain things, not al-
don't really believe anymore , as Plato believed, ready insisti ng tha t this is the final answer, but
that there's an ideal world and a real world, and freely exploring and seeing where you might go-
that in a philosophical description, the closer you because this is a safe space to do that. If you
get to actually replicating the ideal, the truer your freely explore what it is to be a human being by
statement becomes , the truer your statement is. dropping shit on Iraq, actual people will die while
That there is this universal, eternal set of ideals, you're finding out what international relationships
truths, and our job is to disco ver exactly what can be. But in the theater, people don't die, usu -
they are and model everything else on those. And ally. Sometimes they get sick and they vomit in
Rorty says, obviously, we no longer believe this. the aisle while they're trying to get out, but they
So, if you no longer believe that , then what do you don't die. So it's a free ride to see, to open up and
say when Hitler shows up. since you're no longer explore.
able to say, "Well, there 's something funda - Stephen Greenblatt , the world's leading genius
mentally human that cries out against this "? We and my favorite thinker, has written a new book
don't believe there is something fundamentally about Shakespeare, Will in the World. I was read-
human. Where do you stand ? What Rorty really ing it this afternoon , and he talks about all the
says is what we're all engaged in is a creation of a morality plays there were in Shakespeare's child-
world, the values, the relationships that we wish hood and how confining they were, and how
to be true, whether they were true in the past or Shakespeare takes these plays--even names for
not, this is what we aspire to now. So what we're his characters-and liberates them. Even if Fal-
doing is not discovering truth but creating truth staff ends up drunk and repudiated by Prince Hal,
for the society that we think is the society that the lines of repudiation don't set it up as a mo ral
feels best to us . In the theater what you're doing tale. They set it up as two guys moving in dif-
is discovering the possibilities of human relat ion- ferent ways, so it remains open rather than a
ships, then you hope that that discovery is an d osed set of moral judgments. This is quite an

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amazing thing about Shakespea re, so deeply in- do ne so rt of a series of pieces about artists who
formed by these morality plays. He liberated them are figures-Robert Wilson and Marshall
and opened up the exploration of what a new Mcl uhan and now Virginia Woolf. There was a
character might be. I don't remember where I big retrospective of Rauschenberg's work at the
read this, but the main thing Shakespeare did Guggenheim five years ago. I think all of us live in
when he sto le Thomas lodge's novel Rosalynd, the world Bob Rauschenberg made, which is to
which Shakespeare made into As You Like It, was say we all live in a world of collage, whether we
to remove the motivations of the characters so think about it or not. This is how society is mad e.
that what motivates people becomes deeply You can hardly go to a coffee shop in Brooklyn
mysterious. And I forget who it was who said that without seeing walls decorated with collage. Tele-
with most playwrights, at the beginning of the vision is collage. You're supposed to not notice
play you don't know who the character is and by that, but the reality is a story gets going, it gets
the end you know exactly who the character is, interrupted, you have a commercial with a guy
whereas with Shakespeare, you think you know driving down the highway in California, then
who it is and by the end you realize you have no somebody's drinking a beer in Denver, and then
idea. somebody's skiing in Vermont, then you're back
to the story. Rauschenberg had gone to Black
I feel that that's what wants to happen in Mountain College. He arrived in New York in the
bobrauschenbergomericQ also. In the beginning early fifties, and he just went out on the street and
these characters are stock chara cters. They all are started collecting junk-not the stuff that other
recognizable. You thin k you know them. And at people had merely neglected or ignored or were
the end you don't. They're just widened. I learn indifferent to, but the stuff they had thrown
from you to let yourself just not know the ans wers away-that they were trying to get rid of.
so easily. Could you ta lk about the genesis of the Rauschenberg gathered it up, brought it back to
play? his studio and put it into new combinations tha t
Well, we'd been talking about doing stuff together were amazing . So, you think abo ut what he's do-
for a long time. You and the SITI Company had ing and what he's saying-the sensibility of the

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artist being ope n to anything, to embrac e it, to narrat ive line we follow through, when you think
bring it back in. This is ferocious egalitarianis m, of som ebody like Rauschenberg. the way you start
the sma ll-d democratic sentiment of inclu- to make the play is you loo k at his paintings. You
siveness, before anybody knew there was a word think, What do I see over and over again? Chick-
inclusiveness in Webster's Third Internat ional ens. Stuffed goats. Bathtub. Then you say, "Okay,
Dictionary. l et's put this together with a terrific what does that make me think of?" It makes me
sense of energy and optimism and joy and see think of a couple of guys having a conversation
how we feel. What we feel is incredibly liberated about how they started in the chicken-raising
and happy. It feels like all the values we as Amer- business. Immed iately you've got dialogue.
icans say we wish we had in this country. So he You've got to talk about the stars. So we mad e
turns out to be kind of heroically an American these lists of some images, some text and som e
artist-not by what he says, but by the content events that might occur. Then you hand these to
and structure of the stuff itself. It's really incred- the SITI Company, and Anne tells people to make
ible and wonderful. compositions. They stick them together and you
So we did this workshop down at the La MaMa see what it makes. It's very cool. Anne and SITI
basement space. Eight or ten people came in and Company members don't think in terms of,
we put some stuff together . They brought in fabu- "Here's black, so there's white; here's yes so
lous stuff. Leon [Ingulsrud) had a piece about a there's no." They think, "Here's purple, so there's
truck driver who set out at five o'clock. You feel thirty-two, this is X," And if it's thirty-three, it's
as though he's an American guy somewhere in not quite as good, So, the compositions are not
Kansas getting in his truck and setting out across simple juxtapositions of oppositions, but this
the country. I sort of put that together, then we very open, free, tossed-together stuff. The way of
too k it up to Skidmore where SITI Company is making the work is amazing. It had a sense of
teaching, and Anne basically made a curriculum liberation in it at a cellular level.
for sixty people to create composi tions based on I thought, watching this, Okay, what we've got
this . It's a different kind of play. Instead of som e- so far is a lot of slosh, a lot of cool composi tions,
thing like Iphigenia at Aulis, where ther e's a but how do we feel as though anything is going

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anywhere here ? With a painting you can see the plotlines and relations hips. So that's how you get
whole painting in detail at any mom ent you this incredible richness. That's how in Shake-
choos e, so you co uld see any deta il in cont ext if speare's plays you get these powerful stories go-
you wanted. But with a work of art that occurs in ing, but you also feel as tho ugh you're just dee p
time, you don' t see the whole until the end. So in the human experience, going off in these
somewhere in the midd le you get a little bit anx- digressions.
ious, just like an amoeba that can't see the light. If you put together a piece that doesn't have a
If you feel not oriented, you feel anxious , whethe r plotline, like the Rauschenberg piece, then how
you are an amoeba or a fruit Ay or a deer at night. do you make this something other than stuff that
Since you don't want yourself, let alone an audi- sloshes? You don't want to stick a big plotline
ence , to be so consumed by anxiety they can't pay through it, but how about like a quilt. where you
attention to anything else, you need to give some just stitch it a little here , stitch it a little there , and
orienting devices along the way. The most com - the stitching has just a little forward momentum,
mon form of orientation is a plotline: boy meets so it feels it's going somewhere. You get a bit of a
girl; there's a conspiracy to depose the king. Then break because we moved to another emotional
you can go wherever you want to go. With the place here . So that's boy meets girl, becaus e
Greeks, you set up the plottine. then you have the that's a story that everybody understands. A little
chorus. The chorus is always riffing. But what the while later it's boy meets boy. A little while later
Greeks really understood is that if you get the the boy and girl are getting together. A little later,
plotline going, you can riff, and people are cool the boy and boy really get together. So thes e little
with that. What's mostly boring about plot-driven things just kind of nudge it along.
plays is that people have forgotten to riff, and it
gets claustrophobic. It's why the Greeks are not We had troub le making transitions because there
claustrophobic. Shakespeare's dramaturgy could would be a scene, then a scene, then another
have been deduced by looking at a Greek play. scene. As a company, we usually spend huge
Shakespea re just exploded the chorus and the amounts of time figuring out how to make transi-
ind ivid ual voices. They have stories, too, and tions so it's really fluid. But it wasn't working. I

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said, "Chuck, how do we make these transitions?" I'm doing a piece with Chen Shi-Zheng up at
He said, "Well, grout." The material between tiles. American Repertory Theate r in Cambridge. Che n
The transition s should be like grout. And that was Shi-Zhen g d id Peony Pavilion up at Lincoln Center
very helpful. Something ends. There's a little a few years ago, which was an unbelievably fabu-
spa ce. Then something begins-as opposed to lous version of seventeent h-century Chinese
something lyrically connected or the end con- opera. He did both a Mandarin production and an
ta ining the beginning of the next thing. None of English-language version of The Orphan of Zhao
that actua lly held. this summer at the Lincoln Cente r Festival. He
Yeah. transitions seem really tedious, and also so and I too k a thirteenth-century Chinese play. The
very unlike life. We so rarely have a transition in Injustice Done to Iee -e, and I set it in Queens this
life. year. It's a story about a young woman who is
systematically and horribly mistreated until finally
Can you talk about what projects you are working she is unjustly found guilty of a murder and exe-
o n now? cuted. In the original Chinese version she comes
I'm working on a piece, Belle Epoqoc, with Martha back as a ghost and her father, who is now in the
Clarke at Lincoln Center. I don 't know if any of government-he abandoned her back in the
you saw Vienna: Lusthaus, which she and 1 did a beginning of the play----in Beijing. She tells him
numbe r of years ago and was just revived at New what happened, and he comes back to the prov-
York Theatre Workshop. We're doing a bunch of inces and sets everything to rights, so that it's a
interminable workshops for that. Lincoln Cente r's happy ending . The moral being, if only the central
put up a jillion dollars for these workshops. government knew, everything would be okay. So,
We've done eight weeks. Martha's incredibly we cut that ending and I have her rise fro m the
inefficient and immensely expensive. We have five dead and murder everyone. But 1 d id a fairly
o r six acto rs and a half doze n dancers and five str aight version of the storyline and wrote a
musicia ns and a m usic director-Broadway musi- bunch of songs and stuff. We too k it into a work-
cal prices for this piece that, you know, we'll see if shop in May up at A.R.T., and Shi-Zhen g said,
Lincoln Cente r does it. "This is so linear and narrative, I can 't even

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bounce a ball off it." I said, "Well, what do you yo u write a play for twenty acto rs?" So I sa id,
want to do?" He said, "I think it should move "Cool." Now, I know these people. They did a play
vertically instead of horizontally." I said, "Great." of mine a couple of years ago and I know the se
So he went in and chopped it all up and rear- acto rs. I don't know if you know the Dutch, but
ranged it all. Now the mora l of the story is more they're very unro mantic- very cynical and not in-
like, "Shit happens." It's this big nightmarish, vio- to crap. So. this is a play about a wedding. It
lent thing with these crazy songs and peop le get- starts out with this young man and woman who
ting killed over and over and over again. Then are going to get married . Then there's confusion
maybe at the end you're able to put the whole sto- and a lot of consulting and st uff going on. He
ry together. Or not. Shi-Zheng grew up in China. leaves the house, and then they all go out looking
He was about seven years old when there was the for him. Everybody's lost in the woods. The Rad-
cultural revolution and there was this big demon- ical Faerie wedding planners enter the story. Then
stration on the side of the street. He was on the the Priest. who has a checkered past. has com e to
sidewalk holding his mother's hand when she marry these people. It gets very wild, and they end
was shot and killed by a stray bullet. I think that up calling it off and mud wrestling. Then, the Rad-
this nightmarish, inexplicable, violent, horrible, ical Faeries who planned the wedding feel so
chaotic piece replicates that event for him. mortified that all their work is not coming off that
Then I'm doing a piece for Iva van Have for the even though they said they would never get mar-
Holland Festival. He took over the national the - ried because it's for bourgeois people and it's
ater in the Netherlands a few years ago. He came crap. they decide that they'll get married because
in and he took over this acting company of twenty the wedding must take place. So. two Faerie wed-
people who were loyal to the previous artistic ding planners. two young women, decide to get
directo r-so they hate Iva . They think he's an ass - mar ried instead . Then the sister of the young
hole. Or half of them hate him. He said to me, woman who jilted this guy decides to marry him
"You know, I think I need to get the whole com - because she always loved him. They end up doin g
pany in o ne roo m so we can work together on a a big Sollywood dance number and living happily
play and come out at the end a company. So, will ever after. I'm forcing Iva's company to get

11 pages (t~ mn) lIIft n IIIs chop''''

married-and it's an incredibly sen time ntal play. go being lost in the wilderness before you sta rt
shutti ng down the possibilities so that you can
And then there's Joseph Cornell. just deal with it? That's always the thing. I came
And then there's Joseph Cornell, which we're do - back from that June at Skidmore with this pile of
ing. We're going to do a workshop of it at the end stuff. There were sixty students. They went into
of October to start doing exactly what we did on groups of three. Each of them did three or four
the Rauschenberg piece, getting not just SITI compositions. I came back with hundreds and
Company. but other people to come into the hundreds and hundreds of ideas. I actually had
workshop and start throwing stuff into the pot to this moment of total panic, thinking, What is this?
make this piece. This is nothing but people's random free associ -
ations when you say Rauschenberg. This is not a
Audience: What I'm hearing you say is that the theater piece. So I thought. What would
world is so so crazily comple x that your way of Rauschenberg do? I thought he would choose
making it make some kind of sense is by writing a whatever he thought was cool. So I chose what-
play about it, But it's also eas y, when you write a ever I thought was cool. Then I did these little
play, to see that complexity in the play and you re- sntchings. and that was pretty much the piece.
ally could defeat your whole purpose once you get You have to have the confidence that it coheres
started. How do you go to your sources when you just because somewhere you are a coherent per-
are engaging in that process? son. Ifyou trust that. which is what Rauschenberg
I think that writing, and probably making a theater trusted about himself. you're likely to have made
piece. is a test of character in the sense that you something crazier that is more complex. full of
really want to leave stuff open to explore and to honest contradictions, dark places. terror,
discover as much as you possibly can. Since you sentimentality, pleasures. trivial interests. impor -
get incredibly lost and hopeless in this process tant thoughts, than if you try to think your way
and disoriented and think it's worthless and you through it and arrive at a way of proceeding.
don't know why you're doing it. the question al- When Anne walks into a rehearsal room, it
ways is: How brave can you be? How far can you seems to me from being with her, that she

9 pages (Il mill) left IIIth01 chopTer

does n't walk in thinking, I know everything. I'm process the SITI Company has, the role of the
going to tell these people what to do. Rather she playwright has got to be a little bit more unique for
walks in thinking, l et's see what these ama zing you. How much are you involved once the re-
people bring into the room. let's see what hap- hearsa l process has started? Does that differ if
pens. let's be open abou t the process , stay open you were working with a different compan y?
as far as possible . As it goes along and as she The truth is tha t usually what I do as a playwright
sees stuff. somewhere she begins to think. I don't is that I write a play, I hand it to a director, and I
really like that. I don't think that's so amusing. say, "Have a good time . I'll see you on opening
That seems great So that really what happens is night." I believe that the actors and the director
that she exercises her taste, and she can't explain should be as free to do their thing as I was to do
where her taste comes from or define it or de - mine. I hope that they will discover their own
scribe it or surround it. So she has to trust that production of that piece. rather than to imagine
her taste. likewise, comes from a coherent per- incorrectly that some definitive version of it exists
son. If I do what I love, and Anne does what she in my mind. So I really give over-not out of
loves, without thinking. What will the audience some cuckoo. wonderful. altruistic. selfless idea.
like (because nobody has a due what the audi- but out of a very selfish wish to have the play be
ence likes). then I have the confidence that since wonderful. and knowing that everybody's going to
I'm not from Mars, somebody else might like it. do better work if they feel free and excited about
So. it'll be an okay evening in the theater because what they're doing .
I've done what I love and it comes from some With bobrauschenbergamerica what was amazing
kind of coherence I don't even understand. If I was it's so much fun to be in the room with thes e
trust that coherence, rather than the panic and people. I went to rehearsals more than I've ever
anxiety trying to create a form of coherenc e. then done in my life before or since because it was so
I'm likely to have gotten to something much more much fun-not because I did anything much in
inte resting and surprising. difficult and rewarding. the room. I said a few things. But mostly I was
just the re to enjoy it. What's incredible about be-
Audience: With t he unique sort of collaborative ing in the room with SITI Company is tha t the

7 pages (9 mn) left 'n Ih s chopt'"

lighting designer will make directorial remarks to d ifferent way of making t heater. It's really the way
the actor on stage, the actors will suggest sce nic to make theater, I believe-to und erstand tha t a
desig n elements. the sound designer will tell t he play is not staged literature. It really is this even t
actors what he thinks they ought to do. I mean, tha t occ urs. Playwrights don't make events. They
it's unbelievable the sort of open conversation provide text that can move inside an event. Truly,
that occurs among these people, which I've never even when I'm writing plays that seem mo re like
seen the likes of in any rehearsal room ever. normal plays, I'm usually sort of thinking of what
These people who have worked together all these the event is and listening for where text com es
years. I remember when we had the first read - out of that, in a way.
through of the bobrousc.henbergamerica script.
People started reading and talking and reading AS:The hardest th ing we had with your script, our
and talking and they'd go so fast. These people most difficult ta sk, was that you asked us to do a
know each other so well and are so smart that moment of Viewpo ints improvisation as the first
what would ordinarily be a thirty- minute conver- event. And we t ried and tried-and every fiber of
sation among actors to get from what this person all of our beings said, " NOOOI" It see med anath-
said to some thought that came out of it, they go ema to do t hat. That was the hardest task you ever
through in like a minute and a half. You're just ga ve us.
amazed how fast these people are thinking , how
much work they get through, that other people Ellen lauren ISITI Com pan y Associate Artistic
don 't get through because they don't have that Director): Our whole th ing was to be open and
much time. happy and energetic-and we're really usually re-
I t hink about the way Anne works. What most ally dar k and setting things and pan icking. I feel
directors think they do is to take a script-in oth - like you wrote it for us at a difficult time in ou r
er words, literature-and they place it on the compan y-as you are doing for Ivo's company. It
stage. What Anne thinks that she does is t hat sh e really brough t us to a bright place, like Oz, like
creates a three-dimensional event in time in stepping from t he black and white into color. It
which text has some place or places. It's a totally woke us up and we remembered how to just make

5 pages (6 mil) left III !II chapTer

each other laugh again . it. Is that another obstacle that you can have?
I'm in a good position to spe ak a bout fund ing be-
Audience: I was thinking that Americans are often ca use I am co mpletely supported by a patron who
uncomfortable with intimacy and then you talk is fabulo usly ge nero us. I have m oney so that I
about the whole collage thing and it seems to me worry abo ut nothing. I think about noth ing except
that that makes intimacy even more difficult. How what I want to do. I spent mos t of my life working
do you as an American playwright think about inti- at a job and being incredibly hardworking and
macy and put it in your work all the time? resourceful and devious and mani pulative and
I think a lot about-partly because I worked as a sh rewd to figure o ut how to make a living so that
historian for a long time--how the public world I could support myself to do the thing I actually
invades our private lives, how often our private wanted to do. So this is brand-new for me, for me
imaginings are projected onto the world. It's th e to do what I actually want to do. The plays have a
sort of thing you hope presidents and defense sort of arc in them-this stuff that was stored up
secretaries don't do, but they seem to project fan- for years has flowed out in them and I don't have
tasies all the time . It's one of the reasons you time to censor them. I don't know that anybody
don't like the world to be too uncivilized a place. I really in the history of the arts has ever really suf-
think about that continuing all the time in my fered from the problem of too m uch money. You
plays and I think about the moving back and can suffer once you have the money from being
forth. crossing. an inadequate person, from not knowing what to
do with it. But that's not the money's fault.
Audience: I'm wondering what our relationship is I thi nk this is an inte resting moment because I
as art makers to the funding that we have. Nor- think that a lot of regiona l theaters are having
mally we think of a big obstacle, we don't have funding difficulties, and I act ually wish a lot of
enough money. We're always trying to get more them wo uld just go out of business beca use I
money to pay the artists and to do our art. But you think they're actually pretty bori ng. 1 take great
said that the project that you're working on at lin- hope when I so rt of see what happens in New
coln Center, they're throwing so much money at York on t he "Lower East Side"-an awful lot of

3 pages (4 mil) letTIII th chapTer

young com panies and people who are making art Anare Grego ry
with no money at all, just doing things togethe r.
That's really a more interesting group, peo ple And re is a re bel, a cultural trickst er and a d irector
who don't have a lot of money. But it's also true who breaks rules with visible glee. He is also a
that the kind of work that SITI Company does, great storyte ller. He revels in the act of speaking,
which is incredibly expensive in the sense that as do those who are wrapped up in the listening.
here's a company that works together all the time, When I was young, Andre seemed to me to be a
so that it's almost insupportable. It's quite com - romantic hero. I experienced his mythic prod uc-
mon in Europe, and as a result you get compa - tion of Alice in Wonderland when it was revived
nies like Pina Bausch's company, and lvo's . They during the mid-seventies in New York City. His
are able to make work together over a period of company, the Manhattan Project, was by then al-
time , so you are able to make a different kind of ready legendary. Soon afterward. I saw his gym-
work. With the kind of financial structure that nastic Endgame . his environmental Swgull and
operates in most theaters, you have three weeks his enigmatic dark product ion of Wallace Shawn's
of rehearsal time and then something goes up. It Our Lau Night. I loved the camaraderie of his
requires people not to be open in the rehearsal company and the eccentricity and theatricality of
process. You have to have a finished script , so it's the work. Andre's friendship with the writer Wal-
been workshopped to death , which is incredibly lace Shawn proved to be remarkably fruitful over
tedious, but commendable. Then you cast, and if the years. He directed Wally's play The Designated
the role calls for a thirty-three-year-old. five-foot- Mourner and cast him as Vanya in Vanyo on 42nd
seven-inch blond woman , then that's who it has Street, a successful production that was also
to be because nobody's guessing anymore, no- made into a movie. And then there were the
body's thinking that a six-foot-tall brunette could mysterious journeys that Andre took to Poland to
be inte resting in this role because you can' t afford participate in the para-theatrical experiments of
to find out. There's a certain kind of financial his close friend )erzy Grotowsk i. These extraor-
structure that's very destructive. d inary adventures were chronicled in the highly
suc cessful independent film M y Dinner with

1poge (1mn) lefl n Ito$chap!«

Andre, starring himself and Wally Shawn and di- Many people who saw Andre's Uncle Vanya in
rected by Louis Malle. an abandoned theater on aand Stree t, or later in
Andre was born in Paris in 19>4 to Russian Jew- the film based upon the production. suggested
ish parents. In fleeing Hitler, the family finally ar- that his direction was minimal. Everything was
rived in New York City. After graduating from Har- meant to be casual, as if you were watching a re-
vard, Andre studied at the Neighborhood Play- hearsal of Chekhov's play among friends. I saw
house and the Actors Studio. He then began to the live production and realized afterward that, far
accept leadership positions in the regional theater from casual. this was the most intricately directed
movement, culminating in several instances play that I had ever encountered. Every choice,
where he was fired by a theater's board of direc- from the rehearsal clothes to the hewn-wood re-
tors. During Andre's subsequent international hearsal table was as deliberate and precise as any
travels. the Berliner Ensemble in particular had an highly aesthetic production.
enormous influence upon his ideas about what Andre's influence is slippery. He is an insti-
theater could be. In 1968 he founded the Man- gator of revolutions in small rooms. The impact
hattan Project and he began to churn out the of these revolutions is felt later in wider frame-
seminal productions that were so influential to works. I do not believe that A Chorus Une would
everyone who came into contact with them. An- ever have happened without the activity of Andre
dre, for a combination of personal. spiritual and and the Manhattan Project (or without Joseph
professional reasons. has a habit of disappearing. Chaikin and the Open Theater or Richard Schech -
literally. He leaves his accustomed turf and no ner and the Performance Group). Audiences who
one knows where he goes. Often he journeys to never had the pleasure of being present at one of
far-flung places in the world. and then he returns Andre's productions are nonetheless affected and
with brilliant new ideas . In addition to his own influenced by his example.
creative projects . Andre has also worked as an ac-
tor with such icon- making directors as Peter Weir. NOV EM BER 17, 2 0 0 3
Woody Allen, Brian De Palma and Martin Scors-
ese. AS: When I came to New Yor k, I went and saw

44 pages (53 mn) left n !h'l choplef

Andre' s work a lot, and continue to, to this day- Stalin came to power, and went to Berlin. He left
except sometimes it's hard to get a ticket-and he Berlin the day Hiller came to power, and went to
had a profound influence on me. I thi nk of any Paris . He left Paris three days before the Germa ns
artist working in the theater, he is the truest to his invaded Poland. and he went to London. We were
own interest s-somehow his own development outfitted for gas masks as little kids. We cross ed
as a human being is closest reflected in t he work. the Atlantic on two sister ships, an d the othe r one
You can see the two work in parallel. was to rpedoed, and we saw people drowning and
I USM to be obsessed with knowing how he picked up survivors. So my father went from
worked, so I talked to actors who had worked with Moscow to Berlin to Paris to london to Scars-
him, or people who had known people who had dale. He had this incredible nose for danger. He
worked with him. I said, "How does he do it, always got out in time. And in 1984, when he was
these amazing product ions? I don 't understand eighty-four. he said to me, "You know, if I were
how he gets to where he's going." And people young. I'd leave America."
would t~1I rne the most puzzling stories, like, " He He and I got along terribly. He never wanted
never says anything. He just laughs or he doesn't me to be in the theater. He never wanted me to be
laugh. We're guided by his laughter or his si- an artist. He was a businessman. And we had one
lence." Or then, "The rehearsals go for seven of our many fights when he was eighty-three. I
years." Or "They're in his living room." Or he left must have been close to fifty. My wife went over
the theater for twelve years! And carne back to it. to see him, and he said , "I don't understand why
He's gotten highly politicized lately. A directing Andre always gets so upset with me. What's his
student of mine at Columbia asked him, "How do problem?" And my wife said, "Well, I think he
you get off, doing what you do? How do you give thinks sometimes you don't respect him." And he
yourself permission to do what it is you do?" said. "Don't respect him? Of course I respect
Maybe that is a good place to start. him! He would have been a great lawyer."
AG: When it comes to a political environment. I When Kennedy was assassinated, I went over to
com e from a very interesting background in the visit my father. He was watching televisio n, and
sens e that my father left Russia a year before they had just arrested Oswald, and he said to me,

42 pogoeo (51mil) left IIIthos ct.opte<

"They won't leave him alive for forty-eight hours ." the campus down-and I realized everything radi-
And when Ruby killedOswald, he said, "He'll nev- cals were saying about this country then is still
er go to jail." They'll either kill him in jail, or true. Many-including myself-went to sleep af-
they'll give him some kind of disease, but no one ter the Vietnam War and didn't realize that some-
will ever find out what he has to say." I've always thing profoundly loathsome was taking place in
had a very strong sense of totalitarianism and fas- our system.
cism, and I strongly believe that, unless we save I'm just riffing here. Have any of you seen the
the next election, we will be going into something film [Blind Spot:) Hiller's Secretary? This is one
like the Greek junta, at the best. interview with the woman who was Hitler's secre-
When they were debating about going into Iraq, tary. Basically, she thought he was a charming old
[Senator Robert) Byrd said, "I once heard that man. She never realized that the Jews were being
Hitler was nervous about going into Czecho- sent to the concentration camps. She thought he
slovakia. And he said to [Hermann] Goering, 'I was really trying very hard to save Germany from
don't know if I should do it. I don't know if the an outside enemy-and only ten years after Ger-
German people will stand for it.' And Goering many lost the war did she finally realize who he
said, 'My Fuhrer, just give them an enemy to be was, how she turned her eyes away. She had a
afraid of. and they'll let you do anything." nervous breakdown and finally started dealing
I'm profoundly worried about where this coun - with the shame of what it meant to be a German.
try is going because I'm afraid we're going toward I am personally profoundly ashamed and
the totalitarianism of the Far Right. The question, nauseated to be a citizen of a terrorist country
what to do, and what can we do-was this what that has dropped the only nuclea r weapon on oth-
we're supposed to talk about? er people, dropped more bombs on Vietnam and
Cambodia than were dropped in the entire Sec-
It's going very well, ond World War, that is involved now with a ter-
I saw They Marched into Sunlight. It's about Octo - rorist war in Iraq. We are the Axis of Evil. We are
ber 1967 during the Vietnam War on the campus the terrorists. I am ashamed to be an American.
where they protested Dow Chemical and closed The only thing that keeps me here is I cannot not

40 P<J9"S (49 m n) left n >hischapter

be here-to try and find any way to stop the been doing it very well. But evenings like that-
Christian Right and these fanatics that are in the just like evenings like this-are absolu tely esse n-
White House from selling democracy down the tial, because the best of America has gone to
river. sleep , and we need 10 wake up. We need to take
Now the question , of course , is, what to do? actio n. At events like that, the re's a feeling of
Noam Chomsky is somebody who is asking, coming together. I went to a ta lk by Arundhati
"What do we do?" And he said there are two Roy. She ended by saying some thing wonderful.
things we can do. He said we must stop the Bush She said, "We can't afford the luxury of despai r."
people in the next election. You must give up I've been feeling a 101 of shame: shame for be-
whatever you are doing : Your main work is to ing asleep so long, shame for not being more ac-
stop the Bush people , because if they get in one tive for many years. BUI you can 't just waft up in
more time , we have seen the end of democracy in shame. You have to admit that , in some way, ev-
this country. He said unless you have lived in a ery single one of us has made Bush possible. We
totalitarian country, you have no idea how truly get the leaders we deserve . But I think there's a
terrible it is. He said we must stop Bush. And trap in falling into too much shame and too much
we've got to read . We've got to learn. He said, guilt, because that also leads to passivity, and
"Get knowledge." So I've been reading a lot. what we need now are people who are active and
I've been very politically active in the last cou- alive.
ple of years. We did something last winter, Poems I was at a bit of a loss , because I couldn't imag-
Not Fit for the White House. Three of us took over ine what I would talk about beyond guilt, sham e
Avery Fisher Hall, and we got some of the great- and the terror of fascism . Then I went to three
est poets in America to co me and read. It was one nights of the Berlin Philharmonic , with probably
of the great evenings in New York cultural history, the greatest conductor in the world, Simon
and the place was packed. The first night, people Rattle-and it was clear as a bell: perfection,
came through the snow. I was thinking, What was beauty, love and the way of the heart. When you
so great about that evening? I have a little button hear one of the two greatest orchestras in the
on my coat that says "Peacema ker," and I haven't world, and when your sou l opens, and when your

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heart melts. when you plummet into ecsta tic joy It's a life-long work, to work on one's self. Each
with tears of bliss running down your face-for o ne of us is an instrument. That's what is so od d,
three nights! I'm exhausted! I tho ught, This is it. particularly being an actor: We are our own instru-
This is what we have to do. This is somehow what ment. Do we want to be a banjo or a Stradivarius
we have to bring into our work and into our- violin? It's our choice.
selves. l et me tell you two stories: One is Ekkehard
When My Dinner with Andr' was the success Schall, who was a great actor of the Berliner
that it was, we got thousands of letters! We got a Ensemble, and his story is that he was in the
letter form a Marine colonel who said, "You've Hitler Youth. He was sent to Stalingrad, and he
changed my life. I'm leaving the Marines. I'm go- threw a hand grenade in a tank. He saw two So-
ing to take up the cello." It was then-having had viet soldiers go up in flames , and he went into
quite a big ego in my time-that I realized that My shock. He found himself in a prison in Berlin sen -
Dinner with Andre has nothing to do with Andre. tenced to death, and if the Soviets had not in-
It's the spirit coming through our organism so we vaded, had not liberated Berlin, he would have
can pick up messages to somehow give hope. I been killed. And when Brecht hastily left the Unit-
work on it any way I can: I work on it with my ther - ed States because of the House Un-American
apist, with my guru , by listening to music, by Activities and went to Berlin, he heard that this
reading, by questioning-because this organism, guy Schall, who I think was eighteen, was doing a
this antenna, is covered in plaque. It accumulates cabaret in the ruins of the subway. He was a
plaque very quickly, and we have to scrub. We beautiful singer. Somebody said to Brecht, if
have to work on this antenna so the antenna is you're looking for actors, you should go listen to
dean and dear. so that messages and visions of this man. He went to listen and. after the perfor-
where to go can come from God (or whatever we mance, he went up to this ma n and said, "My
want to call that) through this thing to give value name is Bertolt Brecht. I'm going to come back to
to the world. Berlin, and when I come back, I hope to create a
theater. I'd like you to be in the theater. You're
That's the most beautiful th ing I've ever heard . very musica l. I thi nk you shou ld develop yourself

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physically. And I' ll see you in two or three or four we're going to have to live in it a nd still give ou t
years." And on that one little conversation, Schall the light.
became Germany's greates t high-wire aerialist The other actor was Ryszard Cieslak, who was
without a net. He was so extraordinary physically Grotowski's great actor. Cieslak was a
that when he played Arturo Ui-the role is Hitler hundred -and-five-pound alcoho lic when Gro-
as Richard III as Charlie Chaplin as a killer in Ci- towski met him on a railroad station at night. He
cero during Prohibition-he played it like a cow- was drunk. They sat at the railroad station all
ardly mad dog with rabies. I saw this thirty or night. and at the end of this night, Grotowski said
forty times. He literally went into such fear that to him, "You and I are going to make theater to-
something in the inside created this black green - gether." Cieslak could control forty-three muscles
ish foam that went down his chin. It was not a in the face alone . There was no gap-not a split-
trick. It was so mething that came from the inside. second gap between the emotional impulse and
In preparation for the role, he watched ten hours physical manifestation of the impulse, in all the
of news reels a day, of Hitler, for two-and-a-half different parts of the body. This is a miracle of
years. He was Hitler. And Richard III.And Charlie work. He was so expressive that when he played
Chaplin. And a mad dog with rabies. At one point, the Christ figure in Apocolypsis cum figuris , there
these other gangsters were moving in on him. He was a moment when all you could see was this
started recoiling like this mad dog . He was so one section of the leg. This section of the leg, I
terrified that from the standing position , from swear to God. was as beaut iful and as expressive
prone. he did a triple backward somersault into as that section of a leg in a Michelangelo statue.
the air. landed on the back of chair with two six- You didn't understand what it was expressing. but
guns shooting. Thai is a Stradivarius. That is you were moved , the same way you're moved by a
work. Work is very impo rtant, because we're go- chord of music. He had tiny eyes and he was ob-
ing to have to do a lot of work on ourselves, and a sessed with making those eyes larger, becaus e he
lot of work in this country to save it from becom- felt that eyes are the windows of the soul. So
ing a fascist, Far Right. totalitarian system. Even if whenever they went on tou r somewhere, he'd go
it becomes that, we're going to have to survive; to plastic surgeons, seeing if somehow they could

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make his eyes bigger-and they can't do it. It's Grotowski said. "If you cou ld stop action the way
impossible. Then when he was in India, he met a you can in a film, you would see there are twelve
guru who said to him, "It's simple. Every time Stations of the Cross from where he's standing to
ther e's a full moon, spend the whole night cir- where he's on the ground. At each stat ion of the
cling the moon with your eyes. Be sure to put but- cross , he relives a confession that came out of
ter on the lids or they'll crack." He said, "Do it for those nine years of improvisation. The commit-
eight years, ten years, every time there's a full ment of that gesture of the body has him relive
moon, and your eyes will be very large." He had that moment of confession , so that when the
eyes like a carp , these great big fish eyes. It was a twelve Stations of the Cross are over, he's com -
Stradivarius. pletely empty."
I'll tell you one more story. There was a mo- So the question is, do we want to do work like
ment in The Constant Prince. Cieslak played a Pol- that? We can't all do work like that. We all have to
ish nobleman who becomes a saint. The Inqui- do the work in our own way. But when I hear the
sition beats him, they question him, they oppress members of the Berlin Philharmonic, when I see
him, they torture him and the last moment of the Twyla Tharp's dancers. when I see your actors,
play he's standing, he falls to the ground, a little this takes an enormous amount of work. Why is
more slowly than we normally would. He takes this work important? When leningrad (now St.
his head by the hair, bangs it against the ground Petersburg) was surrounded by the German army,
three times. All breath goes out of him. He's they were surrounded for one hu ndred days. They
dead. The spirit is gone. Every time he fell , I felt had no light. no heat. It was forty degrees below
as though a mule had kicked me in the stomach. zero. Cannibalism was starting on the black mar-
Something about that fall----every time, and I saw ket. And Stalin wanted to do something to keep
it twenty or thirty times. Years later, I asked Gro- them going through that last winter so that in the
towski, "Is the re anything special about that fall, spring he could liberate leningrad. What did he
or is it just me?" And he said, "Oh . no, it's very do? He parachuted poets and musicians into
spec ial. We rehearsed that momen t for nine l eningrad. Art was so importan t to the people in
years." Work. Work. It's very important. l eningrad that they litera lly walked across

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Leningrad so feeble and so fragile that they knew "The terrorists will dest roy the Trade Towers."
they could die walking from their hom es to the Now, the thing that's dangerous about Wally is
concert hall, and in the concert hall, d uring the that he is a prophet, and he sees with incredible
poetry readings and the concerts, mus icians clarity. We're not going to have the Trade Towers
would just go to sleep and die. People in the aud i- falling in the end. Bul we are d oing The Master
ence would go to sleep and die. But they had to Builder as an indictment of male chauvinist, ego-
have art. They had to have beauty. They had to power capitalism. And we're going to make a film.
have poetry.
Our task is to keep the flame alive. Our task is Why are you do ing a film, as opposed to a play?
to sit around the fire in these terrible, frightening, Two of the actors live in los Angeles, one lives in
cold times, and nurture the flames. Our task is to Chicago, one lives in Santa Barbara, four live in
give beauty, perfection, precision and hope. New York. There's no way to bring them all to-
gether and do it as a play. I wish we could.
Can you ta lk about your Mart er Builder? Maybe
the context in which the work is done. And your What is that for you, the difference between stage
thoughts about the tower. and film?
Well, it's hard to talk about when you're in the I'm one of those people who can't put a light bulb
middle of it. We've been rehearsing it on and off in a socket. I can't operate a fax, I can't do email, I
for seven years now. When Wally (Shawn] and I don't have a cell phone . I'm technologically a mo-
were first working on the play-Wally translated ron. So film has never really appealed to me, be-
it-c-l said to him, "You know, the only thing I cause it's so technical. But I have felt over the
don't get is the tower. Everything makes sens e ex- past years that we've been so affected by tele-
cept the tower," This was about seven or eight vision and film that our eye has literally chang ed.
years ago. And he said, "The tower will make I had the experience a few years ago of going to
sense when they dest roy the Trade Towers." I see an Ibsen play in a Broadway t heater. I was sit-
said, "What makes you thin k they'll destroy . ting in the fourth row, and it already felt as if I
who will dest roy the Trade Towers?" He said, were miles and miles away, beca use my eye was

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used to being close. So there is something about box, a beautiful box, and I got to meet Peter
film that allows us to get very, very close . Also, I Brook.
don't really like acting. I'm very interested in be- When we did Alice in Wonderland in Paris, my
ing, in actors being in the process of being. I stage manager said to me, "There 's a young wom-
don't really like to project, because then you get an who knows she can't see the production, but
into acting. I haven't performed for more than she just wants to see the set." And I said, "Well,
forty people in thirty years. I always play for then you should show her the set." And she
small-very small-audiences. Recently, about seemed very nice, so I gave her my seat. After the
two at a time. production, I said to her, "Where are you from?"
She said. "Poland." I said, "Really? 00 you know
There is a paradox between doing theater that very Grotowski?" She said. "Never heard of him." I
few people can see and ~ n g outrageously polit- said. "Can we walk up the Champs Elysees. and
ical in your views. It's an interesti ng paradox. I'll just buy a book in the drugstore to send him
You mean because it would seem logical for me as a gift?" She went to Poland. she delivered it to
to perform for a lot of people? Grotowski, she became his dramaturg. and she
worked for him for twenty-seven years.
Maybe the issue of film solves that problem. I believe very much that anything you want-
Well, the issue of the film certainly solves it. The this is why I believe in prayer-ask, and you shall
theater is elitist no matter what. Even if it's twelve receive. You want something. and you'll get it.
hundred seats at the Music Box or it's thirty seats You just have to take an action. You just have to
at one of my theaters, it's st ill elitist. But I've al- go out and do it.
ways liked people who fight to get into some-
thing. I remember going to Paris to see Peter How does that refer to prayer?
Brook's King Lear, and there were no tickets. So I Well, I'll tell you a funny story. When Louis Malle
said to the person at the box office, "That's te r- said he would make a film of Vanyo, he said. "If
rible! Mr. Brook said he would leave tickets for you can raise nine hundred thousand dollars in
me !" I think I was twenty' five . And I got put in a three weeks, I'll do it." And that was like climbing

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Everest, you know? It was a huge amount of mon - writing? I'm translating Wally Shawn's last play in-
ey. I rehearse in my living room . I'd heard of a to French." So I stayed in Paris for a week instead
sain t in Germa ny called Mother Meera, an Indian of two days. And so much money cam e out of the
sain t who gives darshan -she blesses peo ple. walls when I came back that I lite rally had to give
There was a booklet she put out, and one thing money back. I think we raised one million two
really intrigued me: She said, "When you come to hundred thousand. So I was praying.
the Mothe r, don 't ask for big things-spiritual But also, I have a guru, and with her, I learned
enlightenment, spiritual surren der. Come to about what's called japa. If you see nuns with
Mother the way you would come to your own rosa ries or Tibetan monks with beads, they're
mother on Christmas morning , and ask for what generally doing japa. They're doing a mant ra, over
you want." So I went to Germany. And while she and over again. I do a mantra all the time. One
was blessing me-she had her hands on my day I was standing on a street corner, and ther e
head--I prayed for a therapist for my daughter, was a Tibetan and he was doing beads, and I was
who is going through a hard time ; nine hund red doing beads . He said , "You know, the vowels of
thousand dollars in cas h; and a hot Saturday- mantras are the name of God. Most of the time,
night date, because my wife had d ied three years we are doing bad [epa. We are putting bad
before. There had been no women in my life. On mantras into our bod ies." He sa id, "You're a re-
my way back to the States, I stopped in Paris for ally bad father, aren't you?" I said , "What?!?" He
two nights. and I went to a cafe, and there was said. "Yo u see what happens to your body when I
this very interesting woman who was writing. I say that ? All day, we are saying things to
tho ught. Oh my God, I would love to meet her. ourselves- I am a bad father, I am a bad actor, I
But. you know, it was France, people don't know am a bad director, I am not talented . It does
my work there, 1wouldn 't quite know how to sta rt something to the body. It diminishes us. It closes
a conversation in French. So I just kept reading us. Instead of that, put the name of God into your
my book. Sudde nly, she touc hes my arm, and she body. See what it will do."
said. "I'm writing a lot." I said, "What are you I foun d my guru through my da ughter, and I
writing?" She said, "What do you think I'm went up to her as hram. I started gett ing what the y

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call kriyas. (He demonstrates seizures) It went on that?" He said, "That's your proble m." So I got a
for about seve nty-two ho urs. I called my daughter big map of America, put it on my wall, and I sta rt-
on the telep hone and she sa id, "Oh Daddy, you're ed putt ing flags in cities. There were black flags
very blessed! You're getting kriyas!" I was crying, I for cities that had a thea ter, red flags for cities
couldn 't sleep. I was hysterical. So she too k me to that had no theater but they weren' t really very
one of the monks, to explain to me what kriyas nice cities, and then gold flags: No theat er, nice
are, and he said, "It's as if we're driving through city. One of them was Philadelphia. I went down
life with the windshield of the car covered with to Philadelphia; I'd been given a letter of intro-
rain and dirt, so we can't see anything. We're driv- duction to an interior designer. I started telling
ing blind. We're asleep. We're unconscious. We him my vision of the theater. I was twenty-eight.
can't see where we're going. The guru takes a He got kind of excited. I said, "Could you get
sponge, and wipes your window clean. All the bad three friends who would have parties where I
karma of many lifetimes is coming out of your could go and talk about my vision. And he said,
eyes, your nose, your ears , your asshote. and "Absolutely." So I went to these three parties, and
you're letting it go so you can be illuminated." So I talked about my vision, and I said, "Is there any-
that's another form of prayer. one here with three friends who would have three
I found in my own life that whenever I knew parties? I would like to talk about my vision." I
what I wanted-and I think this is like a prayer- would go back and forth between New York and
and asked for it, it was given to me. A story I have Philadelphia. My wife was just about to have a ba-
about that: I'd only directed one play, and I took a by. I generally caught the last train back from
very famous director, Alan Schneider, out to Philadelphia, so I would see the coffins that were
lunch, and I said, "Mr. Schneide r, I would like to coming up from Vietnam. (They were hiding th em
direct. How do I go about that?" He said, "Well, if then, just as they are hiding them now.) In two
I were you, I'd start a theater out of New York." years, I talked to people, like a political cam paign.
This was a time, the re we re only three or four re- And o ut of four hundred forty-th ree part ies, I got
gional theaters in America-San Francisco, eleven thousand subscribers and we got this little
Minneapolis, Houston. I said , "How do I do theater in an African-American neighborhood.

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See? We can do anything. All we have to do is: t hemselves. Art played a great role in the Resis-
"What do we want to do?" And do we really want tance as well. But I think there is a certain da nger
to do it badly enough? Then we just do it. in implying pure art is enough resistance aga inst
total itarians .
Audience: You mentioned before the music you Oh, no . No.
listen to for inspiration and for keeping that chan-
nel clean . What do you listen to? Audience : I know that's not what you meant. How
Well. these three nights with the Berlin Philhar- directl y political does the mes sage on sta ge (or
monic. I never understood symphonic music un- wherever) have to be, in order not to become also
till heard this conductor with the Vienna Philhar- a kind of shield that 's covering what 's going on
monic. I liked chamber music and soloists. and I underneath? I am a not big fan of direct agitat ion
used to listen to a lot of jazz. Now I love sym- on stage.
phonic music. I've been dis covering people like No. neither am I. 1don 't th ink I'm saying that art,
Bart6k and Schoenberg. I heard an extraordinary in and of itself, is an answer in times like these.
piece at Carnegie Hall which Bartekwrote in 1936, I'm saying that ever since Reagan , in this country
just before he emigrated from Hungary and left a and perhaps in Europe also, we have been brain -
Europe that was becoming a Nazi Europe. It was washed by capital ism and by the media to go to
an amazing work, filled with the terror of sleep. So the quest ion is: How to wake up? How
approaching fascism . the darkness descending, to help others to wake up? How to stay awake?
the terror descending. He worked through that How to have an art form that is an active art form,
darkness to find this extraordinary light, just at not a passive art form ? Because the Broadway
t he end. The interesting task that we have is to theater, which is now completely corporate, is
face the darkness, and go to the light. putting everyone to sleep .
I find that every encounter I have now. whether
Audience: I'd like to play devil's advocate for a bit: it is on the subway, the taxi, the hea lth food
We all know that the greatest Nazi crimina ls were store--I always say to the person, "So what do
fans of classical mus ic and actually played music you think about Bush? What do you think about

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the fact t hat there are no Wea pons of Mass to do, and allows us to render ont o Caesar what
Dest ructio n? Do yo u think he lied to us ?" I do it is Caesa r's and onto Christ what is Christ's, be-
on street co rners, waiting fo r lights. Every little ca use we have to make a livi ng. It's very impor-
way tha t we can do it. ta nt. Now, Wally has this peculiar career because
he is a legen d in Europe. He's been on t he cover
Audience: Even experimental th eater (because of Der Spiegel. Ingmar Bergman does his plays.
tha t's what I dol takes so much preparation He had seventeen productions in Germany alone
now-getting the grant , booking. Even at La Ma- last year. In America, almost nobody does his
Ma, or places like t hat, it's like three years in ad- plays. He can't make a living as a playwright. So
vance. The immedi acy is missing. From what I he plays goofy cha racters in movies--he sits in
read, thirty years ago, somebody would be like, his trailer, and he writes his plays.
"Oh, I have a the ate r, Come here and do th is next
wee k," Audience: When you get out of bed in the morn-
I tried very unsuccessfully to get grants when we ing, how do you find th ose "guerilla tactics" in
were working on Vanyo. They said I wasn't a the- yourself that allow you to ta ke the action and to do
ater, I didn't have an organization, so I couldn't everything you want to do?
get a grant. I developed a very interesting struc - I do it because I just love it. I can't five without it.
tur e which I've been using ever since, which is It's never even seemed like a job. I don't feel like
that I have sort of a gym for actors. Whenever I've ever really worked. I love to be with col-
they're not out making money, they come work leagues that I love. I love to work on plays t hat I
with me. So they go make their money, becau se love. This is what I love to do. It's tha t sim ple.
everyone has to make money. This is why it ta kes You know, it could be sex. That's fun, too.
seven or eight years to get something finish ed.
But it actually works: Year after year after year, Audience: Is it the love of doing it so much that al-
t hey co me into my living room , and we do it. lows you to get through the other things that you
We have to, each one of us in our own way, find have to do in order to allow yourself to direct or to
a guerilla tactic tha t allows us to do what we need act?

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Well, if you look at the beginning of My Dinner to give the m the key. They went in, and Tenness ee
with And!i, the fun of it is that Wally looks like a Williams had a big bottle of bourbon, and he was
comple tely beaten dog who is talking about all the sitting at his typewriter writing his next play.
things he has to do that get in the way of writing.
But somehow he does it. There's a story I love AS: You were talking about being interested in act-
about Tennessee Williams. When Elia Kazan did ing as stat es of being. I'm curiou s what kind of ac-
his production of Camino Reol, it was the first tor s you're interested in working with , and what
play Williams had done after Streetcar. They were you think about acting now. I know you've gone
sure it was going to be a huge success, because on a journey nom one end to the other: acting as
Kazan directed it, it had wonderful actors in it. states of being, as opposed to expre ssion .
He'd really gone oul on a limb to experiment. I suppose at its simplest, thirty years ago, when I
There was an opening night party, and thes e re- did Alia in Wonderland, and I had this dream of
views came in-they were horrible and embar - an actor who could fly, and did Grotowski train-
rassing, and they treated Williams as ifhe'd never ing, so the actors literally could fly. The times
written a play before, and he got more and more were very physical-c-One Million Man March on
drunk, and he got up, and with tears coming Washington ; hippies were in the street; Hair was
down his cheek, he said, 'This is too tough. I on Broadway. It was a very physical time. We were
don't want to live this kind of life. The critics young, we were physical, we wanted to change the
don't appreciate you. They're ignorant. They don't world. So our work reflected that.
let you experiment. I put my heart into this. I am Now I'm nearly seventy. I'm still physical. I
never going to write another word." And he went work out, because I'm having such a good time, I
home to his hotel. A couple hours later, they all want to stay alive as long as I can. I've also been
start ed getting really worried about him, becaus e on the spiritual journey as part of my
he had also taken pills, you know? So his agent development-so there's something more medi-
and his producer went over to his hotel. They tat ive about my work now. Something quieter.
banged on the door, and he shouted, "Go away! The two of us were talking about how much we
Go away!" So they went downstairs and got a guy loved o ur houses in the country, and how we

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hoped to work in our houses in the country. I've and said, "De you want to see Vanyo at the Old
always been in the city, so the city holds no sur - Victory?" I think that it's the most directed play
prises for me anymore. But there's som ethi ng I've ever seen . In other words, yo u go in, and it's a
about the sound of the trees. There's something rehea rsal. You put your coats on the seat. Every-
about getting up at sunrise and watching the sun body's wearing whatever it is they're wearing. "It's
come up. There's something about sunset. an open rehearsal," sa ys Andre, lying through his
There's something about the changing of the sea - teeth . Not truel I thin k it was the most directed
sons. This has partly to do with getting older. I play I've ever seen ,
once met a woman who left America and bought It's a nice trick.
a house in Ireland. I said, "Why did you decide to
do that?" She said, " I have a house on the ocean. AB: It had a secret underneath it.
I'm eighty-two. and the ocean reminds me of eter - I found with the two therapists that I've worked
nity." So I guess you could say I'm quieter than I with (which is actually only one: they're mostly
used to be. I'm more contemplative. My work is frauds) , there 's always this wonderful trick where
perhaps a little bit more philosophical . so I don't it's all incredibly easy when you first get involved.
need to work with actors who are as physical. The deeper you go. the denser it gets. So it's fun
When Mike Nichols came to see our open re- to work, and to make it seem easy.
hearsals of Vanyo-they were open for twenty-
eight people-somebody said to him afterward, Audience: What do you do whe n you get con-
"Did you like it?" He said, "Yeah, I liked it. It's go- fused ?
ing to be interesting to see what happens when I think there are two very interesting stages in cre-
they start moving." ative work. One is confusion and one is boredom.
They generally both mean that there's a big fish
AB: I have a theory about this. There was this pe- swimming under the water. As Rilke said. "Live
riod when you couldn 't get into Vanya on 42nd the questions." And not judge that there's so me-
Street. You had to be invited. I waited by my thing wrong about confusion, because the people
phone for two months. Finally, somebody called who are working, say, on the cure for

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lep rosy-they work for years and years in a state AB: I loved it.
of confusion, and very often they don't find the Thank you. Very few people did. It was definitely
cure. They find something comple tely different. unfinished. The thing that was great abo ut it, for
But they keep living the question. Confusion is me, was that the first act showed me how to do
absolute ly essentia l to the creat ive process. If Vanyo, fifteen years later. If any of you have read
the re was no confusion, why do it? I always feel [Francois] Truffaut on Hitchcock, there's on e film
that all of us have questions we're asking all ou r that Truffaut says, "I guess tha t was a critical fail-
lives. for our work, and if we ever found the an- ure," and Hitchcock says, "Yes, the critics hated
swer. we'd stop working. We wouldn't need to it." "Was it a financial failure?" "Oh yes. yes. We
work anymore. lost all our money." "Did any of the audience like
Boredom-if you've ever been in therapy, you'd it?" "No, the audience hated it." So Truffaut says,
know that when you start gett ing bored, that's re- "So it really was a failure?" And Hitchcock says.
ally important. The therapist sits up; there's "No. no. Do you remember that one shot of the
something going on, because the wall that you glass? That showed me how to do my next
come against-that's where the real gold is. It's movie." See. there's no such thing as failure.
really precious.
You know the director, Nemirovich-Danchenko, Audience: When did your sp iritual journey start,
who was Stanislavski's sidekick. Somebody said and how?
to Vakhtangov, who was one of the great Russian It started when my first wife developed cancer. I
directors, "Nemirovich-Danchenko was such a was quite terrified and very lost, and through my
great director." And Vakhtangov said, "No, he's daughter I met my guru. And, being a sixties hip-
not a great director: He's never had a flop." So pie, I made a trip to Ind ia, and something extraor-
failure is very important in the creative process. dinary happened to me in Western Tibet, where I
I did this production of The Seagull years ago. was opened to the spiritual. I do som e practices.
The first act was brilliant, the second act was bor- though I'm a little sloppy.
ing, the third act was neurotic, and the fourth act My Dinner with Andre loo ks a lot like a ma n on
was unfinished. Everybody hated it. a sp iritual journey, but 1wasn't really. I think there

14 pages (lS m n) lItft nth $ chaplet

was just an intuition. I think if I didn't go into the furnit ure in our Chekhov productions.) I think
theate r I would have become a monk. Some way Chekhov's plays are abou t the nature of what it
or another, I will always have a monk's perso n- feels like to be here, and to live this life. Not
ality. But it was relatively recently that I did start abo ut the mes or characters or plot. The reason I
on the spiritua l journey. Having been in the the- love the theater mo re than film: Because theater,
ater all my life, I don't think God, or whatever you for me, is an absolute metaphor for life. We're
want to call it, is up there . I think that it's literally kicked onto the stage , we do ou r best for a few
in the body. It is in the blood cells, and with cer- hou rs, and before we know it, it's finished. It's
tain techniques, you can reach an ecsta tic state very moving.
where you feel one and at harmony with the whole I don't even remember how we chose the trans-
world. lation. But if I'd known we were going to work for
When we're in dark times, people reallydo need four or five years, I would have asked Wally to do
the light. They need hope-not easy hope; hard - it.
earned hope. And whatever work we can do on
oursel ves. Audience: Does he spea k Russian?
No, but he doesn't speak Norwegian either, and
Audience: Can you talk to us a bit about Chekhov, he's done The. Master Builder. We got a Norwegian
why you picked him? You've done him before. scholar and we went over every single word of the
How do you pick the translation that you used in text, and went over the associations and the
Van)'a? connotations of the words , and then Wally wrote
I like Chekhov partly because I'm a Russian. My some version.
parents, who are immigrants, sat in the kitchen till
three o'clock in the morning talking about Audience: Are there any projects that are hanging
whether or not they should go back to Moscow. It in front of you, that you're chasing?
was absolutely reality for me . But also I love My house in the country. I know that seems odd,
Chekhov, and Beckett too-l think Chekhov is but I mean that quite profoundly. I found that in
Beckett with furniture. (We don't use much d ifferent periods of working in my life, that I

12 poges (14 mil) lefTIIIth chopt ....

periodically come to an end-which used to scare meeting the "right" perso n. You know, I'm mar-
the shit out of me. Now I just accept it. And I feel ried to this wonderful person. She's the "right"
that these ten or fifteen years, whatever it's been, person. I don' t know what it is about her. But
of working on classics in my little room, that she's who I enjoy being with, all t he time. Wally, I
that's drawing to a close, and something else is work with, because I adore him. And Larry (Pine].
pulling me, and I know that it's close to nature , The play is not so important; it's Wally and Larry.
but I have no idea what. The othe rs who come in and out - Ben came in,
will come in again. When we met , all we talked
Audience: Can you talk a little about what you about was cooking. We didn't talk about art. We
know ofthe work of Grotowski? talked about cooking. We can' t explain these
Crotowski's searching for a modern idiom or things. It's very, very important to find your own
technique of prayer. He was searching for new people. I think it comes from the heart. And with
physical ways to bring up the spirit. Active prayer. them you can do anything.
And it was done for nobody except the people he
worked with. A lot of work was done with the Audience: What made you leave directing, and
body. Had he lived, he might have come back to what made you come back?
the theater in a way, I always felt, and done some- That's a good que stion, one that I've never com -
thing like a sacred Mass. pletely answered. On a personal level, I think I left
because there was a strong part of me that always
Audience: Over the years, how did you find your wanted my mother's love. When she was dying,
collabor ators? How did you find each oth er? she said to me, "Yo u know, if I get through this
I never audition . I just have long conversa tions alive, I'm going to leave him and the three of you
with people. And it's a question of falling in love. and live in Germany." She was a tough one. And
If I fall in love and they fall in love, if we fall in she loved artists . So there was some part of me
love, the re's something interesting to pursue. It's that was working for her. When she died, I think,
so importa nt to work in an atmosphere of trus t. that was confusing. Also, I had my grou p for
And trust is life. We don't know what it is about twelve years and had a project, and in general, te n

10 pages (11 mn) left n IhJI chapter

years is really about as lo ng as a group can stay Holler Shakes peare Co mpany. We were having a
toget her. terrible time. I was playing an a bominable Pros-
pera . And my da ughte r was going crazy, and she
AS: Oh, I don't know about that. We're at twelve came up and asked me if I could d irect her and a
right now. friend of hers in a sce ne of Chekhov's-
That's amazi ng. That's miraculous. Not many Vanyo- and I hadn 't read Vanya in twenty years.
groups do stay beyond te n. But it doesn't have to The minute I read Va nya, I thoug ht of Wally, and
be that. But my group fell apart . They fell apa rt for that was how it began. That's what pulled me
a very healthy reason. We'd all done suc h won- back.
derful work together, we'd developed so much to-
gether, that none of us wanted to do the same Audience: What are your ingredients when you ap-
thing anymore. So the group disbanded . And I'd proach a scene, as well as a character? Do you
also felt the theater was facing a crucia l-- have certa in basic things that help you out to clar-
something was wrong. This was '75, '76. I felt the ifywhat you're going to do to build a character?
era was ending. Something very serious was hap- No, not really. I just sit and wait. When I was
pening in the theater. younger, and I did a play in four or five weeks,
And probably most profoundly of all, My Dinner then I had to have a stronger idea. Ifyou work in a
with Andrt. which didn 't exist, was pulling me. If I short period of time , then your task is to know
hadn't given up directing , I never would have what you want to say, and articulate it in the best
been tearing aroun d the Po lish forest, learning to way that you can. If you work for years, you're
play the harp, going through the desert ... so it basically just fishing. You're just waiting for what-
was a new work that was demanding that I give up ever unknown thing happens to pop up. Since
the thing that mea nt most to me. we're all huma n, the very first thing we do in re-
hearsal is go for the ste reotype. It's just natural.
Audience: And how did you come back? You can' t not do it. The stereo type is not what
I came back when my wife developed cancer. you're looking for. You 're looking for something
was working with my daughter in an All -Out much deeper. And in a long reh earsal process,

8 pages (9 mil) letTIII th chapTer

you can let go. Isn 't the re a Hindu practice called nothing that I couldn't do. I had the luxury of so
"Not This, Not That"? Japanese. The way you much time. I rememb er one time I did the role to-
search for Cod is you say, "It's not this . It's not tally in drag. I said, there's something in there; I
that." Yo u just know that you're looking, and don 't know what it is. I ended up doing it in a vest
when you see it, you'll know. and a little tie. You worked very stro ngly with the
A good example of this was when we were do- Russian. We found out things like, Maman, in ev-
ing Vonyo for a small audience. Astroff and Vanya ery production I've ever seen , leaves the stage , so
were doing the last scene in the last act, where the first encounter with Elena and Vanya is alone.
Astroff demands the poison back-and it was And it's not in the Russian. She' s present. We
filled with rage and hurt and beautifully done, and worked with that, two years, never knowing what
the audience was blown away. But we kept think- to do with it,
ing. It's good, but it's not right. We didn't know When I was working on the character of Andre, in
what it was. Night after night, we'd do it and the My Dinner with Andre, we rehearsed it for fourteen
audience applauded , and we'd say, "That's not it. months. We have so many different selves-l
That's not it." What we finally found was that it's didn't know: Who was this Andre? I couldn't fig-
a love scene--Vanya and Astroff love each other ure out who the hell was this Andre. On top of
more than they love Elena. And once it was the that, Wally did something that really screwed me
hurt of a love scene. then we had it. We didn't up, which is that if, say, it was a story about being
know till we saw it. So if you work for a long time. in the Polish forest, I would probably say, "We
you don't have to work with a prearranged idea. were in this big forest , and we lived in this tiny lit-
You can work with what comes up. tle castle. we ran around in the forest all day with
all these women, we ate off of a great stone slab
AB: Was that your experience, lynn ? we used as a table." That's the way I would say it.
Wally rewrote that, so that what it says in the text
lynn Cohen [actress who performed in Vanyo] : is, "We lived in a tiny little cas tle, and we ate
Absolutely. I think I had more years of rehearsal arou nd a great sto ne slab as a table." So I had to
than lines, actually. But I rememb er ther e was re-learn my sto ries, which was very hard.

6 pages (7 m,n) left In lhis chapter

But the big ques tio n was, who was the char- about the spontaneity, the danger. It's why being
acter? What kind of character am I? Yo u've all had in front of a camera, it's quite da ngero us, I find.
this experience. When I work out with my trainer Quite exciting. You go in, you've never met your
at the gym, I turn into this loud, lewd, childlike wife. You don't get a rehearsal. They turn on the
jock. Othe r friends of mine have never seen that lights. the re are eight hundred people on the set,
person. With each person that we're close to, they and you just have to be there .
see another self. We have hundreds of them. I
found four voices in the character -this came af- Audience : You mentioned yo u'd bee n working on
ter eleven months of rehearsal. One was the Peter The Ma ster Buifd er for a number of years, and
Brook guru voice. The other was the Spiritual you'd worked on Vanyo for a number of years be-
Used-Car Salesman, who would do anything for fore you committed it to film. When you have
enlightenment-let his family go, let his friends something that gestates for a lo ng period, that
go. The third was the Offthe -Wall Upper-Middle- picks up the ideology of several years or a great
Class Rich Kid. And fourth is the Guy Who Tells period of time, how do you know when it's ready
the Truth. He appears very rarely. Once I had the to be launched ?
four voices, I knew how to do the role, but it really I think you just feel that you've reached the end,
did take me a long time, and I had all thes e that there's nothing else you have to say, until you
preconceptions about who the character was, but have people watching it. Something special does
they didn't work. They didn't come from a deep happen in front of an audience .
truth. I suppose you could say also that the theater
that Wally and I do is political also in the sens e
Audience: So when you have to work in a short that it's so completely anticapitalist. We don't get
time, say, a month and a half, you just see what paid while we do it. We work for as long as we
happens? like. We have no producers. In general , we don't
Grotowski used to say the re are two ideal re- work for critics. We rarely sell tic kets. And there
hearsal periods . One is two years and the oth er is really have been people who have gotten very,
two days. There's some thing about the two days, very annoyed, in a wonde rful way. The Designated

4 page! (4 mn) left 'n It10I <ooplef 18'1. ,00<

Mourner we did in the ruins of a Wall Street men's to do that trainin g, that oth er training, tha t would
d ub. It was the club in which literally the big fi- allow me to just walk on the stage and just be
nanciers had planned the armament bus iness of there , like a lighthouse, ill uminating and giving
the First World War. It had a great history. No- hope."
body had bee n in it for forty years. It was, I think,
the greates t space I've ever done anything in. But
the pro blem was if we performed before April, it
was too cold, and if we performed after July, it
was too hot. So we could o nly play from April
through July. And Wally, being a writer, wanted
critics, and we got rave reviews. Nobody could
get into it. A lot of particularly Broadway people
said, "You should move it! Youshould move it!" I
said, "No, I think that's it."
I have one last little story which I'd love to tell
you. It's sort of at the heart of what I was saying at
the beginning. I took out Erland Jose phso n--
Ingmar Bergman's great acto r-for lunch. And he
said this amazing thing to me. He said, "You
know, when I was young, I worked on everything
the acto r should work on: I worked on my body. I
worked o n my voice. I would go to museums to
cultivate th is inst rume nt. 1would listen to musi c,
read books, did very arduo us physical training. I
d id everything that the acto r should do. But," he
said , "you know? I do n't know how I ca n do it, but
now"- he was in his late seve nties-"I would like

2 poges{2 mn) left., thtSchoplet 18'l.,00<

Paula Vagel world. I am not exaggerating.
Pa ula is also a political an ima l, an o utspoke n
I rony is an ongoing and vital force in Paula's life. activist for causes , ide as and people sh e believes
I find it both remarkable and ironic that Paula, in. He r plays a re co nsidered fe m inist, but most ly
de vastat ed in he r youth by rejection from Yale sh e believes in the power of art. Like Tom Sawye r
when she applied to the graduate playwriting pro - who po inted a t a fence and suggeste d to his
gram, was recently appointed to run tha t very friends that the most wonderful t hing to do would
same program. Remarkable and ironic , too, that be to paint that fence , Paula inspires action an d
Paula wrote The Baltimore Waltz, a play about a commitment from others via her own contagious
brother and sister's trip through Europe before enthusiasm and delight. When I think of Paula, I
she had ever even left the U.S. But these ironies think of her as a conjurer and an enchantress. She
touch upon Paula's magical combination of makes everything she is interested in sound so
perseverance and intellect, wit and belief in the exciting and luminous . In Rhode Island she initi-
human imagination . ated an ongoing program where theater artists
Paula is a playwright and an educator. Lauded work in women's pr isons. The feat was the result
widely for her plays such as How I teamed to of the combination of Paula 's belief in action and
Drive (Pulitzer Prize, 1998), The Baltimore Waltz, art and her remarkable organizational skills.
The Long Christmas Ride Home and many. many Paula does not skirt controversy. Her plays look
others, she also understands that she can never unflinchingly at disturbing and divisive issues
stop teaching. From her first teaching experience such as domestic abuse, gender roles , stereotype,
as a graduate student at Cornell, Paula knew that pedophilia, pornography and AIDS. I always find
t his was something that she was meant to do in something always a little unsettling in he r plays.
her life. At the age of thirty-three she was ap - "Why did you include that urine incid ent at th e
pointe d by Brown University to start a graduate en d of The: Baltimore: Woltz?" I as ked Pa ula when I
and undergraduate playw-riting program. She direc ted the play at Circle Rep in 1992. She ex-
single -handed ly tu rned Brown into t he most plained that the last thing a body do es befo re it
sought after MFA playw-riting prog ram in th e d ies is pee. The urine is necessary in th e recipe

44 pages (S3 mn) left n Ih'l choplef 18'1. ,00<

that makes Paula's work what it is. What always about th e word s. I think t he word s are the weak-
liberates the work from the dar kness and est elem en t of the text- act ually an almost fata lly
co mplexities of t he iss ues she chooses is her hu- flawed part of the design. The pu rpose of theater
mo r and co mpassion. is to undo the cogni tive mea ning of words. This
is don e thro ugh repe tition and the act ua l st ruc-
DEC EMBER 15, 2 003 t ure of events. which is the way tha t we prog ram
me mo ry and time . So I'm more interested when I
AB: I saw The Long Christmas Ride Home at Vine- start t hinking abo ut how I'm going to do th e play,
yard Theatre and was once again struck by how in thinking about the right structure. What kind of
absolutely in the moment you are in your writing st ruct ure have I never done before? How can I
and in your understanding of the theater. So often create a different collision of sequence of event s?
when I go to the theater, I feetlike we're so behind I also think one of the things we're still grappling
the currents of our time. There 's nothing quaint with in the twenty-first century is the notion of
about what you're doing. You are extremely inter- theater as the well-made play. The commercial
ested in the world and its inhabitants. You're theater continues to grapple with that, as does
interested in world theater, in memory, in the past television. as does film. But to me, thea ter is re-
and the present and the future and the present ally the unraveling of the play world. I think great
and the past--quantum ways of th inking. There's plays in particular just unravel. They come apart.
always something about your theater that brings They simply will not hold . Whether it's The Sac-
the past into the present. I had the great fortune of cbae or Danton's Death , it's all about falling apa rt.
directing The Boltimore Woltz, which was haunt- Yet we are told critically and in the commercial
ed by loss-the loss of your broth er brought into world that things are supposed to come tog eth er.
the present event of theater. How does the past I start off t hinking: How can I make us rem em -
relate to your work? In every piece, you use the ber the beginning differently in the middl e? How
past in a very extraordinary way. do we remem ber the beginni ng differe ntly at the
PV: I believe the thea ter is st ruct ure. I believe end ? How do we reme mbe r t he play d ifferently
playwriting is st ruct ure. I think playwriting is not t he morning afte r? How do we re member the play

42 pogoeo (51mil) left IIIthos ct.opte< 18'1. ,00<

d iffere ntly te n years after? The Wooste r Gro up's the actors. But the play is written by a specific
Rum stick Road has had a remarkably s ign ificant audience o n a specific night. It's all of those dif-
impact on me as I go throu gh time. My initial re- ferent levels. So o ur memo ry of a play would be
sponse was to be sort of angry at it becaus e when d ifferent if we saw it on Tuesday night and it was
we first came into the Perfo rming Garage we were a silent night versus on a Saturday night and sud-
all asked to take off our shoes. I thought, Oh. denly we're in the mids t of co medy. They are
please, I hate theater games. I'll never find my absolute ly different plays. That's another thing I
shoes. But ten years later, I'm d riving down the adore about the theater.
road and I suddenly think, Oh , you take off your
shoes when you go to your mother's ho use. Now, That' s a beautiful notion that the play is written by
anything that 's going to stay with you for te n the audien ce. I know ycu' ve been working on film
years so tha t you reverse its meaning-because script s and pilot s.
my memory changes over time-is very exciting I d id pitch a pilot. I thought I was going to pitch it
to me. to HBO, which I ado re. I fell into the trick of being
I've spent a long, long time thinking about the told I had to do warm-up pitches-and in the
act of personal witness . It has to do with Tadeusz warm-up pitch, for a network, it was sold. The
Kantor and how one remembers and continues to president stopped and said-it's so corny-
rem ember the play. The theatrical event has to "Cancel my appointments for tomorrow." He
wound our memory. The entire play world can't said, "Where did you learn to pitch like that?" And
wound the memory, but ages can. This is why I I realized that a lot of people aren't used to the-
keep saying that playwriting is abou t not writing. atrical imagery. Of course we're anima ted. Of
It's about structu ring gaps . It's about creating a course we're used to the audience writing the
performance sc ript. I've been very blessed be- play, which I suppose is good pitching. So I was
cause I've worked with you and oth er directors, sud denly a conte nder for a prod ucing contract
and I've seen completely different play worlds for with CBS-but nothing was ever made. I went on
the same script. The script is created by the writ- my own to see the woman who was in charge of
er. The produ ction is writte n by the director and televis ion programming at HBO and she said,

40 P<J9"S (49 m n) left n lhis chapter 18'l.,00<

"Oh, we would have bought that." Here's what I box, you suddenly say, "This is very high-paid fac-
love about television tha t I was ho ping for: the to ry work." And I worked in factories. All my life,
notio n of collective writing. Group writing, where no matter how bad the mo ney situation is in the-
you sit around and you collectively create the ater, I keep giggling. I'm not doing factory work
piece, is very exciting to me. But I'm an over- anymore. I called my agent and said, "Pleas e get
weight. fifty-year-old lesbian with gray hair. No- me out of this." Of course, I'd signed a cont ract.
body at Warner Brothers is going to take me se ri- He said. "You have to take every note that they
ously I know that going in. They sort of slotted give you, and you have to deliberately put every-
me into a narrow box, fitting me into the fran- thing they ask for in the script." I said, "What if
chise. That kept being said. "We've gotta think of they love it and I have to spend three years of my
the franchise, think of the franchise." life doing this?" He said, "Trust me. If they sug-
The thing that is possible-and I think that tele- gested it. they'll hate it. You just have to take the
vision writing is going to get there-is the notion notes." I spent three months writing-and he was
of being able to have an open structure. That right. They read it and they went, "Oh, you were
didn't happen with this studio apparatus. They right; we were wrong. Can you go back to your
wanted the structure to be dosed, where every- original conception?" And I went, "Oh. I've lost it.
thing was wrapped up, well-made play form. J had I think I have to spend a year walking on the
pitched something a la Twirl Peaks, which then beach." It was a useful exercise. I wanted to know
makes a different notion of time. In essence it's if at age fifty I could get off a plane, go into a pitch
novelistic. It's what The Sopranos is doing. The session.
woman at CBS who bought the pitch had wanted
it to be open structure. She had been the man - You're about to emba rk on , once again, a for-profit
aging director of Roundabout and said, "Oh. this theater endeavor, and if you look at that and you
is very theatrical. I love this." It's enormously look at the not-for-profit scene , and you look at
appealing to a collection of writers. You can actu- audiences, and you look at your work-what do
ally get some of the strangest minds together in a you see?
room and just giggle. But once you get into that I feel like a twenty year old struggling to find a

38 pages [46 mn) left In Th'l chapter

mod el I fit. I feel great frust ration. I feel very akin a producti on in fo ur weeks. The machine just
to Aphra Behn, who said somethi ng like: "I would cranks on and on. This last play was sort of my
have bee n a poet I as good as any man I but the big sca re. I t hought it was almost impossible to
woma n damns the poet." It seems to me that do. And we did it in five weeks and it was still
we're still in a very, very similar situa tio n these imposs ible and it d idn't come together, I think,
ma ny centu ries later. Non -Aristotelian narrative until the last two weeks.
does not fit within a commercial venue. I do n't
mean to be a cultura l feminist here at all. I'm not That was in Rhode Island or New York?
saying that there is a woman's kind of writing. I That was in New York.
do think, however, that Samuel Beckett made The other thing tha t I think is frustrating, for
Irene Fornes possible, and made a way of telling example , is that you and I worked on Hot 'N'
stories that is about perspective, not action. Throbbing for three weeks with a company, mos t
Would it have ever been possible for Virginia of whom were doing other roles o r were working
Woolf to write theater? We're getting closer to in the MFA prog ram . I could not figure out the
that time. The novel was created by Aphra Behn structure. I want the structure to be bigger than I
out of a similar sense of frustration that she could can accomplish mentally as the writer so that it
not fit into the way plays were produced in Lon- gets worked out in the room with the director and
don. She was more interested in a different sense the actors. That's a very time -intensive thing. It
of time and character than was permissible. I'm can't happen in a repertory system because the
constantly struggling with this thinking. All right, system is on to the next, on to the next. We've
time to start writing fiction. Time to start writing still not figured out how to underwrite art in this
memoirs. I'm colliding against the apparatus of country. The only way now I can t hink of doing it
how plays get produced , whethe r it's Off is sequential productions . I spent a long time af-
Broadway, not-for-profi t or a commercial prod uc- ter Hot 'N ' Throbbing talking with you about what
tion. If you're trying to dismantle the ap paratus wou ld I do and how would I make that struct ure
t hrough t he playwriting itself, you do n' t have work. I tackled it literally te n years late r wit h Mo lly
enough time to figure out how to interpret t hat in Smith, and I still did n't get the ending right.

36 p<>g'" [0\.4 min) left nih I chop'","

What's happe ning right now-particularly in there and then work on it over a decade is really
New York and I'm extremely stress ed abo ut it-----is the o nly way to do that. I enjoy the conversatio n. I
that we are treating art as entertainment. Even if don't know whet her or not I'm willing to finally
you look back ten years, we had more of a cultural face the iso lation. I'm tired of my own voice. I
con versation. There's no chance for mem ory if want to hear the resistance or the response from
we're not going to have cultural conversations, if othe r voices. That's the theatrical process .
we're only going to have trends , if we only have
events. if we're o nly going to talk about backstage In rehearsal? Or in the whole process?
gossi p as a way of selling tickets. There's no Something that was really thrilling to me: We were
d iscussion at a commercial level about so me- doing How I Learned to Drive out at Berkeley Rep.
thing like Wicked. which is saying, "Oh. by the I was really tired. so I was like, ~I don' t want to be
way. we're in a fascist sta te right now." It's the in the talkback. but I would love to hear it." This
most politically daring commercial production guy got up and just ripped the play to shreds. He
I've seen. whether it works or not. The way we're hated this play. It was completely invigorating.
censoring now is by giving maybe a one-inch col- The actors were trying to shut him up and I was
umn or less in our newspapers. It's not even be- like, "Go for it!" I ran up to him afterward and
ing discussed. pumped him a little bit more. There's som ething
I figure there are only two ways I can proceed in me that loves the ability to have diss ent.
from here. One is to do very small workshops There's something in me that loves a theatrical
over time in regional theater, which I love. Perse- event that causes best friends to fight, roll in each
verance Theatre in Alaska was very impo rtant to other's blood. That's what theater should be do-
me as a model. I had fifty seats and a com pany ing. We have lost the ability to have that conver-
that is trained, but is made up of peo ple who sation. We're not having it at a political level. and
worked as fishermen and lawyers and post al we're not having it at a level o f theater-and I
workers. They d id, side by side, Chekhov, then my think the two are related .
latest play. It was extraordinary, the kind of
permis sion granted by that. To sta rt so mething I remember doing Hot 'N' Throbbing at a point in

3~ P<J9"'I (~1 mn) left n thISchopl«

my career when I was doing too ma ny shows at no ." But I also remember that you were tired and
the same time . I remember Christine Jones, the t hat right after Baltimore Waltz you said, "You
set des igner, coming in to have a meeting. Those know, Vogel, you're kind of like a terrier on a pan -
were rehearsal marathon days, and I was ex- t's leg." It takes a lot of energy. But there's som e-
hausted, and I was like, "Yeah, what ever." I never thing about a great fight. It's not about my point
went through the process of argu ing with you or of view or your point of view. It's about th e play
her or anybody. I actually met Christin e ten years world actually having an independent voice.
after we'd done it, and we looked at each other When we argue like that , suddenly the play world
and said, "Oh, my God , I've been wanting to talk becomes focused and it's actually not us any-
to you because t hat design wasn 't right," And part more . It's this phenomenon-almost a spirit.
of it- I hope you will take this th e right way-is Theater is almost like the undead coming to life.
that we did what you said . There's this sense of this other identity, or this
Right. other entity, and it's not yours , and it's not mine
as a playwright.
1 was too completely exhausted to fight. It was
such a les son . I never said thi s to you. I'm mysti- It's an animus tha t's created .
fied. The energy to fight like this doesn't fit into four-
I'm mystified, too. I wish we'd fought, too. I week rehearsal periods and production cycles and
would have been happy to die after Baltimore doing your press. How can I do the press and talk
Waltz because if you had this once in your life- about the play when I haven 't written the play?
time, that's enough . I was so proud of that event, When that animus starts collecting and spirit
that we wrote the play in the room , that the audi - starts gathering and the play starts to take shape,
ence was writing the play. It was my happiest mo - I don't remember my intentions. I don't remem -
ment in the theater. I wrote Hot 'N ' Throbbing to ber what it looked like in my head. I don't remem-
continue that -in essence responding to what ber what the pre-Cherry Jo nes Anna looked like.
you were doing, thinking we would fight abou t it. I I'd never been to Paris. I to ld you I went to Euro pe
do reme mber when it was designed I went, "Oh, afte r your production of Baltimore Waltz. It was

31 pages (39 mil) eft If'th'l Chapter

s uch a d isappoint men t after Anne's Europe. direct, one-to-one relationship with t he reader
t hat slows down the perception of time. It makes
As a d irector you can make: something, but you on e con te mplate, makes one env ision the scene,
know it doe sn't open until it's premiered six th e characters- you have to read slowly, you ca n't
times , and gone to six different venues. In this read quickly-versus the theatrical process where
country we don't ever have: more: than three or time is whizzing by. There are no stage dire ctions
four weeks to rehea rse. It's a process over a long in my plays anymore. Instead I'm sta rting to write
time where you actually open a show, then you what I would call personal reflections that I am
take it to another audience, and then another sharing just with the reader that will never be
place. What is th at for a writer? staged-shouldn't be staged. They're un stage-
It's not quite possible. In the marketplace right able.
now, if you get reviews that are somewhat favor- The reason this came to me is that I was read -
able. then the play has a future life and, if not, the ing Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and suddenly Ten-
play is essentially dead . So it's a one-shot deal for nessee Williams started talking about the mystery
a writer. That's really grim . My favorite plays are of character in the middle of the script. In th e
done in the Perse verance Theatre model: fifty notes for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof he says some-
seats. production costs of maybe five hundred thing like, "I am reminded of the quality oflight in
dollars. The difficulty right now is that writers a photograph lance saw of Robert louis Steven-
don't really belong to companies. Usually we son's home on the Samoan Island." And I went,
don 't have that kind of access. So we're out ther e "Oh my Cod, he's talking to me." Now, the re's no
in essence-s-and this was useful to me in way you could stage that. That 's a one-to-one. I
TV-land-selling our product. The only mod el mean. one of the great things about novels is tha t
t hat exists for new plays in this country is to sell it you can say. "I married him, dear read er." It's a
like a product. personal , one-to-one relations hip between the
On e of the things I'm now thinking about is the reader and the writer. The only pres ence of the
narrative impulse versus the thea t rical process. playwright is in those in-between-the-lines things
The narrative impulse of telling the story creat es a that are said to the beloved reader-which

30 poges(36 .... n) lei> In thOfl chopl.

happens to be the acto rs, the director, but will I want so meo ne else to show my broth er back to
neve r be put on stage. I never met Tennessee me. I want him to be your brother, not mine. Do
Williams, but I can pick his plays up and he is you know what I mean?
act ua lly talking to me . I'm now gett ing more and
mor e drawn to that. It's big. The onl y way I can respond to you is by
Example: In Long Christmas Ride, I open with a th inking about the word "s pace "--giving s pace
poem. The whole play is a response to letters both to the reader or th e writer being the aud ience
from my brother and his poem in which he writes or the director. It see ms like so mu ch of what we
about breath and the air. When I wanted the ghost see that fee ls old-fas hioned is des cript ive as op-
of Stephen to be brought back to life, and I want - posed to creating an invitati on to ma ke up the
ed to describe the dancer, I sa id, "Oh. let him be thing. I've been deal ing with so me old plays
beautiful." You cannot stage, "Oh. let him be lately----t'"eally ancie nt, like '401 . It's interesting be-
beautiful." But I wanted you to know how beau - cau se these plays see m to be mo re invitations to
tiful I think the male body is, and how beautiful I thought than des cription s of th ought or descrip-
think the act of love is between two men. That is tions of a result. When I'm th inking ofyour wo rk, I
from me as a person. It is something I share with think of t he word "juggle." You put elements to-
the readers. gether, inter ests tog et her, that don't have a reso-
Unfortunately, the first question in almost any lution, and you say to the reader and to the direc-
press interview is, "Is this autobiographical?" The tor, "Take t his. Start juggling it. See what the
only way we can sell a product is to consume the s pace in between th ese objects creates." One
personalities. We cannot reflect or contemplate doe sn 't find th at very often in writing for the
ou r relationship to the material and project our stage. You find a description of a living room and
own personal message, our own autobiography. th en so met hing that happens there-c-as opposed
We can no longe r write the play. It's a capitalist to an arena in which events occur.
mo del versus something else-and it is that I think that the reason that there's tha t spac e in
something else tha t I am longing for. I want to the work is that I've worked with young er writers.
see your Paris. I want to see your Baltimore Waltz. I'd have never written Baltimore Waltz if I hadn't

28 p<>g"" (34 mn) left 'n!hl chapler

been te aching at Brown. That level of-the only subversive." I really th ought about that, and , well,
word I ca n use is plasticity-in the younger writ- it's tru e actuall y. It's difficult for me to put some-
ers kind of kicked my butt. Long Day'sjoumey into thing out without also putt ing so met hing that op-
Night is not one of my favorite plays. Who was it pose s it at the same time. It's hard for me just to
who said tha t O' Neill was a genius withou t a tal- say, "This is this." For me, the truth lies in the
ent? But it's a very interesting thing because you s pace between two op positions. So, a young girl
can feel the machinery of the three-act or what - watching older wo me n be bitchy create s the sp an
ever structure clunking. There's a way I can get of time betwee n th eir lives. I th ink you do thaL
back into that text even though it feels more Aris- You put so met hing forward and th en you subvert
totelian or well-made to me, which is not to read it. I do n't know t hat th at 's neces sa rily fem inist.
it as stage directions but to read it as if I am the I do th ink that Broadway is about reducing res is-
first reader. It's not O'Neill dictating the stage, tance, reducing conflict. reducing friction. There
but dictating his memory. Then I don't feel as are exceptions-and the exceptions tend to be
much resistance to the text. such that we can say, "Oh. we produced Angels in
Americo. That lets us off the hook for the next
It's a stra tegy to open so methin g up aga in. decade." You can almost hear the sigh of relief.
It was your strategy when you did The Women. Now we don't have to worry again about having
You put that little girl watching The Women. Sud - resistance for at least another ten years. I think
denly the narrative act was resisting the theatrical the Broadway model wants events that can be en-
act in your production of The Women. tirely consumed in one sitting. So, what you're
talking about in terms of the oppositions, which I
What one can do is ma ke th e t heate r visible as op- find incredibly thrilling, there's no reason why
posed to invisible. A Danish woman I knew yea rs there can't be a Broadway event like that. And
ago-this was pre-Lion King and a few other there are. There are plays that I go to and think .
th ings said, "I'm writing my PhD disserta tion on Oh my Cod . how did they make tha t? Or occa -
the male bias o n Broadway. Wome n can never be sionally this happens in terms of Ho llywood stu -
don e on Broadway. The fem inist aesthetic is d io films. Not very often, but occasionally it does.

26 pages{31 mln)left ,n 'his choplel'

I think it's possible. I keep going back to Three- Trojan Women was produced in a time of war.
penny Opera. There's got to be a way you can have That's the act ual t heat rical intentio n at its highest
resista nce and it's popular, something tha t incor- level. It's ext raordinarily hard to do. It's almost
porates popular culture as well as an intellectual imposs ible to do commercially.
feas t. I t hink Kushner came extremely close to
that. That's an extraordinary balancing act. I'm Because of money ?
actually very interested in plays that are balancing The texts that are created pre-judge the event in
acts. I've started a thesis (and abandoned it; this order to se ll the event , produce the event, have
seems to be a habit with me) about The London money for the event. It has everything to do with
Cuckolds, which was popular in 1679 with Tories the logo and-pardon the F word-franchise. It's
and Whigs, and The Ocrorocn by Dion Boucicault, done beautifully and brilliantly-puppet nudity. At
about an octoroon woman falling in love with the a commercial level you have to create a response
son of her owner. It was a huge hit with aboli- to the play before we even sit in our seats. We're
tionists as well as slave owners in New Orleans no longer writing the playas an absolutely neutral
and New York in 1859. Threepenny in a way is in audience coming in and informing it with our
time with that balancing act . own intentions. It's been pre-intended. It's like
I think that Threepenny was written by different cutting up our meat into bite-sized pieces so we
audiences simultaneously. It was a popular can eat it quickly and digest it in one sitting. The
commercial theater event at the same time that it only way that we can underwrite a production in a
parodied popular commercial theater events. I capitalist society is to sell it first, and onc e it
don't believe there's any possibility of having a starts getting sold, we're not writing it anymo re;
homogenous audience. What's possible, though, the logo is, the quotes from the paper are, th e
is t hese extraordinary balancing acts that occur ads, the preview articles . ..
every now and then, when we're suddenly in a
room enjoying our disagreement. If a play can do How much do you let in t he outs ide world in your
that, that is the thea trica l form tha t was meant writing?
when Medea was written for Gree k citizens or The I don't know.

24 pogoeo (29 mn) left n 'I>I chopt",

It's probably why you write successful plays. Be- that in the fo rmation of what comes out next.
cause I think we start second -guessing. I love histo ry. So ideas that I've pitched before
I always am kind of insane when I write the play. It still remain with me. I want to do a music-theater
really is a form of insanity. I think that the reaso n adapta tion. One idea: How would I do an ada p-
I like working with writers is that morning after tation of The Country Wife-that lovely, nasty little
you just spewed out thirty pages, you think, Oh play? Four best friends in l os Angeles are cele-
my God, this is total garbage. To live at that level brating Horner's (it's a family name) thirtieth
of fear and know when I read it people will laugh birthday for the fourth year in a row, and they're
at me-and then plunge ahead. That's something all getting drunk. Their boyfriends are all in the
that we live with. I remember the first reading of industry and they're all leaving them for younger
How I Learned to Drive, and there were moments women. They're all competing for district attorney
of silence and I just wanted to run on my sword. roles.
Nobody spoke . I thought, Oh. I finally did it. I fi-
nally went beyond the pale. They're only thirty·four?
Yeah. It's a scary world out there. Horner says, "I
Somebody said once, growth is directJy propor- am an intelligent woman . I have a mind. I have to
tional to the amount of discomfort you can with- force myself to get out of this field. It gets worse
stand. You were talking about your struggle with and worse and worse." She turns to all of her
three different ideas of what to write next. Can you friends and says, "Goddamn it. I want a double
just let us in on it? cheeseburger and I want the margarita instead of
Well, you said, "Do you ever let in outside this salad with dressing on the side." She says,
sources?" And to some extent, with the Signatu re "Tomorrow morning I'm going to go to all of the
Theatre Company, I am aware that I have reached casting directors in town, everyone we know, all
this place in which the critics can write about me of our boyfriends, and tell them I'm a lesbian."
now: "Oh, we've figured out Vogel. We don't actu- Her friends say, "But you've never slept with
ally have to stay awake anymore." I'm pre- women." She says, "I don't care. It's a role. Tell
digested, so I am trying to figure out how to resist everyone in town I'm a lesbian. I have to force

Z2pages (27 mOl) left 'n th chapter

myself out of this business." Every man she ever themselv es "hard core" Civil War reenacto rs . This
slept with comes and says, "Was it me ?" has become huge. And there a re women who
For Molly Smith I want to write a kind of Amer- were Civi l War so ldiers. It's sort of like in The Bal-
ican A Christmas Carol called Civil War Christmas. lad of Little ) 0. And now there are women who are
It's a kind of Doctorow Ragtime approach, set on struggling to start doing reenactments because
Christmas Eve in Washington, D.c., 1864, that they have the histo rical right to be in the battles.
incorporates Christmas songs and Civil War bal- There are also Civil War reenactors who are
lads and is a secular look. Why are we loo king at African Americans who are reenac ting Confed-
Victorian poverty instead of loo king at race? If we erate soldiers. I mean, the issues on this are just
look at race and the relat ionship between the extraordinary. Now, whether or not I actu ally go
North and the South, and class, the Civil War is into that o r if this is just encou raging me to write
still going on. I thought this would be an inter- Civil War Christmas, I don't know.
esting American Christmas tale to tell, where
Mary Cassatt passes MaryTyler on Christmas Eve Is there an audience for this?
in Washington, D.C. Walt Whitman is there No. There are people who do not talk about the
attending to the soldiers . There are all these inter- Civil War as history at all. It is the "War Between
esting collisions possible . To warm up to that I the States ." It hasn't been decided yet. They're
wrote Long Christmas Ride because I though t, All still resist ing. This is not their governm ent.
right, a Christmas play, the personal versus the They've all become Republicans. It's very inter-
political, I' ll jump into this . It's so big and I can't esting. I haven't yet gone to a ree nactment. I did
write it at a small scale, I'm thinking of doing a spen d sixteen hours with a (Colonel John Sin-
sho rt music-theater piece about women who are gleton ) Mosby impersonator going over sacred
Civil War reenactors. grou nd in Warrington, Virginia. He was weeping
as he talked: ". . . And on this spot Mosby
What are they? disma ntled his troops. And right over there is the
There are men who starve themse lves so they can block where slaves were sold." The hair went up
loo k like Confederate soldiers-they call on the back of my neck. I tho ught, What the heck

2{) poges(24 min) left In ThI ChopTer

is this? This is scary. There's something going on write mothe r plays.
right now with reenactments. Now, probably it's And the last thing, I've been approached abo ut
not the sanest thing in the world to write. The writing a new book for Lady in the Dark-Kurt
more that I realize what reenactment is doing and Weill score, Ira Gershwin lyrics, Moss Hart
where the reenactors are in this country, the more boo k- if they actually allow us to do this in a kind
that I realize this is not a simple tale. It is deeply of Cradle Will Rock way, to look at what Broadway
political. It's actually kind of dangerous. entertainment was in 1940, written by a Jewish
immigrant exile who has lost his country, with a
Creepy. You have a fecund imagination . lyricist who has lost his brother and his collab-
I do these things called bake-offs. where I get orator, and an American man , who is deeply in-
writers together. For instance, when I was doing volved in Freudian analysis.
How I Learned to Drive I asked the writers working
with me in a workshop to write a play that went It's a great idea becau se people always want to do
backward in time , had a moon , and had a rela- that musical, but it doesn 't quite stand up, but it's
tionship between an older and younger person. got great music in it.
Whife they were writing the bake-off in forty-eight It's got extraordinary music. So that's where I am.
hours, I cheated and I took two weeks and wrote Who knows?
How I Learned to Drillt. When I started working on
The CountryWife, I asked them to write a play with Audience: What you were talking about, about
a cuckold, a eunuch and a plastic surgeon. finding the truth and drama in the space between
Phenomenal plays. I'm thinking very much of my o ppos ition, I found that watch ing The Long
mother and of Bosoms of Neglect and Man in the Christmas Ride Home, in the space in between
Moon Marigolds and realizing that in American Basil's puppets and what happen s afte r. A friend
drama mothers are primarily defined by moth er- of mine who works at the Vineyard was telling me
son relatio nships . So I'm thinking of having a tha t you've done some work wit h prison theater.
bake-off with women writers I know and love Could yo u tal k a little about that , specifically in
called "The Mother of All Bake-Offs," where we terms of the past and the present and the future,

18 pages (22 rrnn) left ,n this chop'er 21'l. ,00<

along the lines of incarcerat ion and what these in- Yes. That's what memory is. When I d id the pro-
mates were dea ling with in a past life and how gram, I realized that actually the harshest punish -
they can translate and use theater and drama as a me nt is aes thet ic dep rivation. They were not get-
place for future growth? ting, for examp le, pajamas. Very ugly clothing.
That's a great question . Unfortunately now it's Smoke-filled rooms. And flakey green paint on the
been twelve years since I've done that work for walls. That warden, fortunately, has since gone.
women in maximum security. That program is While I was there, a reformed warden came, and
continuing now at Brown University. Under- she's a saint. She immediately painted the walls
graduates and graduate students are going in and white and the ceilings blue. I remember coming
doing a variety of workshops , which is great. I in and one of the inmates grabbed me and said.
have never seen such dramatic proof in my life of "Look-the color of my sky has changed." I did a
the necessity of theater on a daily basis. The abil- book drive because there were no books in the li-
ity to access memory, as painful as it may be, is brary for women . The argument for this was that
still joyful compared with the entrapment of the when women get depressed they over-eat. When
space that they're in. It was an astonishing men get depressed they become violent and
transformation . I would say that some of them fights break out. So all the money for books and
got addicted. It's sort of like sharing your addic- programming went to the men's maximum. They
tion. It was a very strange phenomenon for me to knew that women would just sort of sit there in a
leave and go out at the end of the workshop. I kind of stupor. and it was very cost-effective. So I
knew there were women at the window watching said, "Well, sir, if you don't mind, I'm going to do
me get into my car, and I couldn't bear to look a book drive with my faculty members in the Eng-
back. And they watched as the car went past until lish Department." He laughed. He said. "Are you
it was out of sight. And that was beautiful. kidding? These women haven't gone through high
school. These women aren't going to read." I
AB: I've never tho ught of that before-the idea of can't remember how many copies I got of Ham let
constricted space, which is then gated by mem- and the collected works of Shakespeare, etc., and
°rt· so forth, everything I could, biology books. The

16 poge5 (W fT\IOJ I<!ftIn lhi. Choplet 21'l. ,00<

next time I was there, a seventeen year old met prod uction and writing, and the younger actors in
me in the hall and, again, grabbed my sleeve and the co mpany ra n it. The sta tistics were remark -
said, "Oh. th at this too , too solid flesh would able. The grade averages went up. Attendanc e
melt." went up. The rate s of recid ivism plunged. Then a
It really did demon strate that memory dissolves certain Repub lican governo r. who I think became
s pace. disso lves the restraints of space. Another involved in the environment unde r Bush, axed it
thing that was quite extraordinary was how the after ten years. But when I met Olympia I was try-
senses come alive. The writers that I worked with ing to talk my way into being director of edu cation
there were so aware. "O h. I can tell by the way the in that program . She said. "No. you don't have
keys are jangling which guard it is." It was like a the credentials for it." I have worked with her
Vi rginia Woolf lands cape where no sensory since. and every time I tell her she was a cultural
percept ion could be shut out. Every sound hero . She saved lives for te n years .
permeated. They would hear the rad iator. An There are a couple of things I want to get back
extraord inary landsc ape of sound went into th eir to when I quit my day jo b. and one is I want to
work. work with the juvenile population. Where do we
I went into th is because of a theater com pany cut the arts? We're cutting it in elementary school.
Olympia Dukakis. who is one of my favorite That's the point of cris is. I want to work with the
artis ts. founded with her brother and her hus- senior population. I'll be of an age that I'll be one
band. They wanted to be part of the community of them. I want to work with senior citizens on a
and they wanted to give back. so they started an production of Romeo and Juliet with eighty-
afte r-school program in New Jersey. It only cost a year-old Romeos and eighty-yea r-old Juliets. I
sim ple three million dollars a year. First -time want peo ple to interpolate the memory of the first
juvenile offenders would go in front of a judge boy or girl they loved. I've been working for the
and they could choose six mont hs in a refo r- past three summers with ele mentary pu blic
matory o r six mon ths in an after-school program school teachers o n the Cape. I believe that all of
at the Whole Theatre Compa ny. They had an after- us ca n write. I know that fourth graders can write.
scho ol app rentice program in acting, d irecting, I know that first grade rs can write. I know that

14 pages (17 mil) left 'n !Ill chapTer 21'l. ,00<

women who do n't know how to write, who are by one's own voice. I know that I probably have a
actually illiterate, can write. They write from mem- voice. I don't know what it is. I'm interested in
ory. They write ora lly. They write beautifully. I write rs who have a large spectrum possible,
mean, the access of their memory and how they where no play is ever the same. I've never worked,
write is extraordinary. I've had colleagues who've really, with mus ic. I've never worked, really, in
said, "Oh. that's social work." The charge of cul- terms of fiction or, as we'll call it now, creative
tu ral elitism is diminishing the art form and the nonfiction, in a way that might do something to
function of theater. We have to think of a way in my sense of time . There are a number of things
essence to replenish and propagate and make it that I haven't done that I'm terrified to do. I'm
accessible. And since we don't have any means in interested in seeing what happens when there's a
which tickets are free or are such a small amount, writer's voice that's not between the lines. Part of
it's really about community centers. It's really it's the stretch . When I start talking about my ap-
about prison work. It's really about after-school proach to theater I say I'm a Russian formalist
work. It's really about everything I learned from simply because over and over I thread the sam e
Perseverance Theatre and Molly Smith, who went damn two essays , translated by Victor Shklovsky,
on rafts up the river to perform Tht: Importance of that say the function of art is to make one notice,
Being Earnt:st in logging camps. to actually slow down perception . We only notice
our watch when it's broken. That's when it has
Audience: Why not just continue doing your work, aesthetic function . In a play world it really is
which is so funny and strange and bizarre? I hear impeding or slowing down perception rather than
what you're saying about the box. It's stuff that the speeding up. This is a problem because we're
we' re all familiar with. Do you fight with yourself no longer an audien ce that reads. We're an audi-
about what you said earlier? ence that processes cinematically. That is the way
Oh . I do. I'm in a period of postpartum, so take we think. Time is speeding up. There used to be
nothing I say seriously right now. 1 also feel that six cuts in film in the sixties and now we're up to
as a writer I have to stretch my muscles by do ing ninety cuts per minute . What is tha t doing to our
what I've never done before. One gets ent rapped perception of time? How do we respo nd with

12poges (15mn) left ,n tt.s ct.:Jpler 21'l. ,00<

dra matic apparat us? writing, gets kind of prohib itive.
I am feeling the box right now. I'm feeling t he I'm not arguing t hat I won't write again, but I'm
box as a middle-aged writer. I feel a sense of frus- feeling a frustrat io n with the apparatus. I believe
tratio n that next year I'm doing The Oldest Profes- in a very old-fash ioned form of t heater. I believe
sion, which I wrote when I was twenty-nine yea rs in playwriting. I believe in having a script. If you
old. It's been done in Czechoslovakia. It's bee n don't have a scrip t, you can't have resistance to a
done in Mexico City. It has been done in Russia . script as directors and actors. Because of t hat
There's never been a professional production in kind of trifurcated modality, it is not a collab-
this country. There've been university produc- orative way of forging the work. It's a kind of
tions. There is a benign censorship, and over time call-and-response between participants tha t re-
the frustration grows. quires a production, that requires an apparatus of
people in the seats. All of those things need fric-
Audience: Your censorsh ip? tion . I am recognizing that I'm enjoying watching
Not that I'm censoring myself I hear directors in the work of my graduate writers and my under-
regional theaters and not-for-profit New York the - graduate writers more than I am enjoying my own
aters talk about how the script doesn't work. I've work right now. That's telling me something.
read the scripts that they're rejecting. I read the
scripts by extraordinary writers that get passed Audience: What are you enjoying about their
around, and I know that there's a great generation work?
out there right now. That script works quite well, Voices I've never heard . It's a way of looking at
thank you very much . I can 't get on a one-on-one theater I've never seen, that's never existed in the
with them right now, much less with my own world before. I need to kick my butt in some seri-
work. So there's a point you start to think in an ous way that it goes so far out on a limb tha t I
Aphra Behn way. Maybe there's a direct appeal in don't hear the sound of my own voice anymore.
reader-to-reader. When I was younge r, I think I I've been saying to myself I'm concentrating o n
sta rted th ree theater companies on my own. But the techniques. I'm saying to myse lf, and it's true,
do ing t hat on to p of the day jobs, on top of I enjoy the process and not the production . I do. I

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enjoy the process. What I don't enjoy, what gets AS: When Robert Woodruff came and did
very. very hard over time, which I should not be Columbia's directing program, it was his first time
thinking about, but I do, is the money. I should to teach like that. I think his work with young
not be thinking about the money. I think about directors took him out of the eighties and into the
the money. I know people tell me they don't read new century. I think he was totally st uck in the
the reviews. I read every one . I want to see what's eighties. They kicked his ass into the twenty-first
getting through and what's not. I'm very curious century. He knows it-and I th ink he's really
about how my future play is getting written by the grateful for it.
response of critics . Maybe I shouldn't be doing I saw the look on his face. He was working with
that . but curiosity killed the cat. these actors at A.R.T., and he doesn't want to
So. it's not to say that I'm not writing again , but leave town . I have a hard time coming to New
that I'm aware that I need to gather stock of dif- York because if I stay in the room in Providence
ferent devices . different techniques. To stretch. I with these actors who have been gathered from
can't stretch myself if I know I only have four around the country, I will see things that I will
weeks and it's going to be produced like every never see in New York. I'll see things five, ten
other play on the planet in that regional or years before other people see them. It's an addic -
not-for-profit system. tion . It's a hook.

AS: You're also burdened by your own reputation. Audience: The Long Christmas Ride Home
You're burdened by a Pulitzer Prize. seemed to give me space to open to it. As you go
It's the problem of voice over time. I often won - through the black hole, they say time doesn't slow
der how actors do two years-you suddenly get to down, but it's suspended theoretically.
t he point where you go, "Oh. God , am 1doing The I think that space is also something I learned
Count of Monk: Cristo again? I've been touring the from Anne on Bonimore Waltz . The suspension of
country with The Count of Monk: Cristo for so time is really whether or not there's a production
la ng." I t hink there's part of that also in the writ- text that does resist as well as speed up with t he
ing. playwright's text. That's what interests me very,

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very deeply. Whose memory is it? There are per- t hem the slightest signifiers to create a sign.
sonal moments of witnessi ng for every collab - That's the issu e of space and slowness.
orator in every process. It takes me a while to process whatever I dar ed to
do that didn't quite work. The Long Christmas Ride
Audience: If you write novels you're going to miss doesn't work, and I think I know why. I didn't
that. quite counter the difference in language with inan-
I will. But I' ll learn something that I think I need imate objects. language works with human bod-
to learn. ies in a much different way in terms of text. I be-
lieve that we hear by what we see and we see by
AB: Robert Anton, who was one of the early vic- what we hear. The two senses cross. It's what Bert
tims ofAIDS, was an extraordinary puppeteer. His States says in Great Reckonings in Vttle Rooms:
finger puppets were so small-he could only seat We hear through the eyes and we see through the
eighteen people at a time. You sat around the ears. So the impact of how that language worked
stage and he built these mountains and castles with puppets was something I failed at. What I
out of ceramics, and on his fingertips he put pup- was in it for was to see the contrast of the human
pets with incredible faces and beautiful head- body and the puppet. That's what was moving
dres ses . He would do these scenes with these me. I talk about being in the throes of puppet
puppets that were about huge things-huge ro- love, but the truth of the matter is I was trying to
mances and huge stories. And in the middle of find a way to slow down perception so I could see
the production I saw, he took the puppets off of the human body again by colliding with puppets,
his fingers and he created a scene between two and to see the contrast of that. I didn't quite real-
fingers . That was t he most emotional scene I've ize how to make the text work with that. It would
ever seen. If he'd done that in the beginning it probably take me three or four years of just being
wouldn 't have worked . He brought us to a place quiet with it to figure out what that means.
where he had taken away all of t he artifice. And I remember standing in the back of t he room
what is happening in that moment is why you' re watching you and Cherry during Baltimore Waltz
right. The aud ience is writing the play. He's giving rehearsal. You would sudden ly say, "Okay,

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Cherry, can you suddenly be an eighteen th - AB: That's a pretty radical idea-that a play
century lady with a fan and waltz to t he end of the should on ly work not in your time.
so fa?" And Cherry, of cou rse, being trained by I also believe-this may sound kind of creepy-
Anne Bogart, curtsied to an imaginary suitor, did tha t theater is really a mediation betwee n th e dead
a beautifu l waltz , too k her hand and t here was a and the living. When I write, I'm very aware that in
fan, and right at t he end she got to t he end of th e every play I'm writing a tribute to other writers.
sofa. My mouth dropped to the floor. I didn't I'm respond ing to the dead . Or people in my life
know you could do that. It took me a while to who are dead. I'm thinking a lot about [){Jnton 's
write from that-four or five years. Four or five Death. I'm trying to respond. I think plays need to
years for me is nothing-it's like no time at all. work to some extent in the time that they are writ-
You know the questions that lead off most pre- ten because we're writing the play. Butl also think
view interviews? "Oh. you haven't been in New that JoAnne Akalaitis's response to Endgame was
York since How I Learned to Dtwc. What have you wonderful. I thought it made a play work beyond
been doing with yourself?" It's that slowing down its time . It was set in a postapocalyptic subway
of time. But in order to process that , it seems to station and , at that moment in time, it worked. It
me, we have to go to other art forms. was a personal response from JoAnne Akalaitis to
I'm still trying to think about why I failed with Endgame that completely electrified me-before it
Hot 'N' Throbbing . I'm going to have to do that was closed by the Beckett Estate . I thought that
over next year. I'm still trying to grapple, and the the Wooster Croup's handling of The Crucible was
things that are exciting are the failures. I think it extremely true to the intent. We're in this delicat e
should be impossible for a play to really work. I balance of wanting to be a participant in the roo m
t hink plays ought to be some kind of messy, as writers, of wanting to have our voices coming
failed, flawed models that great directors make through, but also wanting the resistance to the
sense of in the future-in the way tha t you pick voice, and knowing tha t it has to be reinterpreted
up a text written in 1401 and now it works. But it co ntinually through time . And knowing tha t in
didn' t work in 1401. It didn't work in its time. It many ways it's ep hemeral. Theate r is about mor-
has to be put together and rewritten in t he room. tality. It is us thinking t hat this is our brief hour

4 page! (5 m.n)lef! nThschoplet

on the stage. You're always thi nking abo ut that. who are sports fanatics in this country beca use
What do I leave behind? Is there any way to leave everyone is given a baseba ll, a basketball. We
anything behind? How do I get-in a good way- need to do tha t with thea ter and music and art so
eradicated and reinterpreted over a gene ratio n? that we are not consumers. We are s ports partic-
I would like to see theater companies, major re- ipants in this culture. We need to be arts partic-
gional theater companies, have an evening t hat is ipants. That's a longe r-term fix.
produced by artists who are thirty or younger - Not only do we need that kind of participation
designed, written, directed. What we've got here very early on and all the way through, but we need
is this elaborate system where you quote-unquote more new producers. The Mno uchkine mod el is
"pay your dues," so that by the time they're finally that we produce in a company: I' ll be an artist on
producing you, you're working on three-martini this show; I'll be an administrator on this show;
nights and an ulcer rather than trying to send a I'll write the grant monies on this show; but then
message and respond to the world. We've got I'll act on this show. It's that collective model of
such a labyrinth to break through in the not -for- producing that we need to know. One of th e
profit theater. I read plays by very young writers things that I regret about our notion of writing is
that I think do work in the moment and that I that we put writers in isolation from knowing how
think will probably work better in fifty years-but theater companies work. We need to collectively
they have to be done in the moment for us to be able to produce as writers .
have that reinterpretation . That's my greatest con -
cern in this cultural moment. In the theater we AS: Ultimatel y what you're sa ying is that you don't
have no way of listening. In art in general we're do it by yourself. You are encouraged to do every-
not listening--except to middle-age writers. thing by yourse lf in thi s cultu re, and yet the resis-
tan ce is to do it collaborati vely.
Audience: How do we fix t hat? I believe in the circle model-e-circles rise toget her
We need everyone to feel that they can write. We quicker than individuals ever can.
need to go back and open up the theatrical
process in elementary school. We have peopl e

2 poges{2 mn) left., thISchoptet

Martha Clark. up on the paintings of Hierony m us Bosch. What
followed, also with Mus ic Theat re Group, were Vi-
Martha, to me, has always seemed preternaturally enna: Lusthaus; The Hunger Artist; Miracolo
connected to an ea rlier, perhaps more co lorful d'Amore and Endangered Species, bas ed upo n fin
era. Her two homes in New York City and north - de siecle Vienna, Kafka, Tlepolo an d, literally,
western Connecticut were each previously inhab- endangered an ima ls, respectively,
ited by extraordinary, seminal artists who have With these rad ical works, it seemed that Martha
stamped our culture profoundly. Martha's home had invented a new art form . Her passion for art
in Manhattan was on ce that of Marcel DuChamp. history, especially painting, fused with a choreo-
Her Connecticut farmhouse belonged to the graphic sensibility, musicality and theatricality
painter Arshile Gorky who committed suicide by made a meaningful im print upon the field of per -
hanging himself in her barn. forming arts . Following her work with Music The-
Martha , named by her parents in honor of atre Group. Martha moved into a global arena,
Martha Graham, grew up in a family of musicians directing opera, classic plays, song cycles and
in Baltimore. Maryland . She studied at the Juil- new adaptations from known literature. She has
liard School with Antony Tudor and then danced choreographed for the Nederlands Dans Theater,
for three years with the ch ore ographer Anna the Joffrey Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, Ram-
Sokolow and the Dance Theater Workshop. She bert Dance Company and the Martha Graham
became a founding member of Pilobolus Dance Dance Company, among others. She directed
Theatre in 1971. In 1978 she co-founded opera at Glimmerglass Opera, New York City
Crowsnest Dance Company. Soon afterward Opera. the Canadian Opera Company, the Mu-
Martha launched a career as the creator of nich Biennale . the Hong Kong Festival and the
extraordinary full-length works of dance-theat er. Englis h National Opera . She has collaborated
Her seminal work, created with the support and with playwrights Charles L. Mee, Chris topher
encou ragement of the brilliant prod ucer Lyn Hampton , Richard Greenberg, Alfred Uhry,
Austin and her Music Theat re among many others. She is t he recipient of a
Group was The Garden of Earthly Delights based MacArthur Fellowship, two gran ts from t he

31poges (33 mn) lett IO! chop!&<

Gugge nheim Foundation , two Obie Awards , the Stuff. I th ink you work more intuitively t han most
list goes on. people do .
I do work very intuitively, a lot th rough improvi-
FEBRUAR Y 2 , 2004 sation and inst inct, and I rese arch a lot. The first
ideas I usually go with. Somet imes the y don' t
AB: Martha Clarke is engaged in many, many work out.
things. She and I both happ en to have produc-
tions of A Midsummer Night 's Dream o~n right Where do they come from?
now. Martha 's is at American Repertory Theater. The wind. I mea n, the whole process of ma king
She's starting a Pirandello piece at New York The- things is incredibly mysterious , and 1 do n't know
atre Workshop in ten da ys. She's workshopping a where my ideas come from . They're like a cartoo n
piece at lincoln Center Theater about Toulouse- with a little light bulb. When I was asked to do A
lautrec. She 's also working on a new piece for the Midsum m er Night's Dream, I immediately tho ught
Martha Graham Dance Company. Martha and I of Chopin Noct urnes- first idea I had. I wanted
first met because of the wonderful woman, lyn the mechanicals to be on a wooden table. It was
Austin, who left us two years ago , who hired both there. I've worked for many years with a won-
of us at different times in our careers. She pro- de rful desig ner named Robert Is rael, and 1 work
duced such Martha works as Endangered Species; with a wonderful composer named Richa rd
Vienna: lurthous; t he Kafka piece: The Hunger Peaslee . I've been very interes ted in flying. Garden
Artist and The Carden of Eorthlv Delights. She of Earthly Delights was do ne in the ea rly eight ies,
produced my work for twenty-seven years. and Midsum m er is my third piece working with
Rather than talking biographically at first, let's (Peter) Foy and flight. It's not an aerial flight ; it's
ta lk proce ss. Martha com es from a dance back- fli ght tha t is connected to the ground. Somebody
ground, and yet she makes th eater--or dance- cou ld take a step, then be out the doo r---just
theater. What would you call it? skim throu gh. I think that when I do thes e various
Me : Stuff. pieces , it's a continuatio n. it's my haystacks or
cathedral or sunflowers. I cons ide r everything I'm

2'9pages{31mln)left,nlhi l hoptel"
doing a draft of something. The look of Mid- the acto rs want to analyze the text, and I say, "Just
summer is from Hunger Artist. It keeps accum u- turn your shoulder away." Ultimately they got the
lating, whatever your taste for revision is. same kind of information. I just worked with
Gideon Lester du ring Midsummer-it's wonderful
Martha has a house in Connecticut and an apart- to have a really smart dramaturg to take care of
ment In New York. Both had previous the stuff that I really don't.
inhabitant s-and I think this is not coincidence. I
thin k this is yo ur kismet. You said Midsumm er was also your first play.
My New York apartment was Marcel Ducharnp's. It's my first play of a dead playwright. I worked
and my house in the country was Arshile Gorky's. with Chuck Mee. We're doing Lautrec, and we did
I didn't look for it. I fell into both. Vienna; Lusthaus. I worked with Richard Green-
berg on the Kafka , with Sebastian Barry on a
Are there ghosts? musical that flopped and with Christopher Hamp -
Nice ghost s. To me. ton on Alia . They're major writers. Chuck and I
have a very special working relationsh ip.
Didn 't Gorky, in the barn-he killed himself?
It was my neighbor 's barn. But the house has a Can you talk about how the text develops-the
lot of presence. imagery-when you work with Chuck?
Chuck and I have a really bizarre way of working.
Your sources are painters and composers . Where We'll take a subject , and he'll just begin faxing me
did that come from? Did you study it? pages of writing-no character, no location and
I went to Juilliard as a dancer and married a sculp- no progression . I take the pages into a room with
tor right after graduation. Now I live with a a company of actors of dancers , and the actors
painter. So I guess I am very drawn to visual speak . and the dancers move. My aim is to try to
things. I think with my eyes, really. I think about make the scene seamless. And we find an odd
space and the tension between points. I've scene. Everybody's got copies of the pages. and I
worked at the National Theatre in England, and say, "Well. does anybody want to get up with this

27 JXlg<'.(29 mn) leI! n Itol coop!er 23'l. reo<

one?" With Toulo use-l autrec at lincoln Center I heard years ago someone des cribe your re-
Theater, we have four weeks with wonderful hearsal. It's kind of a joke. This despair that you
actors -Ruth Maleczech, Marian Seldes, Dennis talk about- you say, "Oh , I'm so depre ssed . I
O' Hare, Peter Dinklage. Michael Stuhlbarg. Fo r don 't know what to do ." And then the actors and
the first month we had to find out what the piece dancers will say, " Marthal We' ll try somethingl
was going to be about. Chuck's first writing was Just sit down and have some tea ." And you're
about lautrec paintings. He wrote the paintings holding your dogs, and they'll get up and the y'll
down into language in a way. I don't know what's do something for you, and you say, "Um--<ould
going on with Joseph Comelt. Is that what you you try it again, but this time na ked?" And then
do? you say, "That's beautiful."
And then they'll say that I say, "Turn upstage and
No. He usually gives me a play, then we work on do it." They often laugh at me that I love backs.
the play. Backs and sho ulders. Not good for directing
Well. ours is kind of a collage-l ike Joseph Cor- opera.
nell. I work in movement rehearsals. I do actor re-
hearsals. Then I work with musicians. Then I be- You 've done a bunch of oper as. But you're kind of
gin to interlock them and see at what points they over opera .
fasten together. It's chaotic. It's fun. It fills me A little bit. I think it's over me. I used to talk about
with despair because sometimes-a lot of the fouling certain ponds of water. I'd leave a stag e
time--I don't know what I'm doing. You live with production and think, Oh. I'll go back to danc e
the stuff, and then finally it's like fastening beads because it's fresh for me. Then I'd get tired of
on a necklace. It comes together. It's always very that, and I'd move on to opera. I just like the
mysterious. I work a lot out in conversation. I change.
don 't have a company, but I have a small pickup
group who are used to my process. Bythe end we What would you say are the difference s between
save about fifty percen t of what we have made. working with actors, dancers and singers ?
Dancers are very inst inctual. They feel their way

25 p<>g'" (27 mn) leI! n It1I chapt&/ 23'l. ,00<

into a physicality tha t do esn 't need a lot of actors .
interpretatio n. The muscles, skin, bones talk to I worked with an acto r from Peter Brook's com-
you, and then the language comes through the pany, Robert l angdo n lloyd, who's a great actor.
body. Actors need to break things down. Up at He came and did Vienna : Lusthau s. His part didn 't
A.R.T. the co mpany who played the mechan icals need a lot of movement. He had a beautiful pres-
were used to worki ng together. I just set them ence and a wonderful voice. So it's not just a
loose. This was like a sand box for them . I went a movement that I like. But moveme nt or stillness
few nights ago and they were still doi ng new must be integral to what that creat ure, that char-
things. I gave them a lot of space because they're acter is. That gets sculp ted .
so good together. There are places they have to
get to and then they're free. They're like Mon ty Do you choreograph on the body?
Pytho n. I pee in my pants , I laugh so hard. And Some. I have developed a vocab ulary of lifts, part-
they're wonderful actors. Actors approach things nering. that has come out of the work I did with
through words , so it's much more specific. Pilo bolus. We do a lot of improvisation and if
Dancers' work is as specific, but the nuance of something catches my eye I begin to sha pe it like
impulse and ges ture gets more refined through a sculptor with clay.
repetition. Ope ra singers have more of a chal-
lenge. If they have stressed vocal chords or a cold I think it is actually a big deal, your relationship
there is no way for them to camoufla ge it. A with Pilobolus. Can you just describe how that be-
da ncer has an injury and in some way moves gan?
through it. A singe r who has a bad vocal cord- It began in the choreography class of Alison
it's over and out. Chase in 1971 . My husband was art ist-in-
residence at Dartmou th College , and we had a
Which is why singers can be- so neurotic. three-year-old son. I was in Anna Sokolow's com-
They are more neurotic. There's a new generati on pany in the sixties; we were at the o riginal Dance
of singers who are wonderful stage performers . Theater Worksho p. I quit becau se Anna's work
I'm most at ho me with dancers and very physical stopped speaking to me. It was brilliant. but it

2l pages (25 mill) left IIIthll chopte, 23'l. ,eo<

was incredibly grim. I was terrified of her. She was got d rawn to that. It's not a family backgro und .
brilliant-but she was mean. So whe n I met Egon Schiele inspired Vienna; Hieronymus Bosch
Pilobolu s. it was just three really jocky, funny col- inspi red Garden of Earthly Delights. Do you us e
lege guys. Alison and I jus t star ted improvising painters like t hat?
with them, and fooling around. and we kind of se-
d uced our way into the company- it was fou r Absolutely, but not as much as yo u do.
men and two women. It was really fun for a while. I wanted to be a painter-but I was too good of a
We were a big international success sort of dancer. So I guess I paint with bodies.
overnight-particularly in Paris. We screamed a
lot. and we adored each other, and we laughed to- With lautrec, you've had four o r five workshops.
gether, and it was also a very fraught collab- You say you throw out sixty pe rcent. So where are
oration. you now?
when I graduated from )uilliard I did my gradu- The script is written . It's a process of cutting away
ating piece with two dilettantes reading A Winter's to the essential. I've had great cast members I've
Tale. Words were always important to me. I loved let go because I didn 't have enough for them to
literature, and I loved biography. I've done work do. It's a financially hard time , so I've cut back to
on Franz Kafka-two works on Kafka-one on fourteen or fifteen now. We had eighteen or nine -
Hans Christian Andersen, one on Lewis Carroll, teen to start.
now on Ioulouse-Lautrec and next on Coya.
We as a compan y face three or four weeks of re-
The Graham piece? Have you started rehearsing? hear sa l and then we ope n. If we can workshop
What do you know? ideas at some point with the students, great--but
Nothing. the notion of five worksh ops before you even start
a reh earsal is •••
What do yo u think you have to know before you go Andre Bishop [artistic director of lincoln Cent er
into it? Theater] wants it finished so tha t we can have
I used Coya for Midsummer. I don't know why I three weeks of rehearsal and then a tech . It's a

11poges (23 mn) lef!ln Itli chap!&< 23'l. ,00<

contract, like Broadway. Each workshop he's been Marian is doing The Royal Family, so we're using
happy enough to go further, but he's not guaran- Ho no ra Fergusson Neu mann in this workshop.
teeing a performance . He wants to know that tha t
audience in Midtown that goes to Li ncoln Cente r The idea of bringing Marian Seldes and Ruth
Theater is going to go for a Charles Mee---Martha Maleczech together in the same room is worth the
Clarke evening . He wants to be sure that it is not price of e ntrance.
a downtown show. It truly is. And they're great together.

For the se worksho ps, are actors, dancers, musi- They're from such different worlds.
cians, designers all in the room togeth er? But they love each other . Then I have my beautiful
The designers haven't come yet. We're using dancers: Rob Besserer, playing Valentin. and
Faure. Debussy and Satie----and a great opera Alexandra Beller. who is with Bill T. Jones, and is
singer. Joyce Castle. whose playing Yvette Guil- very voluptuous and big. I'm working with two
bert. You have to have mus icians. wonderful new dancers named Gabby Malone
and Andrew Robinson, who were with Twyla
Joyce Castle is very tall. Tharp.
Six feet one. The dance vocabulary is created for each piece.
I don't have a techn ique. I start all over again with
Stand ing next to Peter Dinklage. each piece.
And I have a French horn player-who's playing.
actually. the Wagnerian tuba-who's as wide as Audience: Have you been in a sit uation where you
she is tall. Then you have Peter, who is diminu - feh: like your work didn't develop to the point yo u
tive. Ruth Maleczech is playing La Goulue, who is wanted it to while you had a deadline?
kind of a floozy can-can dancer who died in the No. deadlines are good . I mean, Midsum m er was
streets selling peanuts. tt's a great story. my first Shakespeare. I had four weeks. And it's
up. So. deadlines are okay. But there's a great
And Marian Seldes? play. When you're developing a whole new

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piece--I could n't do it in fo ur weeks, none of the The stories are like ancient Gree k myths. They're
text-choreography. Choreography takes me a lot about peasa nts in Sicily at the turn of the century.
longer than directing actors. That's why I'm very The first story is about tradition and thos e Sicil-
happy to be working with text. I just couldn' t keep ians and Italians who migrated to America. The
on choreographing. It's boring and it's hard and second story is about insanity in a group. There's
frustrating. also the presence of Pirandello talking to his dead
mother. We took the script of the film to Frank
AB: Can yo u talk about the Pirandello piece? There Pugliese who adapted the screenplay for the
was a little junket to Italy, I believe. stage. We've intersected three short stories-c-it's
I went with Jim Nicola and Lynn Moffat (artistic a little bit like A Midsummer Night's Dream, which
and managing directors of New York Theatre is three stories.
Workshop. respectively] and the head of their
board. We went to Sicily and we lived in a AB: So th is is the workshop you're starting in ten
fourteenth-century fortress on the sea. It was pret- days ? Not the rehearsal?
ty nice. Jim's not ready. It takes him a while to decide.
Jim has wanted to do Pirandello for ten years, The composer is writing amazing music. Do you
and when Vienna: Lusthaus (relliskd) was at New know Sicilian songs? We're using the lomax
York Theatre Workshop two years ago, he said. collection of music.
"Let's talk about something else." I told him three
or four ideas about things I wanted to do. We Audience: Since you both directed the same play,
were walking home, over Greenwich Avenue, and I'm interested in knowing what you learned, what
he walked into World of Video and brought out a you discovered about the play?
film called Kaos, made by the Taviani brothers
based on Pirandello's short stories. He said to AB: Our s opened this past Friday at San Jose
take it home and watch it, and I did. I called him Repert ory Theatre, which I'm here to report is the
and said. "I love it. Let's do it." We have an best regional theater-s-outside of A.R.T.---in the
Italian-speaking cast. I have an Italian composer. co untry. It's unbelievable-the way the y take care

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of you, the theater itself. It's this big, blue mod- o pera-to sit in the presence of Mozart eve ry
ernist building. On t he outside it looks kind of ug- d ay-I was awed by it, as I am awed by t he lan-
ly and impressive, and inside it's this Renaissance guage of Shakespea re. My favorite line is, "With
jewel. leaden legs and batty wings doth cree p." There
I learned th is: I t hink we are very narrow as hu- are certa in passages that were like paint ing. I am
man beings in our culture, and I thi nk we've bee n just in awe of the language-although Gideon
made very narrow in the rainbow spect rum of be- and I cut about a fifth.
ing. I find that the width of huma nity inside of
those characters in Midsummer puts us to AB: For me the most important part of the play is
shame. I was just blown away by the wide spec- when Theseus and Hippolyta wake the lovers up,
trum of humanity in the characters, in what they and , after all the st urm und drang, after all the
go through, their transformations. We had eight drugged dreaming, passion, desire, Helena sa ys,
people playing twenty·six characters. Barney " I real ized Demetrius is mine and not mine, like a
Q' Hanlon plays Puck and is kind of the stage jewel, that I know noth ing." They come out of it
manager. Everybody else was an Athenian , a fairy saying, "I know absolutely nothing that I thought I
and a mechanical, so they had to tran sform . It all knew before." That to me is such a moment of
comes together in the end , when the y have to be grace. Chuck Mee said the difference with Shake-
everybod y at t he same time , which is really inter- speare and other writers , is that in most plays you
esting. You realize t hat contained in one human sta rt out not knowing the cha racters and by the
being is the potential to be a fairy. I discovered for end you feel like you know th em. But with Shake-
our production tha t being a fairy mean s where you speare, you start out th inking yo u know the char-
go when you go to sleep. You lose your physical acter s, and by t he end you don't know them.
con stra ints and you go other places. And that's re- That's what I felt-that they just widened out .
ally, for me, the big realization. They became unknown.
For me it was just the writing-the emotionality Gideon Lester, the as sociate artistic director of
of desire and t ransfor matio n. It's that huge pen - A.R.T., saw Anne' s produ ction as well. He said
dulum swing. When I directed the Moza rt t hey're so different, it's unbelievable. I even too k

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that line away from Helen a. Mine woke up to a need a two- or three-day lead-in, because you're
Chop in Nocturne that kept overlapping its elf like so technical, and your lighting •.." Rather than ig-
the way so unds do whe n you're waking up from a nore this situation, I wanted to do a work that
dream . actually addressed that issue: Can I do Mid-
summer with eight people to begin with? Because
Audience: How did you both handle act five of it was in San Jose I started th inking about the dust
that play-after they come back into the world? bowl and Steinbeck, The Grapes afWrath, and the
Was that hard? thirties depression. I was also think ing about
Well. These us and Hippolyta come into the wood. many indigenous villages in Alaska that have
and it went pretty quickly with Pyramus and This- something called the talking stick. For hundreds
bee . We just let the humor go. But there was of years, people would sit around at night and
nothing much made of the wedding-just the draw on the ground with the stick and start to tell
lovers. These us and Hippolyta were definitely a a story. About fifteen years ago into all the villages
dysfunctional couple, as were Oberon and Titania came television, and for the first time in a number
(played by the same actors) . Definitely sensual. of years the sticks disappeared . This culture we're
Hippolyta was kind of an angry housewife. I had in is dominated by mediated experiences, really
fairies flyi ng. The fairies fell asleep, so that it be- fast buzz, and that gets very confu sing and disori-
comes like a dream, and floated through the enting. And yet th is is also a culture where the
blackness asleep abo ut fifteen feet in th e air. We poor are getting poorer and the rich and getting
used the Mendelssohn. Those beautifu l openin g richer by the second. I wanted to bring th is all to-
cho rds were the last thing you heard. gether with a company no one can afford any-
more. Midsummer is a play about the theater,
AB: I can't actually describe the fifth act without disorientation and love, these three amazing
telling you how we got to where we went. As a things. I wanted to solve it without any technical
company we've been touring for many years. All things, and turn to the actors and say, "I bis play
these art s centers, theaters and festivals, say to is about magic and theater and love. You have
us, "'We can't afford you anymore because you nothing. Please make the magic." I started talking

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to Neil Patel, the desig ner, abo ut dirt. Neil came scho lars who look at it as a great, misogynist,
back with a mirror. Then a backdrop. negat ive work, and then there are ot hers who say,
This is to get around to the question about the "No, you can't do it that way."
fifth act. The play is so much about the theater, Harold Bloom is comi ng to ours.
and about making something from nothing. The
fifth act, for me, has to break down all the rules of AD: Oh, you're in big trouble .
the theater-break down not on ly the fourth wall, I know. Apparent ly the two Midsum m ers he hates
but also it had to become these particular actors are Peter Brook's and Alvin Epstein's. He'll hate
in a room with an audience. At the end of the play this.
there is a blessing. I wanted to get to a point
where the actors bless this house that we are all AB: It's not bad to be hated by Harold Bloom.
in together, so there was no barrier. No. It's not.
It's difficult doing Shakespeare. It's the same with
Mozart operas. People come with expectations. Audience: Martha, you said that the work you're
We had an empty set. Bob Israel made these doing now is often a draft for the work you'll be
beautiful bright blue backdrops with oilcloth doing next. I wondered if that's somet hing you
white stars. Robert Woodruff (artistic director of realize in the moment, or is it only looking back
A.R.I.) said. "I don't think you need the backdrop. that you see a thread that's run through your
Why don't you just do it with a piece of black?" I work? Are you conscious ofit as it's happening?
think Robert was right-but some people say, I work a bit, leave it, come back, and clarity
"Oh. this is not summery." It's not frothy. Many emerges in retrospect. Whales take twenty-four
people's expectations of A Midsummer Night's months to make a baby. You carry them around a
Dream is that it should be light. Ours looks like long time. You have to work real hard and then
Coya and Ingmar Bergman. So it wasn't every- you leave it alone. I used to be in despai r all the
body's Midsum m er Night's Dream. time. I thought if I didn't suffer, I couldn't work.
Now I know if I do n't have a good time, I can't
AB: The issue with Midsummu is that there are work. I have to like who I'm working with. I have

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to care passion ately for it. But it's also just the- Srit-and that's his language. We cut the shit out
ater. It's not a disease; it's not rocket scienc e. of it.
He sa id you put it all back.
AS: Rocket science maybe .
You think so? AS: We put it all back. What I learned about is the
monumental action of speak ing that text. It is
Audience: What type of th ings intimidated you, about embracing that. It is about not making it
and how did you reconcile what intimidated you easy, but about making it unbelievably powerful
and make it your own? and a mountain for both the audience and actors
to jump on. It's a big gym.
AS: I bet we're going to say the same thing-the You have to be literal and also throw it to the
text. It was our first Shakespeare. I don 't speak douds. You have to harness it in the emotional
the language. reality completely so that it's completely under-
Often when I go to Shakespeare I'm kind of standable in our terms, then get completely po -
bored. When I get to know it like this , I worship it. etic and musical.
But when you just go to hear Henry IV or some-
thing, and you're not that familiar with the text, I AS: It's so odd becau se the Shakespeare wars
fade. It could be wonderful performing, and I among academics that have been going on for
could know it's wonderful performing, but I just centuries-they're passionate about things that
don't hear it. So I was worried about caring about actually I think you shouldn't pay attention to at
every bit of language. For somebody who really all. I empathize with the actors because it feels
likes t he human body more than language, that like you're jumping off a cliff, and carving as
was terrifying. But I had a great dramaturg. you're falling. If you're not doing that, you're not
doing it right.
AS: I actually stole her dramaturg for a day. I said, And I think many people in your average Ame r-
"Can you help me cut the text? I want to make it ican audience want to hea r a lot of the proper
fast. It should be like an hour and a half." He's a English elocution more than grounded em otional

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rea lity. So me people have tro uble with the fact One of Mnouchkine's collaborators said once,
that t hey s poke the way we s pea k. "Music makes theater bearable,"
Music makes life bearable.
AS: Did you have a classical music background?
At juilliard. My father was a lawyer, but also a jazz AS: I find that, too .
composer. Fats Waller recorded his music. My It's t rans port ing.
grandfather. othe r side , co llected rare violins and
chamber music of the eighteenth century. I don't AS: I find that that can be a problem because it
read music. My son is a jazz pianist. can be actu ally overpowering. We say in the Sill
Company that we want the music to sound like
AS: Until I met Darron West, the sound designer it's coming nom the bod y. So how do you do that
for the SITI Company, I used to des ign all the mu- as an actor to make it feel that way?
sic for the s hows. I'd spend a lot oftime with mu-
sic. Music was everything, and mu sic was under Audien ce: So man y productions now essentially
everyth ing. I first worked with him about twe lve have created soundtracks for themselves, because
years ago for Eye of th e Hurricane. I'd brought in they're playing to a film-edu cated audience. It's al-
all of thi s music t hat was Cuban dan ce music, most as if people are afraid of silence on stage
and I'd studied this music because I studied mu- now. There always has to be something telling yo u
sic for every pro ject. We sat in his music studio how to feel. The color is always hav ing to be exter-
and listened to the record ings, and then I just nally applied, rather than by the performers. When
gave them to him . Most des igners would come in you're working with something like Shakespeare
at tech and then take my music and make it tech- where the music is there-is it just like app lying
nical. Darron started coming in and being in re- one color over another?
hearsal. That began what we've been doing for I d idn't use it like a sou ndtrack. I used it to crea te
twelve years, which is that he's in every rehearsa l. a setti ng. And fo r t he fairies. We had son gs by
What he brings in is much more sophisticated. Richar d Peaslee, a cappella. I had one of my
He's now always turning me on to music . mechanicals play th e clarinet. I had one little girl

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play little hand cymbals . She was a fairy. During statement, then you really dry it out. I use that
Helena's mon ologue, Chopin came back, and we express ion: Dry it out.
used it on a slide whistle. For the mechanicals:
Will Le Bow played old film m usic o n an upright Audience: Was that what brought you to this
that was reallyout of tune. He played Chopin and Shakespeare play, as opposed to any other Shake-
kind of jazzed it up for Pyramus and Thisb e. It speare play for your first one?
was very funky. And cha rming, but it didn't under - Robert Woodruff said, "What would you like to do
score anything. So there was just language. We at A.R.I.?" I said Chekhov, He said, "I'm doing
used a lot of natural sounds. Birds. Every time too much Chekhov" I said, "Well, maybe A Mid -
Oberon spoke there was the sound of a crow. summer Night's Dream ." And he called me in a
Tree frogs or loons. It was subliminal. few days later and said. "You're doing A M id-
summer Night's Dream." I said , "Well, I don't
AS: We used underscoring at times , but it's really know if that's really what I wanted to do." But 1
tricky. I thin k the point you're making is huge. I thought of all the Shakespeare plays it was the
thin k if it's used properly, in a John Cage sense, best one for me. I was Puck when I was fourteen.
someth ing is as silent as the sound on eit her side,
or it's always as big. But the contra st actually AB: It's amazing how many people were in A Mid-
makes you hear the silence in a more profound summer Night's Dream . That's one of the reasons
way, and the silence is an absolut e thing. It's an I chose it--people do come with built-in expec-
object. tat ion s. That's why I like things like South Pacific
It tells you what to think. It gives you the too ls to or plays that people have done a 10L They come
figure out how to smell it, how to see it, how to with baggage.
listen to it. In Lautrec I am using underscore for
som e of Chuck's text, it's alive with sub tlety. Audience: What was your greatest obstacle with
We're using Debussy. It's wonderful with text an actor, and how did you get through it?
over it because it's so spare. You can' t take mus ic In this production? I had to yell a little. I hate
away from Toulouse-Lautrec-c-except to make a yelling. I had seventeen peop le in my cast, and

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fifteen I'd never worked with befo re. A.R .T. gets play. We weren't dependent o n our imaginatio n to
great directors. Anne's directed up there, and An- get through it. There were times when each per-
drei Serban and Peter Sellars. All these Easte rn former was brilliant, and there wer e times when it
European d udes have directed up at A.R.T. You wasn't very good. What you wa nt to do is get
come into a company who has been together for them at least to a level of secu rity where it at least
twenty years, and the first few days I felt like they can be pretty good and occasio nally brilliant. No
were waiting. I gave them a lot of freedom to performe r can turn in eight great shows a week. If
improvise. I want to see what your instincts are, they turn in one great show, two fairly good
as an actor, and I kind of echo those instincts. shows, three mediocre shows and one that stinks,
They really all responded to the freedom. Some that's a good average.
actors have to shoot themselves in the foot som e-
times and get all bizarre and go through a kind of AS:That's depressing.
a meltdown , and it's part of their process. They I mean , as a performer you do n't love what you
have to get really upset before they find the role. do every night. Some shows you just have a bad
Since I performed for many years, I know you just audience. You can't feel aggress ive about it.
get parano id that you're not good enough. We
had very few scenes de menage, and you just kind AS: I hate to quote David Mamet , always. He says
of stroke and talk and bu ild up their confidence good things-l just hate the way he says them.
and they get through it. Performing is really hard. He said that audiences learn from one another.
It's a really naked thing. I used to feel like a piece They give each other permission.
of meat going out sometimes. I have com plete
sympathy for having to sit through six hundred Audience: How do you approach the magical as-
peop le per night for sixty shows in a well-known pect of a show? There 's a lot of magic in A Mid-
class ic in a fucked -up prod uction. You have to summer Night's Dream. 00 you approach it
find the un iverse of the ense mble. It was as happy differently?
as I've ever been working-for o ne thing, beca use I am deve lop ing a lovely new way of using flying. I
I d idn't have to make it up. I always had a great knew my fairies were going to be earthbound but

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using the techniq ue of flight. I'm not intimidated Julie Ta ymor
by magic. I lust for it. You know, it's the most
exciting th ing in our work. I'm like a child who fin- I am in awe of Julie's prese nce in the world. I se e
ger paints. It's the inexplicable, the stuff th at's not her as an impressive persona striding acros s the
called for-that's st uff that I love. I never get globe, making huge dem ands on herself and oth -
scared by it, I am just challenged by it. La nguage ers. And these dem ands pay off mightily with
is intimidating. but magic is something that is a aud iences and collabo rators everywhere. Her high
de light to make . That aspect, to define the inef- stan dards and hard work prod uce work with both
fab le. is to me the most exciting. artistic integrity and mass appeal.
While Julie's work in thea ter, p uppet ry. opera,
AB: I think also what 's so appealing about magic design and film all feel to me like huge artist ic
is that it is, at its heart , non-desc riptive. And adventu res, I am most mo ved by the fact that she
that's where it makes theater theatrical. It is po- is foremost a world adventurer. literally. She trav-
etry, els widely. always has. soaking in experience.
It's like saying, "Are you intimidated to have fun?" stu dying native cultures and us ing her curiosity
That's the reason we stay with it. I come back be- like an incisive knife. Her adventures becom e th e
cause I know there will be moments where th e material for her exuberant and brilliant work.
magic happens, and that has to sustain you This travel began early. During the sixties, just a
through long dry spells . teenager. Julie lived in Sri Lanka and India as part
of what was called the Experimen t in Intern at iona l
Living program. Later on , she studi ed with
Jacques Lecoq in Paris. After gradu ating from
Oberlin College in 1974. with a d egree in folklore
and mythology, she studied pup petry and Japa-
nese theater in Japan. Then she s pent five years in
Indonesia where she began to make her own
brand of art.

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I re me mb e r when she first a rrived in New York The Green Bird. And t hen the re a re t he films. Who
City, som eti me in the begi nni ng of the eighties. I but Julie wo uld have the cou rage to reimagine the
first met her o n the co rner of Fou rth Street an d work of the Beatles for Across t he Universe. Her
Bowe ry, whe re the director l a rry Sacha row intro- films Frida a nd Titus Andronicus made her a
du ced us. Im med iately I was impressed with her unique player in Hollywood . Julie is a visu al ge-
att itude, intellect and am bitio ns. In New York he r niu s. She designs mas ks , puppets, costu mes and
influe nce quickly took root due to her innov at ive ma ny of the sets for he r prod uctions.
tec hnique an d indisputable origi na lity. She beg a n Julie's impact upo n our shared profes sion is
by working with the directors Andrei Serban and pro fou nd. As a fema le d irec tor in the world, pro -
Liz Swados. bringing a visual dimension to their ducing large -scale theatrical canv as es with
work that wowed audiences everywh ere. Her courage, intensity a nd expressive brilliance, she
collaboration with Andrei Serban yielded a has no equal.
production of The King Stag that tou red the world
for years. M ARCH 15,2004
Right now Julie is practically a household name
due to her enormous success with Disn ey and AB: For years Julie made other people's work look
The Lion King. But what many people do not real - beautiful. Then she went on to show us all what
ize is the broad spectrum of her oeuvre. Her aesthetics can be about in not only in an intimate
opera direction and design include Stravinsky's theater, but in a large theater, in an opera house,
Oedipus Rex, Mozart's The Magic Flute, Strauss's on film, and in both the not-for-profit and the
Salome, wo rking with important conductors su ch commercial worlds, What would have happened if
as Zubi n Me hta, Valeri Gergiev and Seiji Ozaw a. you'd never traveled as a young thing? How does
She ea rned an Emmy Award for the Oedipus Rex that affect you to this day in your choices, both in
t hat she directed in Japan and the n filme d and terms of what you 're doing and how you're doing
edited for television . it?
Julie gives us un for gett ab le theatrical produc- JT: I wou ldn 't be me if I weren't a t raveler so it's
t ion s s uch as Juan Darien, Titu s Andronicus a nd hard to say what I wou ld be doing if I didn 't

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travel. Even when I was going from Newton, will love it. The Transposed Heads-I did that as a
Mass., to Boston Children's Theatre, from the play in 1984. I did it as a musica l Off-Broadway in
suburbs to the city, even getting out of my own 1986. I made a film script of it with Sidney Gold-
suburb, being with kids from South Boston, farb, the playwright. We couldn't get enough
Dorchester, was already a thing that made me go money. It would be very hard to do this film for
outside of my own insular little world, my safe four million dollars. So every time I bring it for a
world. I went to Sri Lanka when I was thirteen or larger budget, people just die when the heads get
fourteen, went to Paris when I was sixteen and lopped off and put on other bodies. It just stops
traveled all around. The major experience, of right there.
course, was the time I spent in Indonesia for four
years at the age of twenty-one. I graduated high Is it not perverse?
school early and went to Paris for a year and stud- Elliot [Cotdenthal] and I have decided to do
ied at Lecoq's. something even more difficult. We're going to
Then I worked with Herbert Blau at Oberlin Col- make a movie musical, which will be even more
lege. Where I thrive is being put into a circum- expensive and weirder.
stance where I lose my bearings. I like not know-
ing what is going to happen. The movie Titus was I say hold on and wait until that happens. Don't
so difficult to pull off in Italy. The whole crew was give in.
Italian. We had these major movie stars. It was Oh, we're not waiting. I'm serious. We're doing it.
my first feature film. You do have to kind of wear
blinders to keep you focused on your goal. It's I loved what you sai~veryth ing you do is about
not like you're floundering. going somewhere that disorients you. Could we
just talk about your relationship to Elliot Cold-
Your film projects have a certain-you didn't use enthal, who is not only your partner, but also your
this word, but I'll say it-perversity. collaborator, which is an extraordinary and rare
I don't think they're perverse. Everybody thinks relationship to find. And it seems like it's really
their own thing is very commercial and everybody successful. Somehow your relationship has been

35 poges [41 mnJ left., th,s Chopl

a source of a lot of work, because we sta rted with a six-page short story by
Well, a lot of my things are very musically based . Horacia Quiroga. It was our first rea l piece to-
Music is a very importa nt part . So, we are always get her. We sta rted to work on it and just let it
looking to do t hings toge the r. Except for The Lion op en up. We created a lot of it in Mexico. He d id
King, I've on ly worked with Elliot-on The Tem- this music and I said , "It sounds like hund reds of
pest and Shakespeare and The Green Bird, two butterflies ." So, in that case, the mus ic ins pired
musicals. We're doing this opera, Gundel . th e imagery. I think with Juan Dariin it was a lot
like that because we were working simu ltaneously
Twenty years in the ma king. creating it. It existed really just in scenario form.
We started it in '86, and it's now scheduled for
2006. (In 2006, Grendel premiered at the Los What about in Oedipus the o~ra? That's a good
Angeles Opera and was subsequently a finalist for overwhelming score.
a Pulitzer Prize.] I'm very excited about this opera Well, one of the things that I really do feel com -
because a composer in film is the last person on. mitted to is going to the original author's intent.
They're really at the mercy of the director. It's So, in Oedipus Rex, Stravinsky and Cocteau want -
amazing that we survived Titus. I learned what I ed masks. My d ilemma was putting a mask on
would do the next time , which we did on Frida Jessye Norman's face--or any opera singer. 1
and it worked much better . But finally, with an understand the principle . The idea is tha t this
opera, the composer is the top banana. I'm ex- opera is not about individuals. but icons. He
cited about that. I'm excited that if I don't like the wanted them larger than life, iconographic. You
music, tough shit. I'm hoping I'll like it, but t here say the words "larger than life." I followed a lot of
will be places where he gets to decide. Ope ra is a the ideas of Cocteau and Stravinsky for Oedipus
composer's medium . and came up with the notion t hat-which I then
stole for The Lion King, but it's differen t--if you
Do you get different visua ls with t he mu sic where put t hat larger-than-life mas k on the head, t hen
you go t hrough t he music to come to t he visuals? what t he face is is really the emotio n of the mu sic.
Well, Juan Darien is a good example of tha t It's not about the individuality of Jocasta or

33 poges{39 mn) left., th'l chapter

Oedipus. It is really the emotion of the music You learned that from Herbert Blau?
coming through. I learned it probably in mime school withou t
knowing what it was. I didn't really like mime.
That 's a fant astic notion. What I loved was that it really taught me how to
So you have a dua lity there. The masks in Oedipus use the body. One of the things that we d id was
were inspired by Cydadic art. In Cydadic art there to take elements and lry to show with your body
are these little sculptures, and they are the what f1uidily of water was, or the burning of a can-
essence of humanity. There are no eyes. There's die. You're not lrying to look like a candle. You're
no mouth. There's just a shape. And they're so trying to get to the essence of what wax melting
beautiful. It's the ideograph approach that's been would be. Eventually that is what you can use for
a very big part of the way that I think. a character. You know how we use dogs. "She's a
bulldog." In a way, when you say, "That woman is
Remind me ofthe ideogra ph. like a poodle," we all get an image of an Upper
Probably the word was introduced to me by Her- East Side white lady with a little . ..
bert Blau. but once I understood what it was, I
went back to the mime school and I understood So you can do an ideograph with a word?
that's what we were doing. What an ideograph You can. let's use The lion King, which many
is-c-l'm going to try and make it very simple----you people have seen . I had the dilemma of the ani-
can tell the beginning and the middle and the end mated film. At the top of the second act, there is
of anything , of an image, of a character, of a story, drought. In the movie, leaves fall off trees and
in three brush strokes . It's the abstract. It's the trees burn-you have drought. You have all this
essence. It's the least you can do to tell the whole detail. So I say, "Okay, if I were to show that in
story. Japanese calligraphy is ideograph ic becaus e one motion, what would it be?" So you have a cir -
they do a whole bamboo forest with just a (Mimes cle. which is the ideograph of The Lion King be-
brush strokes) . I have used that as a director and cause of The Circle of Life. You have a circle of wa-
as a designer my whole caree r. ter, which is a piece of silk, which gets pulled into
a hole. That's it. And that is drough t.

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How do you come to that ? I mean , ideographs are a head, for the legs, they'd just use sticks. They'll
a fanta stic notion, but . , , how do you use ideo- just walk aro und with two sticks. It's so elegant
graphs? What's the process that gets you some- and beautiful. So I thoug ht, "Wo nde rful. What if
thing as simple and as elegant as yo u emerge th is stick is a cane?" So it's both his third leg-he
with? doesn' t have a fourth because he was in a fight.
Well. you say, "What would be the first word He's also very arch, so it's got tha t whole period
you'd think of for d rought?" I suppose it's one of style. I do n't know if any of you saw Dere k Smith
those games. You think of dryness and the lack of do it. Derek had done the ki ng in The Green Bird,
water. All through, if you pay attent ion, you hear and he's one of the greatest mask performers I've
they're going to the water hole, the water hole, the ever seen. So, he got the cat, the whole lion
water hole. So the water hole is going to be the movement there.
main thing. I don 't need other details. And you go to Mufasa and you say he's all
about balance and symmetry. The circle becomes
Are you sketching when you're thinking this? very prominent. So what it does for actors is
Sometimes, but not always. I'll give you more re- actually-I believe limitations are very liberating.
ally easy, simple examples. You have Mufasa and Garth Fagan has a beautiful expression in the
Scar. Even ifyou were to start like I used to. with a dance world: " Discipline is freedom." It goes back
company, if I'm to make a mask of Scar, I'm to this wonde rful story that I heard of a Japanese
responsib le for the essence of the character. So if Noh actor who was asked about the use of the ki-
I were to say, "Who is Scar?" Start with the sca r. mono. And in Noh theater, if you raise your arm
Why does someone get a scar? It's like a puzzle. higher than parallel to the floor, the kimono will
They get the scar because they were in a fight. crease. (She demonwous, showing us the subtle
And what else happe ned? Maybe they hurt their distance) So it's all how you go from here to here.
legs. Then they're lopsided. Say they're a snake I've often felt in da nce, in modern dance or ballet,
because it's animals. Everything about Scar is that we'd always see humans' limitations, but if
serpentine. I looked at Africa n tribal sculptu res in you control it, and you bring it down, the artistry
performance, and whenever they had a mask with is how you do that within that struct ure. It's why

2'9pages{3<l mn) left nit> chopt",

period pieces are interesting fo r actors, because sure you have contro l over your aesthetics in a
all of a sudden a woman can' t sit like this. Or you piece like The Lion King.
have this collar, the corset, whatever. It informs Well, I think by the time I was asked to do that, I
so much of who you are. It makes you feel a cer- was an old lady. They weren't going to ask me,
tain way. It is definitely the outside -in app roach. and then tell me that I had to--I wouldn' t have
In my opinion you go both ways. done it. I felt with Tom [Thomas Schumacher) the
producer, that he was very receptive to my style,
Then there 's that thing that's really hard to talk how I wanted to do it.
about. The T word. Taste. You have taste. It's true .
It's inescapable. Certainly there's an issue of inf1u- That's interesting . It's not so much that you were
ence, but you see it in-Frida the film is an unbe- making demands as finding the right producer.
lievable visual sensibility. Do you think that's Definitely. I've never had an issue in theater. Film
DNA? is a navigation. I had huge fights on Frida--huge
Yes. It's your aestheti c. When I started The Von fights in post -production over taste. On the end -
King I was very plainspoken to the producers that credit song , I got the suggestion that-I think
it's just not my aesthetic-the airbrushed look. she's a good singer, but that Christina Aguilera
That doesn't mean I don't have a Timon that shou ld sing it, not Caetano vetoso. You know
doesn't look like their Timon in the movie. But my what I'm saying? It's like, "Who's Caetano
Timon, if you really want to compare, he's com- Veloso?" So we paid our own way and recorded
pletely lopsided. Even though they are familiar, him ourselves. I wouldn't shoot what I didn't
they're not exactlyin that Disney aesthetic style. want to shoot. There are games you play.

There's something a little bit off. What is it that Hitchcock did? He would figure it
They're skewed. out so that no matter what anybody did in the
editing room, they had to do it his way because he
Which, in a way, wakes up the image. I also don't would shoot it so scientifically.
want to miss talking about how you get by making If you don't have a lot of coverage, then people

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can't ruin it. But they can cut. It was a big fight protecting, whatever it conjures is up to you. I
about the cutting, about the edit ing. There was a was aware of how he would use ges tures like that.
six-month standoff. I took my name off the film. And so fo r him, even when I was working on Titus
the movie, we would work that way, which is pret-
Well, that's playing hardball. ty unusual for a movie. We had a three -week re-
Yeah. hearsal.
Titus Andronicus the play version had much
Where do you get the balls? more of that kind of work because you're not un-
From theater. And opera . And I said screw it. The der the gun. In Titus the movie, you had Harry
film is two hours long and it's forty years of a Lennix, who did it in the play and who'd done a
woman's life and it's Frida Kahle and it costs lot of Shakespeare, and Angus Macfadyen who
twelve million dollars and it's got all these movie had done Shakespeare, and Jessica Lange who
stars, what's the problem? If I were doing Lord of had never done Shakespeare, and Jonathan Rhys
the Rings or any big sixty·million-dollar movie I'd Meyers who had never been in a play, or Laura
feel more concerned about the budget. You've got Fraser who had never done theater. So you had a
to do those test screenings. You've got to make big, extremely diverse group of people, which nor-
the money back. But we made our money back. It mally we wouldn't have in the theater as much. I
was about power. really believed in those actors because I saw them
in auditions and I thought that they would be able
Can you desc ribe what the process of rehea rsa l, to do it. But there probably wasn't as much
creat ing ideographs, would be? l et's say for Titus. improvisation with them. I can only remember
What would you do with actors ? there's an ideograph , I would call this an ideo-
Through improvisation, many images come up graph, when Titus's daughter Lavinia comes and
which that actor mayor may not use. Anthony she says, "Bless me." He puts his hand on her
Ho pkins is an ideograph kind of actor. His hands head and it's this ges ture with so me kind of trans-
are always-I don' t know if it was Howards End, ference of fatherhood, whatever it conjures up for
but this hand would rise up and it was about him you. Titus Andronicus is all abou t the hand,

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whether it's Lavinia's hand or the power of Titus hands I Hath lopp'd. and hew'd. and made thy
himself. The imagery that Shakespeare gives you body bare I Of her two branches?" You're a dop e
is there fo r you to try and support. That image of if you can't pick up the appropriate imagery from
Lavinia on the broken stump where the blood Shakespeare because it's all there. Now, the trick
comes out-when I did that in the theater with is how to do it not dead -on. But I don't think peo-
the actress, Miriam Healy-Louie. we tied her ple listen to language like they might have a cou-
hands up in black and she held sticks. Because of ple hundred years ago, so when peop le hear
course we don't need to blue screen her hands. something like that , they're not necessarily seeing
The audience can make believe. She was on a bro- it. So I think you can, as a director or a designer
ken column. In the play all we had were columns or an actor, support that language through height-
that were black-and-white photographic blowups ened imagery.
on plastic that was deteriorating. So it already had
the future and the past simultaneously because You understand something that a lot of theater
they were Roman columns , but they were on plas- directors don 't get_hen you sa id, "Oh, th is is
tic that was able to move across the stage. If I the theater, we don 't need to blue scree n her
were to say, "What is Lavinia?" how would you get hand s." Audiences can see a woman holding a
to the essence of Lavinia ? She's somewhere be- bran ch and understand that her hands are
tween the Degas ballenna -c-because we always chopped off That sophisticatio n does exist. It's
think of the ballerinas as the most innocent and always shocking to me how few people under-
pure--and Marilyn Monroe , that image of the sta nd the language of the theater as discreet from
skirt going up, because it's sort of a vulnerable the langua ge offilm and television .
rape, in a way. It's a rape image, but it's sexy to That it's real, plus that it's much more poetic and
everybody.And then, of course, Shakespeare kept sophisticated, and yet the audiences get there.
talking about the doe , "My doe ," so later she be- Look, with The Lion King with those white
com es, lite rally, a doe . But it's all the language. streamers-s-every kid knows those are tears.
Marcus sta rts to move toward Lavinia and he
says, "Speak, gentle niece-what stern, ungentle But if you film t hat, it doesn't have the same effect

2l pages (27 mrn) left nih s cho pte<

at all. because it's psychological violence as well.
It's very hard to find a balance-and Titus was a
real exploration in the balance of stylizatio n and It's tricky, and it goes back to ideograph s as well.
what we call naturalism. The actors were ex- What is the least you can do so that when you say
treme ly naturalistic in Titus. The language is very it's extremely disturbing imagery, it's not that ex-
easy to comprehend. treme; it 's very simple. But it's the juxtaposition
Cicely Berry came and she worked one-on-one that makes you have violent thoughts.
just to help people get over the fear of the lan- In the theater we did the whole thing withi n the
guage. It's natura l language ultimately. When An- revenge play gold frame. But you can't put a gold
thony Hopkins is speaking, he's speaking. He's frame in a film because a film already has its
not orating. You would have a very hard time do - frame. So I said, "Okay, what would be the ideo-
ing what he did in the theater. You couldn't. It's a graph of this piece?" It became the Coliseum be-
real film performance. I was not looking for styl- cause in real life, that's what the Coliseum was. It
ization in the actors , in the acting. The imagery, was a place where violence was enacted for ent er-
on the other hand , from time to time, is. So the re tainment. So I set the bookends in the Roman
was this incredible tension. Whenever people Coliseum.
hear the word style, they think unemo tional,
so phisticated, intellectual, elitist, blah, blah, blah. At which point did you come up with the idea to
They don't think of it as something that can really have the Cc»iseum ?
move you. Yet , there's not one person, if they talk Right away. I was either going to do it in Las Ve-
to me about Titus, who doesn 't say, "I had night- gas or in Rome. I really was. I was going to do it
mares about that l avinia image." Now, I did what with AI Pacino. I was going to have the little boy
Shakespea re did. I didn't show the rape. I d idn't be one of the people who lives in a trailer park
even show that much violence com pared to half outs ide of Vegas. Then you play it in Caesa r's
the fil ms out the re, but peo ple will say it's the Palace. But then I had the oppo rtunity to have the
most violent film. And a lot of people say they real thi ng, the real coliseums in Croatia and
couldn' t watch it or it gave them night mares Hadrian's Villa.And I opted for tha t.

11poges (25 m.,j left ,n thischapter

Can we go back to your comment about rehears- had n't done clowning or anything yet. He was
ing with a co mpany and looking closer at your more from Tai Chi and CalArts, where they did a
work with Herbert Blau? lot of movement work. So we created Donner Par-
On Transposed Heads in 1984 Off-Off-Broadway, I ty, for instance, from diaries and newspap ers and
hired the actors, we improvised for three weeks sto ries and accounts of the events, and then
with the writer there , and they went away, and we breaking it up mythically into: What is the land-
wrote, he wrote, and then they came back. Now scape? How does this hearken back to othe r sto-
you can't do that in a co mmercial environment. ries? That kind of open-ended way of exploring
That's really what hampers you. You're not al- the material is fantastic . But I would say about
lowed to do that with Equity. You couldn't afford The Donner Party that I think the finished product
to pay the actors the whole time. You end up hav- wasn't as interesting as the process. I think peo -
ing to think ahead of time. It's very hard to go and ple felt like they were looking through a keyhole
start in that nebulous , wonderful way where you onto some kind of unbelievable experience that
just say, "Okay, here's the idea for this piece." these actors had gone through , but it wasn 't com -
There's no script. There's just an idea. I did that pletely com prehensible. I don 't think that 's the
with Theatre Workshop of Boston back when I way it always is. When I was in Indonesia and I
was thirteen , fourteen years old with Julie Port- started my own theater company, 1 created the
man. second piece, Tirai, completely from development
of my company over a year.
That was a big: influence on you.
That was the sixties and that was when a lot of What do you look for in an acto r?
people were developing theater and writers were Well, it depends on the piece. If it's som ething
not the first people involved. The original mat erial that's going to have a Creen Bird cast then the way
was coming from a group of actors working to- that I audition is that I had about ten masks that
gether over a long period of time. With Blau we had nothing to do with Creon Bird becaus e I
worked probab ly a year on Seeds of Atreus. and hadn't made them yet. The actors would come in
then o n The Donner Party, the same. Bill Irwin and they would read the part that they were

19 poge5 (22 m.,j lett 10t chapter

brought in to read fo r the audition, but then I you on ly pick works that could become a really
would give them four or five masks and tell them cool idea?
to go into the other room with a mirror and come I on ly do things that have an emo tio nal pull- I
back and improvise. You can tell right away, first only do them because of the story-nothing to do
of all, if someone is going to enjoy wearing a with style. It doesn't mean I like everything in it.
mask. But if I don't connect-Frida's probab ly the most
regular of things I've done . Except for thos e mo-
Pleasure . ments with the paintings , it's just a biopic that's
Pleasure. And also that they're not going to feel very colorful because Mexico is colorful.
that they're being hidden . If those could have
been recorded. those were some of the best AS:That' s not true at all.
performances. So many actors don't even know Okay. But it's not that I have to work that way, it's
that they have that ability and the mask is incred- just that that's the way I think. If I can be moved
ibly liberating. There's this skinny, nerdy white by the story, then I'm interested to do it. There
guy and he's got the big black man-they put the may be some cool or some wonderful idea that
mask on and they're able to be that person. someone gives me when the story isn't com -
There's nobody quest ioning that . Or a woman can pleted yet. but if there's something in it that I can
do a male role in this way. So I would let them embrace both emotionally and intellectually, then
improvise, work with them , and maybe go back to I'll find the medium . The medium will be appar -
the material again. So, being versatile and game ent. It's not the medium first. I cringe at the idea
and having fun-but not everybody can impro - of puppets and masks because people just
vise, so then you just see if they can express automatically think I'm going to do it. But I'm not
themselves through the movement. if they're not app ropriate .
What 1 saw about Frida when I rece ived that
Audience: I'm really curious about picking your script was an unbe lievably passionate love story.
work. In your earlier works, when you were work- It wasn' t Frida Kahlo, it wasn't even the paintings.
ing out how you wanted to approach things, did I didn't even like the paintings tha t much . I have

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learned to like the paintings more. But the very Middle American kitchen.
connection of her paintings to her story is what The child was in the original play in the same
moved me, that they were her autobiography. scene at a 1950S chrome table, your everyman ta-
That moved me, that she was painting her lifeand ble. The everyman table that might be in Sarajevo,
this incredible long-term love story. I didn' t think, as well as Middle America or New York City. What
Oh. let's see how we can make it a Julie Taymor is Titus? Well, ultimate ly it is about this unbe-
project. But there's nothing about how she thinks lievably extraordinary family violence, and vio-
as a painter. This is all objective. The entire script lence of tribe against tribe. What is the legacy?
is a biography. That doesn't mean it's not emo - There's no child in Titus Andronicus except Young
tional. But because her paintings are autobio- Lucius. He has two scenes. But the presence of a
graph ical, let's see if we can show how she comes child in this drama reeked of needing to be
to these paintings . That's the subjective expe- thought through. He was the observer. He has no
rience. How does she think? Where did that paint- dialogue, but he's there watching the whole thing.
ing come from with the hair that's cut off? Well, if I don 't believe that Shakespeare needs to be up-
you read her biography, it's very clear. So I could dated. I think he wrote exactly the periods and
find a way to put seven or eight of these paintings places that he meant. He set Titus Andronieus in a
into the biography--not lay them on top, but have mythical Rome with a Greek mythology. But if you
them be organically in the storytelling. It came look at the etchings , you see the Elizabethan garb.
from the text. Or it came from the story, the So, I did exactly that. Remember I said earlier on
needs. What's missing? What are we not telling that I'm trying to find what the original com -
here? And how are we going to tell it? Hopefully posers were trying to do. I don't feel that I tha t I'd
it's not an extraneous moment in the film, but it's played a trick by blending time . I didn't set it in
organic to giving them a complete portrait of Fri- contemporary America. I set it in its own time be-
da. cause I feel that's exactly what Shakespeare did.
That myth of Lavinia's limbs and all of those
Audience: I'd love to hear you speak about the myths are Greek myths. Or Ovid's Metamorphosis
opening scene in Titus of the boy at the table in a was also tremendous inspiration. Finally when

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you come to Chiron and Demetrius, they feel so This was one of the blinder moments in shoot-
contemporary. They feel like they'd be in music ing it because it was te n degrees below in Croatia.
videos-those mus ic videos where you can be- It's the only standing coliseum that exists. The
head or flay or you get multiple choice on how Roman Coliseum was dest royed. This was right
you want the victims killed. And then you have Ti- before the Croatian war. We were there one
tus feeling much more old world. He comes in ar- month before. The soldiers whom we used-
mor. Yugoslavians and Croatians-c-there were many
You need to set up a device to allow that to without arms and legs. The boy looks down, and
happen. The idea is that you're in this room, this there are these soldiers com ing. They're on
kitchen. And it's just what children do. They play motorcycles with wolf heads, and they're on char-
war games. They're all bombing each other and iots and everybody's covered in clay. That image
heads are being lopped off. But what I was comes from an idea I always loved of the Chinese
thinking-and I don't expect anybody else to armies that were dug up out of the earth. It was
know what I was thinking-was that's God. miserable to shoot this because it was freezing
There's this nasty-ass God there, playing around cold and it was snowing and people were with the
with the Goth soldier and the Roman soldier and wet clay. It's Christmas. Everybody wants to go
this and that . But in that child's play it gets out of home. It's miserable, and everybody's freezing
hand until what he has created is happening to and complaining . Poor old Harry Lennix is naked
him. A bomb comes through a window. The guy in a pit and it's snowing. It's awful. But if I can
who grabs him is the Shakespearean Clown. He put all of them in a common denominator, which
runs down the stairs and into the Coliseum. The is clay, all those periods, then you're moving to-
Coliseum is empty because he's the re at no ward setting up the conceit, so that when you see
particular time, he's there in "all time." He's there that big Mussolini square coliseum, you under-
with the ghosts. They're all cheering, but there's stand it.
nobody there because they're ghosts. Then the
child turns around, and 10 and behold these Audience: I'm curious about when you're thrown
armies come in. into a situation and you're disor iented-whether

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it's a location or a script--do you have a routine re-creat e Fifth Avenu e o n a so und stage, so we
that enables yo u to get th e most out of that disori- cre ated a collage from period photogr aph s of
entation ? Do you com e back to something New York City t hroug h which the cou ple walked.
comfortable like finding th e beginning, middle Much more unique, and more in the style of Frida
and end? herse lf.
Well. I'll tell you what I mean by tha t. Did I want
to go to Mexico City to do Frida with all that AD: The big word th at keeps com ing up in my
kidnapping? The thing about it is, if you hire peo- head listen ing to you is "courage ." You have more
ple to collaborate with you-for instance, I hired courage th an anybody I ever met. Where does
Mexicans, Mexican DP, Mexican set designer. It's your co urage come from ?
very much about letting yourself respect the cul- It's a nice thing to say. I think I've always been
ture and using the best they have to offer. That's this way. I just think about, well, we'll just find a
really important. So, in Italy, Dante Ferrett i way, won't we? "let's go make a play." What is
(Production Designer) and Milena Canonero [Cos- that feeling? We'll figure it out. In The Haggadah,
tume Designer), Luciano Tovoli [Director of when liz Swados came to me in 1980 and I'd just
Photography) were my collaborators. There w ere come back from Indonesia and I was twenty-five
oth er great people from outside Italy, but 1 feel or twenty-six, I wasn't a desig ner. That was a
that that's not a good way to go into a place. I first fluke. I never studied design. And she asked me
of all have to gather a group of people with whom to do The Haggadah.
I want to collaborate. You're not alone. I don't The fact is, if you look at the theater. a lot of it
think there's anything other than just going for it. is epic or big theater that I have a good tim e
I love when you have a difficult sit uation, you putting into a walled space or proscenium sp ace
don't have enough money, perhaps, so you get to or a theater. It's fun. The idea of doing (even
do a more creative solution. In Frida, the script though I like tile play) Proof, with a house and
ca lled for a scene in New Yo rk City: "Frida and porch-I would rather have no se t and do what
Diego in 1930 st roll down Fifth Avenue." We Shakes peare has do ne, which is crea te it in t he
couldn' t shoot in New York City or successfully imaginat io n. So, for me, the idea of taking som e

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big story-it's not scary because it's the fun part. a Bunraku troupe on the island of Awaji in Japan. I
That's what theater can do really well. It's not was planning to spend a year with them, but I
about courage. went to Indonesia first. And I stayed four years. I
was twenty-one at the time, and I had don e the-
Audience: Was ther e any discuss ion whether or ater since I was eleven years old. I had ideas in
not to d iminish Frida's mustache? my head of stories that I wanted to tell and ways
Oh. God, yes. You want to know something? If that I wanted to work. I was so inspired by the
Salma had had a mustache, she would have won traditional theater of Java and Bali that I thought
the Academy Award. That's the sad thing. There's about putting the traditional theater with the
always this discussion-if you look at the photo- contemporary theater of Indonesia, and with
graphs of Frida, she never had as much of a mus - contemporary ideas about theater that I had been
tache as she painted . She herself loved the gathering in Europe and in the United States. Be-
masculine image. She loved to disturb people and cause I was in a foreign country, trespassing was
to play with that. We put it on as she got older, a very big part of what I was thinking about. And
justifying it. The eyebrows we were able to do. If Tirai is just about that. It's about passing through
she had had a mustache, that's all they would the curtain, and the story reflects my own expe-
have talked about. People would have been ob- rience there . The work I did in Indonesia is prob-
sessed because there would have been a certain ably the most personal work I've ever done. It was
amount of people who would be so grossed out. the time that I was coming off of working with
But I think it's better that it wasn't about the mus - Blau-using yourself and using what you thought
tache, ultimately. about, what your experiences were.
I created Teatr loh after two years with danc ers
Audience: Can you talk about the theater company and musicians and actors from Java and Bali and
in Indonesia that you sta rted? with one Frenchman, one German and myself.
Teatr Loh. I was in Indonesia probably a year, two Ten of us all lived together in a place called Peti
years , before I started the company. I was going Tenget in Bali. The re was no running water and
to go for three months and the n spend a year with no electricity. Every day for eight, nine, hours a

9 pages (Il mill) left IIIth" chopTer 28'l. ,00<

day we trained each other, fo r eight months o r so . of their own villages and was doing this . It was
I did all of the different techniques I'd learned devastating. I had a couple of operatio ns, came
from Blau and from Lecoq's and from Theatre back to the States, then went back to Indonesia.
Workshop of Boston, and the Javanese taught the We had this ceremony and then d ivining event.
Javanese dance , and the Balinese taught the Bali- We had a shaman divine the entire accident to fig-
nese dance. I taught mask performance. They did ure out what happened. Apparently the Balinese
mask performan ce. So it was this big, incredible in our company had prayed only for the Balinese
trading of techniques. You had really diverse peo- at the three temples , mother temples, before our
ple. It wasn't the Western-Eastern that was the journey, and had not prayed sufficiently for the
biggest split. It was the Muslims and the Hindus. rest of the group . Well, that was one of the expla-
It was very tough because the Balinese Hindus nations.
eat pork and there were all these arguments about Big projects have big risks. I hadn't even
food. thought back to that connection. The shaman
I had done a piece earlier, Way of Snow, but that said, "Yo u needed a strong force to crash against
wasn't with the company yet. After I had done to make yourself stronger. So go back out on the
that. created an original piece, I decided to stay road." We had to replace two people and we had
and I got a Ford Foundation Grant and created to cut our tour in half because we didn't have any
this company. We were to tour Sumatra, Java, Su- insurance. We had to pay for everybody's bills.
lawesi and Bali. After a year of rehearsal, we took We took holy water in a bottle of Coca-Cola with
the ferry from Bali to Java and the night bus to us. The oldest Balinese member of the group
Surabaya-and we crashed . Head on collision. would do a ceremony on all of tile masks before
The bus crashed with a truck. The truck driver every performan ce. At this divining event-this is
died. I was completely embedded in glass, cut up, the most amazing tiling-tile priest took the
bones were broken. I was twenty-two years old, Muslim mountain of rice and tile pork for Bali
maybe twenty-three by that time, and had sixty and he mixed it all together and said, "Now every-
year a ids down to eighteen year aids in the com - body eat of this ."
pany. I'm the one who brought these people out

7 pages (8 mn) l&fI ,n 1M ot.:Jpte< 28'1. ,00<

AB: This is a huge learning lesson for you. have to because the stage is there. The huma n be-
It was amazing-because it was terribly fright- ings are never going to get bigger o r sm aller. You
ening. I felt so horribly respon sible, even though I can't come in with a dose-up, so how do you do
was young. a close-up? Pull the lights down. You pull the
so und out. We have to use d iffe rent techniques
Audience: When I saw Titus, I thought it was a and we don 't have the luxury of editing. One of
fantastic combination of the theatrical and the the things I love about the ater is trans itions . I
cinematic. Earlier you were talking about how cer- love them in film, too-they're theatrical ideas.
tain imagery would work in film or in theater and but I can use the technique of film, which is dis-
vice versa . Could you talk a little bit about your solve and edit, to pull it off. I love the possi bilities
relationship to theater and film as med iums and of different mediums . I love opera, too. I love the
how that has changed over the years as you've ideas. What does each medium do best?
gotten more experience in the two? When I went to The Lion King from an anima ted
Well. I haven't done feature films that long. Titus film, I said we've got to show the strings and the
was my first. I guess my feeling about film is that rods. We've got to be exposing everything be-
I love the possibilities of film. I think some of the cause film is the thing that hides everything. So
earlies t filmmakers were much more expressive, let's make it ultra-theater, let's be as abst ract as
the German expressionists, because they didn't we want. We're not going to make a real animal.
have at their disposal the ability to go everywhere So let's just use the textiles and do what theater
with a handheld camera and shoot what we call can do. The audience goes with you. The expres-
"reality." To me that's not reality. That's just a sion is "suspend your disbelief." They all do that.
handheld camera jerking around and som etime s They walk into the theater of a play and they'll do
it works if it's the right moment to have you con- it. They won't do that in a movie anymore. What
scious of a moving came ra. I've been a little sad happened to those old filmmakers that were play-
that I feel a lot of young fil mmakers don' t use the ing in a theatr ical way?
medium o r the came ra to help tell the story.
As theater directo rs we have the disci pline. We AB: You describe working with the Blau company

5 pages (6 mil) left 'n !II chapTer

and how t he audience felt like they were looking story will tell you what the form sho uld be. It's a
in on something they had nothing to do with. Your solution to telling the story.
impulses are completely opposite of that. It oc- Yes, I am inte rested in the aud ience. I'm in a
curs to me that you think more about the audience public medium. I'm in theater, not sitt ing home
than anyone I ever met. and doing my own thing. I do n't do it knowing
I don't know about that. That's telling th e story. tha t t hey might like it. We were in absolu te sho ck
all durin g The Lion King. We enjoyed it in re-
AB: It see ms to me when I'm thinking through hearsal. But in that first preview in Minnea po lis
your work that it is all about the audience's we were shocked by it.
journey-not to mitigate th e adors journey, but it
doesn't really matter. What matters is this sym- Audience: How do you think the ritual and cele-
phoni c experience that the audience has . You are bration in Indonesian performance still influences
really making this sen sual , aural journey. what your idea of what theater is and how theater
Well. I was interested in the double event. Many functions in society?
stories have been told. Even if you never saw The Well. the word "ritual" always does get overus ed.
Lion King, you'd know that story. So isn't it how With theater companies there's a sense of being
you tell the story? You have to balance the emo- together on some kind of journey. When you' re
tional th roughline and the journey of the story just casting for a regular show it works, th en it
with the sheer art of it. That's why I love theate r goes away. On The Lion King, you've got a
because I think the audience can do two things at seven-year-running show. Some people have
once. Broadway musicals are all abou t that, if actually been in it for seven years. Every onc e in a
t hey're at thei r best. I got that in Indonesia. while I go back and I have to see it and I just die
They've bee n doing the Mahaba rata and the Ra- because I know when people are walking th rough
m ayan a over and over and over aga in. So it's not somet hing. It's a two-hour-forty -five-minut e
t he story, it's the interpretation . With the theater I tough job. But they may not be fully expand ing.
feel like you've also got an obligatio n to say. This show is very hard, very d iffi cu lt. But if yo u go
"What is the form? What is it telling yo u?" The in th ere and you really are there co mp letely as a

3 pages (3 m n) Iefl 'n lhischopter

livi ng meditat ion, your performance is d ifferent. Bill T.)an ..
When you're with that ensemble, that's the only
thing you can do. Sometimes they all get tog et her Bi ll T. Jones is an irrepressible force. A well-
an d they warm up toge the r. Clearly with a theater known fact among those who have seen him
company that's part of the trad ition. That is part speak or participa te in panel d iscussions is tha t
of your rit ual. You can't force that on people. he cannot stay seated. Inevitably he stands up
Everything we do pushes us against that in this and begins to move, to sing, to evoke t he muses.
culture. It's about the next job. Yet not everybody He is a big. beautiful man who has been scarred
is like that. When you asked about my choices-I by life. He keeps returning to his art with aston-
can't do anything where I don't feel fully that I ishing courage. He locates what is meaningful in
could invest myself. That's what I think you need human existence. He finds form and shapes for
to do if you are an actor or a director or a writer or the edges of what is unbearable. He shocks, ap-
a designer. It's your religion . It's what makes you palls. delights. inspires and thrills an audience
tick. It makes you breathe. And you love it. Halfis that returns to him again and again. He breaks
torture. but half is why you do it. It's what you live rules and transgresses boundaries in the service
for. of intense communion.
Born in rural upstate New York, the tenth of
twelve children in a migrant worker's fam ily, Bill
enrolled in dance classes at the State University
of New York at Binghamton where he was a the-
ater major on an athletic scholarship. Dance
stuck. In the early seventies he met his longtim e
part ner and companion Arnie Zane. Together they
formed the Bill T. [ones /Amie Zane Dance Com -
pany and they developed solo, duet and ensem ble
choreography. including remarkable evening-
length pieces. After seve nteen years of

1 poge «1 mn) H!fl 'n Itol chaple<

collabo ration. Arnie died tragically of AIDS. Bill American Dance Theater, AXI S Dance Com pany,
continues, ca rryi ng the memory of Arnie with Boston Ballet, Lyon Opera Ballet, Berlin Opera
him. Bi ll's work expresses intense emotio n. He Ballet and Diversions Dance Company, and oth -
explores ideas abou t memory, sexuality, race and ers. He has directed opera at the New York City
mortality. He manages to find harmo ny and beau- Opera. Hou ston Grand Opera, Boston Lyric
ty in what we might perceive as chaos and de- Opera, and elsewhere. He has collaborated and
spair. crossed disciplines with extraordinary con tem -
Bill is now a fixture on the world's cultural porary artists including Toni Morrison. Max
radar. He is a tall, powerful dancer, a magnificent Roach. lessye Norman. Keith Haring. Robert l on-
soloist, conceptualist and choreographer. He go. Rhodessa Jo nes, the Orion String Quartet and
mixes dance with text and video-- his present partner, the visual artist Bjorn Ame-
autobiographical material with historical and Ian.
political content. What I find most inspiring and
always surprising about his work is his ability to MA RCH 2 6 , 20 04
mix passionate intimacy with a wide and incisive
perspective. He is not a stranger to controversy. AB: Bill T. Jones is, I would sa y, a pioneer, unique ,
His newest works are often debated widely. nobod y-like-you, an insp iration . . . I think you' re
Bill has received Tony Awards, many Bessies. an inspiration to a coup le of generations, wouldn't
and fellowships from all conceivable sources yo u say? You're th at old now .. .
including a MacArthur "genius" Fellowship, and BT): It's true, painfully true .
many honorary doctorates . With all this success,
one would expect a certain complacency. Not From th e first time I saw Bill's work, it has always
true. Not with Bill. He soars. He continu es to given me a jolt of life. I thin k one of the most
amaze and inspi re us with his violent hope- extraordinary th ings about your work is that it is
fulness. bot h aes thet ic and political. How did it get that
Besides the prolific work with his own com- way, or why did it get that way, or how did you get
pany, Bill has cho reogra phed for the Alvi n Ailey that way? I know that's a broad question, but you

4~ P<J9"'I (50 mn) IefI 'n thiS ohaplElt

can handle it. If you were a young male who cou ld pass for a
I t hink tha t I have not been consciously culti- heterosexual, even if you're not, and you're bea u-
vating t hat. I started not knowing what the hell I tiful and you take off your shirt and seduc e peo -
was doi ng. (He dances while speaking) When I was ple, you can get away with murder. But I wanted
a little boy. about twelve years old, I received a lit- to prove I'm one of the big kids. I'm a real artist
tle white card in the mai l. I of the New Yor k School. If you were a formal
two-seven-eight -one·five·nine -two-three-seven , artist, the work was cool and distant, set back. So
When I was a little boy I one-five , about twelve all t his stuff about your auntie and your race and
years old. I went back to the place I was born stuff-I felt people patronized it. I was maybe full
Bunnell, Florida, I was sitting on the steps with of those judgments myself. So what was political
my two old aunties : Aunt Mattie and Aunt Purity in it, I thought. was just the stuff of poetry in my
Roger. Aunt Mattie said to me, "Billy you ain't life. I'm sure-as for most people who identify
gonna do like your brother Averydid. He went up themselves as a minority, and certainly women--
North and married a white girl. Because if you if you talk about your lives. you are going to run
marry a white girl you can 't come down here and up against something that is "political." That's
visit us no more," I said . "Auntie. I love you." I what I thought I was doing ,
one ' ''I love you." I three ' ''I love you."
Now that was the first solo I ever did in New It also sounds like it was a response to what's
York. in 1977, one part of it. I didn't know what I coming at you. That rather than accepting what 's
was doing. Anna Kisselgoff wrote in the New York coming at you, you're rebelling against it,
Times, "He's a brilliant young humanist," and Is that what it is? Talk back? Well, my mother and
wondered if anyone else could do my work be- father were great storytellers and they were always
cause it's so much about my personality. For me. bittersweet. My mother told cautionary tales. My
t hose were fighting words because black folks, fathe r's tales were outlandish-but they were al-
black performers are all essentialists, it's just nat - ways talking to us, trying to te ll us abou t the
ural. In othe r words, you don't have this-(Points world in t hat way. What I meant to say was t hat,
at his head) Yo u have this -(Motions to his body) yes, t he angry young man played very well.

41 pages (48 mil) Iefl nthi l COOple<

And the n there was Arnie Zane, a five-foot-four, audience, Mado nna is in the audience, and it's
Jewish, obviously gay man, and I'm a six-foot-one, because of Keith, of course. The idea was that we
African-American man, and suddenly we discov - were going to get rid of the barriers betwee n high
ered these part nering possibi lities. The two of us art and low art. That was what we tho ught was the
partnering was already enough to make som e big thing that had to be do ne at that time. Was
people very uncomfortable. Ah, the dawn of iden- that a political act? Whatever it was, som e people
tity politics. So when you use the word "politics," condemned us and said we were ca reerists.
for me it's been through various permutations. trendy and fashionable. Someone said it was the
We were still doing strongly structured work- first modern dance influenced by MTY, which we
except that I insisted on a stream-of- took to be a real compliment at that time. I don't
consciousness. sotto voce reporting of everything know if I would take it as a compliment anymore.
that was going on between me and Arnie at that In other words, to hell with the boundaries. We
moment, dancing this abstract work, and then are now in a brave new world.
stopping and saying, "This man's sitting with his Then Arnie Zane died. Even while he was sick,
twelve-year-old daughter there . What would you the press was looking for a real, live, jumping per-
think if your daughter was to marry me?" First of son with AIDS who would actua lly come forward
all, it's his twelve-year-old daughter and I am and say, "I have AIDS," and talk about it. We went
there sweating. White man , and you come over to on MacNeil/Lehrer and talked about it at a tim e
them, you put your arms around them-already when there was almost nobody else in the art
it's charged. If you just tweak it a little bit, it be- world, in the dance world, who was talking about
comes political. it. Arnie suddenly was that person. Was that polit-
When Arnie Zane and I founded the company ical?
we thought, To hell with high white art. In 1983 we So Arnie dies. I'm on the phone with a writer
were at BAM for the first time. We did a piece from the Mvocate. Be careful of who you think
called Secret Pastures with Keith Haring doing the your brothers are. 1 was talking a little too freely,
deco r and Pete r Cordon do ing the su per-hip, and I mentio n tha t I'm Hlv-positive. and next
downtown art-rock music. Warhol is in the th ing you know that's the leading line. I called

39 p<>g'" [46 mil) left III thOfl chopl.

him up and said, "You never checked with me." right?
And he said, "Well, you did say it." So I had to No, I'm saying it was an aest hetic statement, I
own it. Is that political? think. I grew up where most women around me
Now you're not only a cho reographer, you're a had asses like that and boso ms, but o n Satu rday
real, live time bomb. We're waiting for you to night people got down . People d anced . What are
d rop over dead. So you don't. You don't d rop you talking abo ut, that's not a dancer's body? You
over dead. You keep going , and you try to talk ever seen Nell Carter on Broadway? Have you ev-
about anger, all of these personal things. But now er seen what Bessie Smith looked like? Do you
you are thot, a black man who is gay and HIV- know what the shimmy is? Do you know what the
positive, so everything you say is now political. dirty shimmy is? But then, once again, now you're
There was Lost Supper 01 Uncle Tom's Cabin/ talking as a black person--that's an anthropo-
The Promised Land, which ended with fifty-two logical observation.
people drawn from every community we per- Then there is Stiff/Here . With last Supper I
formed in, naked on the stage. People of every dif- thought, This is where art ended and becam e an
ferent shade and color. In the section called The act of faith. It turned off a lot of people in th e art
Table, I engaged a local person of faith asking world. It's getting kind of soft -headed, because
questions such as, "Is AIDS a punishment from you're going into issues of faith, but if you sur -
God, a sin?" My mother was first. All those things vived a great tragedy you know about faith-l
in the middle of a dance concert. I was doing a think a lot of people need a little bit more tragedy
spiritual investigation , but there were a lot of peo- to focus on how they feel about body and spi rit in
ple hurt, there were a lot of angry people out th ere their art. For Still/Here I decided the work would
who wanted somebody to speak for them. What's have a very special demographic; it's going to be
more, I had La rry Coldhuber in the company, who for people who were or have been dealing with a
was three hundred and fifty, almos t four hundred, life-threatening illness. So I did these workshops,
pounds at that moment. "What are you gett ing at made this big rambling work with Gretch en Ben-
with that big guy the re? What are you getting at?" der. That piece was very, very powerful and
Fat peo ple ca n dance! That's a political sta tement. caused a huge stir. It was de no unced as victim

37 pages (43 1lWl)lefI,n thtl chaplet

art. It was considered the latest insult to the d is- it was in fact abou t a life iss ue. What did I do? I
course, because all of these angry minorities were think I went into a kind of shock, and I said, okay,
demanding that everyone feel sorry for them. I am not going to share my heart like that any-
more. I'm sick of my feelings. There's got to be
Who said that, Arlene Croce? another way to make art. I listened to Beethoven. I
Her position was, "I cannot review a person I feel would make movement not about anything. Tr-
sorry for. It's unfair for me to have to look at this. isha Brown. Classic modernist strategies. Free it
I say to all of my readers if you feel that this is the from politics. Free it from identity. I'm still strug -
case in a work of art, just don't go." She never gling with that. Somehow or other, in those mo-
saw the work. Now we can all scoff, but you know ments where I least expect it, suddenly I am
what a firestorm that started. Well-meaning- speaking my mother's voice. What she was doing
well, I guess they're well-meaning-intellectuals was an outrageous thing, standing in front of a
who should know better would come up to me room full of people, many of whom were disbe -
and say. "I read that article about you. and maybe lievers. but she was actually communicating with
she had a point there ." Is the work of Sylvia Plath her god, as if everyone was on the same page. I've
weakened by the fact that we know that she com - never seen anything stronger than that , more
mitted suicide in the end? She was imbalanced. It powerful. more direct. I have no god to call out to
suggests that we shouldn't have to deal with her like that, but I feel the Southern Baptist inside of
poetry as poetry because it's the rantings of an me. That betrays me, because then the emotions
imbalanced person . It is to say: There's too much come back and the engine that drives the work
of this complaining now-women are com - kicks in. It has to do with something about his-
plaining, gay people are complaining. Indian peo- tory. pain, slavery, outsider-ness, confusion about
ple are complaining. Robert Hughes said this is male-female, mediocrity of the world, all of thos e
the culture of complaint. things are in those old songs.
So the person who was telling you abo ut his The last work I made was called Reading, Mercy
old au nties was suddenly now faced with being and the Artificial Nigger, based o n a sho rt story by
accused of being man ipulative and cheap-when Flannery O'Conno r. Two old crackers-I don't

35 poges [41mnJ left., th,s chop,

mean to offend you. Am I allowed to call peop le That's a good question. I bet it came from sign
crackers? language. At that time we were working a lot with
de af peo ple. Arnie Zane's gesture work in At the
Audience: I don't know what a cracker is. Crux Of made a big impression on me.
A cracker is an ignorant white perso n. That is
what black peop le call-well, actually that's what AB: I'm really interested in somet hing you said:
you call all white peop le. It's an old-fashioned We need to get closer to traged y in order to get
te rm. more focu sed.
It can sound like a very un-generous thing to say.
Audience: It comes from slave days, when the y
used to crack the whip. AS: Not at all, it's immense. It's actually quite rad-
Oh. interest ing. I thought it was like saltine crack- ical.
ers, pale, flat white bread. Well, if you accept that I don 't sound like a creep
The Mijicial Nigger is a perfect, beautiful story, saying that. There are colleagues of mine that I've
but what's it about ? I say it's about racial and reli- seen with great facility, formal facility, and then
gious reasoning, and how it stops us from getting when you look at their work, you wonder, So
at the stuff that realty divides us. So in other what? We celebrate tragedy, and that's a terrible
words, it's looped back to what you were saying. thing, but what I'm getting at is that you die or
It's political. But for me it was a challenge to ratchet up. There's more at stake.
bring pure formal dancing and that story together,
so that the story could do what it had to do and AS: I wish you great traged y ...
ou r dancing could do what it had to do. I think It's a terrible thing to say, tho ugh , isn't it? Be-
that is the future for my work right now. cause when Arnie died, literally, he breathed his
last breath, and I'm holding his hand, and I don't
AB: It's interesting, because your aunties piece is know if it's imagined or not, but you feel a breeze
formal already. Where did that come from? What and you say, "He's gone!" That is a moment that
are your influences? is life altering. After that, anytime I looked at

33 poges{39 mn) left onth'l chapter

anyone in love I felt fearful for them . Anytime I get you into trouble: "This is going to answer all
saw a mother with a child I felt fear fo r them . You of the questio ns." And then it's over and you're
have to get over tha t and recommit , and that's going to have twice as many questions. There was
when things change. lots of reallygood energy.

AB: I remember once, years ago at a Tce confer- AD: You do have an extreme amo unt of courage.
ence , and 1 was supposed to interview you and Sometimes I confuse courage with a type of fear. I
your siste r, Rhodessa Jones, at Smith College. I try to talk in my book about what it was like. I
felt blown off the sta ge by your and Rhodessa's grew up in upstate New York in a German -Italian
energy. It was complet ely thrilling. The two of you fruit-. potato -, corn -growing community. We were
are dynamos, and that's only two of your family. there because we had been migrant workers who
So that's my entry point: After great tragedy, what had come to harvest those things. I grew up al-
is it that makes you explode in an express ive form ways being the only black kid in the class. Big
called dance? family. My mother and father did not join the
Dance sa ved me. I felt luckier than a lot of people PTA. but we were expected to act like everybody
who felt lost in the world. Arnie die-d March 30. else. Sports. My mother and father didn't go to
1988. We had one of the biggest seasons of our the local church. but we kids were expected to go.
company's life sche-duled at City Center four All the immigrants in the room know what I'm
weeks later. We jumped back into rehearsing. We talking about . Parents : "No. not for me. but you
were grieving on our feet. I didn 't have the luxury have to do it." But I say this , because when trou-
of not showing up. The company needed me. We ble started at school . or when we thought we had
started another work calle-d D·Man in the Water. done wrong. oh my lord , you come home. you
That work. I realized, was a way of kind of orga - tell Estella. She was a big woma n and she would
nizing our grief, because I didn't really have that get herself dressed in her leopard print d ress.
break. I think it made me a little bolder. Plus. I ex- with big shoes, a hal this big, the purs e and,
pected that I was going to die. Everything was a "Come o n!" Everything was a political statement.
grand summation. and grand summations always You'd go over the re into the principal's office, and

31poges (36 JT'On) left n lhis choptef

you know, they did n't have too many AB: Great point.
two-hund red-fifty-pou nd-black women coming in And I do n't know. I find that as I get older it's
there who understood that such and such struck harde r to access them in a way that is pure.
her child. And she would go, "Just because my There's just lack of focus somehow. I truly have
face is black!"That's the first thing she would say. to believe my own critics: that whe n I get an gry,
They would calm her down, but it's a feeling. It's I'm losing it. Anger is no lon ger a useful emo tion.
complicated . I'd rather my dad had gone to the Now you should be able to access othe r ways of
principal's office. Someone rather dismissively dealing with problems .
said to me one night in Germany that as an
African-American man I couldn't know about AB: Can you describe the genesis of The Table
patriarchy, on ly matriarchy. Sometimes when I Project? I thin k it's not unrelated to your question
feel myself do very aggressive things, t think it is a of what to access.
way of dealing with fear. I think that was what she I had already begun to think that I had lost myself
was feeling when she would get that head of with how far I had gotten from the time when we
steam up like that-I think she felt fear, but the had people of a broader physical description in
way it had to be dealt with was, "Do n't mess with the company. I had gone into this research
me!" They used to say, "If a fight starts, you gotta around style. I was working with people who had
be ready to die." Where does that wildness, that dance training, and it was making it small. I felt
craziness come from? There was an unspoken, that I needed to find a way tha t' could make a
"They do not want you in this country. You have work that brought real people and put them into
to be careful, because as soon as they can , they're our world again instead of putting our world aside
going to cut your dick off and throw you in jail." and going out there . So I was with my com -
This is what was taught to us without being pa nion, Bjorn Amelan, at a breakfast place in
taught, and I hate to go into this racial place, Berkeley, sitting and watching three or four guys
we're trying to talk about things like courage and of a certai n age, I'd say about fifty. You know, sit-
po litics and all that. Yeah, was it courage or was it ting at the counter with their big asses spilling
fear? over the backs of their pants. They were so

2'9pages{3<l mn) left nit> chopt",

relaxed you know, they didn 't even care what they who every year would open the gates and lead the
looked like. They were having a good time with dance. Can you imagine? The most powerful man
one anothe r, and they were guys. I said, "Imagine in the country is the o ne who has to start dancing .
those peo ple on stage doi ng so mething where They liked tha t but, of course, it was very pretty,
they would be looked at, scrutinized." Then I very moving music. I conceptualized a circle of
thou ght, We do n't know the answer to that, but types. If this is the old bulls' neighb orhood , then
what if we found men like this of a certain age-- what would be its opposite? I thou ght it should
but they had to be importa nt me n. Find the men be the least powerful-little girls. And at the end
that had the most at stake and have them on we would have lad ies, like from the 19 SOs, oppo-
stage being lyrical or vulnerable. We were going site little boys. And you can imagine the permu-
to do counters, a diner counter, but Bjorn de- tations. We did it in Minneapolis with all four
signed a table, a ziggurat that had little ste ps, but grou ps. That first six minu tes would be don e by
on the top was a table, stools around the side. We the men, they would leave and then immediat ely it
took a heartbreakingly beautiful romantic piece by would be done by the little girls. They'd do exactly
Schubert. I made this ritual, simple thing. the same movement. I told people that it was an
The curtain raised and everyone raised their exercise in watching oneself watch. 1t was amaz-
hands, they're sleeping, they have these different ing when women did it-people were beamed in-
cha racters, someone is pushing someone to it. The men , people are laughing at them-
around, some of the peop le get push ed around , there's Joe the mayor. little girls, you know, their
they rebel, they climb up the tab le-very, very hearts are charmed, but the ones tha t people liked
simple. The big thing about it was how to recruit the most were the little boys. Maybe it was just
the guys. How do you tell the m about who I am ? that cast, but little girls are already aware they're
How do you talk about what I want them to do- being looked at, but the little boys had something
and why I wanted it to be somebody im portant? very disarm ing and charming about them .
The thing that got them , I would quote Jose
Lim6n , the great cho reographer. His model of a AB: last year, I watched Bill teach a workshop at
male dancer was King David in ancient Israel, Emory, and there were the se young dance rs,

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undergraduate dancers, but a very professional was making it. Something that opens the gate for
program, and they had poles up their asses. I us.
watched over the course of an hour, and Bill start-
ed teaching them something he had just made, Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company Mem-
and it was not easy. They were used to learning ber: Also, it's a simple term, but you talk about the
move s. Then he ripped into them, "O kay, make it "task," I think it's the action . And you get very
your own." Watching them was transformative, impatient when we forget what the task is--like if
because they had never be-en asked to make the task is to move the arm, and we drop it. There
something their own before . is an alive interaction in the moment of what I am
, talked to them like adults. supposed to be doing right now and why I am
supposed to be doing that. It's a pain in the ass to
AB: It was amazing to see them actually sweat. I remember what the task is, but it keeps a level of
mean, actually sweat as people sweat. Human engagement with the work.
sweat, Maybe people who have danced with Bill You know this raises the question about coming
could explain what you're asking for. It's decep- from a postmodern dance tradition, as opposed
tive, because on one hand there's an ease, and on to a theater tradition. What I thi nk is great about
the other hand there's not an ease at all. the postmodem dance tradition is that it said no
to characters, no to audience manipulation. no to
Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company Mem- illusion-and what is theater if it's not illusion,
ber. It's amazing how one sentence changes the right? So these people. like [Yvonne) Rainer. were
whole perspective of the dance for us. We'll learn laying down the laws. These were the new rules . I
it from the video, and we'll learn the music, the think a lot of us hea rd that, first of all, th ere is t he
positions, the movement, everything, but then it's action of what you're doing. and th en there is
that little thing that all makes sense when Bill somebod y doi ng that action, and tha t so mebody
comes in and gives it to us . Maybe it's history, is trying to do, almost, what I'm doing here, but
maybe it's where that movement is com ing from, witho ut the words. There's somethi ng behin d t he
maybe it's what he was th inking that day when he gest ures. I think that they have to know what th e

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task is, and then sudden ly they own it, suddenly AB: Maybe it is. And it seems to me that it joins
th is is no longe r thei r cho reogra phy, but I'm t he best of t heater and dance, that each gest ure is
s peaking my heart. I say we're doing ch urch now. a question as opposed to an answer. That notion
of waking up inside of somebody. And I say
Audience: One of the most amazing thi ngs about ma ybe it is scientific in that it's more of a quan-
watch ing you move is that there is an infinite t um notion of the universe as op posed to a clas-
number of questions being asked at every mo- sical notion of the universe . It also brings up t he
ment. Questions th at you're asking of yourself, be- issue of choreographer or director, and what
ing vulnerable, questions you're asking of other you're doing is you're always trying to ask the big-
people, who are asking political, sociological, ger questions, whatever anybod y's doing, you try
anthropological, dance, critical questions of you at to ask the larger one at the same time. There's al-
every moment and you're still willing to ask ques- ways a st riving toward so met hing, just when you
tion s of yourself in front of them . And I feel the think you've got it, a bigger question is asked .
most poignant sentences that you have ever said I th ink I envy the director. You know I am a big
were always asking questions of us. And the idea fan of yours and some of the things you've done,
of the ta sk is basically: What are yo u trying to do? both bobrauS€htnbergomerica and the thing that
And so the point, when you would sa y one of you directed, Alice's Adlltnturts, and I don't think I
those sentences is always to get us bad: to a place saw them enough . The reason I went to
where you th ink you have an answer for th is, you Beethoven and things like that , I thought th es e
have an answer, but this is a question and you're are great works. they have all the stuff in th em, all
not asking it. So you have to go back and answer I have to do is just serve it. I was going to ask you
that question. about Shakespeare. These works are great plays,
just do the language well, just stage it halfway
AB: That's fantastic. And I think that's something interesti ng and you'll be able to do the work. Isn't
t hat- that t he op inion of classical art? That's the att rac-
Not very scientific, but . . . tion to it. That's t he mas ter piece, and now, serve
it.

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The t radition I come from, we're often making "Where's t he tragedy in life? In th is mo ment ,
things up and you have to be t he medium, you where is the revelation of the tragedy?" All of th at
have to demonstrate everything, th e intellectua l has got to be in the individual. This is my notion
and the physical meeting in tha t gest ure, and tha t abo ut individuals anyway. Everybody has tho se
is the beauty of it. You know what I'm gett ing at, great sto ries inside of them. Now dance is that .
the classica l theater? Now, you have a text. You don't want too much of
them, and I'm not speaking for you, but isn't that
AB: I know exactly what yo u're getting at, with the difference? Directing as a choreographer be-
Shakespeare, for a d irector it's just gett ing out of comes about the text, and thinking, I have to hon-
the actor's way. But t hat ma kes me wonder that or this text because the work has been done th ere.
when choreog raphers decide to direct the y be-
co me really bad directors . I always wish choreog - AB: You know what makes great acting is an actor
raph ers wou ld take th eir chor eography into the who is listen ing to t he text as they're s peaking it,
the ater, but every ti me I see a cho reographer sa y as o ppos ed to del ivering th eir pos ition on the text.
th ey're going to direct , they sudde nly become so They are actually experiencing it in th e moment of
remo ved from all of t heir tools . And you say no, speaking. And I t hink it's a wide open th ing, it's
you want that. not like you want to hide yours elf. You actuall y
Well, this thing you're talking about right now, I have to open yourself so that the aud ience is
don't know how you feel about actors, but my watching the powe r of speaking and experiencing
dancers, I say they are sublime materials. In other it as it's happening, But to me, s peaking is many
words, sublime means consciously chosen, it's things. Speaking is text, but speaking is gesture,
immune, transcendental vibration. And if you give it's the same thing as th e experience of that ges-
t hem t he right movement and you allow them to ture.
own everything that's going on inside of t hem, I try to tape myself in my own performances. I
t hen you are going to get blazing performances. spend more time now watching my folks perform,
The simple movement of the arm suddenly is go- but sometimes my best performances , well, very
ing to be quest ions. If you can just get th em to: powerful performances, t here was somet hing tha t

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I felt where the world slows down and what you're like: (He shouts) "That's what I'm saying. Start a
doing, and what you're feeling, and what you're new work. I want to do somethi ng, I want to do
se eing yourself feeling and doing . . . you can al- so mething."
most feel the people witnessing it. Those mo-
men ts are rare, but they do happen. But other AB: M ayb~ you just need more bad reviews?
times, what you're doing is to demand such Another tragedy, you're saying? Well, t hat's t rue,
awareness, but you don't have any time to go to but some of us are thin -skinned. Believe me, I
that place.

AB: Your job is to slow down time inside, right? AB: It's painful.
Yes, that's a good one. Remind me of that one It's true, but for some people it works, for some
please. leah! Slow down time! Well, Peter Martin of us it's so expensive.
once described virtuosity-he said true virtuosity,
particularly in a male dancer, as the material gets AB: I just know t hat so much of my y~ars in the
faster, it never loses clarity. So, in other words, theater was riddled with bad reviews, that at some
that demands a great facility, but inside of you, point I just didn't ca re anymor~. And I'm actuall y
you are still, even as it gets faster and faster. deepl y grateful for th at.
I can take them better now. I was always criti-
AB: What obstacles are there for you right now? cized, but I was always praised. Something about
Obstacles? Self-consciousness. These lefties your body, maybe actors know what I'm talking
used to do social therapy with said that success is about, but for dancers, I am this. (points at his
a conservatizing factor on us. It's true; there's body) You criticize this, what I'm doing, you are
more at stake . The more you've done, the more invalidating me . And you deal with that. Perhaps
self-conscious you are about what you're able to what I do is not me , or does it really matter what
do. And you've already heard all these things in- you think about what I do? Unfortunately, it mat -
side your head, and from the outside, about who ters mo re than I would like. My st rategy has been
you are and what you do, and it's really hard to be to close down, so they can' t hu rt. Give more to

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fewer people. And to just protect, don't go there . I Yo u learned. Yo u're fierce that way. I don't know
can't help it, if I'm there, no matter what, som e- about you, but I said to Bi lly Fo rsythe, a very wild
how I'm going to crack and I'm going to be con - ballet choreographer, he tries outrageous things,
fessing, or you're going to be able to see who I he's a reallygreat artist. And when I heard him say
am, so don't go there . You know, if you do that, that he is related to Eileen Ford at Ford Models,
you are going to let it out , you are going to embar- that's his aunt or something, he comes from the
rass and hate yourself tomorrow. bluebloods out on Long Island and now makes
contemporary art in Germany, and I said, "I
AS: I think what keeps people from full expression thought you were working-class because you
is the inability to say the words. seem to have so much to prove." This is my class
I'm capable of standing up and bearing witness. I bias-that only people who have a lot of hurt
suffer later. You know what I'm getting at? I have a lot to prove-s-they are the ones who are
remember once being at the zoo in San Diego, going to get up and be hit again and again. I am
before it was a cool zoo. I had never been to a sure that's not true , is it? What I'm getting at is
zoo before, but it was filled with kids and there that because of this hurt you have a lot to prove. I
were these boys, teenage boys who started throw- would suspect that if you had to , you'd "take the
ing things at the tigers . And here I am with my bullet." Do you know people like that? Those are
friend, Arnie Zane, hair down to here , white the ones that I want to storm the barricades with.
streak, you know, it's very obvious who we are. Ladies and gentlemen, I've got news for you: I
And when they did that, I remember outrage and think we've got something coming. Just remem -
yelling, "Hey! Stop that!" Watch them come over ber this moment, ten years from now, think back
and kick my ass , right? But at that moment you on it and look at what we will have been through.
have to be willing to go there , you've got to be Oh. we have it coming. I told a group of young
willing. Let's go. You want to spill blood? Let's dancers in Rotterdam a few years ago, in another
spill blood. I can do that. twenty years at least a third of this group will have
died of ghastly violence. It's true, we've got it
AS: Yourmother taught you w~11. com ing. Are you ready? I don't know if I'm ready,

17pages (20 mn) left 'nthls chopt ....

but we've got it co ming, and who do you want to t his sort of extraordinary space, then you can train
be t here when it happens ? And are you ready? Are to be ready. But if you treat it as a quotidian space
you going to be the one? When you think about or a place that you can step onto easi ly-
the World Trade Center and what people were do- But we need to be comfortable on stage, don't
ing, who was do ing the saving, who was being we?
saved , and at that moment nobody knew they had
it in them. At one moment to take somebody's AB: Well, you know as well as I do that that is a
hand and say, "let's go." It happens, you know. paradox. There's relaxation and there's tension.
(Singing) "I want to be ready, I need to be ready, I We've been doing these things lately, because we
want to be ready, ready." Now that's the song, tour and we do repertory, the curtain goes up, we
that's what we're talking about, right? And when do a dance, curtain goes down. Curtain goes up,
your actors or dancers are up there, you want to we do a dance, curtain goes down. Intermission,
be like, yeah we're doing modern dance but what curtain goes up, we do a dance, curtain goes
we're actually talking to the world about is, we are down. lately, we've been trying this experim ent:
so ldiers. We are the soldiers of the imagination. We don't close the curtain and-what's mor e--l
We are the ones who are not normal, we believe have miked the stage manager so you hear every-
in abstraction and beauty and all of those things. thing. I want to hear, "Lights to half, curtain going
We are ready to fight the good fight. We are up, sound cue one go." And they go, "Oh--her
expendable, they burn us for breakfast. literally, mike is on!" But then they hear it again, the piece
they will burn you for their breakfast. You will run is over, the dancers take their bows, leave, and
through the machine, and you say I'm not scared. then the crew comes out on stage, t hey sta rt
I am beautiful, I am bad , I can be vulnerable, changing the sets and all. I've been really doing
t hat's why I am a performer. 1 am not normal. that lately, in other words, it's demystifying t he
There's something about this courage and being stage, but here's what happens-they sud denly
ready. Are you ready? see the energy drop o n stage, but a momen t later
peo ple go into performance mode and in the mid -
AB: In the t heater world if you t reat the stage as d le of the piece you realize the stage has been

15poge5 (17mn) left n ,1>o ot.:Jple<

cha nged. And then it's over. We take our bows AB: Did I say "pioneer"? I actually meant "anar-
and then right in fron t of you it goes back into a chist." Any questions?
stage again. The re's so met hing in tha t that I'm
interes ted in. Audience: You spoke about masters, and you were
speak ing of Beethoven versus Shakespeare, and
AB: Well, it seems like at times there are conven- my question was if you did Shakespeare, he wrote
tions that are entirely asleep. In the theater world for actors, but Beethoven didn 't necessarily write
it's not the same becau se there are no curtains in his pieces to be performed by dancers.
most theater. It's house to half, house out, stage Oh. he probably would have hated it.
to half, stage out, people creep on and by that
time it'$- (She snores) So the issue is to play Audience: So, those are very different concepts
with that expectation, so what you're doing is then, they're both great artists , so when you ap-
you're looking at art centers around the country proach a master like that, do you even think about
and the world and what the expectations are. that in terms of what was the intention, I mean
Peo ple are a little confused. because when the you're taking a piece of art that had a certain
intermission happens the lights co me up , and intention and you are making it your own. And
suddenly there is a dan cer doing whatever they what is that process?
want to do on stage, whether it's a phrase from Well. that is subversive. I can't be concerned with
class or whatever. The lights are up, the program what he would have thought, but do I think that I
says intermission, but because this one person is have a viable chance to have a dialogue with his
up the re in their sweats moving, the audi ence work that would be useful? That is. to make
feels that they don't have permission to leave. So so mething t hat would move people. I'd rat her err
you tell them, it's inte rmission. And I've heard on that side . What else can I do? I've got to do my
t hat theaters are now-word got back today- homework and understand the mu sic, I've got to
co ncerned about this, it wasn't clear where inter- try to meet it as ho nestly as I ca n.
m ission was, no one was told it was intermission.
Audience: How do you meet something-you take

13 poges (14 mon)left '" lh schop....

a piece of Beethoven that is essentially finished. bring forma l dance and story together-that this
He's finished that piece of art. So how do you fin- work, you thought, was the future.
ish that? You are adding on to that, so how does You mean the text and the move ment toget her?
that process work? There was somethi ng that I co uld feel in my gut
You know, someone was saying poems are never tha t I was inte rested in, a way of working- that
finished. they're abandoned. I don't think I have a there was this world of stories out there. So there
perfect answer. One thing that I love to do when I could be a whole body of work of which this was
work with Beethoven is to put on the m usic as I only the beginning. That doesn't often happen.
would put on James Brown or what have you and Sometimes I feel like I'm repeating myself, some-
just improvise to it and record my responses in times I feel like there's a dead end. But you do
the moment. And you see oneself thinking. You something and you think that effort was suc-
also see oneself responding to things you cessful and now I think I should try it again. Usu-
couldn't even think. And then Janet (Wong. asso- ally I'm scared to try it again. I think I cannot re-
ciate artistic director) actually analyzes those peat that. I have a piece in the repertory which is
improvisations. She actually learns them. And called D-Man in the Water, which is very popular
then she teaches them, then they become vocab- with audiences and I've never been able to repeat
ulary. So a lot of that material did not come from that again. It would be so useful to have an audi -
a place that was conscious, it came from a place ence please r like that but I can't do it. So that's
that was somewhere else. Then the work is over what I mean .
months and weeks, it has to be cultivated until
you say, okay. it's ready to be shown. And even Audience: I was wondering what you thought the
then it can still change . It continues, if I do n't like difference is between using music and text and
this or I want to take that away.We've been doing the creative side. I know a lot about your process
works so metimes that are almost two years old with music, but I never really worked with you
and I willstill be changing the m. with text as your musical source .
What do you think, Janet? The difference betwee n
Audience: You said very early on you wanted to music and text? I'm freer with text?

11 pages (12mn) lef> n Itol chapter

Janet Wong: No, it's very different because music agrees to go with him. So it's very formal in that
is so abstract, you can bring anything from your way, the woman, the man, there is ho no r, the
memory, your life history to it; but text is specific. knife. And she can't be in the next room, he need s
So I think the approach is very different . a witness. So she has to watch the whole th ing
I like text because I feel the boundar ies are clear- and the n she has perm ission to kill herse lf after
er. And there is something about a narrat ive. I he does. Which is a show of his trust for her, be-
know where this is going. I trust that this train is cause if a man didn 't trust his wife he would kill
going to stop. I'm hearing it stop. I'm insecure , her first. but he gives her the privilege of killing
so I think I felt more relaxed working with text. herself after. So, you know there's this story and
With the musi c, some of the music that I have that story. this relationship and that one, so is
been working with is big music, tough ideas. And this the one ?
text, somehow. you know a short story, I felt se-
cure and supported by it. Now I'm trying to find Audience: Yo u were talking about insecurities and
the next one. I'm thinking about 'rukio Mishima's self-consciousness earlier, if you had to put on a
Patriotism. Anyone know it? If you want to read five- second dance right now in this room, what
one of those tough stories of the world, tough-- would be your inspiration? The things that you
did you read it yet, Janet? Oh my God, if you want would look at inside of yourself or inside of the
the most detailed account of ritual suicide, com - room to do that?
plete with the guts spilling out and the vomiting, You. That's where I would start. Then I would take
everything which is described in the most lumi- five places . it would be you here, you here, then
nous language . this is the story. It's not a little here, that's three . four, then I've got to get back to
parable-c-it's big time-and it's dangerous be- the front. and I wouldn't sit down becaus e I have
cause it's about a right-wingyoung officer, a Japa- to take this and make it somethi ng else.
nese man in the army, who rather than attack his
friend and to try a coup, he has decided that there Audience : That was fifteen seconds.
is only o ne solution which is to open his stom- But I was talking the whole time, did you ask me
ach. And his young wife, married for six mo nths, to make a piece or perform a piece? I could have

9 pages (10 mn) lef! n Itol chap''''

improvised it, it would be very fast, but that 's represents the lessons we learned in learning to
what it takes. Now why five seconds, why t he do t his partic ular piece.
time? Wow. An existing play?

Audience: I didn't want to trouble you too much. AB: Yeah, from all the prod uctions we've done in
Just enough time to actually accomplish it. our twelve years, to say in order to perform
But five seconds is a hard thing to- bobrauschenbergamerica, what would Bondo [Will
Bond] need to do to make other people learn what
Audience: It's a long time . it took for him to learn how to do that.
No it's not a long time . In terms of dance, no it's That's very smart.
not. In silence, yes, it is, but in terms of doing
anything in space, like that , it's gone, and what's AS: Well, I didn't come up with that idea. But I
more, how much time did you have to apprehend think we should do it.
it? I have a friend , lois Welk, who has a scientific
mind. At the American Dance Asylum, she
Audience: Well it's given me a year's worth of encouraged us to try. Our classes would start
education with improv isation . First thing in the morning,
Five seconds. Well, I think that's a great idea. Lit- you'd have to dance, you'd stretch and you'd
tle tiny short things. You'd have to do a lot of dance some more, and it was always structured. It
them. (To Ann e) Have you done that? was a method-a training. And then I realized one
day as she was talking, that she had a box with
AB: We've talked about doing these things. To cards and all those structures, those exercises
actually say, in each play that we've done as a that were generated , she would write down, and
company, what do you need to cultivate as an ac- sh e could refer back to t hem- that calls for a
tor to accomplish this piece, and what is some- scien tific mind. I have an improviser's mind and I
t hing you need to do it, really? It's too good of an ca n make it today, tomorrow, I wo n't reme mbe r
idea, which is to find this small piece that where it came from. That's a frust ratio n tha t I

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have. think about it?
Well, my friend over there is smirking because it's
AS: I have to ask you a que stion, then . When you an ongoing conversation. I think that it's too late
were asked that question just now, the instant be- now. The blush is off the rose. There was a time,
fore you actu ally started to do something, can you maybe fifteen years ago, when the French would
describe it? have been all too happy to take another d isaf-
I'm not proud of that one. fected African-American artist, and I could'v e
done that, but I didn't. You know, with all I've
AS: Is that a "Fuck you for asking"? said about "we've got it coming" and all, I still
No, no, that's such an easy one, I could have-- think I am an American artist. It's weird to say,
(He jumps up and starts dancing) What is that? I'm a world human being, but I'm an American
That's called "Co." There is no moment before. artist. Every place else feels like a place I visit. I
He was asking me something 1 thought I would couldn't live there . Because living ther e, I
really have to shape, so at that moment I wanted couldn't-my brother 's ashes are buried in the
to challenge him. I was calculating when I did rosebush, Arnie's ashes are in the tree, this is the
that. because I was being put on the spot. But house we got together, this is where Bjorn and I
when you "just go," there is no time , it's between are building now, the company, the danc ers,
you and Cod. Co! Who wants to go? You want to there's Shaneeka. there's Ayo, there's Malcolm,
go? Come on , let's go-(He dances with an audi- Chicago, there's all those things, there's Anne,
ence member. Christine) Co is easy. It's easy. Now, this is what is real to me. My friend thinks I'm
how to repeat it, how to make it not just some- limiting myself, that it could become real som e-
thing Christine and I did, how to develop it, how where else, but I don't think so. (To the audience)
to capture it, that is my problem. I want to be a What about you?
good craftsman.
Audience: I used to. I don't anymore.
Audience: Have you ever been tempted to leave I want to be loved here and I want to be able to
this country for any length of time? Wou ld you grow old here. And I wonder about that-who'll

5 pages (5 mil) letTIII th (hopT .... 33'l. ,00<

catch me if I fall? There's no safety nets , and text. Then I heard professor Peter Wapnewski, an
that 's scary. I'm here. eighty-year-old Germ an philologist delivering th e
opening address at a co ncert hall in Dortmund ,
Audience: What are you working on right now? Germ any. Bjorn translated the lecture for me. At
That's what I was talking about with the Patriotism one point in his speech about value, wo rth, mean -
story. ing and language , Professo r Wap newski said , "We
believe in eq uality and individuality, and yet these
Audience: That's a piece? idea ls, individuality and equality, a.re oppos ite and
I don' t know yet. It's between that or Schnitzler's unr econcilable." In his speec h, this philosop her
La Ronde. of language wondered if modern society could ev-
er achieve true democracy. And he re, as I looked
AB: Would you do the play or , .. ? at this German intellectual from central cast ing,
That's just it. what would it be? Would it be two an older man, hair out like this, glasses dow n his
actors read ing the parts and then my company nose, I tried to reconcile his identity and ideas
dancing as some sort of counterpart to it? with my own and the body I live in.
How do I cope with these ideas? Do I let the
AB: No. speech happen and the n we sort of demonstrate
My company learning the text and dancing to it as what we are? Is my compa ny representing the en-
they did the text? ergy of the futu re, conf ronting-to use Secretary
of Defen se Donald Rumsfeld's te rm-"old Eu-
AB: Better. rope "? I love old Euro pe. I'm a fan of early rom an-
So you see where I'm at. Or do so mething like we tic mu sic, hon or, value, language, worth , all of
d id in Mercy. Have a story read in so me way, and these things. And yet we practice this esoter ic art
then there's another activity that goes para llel to form , which has to do with the body and what
it. That's why I was saying thi s is a very, very diffi - Christin e and I just d id. What was that brazen d is-
cult story. That's whe re I'm taking it right now. play? As a Roma nian critic once said to Arnie
I'm thinking abo ut that-how to continue with Zane and me afte r a perform anc e of early duets at

3 pages (3 m n) Iefl 'n lhischopter 33'l. ,00<

the library of the Amer ican Em bassy in Bucarest. Zelda Fichandler
"I noticed in the piece that you just performed ,
you stood o n your head, and that's not da ncing. Many yea rs ago, Zelda had a big idea. She wanted
That's not touched by the hand of God." Think to move the axis of power of theater away from
about the value system behind what she was say- Broadway and into the regions. She united idea
ing. Such value systems are behind many of the with actio n and, in 1950, toge ther with her hus -
end uring mas te rpieces we have. How do I use band and Edward Magnu m, she co-founded the
Mishima's text as a kind of foil to interrogate, to Arena Stage in Washingto n D.C. She remained its
critique? The piece is going to be called Blind artis tic directo r until 199'. Zelda did a lot more
Date. than found a majo r regional theater. She beca me
a spokeswo man, a writer, an educator, a spe aker
AS: That' s great. Was that your idea? and an activist. Her big idea exerted a treme n-
That's mine. These elements, these questions dous influence in the culture of the American th e-
meeting, unannounced , unmitigated, on a dat e. ater. Even those who do not know about her or do
That's what I'm working on . not realize what an effect she has upon their lives
have been profoundly influenced by her action in
AS: I just want to take this opportunity to tha nk the world.
you on behalf of everybody in this room. For me, the name Zelda Fichand ler has always
Thank you thank you thank you. carried a lot of weight. "Zelda!" I always thou ght.
How appropriate that a woman with such im-
mense ideas would be named "Zelda." For my
generation she was considered the mot her of the
regio nal theate r movement. She was a model in
the world of a woma n who mad e things happe n
and she brou ght people toget her. She is, to this
day, universally known by tha t first name: Zelda .
Zelda!

1 poge «1 mn) H!fl 'n Itol chaple< 33'l. ,00<

The arts world we know today is t he produ ct of Univers ity. Her co mmi t me nt to young peop le
the not-for-profit arts revolution led by Zelda and co m ing into the fi eld is undenia ble. Both at the
her colleagues. Zelda called it t he "long revo- Actin g Compa ny and NYU, s he exerted a powerful
lution ," describing the s low, cont inual devel- han d in ma king s ure t hat the trai ning of act ors
opment of inst itutions an d fund ing so urces t hat was co nside red and executed ser iously.
radically changed how the arts were produced in The list of honors tha t Zelda has received illus-
t his country. This revolution created t he rich t rates the immen se admiration the field has for
d ivers ity of dan ce, the ater, music and vis ual art her: the Nat ional Medal of Arts , awarded by Pres-
t hat we benefit from today. ident Clinton ; the Common Wea lth Award fo r
At Arena Stage, Zelda em brac ed a vas t sweep of dis tinguished service to the dramatic art s; the
dramatic liter atur e, makin g a home for important Brandeis University Creative Arts Award; the Act-
European playwrights s uch as Brecht, Frisch, ing Company's John Hou seman Award for her
lonesco and Mrozek , alongs ide significant Amer- commitment to the developmen t of young Amer-
ican revivals of works by Albee, Miller, Williams . ican actors; the Margo Jones Award for the
O ' Neill, Wilder, Kaufman and Hart , and classics production of new plays; the Washingtonian of
by Shakespeare, Shaw, Moliere, Ibsen and others. the Year Award; the Ortho zrst Century Women
Broadway, too , ha s felt the impact of Ze lda's Trailblazer Award; and the Soc iety for Stag e Direc-
work, especially with the development of new tors and Choreographers' George Abbott Award.
plays. The Creat White Hope, Indians, Moon- The New York co mmercial theater world awa rded
children. Pueblo, A History of the American Film , Zeld a and Aren a Stage the Antoinette Perry (Tony)
Zalmen or the Madness of Cod , Raisin and Kz all Award in 1976, the first to be given to a company
start ed at Arena Stage. outside New York. In 1999 she was inducted into
From 1991-1994, Zelda was artistic director of the Theatre Hall of Fame, making her t he first
t he Acting Company, and from 1984 un til very re- artistic leader outs ide of New York to rece ive this
cently, Zelda was cha ir of the grad uate acting pro - ho no r. In 2007, she was recog nized at NYU with
gram and Mas ter Teacher of Acting and Direct ing the Dist inguis hed Teaching Award .
at the Tisch Schoo l of the Arts at New York In 2009. for its fiftieth annive rsary. The Stage

48 poges{54 mil) lefT IIthis cropTer 33'l. ,00<

Directo rs and Choreographers Society estab- with about this issue. You in the fifties, sixties,
lished t heir Zelda Fichandler Award to hono r a starting from scratch-s-can we start with this sto-
director and choreographe r each year for accom - "I?
plishment and future promise in the regio ns out- ZF: Well it's a long story and it starts, really, way
side of New York. back when. The word theater in Greek, "teet ro n,'
a place for seeing-seeing into--tells us tha t our
O CTO BER 4 , 2 0 04 art began with a deep connection to life, as a way
to understand and connect to that life. It had
AB: Zelda Fichandler really is one of the founders nothing to do with acquiring whatever the ex-
ofthe American regional theater. Zelda has been, I change unit was at the time , with treasure, with
think , a stateswoman for the theater throughout money. One imagines that some tribal leader or
her career and continues to be so, in terms of the maybe the best hunter, got up and said, "Gath er
art on the stage, in terms oftraining. She runs the around and let me tell you what happened on the
acting program at NYU, which is, I thin k, the best hunt today." And he started to talk and then
act ing training in the country. She was awarded maybe someone got up and acted out the hunter.
the National Medal of Arts by Pres ident Clinton . and someone else acted out the bear. and it went
She' s a part of the Theatre Hall of Fame. When on from there . And that's how we imagine that th e
Maureen [Towey, former SITI administrative staff theater was born . And if you look through history,
member] was looking for a catch y phrase for the this idea of theater never died. People were always
email, I said, "Zelda 's like the doyenne of the examining their own lives except when a culture
American the ater." In the book Tht: Tipping Point was in decline. And then theater would disappear
there's a th ing called the maven , which is the per- and something like crrcuses-c-
son you don't know is actuall y the cause of every- entertainment-would take its place.
thing. I think sitting next to me is a maven . I hope In the years after World War II, I don't know
we get into substant ive issues about the times why it happened then, a few people looked at the
we're living in, the role of theater in these times, theater we had and thought it wasn 't good
because I can't think of an ybody better to speak eno ugh. Ten blocks of Broadway was what we

46 poges(52 ....,,) left '" ltl'" chapter

considered to be the American theater. It wasn't money. but to show people how people behaved
enough because it was only in one place in this and why they behaved the way they did. I d idn't
vast country and it wasn't enough because the become an actress but the notion of theater as a
aim was essentially to make money rather than to life's work remained.
illuminate living experience. We wanted to change In my late teens I stumbled on a program at
the way it was and bring back theater to its age- Cornell University called Contemporary Soviet
old connections to the living process. So we tried Civilization. I was the youngest of some four hun -
to do that, and to over-simplifythe struggle, it has dred to five hundred people who signed up for it:
worked. It's an astounding story really-I can journalists. politicians . some doctors. teachers-
hardly believe it. There are around a thousand all grown-ups-I learned Russian, read Chekhov
theaters now in the United States-on you be- and, later, Stanislavski in the original language,
lieve it?! Where artists can work and people can but. more than that , I got a new grasp on political
participate in the telling of stories. We don't know and social history. It was my gateway to the world
yet how far this development will go in terms of and I became a social activist. After I graduated
artistic achievement. and was working for military intelligence at the
As for starting from scrat ch, so did I. in a way. Pentagon . writing the manual on the Red Army
In 1950 with my husband and my teacher and a from captured Russian documents. on the side I
small group of Washingtonians. we began a organized workers to join the Public Workers
theater-a place for seeing-with the financial Union, a left-wing union . For this I was fired, or
help of our neighbors and friends. I had no idea as they put it. "reduced-In -force." Actually I felt in-
how to make or lead such a thing, but I thought creased in force and happy to leave that terrible
we could figure that out as we went along. When I building.
was eleven years old I entered a contest spon - All this fed what I was to do with my profes-
sored by the Washington Star, a local newspaper, sionallife. and I guess since I didn't know much
for the best essay on "What I Want to Be When I about theater. what was important was my ability
Grow Up." I won the contest and my first dollar. I to use logic to get from this point to that , some-
said I wanted to be an actress, not for the fame or thing I think I learned from my scient ist father. To

44 pages (50 m,n) left n lhis chapter

get what I want by charting a path from A to B. It significant factor in t he success of o ur early years.
was a kind of "wiliness," what in Yiddish is called And I co nside r him my most influential teache r of
"savkhel,' which means, I guess, good, common t he stage as a space of the imagination. While I
horse-sense. event ually found my own way o f working as a
d irector. he pointed the way, and encouraged me .
Horse-sen se? His influence was strong in Arena's taking-off.
Yes, an ability to use to our advantage whatever it l ater. in 1961. he opened the newly built Arena
was we found around us. And an indomitable with the American premiere of Bertolt Brecht's
will-which, thank Cod, I still have, because I still Caucasian Chalk Circle. And, in 1973, he and I too k
need it. Everything in society stands against the the acting company in Our Town and Inherit the
attempt to create an institutional life that persists Wind to Moscow and leningrad under the aus -
and develops. that grows from within the lives of pices of the State Department, t he first American
the people who are creating it and isn't pasted on company to play there.
from the outside, and at the same time has some
orientation that is beyond the artist, so that there What was it like at t he beginning?
is a genuine intersection between the creative Well, at the beginning, would you believe this? In
center of the community and the creative center the first year we did seventeen productions. I
of the art. And so it was helpful that I knew the slept on the floor many times, then I became
community. I was really one of them. And in a pregnant and couldn't sleep on the floor any-
certain way. the audience built itself on what we more. The audience was small, so it was two - and
gave them by way of repertory and evolving artis - three-week runs. We couldn't close because we
tic values. had to pay the rent . The repertory was wild. It was
I want to mention here the large con tribution a series of offbeat, well-chosen plays t hat inter-
made by Alan Schneider, the American director ested me and my radical political background.
who directed the original production of Albee's We went around and we collected fifteen thou-
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and introduced sand dollars by calling people up from t he phone -
Samuel Beckett to this country. His artistry was a boo k. small bus inessmen mostly. and by getti ng

42 pogoeo (47 mn) lei! 'n!hl ooopler

groups of people together. We opened with abou t And the landlord's name was Sidney Lust.
two thousand dollars left in the kitty. We were not
Equity until the end of the year, when Equity cam e That's too perfect .
down and union ized us. Actors took turns being But we had to pay whatever the rent was year-
the stage manager. With a carpenter, I built some round . so we had to operate year-round. So that's
of the sets in the back alley. It grew upon itself. how it got to be fifty-five productions in five years.
This is the story of every young organization. It's Sometimes nobody came. We did a play called
nothing really elaborate or interesting, deeply, ex- Mr. Arcularis by Conrad Aiken, and I remember
cept that it grew upon itself, whereas everybody one of the headlines was, "Mr. Arcufaris, What
predicted failure. We had four newspapers then. Cold Feet You Have." It was about this guy being
Everybody predicted that it would not be suc - transported dead in a coffi n. No t designated to
cessful as other attempts had failed. Then at the sell tickets. So we'd have six people in the audi -
end of five years and fifty-five productions---by ence at the matinee. But then it grew.
then I had two children-we found , despite the
filled seat s, that with two hundred forty-seven What did yo u do for tha t year and a half that you
seats we couldn 't pay for what we needed. I wrote d osed down ?
a paper for the board- "The Economics of the We disbanded and we looked for something else.
Too-Small Theatre ." We closed for a year and a My husband was supporting us and the children.
half. reopened at an abandoned brewery. Later on . he gave up his prestigious job as an
economist with the Twentieth Century Fund and
Where were you first? joined in full-time. There was no discussion. I
Ninth and New York Avenue . In the slum area of said, "You're needed here." And he said. "Okay."
D.C., strangely enough, directly across from the Instant poverty for one family.
main public library.
When you started the th eate r, what words d id you
What kind of building was it? use to describe it?
It was an aba ndoned porn movie house, act ually. I wrote th is-it's now become sort of a signature

40 P<J9"S (45 m,n) left n lhis chapter

paragraph. It's far from profound. It just said that feeling. I liked it because you could explode the
the ten blocks of Broadway had become the life within the text, because there's a front on any
American theater, and it was now time to make place on the stage. It's not a directiona l stag e. It's
theater part of a community as were its schools, a nondirectional stage-like a stage for a
its libraries, its churches, and that we wanted to choreographer-something like the way Merce
engage in an ongoing dialogue about matters of Cunningham uses the space. Then we moved to
importance to all of us, and that people who were the Old Vat Room, which we named because the
coming on were making Washington their hom e costume designer decided that since it wouldn't
for the first time and that many of the artists were be the Old Vic-because it was a brewery---it
making Washington their permanent community. would be the Old Vat. It was at Twenty-Sixth and
I might have said something about a home-s-not D, on the waterfront , which was where the high-
a hotel-for artists. way to the Roosevelt Bridge moved. And there we
stayed for five years.
Those are eloquent words.
They are? They seem to me to lack aesthetic con- Can I take a look at the context of theater in the
tent, although I believe I spoke about an acting United States? When did Nina Vance start Alley?
company. It was an arena . My teacher, Edward Around the same time. Margo Jones started first.
Magnum , who only recently died, and who left in Margo, Nina and I started within two or three
the second or third year for health reasons, came years of each other. Margo was first, in the late
from Dallas, which had an arena. He was very hot forties.
on the arena form as it allowed for viewers to see
the same story from different perspectives , and at In Dallas? And that was the arena that you were
the same time it was democratic. Everybody had a talking about?
good view to the stage . I came to have different Yes, a one hundred ninety-eight-seat theater in a
feelings about it. I liked it because if the pitch was fan factory on the Dallas State Fair grounds.
steep it became like a choreographic space, and
you could actually see the kinetics of tho ught and Which of the two of them dumped out her wallet

38 pages [43 mil) lefIlll ltlil chapTer

and said, "With whatever change I have we'll be- and ta lk to you?" He tho ught, Well, this kid, let
gin a theater." her co me over. And he gave us a thousa nd dol-
That was the Alley. And I think it was two dollars lars. It bolste red ou r se nse of possi bility.
and fourtee n cents and one hundred peo ple
showed up. You have to ask.
Yes.
That was Nina Vance?
Yes. We actually raised money-about fifteen You have to have the words, and you have to ask.
tho usand dollars . There were seven or eight of us. You have to have the words , and you have to have
we put in one thousand dollars and others put in the enth usiasm. You have to believe it. If you
less. That's an ad of faith in '950 . Tom and I had don't believe it, body and soul, don't let on. There
two thousand dollars in the bank; one thousand are very few people you can ever sha re doub t
went to the down payment on our house and the with. and you need to be posessed. for su re.
othe r thousand went to this remote ente rprise.
Then we called on members of the community: a It occurs to me that, unless we find other people,
White House policeman; a tennis champion; Bess the first three theaters were started by women.
Davis Schreiner, who ran the Theatre Guild at the There was one more--Dorothy Chernik in
National Theatre; Burke Knapp, the vice presiden t Rochester, New York. Hers folded. It was fifty-
of the World Bank.whose wife was an adress. three years ago. Fifty-four?

So you just went to these people. And the Guthrie was the sixties, right?
We knew no fear. I drew the blueprints myself for The Guth rie was 1963.
the theater design -as well as I cou ld draw them.
I remember calling up Kay Jewelers and saying, And A.C.T. was later-the mid-sixties. The boys
"We're members of the same commu nity and my came later, right?
friends and I have an idea for a resident theater An early one was the Actor's Workshop, Jules Irv-
comp any in the district. Would you let me come ing and Herbert Blau in San Francisco .

36 p<>g'" [41mnJ left Inth I Chopl 35'l. ,00<

But the very first one was Margo Jo nes, and human species tend to be inte rested in gossi p-
peop le fo rget her. Her repertory was c1assics- even if it's not true. It's a story. It 's a sto ry about
and she defined tha t as a play fifty years old or so mebody's involvement with ot her peop le-----or
older that has lasted-and new scripts. She's the with money. Or with land. Or with the need to get
one who launched Tennessee Williams on his ca- ahead. Or with pain and suffering. It's not trivial.
reer. She had a company of eight professional ac- The o nly thing I like about the plays of the
to rs and a sma ll staff, and that was the beginning, Resto ration is the ir love of gossip and how they
really. I remember ANTA arranged for me to see use that to make their way.
her one hot summer. I bought a hat. In thos e
days, a lady wore a hal. I came prepared to meet , Anthropologists say that for human beings, gos-
you know, the doyenne . And she was there in her siping is the equivalent of animals nit-picking.
sandals and no stockings and sitting on the desk That's interesting. That's true. You see a woman
and swinging her legs. Unfortunately, she died at straighten the collar of a man's jacket or some-
forty-two, which was a great loss. She wrote a thing like that . brush dandruff off the should ers-
book called Thwtrt·;n·tht-Round in which she that's like animal behavior.
predicted that there would some day be forty the -
aters in the United States! I sorely regret that she I wanted to share a story with you---something
couldn't see what she launched. Her book is still that Bob Brustein said. After he left Yale and went
important to read. It's inspiring and at the sam e to Harvard to sta rt American Repertory Theater,
time chatty. he had this idea to continu e what he'd done at
Yale and sta rt a sc hool for actor, playwright, dra-
I love chatty books. maturg, director training. $0 he went to the pres-
Chatty and even gossipy. Gossip's good. Without ident when he got to Harvard and said, "You
gossi p, the need for gossip, the enjoyment of know, it's all fine and good to have a theater, we
gossi p, there wouldn't be theater. You have to be have the A.R.T., but we actually need a school for
interested in what other people are up to. Gossip advanced training in acting, directing, playwriting
is not trivial. People who are interested in the and dramaturgy." And the president said, "At

3~ P<J9"'I (39 mn) lei! "'!hI ooopler 35'l. ,00<

Harvard we do not do art schoo ls!' So he went insti tution-because, as you know, you also have
away and about a month later he sees the pres- to invigorate the trou pes with lang uage. You have
ident again . He says, "It' s all fine and good to to find words to ins pire, to inspiri t. To keep alive
have a theater, but we act ually need a conser- th e creative impulse.
vatory." And th e president sa id, "We don 't do
co nse rvatories here at Harvard for th e arts." So he I think in th is cu lture we give up too ea sily on lan-
left, and he came back about a month later, and guage.
said , " Mr. President, it's all fine and good to have I think that's true. Not enough people believe in
a theater, but I want to st art an inst itute." And the the cracks in the universe that you have to wiggle
pres ident of Harvard said , "Ah, yes, we do do into to get anything new established. There are
inst itut es here at Harvard ." And thu s began the cracks-places that are not filled in that need to
Inst itute for Advan ced Theat er Train ing. be filled in. so the edifice doesn't crumble. And if
Oh. that's amazing. you believe in the arts passionately, they fit into
those cracks . because without those connective
I th ink it's a profound story. tissues of understanding all we are are people
The profound power of words. who go to war every so often.

Becau se if you ca n find t he words to desc ribe your That is such a stunning thought-to loo k for th e
t hing t hey're like keys. They unloc k door s, but they cra cks. We work a lot with a mu sic group called
have to fit. Rach el's, and Christ ian , one of the musicians,
And they have to appeal to something-an image, plays with the Viewpoints-they watch the actors
t he imagination of whoever you're talking to-so o n the sta ge and they play mu sic. I said once,
t hey feel they're putting their faith and their mon - "How do you do it? You make thi s music and it's
ey into something that matters to them or t hat so supportive of what's going on ." He said, "I lis-
brings them prestige or that connects t hem to a ten for what's missing." Usually we feel like we
spi ritua l. functiona l endeavor. Words are very. have to make somet hing happen-we have to cre-
ve"! important building ,n ate out of stone or whatever, but actually the

31 pages (37 mn) lefl n Itlischapte< 35'l. 'ea<

notion of looking for the cracks is st unning. of how time wears away life and burns up dreams
And that is t he reason that this regiona l theater ap pea led to the Washington public. That was a
moveme nt now exists in every state, in Alaska. great experience for me and emboldened me.
Small, large-the largest is the Guthrie right now. But now. not because of marketing d irectors
But the reason is that the re were those cracks. per se, but survival becomes very important in a
Touring compa nies were not enough. They were th eater, es pecia lly in a seco nd or third generation,
facsimiles of something that came out of New where you don't want it to go down on your
York. Ou r new theaters were a community ente r- watc h. You don't want to be the one to kill a the-
prise. They grew out of the commu nity and en- ater. Theaters are precious and many of them by
gaged the community. We att racted people who now have a long history and long tradition and
wanted to see what we wanted to do , even t hough even a specific style, an aes thetic style. A new
it too k years-decades, even-to establish that artistic director. who comes in after the found er
linkage in a larger way. The linkage is mad e over or after the second artistic director, wants to keep
tim e, chiefly through the repertory. "Repertory is that theater alive. Nothing is really settled; there's
destiny," is my thought. a new state of dis -equilibrium . and you hope that
things will get better. 50 that's what they're hold-
But isn't t hat desti ny often sh aped by t he adm inis- ing on to . I feel for them. I und erstand their
t rators rather t han t he artists? predicament totally. I think they have a great deal
Yes. It's often the marketing director who wants of courage. I think some of the artistic directors
to do the season. The marketing director is press- are compromising what they would really like to
ing for what will sell. In the spring you do some- do. But it's not over till it's ove r. And if t he re-
t hing for group sales, for the tou rists- giona l thea ter seems to be rest ing right now-not
particularly in Washington. I chose to do Three on its laurels. but just resting. It's treading water.
5ister5 at a time when the classics were not "in." It's like so me body th at's waiting for t he tide to
There was a period in t he fifties and sixties where sh ift it. What will sh ift it? Good q ues tion. It needs
t he rubric was "No More Masterpieces." I t hink an infusion of funds perhaps. It need s an infusion
Artaud 's slogan. It was astounding how this story of art ist ic lea dersh ip, I don't rea lly know.

30 poges(34 mn) left n Ih'l choplef 35'l. ,00<

I want to tell you about the hie rarchical struc- Was the Arena board like that from the beginning?
ture. When the Ford Foundation came into the The first Arena board was a regu lar fo r-profit
arts, into theater and into dance-that was Mac board and was invited by Ed Mangum and me,
l owry, who was the vice president in cha rge of with assurances about artistic freedom through
human ities and the arts . He tried to help us orga- something called a Voting Trust. Our thinking
nize a structure in the interest of the good health was not advanced enough to include othe r artists.
of the institution. What was there to copy at the We became not-far-profit later in the fifti es and
time? The busine ss model. So you have a board the original board selected new members as they
of trustees who are responsible for the fiscal replaced themselves or added additional people.
health of the institution, for conta ct with the And so it went over time, by habit. Artists were
community, for raising fund s. You have an artistic always invited to board meetings to talk with the
director -actually. I wanted the title producing board or present examples of their work, but were
director -and the managing director, who were, never in a decision -making position, and I take
supposedly. hired by the board. Then under that responsibility for that failure. It just never oc-
you had administration and artist ic staff mem - curred to me. After '91, when I left, things con-
bers . That's sort of a business model. The idea of tinued as they were.
there not being artists on the board was really When it came time to talk about a new building.
ridiculous. Artists are terribly smart about their I woke up. The artists and I wanted it to stay in
own destiny, and they know very well the power of the old location. near the Potomac River and the
promotion and publicity. They know how to econ- sky,and made our opinions known. But the board
omize. They know what matters. They know that wanted to move downtown where some oth er
wages for artists mean more than costumes. smaller theaters were moving, to create a kind of
Artists should be, I think, at least a third of the D.C. Broadway. Only cost considerations prohib -
board and can educate as they go, can educa te ited that. There was a lot of contention about
the board to the values, to the culture of that this-I would come down from New York City for
particular institution. meet ings, and write contest ing memos to the
board. It was then that I realized how import ant

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the voices of the artists could be. repe rtory. How could it not affect repertory?
I t hink board members, being largely busi ness -
people, see artists as whimsical, cap ricious, AB: You were talking about doubt.
temperamental people who can't understand Everybody who's ever led anything-whether it's
numbers or make grown-up decisions. Maybe a family or a camp or whatever-lives with a lot of
artists don't belong on the Investment Com- doubt because you make a lot of decisions, and
mittee; nor do I. they' re either right or they're wrong. And som e of
them are going to be wrong because we're impe r-
Audience: Is there a mod el other than the busi- fect creatures. So you live with doubt if you have
nes s mod el you cou ld see ? any sense. If you have any wisdom, doubt is
I don't know enough about what's going on at the appropriate to leadership. That's why I think Bush
moment. I imagine a company like Bill Rauch's is such a fool. I don't think he's aware of doubt in
Cornerstone Theater Company must operate himself. But you can't go around saying, "I don't
differently. I think thai their artists participate in know why I picked this play. I'm not sure it's a
decision-making. I remember the Joint Stock The- good play. I don't think this is going to work."
atre Group that Mark Wing·Davey works with, You can't do that because there are too many
with Caryl Churchill. It's difficult because like all people who are going to be affected by doubt.
positions it contains the possibilities of its oppo- You can say, "I want to think this over. How can
site, so the danger is that there'll be divisiveness we do this better? Who's got an idea of how we
in decision- making, but that has to be worked can expand this particular aspect of our work?"
through, I think. I'm beginning to believe in That doesn't mean you close off input. But your
smaller companies-smaller spaces, less real es- face and the tone of voice and the way you walk
tate, smaller budgets. The Guthrie's budget is go- down the hall shouldn't be the way you feel on
ing to be, I think, nineteen million dollars a yea r. the inside. That's what you do at night. Or early in
That's got to affect repertory. Arena's budget is the morning, when you might gag a little bit. I
abou t fourteen million, but if t hey build a new used to gag in the morning. My children even
building it's going to go up. It's got to affect reme mber that. I used to have the dry heaves . My

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husba nd would help me with that "Of course you not working." And you may eve n have to lock
can do it." He might have had doubt, but he nev- doubt away within you, at least for a time .
er let me know. I think it's do ubt tha t exhausts
one. And then you have to sor t of get it up again AB: Jack O'Brien, who has run the Old Globe for a
and keep going. Doubt: Do I do this weird East billion years, is one of the most enthusiastic hu-
European play simply because I like it? Or is it so - man beings on the planet, in the sense of enthu-
cially useful to the community? Will they find siasm meaning filled with God . When I was going
som ething in it that's generative? Or interesting? to be artistic director of Trinity Repertory Com-
Or resonant to their own thoughts and feelings at pany, he said, "Anne, you have to go in the build-
this time? Do I? So, you do . ing, and you have to touch the fabric. Your mood
affects everybody. If you're in a bad mood , every-
AB: I've been playing with a theory: The end prod- body will be in a bad mood . It's really important
uct of certainty is always violence. Patriotism how you walk in that building."
leads to violence. Certainty kills art. too . There's I wasn 't always good about this . Somebody was
the paradox of having to move with certainty or doing a story about me, and they talked to my col-
act with certainty as an actor, a director or leagues. One woman said, "Well, she's very
whatever-but the inside opposition of doubt. moody." 1 read that and I thought, " Hmm. I'm not
Strahler said what he learned from Bertolt Brecht very good at this." And I tried to change and not
is to doubt everything, and the importance of be so moody, and not let my moods affect other
doubt. Even for fundraising, I don 't think you can people.
ask people for something without the feeling of
doubt. And they will accept it. AB: Was that a good thing to do--that adjust-
But need moves you away from doubt. Need ment?
generates belief-because you want to rescu e I think it helped.
som ething. You have to be on fire with belief,
actually. when you're trying to lead . And in the pri- Audience: What brought you over to NYU? And
vacy of one or two relationships you can say, "It's what was your impetus when you got there? It

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seems that you created a school that made the know that I couldn't use thirty-two people in half
perfect actor to go straight back into Arena. It the plays. because I'd have to bring in too ma ny
seems like the most natu ral jump. acto rs outs ide the company. But I did n't have to
Well, that's what I did. I was coming to the end of count the way people have to count now.
my imaginative power for an institution. I didn' t So I had reached the end, but I had been teach -
know where to take it further than it was. I ended ing, always. I taught at Boston University, Univer-
with a three-million-dollar mu lticultural grant, the sity of Texas at Austin and NYU. I was asked to be
spillover from which is still going on-an appren- on a committee to pick a new chair for the acting
tice program thai trains people from various eth- department at NYU. And then one day I heard a
nic groups in all the different arts in the theater; voice-this is the truth-say, "You know, I'd like
we had an integrated acting company; we intro- to throw my hat in the ring for this job." Our com -
duced various playwrights of different colors. I pany was getting older. And the young actors I
wanted to create a young company. I wanted to was bringing in were not able to do as diverse a
create a school attached to the theater. I wanted repertory as we were doing . I felt that we needed
to tour in the area and bring the theater to people young actors of a different kind. I'd always been
who couldn't get to us. The economy was dipping interested in training . So I took that job, and I
so that we were actually cutting back rather than didn't know how to construct a curriculum, how
moving forward. We were always able to finance to integrate a faculty, how to pick students. But I
our work up until the end of the eighties. Since knew the end product , and I had to work back
the early nineties, the budget has been cut back. through process and construct it. I picked actors
The budget now at Arena is about the same as it who, if trained, could create out of nothing, who
was when I left twelve years ago. They have to could work on new plays, who could do Shaw,
count how many actors they can have in a season. Shakespeare, who were able to reach their emo-
That changes the repertory. My desi re was to tions and thoughts and act in a more realistic
show the interaction of social forces, either manner. Theater is not a place tha t is real by na-
contemporary or of a lime, with individuals. So ture. Peop le are looking at it, and other people are
we did big plays. I had some reasonable need to making believe that they believe. The belief comes

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from nature but is not real-real but real-theatrical. Each actor is uniq ue to him or he rself. And your
There is nothing rea1. Anybody that talks about biggest competitor as an acto r is yo u. I found I
realism is not unde rstanding the paradoxical na- enjoyed teaching as much as directin g.
tur e of the stage, I think. No body reallyd ies at the
matinee perfo rmance. The show must go o n. AB: When you looked around originally you looked
for the cracks. When you look around now, what
AB: There was a test that was done on actors and do you see?
Olympic jumpers where they tested the vital signs That is so hard. I think, maybe, what my stu dents
of both, and apparently an actor in front of an want to do: get rid of their loans so they can make
audience speaking a monologue is under more choices; create material; work in a sim ple way,
stress than an Olympic jumper. So, you realize: rathe r than an ornate way, in an ope ratic way, in
No, it's not natural or real. an over-expensive way; work in collectives .
It's amazing. I did a little bit of acting. I hate to They're trained as an ensemble. Each class is
admit it because, when I look back, it was pretty trained as an ensemble, and they are able to work
bad. But I lost weight every time I did something. with each other no matter what year they grad-
I used to lose weight because of the stress. If you uated. There are maybe a doze n com pani es that
don't believe in the fiction, then the audience could be formed out of the peopl e who have
doesn't believe it, then contact isn't made and come out in the last twenty years. I think they
nothing occurs in that room, where you both live want a place to work. They want a home--the
in the same space at the same time. same thing actors wanted at the beginning. They
So, the t raining is buill up aro und that idea. It's also want to be able to act in t he oth er media ,
a good training program. They're able to work be- which is different than when I sta rted o ut becau se
cause they can sing, t hey can move, they can the other media were not so com pelling. Even th e
improvise, th ey can talk, they can sca n a line, they co mme rcials now, I think, are q uite respe cta ble.
ca n be funny, they know the clown in them, They want to get away and do fil m, but they wa nt
t hey're unselfcon scfous. The acto r has lea rned a hom e base where they ca n crea te wor k. I not ice
th at the y're the only one of th e kind in the world. our graduate s want to co ntinue st udying with the

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teachers that they stud ied with in school. We and over again is t hat there's not enough theater
sen d faculty out to the West Coast, where we have to go around. There's the Acting Company-
a lot of peo ple. I t hink the crack is- really, it's not which you ran for three years-which is . . .
an inst itutional crack. It's an artist crack. It's Underfunded.
about where t he artists go to be artists. There are
no companies anymore to speak of. San Diego AB: There's the Wooster Croup. There's my com-
has a company. The Alley has a small company. pany. There 's Cornerstone. But there's just not
The promise of our theater-the generation that I enough to go around. I heard recently from the
come from-was that there would be artistic directors of these performance venues that audi-
homes. There aren't artistic homes. And actors ences are asking for less dance and more theater.
aren't paid enough. And they're not going to be. Go figure. It's the dance companies who have
So they need to make money on TV and film. been filling these houses. So it's a big, wide crack.
In the third year at NYU we set aside close to a
AD: There is another practical creative crack- month for something we call Freeplay. And the
because I think when young people come into the actors can do whatever they want. They can cast
field they come in and they see a regional theater themselves much better than they think we do.
that is resting, as you said . I find that arts centers They can direct a piece. They can create a piece.
right now are more interesting in terms of the And more and more they want to create their own
audiences. The audiences are more diverse. work. One of them has created a really big thing
They're more ready for an unusual experience. I this year. It played at the UN. It went to some kind
find it to be a really wide crack that's just scream- of festival. It played in D.C. If you had a company
ing for more work. that managed to produce recognizable classics
Do they pay well? and self-generated work, there migh t be a place
for severa l of these. That's how the Acting Com-
AB: They do. They commission work or else there pany was born. It was born out of the Juilliard
are consortiums of arts centers that get together School.
to bring plays around-and what you hear over

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AS: It was Houseman who started it, right? Who who doesn't work at t he theater a nymo re, but she
said, "When you graduate, you need a place to sa id, "There was never a day I ca m e to work that I
go." It was made originally to be a touring com- did n't realize I was working for some highe r pur-
pany to begin with. So, be on the road for two pose." I really felt good about it.
years you might learn something-which is true,
in front of all these different audiences. That's the AB: That's it. That 's really it.
best actor training: to be in front of the audience And what that does is having information. They
and change the audience every night. know what's going on. They know what the
The audience is your partner, and until you've thought process is. They know what the goals are.
gotten in front of them you're doing things in the They're part of the five-year plan. They have to like
void. the work on the stage. They have opinions.
They're invited to rehearsal, they know what the
Audience: As someone who lives as an artist and approach is. the artistic approach to a production.
as an admin istrator, I always fed that living that There's not the Berlin Wall between the adminis-
fire is as important to the artist as it is to the trators and the artists. They have to believe in
administrator. To be an administrator you have to what they're doing .
have as much belief in the work as the artist. I
wonder what your experiences are having a truck- Audience: It rings true with me for administrators
load of adm inistrators at Arena and what has been to be able to work in a creative way. That 's some-
effective and what hasn 't be-en effective in terms thing I always try to do here . There's such an
of bringing people in now. amazing collaboration that goes on in this room
Well, I have to say, I haven't been at Arena since and we try to have our own collaboration going on
1991, but our admi nist rators stayed forever and in that room and figure out creative solutions.
were t reated as artistic huma n beings because it's You know, process is process, and-wheth er
creat ive wo rk being an admi nistrator if it's done you're an admi nistra tor or an art ist- you move
sens itively and well and effectively. I had the from the un known to the known-to what yo u
nice st t hing said to me recently by th is wo man would like to know. You move back to the

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unknown. You move deeper into the known. It's com mun ity who have money, and s he raises pri-
the sa me process. Everybody in an instit utio n has vately. She even has given up on foundations be-
to buy into the vision . The vision can be gen er- cause they've switched to social programs. The
ated from someone--but a visio n can be shared great thing that happened in my gene ration was
by many. that we cou ld get money. Our development
department just followed whatever I wanted to do,
Audience: Compared to Europe, is it really roman- through the sixties, seventies and eigh ties. Then,
tic for us to think about our government helping starting with the nineties, it wasn't there anymore.
us with money for the arts , or should we abandon Then the foundations started pulling back.
that thought and maybe go on a different route?
And as an educator, as well as the great artist that AS: You mentioned McNeil lowry earlier. It's nev-
you are, you must have seen your share of medi- er foundations or corporations-it's always indi-
ocre theater. What would be your advice to guard viduals anyway. It's somebody who has a vision
aga inst mediocrrty in theater and what do you do and can describe it, He was a great pioneer, and
with it when you confront it in your world? he was singularly, with the Ford Foundation, this
You blow it up. I have no idea what you do with it. one man who made it possible for so many the-
You don't come back. You leave at intermission. 1 aters to be formed and founded in so many dif-
don't know. ferent cities .
Government funding is a little bit of use. It He paid off the mortgage of our building. More
funds projects. It doesn't fund the individual than the NEA, and before it, he made the regional
artist anymore, so it's safe . It gets a little bit of a theater possible, not only with funds but with an
raise this year. But the dean of Tisch School of understanding of its artistic mission.
t he Arts is a woman I admire enormously, Mary
Schmidt Campbell . She stopped with the govern - AS: It isn't the Ford Foundation. It's McNeil
ment. She stopped applying for money. She has a lowry.
dean 's council of rather well-known artis ts who It's true.
have money and other people in the New York

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AS: And right now there are not those McNeil teac hers . Now, to hear you ta lk about t he regional
lowrys around . theater being ad minist rator heavy-is that just the
And corporations? What are they doing now? way we do business in th is country?
I don't know the figures anymore. But t he ma r-
Audience: Corporations give money to their artis- ket ing and se lling of culture in America costs a
tic equi valent s. Corporations give mon ey to huge hell of a lot. You know what an ad in a newspaper
artistic corporations. costs-the cost of advertising has gone way up.
And to work they can bring their friends. So, indi- The cost of paper has gone way up. And artists
vidual giving has become very strong. unfortunately will work for less money because
As to mediocrity, let me just read you a poem. they want to do their thing . They want to do th eir
The poem is entitled , " Let Us Be Great ," by vevge- work. The development director can earn his or
ny Yevtushenko. a favorite Russian poet of mine. her salary by bringing in more money. The better
"I ask of doctors and of dock workers and of who- the development director's efforts are. the more
ever stitches up my coat, things should be done money comes in. Forgetting that the audi ence
with magnificen ce. No matter what a thing is, comes to see the artists . It's the artists who are
nothing should be mediocre. Down from build- making the money. But we don't revere teach ers
ings to pairs of rubber boots . The mediocre is and we don't revere artists unless they are box-
unnatural. What is false is not natural. Command office names. Isn't this a star culture? Who is
yourself. Be famous . The lack of greatness is a more important, a rap artist or a first-grade teach -
matter of shame. They shall every one be great." er? If you have kids, and there's a first -grade
teacher that can't help them unlock the code of
Audience: When I was teaching, I read so mething reading, then that kid is permanently behind the
that kind of staggered me, which is that in Japan eight ball. I don't want to put down rap artists . I
eighty percent of the budg et goes to teachers and kind of like rap, but I ca n't co mpa re it to th e
twenty percen t goes to adm inistrators, and in the co ntribution of a teacher, who can define the fu-
U.S. sixty-five percent of the budget goes to t ure of a human being- particularly in the lower
administrators and thirty-five percent goes to grades.

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AB: They're like different countries. to your work, to each oth er. Attitude is different
I don't think teachers should make what rap than feeling. Youcan choose an attitude. It's really
artis ts make becau se the commercial opening the big issue.
isn' t there for them, but I do think they should be It's actua lly-you know, t here's a branch of
resp ected and paid accordingly. psychiatry now that leaches attitude to de al with
neurotic adjustments. It's like, "Whenever I feel
AB: Maybe th e way we talk about ourselves , the afraid . I whist le a happy tune." It's the backwa rd
words we choose to des cribe ours elves are more part of acting. You act a cert ain way and then the
import ant. You th ink of a boxer who sa ys I am the feeling comes out of the way you 're behaving. It's
grea test. Perhap s we have to use tho se words to evidently proven its elf out. Liviu Ciulei. the bril-
des cribe o urse lves liant Roman ian d irector and arch itect, works with
actors primarily from form to feeling and if th e ac-
Audien ce: There 's t hat schis m: You go out th ere, tors come to accep t the valid ity of that. their work
you audition, you auditio n, you aud ition , you get is superb.
told: "No, no, no, no, no." "I'm th e greatest!" " No,
you aren 't." " I'm the greatestl" " No, you s uck. Get AB: It's back to Rousseau, wh ich is: Do you feel
out of here." fear when you see t he bear, or do you run when
you see the bear, and th e running ma kes you feel
AB: You know, th at 's th e incredible paradox about fear ?
auditions. From being on o ne side of th e table, the
way t he person walks in the room, how th ey own Audience: Aren't we as artists supposed to be
the room, how they inte rrelate, is so important. humble ?
But if you wa lk in like a pau per, it won 't work. So Well, humble--you ca n be humble an d self-
it's the tightrope th at we walk. It goe s back to the assured at the same time. Those are not contra -
issue of doubt-to be full of doubt, but to be stri- dictory. There's a wonderful book tha t Joan na
dent and part icular. And I th ink attitude is my fa- Merlin wrote about audi tio ning. She's on o ur fac-
vorite word right now-the attitude that yo u have ulty, by the way. "What a wonderful opportunity I

10 pages (11 mn) left n?hJ1 chapter

have to do some acting." Yo u can go in with tha t work, so that the center of their ability doesn't
attitud e. "I can figure out what this is about and crumble in the marketplace. Because you can lose
what kind of person this is. I get to act. And, you the sense of self. I can be away from work for four
know, those people are looking to fill this role. days and begin to think I don't know what I'm do-
They're probably a little bit anxious, too, that I be ing. I mean that quite honestly.
good." Because that's the truth of it. You sit on
that other side and you think, Who's coming in? AB: Didn't having kids and family help?
Maybe this is it? I don't think you should walk in Very much.
like Bush and pull guns out of your pocket. It's
just that you have some sense that you know AB: That's an issue for a lot of our field: How to
what you're doing and you can share that knowl- do that? You seem to have successfully done that.
edge with people. And having grandchildren now ren/ly helps. I learn
from them . I didn't know enough to learn from
AB: I think we tend toward the inferiority complex my children. But now I know enough to watch
as artists and there are historical reasons for it. It what the human animal does as it learns and
comes out of actions that have made this country negotiates reality. I feed it back into the school--
what it is. I just think we have to question our the use of the body, body before language. This
inferiority complex and not use it as an excuse. has got nothing to do with the business side, but
It's difficult because acting is based on a sense of my six-year-old granddaughter is getting to keep
self-a strong sense of self. Because you have to the class pig for a period of time. She gave me
will to imagine, you have to will to take an action, this book about taking care of pigs-not that I'm
to deal with an obstacle , to engage with your part- to take care of one. But I'm a great believer in our
ner. And when you get rejected, which you're go- animal nature, which means that action comes
ing to be, that ego tends to crumble. So it's before words. Words are the result of wanting and
important that you have other outlets besides needing. There's language for this baby pig:
these ones of being judged. That's why artists touching each other's noses is a greeting and
should have a home to go to, to work out and acknowledgment. Murmurs, gurgles and grunts

8 pages (9 mil) letTIII th chapTer

are contentment, co mfort, shared feelings. they can do it. And then I would have guests, who
Stretc hing is relaxed comfort. Jum ping is happi- are est ablished in the profess ion and who could
ness, exuberance, delight. Squeaking is pain. fear, help suppo rt it as artists on a co ntinuing basis ,
loneliness. Cooing is a calming sound, reas- take part. I'd try to get sponsorship by the sc hool
s urance. Sitting or sta nding up is begging for where these kids had been trained . Actually, I'm
food. Standing straight up on all fours: ma king an trying to do that right now. We're trying to set up
impressive state ment of power. Stan ding straight a connect ion between o ur graduates with
up. tilting the head back at an angle: signa ling actors-in-training. I've never thou ght of working
strength. l owering the head , growling: fear. Rat- without a comp any.
tling, hissing, teeth chattering: aggression , warn-
ing the enemy. trying to impress. Growling, grunt- AS:Why is that?
ing. rattling: male mating sounds. Mouth wide A company is the language for making theater.
open, showing teeth : female rejects male's ad- Plays are about webs of relationshi ps and if you
vances. Isn't that wonderful? And then in a few start with a company, just picked out for that one
million years. that's us . Many millions of years. thing, you don 't have a vocabulary. You don't
know the person who is under the cos tum e. And
Audience: If you were going to start all over again, somebody's going to say, " Is he really going to do
go somewhere and start a theater, where would that while I have this monologu e?" I mean , it has
you go and what would you do differently? to be a community-a company is a creative unit
I can't even imagine what I would do. I would take that would not be the same without yo u and you
a group of people that have trained with me----not wouldn' t be the same without it. It's a natu ral
just with me, but the group of faculty-and find a instrumen t for transformatio n, growth and
space and raise some money and get som e of the change. The theate rs we know as great all had
people who have money to be continuin g sup - companies-Shakespeare's , Moliere's, the Group
porters of the group th rough ot her media. I would Theatre, the Berliner Ensemble. The company af-
start with a group of younger people-beca use I fected the playwriting as well as the acting.
don 't care if younger peo ple play older parts if

6 pages (6 mil) left 'n !Ill chapter

Audience: What do you think is the importance in Audience: You ta lked today about the importance
a graduate educ ation in the arts and about mesh- of words, and you said you wanted to be called
ing that graduate training with undergraduate the producing director, not the artistic director.
training? Producing comes from the l atin "producere"- to
A lot of the people who have come to o ur pro- bring forth. And I wanted to know everything
gram have not majored in theater at all. They've about what was going o n. I didn't want to say,
dabbled. They've done it as an extracurricular "I'm just going to take care of the st age." I think
activity. Last year I had a most talented woman an institution is an artwork-the whole of it is an
who was a physicist. She left a job that paid her artwork. How the parts fit toge the r, how the
sixty-fivethousand dollars a year to come to grad- whole connects to the community, how the peo-
uate school. She'd only acted in extracurricular ple feel about themselves. So I wanted to be
stuff. She is extremely gifted. Others majored in responsible for the people in the box office know-
psychology, literature, economics, pre-law. And ing what the production was about and the pro-
some have majored in theater. But majoring in gram copy, the brochure copy and images, all the
theater in many schools means nothing. Forgive words. the words that went out. I think it's very
me for saying that. smart to know if you're going to be an artistic
I think it's important not because you get an director or invest in the whole of it-you can dele-
MFA and therefore can teach or whatever, but I gate, but delegating doesn't mean you give it
think it's important to make the transition to be- away. Delegating means, "You do that, and let me
ing an artist who can create new value in the know about it. Keep each other up to dat e." All as-
world as well as knowing how to act-to be really pects of the theater interest the producing direc-
an artist. And to concentrate on it. It's like pre- tor, for each of them is creating the form that is a
med. It's like your internship as a docto r. It ta kes theater.
that much co ncentration. You have to put on hold Of cou rse the stage is the nucleus of the
your perso nal life. You have to put on hold free circle-absolutely every aspec t of the institution
time . You have to really believe in yourself as an exists for the stage. All the arrows point there. I
art ist to do that. gave seventy-five percent of my time and energy

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to the work on stage and felt responsible for every o nly as stage actors but also in film and TV, as
production not just my own. Responsible for the playwrights, several as media prod ucers as well.
season, to serve the company as well as the audi- And they keep coming back to the school as to a
ence, for unde rstanding each text, for the com - home, and take part in graduate projects. My
pany being creatively cast, for helping new culminating goal is to form a company of som e of
designers understand the Arena space, to be these ta lented actors , some of them already in
present at run-throughs. previews, to resolve any their forties. It would be quite possible to replace
problems during rehearsa ls. Each play was the an actor for a period of time if necessary as they
first and the last and I loved that sense of concen - have all been trained to work the same way.
tration. Artists said they felt bolder, looser, freer
by my interest and involvement , and that satisfied
me.
Maybe we should be called producing artistic
directors -and a few of us have taken that title.
To bring it all together and put it out there , time
and time again, hopefully over the long run in
some kind of imaginat ively ascending pattern,
surprising the audience with something unex-
pected each season-it's a wonderful job!
People say I run the school as if it's a theater
and I think that's true. Each student gets eight to
ten roles over their three years, most of them pro-
duced in conjunction with Susan Hilferty's design
department, in styles that range over the world's
repertory. In addition , of course, to all their class
work. When they graduate they're ready to make a
contribution to the art form and they do so not

2 poges{2 mn) left., thISchoptet

JoAn ne Ako/aitis (Bowles) ; The Rover (Behn) ; Tis a Pity She's A
Whore (Ford); Suddenly Last Summer (William s);
Fro m the first time I saw JoAnne's work, the effect Tj ean Blues (Kerouac): A Dream Play (Strind -
was catalytic. Dressed Likean Egg, 1977, bas ed up- ber g); an d there are probably mo re.
on the life and literature of the French writer Col- To my great disappointment I have missed
lette, initiated my adventure with her direction. I quite a lot, too . She is pro lific: Red and Blue (Hu r-
loved the theatr icality and poetic nature of the so n); Crcen Card (original); Help Wanted
experience. JoAnne became a beacon for me but (Kmetz); Leonce and Lena, Woyzuk (Buchn er);
her persona intimidated me . Much later when I Dance of Death (Strindberg); Arts tI. Leisure
got to know her 1 realized that her abrasive ven eer [Iesicb}: The Iphigenia Cyde, Iphigenia in Aulis
hid a great deal of vulnera bility, a fierce and funny (Euripides) ; The Birthday Party (Pinter); The
sense of humor and a warmth and potential for Screens (Genet) ; Life Is a Dream (Calderon de la
deep loyalty and friendship . Cooking and direct- Barca) ; A Penal Colony (Glass); and Phedre
ing are closely related in the world of JoAnne (Racine) .
Akalaitis. She is simply a wonderful cook and I Oh yes, and of course there is opera: Osud and
am sure that the skill is connected to the bril- Kafa Kaooncwo (Janacek) , The Visit ofthe Old Lady
liance of her creative work in the theater. (von Einem) .
I have seen much of JoAnne 's work over the JoAnne grew up in Chicago in a Lithuanian
years since Dressed Like on Egg, ranging from orig - Catholic atmosphere. She received an und er -
inal creations to classical to contemporary play- graduate degree from the University of Chicago
wrights and composers: Cascondo. Endgame, and studied philosophy at Stanford towa rd a Ph D
Beckett Shorts (Beckett); Southern Exposure but became more interested in the th eater and
(Crump); Dead End Kids: A History of Nuclear Pow- quit studying. She moved to New York and late r
er (original); Request Concert , Through the Leaves Par is where she joined up with l ee Breue r and
(Kmetz); The Photographer (Glass); The Balcony, Ruth Malaczec h with whom she co -foun ded
Prisoner of Love (Genet); Cymbdine, Henry IV, Ma bou Mines in 1970. She married Philip Glass,
Part s I and /I (Shakespea re); In the Summer House also the n a me mber of Mabou Mines, and had

41 pages (46 mn) 1M! n thii chopra<

two children. She continued working with Mabou engaged . It's aesthetically strong. Could we start
Mines in New York City for twenty years where by talking about where that aesthetic, those qua l-
she not o nly directed productions but also acted ities, developed ? Who are your influence s? What
in semi nal company productio ns such as Come happened during the course of yo ur life that fash-
and Co and The B-Beaver Animation, Shaggy Dog ioned this kind of approach to the theater, which
Animation. She left Mabou Mines in the early is highly theatrical. and something that an audi-
eighties to continue a career as a freelance direc- ence has to deal with.
to r. But JoAnne is not a person to remain unaffil- JA: I actua lly don't think I have an aesth etic. I
iated for long. Hand-picked by founder Joe Papp, don't have any philosophy. I have very few ideas,
in 1991 she became the second ever artistic direc- really. I know that it sounds disingenuous, but it's
tor of The New York Shakespeare Festival. She al- not. I suppose that one realizes that one has an
so ran the directing program at [uilliard before aesthetic by seeing when you repeat things. And I
accepting the leadership position at the theat er feel it's kind of dangerous for artists to repeat. I'm
program at Bard College, a roll she continues to- trying to figure out whether repetition is a per-
day. She is the recipient of countless Obie Awards sonal style. and whether it's dangerous or not to
including one for Sustained Achievement. one's work as an artist. I do know that the re are
certain things I'm very interested in. so perhaps
N OV EM BER 18 , 2004 those things that one is interested in form a kind
of fabric that could be called an aesthetic. For
AB: People say, "Oh, JoAnne Akalaitis, she 's so example. I'm interested in music almost like film.
strident and difficult," But you're actually the I'm interested in certain kinds of ges tures, which I
most generous person I know-and a fabulous call mudras. I'm now becoming interest ed in the
cook. Your work really has had a huge impact on possibility of the inclusion of an original language
both the national culture and the international cul- in a prod uctio n.
tu re. You have developed a very particu lar aes- I'm working on Heiner Mulle r's play Quarte t
thetic . When I look at a show you've directed, it right now. I had a meeti ng with the desig ner, Kaye
has a sort of vis ual boldness. It's politically Voyce. today, which was very stimulating.

39 p<>g'" [44 m n) left nih I chopl"

Wouldn't it be interes ting if Karen Kandel, who's means that everybody has aesthetics .
playing the woman, exited instead of the guy. It's Except in the academic world. Aesthetics IS
so boring for him to exit. We actually use the act syste mat ized in a way that is very inaccessible
curta in, and she came out and gave a short lec- and basically is as dry and arid as metaphys ics,
ture in German about Schopenhauer, who was which shoul d be interesting.
kind of an influence on Muller. First of all, I don't
ever want to read Scho penhauer again in my life. I Since you said the word "academic"- you' re run-
thought this would be something that my dra - ning the theater at Bard. I have the same issue,
maturg would be interested in. But she didn't too, of working in an academic organ ization that is
know who Schopenhauer was. I said, "Well, find antithetical to sensation. How do you manage to
someone who does." She wanted me to provide keep the juices going in term s of artistry? What is
the content. I guess I'll just peruse through that like for you?
Schopenhauer. Well, I think it's hard. What the academic insti-
So I try to avoid aesthetic as much as possible. tution does is create a system of redundancy. Al -
And one can't because the theater is an aesthet- so it has created its own language. If you read
ical med ium. As for a philosophy, I don't really academic theses, it's crazy. It's as foreign a lan-
have any. As for politics-I think that I am polit- guage to me as Polish or Greek. I went to this talk
ically sane, in that I do not believe in the current about Gertrude Stein. A professor there was talk-
government. I hate Republicans. I abhor racism, ing about what was paraphrasical. What did he
anti-Semitism, sexism. I'm just a politically sane mean by that? He meant you can tell it. You can
person. tell the story, which you can' t always tell in
Gertrude Stein because it's fragmented and ab-
I learned not so long ago that the definition of aes- stract. Why couldn't he speak English? Because
thet ics, which I always thought was some highfa- they can't. It is ingrained in them , sometimes in
lutin idea or theory, just ess entially means sensa- underg raduate, but especially in graduate school.
tio n. It's as simple as a sensation that you receive And I am now in the process of read ing two hun -
from what you're watching , which basically dred fifty documents-applications-for a

37 pages(42 mn) left onth'l chapter

tenure-track position at Bard College. The way Western theater, the res ponsibility of theater in
peop le try to imp ress you is sometimes very pa- the polis o r the society, the whole idea of
thetic. They do n't know how to be sincere. Also, Dionys ia where these playwrights would do three
the academic world has created in this system of trag edies and a satyr play over the period of a few
redu ndancy a love of emai l and a devot ion to days for the entire population, all men, Athens,
st upid email and memos and committees. When I fifteen thousan d peop le. It would be the equ iv-
was evaluated-a nd I didn't know I would ever be alent of Sam Shepa rd. Arth ur Miller and Tony
evaluated- I said, "What am I supposed to do?" Kushner having to write three plays. prese nt them
"You have to draft a teaching sta tement." "What's to fifteen tho usand people, and having those
a teaching statement?" I spent so much time writ- plays actua llycriticize and theo retically inform the
ing that teaching statement in a state of paranoia behavior of the audience. That's what plays were
that I wouldn't write a good enough teaching doing then. I find that extremely moving and
statement instead of doing what I should be do - absolutely astonishing. I think if you teach Shake-
ing, which is preparing to teach my students . speare you don 't have to know anything about
What it does-besides the redundancy, the Elizabethan society. But in order to teach the
opaque language, an atmosphere of fear, hysteria Greeks you really do have to know som ething
and paranoia-it makes it very hard to really have about society. I'm behind . I'm not a classicist. I'm
what one wants to have, and what I think I do not a histo rian. I'm just a theate r person who
have, which is a wonderful relationship with my means to study the plays. But you can' t just talk
students, who are extremely brilliant. I have to about the plays without knowing the context, at
work really hard to keep up with som e of my stu- least that the plays that Euripides wrote were writ-
de nts. They're smarter than I am. ten during the great war years of the Pelopo n-
I'm teaching the Greeks now, and being in- ne sian War, which led to the eventual decay, de-
volved with the Greeks is such a workshop in cline and end of classica l Greece. So basically I'm
everything-relationships, love, war, hum an like a graduate stude nt. I'm sitting aroun d reading
sacrifice-a form of d ram a that has not ever been the Cambridge Cuide to Creek Drama.
really repeated and is un ique, the beginning of

35 poges [40 mn) IefI'" thiSohaplElt

Do you find you wou ldn't actua lly do that if you abo ut German theater. And very cleverly avoid
weren't teaching? Is that a bonus of acad emia? Goethe and Brecht. I felt I just co uldn't han dle
Yeah, but don't you do dramaturgical rese arch? t hat . Then: "You teach O' Neill beca use I hate
O' Neill." It actua lly works out t hat way. We sit
Absolute ly, but as you sa y, sta ying ahead of your aroun d and say, "Oh, how about post-colonial
students is almost impo ssible to do. You have to American theater? Or seven teent h-century women
st udy sometimes harder. playwrights?" It is remarkab ly unsyst ema tized.
That's true. But do you find that it hurts your work When I taught at [uilliard, which was the only oth -
to teach? er real teaching experience I've had, the directors
wanted us to deal with George Bernard Shaw and
No, I can't direct without tea ching. We have such Ibsen. My colleague, Garland Wright, and I both
a short rehearsal proces s, four weeks. How the hated both of those playwrights. We just said.
hell are you supposed to do all of your research in "No. We're never going to do that. Go someplace
tho se four weeks plus direct a play? In order to hit else or do it on your own. It's never going to hap -
the road running I need six months of work on a pen here at luilliard."
project th at's going to ta ke four weeks to direct. I
do it in the conte xt of a un ivers ity setting. That's Talk a little bit about where you come from, Chica-
the way it worked out , not living in a subsidized go. You spent time in San Francisco, you spent
culture. In th at first rehearsal, I have a lot of stuff time in France. That trajectory ha s created an ap-
in my hand s, which I thank my students for be- proach to th eater that I th ink is unique.
cause I put them t hrough that research. They get I consider myself fundamentally a Midwestern
something out of it as well. person, and admire what I think is a kind of
I don't do that. I try to separate them. I consider naivety of living in snow. I also consider myself
myself poseur. really. You know, we sit around an ethnic person. I am Lithuanian. I do n't think I
and say, "Okay, survey of drama. Who wants to integra ted. I know I'm a Lithuania n American, but
te ach what?" I raise my hand and say, "Oh , I'll I am a Lithuanian. I went to a Lithuania n Catho lic
teach German theater." As if I know anything school. I went to Lithuanian high school. I had a

33 poges (37 mn) leI! n Itol coop'«

fantastic education, and I was not ab used by remember the d rama teac her-her lipstick was al-
crazy lesbian nuns. I am the product of wonderful ways sort of crooked and she always had mascara
role models who were women . o n her cheekbones; somehow she couldn't get
When I was fourteen years old, and I was kind her makeup right. But she was so insp iring to me
of rebellious, Sister Edith said to me, "I think and to many other girls. Because I was tall- it
you're an artist. I thin k you have the personality of was a girls' school-I played boys. I played men.
an artist." She did something really great for me. That was very empowering and liberating also.
She gave me an entire wall of Providence High But I don't think there's any path. I went to San
School to paint with another rebellious girl. We Francisco, and I met some of the people who
made--we drew. we sketched it out, then we would later be my colleagues , and the Mimes
graphed it out -this fantastic mural called "Provi- (members of the San Francisco Mime Troupe) .
dence Girls at Work and Prayer." It showed all Then I decided to quit theater when I cam e back
these girls playing vo lleyball and basketball and to New York because I felt there was no place for
debating. I was captain of the debate team, and I me in it. I felt strongly that there was no place in
was voted the most versatile in my high school theater for someone who was a mother. There
graduating class-c-because I was also the editor was a particular event which turned me off. I went
of the newspaper, I played all these sports, and I to a rehearsal of a play I was in at La MaMa, and I
was very involved in visual arts . I thought I was had to bring my daughter, who was ten months
going to be a painter. And' was in plays. I won old. They told me I couldn't I just said. "Well,
prizes in plays. It was a deliriously happy time in fuck you. I don't want to be involved in any kind
my life. I got to go in a streetcar away from my of institution or form that does not include or
family, who I didn't particularly relate to, although welcome families." That was one of the things
they were fine people. The real relationships that I that I found admirable , and still do, about Mabou
forged were with my girlfriends and certain teach- Mines- that children were always a part of the
ers , certain nuns. I think it is the case for probably picture. Because there were children. Babysitting
a lot of you that you kind of developed throug h a was budgeted into production budget. For the
high school teache r or a drama teac her. I purposes of the NEA budget t hey were called

31poges (35 JT'On) lefl n this chop!ef

rehearsal assistants-which they were. had a Fulbright scholarship. I was following
som eone. frankly. I thought it was importan t to
You caused revolutions in various regional the- live in Europe and travel around Euro pe, and also
aters . Even when your kids were grown up, you'd to travel aro und Asia.
say, "Where's childcarej" They'd say, "There is
none in regional theaters." You'd say, " How is Why? What did yo u learn?
this possible?" And suddenly all these women Well, I think it's life-enhancing to live in anoth er
who'd worked there for years would go, "We've culture. I think it's even more life-enhancing to
been thinking that for years , but nobody ever said travel in Asia, or in an Islamic country where there
it!" There were revolutions in the regional theater is no theater as we know it. Of course it's simply
about childcare. great to go to the theater in France and Germany
But are things better? I don't know if they are. I and England and to see all that-because it's dif-
remember having a very big fight with [LiviuJ ferent. But then to go to a country like Pakistan
Ciulei in the lobby of the Guthrie Theater because where there's not theater. It's different. You and I
he was misdirecting some Greek play and he was went to East Jerusalem to visit Occupied Terri-
forbidding a woman to come in with a child. I per- tories, and it was very thrilling.
formed an intercession there . 1 just said. "You
can't do that. I'm going to go to the artistic direc- We were in the Gaza Strip. It was against the rules
tor and file a civilian arrest or something." I said, for more than ten people to gather together at the
"If the baby cries, she 'll leave the theater becaus e same time-Out all these theater companies from
she's not an idiot. I mean. she's not going to sit all over the Gaza Strip showed up at the YMCA, in
there with a crying baby and disrupt your perfor- the basement, and showed us their work. It was
mance." unbelievable. And they all could have been ar-
rested . You feel a different relationship to the art
At which point did you go to Paris? form.
It was in the sixties. There was no reason to go. Well, Robert (Woodruff] and Joe [Hajj and I d id
went because I was involved with someone who get arrested while you were--

2'9pages{32 mil) left IIIthll chopW

With Michael Greif in the other car. I'm so sorry. And we got out ofGaz a and had a fantastic din-
You and Woodruff refused to stay in the car be- ner in East Jerusalem that night- I mean, the best
cause you were sick of sitting in the car, and all of falafel I think I've ever had in my life.
a sudden all these military cars surrounded us.
Our car took off into the back streets of the Gaza The first work I ever saw you do knocked me out.
Strip. We were terrified for you. To this day I remember both of them really well-
I was terrified because the guys jumped out with Cascando, a radio play by Beckett, and Dressed
machine guns and surrou nded us. Fifteen Israe li Lib an Egg, based on the work of Collette. I'd
policemen ripped the film out of Robert's camera, never seen anything like it. Where did that work
then too k our passports away. They took the come from in those days?
Palest inian's papers away, and then they said, Well. the Beckett script-it didn't seem to me like
"Follow us in the car." My first instinct was- I a rad io play. I saw something. I saw a group of
said, "We have to come up with a story about why people in Nova Scotia. That's what I saw. And
we're here. l et's say we're Quake rs." Quakers vis- that was what I staged.
it every place, right? And Robert and Joe though t
that was bullshit. They were very militant. They You know what I learned from it? It was a really
took us to Rafah, which is right on the Egyptian small stage, and it was jammed with stuff: It was
border. I was really, really sacred. They too k the the most cluttered stage I've ever seen, a set with
Palestinian into some other place, and we were so much stuff on it. I remember at one point, the
left to talk ou r way out of that. We succeeded in table floated. I couldn't believe it . What I learned
doing that. Succeede d in getting our pass ports from that is what the Germans say, "Wenn Sie es
back. And they were going to keep the Palestinian . tun, tun Sie es," If you can do it, do it. If you can
That was not acceptable. Then they said that he have a lot of stuff, have a lot of stuff---or have no
had a violation on his card, and that they needed stuff at all. And it was hallucinogenic, that setting.
four hundred American dollars. We man aged to I know tha t Beckett didn' t like it. and he was too
get four hu ndred dollars so mehow. I felt so polite to say. He saw it in Germa ny. and I could
shook up by that. tell it upset him. I think that Beckett was just too

27 JXlg<'.(30 mn) lIIft n IIIs chop''''

shy to say, "You can' t do this." That cam e later. We both ended up in a panel discussion called
And then t he Collette. I don't know. I tho ught "Authors Versus Directors ." They brought in the
this kind of female icon-again it came as an im- Crove Press Beckett people because of what you
age, which was Collette leaning against those bars had done at American Repertory Theater with
with her French bulldog. It just came from a pic- Endgame, setting it in a subway. I was there and
tu re. I think that pretty much everything I do the Rodgers and Hammerstein people were there
comes from some picture or some dream. I did becau se of a production I'd done of South Pacific.
have a dream about a dress printed with eggs on All of this to bring up the issue of Beckett a little
it. That all somehow ended up being the piece. bit more. I long to do a Waiting for Codot with
two women-Kelly Maurer and Ellen lauren as
It was immense. The Photographer, which was at th ose two guy characters. How do you even ap-
BAM, a billion-and -a-half years ago 11g82], was proach doing t hat when the rules are so st ringent?
centered in a little, tiny pool moving really fast . Well, I've heard that the Beckett estate is even
This was based on Muybridge, the photographer. more watchful. But I actually think it should not
How did t hat happen? That was an extraord inary be done with women . I think that Gooot is the ulti-
thing. mate man-play
Well, it happened because Philip Glass asked me
to do it. BAM was interested in doing it. That Really?
came from one of Muybrldge's photographs, but Yes.
I don't think any of the photographs have water.
Or maybe they do . Somehow, I thought of fabric Allth e more reason .
and water and the occasion of that. When you I love Godot because I think it's abou t intimate
move fast the fabric gets wet and the water kind men who are impotent, who have a prostate prob-
of bounces around through the air, and you get lem.
light . Jennifer Tipton did the lights. I like water on I don't know what's going on with these es-
stage a lot. tates. Now I'm in trouble with t he Genet estate .
I'm not allowed to direct any Genet play ever. I

25 p<>g'" (27 mn) leI! n It1I chapt&/ 40'l. ,00<

don't know what I did wrong. Some incredible lives in Morocco or Greece or som e place like
misunderstanding came about. I was going to do that. He does n't know the thea ter. He doesn't
The Blacks at A.R.T. I had all kinds of inter- know anything about it. I think it had to do with
cessions, like Edmund White, who was Genet's this: Philip Glass wrote a wonderful sco re for The
biographer. They said no. It has somethi ng to do Screens, and he owns the music. He made a CD of
with Philip Glass and music, which I don't under - it. He performs it all over the world. They believe,
stand. I said, "Philip Glass is definitely not in- mistakenly, that he made a musical of The Screens
volved in this project." Then I was going to do and made a lot of money. They want some of the
The Maids in Chicago, and I had this funny little money or something like that. There was no way
feeling. J went to [A.R.T. executive director) Rob of convincing them that this was not the cas e,
Orchard and said, "What's your advice?" He said including the producers of this concert going to
if the theater has the rights, do not say who is the agent's office. It's just a hideous mistake.
directing it. They don't have to say who's direct- After The Screens I did an adap tation with Chiori
ing it. But the managing director in Chicago Miyagawa and Ruth Maleczech of Genet's last
chickened out. She got scared. She called the book called Prisoner of Love. Philip Glass wrote the
agent in london and asked, "Arethere any restric- music for it. I think it's really unfortunate that I'm
tions about directors on The Maids?" They said, eighty-sixed from the two greatest dramatists of
"Anyone but JoAnne Akalaitis." I always thought the twentieth -century, Beckett and Genet. I'll nev-
of myself as Mrs. Genet. er in my life be able to do their work. But also
think it's unfortunate that they are stubborn and
You did a production of The Sueens that is leg- stupid in a way. The production we did at the
enda ry in Minneapolis. Guthrie was an incredible production, and Paul
1can't do it again. Schmidt's translation was brilliant. A publishe r
wanted to pub lish a book-a picture book with
Is it the family? Paul's translatio n and a CD. It was a very nice
Genet's heir, who is the son of one of his dead idea. And the estate on ly wants the Grove Press
lovers, somehow got involved in all of this. He translation. He's a bad transla to r.

2l pages (25 mill) left IIIthll chopte, 40'l. ,eo<

I want to ask a difficult quest ion. What is the role comes from New York, and stuff like that. I f eel
of theater now? How has it changed in the past sorry fo r them because they're not being sup-
few years? What do you see as the role of theater ported by audiences. I think that people actually
in this particular moment? are turning away from theater.
Well. I wish it were important . Sophocles wrote One of my best friends is the editor of Tricycle,
Philoctetes because he was mad at the govern- the Budd hist review. She said tha t after 9/11 they
ment. Philoctetes . who's got a foot that smells. is received more contribu tions than in the whole
exiled to this island because nobody wants to history of Tricycle. I said, "Oh . I get it. Buddhists
smell him. It's basically a protest against Greek will figure everything out , not us theater artists."
government. Euripides wrote The Troja/1 Women All these theaters are saying the same thing:
after the Greeks invaded the island of Milos and "We're going to cut back. We're going to do one
killed all the men and infant boys and took all the less play this season ." In a funny way. it doesn't
women and girls as sexual savages. affect me . I don 't really have a big career. I'm not
I went with my students to see that Albeel an important person. I'm not Tony Kushner, who
Beckett program . We went on an evening when is unbelievably, art iculately, dose to politics and
Albee was doing an audience discussion. One of theory. He's a thrilling political essayist. Tony
my students asked him if he had any response to maybe has some influence. I don 't think I do. I
9/11 or the state of the world or the war in Iraq. feel lucky to direct a play every once in a while.
He was ve ry defensive about it. I think he's a But I don 't know what it means for so-called
defensive guy anyway. II's not that I'm saying that emerging directors and actors .
we should not believe in art for art 's sake, be-
cause we do. We have to. But what I'm struck by Audience: Do you find that part of the th ing tha t's
is the utter irrelevance of theater in our culture. important to you as a theat er edu cato r is to instill
Especially now. I'm also struck by these artistic or excite that in your stud ents so we can move
directors who have no money, because their the- som e place else from this sad place we are in our
aters have no money, who want to do plays that country right now, in the arts? How do you go
have two characters and no set and nobody about doing that?

11poges (23 mn) lef!ln Itli chap!&< 40'l. ,00<

Well, we talk abo ut that. We ta lk about politics in particular-are more important, now more t han
the classro om . You 're not suppos ed to. Yo u get ever. It begins with how you approach it.
in trouble for doing it. But I do n't care. I brought
that article in tha t was in th e New York Tim es Audience: Do you think there's anything specif-
Magaz ine about George Bush 's faith-driven th ing, ically from an Asian cultural point of view that has
becau se we were talking abo ut Antigone. Creon seeped into your work?
says, "You're eithe r with me or aga ins t me." Then I actua lly didn 't see much Asian theat er. I'm very
I realized- and I as ked the m, "Are there any born- interested in kathakaf theater, which is seen not a
again Christians in this group?" Maybe I could of- lot. and Balinese theater. A lot of peo ple are. Asia
fend someone. But then I thought it's the same as is very in right now. We have to be very careful
in post-Hitler Germany. I'm sure there were occa - not to appro priate it, not to be th at equivalent of
sions where there was discussion of an ti- orienta lists. I think everything you do is impo rtant
Semitism. It is the ethical duty of an educato r to to your life as a theater artist. 1 think cooking is
discuss unethical situations. One of my col- important to my life as a theater artist. I have a
leagues said, "Well, you could get in trou ble." cou rse that I teach sometimes called Theatre Sa-
said, "Well, go repo rt me. I don't care." lon, in which I invite a guest to com e, an artistic
directo r o r a playwright or somebody. And I cook
AS: For me, that's very important to instill in stu- d inner for twenty students. It's really a lot of fun. I
dents going through training not to expect, when mean, it's a lot of work, but it's a lot of fun. Every-
they get out , the corporate ride. You actually have thing you do in life info rms your work. Yo u walk
to make it yourself. It is important what you do. around t hinking abo ut it all the time, dreaming
It's important what you say. It's important what abo ut it. It's just t here. At a certain poin t it sim ply
you make. Because if you don 't say those words, does n' t go away. So t he reason to go to Asia isn' t
then it isn 't, The articu lation of the role that the to go see thea ter. The reaso n to go to Asia is to
arts-and theater in particu lar-play in our lives go to Asia . The most incredible cur ry.
starts with the words trying to describe it. That's a
big deal. I find the arts-and theater in Audience: Once you decide to direct a play, IS

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ther e a specific way you approac h it? Is there an choreog rapher. Everyone in the comp any gets to
Akalaitis way, or does each play tell you what to be the cho reographer. Everyone fo llows the
do with it? choreog rapher. With these young acto rs who
Well, I kind of do a lot of exercises in the begin- have this incredible physical energy, it's really fun.
ning, and those exercises could change from play What they do and what they can do is outrageo us.
to play. I don't have an approach. I don' t block That's an example. I always do this exercise called
plays anymo re. Stopping and Starting. It's movement. I'm inter-
ested in impressions. I do this exercise where
AB: What do you do? everyone internalizes blood, all their organs. their
They do it better. I do less as I get older because I muscles. their skin with an acting image. J do an
trust everyone more. And also I'm kind of lazy. I exercise. which I call Pathology. I ask the actors to
don't want to be there late at night. I want to go think about what disease they have. if they have
home and watch Survivor or the Food Network. cancer or migraine headaches or if they're alco-
holics or drug addicts. They don't tell me. There
Audience: Does Survivor influence your work? are certain things I think the actors should own
Yes, because it amuses me. That means when I that I don't-that I should not know. In fact, most
go into the rehearsal room-and I mean this-I things I don't think I should know. I'm not inter-
have had a very nice evening watching stupid lV. ested in talking about their cha racters; that's their
job. I have an exercise with a group where every-
Aud ience: What exercises did you do in the last one writes their story---especially relevant in a
play you d irected? Greek play because the chorus doesn't have
It's not interesting, actually. names. I ask the chorus to name themselv es and
to tell their story. The stage manager collects all
Audience: Just a little bit? the stories and xeroxes, and then the entire com-
Well. one of my new favorite exercises is called pany has everyone's story. But I do n't. So it's
Choreographer. It's hooked to Aretha Franklin's theirs . I encou rage them to ma ke a tribe that is
song "Respect." It's very simple. There's a not con nected to me or dependent on me.

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Audience: That's a Swvivor term. in Theatre Salon. We read philosophy. It was
It is. But I do n't learn anything as a director from good for the thea ter st ude nts to do it becaus e I
te levis ion. Or that's minor co mpared to sitting th ink they don 't read enough. They don 't read
arou nd reading Foucault, which I so metimes do. enou gh plays. They do n't think enough. They
That's really impo rta nt. Or Nietzsche. I'm trying don 't write good eno ugh. They don 't ta lk good
to read philosophy again because I think my brain enough. I want them to be mo re intellectually rig-
kind of got shru nk. oro us. It only helps.
I thought it would be interesting to have a
AB: How did your brain get shrunk? department-wide-c-like a book club. These are the
Ifyou don't use it, it does. obvious books: Artaud's Th~a tre and Its Douote.
Grotowski's Poor Theatre, Peter Broo k's The Emp-
AB: That's actua lly physiorogically proven. ty Space and The Birth ofTmgedy and Elino r Fuch-
Now at Bard I require the entire program to read s's Th ~ Deoth of Character. Of course it's not
five books. One of the books is Th~ Birth of working out because I wanted them to discu ss
Trag~dy by Nietzsche, though I disagree with with each othe r and they want to come to me or
everything in it. Have you read it? their advisor and have us explain the book.
There's so much wrong with every on e of those
AS: A while back. books, except Ellie's. I think these books, as far as
I read it a while back. And I was astonished how I'm co ncerned. are the ABC books. If you're in the
hard it was for me to read it now at my age. I thea ter, you're really out of it if you don 't read
bribed my son-in-law who's very smart, with a these books.
bottle of Irish whiskey, to give me a tuto rial. The
same thing with Foucault- tough going. Very, Audience: I was at a panel on the legacy of Joe
very tough going. I used to sit arou nd when I was Papp at Columb ia. Greg Mosher was moderating.
in my twenties- I do n't know why; I must have Eduardo Machado, who is the art istic director of
been insa ne-a nd read Kant, who I des pise now. INTAR and head of playwriting at Columbia , was
But that's one of the things we d id last semester ther e; Kevin Kline; Wood y King, Jr., who first

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produced colored girfs; Diane Paulus, who did about his apartment and his last days and how he
The Donkey Show . I came off t hinking how pes- sort of summoned everyone to his apartment. He
simi stic it was. They're saying, "The state of the- had some idea that David Greenspan was gong to
ater is th is. The state of theater is this." direct Richard II. Some idea. And the reaso n Joe
could get away with all this is beca use he believed
AB: I don't think you can afford th e luxury of pes- in it. This is a guy who, whe n he was a stage man -
si mism right now. I thin k it's against t he rules . ager for television, refused to testify for th e
The obstacles in front of us are the biggest the y've House Un-American Activities Committee. From
ever been in our lifetimes-for anybod y who the very beginning he was a fighter, to the very
hasn 't lived through the second world war. I just end. That's what he's taught us. So if ther e's any
don 't think we can afford that attitude. That atti- panel about Joseph Papp, the tone of that pan el
tude predetermines the succ es s of everything. I should be utterly uplifting and optimistic.
think it's so easy to complain. It's so eas y to let
yourself offthe hoo k. AB: What keeps you going?
Let's not complain anymore about Bush and what I'm really interested in theater. It's an interesting
happened. But let's pick our battles. It's boring to form. you know?
complain about him. He's the president. There's
nothing we can do about that. But let's wait and Audience: It strikes me as so appropriate that
pick our battles-because there will be battles. amidst all the complaints about losing funding
Joe Papp was my mentor. He was the greatest that some theaters, some artistic directors' re-
genius in American theater after David Belasco. sponse to that-such as Molly Smith at Arena
There are so many things to learn from Joe. But Stage, who just did a huge capital campaign--is
one of the things to learn from Joe is to choose to say, "O h, we'll just be bigger." I find that to be
your optimism. This was the guy who had the an intensely political response . It reminds me that
nuttiest ideas-but those ideas were based in a sometimes as a theater artist I can fall into being
fundamental belief in the power of theater. I actu - reactive to the society of which I am a part. Cer-
ally spent t he day thinking abo ut Joe and thinking tainly that's part of what we do--we react ; we

13poges (14mon)left on lh schopl<l< 41'l. ,00<

respond to. But we do this other piece, too. really exciting town and has a very coo king audi-
There's a great interview that Tony Kushner did in enc e, on every level. I went to see t his prod uction
Heat magazine right before the election. He was in a church by T. S. Eliot, and I thought I hated T.
talking about people working for the Democratic S. Eliot, but it was brilliant. It was cold. There
party and the Kissinger real politic thing. It wasn't were only like twelve people there. And tha t was
about wearing black bandanas and bombing Star- great. At the same time, I love walking in the door
bucks. He said at the end , "If we fuck it up, it's of the big, old, rich Shakespeare Theatre, which
our fault." I found that so ins pirational. I can get has the greatest props, greatest shops, great est
kind of victimy as a theater artist. That's anti- everything. When you arrive there to direct a play,
creation, I think . they have these volunteers who o pen the door of
your very beautiful apartment. When we did The
AS: I think that relates also to direct ing in the Trojan Women. there was a basket of Greek food,
sense that, whatever situation you're in, there are a bottle of wine with my picture on it. This is a
always little problems. I th ink the director's job is theater that works! So I think there's room for that
to think past the problems and put a big globe cocktail party. and there's room for big, old Molly
around it. That is exactly, I think , what you mean Smith and Michael Kahn in the same town.
by saying, "There are problems here, so let's build
a new theater." The point is to really contain all of Audience: One thing I thought from this election
the problems inside of a bigger-I don't like to or the current state of affairs is that middle Amer-
use the word "vision ." ica is very hungry for teaching, for morals, for
People get into mental institutions- community, however you want to perceive that.
You were talking about the role of Creek theater in
AS: With visions . I know. their society. Do you have any advice for us as
young theater artists for how we could reach out
Audience: They also become Jesus. and make theater have a more important role in
Or Joan of Arc. I feel the capital campaign in cer- our society? Reach out also toward midd le Amer-
tain major urban sites is exciting. Washington is a ica and the values that they perceive, to stimulate

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that intellectual side? fuck. fuck." Then go in the theater and they're e n-
t hralled. They're absolutely enthralled. You can't
AB: As Americans we have a trad ition that's based lower sta nda rds. It's all high. And it is t he case
on populism. I learned this by going away from tha t aud iences love great theater. They always do
th is country and confronting people who weren't because they're huma n beings.
from a populist background. When we work in the
theater we aim low. We say, "Is Joe Schmo going AD: And Philadelphia?
to get this? Is Peoria going to get this?" There are We we re booed at the Annenberg Center. Dead
historical reasons why we do that . An actor can End Kids was booed.
sense thi s. An actor senses ifl'm watching for his
or her absolute best work. An audience also feels AB: Maybe it was all those bad jokes .
the same thing. I t hink the answer is to aim really That's what they booed.
high becau se the reason that the theater doesn't
have a lot of impact right now, doesn't feel very AB: There's a whole section of that play with
exciting on a lot of stages, is because so little is David Brisbane telling one foul joke after
asked of the audience. Theater at its best is like a another-and they were graph ic, kind of gross
great gym. You grapple with it, jokes. It was a great show.
What is middle America? Are they somehow infe-
rior to us? They're not. I come from middle Amer- Audience: What are some of the most interesting
ica. I've never questioned the art. I have only had responses you've gotten to your work?
positive experiences with audiences-except in In Chicago when they did The Iphigenia Cycle-i n
Philadelphia. There's something wrong with the preview discussion, every nigh t the audien ce
Philadelphia. I don't know what. asked the same question: "Why are Agamemnon
The example is those places where t hey bus and Menelaus smoking?" My res ponse was,
t hose high school kids in, and you see t hem out - "Well. they're not wearing fur." Politically incor-
side. The most th rilling audiences to me are t hose rect. That was t he mos t interest in g respo nse.
kids who are standing outside saying, "Fuck, fuck,

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Audience: What were the moments that validated do something he didn't think was right, he'd say,
your path? When did you feel like you were really "Oh, you've got the wrong director," and he'd get
on the right path to becoming a major director in on the Concorde and go back to London-
the American th eater? because it's Broadway-and then wait for the
I still do n't feel that I'm o n the right path. I've phone to ring. They'd say, "Please come back, Mr.
never felt that I was on the right path . I t hink I'm Jones . Please, we need you." And he'd say, "Well,
an extremely lucky person. I'm a really lucky per- all right," and he'd go back, but he was completely
son in that I ge t to do what I want to do. I mean, I philosophical about it. It had no attachment to his
could be se lling metro cards or something. I look career succes s-it was just, "Well, this is really
around at the world-and I do look aro und at t he interesting."
world-and so much of the world is not doing I find the same thing with you. You don 't sa y,
what they want to do-not just people selling "This is good for my caree n" If anyth ing it's your
metro cards or people who are corporate lawyers. absolute hon esty and interest in the art. I remem-
I am a lucky person. I have a family. I have chil- ber going with you down in the basement of the
dren. I have grandchildren . I have friends. I just church in Jerusalem where Jesus was. We were
can't get over it. going into the space and you're looking at this
light bulb or some lighting fixture that was kind of
AB: I'm going to try to answer for you. As long as greenish in the basement of this church, and you
I've known you, you always say, "Oh, I'm going to said , "That's the most beautiful th ing I've ever
give it up and cook in a restaurant," You're always seen." I was so touched when you said that be-
on the verge of giving up . Richard Jones did Ti- cau se you were so just there with it, You are just
tanic on Broadway. He's such a philosopher. He interested.
told me this story about being in auditions with all I think it's important not to care. Caryl Churchill's
ofthese producers and th eir poodles and lunches in town. She's a friend of mine. She happens to
and saying, "Why don 't you cast that person?" It be. I think. our greatest playwright. She says, "1
was this big, Broadway, commercial production- don't know if I'm going to write anot her play."
and every time somebody would try to get him to She's inte rested in her grandchild ren. She is

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abso lutely the least driven theater artist in the Audience: Do you work with new plays by living
world. Sometimes she says, "Well, I have writer's playwrights ?
bloc k. I pro bably won 't write anot her play." And I haven't for quite a while. I thin k the last living
that's fine with her. She's not seei ng a ther ap ist playwright I worked with was Steve Tesich. The
about it. She's fine. "I've written a lot of things. experience, accord ing to his sister, caused his
Fine." death of a heart attack. I love Steve. But it was re-
ally trau matic for him and for me--and he d id die
Audience: I've been meaning to as k you this for a of a heart attack soo n after that. I would very
while: What do you like about umbrellas so much? m uch like to direct a play by Caryl-especially be-
I don't use them in every play. Two plays. One cause she doesn't like to travel and she likes to
was a piece called frank Gehry Had a Dream. Af- stay in her house in London and not bug you. I
te r the entire Dutchess County objected to where have so me students whose work I'd like to direct.
he wanted to build his building, he had a d ream I do n't know why . .. working with living play-
about where he really wanted to build it. So we wrights just kind of went away.
did a piece there with a whole bunch of
students-frank Gehry Had a Dream. I don't Audience: Did you write?
know. 1 thought those umbrellas would look I used to sort of compose stuff. I am in the midst
nice--fifty red umbrellas . And then it sta rted to of a seven-year collaboration about Lo uis Arm-
rain and the audience attacked the field and too k strong's wife. called Lil, with Jer ry Armstrong, a
the umbre llas. jazz pianist. I think writing is lone ly, and it's hard.

Audience: Is that a kind of validation for you? That AS: You worked on Kercuac, a piece you put to-
just came off the top of your heed-c-let's have fifty gether.
red umbrellas . I d id. I think I'm more like an editor. That was the
They came in handy, did n't they? Collette also. I think I have stopped.

AS: They're poetical, aren't they? Umbrellas. Audience: Did you collaborate on the new

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tra nslation of The Screens, or was it presented to that thrills me.
you?
We had an intense collaboration. A great colla b- Audience: You mentioned that there was a point
oration. Genet is a very juvenile, adolescent and earl ier on where you didn't consider yourse lf a
messy writer. We rewrote the entire end of t he theater person. How did you come back?
play, Paul Schmid t and l. It had to be redone. We I didn't want to be part of a syste m where I was
cha nged a lot- wit h permiss ion fro m t he agen ts. judged by directo rs. I d idn't want to have a photo
We kep t calling and saying, "We're doing t his. and a resum e. I didn't want to go to auditions. It
We're doing this . We're doing this." We added th e was because of Mabou Mines- a group of us de-
French language. They were speaking Racine-- cided to start our own thea ter company in which
Paul's translation of Racine's Phedrt . When I read we were all equal. We were all t he artis tic direc-
t he Racine 1couldn't get over how fantas tic it was. tors. We all received a salary whether we worked
What a great playwright. What a grea t artist. 1said, or not-whatever that salary was , because so me-
"The audience has to hear some of this French." times it was zero because there was no mon ey. It
was-and I assume still is-so collabo rative.
Audience: In the th eater, what are you interested That interested me .
in right now?
I think I go to too mu ch theater. I'm interes ted in AB: I remember somebody once sat In on a
not going to a play right now. I'm se rious abou t Mabou Mines rehearsal and said, " It was really
that. I fee l brain dead . strange." This was a long time ago . "They sit
around and drink coffee and noth ing's
Audience: What do you like about directing? happening-and then all of a s udden t his amaz-
1 like t he inte raction with acto rs. 1 love acto rs. ing th ing happens. And I totally missed how that
love the heady intellectual climate of collaborating happened."
with de signers. The help and suppo rt I get from End less rehearsals. I'm not part of Mabou Mines
dramaturgs. I would say tha t funda menta lly it is now. I haven't been for a long time. A lot of tha t
the communal as pect of creating a work of art has to do wit h my not wanting to be involved wit h

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a company. and wanting to meet new people in joseph v. Melillo
new situations.
Joe is an enthus iast. The word ent husiasm
etymo logically means "to be filled with God." Joe
is fill ed with a love and appreciation for the art of
performance and he takes significant action
based o n this enthu siasm. He is the executive
producer of the Brooklyn Acad emy of Music
where he supports and presents what he believes
in. The seas on s at BAM offer without dou bt the
most consistently exhilarating theate r. dance, mu-
sic and film to be found in New York Cityand the
boroughs.
What I find most remarkable about Joe, besides
his outstanding achievements at BAM, is the way
he relates to time. Joe's time is constantly in de-
mand . Everyone wants to meet and woo him.
Nearly every week he is on a plane to a different
part of the world to see new works of theater,
dance and music. And yet with Jo e on e never feels
hurried or affected by the pressure tha t he m ust
be under. He makes time for young artists . He
meets with them to discuss their work seriously
and makes suggestions about peopl e they shou ld
meet . And then he rememb ers an d makes a point
of making introductions fo r the m, too. Joe is what
Malcom Gladwell calls in his boo k The Tipping

1 poge «1 mn) H!fl 'n Itol Chaple< 42'l. ,00<

Point. "a maven": someone who accumulates Wilso n on the first revival of Einstein on the Beach
knowledge, collects information and puts peopl e in 1984. His hand can be seen in the broad -
together. Joe is the axis around which a lot of ranging Next Wave productions such as The
events turn. Mahabharata and Nixon in China.
After earning a BA in English and theater at Sa- In the years since taking responsibility for the
cred Heart University in Fairfield, Connecticut , institutiona l artistic direction, BAM has enjoyed
Joe received an MFA in Speech and Drama at increases in both programming and attendance.
Catholic University of America in Washington , He was named a Chevalier (1999) and an Officier
D.C. His pre-BAM career covered a wide range of (2004) of the French legion of Honor. Also in
activity. He was general manager of the 1982 New 2003, Joe was awarded an honorary Obie for his
World Festival of the Arts in Miami; theater pro- outstanding commitment to British performing
gram director of Foundation for the Extension arts in America. In 2007 , he was appointed Knight
and Development of the American Professional of the Royal Order of the Polar Star, in recognition
Theater (FEDAPT) ; marketing director for the of his role in solidifying ties between the per-
Walnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia; thematic forming arts com munities of Sweden and the
specialist in contemporary American theater for United States.
the Institute of International Education , Depart - Joe currently serves on the faculty of the Brook-
ment of State , USIA; and producing director of lyn College graduate program in arts management
the Chelsea Theater Center of New York. Prior to and he has served on innumerable boards of
his current role as the executive producer at BAM, directors, panels and co uncils.
that began when Harvey lichtenstein retired, Joe
served as BAM's producing director , following a NOV EM BER 2 9 . 2004
six-year tenure as founding director of the Next
Wave Festival. during which time he produced the AB: Joe is executive producer of Brooklyn Acad-
premiere productions of The Photographer: Far emy of Music and is curating for New York the
from the Truth and The Gospel at Cotonos. He most interesting seas ons that there are. There's
worked closely with Philip Glass and Robert really an appetite for this work. What brought you

37 pages(42 mn) left onth'l chapter 42'l. ,00<

into the world of performance? clo uds parted and it was revealed to me what the
JVM: I am an Italian American from New Haven, professional thea ter could possibly be . There was
Connecticut. I went to undergrad uate school in a great re lat ion sh ip with what was going on in
Bridgeport/Fairfield coun ty. And I was a reader. I New Yor k City and what was happening on cam-
was not very active as a student. I just liked to pus in Washingto n, D.C.
read. I went to college and my major was English I graduated and I was in a relat ion ship with an
literatu re. In my sophomore year, taking a Shake- actress at the time . She got accepted to be in the
spea re cou rse in which I was studying Shake- acting company at the Guthrie Theater. I was
speare as literature , I was in the cafeteria and I stage managing and I followed her to the Guthri e.
recognized there was a group of kids across the I had the great joy of being in the rehearsal hall
cafeteria who were having a great time. I found with Michael Langham, who was in his first year
out that they were the theater students. I thought, of being the artistic director of the Guthrie The-
Gee, they're having so much fun. I want to be a ater. He was rehearsing Cyrano Ide &rguacJ and
part of that. So I found my way into their social Taming of the Shrew. I was in the room as he was
unit, and I learned that there was a kind of discon - directing Paul Hecht as Cyrano, Roberta Maxwell
nect in my brain in understanding that Shake- as Roxanne and Glen Carrie as Christian. And I
speare is to be produced, interpreted and created was watching what he was doing with th es e ac-
as an active theater experience . I learned tha t tors and I thought, Oh my God. I don't have that
through the intera ction with these students, and ability. What he was doing was not only working
took theater as my minor along with philosophy. on their characterizations, but he was working on
I graduated. and began to teach in an intercity the subtext of the character, while dealing with the
school system in New Haven white I was taking text, the literature . There were multiple levels o n
pos t-graduate cou rses in the theater. I knew 1 which he was working-that was not my training
couldn' t be competitive getting a masters in the- at all. I saw how brilliant he was .
ate r. Then I matriculated to get my MFA, conc en- You have that self knowledge: What I really
tration in directing, from Catholic University of want to do is become a prod ucer. I ca n make the-
America. in Washingto n, D.C. That's when the ater by creating the environ ment for so meone like

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him to do his work. That began my path . there would be this festival. He was thinking that
he was going to create the next Spoleto .
When you said, "I could be a produ cer," at that He came to New York City and landed on my
moment in time , what did that mean to you? doorstep. I agreed to do it. I had eight mon ths to
In that time, being a prod ucer was finding the produce it. I delivered twenty-two world premieres
script. finding the director, working with the d irec- in three weeks. and then in August of 1982, came
tor to find his or her collaborators. design ers. back to New York. 50 I had this reputation then of
casting the play with actors, and making the re- being able to stand up after twenty-two world pre-
hearsal process possible . Today it's a completely mieres and talk in simple sentences and have
different point of view. Today, my understanding intelligent conversation . Harvey Lichtenstein had
of what a producer is has everything to do with conceptualized the Next Wave Festival and he too
life experience in the theater and what it is to was looking for someone to produce. I was sum -
interact with creator -people. You find a way to moned to his doorstep. We talked and eventually
activate or-the word I think is really good- he offered me the job. When I walked into the
"animate" their creativity. Brooklyn Academy of Music in '983 to produce
the first Next Wave Festival, Harvey Lichtenstein
I want to dea l with history a litt le bit. You started handed me a piece of paper. My biggest mistake
the Next Wave Fest ival? to date is that I didn't hold on to that piece of pa-
Harvey (Lichtenstein] created the idea. He gave per. I've learned a lot about archives because
me the privilege of producing the first Next Wave BAM has an active archive that goes back to 1861.
Festival. I have a full-time archivist on my staff. I've
In 1982 I produced America's largest per- learned something. but I don't have that piece of
forming arts festival, the New World Festival of paper. On that piece of paper was a list of nam es
Arts, in Miami and Miami Beach. My title was of artists and productions. He said, "This should
gene ral manager. Robert Herman, who was the happe n." My first decision as a produce r of the
general director of Greater Miami Oper a Com- Next Wave Festival was to take a manila file fo lder
pany, had created this idea that in June of 1982 and put a name of an artist or a production on
each one. If it doesn't exist, I've got to make it re- way, shape or form, that's large-scale-ness .
al. I've got to make it exist. So it existed in names Back to that first beginning. I hate to be spea k-
of produc tio ns and artists. ing in absol utes, but no one in New York City. no
on e had seen performance art or multimedia,
What were some ofthose names? interdisciplinary work on a large scale at all. Ever.
Robert Wilson, Einstein on the Beach; l ee Breuer, It was not happening at City Center. It was not
Bob Telson. The Gospel of Cotonus; a woman happening at the New York State Theatre. It
named JoAnne Akalaitis; a woman named l ucinda wasn't happening at Avery Fisher Hall. The only
Childs; Robert Rauschenberg. laurie Anderson time it happened was in 1976 . when for two
and Trisha Brown, Set ond Reset . performances at the Metropolit an Opera House,
Einstein on the Beach was presented . Think of that.
And th at was the mandate, th is list of people? The opening production of the Next Wave Fes-
The mandate--and this is probably the most tival was directed by JoAnne Akalaitis with music
important thing about the Next Wave Festival-c-is by Philip Class. It was called The Photographer:
that it could be quantified. That New York City Farfrom the Truth. It was a triptych, and the first
would have, in the autumn of each year, very part was a play that JoAnne commissioned from
much like Paris has the Festival d'Automne, a fes- Robert Coe on the life of Eadweard Muybridge.
tival for these artists to do large-scale interdis - The second part was multimedia projections of
ciplinary work. Today this is st ill the motivating Muybridge's work imaged by Wendall Harrington ,
force in my curatorial judgment-trying to pro- who is on Broadway mostly these days. The third
vide large-scale, interdisciplinary work by Amer- part was a movement-theater-dance work by
ican artists. as well as international artists or David Cordon and the Pickup Company, in which
global artists. and to provide those opportunities the entire company was involved in this imagistic.
within our spaces. BAM has large venues: an physicalized storytelling of Eadweard Muybridge's
opera house with two thousand seats; and the life. It was ninety minutes in length. And peo ple
Harvey theater with nine hundred seats in a very were shocked by it. Shocked. It overwhelmed
specifically arch itectu rally des igned format. In any some people . Angered some people. I remem ber

31poges (35 JT'On) lefl n this chop!ef

peop le throwing their program s on the stage. And Brooklyn Academy of Mus ic. It's Abraham l in-
some people just went, "At last. We have it." coln, Wash ingto n and Carver. They would give
elocutions, they were reciting poet ry and they
I was one of those "at last" people coming from were then do ing music. They brought the Metro -
the downto wn world. What I remember about that po litan Opera to the city of Broo klyn. On horse
show-I mean , I rememb er all of the image ry-is and buggy they would take the sets and cos-
Valda Setterfield sitting in this tiny pool doing , at tumes , travel them down Broadway to the New
top speed , the Muybridge positions, but with an York Harbor and on barges they would trans po rt
inner stillness that was uncanny. I learned about the sets and costumes across. This was pre-
speed and stillness from her doing that in the Broo klyn Bridge.
middle of this big stage. I feel it would be Regretfully, in 1903 there was a fire, and that
irresponsible not to pick up on somet hing that wooden Brooklyn Academy of Music burnt down.
you said, which was ",861." What was BAM be- The founding fathe rs, the decision-makers of the
fore Harvey? borough of Brooklyn , a committee of one hun -
In 1859. in the city of Brooklyn , a group of dred, made a fund raising commitment-think of
decision -makers determined that the city of it, a fundraising commitment-on the demis e of
Broo klyn should have a citadel , a temple--a cul- that building that they were going to build a new
tural center in our terms. In their terms they were Broo klyn Academy of Music. They set out to raise
using the words "temple" and "citadel" becaus e the money and, in '907, the corne rston e was laid
in l atin that's what the word "academy" means. in the location that BAM is today. They deter-
Our forefathers were emulati ng Europe. What mined that that was going to be the new center of
they did was build. on Montague Street in Brook- Brooklyn because all the roads were built all
lyn Heights, a woode n opera house-s-a pu re, sim- around where BAM is today. Of cou rse that didn' t
ple woode n opera hou se, which open ed in 1861 . happen . The current building opened in Novem-
Not o nly did they create music, they were doing ber of 1908 and has been opera ting contin ually
great d iscuss ion s and they would do speeches s ince. Whoever has the job of being art ist ic direc-
there. You trace American history with the tor o r executive prod ucer feels stewardship,

2'9pages{33 mil) ell '" th'l Chapter

t rusteeship, feels the legacy of it. All you have to creative meetin g with JoAnne Akalaitis and say,
do is go to the archive and you go, "This is the "Santo Loqu asto is doi ng the se t and Jennifer Tip-
mos t extraordinary thing:' In doing yo ur job, ton is do ing t he light ing and I e nvision th is red
you're making a co ntribution to the co ntin uity of set." Then the next day JoAnne wou ld co me in to
the Broo klyn Academy of Music in Amer ican soci- rehear sal, "The set's going to be blue." "Blue?"
ety. "Blue." I was learning how to really listen to them
in a d ifferent way t han I wou ld list en to any ot her
Harvey batted out a lot of ideas for BAM . art ist.
When I en tered BAM to prod uce the Next Wave
Festival the re was a lot of tension about this. Was This is a difficult question, but what formed your
t his another "Harvey folly"? I thought it was just a taste? I mean , d early you went in and there was a
gig. I thought I was just going to do it once. I told list of artists . But you also had your own taste and
Karen Hopkins, who was the fund raiser, the it continues to grow. Is th ere an y way to describe
development director at BAM, that I was going to the sources of that aesthetic?
go off and look for another job. She said , "Oh no. I was a sponge at Catholic University of Amer ica.
I raised the money for three years." I said, "Oh I was stunned. At that time, from 1960 to 1971,
great! I have a job for three years. t he t raining was all about the Greeks, Moliere, the
So it was becoming very, very clea r tha t they importance of the word, the str ucture. I can' t es -
had no idea what the festival was going to be or cape that as something that I'm att racted to see
what it was about. I had produced a festival. So performed. And yet I am a crea ture of th e twen-
there was a lot of trans lating about definitio ns of tieth cent ury and the twenty-fi rst cent ury, so I am
processes and languages and procedures and intere sted in speaki ng to my time , but I believe in
how it was going to happen. It was t he first time I stru ctu re and form. I'm so m uch a man of craft. I
was wo rking with "nont raditio nal artists ." It know there is so meth ing called virtuos ity. I can't
was n't like working with so meo ne who was just describe it, but I know when I'm in t he presen ce
going to do a play in the most traditional way pos - of it. I know the d ifferen t between efficiency and
sible and art iculate the text. I would have a proficiency.

27 JXlg<'.(31 mn) leI! nltll1 chapt&<

That's actually very clear. Form, structure, virtu- checkbook. That was like getting a PhD in cultu ral
osity. anthropology and global aest hetics. But I had a
Just o nce in your life being in the presenc e of Yo particular met hodology in how to make this fes-
Yo Ma playing the cello-it astounds you as to tival happen. It was not what Ma rtin wanted, so I
what is poss ible with a human being, this inst ru- left.
men t called the cello. It doesn 't d iminish what an- I had worked with several artists in th e Next
oth er cellist does. This person, who happens to Wave Festival who had so me ideas about chang -
be walking and talking on this earth , happ ens to ing their performance work into new media , and
have this gift. I have learned from artists. I've that happened to be televisio n and film. I had a
lived a blessed life. I've seen George Balanchine professional colleague who was tile executive pro-
choreograph in this stud io when I worked at City ducer of Alive from Off-Center at KCTV in St.
Center. John Cage was my next door neighbor. I Paul, Minnesota, so I took those projects to her
have been profoundl y influenced by individuals and I participated in the producing of those two
who are creative. Who are creators. projects. One was a David Rusev project, and the
other was by Susan Marsha ll, both choreog-
You left BAM for a year, is th at correct? Was that raphers who had ideas abou t dan ce-theater.
about ten years into it? I started to do some other projects, then Har-
No. it was actually seven . When I completed my vey Lichtenste in called and said. "Let's have
seven th Next Wave Festival l knew that I needed a lunch ." Then. "How'd you like to come back to
sabbatical. BAM could never afford to give me a BAM?" The woman who had replaced me was not
sabbatical. So the moral decision was to resign happy doing the job.
my posit ion. A strange thing happened. Someone
named Martin Segal had creat ed the New York Why not?
International Festival of the Arts, and he asked me Harvey Lichtenstein was twenty years older than
to be artistic director. Basically what Martin Segal me. I knew I was the re to service his vision. And
provided me was an eight -month sabba tical to in the process of making the Next Wave Fest ival a
travel allover the world. He had a lim itless rea lity for BAM, I had kind of crosse d an arc in

25 p<>g'" (28 mon) lefI,n thtl chaplet

our relatio nship, and there was a ce rtain kind of with him, we finally agreed that I would return to
understanding between us . I didn 't want Harvey's BAM as the produ cing director of BAM. I was
job at th at tim e in my life. The woman who re- Harvey's right hand for art and Karen Hopkins
placed me, Liz Thom pson, took the job, but what was his left hand for fundraisin g, institution,
she wanted was to contro l th e Next Wave Festival. board of trustees. That was in Janua ry 1992.
You co uldn' t control the Next Wave Festival be- Around 1995 he sta rted to talk about the R word:
cau se it was Harvey's vision. What you really had retirem ent. Through a se ries of m isad ventures
to do was facilitate his vision, complem ent his vi- and really fascinat ing convers at ions that terror-
sion by new ideas . ized both Karen and myself, he finally made the
Because I was hanging out at P.5. 122, the decision th at he was going to retire in June of
Kitchen. studio spaces, traveling, I was giving him 1999 and he was going to walk out the door and
new informa tion . I was servicing him: "This is not look back. And tha i's exactlywhat he did.
what this artis t is. You really should see this
production. You really should see this artist do Now that you're without him, do you feel res pon-
this work." She didn't want to do tha t job. She sible to BAM aud iences ? 00 yo u fed responsible
wanted to say, "I'm the artistic director of the to BAM tradit ion? When yo u choose a season for
Next Wave Festival and this is what it's going to the Next Wave or the whole year, what are you lis-
be." And that was not going to fly with Harvey. ten ing to ?
And they loved one another. They had known When I program the Next Wave Festival, I am a
each other for much longer than I had known festival director. When I'm program ming the
Ha rvey. It was just a clash of ideology. I said , spring season I am an individual curato r. It's de-
"Harvey. I'm not interested in coming back to be fined by one speci fic artistic cho ice that would
the produ cer of the Next Wave Festival. Been say to New York City: Pay atten tion to this art . You
there , done that. What I would be interested in have to come to the Brooklyn Academ y of Music
do ing is coming back to BAM and wor king with to have this singular theat rical experience. That's
you on the co mplete artistic seaso n. So through a what I mean by being a curat or, versus the Next
ser ies of lunches and d inners and riding in his car Wave Festival, which is a se ries of experiences in

2l pages (26 mil) left IIIt!>t chopW

the performing arts th at I think are important to te lling their stories? They're galloping away.
bring to New York City. I also know that there's a They're gallopin g away in a wonderful way-
ce rtain legacy that I want to respo nd to. Pina because they have the mon ey. Their cultures pro-
Bausch conside rs BAM her artistic home in New vide a financial underpinning to th eir experi-
York City. But there are ot her art ists with whom me ntation. the ir prod uctio n. They have a network
Harvey worked. that do n't need BAM's theaters throughout the Euro pean Union . They're growing
because othe r colleagues of m ine are stepping up becaus e they have resources and Amer ican artists
to the plate. It's a comb inat ion in the Next Wave do n't.
Festival today of honoring a legacy, looking at
that large-scale interdisciplinary work that is the You get on more airplanes than probabl y anybody.
tradition of the Next Wave Festival and finding You go to Berlin and you see Thomas Ostermeier
the discoveries within the theater, dance, music doing something, th en you go to the Volksb i.ihne.
and music-theater genres that I think we shoul d And you make a choice. Talk abo ut that choice.
discover collectively. The choice is a difficult thing to quantify becau se
it would be wonde rful to make it all happen. I like
But you're the astronaut. to say I have a healthy appetite for art, but I have
I'm always interested in having audiences. but I to ultimately come to the reality that there are
don't program for the aud ience. I program for the financial implications to everything that I do.
individual artist who is making art and I believe There are financial limitations. I cannot do every-
New Yor k City as a community should have this thing that I want to do. It's really difficult to
experience. I'm servicing BAM as a New York City q uantify-saying Ostermeier has a value that I
cultural instit ution. I want New York City to be the think is greater to the form of theater in New Yor k
cultural cap ital of the United States of America. City now tha n Kristof Martal does or that Frank
and if these artists don't get to our stag es, they're Castorf does.
not comi ng to New Yor k. If we're going to grow But I also think next year whe n Michael Thal-
as creative peo ple, we have to be exposed to heimer co mes with a production from the
th ose new ideas, new techniques . How are they Deut sches Theater, so mething oth er will be

11poges (24 ... n) leI! n this cropler

articulated . He is working on re-imaging or The thing that knocked me out that you just said
decon str uctin g or co nte mporizing a class ic in th e is that New Yorkers should be conversant with
theater. It's a European tradition- Ivo van Hove this kind of work. That's very mov ing as a moti-
doing Hedda Cabler for Jim Nico la's theat er, New vation for me, and I think it's true that New York-
Yor k The atre Wor ksho p. It's part of tha t European ers are better for it, for being more conversant, for
fabr ic of approaches 10 classicism that I think we having a relationship with that kind of art.
sho uld be conve rsa nt with. It's very impo rtan t I saw you a little bit after Iraq had first been
t hat I put this in a con text for you because I think bombed or laid siege to or whatever words you
I'm having a conve rsatio n by my art istic choic es. I use. And I said, "Joe, is it different now, trave ling
t hink I'm having a conve rsation with you. Who around?" Can you talk a little bit about being an
are you? Yo u're curio us New Yor kers. You're American in the position you're in and going to
inte rested in the perfo rming arts. As an artistic Europe, in particular, Asia, the Middle East. wher-
director. I think I'm having a conve rsa tion. l oo k ever you go. What's changed? How you th ink your
at the customers. look at what Jan lauwers is go- responsibility has changed?
ing to do with this amazing production of Isabel- Well. it's very important to say that there is a
la's Room. Even I, in all my enthusiasm, find I'm tremendous amount of generosity beca use I'm a
incapable of describing to you how brilliant it is. New Yor ker. Even today, post the election. we still
and what it is. There is something inherently life- have tremendous generosity, if you can believe it.
affirming in what he's crafted in that piece, which The most difficult thing to answer is when they
uses music, song. text and dance to tell t his one as k you why Ceo rge W. Bush-why did you ini-
story abo ut this fictive cha racte r, Isabella, who's tially elect him? I had lunch with Peter Broo k o n
living a life like we are. And tha t's the beauty of Satu rday. I've grown up with Pete r. I prod uced the
t he piece. MahabaralO in the Next Wave Festival in 1987. Pe-
ter wanted to know why. I said , " Peter, look at the
You just sold it. structure of the United States of Amer ica. We're a
There are limitatio ns of language. But that' s what blue state. We now know as New Yorkers the
I t hink I'm doing. majority of peo ple in the United Sta tes, who are

19 poge5 (22 m.,j lett 10t chapter

the red states, they do n't like us. We know it pure to decide to partner with a com mercial agent and
and simple. I don 't want to live in anyone of BAM, in o rder to protect its engagement, had to
those red states. And guess what, thos e red peo- take on the respon sibility of do ing the visas for
ple don 't want to live in any of these blue states." the entir e project. So my sta ff not only has to wor-
I use that as a microcosm to say that's what ry about their own work, now here they are having
conversat ions I have. This cou ntry is so big in to work with a com mercial agent. The art ists need
compariso n geographically to their own cultures. birth certificates. "Well. my fathe r told me I was
The great diversity that is American society is so born when there was a full moon. The crops were
dramatically clear to us. You're not interact ing this ...." They don't have birth certificates there.
with the people of the Great Plains. Or the people So having to do all the processes and procedu res,
of the Deep South . We perceive realitydifferen tly. getting the musicians to go to Islamab ad. I'm cer-
I had coffee with Tony Kushner two days after tainly inte rested in all of our safety. but the rigidity
the election. He said, "The best that we can hope that exists in this process now is isolating us
for is that after George W. Bush we'll have a mod - fro m the globe. That is pernicious.
erate Republican in the White House." And I said,
"What?" He said, "There is not a single Demo- It makes it a more remarkable thing to have a
cratic candidate currently who can speak to those group from Pakistan perform. It raises the stakes
red states in a way that they unde rstand." It's for you, but also is a richer thing. So what you're
about perception . I can 't change it and they're cer- doing is magnified.
tainly not going to change me. BAM is a fantastic institution with fundraising,
The othe r part of this, which is on the profes- a lot to do with Karen as we mentioned, and the
sional side. the institutiona l side: I am doing this relationship with then-called Philip Morris, now
great project in the spring called Songs of the Sufi called Altria.
Brotherhoods with Hamza EI Din. Hassan Hak- That's the only corporation, actually. We get two
mou n and Rizwan-Muazzam Qawwati. And guess hundred and fifty tho usand d ollars. This is
where they're from? Pakistan. The agent for the m Fundraising 101: Peo ple give to people. If yo u go
says, "I can't get them into the co untry." We had to the Chronicle of Philanthropy. every year they do

17pages (19mn) lefI ,n 1M ot.:Jpte<

an analysis of where is the money coming from in struc t ures that the foundations had put toget her
the not -for-profit sector. Remember, the not-for- had moved away from t he individual artists,
profit sector is colleges and universities, hosp i- putting all the money with institutions-with
tals, social agencies and us: arts and culture. The th em there was a safety valve. They believed that
highest amount is always given by individuals. the inst it utions were being responsive to indi-
Don't look to corporations . Corporations are into viduals. That was not the case. You could demon-
marketing pure and simple. It's not philanthropic. strate that the Nationa l Endowment for the Arts
Of course that's a gross generalization. There's had walked away from the individual artist com -
always an exception to the rule. But marketing is pletely. The New York Foundation for the Arts, by
really their mantra. example. was structured by the state arts council
Private foundations-Ford, Rockefeller, Pew, to give money to the individual, but those contri -
Mel1on-are absolutely interested in solving so - butions are modest in comparison to what is giv-
cial and cultural prob lems . The age of growing an en to institutions . Something needed to be don e.
institution within our culture is over and done Susan Berresford. who is the president of the
with. They have said pure and simple, "We are not Ford Foundation-so intelligently said , "This
interested . We have done our job. So, now we problem needs to be researched and examined ,"
recogn ize that we need to invest in individual ca- and she engaged a woman named Holly Sidford.
reers." who used to run the Wallace Foundation, and
Holly did a year, eighteen-month, study, involving
What made t hat shift? a lot of co lleagues, including myself. Every day an
It started several years ago with many of the usual individual artist is telling me, "I don't have
suspects sitting around. There was a convening enough money to create." There's no avenue for
with presenting organizations and producing that. Susan Berresford then had concrete evi-
companies-symphonic music , ASOl, Theatr e dence to go to the board of trus tees and say, "The
Communications Group, Opera America-talking Fo rd Fo undatio n should vanguard this." She t hen
abou t how there's no money. We all exist beca use went to her colleagues in the foundation commu-
of an individual artist in ou r community. And th e nity, and they are creating this fund. That's just

15poge5 (17mn) left n I1-;o ot.:lple<

one example. The same thing is going to hap pen of the eq uation, you have seve nteen million do l-
at Rockefeller Foundation in a totally d ifferent lars. Two million of t he seventeen million dollars
way. comes from the City of New York. BAM is owned
But you wanted to talk about fund raising . So, by the City of New York. The private co rporation
corpo rate giving is only interested in mar keting: of the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Inc. licenses
how many people, how many hits, demographics, the usage of the building as an arts center for one
all that stuff. Private foundations: so lving a prob - dollar a year. The city gives us two million dollars
lem well (layout the problem, layout a potential a year to operate the building-we have to hire
solution, investigate). Then, the majority of the union secu rity, union maintenance. 1t pays for
money is raised through private individuals. In electricity. So that's where the two million dollars
terms of fund raising, anyone who is interested in is going. The fundraising department at BAM rais-
doing a project, who has an organization, who is es fifteen million dollars every year. Each year it's
looking for a way of capitalizing their creative vi- the individuals that grow even bigger.
sion, their art: spend your time with individuals.
Audience: Will you talk about how you met Pina
Do you s pend a lot oftime doing fund raising? Bausch and brought her to BAM?
I am Karen Brooks Hopkins's professional part- In 1984 there was an extraordinary event in los
ner. The institution is held in joint tenure. The Angeles called Cultural Olympiad. Whenever
institution-we use this as a generality-c-is a there is an Olympics anywhere in the world, both
twenty-five-million-dollar corporation. There are winter and summer, it's in the charter of the
one hundred fifty full-time people, one hundred Olympics that the host city has to do a Cultural
twenty part-time people who depend on t heir Olympiad. It can be whatever structure. los Ange-
sala ries. The twenty·five-million dollars breaks les had the Olympics in 1984 and Robert Fitz-
down to eight million dollars earned revenue. The patrick, who was the president of CalArts, was
earn ed revenue is box office, the parking lots at given the opportunity to be the artistic director.
BAM, the licensing of the restaurant and bar and He put together the legendary Cultur al
th e interest on the endowment. On the other side Olymp iad-and that made it poss ible for Harvey

13poges (15mil) Iefl '" thISchapter 45'l. ,00<

Lichtenstein to make a com mitment to Pina. He simply not America n t heater. I'd like to know what
had been desperately trying to meet her. He had your definition is.
only heard about her work. Harvey was able to I use the word "global" in my vocab ulary. I'm
ma ke a commitment to Pina to present her work interested in global theater, which is non -USA
for t he first time in June of 1984. th eater, in relation to American thea te r. I'm inter-
She is one of those artists with whom I have a ested in thea ter from Asia, South America, Mex-
personal relationship. I've grown up with her. I've ico. Central America, Canada, the United States. I
seen her work all over the world. Pina Bausch has guess it's all on one landscape (or me. It's defi-
a system of accepting commissions from a cul- nitely not Eurocentric theater. And that's t he
ture. It's a joint partnership. She takes the full important th ing. In the Harvey years he would use
company and they're in residence there for four the phrase "international theater," and it would be
weeks. They live a life during the day. Not hing's exclusively the European community. Euro pean
regimented during the day. There is a time, usu - work. My tenure is really much more about the
ally late afternoon. where they come together and Mideast, Africa, the Americas plural and oth er
share their experiences of living in the cultur e. parts of the globe .
They may do an improvisation. Some may relate a
story and enact the story. It starts creating this Audience: When you go out and you're looking at
universe. And then Pina starts working with the theater from other countries, do you find yourse lf
company. She goes back to Wuppertal and they looking for work th at is going t o repres ent that
continue to rehearse. She showcases the work in culture , or th ings that are really talking about the
Wuppertal first, then she goes back to the culture dynamics of gfobal nature from a non-American
to premiere the work because they commissioned perspective?
it. Then she tours it. You train yourself to be subjectively objec tive. I
am looking for storytelling . I'm interested in how
Audience: I've been hearing the phrase "interna- this individual artist is telling his or her story. Do
tio nal theater" tossed around a lot, and it seems I believe tha t story is communicated to me? If it's
t hat for a lot of peop le inter national theater is commun icat ing to me-because I am s ubject ively

11 pages (12mn) lef! n Itol chapter 45... ,00<

objective-then I believe we would all und ersta nd because it doesn't travel enough. Here, throu gh-
it. o ut the United States, I'm hopeful, as I said, th at
these private foundations are on the verge of
AS:That is so gorgeous. Beautifully spoken. making financial resources available to individual
But I live that. That's not just hot air or words or creators.
academic speak or whatever . I really do live that. I I do think tha t the American artist in the theater
think it doesn't matter- I'm really not trying to be is continually blocked out of the global market -
a cultural anthropologist. It really is: Is this artist place because there don't seem to be any mecha -
successful on his or her terms at telling the story? nisms for communicating. I can only see a finite
amount of work. It's a bit troubling to me as to
Audience: How do you see t he futur e of t he Amer- what the future will be.
ican the ater with regard to the fad that we don 't The other co mmunity, which is the resid ent
have that netwo rk th at th ere seems to be in Eu- theater, is where I think American artists who are
rope ? There seems to be les s co mmunicatio n and working in new forms don't have access to re-
les s support esp ec ially f~ co mpanies t hat are try- sources. I'm really mystified as to what peopl e
ing to make group theater. What sh all we do? think they're doing with these jobs.
The positive side of this is that I believe in you. I
believe in your passion . That you being an artist AS: In th e institutional theater s?
collaborating with other artists-you're going to If Ben Cameron of TCG were here, he would be
find a way to make your art . What I do think is highly insulted . He would say, "You're just gross-
problematic is when you want to try to distribute ly generalizing about the resident theater." And I
t hat art to other communities. I'll go back to the know that I am. But I read American Theatre. I see
geography of our country. Trying to find commu- what they're doing and what they're talking abou t
nities with like values who would be engaged by and what kind of discourse there is. I recognize
what you are communicating in your storytelling that those audiences are aging. And I don't see a
is a profound issue. I think I am very critical of younger audience member. This is a no-brainer
th e prese nting community, which I am a part of, for me. Invite a younger art-ma ker to com e in and

9 pages (10 mn) lef! n Itol chapter 45... ,00<

get that you ng artist out into your co mmunity. Go form-in this case we're talking about theater-
to the clubs. Hang out at the bars-where every- will exist. But it's not goi ng to be so mething tha t
one young wou ld wan t to be-and is. Where can be qua ntified in ways in which I ca n do the
they're not is in the theater! q uantification.

AB: I was in a circle with about sixteen graduate Audience : We put on plays, and we have audi-
directors at Columbia and I asked them all where ences and they are mostly our ~rs. They're other
they were going to be in the future . On ly one said theater peop le and they're young and we don't
"regional theater," Only one mentioned it. Be- charge very much for the ticket so that they can
cause it's not sexy. It's not interesting. come. But those aren 't necessarily the people that
But the problem is, tha t's where the financial re- we want to be coming. I don 't know how to even
sources are. reach those other people. How do we let them
know we exist?
AB: I said that to them: What do you do with all Since we've had our website, the number of tick-
these palaces around the country that are made to ets that we have sold has doubled. It is the belief
generate work? They have the shops, the crew. of our ma rketing department that it will continue
They have everything. They weren 't interested. because all of the indicators are-with our audi -
I think it's a constituency that hasn't made an en- ence, which is a m uch younger audience-tha t
tree to these young crea tors. I don't want to give this comfortableness of using t he computer to
you a mixed message here. I want to say I'm purchase is part of our society and will become
enco uraged , truthfully, because I think there still more so. In terms of communica ting to t he audi-
is an inte rest to create theater. If you're dedicated , ence t hat you want for your theater, for your art,
if you have a vision, I know you'll achieve tha t. you start thinking about how we use this mech -
I'm not su re about t he methodology. It's like cot- anis m of a webs ite and what you can do to start
tage ind ust ries. An individ ual will find an indi- linking to othe r websites.
vid ual way to make so met hing. I believe in the I was a marketing d irect or at one point in my
creati ve imaginat ion . I believe the form . Our life. I'm intimately involved in the creation of our

7 pages (8 mn) l&fI ,n 1M ot.:Jpte< 45... ,00<

co mmunications mecha nis ms because ma rketing at the primal spine, a trust (not for eve rything I
is messages . Yo u're crea ting messages. My life- do, but enough), so that curiosity is raised when
line of making my art complete is the mar keting t he Next Wave Festival brochure arrives in th e
de partment because they deliver the audi ence. So mail. The majo rity of that audience, who has al-
I am sensitive to the creation of t he message ready purchased a ticket, knows that there's a lim-
through ou r brochures-and then the image tha t ited shelf life to the art on my s tage. It's not like
goes on the website. Your message, fram ed o n we're doing a four-week, six-week run. If you op en
your website, linked to other websites of like val- on a Tuesday, you dose on a Saturday or Sunday.
ue where you think your audience could be- The audience who gets that Next Wave Festival
that's my suggestion to you. It's not brochures. brochure over the years knows that. If they want
And let me tell you right here: Don't use post- it. they have to immediately respond in order to
cards. Do you know how many postcards are be- have access to the art. And what they will do is.
ing used by young theater companies? You're building on that trust, select who they absolutely
proliferating them and people are not paying have to--"Oh. I've got to see what Declan
attention to you. Donnellan's doing with Othello." And then find
out. "What is this thing called Lest Objects?" You
AB: I'm really fascinated with what you said about live in New York City, and whether you're here as
when you're going out and finding piece s to bring a taxpayer. as a home owner. renting an apart-
back to BAM , you're not cat ering to set aud iences ment, employed here, working in any way, shape
at BAM. Every single time I walk into BAM, it's or form, academically, going to school here,
packed . So clearly, something right is going on. you're here because you're innately curious. Bot-
I'm curious about th e relationship to the audi- tom line. And my job is to perk and pique your
ence. I'll go see anything jf it's at BAM because I curiosity. And that trust, for us, is the aesthetic
trust that- spine to making sure we have an audience.
You see, t hat word that you just used. That's a
great compliment to me. Thank you very m uch . Audience : Have you had t he experience of seeing
"Trust" was the word. There is, at the foundation, art in s mall sp ace s th at you want to bring to BAM,

5 pages (6 mil) left 'n !II chapTer 45'l. ,00<

but you have to kind of coax t he work into big spa- trying to give th e opportun ity to an artist to
ces? co ncept ually allow their imagination to fill the
I consistently do, when I travel, see wor k t hat is at architect ural space with their artistic sp ace.
much smalle r venues. The aesthetic judgm en t, of
looking at t he work and saying, "This will not Audience: I've been able to get into disabled
work in my theater," I can be wrong-and I have choreography. I've found it in New York very diffi-
been proven wrong. I am completely reliant on cult. I'm just wondering as a presenter and in
t rust that the directors who I have invited to come your global trave ls, do you have a point of view as
into the space, once they see the space will know to where professional artists might fit in the main-
how to take the work. In the case of Anne Bogart's stream on stage?
work bobrauschenbugamerica, I categorically said, The biggest challenge today is getting to the art-
"My theater is not right for this." And I was making, the theater that you're crafting , and
wrong. I'm constantly learning. But sometimes I concentrating on finding the art, and not
think that I am absolutely correct in my judgment marginalizing you even more. In dance ther e are
that no, you can't transfer. Or, in some cases, that disabled artists working in the art form of danc e
it would be too expensive to transfer and make who are put into the educational category and not
happen. on the main stage of these presenting organi -
Sometimes I will send my director of produc- zations' seasons. What I think needs to happen is
tion to go see this production and to meet with that artists who are disabled need a voice within
the designer. Then when he comes back, he has a the presenting community.
meeting with me and says, "It can happen. We There are two organizations that exist. On e is
can resolve it." Or, "This is production issu e a, b called the Association of Performing Arts Prese n-
and c and it's going to cost you this amount of ters, which is based in Washington, D.C., which
money if we take a or b or c." I also invite art ists is like the Tee for the presenting orga nizatio ns.
to come into the Harvey whe n the re's no set, And the seco nd one is called ISPA, International
when it's com pletely empty, and just say, "Can Society for t he Performing Arts, which is based
you see your work here?" That's ano th er way of here in New Yor k State, Both co nvene in New

3 pages (3 m n) Iefl 'n lhischopter

York City in January, That is where the platform Lee Breuer
needs to be. The presenting indus try of the Unit-
ed States of America is currently the largest pu r- As a young director during the 19 70 S I secretly
chase r of art and culture in North America. When followed artists I admired on the streets of New
you have an unde rserved artistic comm unity, then York City. Curious to know more about them , I
that issue needs to be put before that con- stayed at a distance but kept dose watch o n their
stituency: "Deal. Let's discuss. Let's examine." actio ns. I hope that they were unaware of my
And that is where change occurs. stalking. I wanted to suss out what mad e these
I think the same thing is true with Theatre people tick. I wanted to know what they might
Communications Group . Your issue needs to get look at and how they paid attention .
to Theatre Communications Group, which gov- Lee Breuer was one of the people I followed on
erns more than four hundred not-for-profit the- the streets of the East Village. I followed him be-
aters in this country. We need to frame this issue. cause I loved his work and I wanted to know more
We need to create a way in which we can talk about him. I noticed that he would stop and gaze
about art-making from a very specific community. intently for a long time at advertising-c-posters.
That's how I think it needs to happen. I really signs and announcements. He seemed to be curi-
believe-going back to what I said-the age of ous about how messages, whether commercial or
institution-building is over. We're entering the era community-oriented, were written and laid out. I
of the individual artist-and finding resources for liked the audacity of his interest and I wanted to
the individual artist to make work. adapt his intense brand of curiosity and make it
my own. In those days, this is one way I learned.
What drew me to follow Lee Breuer on the
streets was his remarkable artistry as director and
writer. The theatrical worlds that he constructed
in his plays were unlike anything I had ever experi-
enced. The powerful originality of his produ ctions
were bot h wildly idiosyncratic a nd at the sam e

1 poge «1 mn) H!fl 'n Itol chap!«

time, accessible. Over the many years t hat he has Mabou Mines co-founders Philip Glass, David
been making t heater, at least since the early Warrilow and Fred Neumann. In Europe he d i-
seventies when I was first introduced to his work, rected works by Brecht and Beckett as well as his
lee seems as edgy and innovative now as he was own compositions. He and his friends headed to
back then. New York and Mabou Mines, named afte r a place
Lee grew up first in Virginia and then in South - in Nova Scotia, became an entity in 1970 . lee is
ern California where he entered UCLA in 1973 still engaged with the collective as playwright.
when he was only sixteen years old. His mother director and lyricist. realizing many seminal
hoped that he would study pre-law but when his productions, including The Red Horst: Animation,
father died he decided that he wanted to be an Come and Go. Play. The B. Beaver Animation, The
artist instead. From Los Angeles , Lee headed to Saint and the Footbaff Playa, Shaggy Dog Anima-
Big Sur where he found himself in the company tion , A Prdude to a Death in Venia, Hajj, The
of Henry Miller. A few peyote and LSD trips Gospel at C%nus. Lear, Peter and Wendy, icco Por-
helped him to understand and experience art. Lat- co and Dol/house.
er, in San Francisco , where he met Michael Mc- Lee also works outside Mabou Mines in film,
Clure, Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg and on Broadway and on a variety of theatrical
mounted lawrence Ferlinghetti's The Alligation, projects in Europe, Africa, Asia and North and
he began to direct at the legendary San Francisco South America. Over the years he has collected a
Actor's Workshop . In addition to staging plays by staggering number of awards and fellowships,
Genet, Lorca. Beckett and Ferlinghetti. he began including ten Obie Awards, a MacArthur Fellow-
to write and devise his own creations at San Fran- ship. a Pulitzer nomination, several Rockefeller
cisco venues such as the San Francisco Mime fellowships and Guggenheim, Bunting, and Ful-
Troupe, the Tape Music Center and A.C.T. bright fellowships .
Having worked with future Mabou Mines co-
founders Ruth Maleczech. JoAnne Akalaitis and FEBRUAR Y 28 , 2005
Bi ll Raymond in San Francisco, it was while living
in Paris in the late 1960s that Lee met the oth er AB: I thin k of l ee Breuer as a wizard- a wizard

39 p<>g'" [45 mn) left In Th" chapter

not only in American theater, but theater around way to get into film was to go in the mailroom
the world. He's an iconoclast in every way, bust- and see who noticed you. And that didn't seem to
ing icons left and right. But I was so surprised to be the way I wanted to go. So my imaginary solu-
find out, when we were teaching a class together tion for not getting into film was to conceive of a
at NYU a co uple of years ago, that his background thea ter that was filmic, which is what I proceeded
is with the Method. I want to get to political, aes - to do. In terms of cuts and dissolves and what-
thet ic and acting iss ues. Could we sta rt with what ever technology existed at the time, I tried to cre-
initially d rew you to the theater and what keeps ate theater as a live film experience. This all
you there now. Has that changed? worked pretty interestingly as we were moving in-
LB: I'm doing a workshop at the Flea [Theatre in to a more conceptual view of art.
New York City) for a piece of mine that I think is Some ten years later, the major turn in the
the most baroque, contorted, unbelievably world happened. Around the seventies, we went
complicated series of jokes I've ever put together, from Jackson Pollock to Jasper Johns. from ab-
called Summa Dramouco . It pretends to be pata- stract expressionism with consummate emotion-
physical. (Alfred) [arry's theory of pataphysics is a alist abstractionism into cool, conceptual . with-
theory of imaginary solutions. So we're com - drawn, let's-organize-it-all-and-
paring that with the pragmatism of different look-at-it-from-a-distance stuff. And. 10 and be-
works. hold. I found out that all of my ideas about doing
I grew up in l.A., and I went to UCLA in the live film were highly conceptual. In other words,
fifties, and like everyone in l.A., I wanted to get what was being represented on stage was a con -
into film. UCLA had the only film department cept that was filmic, however it was live and the -
cooking at the time , and I was hankering to hang atrical. This was very dear when Mabou Mines
out there. I didn't like anybody in my other class- did our first piece, The Red Horse Animation, in
es. It was around 1958, and there was no inde- 1970. This was a piece in which everybody laid flat
pendent film. There wasn't Stan Brakhage and on the floor and you looked at it down very
experimental film. In those days they didn't even steeply so that the space was switched ninety de-
have tape reco rders. The idea was that the only grees. Everyone was playing with a lot of space

37 pages (43 m>n)lefI,n thtl chaplet

themes at that point, so we had a piece that really perso nal se nd-ups of these different intellectual
appealed to the art world. It was do ne at every figures and political figures. My little ta ke on this
gallery in New York. is to compare it to the William James stuff. If you
What was interest ing is that this idea-my fan- loo k at things with a se nse of hu mor, reality is so
tasy solution for not getting into film-becam e a unreal. So a solution to reality is to perceive it as
conce ptual idea, and a lot of my life has gone on unreal, and then you are very at home with him.
that way. These kind of fantasy solutions move in- And by reality, I also mean realism. We experi-
to a zeitgeist that seems to have some intellectual enced that in a fascinating way when we did Dol/-
validity for a while, like the concept ideas in the house. Supposedly Ibsen was the maste r of bour-
seventies. These fantasy solutions achieve a cer- geois tragedy and supposedly the inventor of real-
tain amount of intellectual reality for a while and ism on stage . Well, Ibsen didn't write realism. Ib-
then they vanish into blue and no one cares any- sen wrote melodrama, which we found by puttin g
more. In other words, I did get into theater with melody under the drama . As soon as we put
an idea of following imaginary solutions, and I melody under the drama , and made it melo-
kind of still do. drama, it made tons of sense.
What else is real? West Coast reality is different
Pataph ysics is the notion that if there isn't a solu- from East Coast reality. East Coast has a little bit
tion, you imagine it? of Italian in it; West Coast is about haircuts. You
Yes. Jarry was just amazing. Ubu Roi is the sim- just find that the re is no definition whatsoever,
plest he ever wrote . If you get into the real pata - that reality itself is an imaginary solution to the
physical text. it's a complete send-up spin on idea that you have a base . There's a critic at Duke,
metaphysics. He'll give you a mathematical equa- Toril Mo i, who makes the case that Ibsen, far
tion that the sun is square. There's this wonderful from being a realist, is a modernist, which makes
voyage when he and an ape roll through the skies a lot of sense-for only a mode rnist can be post-
above Paris and stop off in different islands . One modernized.
is covered in shit, fo r example, and each island In Summa Drama tica we have the actress play a
represe nts a poet that he hates. They're all cow. We decided we were not going to look at the

35 poges [41 mnJ left., th,s Chopl

cows having any character cente r. Basically the forma l as a Robert Wilson position . That 's just as
imaginary solution to the text was that whatever formal and slowing up and walking backward at a
seemed to work for that paragraph, we would use half pace. If these emo tional cliches were put in
it. So for one paragraph, we have a Peter Sellers so me abst ract form we should see them as just
German accent , for the next one , an Indian ac- as forma listic as the materialis t formalism that
cent, for the next one we're using an emotion al you get out of a Robert Wilson or a Richard Fore-
Hollywood movie-no semblance whatsoever to man. I think that the difference between what I'm
the character. And yet, in going completely interested in is that I do see that Method is so
around in a circle, we'd try to touch every cliched great. Just check out a Method movie. You have
reality that we could, except formalism , and then to go very deep to see an emotional structure that
we started attacking emotional realities. There's you haven't seen some place before, read some
one scene where the cow, for absolutely no rea- place before, felt some place before, that isn't a
son whatsoever, becomes emotional and cries; formal emotional base. Sometimes great coups
and with no valid ity to it whatsoever , she com - happen and you get some sort of genius actor or
pletely cracks up in another scene. In other actress who finds a way through these emotional
words, what would be really nice is to take every cliches and into something completely original
little emotional reality that you see in every feature and completely brilliant. These are the absolute
film and put it back to back and then run it back- best actors . But once they've found their way
ward or something like that. through it, within a year, it's become an emo-
I consider myself a formalist , but basically oth - tional cliche. For example, I'm su re Marlon
er formalists appear to see form as physical en- [Brande] found his way into some beats that no
tity, as something you can draw, something you one had tried before. He had done these kind of
can stand up. I see emotional block; as formal androgynous, wonderful numbe rs where he had
too ls. If you look at your classic Hollywood all these muscles, but he was emotional and
denouement, where the emot ional structure leads vulnerable like an ingenue should be. It was great
to someone dropp ing a tear out of his or her left to see this, and then a couple of years later, this
eye, that's a forma l structure. That's just as became the key to how to be a rock star. This
brand of discovery of the formalism of androg- aro und with him-was that he felt tha t there were
yno us emotional excess coupled with a macho ways of accessi ng the emotional below the level
presentation is now a dialectal cliche, but whe n of realism . Most of the time, Stanislavski was
Brando invented it, it was min d-boggh ngly orig- caught ins ide a "rea lism," limiting how deep you
inal. Where it began to be pasted up was with could go to a psychologically realis tic s ituation .
Elvis. When we got to Elvis, we saw how far this What Crotowski was trying to do was find what
could go, and every major rock icon since then the emotions of the subconscious were. So you
has this androgynous vulnerability connected have this really freaked-out junkie spinning in th e
with a macho presentation. So, what I want to middle of the street, like you used to always see
bring to the table, to the discussion, is tha t it's all the time in the late sixties an d seventies, never
not just a physical formality; it's emotional blocks leaving, in traffic, wandering around, completely
that can be seen as a formal structure. out of her mind . You start to think, What the hell
is she doing ? Where's it coming from? What level
Do you actuall y ha ve a background in Method of her subconscious is this? How do you under-
yourself? stand the motivation of crazy people? How do
Yes, I love motivational acting. I read Stanislavski you understand the motivation of people who
backward and forward . Some of my collaborators dabble in drugs? What he was trying to get to was
studied with Crotowski when he was really inter - the subconscious. Realism is an agreement be-
ested in motivational work from an abstract poin t tween us that behavior is rea l because we've
of view and considered that he was picking up agreed that those significations are real. But could
where Stanislavski left off, which he did. He was you be standing there and take one finger and
moving the Stanisfavski system into a level of knock your eyeball out? Would t hat be real? No,
abstraction, and simultaneously the trad ition of that would be insane. But I'm sure t hat if a hun -
Meyerhold was turning toward formality. The dred peo ple knocked their eyeballs ou t lin fro nt of
t hing tha t was really interesting abou t C rotowski us), we would all agree that tha t was pretty real.
in the early days-the seventies, around the t ime O ur reality is an agreement. Anything ou tsi de of
that JoAnne Akalaitis, Ruth Maleczec h and I hung that we can labe l as surrealism, as expressionism ,

31poges (36 JT'On) left n lhis choptef

as crazy, or whatever we want to tag it. of how they have sex. If I hear someon e's song
The key here tha t Grotowski was onto was how being sung, or watch somebody's play being di-
do you mot ivate an expressionistic move? How rected , you'll know exactly how the director makes
do you motivate a surrealis t cross across the love. I think that's right, too-that the really spe-
stage? When I was working with R. G. Davis at the cial work that takes place between actor and d irec-
San Francisco Mime Troupe, they were excitedly, tor is a constant psychic intercourse between the
desperately looking for how to motivate pan - two. It's a constant give and take. In desexualized
tomime. How do you make French pantomime theater, you go to sleep . The tension that live the-
real? Supposedly, they had some answers: You go ater lives off of, the idea that it presents an
into different parts of your brain, you contact dif- extraordinary emanation from the stage itself, that
ferent emotional realities. We've also found that the energy is double , triple, quadruple what nor-
Brecht had a little bit of an answer, too, which mal energy and conversation is all about , is the
was his idea of dialectical presentation of oppo- fact that we are dealing with a heightened sexu-
sites . like with Brande . the many different di- ality, and that sexuality is transferred from the
chotomies that Brecht set up-like doing a play to the audience . The inte rcourse between
horrendous, bloody battle scene and playing toy director and actor is transferred to become inter-
music over it-are now cliche, but at that time course between actor and audience.
were very hot, intricate, cerebral and fantastic. We
have seen this as a key to what is ironic on stage. Which is why I say it's hard to ask that question--
Everybody does it. I do it, Richard (Foreman] does becaus e what I'm asking is: How do you work
it. l iz (leCompte] does it. with actors ?
I really love those moments where they don't
How do you work with actors to find moments of know what they're feeling-whe n you don't know
irony and juxtaposition? I think that the rehearsal whether something is laughable or serious. Shall
process is a kind of intercourse-and it's hard to we get into the sexual metaphor here? It's got a
ask about sex. little bit to do with a vulnerability that comes from
Everybody's work of art is basically a description a deco nst ructed metaphor. By deconstructing a

2'9pages{33 mil) ell '" th'l Chapter

mom ent, by actors deconstructi ng each other, and now, that core of craziness is conceptual-
deconstructing the script, basically you produc e a doing a show in a football field with a choreog-
level of vulnerability that's really sexy.That kind of rapher and famous footba ll players; the whole ap-
vulnerability is what turns me on, what I try to put proach of The Gospel ot Cofonus, to crash history
out there. I find it and get to it thro ugh this tech - and society together, the way you approached
nique of doubling, this you-me business, the Beckett, which was one of the best productions
oppositions-that I can be very emotional and I've ever seen in the United States; and what you
cracking myself up at the same time , or be very did with Dol/house, It seems like something that
aggressi ve, etc. I think that these combinations you do has to do with context. You place dissim-
are what keep things hot -almost a formula for ilar notions together in one context which creates
what keeps things hot. If you're looking to make a another context.
very sexy show, you ofwoys want to use the ele- Right. And it doesn't always work.
ment of surprise. so that nobody ever knows
what's com ing. Which is probably why it sometimes does work. If
it were guaranteed to work---with the right
In rehearsals? In the product? formu la-then it never would .
In rehearsals it can be very subtle. It can be intel- 1 remember when I was getting over-confident, in
lectual. It doesn't have to be, you know, we're in my earlier days like 1972 or 1973, I did something
the middle of having tea and you jump across and called The Arc Welding Piece. Wow. that didn't
attack someone. We can have a general aura of re- work. We took that to Amsterdam. It was a sculp-
spect in our action and a sociability; it doesn't ture with an arc welder cutting apart this piece of
have to be crazy. But if you embed it in its core metal, with sparks flying, and with three or four
with a nut of craziness . that nut will radiate right actors behind, enlarged. in masks. They were
t hrough the audience and will basically create a basically an emotional chorus. which I had picked
very special event. up from something I had done in San Francisco
with a play called Acting without Words. It was an
When I think of your productions over the years idea about how can you get four or five people . a

27 JXlg<'.(31 mn) leI! nltll1 chapt&<

chor us of peop le, to have the same and simul - working o n a piece called "Flower Arrangements ."
ta neous emotion in one moment. Can you get There's a story about Bruce. A friend of mine told
seven people to all sit in chairs and all start to cry me he saw him lying o n the flo or in his studio
simultaneously? Can you get the same seven peo - with hands full of white flour. He had piles of
ple to do something else simultaneously? So the white flour every place. The visual pun was the
idea was to do this behind the enlarged faces and kind of thing that always made Bruce's stu ff so
have it relate in an oppositional way to the shapes funny and so great. A lot of people try to take
being made in steel. It didn't work. these little verbal jokes and puns literally. It was a
purely conceptual idea , but of course, the concep-
That just means that in order for it to work some- tual bus ran out of gas after about eight or nine
times, you commit fully. years of punning, and they weren't very good writ-
I've just had better ideas . later on I realized that I ers and the puns weren't that good , and so it
usually use a rule of thumb about having a literary didn't quite succeed. You could feel the concep-
tie to these oppositions, balances. Dol/house is a tual movement getting thinner, going to more and
prototypical idea-the idea of Torvald being more remote galleries. It was a moment, just like
called small by Nora, and to take that literally and Cubism was a moment, and Dadaism was a mo-
make all the mate actors really small-that was ment, so was this idea of conceptual art. But it
crazy, but it was right in the text. taught me a great deal. It taught me to look at a
1was a kind of part of the art world from 1970 script differently. It taught me to look for things
to 1980. I made money moving art from one that could work literally.
gallery to another in the truck. I knew a lot of Sometimes it isn't a word. With Gospe/ at
artists, basically got the language , used to be able Cotonus . Block Athena had just come out, and I
to sneak into parties. During that time, partic- was very interested in the African connection to
ularly with Bruce Nauman's work, the artists Euro pean culture . There was this idea that Africa,
weren't very good writers , but they tried to use ti- particularly Nubia because it was Egypt at that
tles differently than surrea lists used printing. particular time, had a tremendou s amo unt to do
Bruce invited me once to his studio. He was with European religion , theater and music. So ,

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having been hanging around a lot of gos pel text.
singers and really getting into it, I started to think, I think it's about wanting to define the secret.
"Where did this come from? What are thes e six You're looking at this text and you're looking at
beats going on? What are these live beats?" And the play and you're trying to thin k of the sec ret of
then it sudden ly dawned on me-another imag- how to make everything come together. One of
inary solution-that they were where the percus - the keys is the surtext/subtext. Arbitrarily, what
sion track went. Going along with that came the about deciding to reverse them , putting the sub-
idea that maybe we could reevoke an African text above and the surtext below? This is an effort
contribution by moving it into a contemporary to play the subtext and to subtextualize the sur -
metaphor like soul music. Out of this came an text.
idea of: What about the exotic, beautiful black
gospel singers ? It brought me back to when Plato Define the surtexL
spoke of music and the stud y of music as being The words. what they say. the text itself The sub-
critical of the Republic. and he meant the study of text is: What did he mean? What is the ess ence?
literature . Music was a metaphor for all of What is the poetic, metaphorical meaning?
literature--everything rhythmic, everything lyric, We tried to do that when we did Mabou Mine,>
the whole deal. Then I started thinking that the Lear, which was a big experiment. Mabou Mine,>
only way to understand literature is with music. Lear, which I hope to be able to bring back some
From then on. I co uld n't do a piece without mu- day, staged t cor in a genu ine reproduction, I think
sic. Dollhou~ couldn't be done without Eve our first genuine reproduction, though there have
Beglarian. And it kept going on that way, one been some since . But the important part was that
musical idea after another . It's still going on. we put it in West Virginia and we used redneck
accents. That came from a study of Shake-
What is the imagining, pataphy sical approach? spearean language that advised me that the re
It's not some highfalutin imagination-you don't were two Englishes tha t made the jump to the
dose your eyes and come up with some wacky u .S.: One was Shakespearean English and on e
idea. It comes from a very literal examination of was Anglican English. which became the Bible

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and jumped to Boston. Shakespearean Englis h four Obies in there-Ruth Maleczech as Lear,
jumped to Jamestown, then found its way west to Karen Evans-Kandel as Edmund, Isabell Mo nk as
Tennessee, and sits today in Appalachia. So th e Gloucester, and the fool was gay, a drag quee n,
bes t place to hea r great Shakespearean Englis h is which was right on . A midd le-age d West Virginia
a Johnny Cash reco rding. You can't believe how patriarch might very, very probably have a bes t
fantastic Shakespeare sounds that way. All the friend be a drag queen and they woul d be together
stuff makes sense. When they say "snuff," it's forever. Greg Mehrten played the drag queen and
amazing how it rings . And it's completely histor- got his first Obie . The coxcomb became a dildo.
ical. There was a BBC series on Shakespearean We wrote a few songs to make that work. We had
English in which they showed the Shakespearean two electric cars-a '937 Plymouth and a pickup.
dialect moving on 10 Cornwall, and they had a I had a brilliant cast , and it was really hard. Of
recording of Cornwallian speech, and it does course, we got trashed in that production. People
sound kind of like North Texas. The damn prob - were saying that I was doing a John Waters trib-
lem I had (with Lea~ is I didn't ask actors to go far ute. A part of me was , but it wasn't. I am in abso-
enough. They had light redneck accents. And what lute awe of the legacy of Charles Ludlum and the
I reatly needed was for them to go too far. playhouse of the Ridiculous. It was an inspiration
for Dol/house. It was an inspiration for parts of
Why didn't yo u ask the act ors to go furth er? Lear. Charles was a very good friend of mine, and
I was chicken. the legacy he left when he died will go on and on.
But the point is, this wasn't all send-up. This was
Why is it we get ch icken a bo ut Sha kes peare? a very serious idea about the time warp in Shake -
I was chicken. And also I had some really good spearean English . I hear there's a time warp for
actors and they, of course, wanted to be very Spanish, that there are Spanish enclaves in South
Shakespearean. America that speak nineteenth-century Spanish.
Canadian French is a time warp for French; Loui-
That's what I mean . siana French is a time warp. I think that we caught
But I had some really great people. The re were it and I wou ld like to really go further with it. It

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was a hot idea and it had that balance. Whether thou. They were either not that interested in feel-
an idea works or not- fo r example, Dol/house ing a thing or they couldn' t. I think a lot of this
worked and The Arc Welder Piece didn't- all I can kind of theater is happening today- a lot of high-
say is when I teach this idea, it's like having two tech, video, computerized imagery-a nd to ma ny
balances and a scale. You have to get both sides of a younger generation it is o ne hundred percent
of the scale off the ground. If your opposition is satisfying. You can look at a magnificent, for-
too heavy, it's not going to work, and if your malist trick, idea, sound, sound score, dance se-
opposition is too light, it's not going to work. You quence. whatever it is, and be thrilled and not
have to be able to get this balance completely need anything else. Somehow, that didn't become
suspended. That's the key. my thing. I reallywant to be deeply moved--like a
great Method actor can greatly move you-and
So what was not oppositional about The Arc yet be able to distance myself enough to catch up.
Welder Piece? Withdraw. and then get sucked back.
It was too conceptual. I didn't have enough sur- It's the old story of Brecht. Brecht was so inter-
text. It was ninety-five percent subtext. I should ested in alienating and distancing from the emo -
have had something written, something clear and tional vomit of the tradition he came out of, that
straight. everything was directed to cooling down, anti-
feeling. technical commentary. To have the true
I'm so loath to drop the notion of putting the sub- emotional distancing, it often helped to have
text on the s urface and the surtext underneath . It some emotion to distance from. I feel that what
feels somehow true . has happened is that people are distancing like
Also it's dangerous, it's emotional. To get back to crazy, because we have nowhere to go. We don't
the Method, I love to work with people who were feel shit. Nobody can feel shit, nobody wants to
trained motivationally. In the seventies and the feel shit, and nobody enjoys watching other peo-
eighties a whole slew of performers developed, ple feel shit. It's uncoo l or we're afraid to get
many of whom came by conceptua l art and the s ucked in by the dirty word "em pat hy" and
idea of performance art. They were cooler than overemotionalize. If you're going to parody soa p

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opera, it would be nice to have a really great then I saw Herb's Endgame, which was the forma l
baroque emotional mome nt that you can distance idea of how to do Beckett, and that was in my
from. head for the next twenty years. I was a Beckett nut
So, I became interested in wanting to have by the time I was twenty. I was also a Genet nut
something to distance from. I turned to people because that was also the first time Genet was
who had the ability to feel and the brains to make pub lished. I'm sixty-eight. and I come from a
commentary about their feelings. I miss it when I generation where the only way out was art. That
see people with incredible brains and formal was the fifties. There was no other way out. In the
knowledge com pletely willing to let the seed of sixties you had politics, drugs , pills-lots of ways
feeling vanish out. That's why artists who are exactly my age--
like Phil Glass and Richard Foreman-are ob-
1 keep going back to three Beckett plays you did. sessed with art. Because, Jesus Christ, this was
Beckett is 50 hard to do becau se if done wrong, the key to our lives. You went there, you had an
it's just painful. I was 50 knocked out by the act- imaginary solution , and you better stick with that
ing. It was crystatliee. thing and be careful you don't stop imagining or
That was the first time we had any national notice. you just die, instantly. Before the sixties, all you
And I think David [Warrilowj got an Obie. It was could do was imitate, pretend you were in Paris
our breakthrough . drinking cappuccinos wearing a turtleneck. This
was pre-rock 'n' roll. That's why I smoked: Ca-
What made you do Beckett at that moment, and mus looked so hip with a cigarette to his lips.
how d id you approac h it? What was very sexy then was Artaud, Beckett,
When I was a student in the fifties at UCLA, Beck- Genet. I remember nothing abou t my educa tion.
ett was just published in Evergreen Press for the It was one big empty parking lot except for one
first time. The first production of Godot was given course taught by some little guy nam ed Gia-
by the Actors Workshop of San Francisco with cometti. who tried to pose like Camus and wore
Herb Blau, and I remember hitchhiking up to see Italian suits and kepi saying, "Theater does not
it, and I remember being really disap pointed. But exist," and in one semester introduced me to

17pages (20 mn) left 'nthls chopt ....

Artaud, Beckett , Genet, Sartre and about five oth - more Genet because I could n't afford to. Genet
ers. I had nothing else I wanted to think about for was too damn big. The thing abou t Beckett is he's
the res t of the time I was in school. I left shortly cheap. One box se t, one character. a wheel, this
after that. Nobody grad uated back then; yo u left and that. You can do it with not hing. Genet. my
becaus e you had too many parking tickets. God. you need "so n et lurniere." You need a pro-
The idea here was tha t Beckett was the great duce r.
awakening to formalism , the great awakening to
absurdist thinking, the great awakening to a philo- You did something with one of the Beckett plays
sophical play. Everybody wanted to emula te this that was so sophisticated. You had a mirror hang-
part icular lifestyle. later, when I was living in ing at an angle.
Paris, I bumped into Beckett three or four times . That was Come and Go. The pe rforme rs sat be-
Fred (Neumann) knew Beckett very well. Beckett hind us and we could look at them in the mirror,
actually wrote a play for David (Warrilow) called A and that was wonderful because they looked com -
Piece of Monologue. David was one of his favorite pletely lost in space and about half norma l size.
actors. 50 it was funny, this idol of mine since I The voice came from back and the image came
was sixteen. I would pass on the st reet and I'd ask fro m the front.
him about good restau rants . About ten years lat-
er, he did come to see The Lost Ones. He doesn't That was really radical.
go see his performances because people would It was radical theater. but it wasn't radical to the
want him to comment on it and he would never bunch of conceptual artists we were hanging out
let o n. with. That was the stuff they dea lt with every day.
We just ha ppened to be the only gro up doing the -
Did he comment on it? ater with it. In ot her words. we helped to invent
He said he really liked it, but do n't tell anybody. what was later called performan ce art. There was
But the point is. I love Genet more than Beckett. no performance art at that time. Qu ite frankly,
But after I d id The Maids. which was the very first Phil Glass led us into perfo rman ce art. He was
profess ion al play I ever d id, I co uldn't do any working for all these painte rs. He was the entree

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to all of these guys with these great and rather much mo re wit h inte rnal wo rk than Richard.
esoteric ideas . The painters didn 't believe in the- Richard stayed at the "look at the outside." This is
ater. The irs was an art reality. Ours was a theater why he and Yvo nne Rainer got alo ng so well. She
reality. What was interesti ng was that t he rea lity was interested in the da nce perspective-of stay-
was so clea r and so stro ng it forced us to perform ing to the outside and looking at things objec-
in a certain way. We really realized the incredible tively.
d ifference between the art and theater worlds and
why none of thes e artists co uld really truly em - Then you moved from the gallery scene.
brace theater. Performance art stayed art--even We never performed in a theater from 1970 , when
l aurie Anderson . who probably has the most t he- we started . to the end of 1974.
ater sense of any of the true art people . After l au-
rie. it wasn 't performance art anymore, it was And that was Joe Papp?
stand-up comedy pas sing as performance art be- Joe Papp picked up The los t Ones and moved us.
cause people wanted to get cheaper and cheaper.
and hand-held microphones were cheaper. We Was that a choice? Did you guys say, "We want to
were totally unu sual in that we were experi- perform in galleries . These are our people"?
menting with emotional formalisms in the art No. Galleries accepted us and thought we were
world that were only used to pictorial formalism s. great, and no theater was intere sted. We still have
In the theater world . we were able to bring picto- very, very close friends in the art world who com e
rial formalisms in a sophisticated way. We're not to see us. But still, they unde rstand the intel-
cutting edge about pictorial formalisms now; lect ual. They just won't feel. The art world te nds
t here are ma ny companies much furthe r o ut. The to be smarter. and the t heater world tends to be
Wooster Croup is doing some brilliant so und more co nnected to t he work. You jus t don't get
stuff; Richard (Foreman ) is doing some great im- high off an art world res ponse. But so metim es
ages. But at that particular time. I think we were you get so me great ideas off it. You pick and
pro bably- with Richard- bot h introduci ng the choos e.
idea and making the idea of art stic k. But we dealt

13poges (15mil) Iefl '" thISchapter

I have one more questi on , which is about the They're just a bunch of greedy fucks, too, but
world we live in now and how it's cha nging. How they're not quite as deteriorated as the reds. They
are you adjusting to th at? still have some pretense of a cerebrum. I do not
Bad ly. It's really becoming a little bit mo re ironic really feel that there is a social structure that will
and more cynical. I got really interested in the honor me. I go through wonderful imaginary
classic idea of cynicism. solutions. I have a real, romantic nostalgia for
good things, nice people, a pure point of view.At
What's the "classic idea of cynicis m"? one time we would have said "a Christian point of
I think cynics were the first performance artists. view," but we don't say this now. When I see
Remember that guy-Diojoues-who lived in a these fools critiquing other fools. the anti-Bushes
pot of his own shit. He thought it was ridiculous critiquing the Bushes. and the Times mumbling
to do anything in private. Then he masturbated in about positivism and morality, I just think at two
public and people didn't like it. This was the first hundred thousand dollars a year, go ahead and
performance art . I think that cynics are incredibly critique and harangue all you want at the Times.
romantic. great romantics , who are so petrified Greed culture is a really interesting thing to study.
that they've covered themselves in every possible I think we're Rome in their last sixty years. And in
layer of protection so they won't permit any kind sixty years, the barbarians will come down from
of penetration whatsoever. the Alps and come to the gates, and there we are,
I don't like either side. Curiously enough, I'm welcoming a new dark age. I think the key here, is
so inured to the idiocy of the Bush conservative humor. If I can turn something into a joke I'm
that I almost forget about him. But being a cynic happy. So what I feel about the world today is that
I'm also bugged by the liberals. I hate the New it's completely full of shit, but half of the shit
York Times. It's like a friend who has done you hurts me more than the other half.
false. The liberal academic community is the rea- I really love to look at society as a biological
son I don't like to teach anymore. 1used to think I metaphor, to see analogies between viruses and
could talk to that side. But I am much more multinationals. But this is old sixties stuff-
pained by the blues because I trusted them once . Burroughs's Naked Lunch-but it's still a lot fun.

11 pages (13mn) left onIto$chop/a<

When I moved to New York in 1974 , fres h o ut of idea about th e part and how th ey want to perform
college, I used to secre tly follow my favorite direc- it. how th ey want to personalize it. This is
tors down t he street. I was curious about what Sta nis lavski, jum ped to Grotows ki, jum ped to us,
they would look at. And you were one ofthem. th e modern idea-we really, really use personal-
What would I look at? ization .

You looked at advertisements. It was late at night, AB: It's called Affective Memory, right?
and yo u wou ld stop and read the advert isements. Yes, that's probably what it's called. But when th e
I found that fascinating, that perverse fasci nation. actor finds a certain behavior or emotion t hat they
I don 't mean just read ing the text, but really read- want to deal with, you have to look at tha t like a
ing the advertisernent-c-which seems co nsistent little circle. It might be totally outside my idea.
with what you just described. But if it's real, I want to pay attention to it. It's so
seldom that you get something real. What I try to
Audience : I want to bring you back to t he point do is make a second circle-my concept-and
about how you work in rehearsal. I th ink everyone then the negotiation is bringing the circles to -
is very curious about the nuts and bolts of the gether. What I want to be able to do is place th e
process. lee is t he most collaborative director that performance circle inside the conceptual circle so
I've worked with. He really actually solicits more that the performance validity and reality will en-
information from both directors and designers. I hance my conceptual circle by always exploding.
think the reason you've directed a lot of award- Fo r those of you who are directors, this is what
winning performances is that no one else specif- we need to know about each other.
ically builds parts arou nd particu lar actors like you
do. Audienc e: I'm a painter, so I work with form. But I
I really love intimacy in directi ng. Many of the act ually don't work with form . I let form find me. I
peo ple I work with, I've worked with for so me t hink t hat's what you're ta lking about. If you go in-
t hirty years. I think tha t when I work well what I to t he work with an idea, t hat idea will never hap-
find myself do ing is negot iating. The actor has an pen. From a se nse of form lessness manifests th e

9 pages (10 mn) lef! n Itol chap''''

form by itself. exam ple. I know that when I was in Oslo with
The big key is to be able to step back and see a Dol/house , I had to do a panel and I was abso-
form that's just mani fested. A lot of times it will lutely amazed by the fact that all the directors of
sur round and blow you aro und so deeply, you five o r six different prod uctio ns of A Doll's House
won't see the form. There's always this mo ment in Oslo were men. I said, "Do you really think that
when you don't have the vaguest idea what you're you can validly feel enough to understand how to
doing. and it's a gift. It shows you what you're do- direct Nora?" And they all said yes. I may be a
ing. man directing A Doll's House, but I know I could
never direct it from Nora's point of view. I have to
AB: I think the director's job is always to think on use Torvald's point of view. I know about being
the other side of everyone else, or encircle every- walked out on and left with a kid. I understand
o ne. The actor should have a full and solid circle that. It was a really deep, mind-boggling expe-
of ideas and approac hes, a ta ke on it. It's not my rience that tested my sanity, my confidence, on
job to interfere with it; it's my job to put them in a and on. I had just read an essay by Strindbe rg in
context that is larger than that. And however large which he said he thought it was Torvald's play,
they get, my job is to get wider. and the fact is. it's both, but it's a complex inter-
In a way. as a director. I think we secretly have to action. I had a real emotional experience, which
work like actors. I think we have to get an original, was: I knew Iorvald's side. But I didn't know No-
emotional idea about what we want to do. There ra's side and I didn't pretend that I did, and I felt
has to be a motivational core to our directorial proud of myself that I was the first to admit that I
concept. That is the reason I can parallel the ac- didn't have the faintest fucking idea what was go-
tors circle with the directors circle. It starts out ing on inside of her except by a secondary
just as emotional as the actor's circle, and then bounce. like through a mirror.
we (d irectors) can blow it up, make it bigger by I left Nora's point of view up to Maude Mitchell
inte llectualizing it, pushing the limits back, allow- who played Nora and was also the prod uction's
ing it to e ncompass that. The key in the beginning dra mat urg.
is that we have to feel it. I'll use Dol/house as an Working o n Dollhouse while touring I was able

7 pages (8 mn) l&fI ,n 1M ot.:Jpte<

to refine the motivational jformalist balancing slow-moving tea r stimulus intact.
act. Dol/house itself was a balancing act between
my partner Maude and myself. Even the Obies Audience: Could you talk about when you and
were balanced-she loo k one for performance Ruth went to Berlin and it cha nged your idea
and l one for direction . about directing?
Maude was Meisner -trained. and I was a writer When we were living in Paris in 1968, we hitch-
who liked to stage stuff like I saw it in my head. hiked to Berlin. The wall was still up. We stayed in
which was somewhat conceptual and somewha t a little hotel and walked through the checkpoints.
like a movie. We acted out each other 's creative At that time. Helena Weigel was stilt alive and she
agendas. I wanted my forms filled with feelings-l welcomed us with open arms-these American
was not a post ·modernist of the minimal- kids come over into East Berlin to check out the
structural blueprint school-and she wanted her theater. She said we could attend any rehearsals
feeling shaped by form. we wanted . We started attending rehearsals for
We developed an acting dialectic, half Mann ist Mann. and I couldn' t believe what I
Stanislavski. half Meyerhold. A jarry-esque. imag- saw-a chorus of eight people on stage , but six
inary neuro -theory could speculate that emotions directors! One director was watching one actor,
and commentary like humor take different paths one d irector was watching two actors. There was
to the muscles--one chemical and one electrical. a general overview from one director who orga-
It could actually even be true-but the imaginary nized all the other director s. They were all direct-
paradigm would work just as well. Tears for exam- ing together. Well , you cannot believe the thrill I
ple are cued by a chemical brew that takes frac- experienced watching group directing. I have tried
tions of seconds to travel from the brain to the to continue with that. In Mabou Mines, four or
tear ducts. Comic energy is electric and travels five of us will work with one actor on a particula r
much faster. Thus an actor could weep and in- scene, and if it's my show, I will be the arbitrator
stant ly make a joke, and then conti nue to weep as if people have co unter-feelings . I have to be
the comic electrical energy penetra ted the chem- politic about that -moving their circles inside my
istry and. as quickly departed, leaving the circles and working with all these director circles.

5 pages (5 mil) letTIII th chapTer

Some times it's very labor intensive, and some- mot he r Ruth [Maleczech]. who is t he co -artistic
times you do lose your way. But t his level of d irecto r of Mabou Mines, for doi ng it. I think th ey
collaboration is reallyexciting, and I did learn that are really brilliant. Very few people could make
at t he Berliner Ensemble. language like tha t work. I'm very happy with the
way the workshop is going . It's o nly forty minutes
AB: I think of a production like a pie, if you take long. Eventua lly it will become the prologue of a
one litt le slice of pie, that's my area . It's got to be full-length play that will continue.
really thought-out, I 'v~ got to really get involved,
it's really dense, so I fill in that section. Everybody AB: Is there something else co ming up?
else has to do t he rest of the pie. If I t ry to get in- We may be able to get up four performances of
volved in the rest of t he pie, it would not be very Red Beads next fall, which we did at Mass MOCA
ta sty pie. two or three years ago . It's a make -or-break
I think that's a great way to share a pie. Everybody let's-get-it -up thing, and I think it could be really
gets a slice. exciting if we can put it all together. It's my collab-
oration with Basil Twist. He was also the master
AB: Would you tal k abo ut the show you're doing at puppeteer for Peter and Wendy. We put some
the Flea? pretty wild ideas in this . First of all, the puppetry
It's an attempt to imitate an academic, is environmental puppetry. There are not indi-
nineteenth-century language, and it's delivered by vidual puppets. We used nothing but Chines e
a cow who's a yoga instructor named Sri Moo, silk, and it's all in mid -air, blown up by fans. It's
and she gives a long lecture and harangue about exactly the way the water worked in Basil's Sym-
methodology, this and that , postmodemism. The phonie Fanunuaue. but we're now using wind.
gimmick is that after a hiatus of a hundred years The actors and dancers are all in mid-air also be-
she's picking up the William James lectures, Vari- cause t hey're all flown in. So you can see every-
eties of the Religious Experience, and of course thing under everything. You'll see someone crawl
James forgot to include theater as a variety of re li- over a mou ntain. and then behind them you can
gious experience. I just love my da ughter and her see the back of the stage. It's an opera wit h a

3 pages (3 m n) Iefl 'n lhischopter

score by Ushio Torikai. It takes te n to fifteen stu- Elizab eth Str eb
den ts just to hold the cloth, while three or four
blow the wind into it-just to give you an idea of One can see Streb from a distance beca use she
how out-of-sight the logistics are. It's a glorious stands out in a crowd. She is a visible icon on the
extravagance. It's like Bob [Wilson) at his best. I New York landscape. And Streb is what you call
think Wilson is an icon of how to do the impos - her. The name fits: a brief punchy word that
sible and make it work. He's had the support of encompasses the impact of her presence. The
the art world and it's worked for him. risks that she takes in her work are nothing less
Pretty much everything I do is different from than outrageous . exciting and inspirational. Her
the thing I've done before. Gospel at Cotonuc has company of athleti c dancers is challenged to tran -
nothing to do with Peru ond Wendy. One's a yang scend their physical and psychic boundaries and
show. the other's a ying show. Neither of those test the unknown on a daily basis .
have anything to do with DoJlhou'il: or Summa Streb has created her unique signature work in
Dramauca. the cow piece. So either I have no cen - New York City since 1975, and she has toured
ter or I really believe in this idea that you can re- extensively to venues as expected as lincoln Cen-
form yourself for the moment and the work. ter and the Spoleto Festival and as unexpected as
Grand Central Station, a mall in front of th e
Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. and the board -
walk at Coney Island . She is a recipient of a 1997
MacArthur Fellowship as well as two Bessie
Awards and many grants. She has received hon -
orary doctorates from SUNY as well as Rhode Is-
land College. Her work has been se en on th e
David Letterman Show, CBS Sunday Morning,
CNN Showbiz Today, Nickelod eo n. NBC's Week-
end Today, MTV, ABC Nightly News with PeterJen-
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Once called the Evel Knievel of dance, Streb Dean's Special Scholar at New Yo rk University.
grew up in Rochester, New York, attended I think that the special appeal of Streb's work is
Catholic schoo ls, bough t a motorcycle and partic- that the audience vicariously experiences the risk
ipated in a variety of extreme sports. After receiv- and real daring that is happening unmedia ted be-
ing an undergraduate degree in modern dance fore them. The audience receives a powerful phys-
from SUNY Brockport, she performed extensively ical charge from the activity that they are wit-
with choreographers Melissa Fenley and Mar- nessing. The sensations arise from being direct
garet Jenkins. She moved permanently to New witnesses. And the experience can affect their
York in 1975. In order to develop her own brand of lives in very real, direct and physical ways.
what she calls "PopAction," she scavenged from
the disciplines of athletics, circus, boxing, rodeo, MARCH 28,2005
daredevil stunts and dance. In 1979 she created
her company STREB/Ringside. In 2003 Streb AS: Elizabeth Streb is a phenomenon on feet. Her
established S.l.A .M. (STREB lab for Action work defies the boundaries of what we think the
Mechanics) in Brooklyn. human body and soul can accomplish. I accuse
Streb seems to be on a constant search for new her of being a theater person more than a dance
information about what a body can do. The work person, and she accused me of being more of a
of her company is extremely demanding and dance person than a theater person.
necessitates endurance, dexterity, great physical How did you get into doing what you're
strength and the ability to be daring. The dancers doing-not just logistically, but also why? I don't
are trained by Streb to follow a movement's nat - think anybody is an artist unless they're curious
ural force to the edge of real danger. She plays about something, so what is that realm for you?
with the limitations of the human body. In recent ES: I think the first time you felt your conscious-
years she has begun to incorporate text, video ness pricked with something other. That's what I
and projections into her work. In order to under - would point to. I was wandering around East
stand the effects of movement on matter she Rochester in upstate New York when I was about
studied math, physics and philosophy as a ten. If you lived in Penfield, you weren't supposed

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to go in East Rochester because tha t's where all There are certain things you have to be willing to
the bad people were. It only took fifteen minutes embrace, and I think that's one-leavi ng ho me,
to walk there, so we would all trundle over there leaving your t urf. Those people represented to me
all th e time . One day this whole gaggle of people that you're going to have to leave here, an d never
walked into the diner. My whole world changed. If come back. For me tha t was true. I knew I had to
you think that you need a fuller experience t han a get the hell out of dodge. I knew that was some-
couple of seconds in life to make a transforma tive thing that freedom represented-leaving everyone
change. I don't think so . I thought, Who the hell beh ind. Not having an identity that was attached
are they ? And it was this culture shift , in my whole to people who know you is a big thing to take on.
being. They were a theater group from New York The other issue is danger. Movement was the
and they were performing there . They were like th ing I noti ced mo st in the world . so I knew from
beatniks. It was pre-hippie. I still think beatniks early on that movement was going to be my stock
were the coole st. That was what started every- and trade-and the danger would have to be a
thing. I thought. That's the wild side . I'd never part of that. Those are metamorphoses that I
seen anything like that - you could dress that way, knew would gather together in what I would make
you could be in a state of mind , your life could be choices about.
based o n ideas , and not what your ha irdo was go- I knew my job was cut out for me: leather
ing to be when you're seventee n, which was a big clothes. not a good material to wear up there.
worry of mine at the time. It represented freedom Plus. I was dark . It was nothing but blonds as far
to me-also the idea of motorcycles. My sister 's as you could see , so I was different, if you can
boyfriends had motorcycles, and I thought that imagine the levels of difference . I got a part -time
was the sound of freedom . I put those two things job. because I knew I was going to save mon ey to
toget her: theater company and bikes. get a motorcycle. I became a counter girl at Wool-
worth 's in Rochester. My parents were very
I don 't want to drop t hat notion of freed om-s-what rough-tough. German stock . They said. "You can
that mean s in t hat mom ent whe n you're ten years have anything you wan t, but you have to pay for
old, and now. it." I saved five hund red dollars . I got an ad out of

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the Times Union, and it was for a Honda 350. I Rochester, so I would-what would be called
took the money and the ad to my father. He just cheat ing, but they could never catch me. The oth-
looked at it, bereft. And he let me buy it. That was er team would get the ball, you see who's going to
the beginning of having my own mobility, and get the ball, so you waft around behind them, and
that was the biggest thing for a kid. you mold yourself one millimeter from their body,
totally out of their peripheral vision, they have no
Were you doing sports then? idea you're there , then they turn and you pretend
I did downhill skiing and baseball, basketball. they hit you really, really hard and throw yourself
across the court : "Foul! Foul!" And I, of course,
That explains everythingl practiced my foul shots constantly. So I would get
Yeah, velocity and impact. I went to an all-girls hundreds of foul shots.
school, so we had a serious team .
In a way what you do now doesn't involve fiction.
Was it a Catholic school? But that seems like a huge amount of fiction.
In those days I think it was always Catholic if it But they really d id hit me.
was all-girls. I am gay. I'm queer. I don 't think I
knew it then . I didn 't like the way if boys were in You got in their way-you carne up as close as
the class you never got any attention. I was really you could.
looking forward to going to an all-girls school When I got there I wasn 't in their way. They were
where the nuns just paid attention to you. They in such a position that there was only one way
had these very serious varsity sports teams where they could go. I knew that, and I put myself in that
you could really get rough. I played a very rough spot. It was actually very com plicated technically.
game of basketball.
The seeds, I think, of a career.
You were the kind of girl I was scared of. But fiction is interesting. You say that in your
You would have been scared of me. But I knew I work you tell true stories. But how would you de-
wasn't as big as some of the girls we played in fine a true story?

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I think you create reality by the way you describe few sto ries.
it. For example, I ask you to tell us the story of
your life, and it's not the way you experienced it: I th ink that impulse of making up stories is what
"I was twelve, then I went to high school." You draws people to the theater-telling stories in
lived in a series of existential moments, but you time and space. But I do want to pursue this story
turn it into a story, and that story becomes a truth of your life.
that other people measure themselves by. Every- I went to college and majored in modern dance,
thing you do in the theater, you choose the person State University of New York in Rockport, be-
you want to be and you decide what the story of tween Rochester and Buffalo. It was the first
your life is. One of the directing students at dance class I took . It was 1968. I thought danc e
Columbia was saying James Joyce had to create a was a fairly arduous set of activities. I was con -
person who could write that way. You became the stantly waiting to move. I thought in the next
kind of person who could make th is work, which class they'd do something really fancy and really
deal s with velocity, impact, danger and freedom . challenging.
But in your work it seems as though fiction is not
something considered. You're interested in the re- So you were not challenged?
al thing. Well. obviously I was with stretching and the line
It boils down to what highlights you are choosing and all those fancy moves. I was definitely chal -
to remember about yourself, and not extenuate. lenged. I stuck with it into my forties , taking tech -
nique classes. But no, I wasn't very thrilled about
Or what's necessary to remember. the experience of doing those moves. I spent a lot
Sufficient and necessary. Just enough, and what of time thinking about what it means to be up-
part. I grew up with a sister, though we were not right, and the ballet stance. I believe that anyon e
related by blood . Apparently she remembers who had a straight back were people who didn't
everything verbatim that happened-really what wo rk-who didn't have to. I found tha t there were
happened. Ou r notes don't jibe with each oth er. I a lot of privileges of technique that took twenty
forget a lot of things, and I probably ma ke up a years to gai n-and those were t he peo ple who

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had twe nty years to devote to an exercise and Janis Jo plin had just passed away a few years be-
tech nique. I thought the demonstration of the fore. I felt her spirit in the do nut shop. I had a
form, therefo re, was meanspinted in a certain steep learning curve, being o n my own.
way. I have struggled with trying to glean a con- You went to college, didn't you?
tent out of right-side-up dancing, transfer ring
weight from foot 10 foot. I did spend those four I went to four colleges, undergrad . When I was in
years doing that. Then I hopped on my motor - high school I decided I wanted to be a director,
cycle and headed west. and I directed The Bald Soprano as my first play.
I'd grown up always being the assistant-doing
What techniques did you st udy? Oklahomal and Charlie's Aunt and Brigadoon. But
Ballet for modern dance. In college, the Limon then I swear to God, my French teacher; in '951,
technique and the Humphrey-weidman tech- decided to do The Bald Soprano in Middletown,
nique, and once I got out of college it was Mar- Rhode Island . Before the opening she called me
garet Jenkins in San Francisco, which was Cun- and said she was sick and I had to take over
ningham technique. I came to New York to study directing. All the right things happened. Jimmy
with Viola Farber, who was one of Cunningham's Cammeto, was playing Mr. Smith. We had a crush
first dancers. on each other, so love was there , chasing each
other around. To this day, someti mes I think the
What happened in San Francisco? way I direct, the rhythm, the way a play moves,
I went to lots of gay bars. learned about Folso m the sense of humor, is exactly the same as what I
Street. I had my motorcycle. It was completely my did when I was fifteen. I study so hard to grow,
identity at that time. San Francisco was a town I and yet . . .
was in for the first time away from home. People I really wanted to be a d irector, so I applied to
said, "What's your name?" And I said "Elizabeth" Vassar (where my moth er had gone), to Sarah
for the first time. People called me other versions lawrence (where I wanted to go more than life it-
of it in the past. San Francisco was learning how self) , to Bennington, Sweet Briar-you know, all
to pay bills-or not. I lived in Haight-Ashbury. those girl's schools . I wanted to go to a girl's

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school. I got turned down from all ofthem, I think letter from Vassar asking if I would be interested
because it was a lousy high school-and I think I in running their theater program. I phoned my
had drugs on my record, too. mother. I've never heard her so happy. She said,
I was so devastated. So I went to a school "You have to call theml You have to call and tell
where they would take you if you could pay the them they turned you downl"
check to go. It was a terrible school , and I directed Did you do that?
all the shows there that year-and decided I reallv
wanted to be a director. So I applied to all the No. I've said this before, but I th ink my whole ca-
conservatories, the then forming CalArts, reer is based on revenge. It's a very useful energy.
Carnegie Mellon, every serious school. They all Either you're mad and it eats you alive and you
turned me down. So I ended up going to four drink and get sick and die, or, if you take the en-
undergraduate schools. By sophomore year, I was ergy of revenge, it's very useful.
in Athens, Greece, where I studied archaeotogy I take another approach to that. I think dance is
and Greek language and history. different than theater.
I probably didn 't know about applying to fancy
colleges or a similar thing would have happened. Is it?
I remember at an awards ceremony, one of the Theater is so respected. In text alone it has
teachers at one of the fancy colleges which, had I accreditations that dance doesn't have. With
known about them . I would have gone to, said. dance. a lot of time it's musical issues that attach
uA11 of my students ..." and listed me. Maybe I themselves to the dance. and that becomes its
looked like someone else she taught there. I was legacy. rather than, "Did you see that eight moves
very flattered. but also a little bummed becaus e I in a row?" Who remembers fifteen moves in a
d idn't get to go to that school. row? Not even four moves in a row. It's never the
thing where people attach to what just happened.
My mother was so devastated that I was turned It's mo re like a blur. and song. It's more
down from Vassar, because she went there and phenome nological.
was so proud. Years later, before she died, I got a

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But in a way, you force that in your work. You Music is the same way, anything that moves
force them to look at that chain of movement. through time. Your job is to set up expectatio ns,
I tryto, but it's still invisible, and there's very little then either fulfill them or break them. There's no
I can do to quantify an invisible idea. The thing other choice. It's amazing to have an expectation
that happened before, and the thing that will hap- fulfilled really consciou sly, or to break the expec-
pen just after-right in the midd le there's a body tation or the truth of that.
that is enormously d istracting a person's atten- If you fulfill expecta tions, in my world tha t would
tion. That's one of the reasons we go fast and be entertainment. Peo ple like to go to things they
hard. so you don't have time to go, "Oh. she expect and it makes them happy. If I do what they
changed her hairdo." My job is most ly to give the expect me to do, then I would be entertaining
audience the physical experience. We're actually them a little bit. I thi nk it's entertaining what we
going to start advertising the asymmetric exercise do-Streb PopAction-but I think we try to defy
that you get automatically just by watching the expectations. not fulfill them.
show: You do not have to make one move at all,
and you come out a healthier, stronger person af- I heard there were plans of ta king your company
ter a day and a half. Why didn't I think of that to Vegas, right?
years ago? If I can make enough unpredictabl e I still have plans to do that.
moments in a row-and what's nonpredictability
is a very complicated thing. You're looking at The entertainment capital of the world.
somebody doing something, and everyone has an I feel that's my destiny. Isn't tha t weird? I think
expectatio n about what the very next thing can be. it's because it's the land of the exceptionally odd
We know about our physical world, and we exist and maybe banal in some ways-but also the
in it, and we have bodies. You have to figure out eccentric, the extrao rdinary, both in terms of the
what you can do that would be true to the world persona of the people who live there and the
of moveme nt rules but that no one wo uld expect. shows that go on there. The ecce ntricity of the
That's my consta nt effort, to find out what that audience. which mostly doesn't pay attent ion. I
nonassum-able next move might be. think they really want to go and get hit in every

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d irection with everything they did n't go there Do you think it's abou t being to ld a sto ry versus
for-plus they want to gamb le, they want to drink, having a new experience? My co nceit is about ac-
maybe t hey want to see the most ou trageous tion . You decide th at you're th eate r; I've decided
show in the world. I guess I also want to co mpete I'm action . You as k of your discipline what can it
with th e most outrageous show in the world. The do best. My idea is it has to be extrem e, it has to
ma rket may not quite be ready, but I'd wait. be dangerou s. if people are going to sit and not
move and not talk for a lo ng time and just wit-
About fifteen years ago an article came out In ness. I have to make them feel as if they are doing
Timf! about las Vegas. l as Vegas had to be rein- it and it becomes an experience for t hem . It's kind
vented. The rest of America had caught up to it. of like how Marshall Mcluhan described th e
All of America had become that extraordinary difference between your experience watching tele-
th ing called las Vegas , what with the malls and vision and how active you have to be to associate
McMan sion s. The attempt to bring Cirque du all those dots together into a pictu re, versus film,
Soleil and Blue Man Group and Streb and com- which is completely resolved. And even though
pan y- I'm all for it--is, in a way, to jumpstart you're not physically aware of having to do more
las Vegas. Disney's trying to do that, too, hiring work with television than you do with film, your
Annie Hamburger, En Garde Arts. It's interesting experience is completely different. 50 maybe film
in term s of what an aud ience's expecta tions are, is theater and TV is dance.
what that mean s in terms of performance.
Also in terms of fiction: the Bellagio, ma king No. I don 't want to miss something you said: I do
Venice be Venice in Las Vegas, which is so Amer- theater, you do action . At some point you had to
ican. all these weird, fictionalized, but unbe- say no to the word dance, correct ?
lievably wild places that are not here. Well, I try not to say no because-Rena [Shagan].
my agent. would say I'm definitely in the d ance
I've ta lked to some people who've seen t he De l.n wo rld . No ?
Guarda sho w. They said it's like going to a rave,
but you don't have to stay all night. Rena: Somewhere between theater and circus and

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dance and specta cular and spectacle. I think were d isciplined enough 10 put it on in live time,
you're not definable. iso lating a mom ent. You isolate-Okay, I'm o nly
It depe nds on how people define dance. My repu- going to be in this spot in space, foot on the
tation is, I think, in the dance world, so it's hard groun d. Then you started to see how infinite the
for me to say it's not dance. I liketo say that mod- potential was of tha i spot in space. You started to
ern dance-given sports, gymnastics--has a lot develop the richness of your language. That's
of work to do if they're the art of movement. what Development Vocabulary was about. I think
They've got to get the heck off their feet. They've I was incredibly att racted to that genre. I was also
got to stop adhering their timing systems to an- pretty ignorant because 1 slept through my eight
other discipline. Oral issues. physical timing is- A.M. dance history class . So when I was doing a
sues, are not the same. I have a lot of quibbles lot of my early wall and harness work, I got this
with the dance world. I think they're formally be- hate letter from some anonymous person. It said
ing extremely naive and not investigative or rig- I was ripping offTrisha Brown. 1did this big piece
orous enough . on a wall called Look Up. Now I realize looking
back that if I was going to pick one of the Judson
AB: Were you influenced by the Judson Church people, it would be Trlsha. Her early work was
moveme nt? everything. I did a piece in '81 on a hill. Simone
Definitely. I came to New York in '74. I remember Forti did one in '61 called Slant Board, but 1only
seeing them at the Kitchen. I remember seeing know that because they reconstructed the Judson
l ucinda Childs and Yvonne Rainer. I went to the pieces at St. Mark's in the early eighties-s-en d 1
Grand Union. I got here a little after the Judson found all new reasons why some of them maybe
showed some of their work. I remember thinking, hate me. I wanted to go up an d say, "I didn' t
Wow, these are some of the most brilliant peo ple know." But then 1 tho ught, That's worse. Then
I ever saw. You could tell that it was absolutely they'll hate me for two reasons separately.
brimming with a very deep idea abo ut either time, But I felt that my niche in the d ance world was
space or body. It was outlined dearly enough that interest in the expansio n of vocab ulary, not igno r-
you understa nd what their confines were. They ing space, q uestio ning grace, really. What is in

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action format versus sou nd, and hundreds of do llars an ho ur. This was the early eighties .
ques tions that I felt maybe weren 't answered by
the dance world, o r maybe weren't asked. I think AB: Most people complain about not having the
that if yo ur concerns and interests lie in this for- hours and hours and hours to fuck around . You're
mal set of ideas, the n you math ema tically go saying you'd do it in an hour.
about seeing if they bring fo rth any fruit. That 's Well, I did the fucking aro und for hours and
been, and continues to be my process. hours. But I didn' t want anyone there.

AB: At a certain point, though , you decided you AB: I heard a rumor that you're a really good
needed to have your own company and your own fund raiser. Is that true?
situation , right? I really, really like to raise money. I feel that that's
I did solos for probably the first five years, then I true of anybody who really loves what they do . I'm
bro ught one friend in, Michael Schwartz, for the really good with founda tions because I thin k it's
hill piece. He passed away in '94 from AIDS, a their job to give me money, and they have to give
great video artist , and just a beautiful dancer. it to someone, and they have this much to give
That's the only person I worked with who I didn't each year and that's that. Individuals I'm les s
pay. We d id duets together for a few years. Then I good with. I don't like to raise money from indi-
brought on Diane Sitchetl. Paula Gifford, Henry viduals that much . I've been successful with a
Beer. My thing was for one hou r a day and pay few, and I on ly do it when I'm comfo rtable with
them ten dollars an hou r, and that's how I did it. I them. A lot of them are professional philan-
was so terrified of telling people what to do. I'd thropists as well as individuals. That com es from,
work on it for hours, and the n they'd come in and you get raised , and your mother says, "Don't ask
I'd go, "Do this, do this, do this, do this . Okay, stran gers for money." If you're a good dau ghter
good -bye. Here's your te n dollars." I did it for a and you learned well, you just never, ever do that.
long time, until 1had too many people, so I d id it But otherwise I think I'm really, really good.
for two ho urs, and I was spe nding hund reds and
hundred s of do llars. I had to drop it to seven AB: That is rare, don't you think?

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I do n't think so. Do you? relat ionship that's ongoing. I almost feel like I
could become your fund raiser. Som etimes I think
AB: I'm coming around to the notion, but it's tak- that would be a bette r model for the arts : Anne
en me a while to get the-e, to think of fundraising Bogart calls for Elizabeth Streb, I call for Anne
as part cfthe a rt-th ~ idea that ~v~ry time you de- Bogart. Because you know what? I'd ask for way
scribe what you're doing to te n people, the idea mo re tha n you would probab ly.
grows. If th~y react to it and you adjust it because
you need to, it grows even bi gg~r. That little act is AB: Matt Bregman, who's on our board, is a devel-
part of the creative process . It doesn't come so cpment person. H~ has an idea, which I think w~
easily as it does for you. I like your attitude. It's an shou ld do, which is to g~t a consortium of compa-
attitude that you bring to your own work. You say, nies and go to corpcratiens-c-because corpo-
"This is worth something. You should pay etten- ration s are too big to give mon~y to one little com-
tion to what I'm doing." pany. Say, "You should buy into this whole
I started by having to make all the calls myself to consortium." And it's s~xy for them to have this
the funders. and now there are some funders who group of cutting edge artists.
I've been calling for twenty-five years. I have deep What right now interests you art istically? What
respect for them . A lot of times they don't have makes you the most curious?
any money to give me . But I'm just chatting, I was thinking that in the first twenty years I asked
telling them what I'm doing, asking them to a lot of Newto nian questions, which were hard
come. I have now development directors who enough to figure out. We have one hundred forty
write the grants and strateglze and educate me. I kids come through the S.lA M. lab. We have a
was in l.A. a couple of years ago, and someone space in Williamsburg called Streb l ab for Action
was telling me that it's really unprofessional that 1 Mechanics. We teach kids action. I hous e th ree
call the funders, that I shouldn't call funders. It's, kinds of action-PopAction , that's what we do;
"What's the matter, don't you have enough mon - Kids Action, well, if you've ever seen kids on the
ey to hire a development directo r?" I said it's not playground; and Circus Arts, where they just
really like that. It's mo re just carrying on a com e in and do, and we just watch. Newton said

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you can't be in the same space at the same time. unde rstand that this is not going to happen?" So
But Newto n also says if you go fast eno ugh you then I back off a little. We did this thing where we
can pass through things. That's sort of a quan tum cheated time and space, just a millimeter, half a
idea. These two kids-I saw it coming. I watch secon d. But you still had to go, having the expe-
them a lot-were running like bats out of hell rience of crash ing, you still as a body had to go,
across the room. I thought maybe it's my angle of and you were positive that you were going to
view, but it really loo ks like they're running on the crash. That became the psychological revamping.
same path. If I were a nice person, I could have And then. 10 and behold, man, they really d id
said, "look out!" But I didn't. And sure enough, miss each other. It just didn't look like they were
wham mo. I was just like, okay, it's true. You can- going to. Or somebody does a gymnastic flip, and
not occupy the same space at the same time. Kids there's enough space in there some of the time
have less thought about the future than we do. for someone else to dive through. If you go at the
We tried it at Streb for a long time, but we've been wrong time, you crack someone's head open.
unsuccessful.
AS: Danger.
AS: Can you desc ribe what you were trying In The practical side is the willingness to spend an
term s of occup ying the same space at the same inordinate amount of time on just a few seconds
time? of theatrical moment.
Well, just pick something that you know can't
happen physically. One of the things for me was AS: That's the whole deal.
you can't be in the same space at the same time. I It's expensive.
built this eight-foot square, and have eight people
around it, going through the center spo t in space AS: You can't do it in an hour for ten bucks.
and time. The crashes kept happening. The So how does that work for you?
dancers are incredibly great in my compa ny, but
they do look askance at certain times: "How many AS: I think what you're talking about is magic-or
more times do we have to crash before you alchemy or transformation. It's a group of people

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committed to working on something in which you found in rehearsal, that is not repeated
something might occur, but none of us has any emotionally. What kills most American theater is
idea what it is or when it will happen. That hole w~ get an emotional moment and w~ repeat that.
that you're talking about is metaphorical, perhaps. It's not about repeating the emotion you found in
It's not a literal hole you pass through, but that rehearsal. It's about repeating something, it might
body has to go through that hcle in rehearsal, It be the way the bodies are lined up, the task, or
feels just as dangerous. That 's the mag ic. There's how you're breathing that's v~ry physical that al-
no way people can meet, there's no way you can lows the emotions to be different ~~ry time but
have this alchemical switch where you turn metal poignant in a different way.
to gold, quality of human relation ship, and yet you That's interesting because we do this exercise
try. All you do is you place yours~1f ov~r and over where we show the audience this much of the
and ever in proximity to one another, and then body, fifteen degrees, thirty degrees, forty-five. It
something does happen. If you're not present in really matters-how much of your body are you
the moment, then you miss it. So all of the work going to show and when? As a subject it's as
of training and thinking and research and table poignant. The eight positions of the body in ballet
work and st udy all brings you to someth ing that are really referring to a rectangular room, just be-
has nothing to do with any of tho se things, but cause they happen to be in a rectangular room.
has to do with co-presence. It's hard. It takes a Not a good enough reason. But just choosing
lifetime of tr aining. But to me it is about what what you're facing to the absolute degree could
you're describing. elicit meaning. When we take a horizontal plan e,
So this place isn't a place that you recogni ze be- when your shoulder goes too far, you pile into t he
fore it happens. then you recognize it. You don't ground and rip your shoulder ou t. Or if your
map it. shoulder doe s n't go too far, the person landing
an inch next to you crashes into you. So t he
AB:What w~ try to do in rehearsal is have a series specificity of space does elicit emotional things .
of actions that require that organization of ~n~rgy And I realty believe that out of tha t comes all the
that would re-create the possibility of something rest of the st uff. It's no t, I'm m aking a dan ce

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about love. I've bee n in love once, and I know angular mom entum experime nts . In a circle, you
about it. can create a huge amo unt of force, and it sta ys
put because it's a circle. The qu estio n wou ld be
AB: It's that old theory of Rousseau's, which is: cre ating so mething that will, without hydraulics
Do you see the bear and feel fear and run because or a lot of gizmos, crea te a turbulent co ndition on
you feel f~ar? Or do you see the bear and run and stage. You go th ere and moun t it and it explodes
feel fear because you'r~ running? on so me level in differen t ways, but it doesn't
let's th ink about that for a while. Oh , I've thou ght want you there. The job is to figure out how to
about this so many hun dreds of times. "Fea r Fac- survive as lo ng as possible and do cert ain things.
tor " asks what would you do? Same for t he grizzly We have a t ruck strap, sim ple t hing. It's attached
bear. I was told tha t if you're ever in the wood s to the two t russes about this high, really tight. So
and you run into a grizzly, face to face, you're I ask the dancers to just run, pretend you're run-
supposed to stare at it and not move, because ning across the stage, and just step over tha t. You
they can run faster, they can climb trees , ther e's have to really hike up because it's really high. It
no way you can get away. It will charge you, and it really will do eighty million differen t things be-
will stop a foot away from your face, but you can' t sides just step up on it. It'll splat you down , it'll
lose eye contact. Just stand there. I'm thinking, t urn-just like on the back of a bull, it will do dif-
Wow, would I do that ? This ranger was telling us ferent things every time.
this story that the bear charged eleven times , and
then the bear walked away. AS: I want to ask a little bit about the company
But the wild animal thing, like eight secon ds o n and the spac~. At a certain point you got concrete.
a bucking bronco : Synopt ically my next inves ti- Supporting a company and a st ructure, an
gation , quantum questions , is creating a t urbu- administrative structure, there's a cost to that, a
lent, unco ntro llable event in the m iddle of the personal cost.
sp ace--some st ructure tha t creates an insur - There is.
mounta ble place to be. It's there one seco nd and
gone the next. We're doing a lot of rotat iona l, AB: But you decided to do it. Ar~ you happy that

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you did it? Is this th e right thin g? For me it is. I've a huge amount of liability, five million dollars . I
don e it for twenty years, and it's totally the right had to get a life ins urance policy. It's New Yor k,
thing fo r me. There are moments sometimes of right? The landlo rd says, "If you die, I want fifty
feeling like you're an employment agency, and thousand dollars to empty this place out." "Could
there's a lot of time figuring out the insurance or I give the other fifty thousand to my girlfriend?"
worker's comp or rent, and it's a very intense There's a lot of crazy things you have to do. But
amount of money that goes out. But I can't have a I'm extremely inspired by the adventure of having
pickup company. There's no way. We're working a company that does action . This is a field where
now at S.L.A.M. at creating a more feasible eco - we're all cottage industries , and we all join arms
nomic , sustainable stru cture-making it so that and walk into the wind . I can 't imagine asking for
we have a lot of other income streams. One of a better life than that.
them is just about to bud. I spent a couple of
years building it, but it's a flying trapeze. We just AS: You don't seem to be moving away from t he
have to get the insurance. That's a little compli - danger at all. You seem to be moving more deeply
cated. Nobody wants to insure a flying trapeze. into it. Do you find yourself getting more physi-
cally rigorous with your company th an you were
AS: Is your insur ance situation and worker's before, or are you backing off with sympathy and
camp out the wazoo? They come and loo k and see empathy for aging ofbodies?
what you're doing and they say-What? What can I think I'm gett ing much more intense with what
you imag ine? I'm asking them to do, and a lot of it, unfortu -
"Doesn't look like a dance co mpany to me ...." nately, is because I don't know what it feels like.
They saw us on a television show a couple of There's good news and bad news in that. I'm try-
years ago and our status switched from modern ing to make this little piece. A little magnet will
dance faster than-they first called and said, come down, there's a square metal thing at the
"Congratulations. You were on The Today Show. very bottom. So you watch this magnet descend. I
You're circus artists." We have a tot of liability. In was thinking of using Mozart or something. And
this new space my landlord demanded tha t I have the magnet comes down, and it clicks to this

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thing. I had climbed up way high to put these lit- can't do.
tle screws, way high where my dancers fall from I was laughing because a lot of times my dance rs
the trus s at S.L.A. M. I was like, "Hmm, I wonder will do different things. and a lot of times we're
why my legs are shaking." It's very intense. I'm putting more rigorous play into my rehearsal
fifty-fi ve now, so I was fo rty-eight when I sto pped. process. A lot of the invention in my early years
I had planned to sto p when I felt that my perfor- came from just recklessly flop ping aro und in
mance was becoming abo ut how old I was and there with an idea. They do that now more. I hear
how great that was. I immed iately stopped. Also I them go, "Don't do that! She'll make you do it
d idn't want to spe nd four hou rs a day working out again!" That's really great. There's a new piece
anymore. It was really way too time-consuming. called Roof. and we have a thirty-foot-high ceiling,
Fighting gravity beyond-l mean, there 's just so and one of my dancers wants to jump off the roof
much. onto the street. I mean, onto a mat , of course . But
In answe r to your question, I thin k the work's it's way higher than we've gone unas sisted . But
gotten more intricate, mo re difficult. mo re up in since they mentioned it, I walk into my space ev-
the air. harder. Not as hard-my version of my ery day, "Yeah . Hmm." Just even looking up gives
work from '80 to '95 was all about impact and me the heebie-jeebies . That might be going too
ground work mostl y. I got my first trampolin e in far.
1995. I wasn't really a flyer; I was a grou nd animal.
It was grizzlier because of the impact in a certain AS: They're pushing you now? The dancers?
way. But this is scarier and much more high- Oh. comple tely.
pitched in ter ms of danger because you're upside
down and you're hurling th rough the air. The ante Audience : What propels you toward danger? Has
is upped for them. But isn't that good? A director that been so mething that has been with you your
is not abo ut being a practition er. ent ire life?
In movement terms. if it's not that, then it's com-
AS: It never has for me. I'm a ter rible actor. I've al- fort zone. It has to be dangerou s, us ually, to get
ways been amazed at peop le who can do things I out of your com fort zone. Da nger is a good

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colloquial way to describe this idea-but it's the ground. Those questions just come into my
mostly unfamiliar territory that because it's in mind. and I guess I don't know exactly why. I'm
movement terms ends up being dangero us at not mean to people usually, so it doesn't transfer
first, until you figure out how to move that fast or into my emo tional life.
have reactions . A lot of our st uff is about having
reactions that happen snappily enough to get the Audience: When I'm watching movement or
head out of the way. dance , as oppo sed to theater, often I sta rt to
physically feel it. Often in theater it's head/heart.
Audience: Does that tran slate to other parts of In movement, it's heart/ physical; it has less to do
your life? with my head and my heart connecting, which
When I'm crossing the street, and I'm jaywalking, makes a lot of sen se when you talk about that
I really like to come as dose to the car as I can thing of gett ing close to a car, that momenL
without the car's wheel going over my toe. This is To become something besides flesh and blood.
not very good. but, I want them to think I'm going To become that action track. To see if you could
to walk in front of the car. I kind of play like that. I blend yourself with it a little bit. I'm curious about
also want to feel the force. I see a car coming , I things like. could an elephant stand on me? Or
sense what its velocity is, and I want see if 1 can- could it stand on four bodies, one paw for each
not change mine . I can but come really, really body? An elephant trainer told me, yes, but the
close, so close that that car thinks it's hitting me, hardest thing would be to train them to step on a
but there's no thud. That's the pedestrian practice human, because they learn their whole lives not
of how I work. to do that. Someone was telling me Penn and
Teller have a semi drive on them, but they use
AB: This has got to be DNA. plywood. How much weight could you hold?
, guess it's just in my nature-just always curi- Questions like that. I'd like to know what it's like
ous. Motorcycle is driving along, you're going to get shot. I would just like to know that. be-
fifty, and you think it's on the ground. I wonder cause I don't know. That would increas e my phys-
how fast you'd have to go for the wheels to lift off ical range, because I think people's ability to do

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whatever has to do with what they've go ne peo ple would go back, sign up for more tours of
throug h. d uty. They'd go back and I used to be plagued by
I really believe it's a class thing-the poorer it. How could they go back? We were in Virginia,
you are, the more physical difficultyyou've had. If and I'm thinking, Who's going to understand the
you have a little bit of privilege, you can keep all narrative of extreme action work? Do you have
the bodies away. If you have a little less than that any respo nsibility for who's going to end up in
privilege, you have scars all over you. the audience? A maintenance guy was watching
the dance I used to do in the box, and he said on e
Audience: Michael Ventura is writing about how of the most flattering things anybody's ever said
safe we try to keep our children. He was talking about the work: "The last time I saw movement
about growing up in the Bronx, and he has a great like that, someone yelled, 'grenade." I thought,
phrase, which is: " Danger makes for grace." Part Okay. How wide is your physical spectrum,
ofthe danger and part of the grace in both of your experientially? And who recognizes it? I know
work is that you dem and from the audienc e a kind when we go into certain places nobody has any
of precision that you give to the work. For me the trouble with what we're doing . They face it every
exhilaration of theater is the precision that is hid- single day.
den from me but is in the work clearly, and that
makes me unde rstand that meaning is at the base Audience: Where do you find your dancers? They
of something. are like super heroes. How do you keep them?
When we hire new people , we have auditions, but
AB: I think there is a price or a cost for precision , also we do classes and we know people all
so if something is exce«l ingly rigoro us, whether around the world who are movers. They find us.
it's sunken or visible, then the actor is actually But the audition process is pretty grueling and
paying a certain price for the exactitude, so you're weeds out people who are--
actually watch ing someone at emotional and
physical cost, and that communicates somehow. Audience: Afraid.
I'm thinking of war. I remember in Vietnam, No. We are afraid, believe me, every single day.

8 pages (8 mon) left '" lh scholl"""

Your fear shifts around, and we learn to respect I've never been invited to do that. It would be a
fear. I can us ually tell, o nce I know a dance r, when great ent erpr ise. The closest we' ve ever gotten
the y're scared, and I intervene. We do n't tell peo- was Wolftrap , celebrating an anniversary of flight,
ple to leave in th e auditions, so it's a com pletely and a lot of th e peo ple were vetera ns of t he war,
populist, friendly, getti ng to know you. It's all se lf- pilots, t he Tuskegee Ai rmen, and I even used one
selected exiting. By the th ird day, if you walk in of the anthems, "Off We Go, into the Wild Blue
t he room, we have a lot of res pect for you, and Yonde r," to end the trampoline dance. One of t he
you obviously want to be there. How long t hey comments was, apropos to your question, "Wow,
stay ranges-I insist they stay two years. If they tha t was outrageous, that's worse than basic
co me in the room , they're willing and ready to do training times five." They really related to the
it. They're really action -enginee rs. They're physicality of it.
method-inventors. It really takes a certain headset
to be curious. I don't tell them how to do the Audience: Where does your circus arts thing come
moves. I just inscribe the moves and they have to from? What made you interested in that?
figure out how. We're jumping from thirty feet. It was the only show I went to when I was young.
We're doing this one dance now, which is like div- My parents took me to the circus. It's just an
ing, but it's falling. And I want them to not just tip affinity. I love the gypsies . I love the wandering
and fall, but do a bunch of moves , and then you people. I just have so much respect for their life-
have to land. You have to be in the right posi tion style. They do these death -defying moves. I try not
so that when you land from that height-you have to incorporate lite ral circus acts into my show be-
to land on your back probably. Even your stom- cause we couldn't compete. They spend t heir
ach is too vulnerable at that point. It takes a cer- whole lives on one move. We're gen eralists on
tain anima to do that. I have so much rega rd for that level. We occupy lots of spaces but in a mo re
t hem . generalist so rt of way. However, we d id som e-
thing for Cirque d u SoleiI in July. They invited us
Audience: Have you been able to perform for the to help celeb rate t he ir twentieth anniversary. I
t roo ps? realized, Wow, they never hit, ever. Hitt ing is

6 pages (6 mil) left 'n !Ill chapter

anathema to the circus, It means death to them . I Their balance had to be better. They're still deal-
realized a lot of dis tinctions betwee n us because ing with vertical places in space. They're still deal-
of that. We're pretty heavy-duty in terms of co n- ing with a base of support that's still at the bot-
tent. l et's say they have sentences, but we have tom of where you are-not a whole lot of orga -
long paragraphs, in terms of choreography. The nizing in my world, to go onto your toes. The
audience didn't seem to mind. whole notion of the baroque idea of manipulating
your limbs and calling that movement-I'll admit
Audience: In your work with movement are you it's meta -movement, but it's not movement. I feel
finding that there's something that defines Amer- that the angles of the body, the skeleton is made
ican movement as opposed to movement in other to increase the angles from which you can ex-
cultures? plode your entire body, many-factor force. and
Well, I th ink we invented modern dance. I get into hurl. They don't figure anything out. They just do
a lot of arguments with Europeans about that , but what they can do . I have so little respect, and as
I really do take them on . I think the great thing the years go on , so much less respect, for forms
about the United States is that there's jazz, of movement that are so decorative as ballet.
there's tap, there's modern dan ce , there's hip-
hop . rock and roll. We are phenomenal. In answer Audience: In Europe today we have something
to your question, Europe doesn't love us. I've had called New Circus, and New Circus has a consis-
some of the most rugged reviews in Europe, Eng- tently large audience. And what we see is a rather
land. France. Asia see ms to like us a lot. But I a degraded form of sever-al steps. They're trying to
think I am quintessentially American . Take ballet, combine narrative with some form of gymnastics.
which was invented in France in the sixteenth It strikes me as odd that there should be so little
century. I call it European folk dancing. I think all receptivity of your work in view of the enormous
dancers believe in flight. Their idea. with ballet. I'll influence that you've had. It's really a question
make the short distinction, is some shoes that are about influence. You're the original---or maybe Tr-
hard on t he end. going up th ree whole inches. As isha Brown. You're passing something along. Why
a resu lt the base of their support got way smaller. is it that there's an audience for this degraded

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form and not for you? chain.
I think timing is interesting now. If we're full-on It's just like John Cage is res po nsible-and you
fronta l, then it's a little less than tha t. It might be have to admi t it's true-for MTV. Whoever wou ld
more palatable to an audience that needs to work have been able to handle no nse quitur mom en ts
its way up to something more full-on frontal. But on mass television if it weren't for John Cage?
osmosis, movement is an ora l form. It passes it-
self on by what's happening in the air. Someone
saw someone who saw someone. People used to
say that Madonna did this video and she copied
my box dance. Good . We are in fact like water.
That's the beauty of movement. I went to the cir-
cus yesterday. There's all these ladies lying down,
and I saw the elephant coming toward the ladies,
and I thought, Oh my piece! They must have
heard me say it once. Stole my idea. But what the
elephant did, is step one foot at a time. It was re-
ally nerve-racking . That was almost more dra -
matic than my idea, I thought. I don't know if it's
possible to track influence when it's not text-
based.

AB: I'm convinced that A Chorus Line is only pos-

sible becau se of Joe Chaikin's work with the Open
Theater, that kind of performance, and it's always
to me revolutions in small rooms. In these small
room s in weird cities spread th e virus everywhere.
So the que stion is where you line up in that virus

2 poges{l mn) H!fl 'n lhisdl<lple<

E/izab<th L.Campt. with co-Performance Group member Spalding
Gray. She constructed a quartet of plays ent it led
Over the past several decades Elizabeth Three Places in Rhode Island that began by d is-
leCo mpte and her posse have made consistently secting the tragedies and ironies of the Gray fam -
ground breaking and adventurous creations based ily history and moved on to interweave personal
upon outlandish ideas, cult films and classic histories from other members of the company.
plays, all smashed together, in dialogue, in Idiosyncratic, personal, poeti c and profound, I
disagreement. always a dizzying and exhilarating had never seen anything quite like these little
journey. A sampling of the fare: LSo. (... Just plays. And this was just the start. This early work
the High Points . ..J, N orth Atlantic , Route 1 t( 9. was the beginning of the Wooster Group, and in
Frank Ckl/'s The Temptation of St. Antony. Brace 1980 the y took over the space once inhabited by
Up!. The Emperor Jones . Hamlet, The Hairy Ape, the Performance Group.
House/Lights, To You the Birdie!, Poor Theater, Elizabeth grew up in New Jersey, graduated
Hamlet and the opera La Didone. from Skidmore College , moved to New York City
I remember Elizabeth LeCompte in the role of where she worked as an extra in B-movies, sold
the prostitute Yvette in Richard Schechner's postcards both at the Metropolitan Museum of
production of Brecht's Mother Courage and Her Art and the Guggenheim, modeled for art classes
Children with the Performance Group, the pre - and worked as a welfare caseworker. She also
cursor of the Wooster Group. I am embarrassed founded and ran a bookstore with friends in up -
to reveal how many times I returned to see Mother state New York. Since then she has received a
Courage and Her Children, but suffice it to say that MacArthur Fellowship, numerous Obie Awards ,
I was usually waved past the box office, probably an NEA Distingui shed Artists Fellowship for Life-
dismissed as an overzealous fan of the Perfor- time Achievement in American Theater, a USA
mance Group. What a radical vision of the play, Roc kefeller Foundation Fellowship and France's
what fun, what a deep sense of physicality, arts award, the Chevalier des Arts et Lettres.
th eatricality and reality all at once. Then all of a The Wooster Group has th rived in New Yo rk
sudden Elizabeth was mak ing he r own crea tions City as well as arts centers and festivals nationa lly

46 poges(54 mn) left on thiSOooplElt

and arou nd the world, producing plays, opera, would make the project and the n, if people liked
da nces, radio, film and video. The members are it, they would book it. No one came to us and
fiercely loyal. The use of technology in design will said, "Oh. we'll give you money to do ..." Now,
probab ly change the face of what theater is, and loo king back, I thin k that was a good thing. There
can do, forever. Young artists who have interned was no reason not to play, not to do whatever you
with the company have gone on to form count- wanted to do. It's different now because some-
less new companies inspired by the Wooster times people do say, "Oh. if you' ll do this, we'll
Group. give you some money." But I think it's a habit that
Elizabeth still attends every performance so you learn when you're young to just follow what-
that she can overhear audiences' responses and ever and not to put another voice out there except
constantly work and rework the event. I admire your own or another artist's.
that.
That's something that is becoming truer and truer
APRi l 25 , 20 05 in the way I understand it-which is that if you
don't do that when you're young, you don't do it
AB: One ofthe things that distinguishes you from when you're older. You think, Once I get to this
others is the permission you give yourself and place, I'll actually do the thing I want to do. You
your company to do what you do--to create some- actually never get there.
thing very unlike what you see in most theater. The other thing is that I didn't study theater, and I
Where does that permission come from? didn't plan to go into theater, so I think I come at
H : It comes from a lot of places. First of all, it the practice from a very different place. I'm inter-
comes from having a space that's mine, that's ested in ideas, and then I've got the spac e and
ours, our very own. So when J start work, there's these people. I try to work out ideas that are not
not anything that's saying to me that you have to necessarily ideas that should be worked out in the
do this for somebody else. If it doesn't work, then theate r-in fact, plenty of people will tell you that
I don't owe anybody anything. Fo r many years, we they shou ldn't be. But in a collision of my vision
never took money up front for a new project. We of what I want to do and what I have at

44 pages (52 min) lefI,n lh I chop'''''

hand-performers, techn ical artists, a space and New York. In those days, films just weren' t tha t
an idea-I have to reo rganize my thoughts important. The "Arts and Lei sure " section of the
around that. A lot of times I sta rt out thinking, New York Times was called "Theater." Theater was
Oh , it's not even going to be a theater piece. I'm the happening art form. Film was fo r fun. TV was
going to make a video. Or, We're just fooling for mo re fun. I think I went to see theater becaus e
around. I do n't even ever say when we begin that I was trying to jum p class. I was trying to be a
it's going to be a theater piece. I think that helps , serious person in a nonseriou s world.
too , coming from that.
Jump class not like school-you wanted to jump
Can we talk about performative influences? You class?
studied visual arts in college. What is it that al- I wanted to see the ballet and whatnot. I was from
tered your DNAto look at the world in the way you a middle-class family, and I wanted to be an art ist.
do? Why J wanted to be an artist , I don't know. That's
Televisio n was huge . I grew up watching tele- a good question .
vision. I saw theater on television. I saw painting
on television. I saw cartoons on television. I saw I'm really envious becau se I was brought up with
everything. That's all I had, was television. My no TV. When I was in high school my family fi-
family had the first television set in our neigh- nally got a television, and I was only allowed to
borhood, and that was in '949 or \950. $0 I think watch Perry Mason and the news.
that was huge. Also, music. I liked sound. Maybe Perry Mason's good .
that comes from television. I do n't know.
And then I got through college and finally got a TV
You did take the bus from New Jersey to New set in New York in the East Village and I was
York to see Broadway shows . cram-coursing. Now I'm understanding why my
Yes, but that's later. In those days New York work looks really different from yours.
was-I guess it still is-a big draw for yo ung peo- Television was very different the n, too. In the
ple. $0 I s kipped a lot of sc hool and just went to fifties the re was a lot of live TV. That was exciting

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in a way that theater was exciting because you How did you get to painting and visual arts?
knew that people were making mistakes all the I read a book called Benjamin West and His Cat
time. You knew it was rough, watching Ernie Ko- Grimalkin. It was a children's book. He was a
vacs. That was forming for me. That was playing painter, Benjamin West, a really good American
around with the medium. People were discov- painter. I don't remember the cat. But I do
ering television the way I'm discovering theater remember that he made all his colors himself out
still. I'm still going, "Oh God. People have to en- of earth. It just seemed like a really good way to
ter and exit. How can I do that? What's a new way do something. So I started saying, "Okay. I'm go-
to do that?" And with television, that's what Ernie ing to be a painter." But then it was downhill from
Kovacs and people like that were doing. They there. I took one of those painting courses in
were trying to figure out ways to turn the camera. Morristown, New Jersey, for the local PTA-you
If they wanted something to slip off the table , know, women painters, and they had this one guy
they'd turn the camera sideways, and we'd all and all of them were having an affair with him.
laugh. They were doing stupid kids' stuff. Kukla, We'd go to the school late at night , and there 'd be
Fran and Ollie were stupid puppets. If you watch fifty-year-old women-they were probably only
them now, it's really boring stuff. They didn't twenty, but I thought they were fifty-and a cou-
understand what television was compared to live ple of gay men who were there painting still fifes.
performance. There were all kinds of odd timing At the time they were trying to model it after Cu-
things. It was a rough medium . I think I enjoyed bism. I would have to try to make these stilllifes
watching them figure it out. Watching the Mc- look like Cubist art. I wasn 't good at it. This teach -
Carthy hearings on television was amazing- er would come over, and he didn't know what to
because they didn't edit then . It was better than C- say. First of all, he didn't know how to talk to a
Span. The camera was just fixed there all t he tim e. child. So then I forgot about that for a while. I
It didn't do anything else. That was a huge influ- started taking a mechanical drawing class in high
enc e on me-watching those hearings every day school. I loved it. But then I had to apply fo r
with my mothe r ironing, staying home from school.
schoo l.

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Elizabeth and I were just ta lking. We were both his photogra phe r fo r the company. I began help -
turned down from everywhere we applied . ing him out, laking notes, watching perfo r-
Well, I did get in-I think I got on a waiting list at mances. He wo uld go away a 101 and I would fill
Goucher (College] . But it had no paint ing depart- in. I found it very congenial. I really liked telling
ment at all. I don't know what I was doing. To get them what to do. I enjoyed ma king t he stage
into school, I sent in mechanical drawings. And pictures -c-three-dimensions. I'd done a lot of
then at one they wanted a painting of something. architectural drawing, so I already had that feel for
And I didn't have a painting. I hadn't drawn in space. I think I got int o performing because
years. But I had this album of Harry Betafonte that Richard used anybody who was there and it was
had this watercolor picture of him on it. I loved cheaper to have me do three job s.
Harry Belafonte. So, I copied .
You were good . There was something called The
It's all coming together, Marilyn Project. Because Richard had too many
I copied the picture of Harry Belafonte. I mean, I actors in it he decided to do it simultaneously
did some embellishments on it. But I got in-so. twice . There were two casts, all playing the same
of course. that was the successful way from then roles , do ing the same moves. You played one of
on. the Marilyns and Joan Macintosh played the oth-
er. It was supposedly Marilyn Monroe's last day of
When I first moved to New York in 1974, I saw work on a film before she died , so she was really
Mother Courage and Her Children at the Per- out of it, drugged up and stuff. You were unbe-
forming Garage, directed by Richard Schechner, lievable in that You had to do all the same moves
something like twenty-five times. And you played as Joan Macintosh.
Yvette. How did you get from visual arts to Yvette It was a mirror image. It started out as a natural-
in Mother Courage? istic play, but Richard couldn't make it work. I
Well. I couldn't make a living painting, needless have that fabu lous story - I got a bad review from
to say. So I taught myself photography, and l ee Strasberg. I didn't really want to be a per-
Richard hired me as his assistant directo r and as former, so it wasn't a huge deal.

38 pages [45 min) left In Th I ChopTer 55... ,00<

The Actors Studio shewed up. Lee Strasberg. Elia about not hing-as Seinfeld did so successfully.
Kazan was there. Or I had to kill myself.Yo u know which o ne I d id.
I didn't really know who they were.
Rumstick Road was the first thing you did?
Robert Penn Warren was ther e. No. I d id Sakonnet Point first.
No. Come on.
Was that the first time you'd directed?
They were all there . Yes. But I have to say, I'd been technically direct-
I knew Richard was sweating. I knew it was Actors ing because Richard was away so much. I'd done
Studio. I'd heard of the Actors Studio. And I'd a lot of work with performers. I just hadn't been
heard of lee Strasberg. But I didn't know. I just able to design the sets .
knew that Richard was really nervous about it.
And afterward they all stayed around. What I Can you talk about that prOC6S of Sakonnet
remember is that they turned to lee, who had all Point-how you put the elements together?
his acolytes around him, and Richard said. I didn't. Spalding [Gray) did. Spalding really kind
"Could you speak about it?" And lee started to of teased me into it. I wanted to get back to paint -
talk about the side that was Joan's side. Joan's ing. I wasn't committed to this theater life. We
this wonderful performer who could really act. were both interested in dance . We were going to
And he started to talk about Joan's back, how it see Robert Wilson down the street. We were see-
had gotten mottled with emotion at the high emo - ing a lot of different dance . He just said, "I want
tional moments, and I'd been working on some- to dance." So we picked some friends and they
thing else on the other side, and it wasn't about would just improvise on the floor and I would sit
mottling my back. And then he turned, and all the above and say what I liked, what worked, and then
gazes. I just remember, all the men looked over edit: "Keep that, do this ." But there were no
o n my side, and I'm sitting there. And he said. words. It was very musica l.
"And over here I felt nothing." I either had to ta ke
that as a call to arms and go on and ma ke work There were no words in Sokonnet Point?

36 p<>g'" [43 mn) Ief! 'n!hl chapler 55... ,00<

No. There was music. There were no words. Performance Group's] Commune that d idn't take
There were some people talking in the te nt, but it anot her name. He kept his own name. He didn 't
wasn' t to be heard. We enjoyed that, liked it. join in the actio n. He did do a couple of roles, but
Fro m there, when he got really sick, whe n he had he was never really very happy do ing that. He kind
the nervo us breakdown, he started reco rding his of led me into it saying, "Let's do something
father and his family, and we just brough t a else." I was perfectly happy assistant directing,
bunch of people in and listened to the tapes for taking pictures. I wasn't ambitious at all. It grad-
hours. People just started moving around it. Peo- ually became a company. We d idn' t make it a
ple took roles the same way we do now, in a weird company. We just started making pieces in the
way. We just started playing around with the crevices of the Performance Group. And so if Joan
tapes. I started simultaneously thinking about it, a had an accident so we couldn 't perform for a
visual structure. Then we started taping it out on month, then we worked during that month. We
the floor. Again, the nice thing about how we worked at night. We worked around the major
work is that it was really sort of about getting company. People in (the Wooster Group] now do
Spalding better at the time . So there wasn't this the same thing . They work at night. We give them
great thing about we had to make something that the Garage .
worked. I mean, 1 wanted to, because I like to
make things that work. But I didn't have any Marianne Weems did that, and John Collins.
ambition beyond making something beautiful that It wasn't so great for Richard, but it's good for me
would sustain Spalding. because I'm a different personality. I like knowing
these people are working arou nd in the cracks.
How exact ly did the Petforming Garage transfer to It's just very comforting to me that it's not depen -
you from Richard ? den t on me, that there are other people ther e. But
Well, Spalding and I both weren't interested in for Richard I think it was hard. I say this standard
acting-for two very different reasons. Spalding thing whe never I'm asked about this time:
just wanted to talk abou t himself. Always. Even in "Richard just dissolved the company and we went
th e early days. He's the only one in [th e on." And that's true in a way. But I think Ric hard

3~ P<J9"'I (~1 mn) left n thoschopl« 55... ,00<

lost interest. I thi nk that the losing interest sta rted to be able to keep it up-it was great, a lot of peo-
around the end of Commune. Commune was n't ple performing with us. It was a good time. But
successful. He started to feel he had to make we were way overextended -another thing that we
thes e big plays. And I thin k that bored him. I think do n't do anymore. That was dead ly. Then we end-
he's more interested in ideas. I think he was bet- ed up owing two hundred tho us and dollars, and
ter when there was a different perspec tive. nobody had paid taxes through the years, and
Richard just said, "I can't. I want to leave for a
Was there a point where he just said, "I don't while. I want to stop." So he left us the Garage.
want it anymore. You take it over."?
Yes. What we would do is share the money. By Did he say to you personally, "You take it over."?
that time Ron was doing so many weird things Yes. I think it was a meeting. We were all sitting
with the books. around in our usual circle. I remember he said,
"You take it." And we were nervous about it be-
Ron Vawter, who came in as a bookkeepe r, and cause we had a rwo-hundred-thousend-dollar
then became one of the great est adors ever. debt and no taxes had been paid. We didn't know
Yes. He was even then . He was just very quiet how to do that. I remember talking to Mabou
about it. But we'd share. Richard would be doing Mines and them telling us , "Don't do it. You can
a show and some of the performers , some of us, go to the Public. The Public will pay for you. Look
would be in that show. And then we'd be working at us." But we were addicted to having our own
on our own show. And then when his show was schedule and not having anyone else tell us what
finished, ours would go up. We would share the to do. So we decided to do it. We dropped the
space. Then we got a second space, which was Performance Group name and kept the Wooster
next door. and then we got overextended in many Group name and applied to the NEA unde r the
ways. It was almost impossible to keep two Wooster Group and wrote in our proposals,
companies. We had a couple of failures, big box- didn't mention Richard, and got grants. The
office failures, with Richard. It was too expensive grants kept com ing, and we took them. We all
to keep up the second space , but Richard wanted worked part-time in orde r to payoff the debt. And

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that took us about four years. Then the New York when Libby had a nervous breakdown- there
State Council o n the Arts dropped us after Route 1 were a lot of nervous breakdowns in the
a( 9 and then we had to work side jobs another company -she had to take over libby's roles. She
four years. It was a hard time financially. went right into the company that way. Peyton
Smith, who was with us for many years, and who
Was there a managing director? Who did that is still a member of the company. came to see
work? Noyatt School and she spoke to me and said she
A bunch of people. Jeff Jones [the playwright) wanted to work with us. So, we said , "Yeah. Come
came in. What happened was that people just on along." I never said, "I'm going to make a
came around. We didn 't ever choose a company. company." I just kept thinking, Oh. I'll make this
In Rumstick Road. Spalding said. "I want to work piece, and then I'll quit. And that did go on for
with libby Howes ." And I said. "I want to work quite a long time .
with Ron Vawter." So. we had those two. Then
there was a technical guy. Bruce Porter who was There's two things--besides imitation, which
having an affair with Joan at the time . so he want- we'll get to--that seem remarkable to me. One,
ed to get out of the Performance Group. He was thinking that it might not be a theater piece. It
our sound guy and technical guy. Jim Clayburgh, might be something else. And secondly, thinking,
who I had a good relationship with. kind of came I'll quit after this-how that changes the way you
in and out. He stayed in both companies. He was work in the room. They probably don 't feel un-
the only one who stayed in both companies. So it usual when you live with them.
just happened that that's who we were. We taught No, that doesn't seem unusual, but probably be-
a class in the late seventies at NYU while we were cause I thought I was going to be a painter, and
making Rumstick Rood. Kate Valk joined us. She you can quit painting any time. It's different when
came in and said, "I can sew," because she was you have a bunch of people . Another thing that
working at night as a seamstress in sweatshops. this has come out of is that the people who stay
She basically washed, scrubbed the floors. did with us aren't people who need to say, "I have
everything that we do, but even more so. Then this role. This is going to make my career, and I'm

30 poges(36 mn) left IIIth" chopl.

going to go o n to something else." It's people that day or night, and that was the play.
who come in with the overall view that they get on That was a section. It was a play that had four sec-
board for something else besides, "I want this tion s, and that was one section. It was the high
part." Sometimes after we've worked on the po int of The Crucible, the court scen e. I had a
nugget of an idea, and I have a core of people whole bunch of peop le from the neighbo rhood.
who are making that idea, then we say, "Oh, we Everybody was in it because it's got a big cast.
need someone to play this role," and then some- And it was boring, watching them trying to do it.
one will come in specifically for that. But when I My usual way is to try to entertain myself--which
start a project, I like to start it with people who, if is really important- I think I have to be enter-
they don 't end up on the stage, it's okay with tained all the time .
them. On one side sits: I want to see them doing
something fantastic and see them happy. And It's televisionI
then on the other side is: I don 't need to. Both are People get so angry because I don't have this idea
there, present. If it was only: I don't need to, I that if you work on it, it's going to get better. It's
wouldn't make any work. I would have long ago got to be good the moment they do it or else I
retired. just can't stay with it-but I have a wide latitude
of what's good, because I like to watch people
There's a story that I'm sure is not true, but I find fumbling around , too. So this was just where I
it so entertaining that I'm going to tell it. It's thought. Well, if I loosen them up with something
something that you did-maybe you never did. . So, they had memorized the parts-they knew
Was it working on The Crucible tha t everybody the parts. Or they thought they did. It wasn't a
took acid---except for Peyton, who drank instead? reading. They had memorized the parts. So, they
Yes. Peyton was afraid of acid. took the acid and then they tried to do it. And they
so didn't do it ... they were looping. In the begin-
You videotaped a reading of The Crucible, and the ning they were pretty clear, and t hen it start ed to
way I like to hear this is that then the rest of the deteriorate. And for some reason I videota ped
rehearsal process was to re-create what happened it-which was odd .

28 p<>g"" (33 mn) left on th'lchopter

That wasn't the idea in the beginning? play. What I discovered happe ned when they
No. I just wanted to see if they would be better on learned it off the tape is some people really loved
acid. And they were. But once I saw the videotape do ing that- find ing tha t gest ure that mos t actors
and saw them just looping and looping and trying would n't even call a gest ure. Most actors would
to find the ir way thro ugh-you know, all those just call it a mistake. Other people couldn' t do it,
things about watching someone else who's on so they would generalize when they got to the
acid. I did the taping, so I saw it all through the performance, and they would start to make it too
camera, and I didn't realize we were going to be much like the first part. I would have to constantly
reproducing it. I was having a contact high. say, "You have to go back and look at the tape
again and see that you went like this here."
Were you taking acid?
No. Not while I was working. But I had a contact Although what you' re doing is extremel y unusual,
high watching them in the camera, you know, on anoth er level it's not. A director's job in a way
these old cameras, all very black and white. It was is to remove nuance. You keep removing it until
wonderful. I would scan across, so I would never the actor has brought much more , but not so
get the whole table. So when I decided, "Oh, we much on the outside .
should try to reproduce this," we put a timing 1was coming around to the backdoor to find what
thing on it-which is all the stuff I'm doing now, most people do more directly. I still enjoy coming
just more technological. It was all right there. around the backdoor.
Then they had to learn what they'd done on acid
and watch themselves by quarter seconds. They While we're on The Crucible, you had a huge
had to time it exactly with everybody else. It was obstacle thrown at you when Arthu r Miller said
incredible work, sitting in front of this televisio n, you can't use his words .
writing up how they did it. I was trying to find this What was more of an obstacle was: Yo u can't do
way: The first part was them doing it as a play, this piece. He said, "You can't do LSD." We'd al-
perform ing it, like acto rs. The seco nd part was ready named it. At that point we hadn't even do ne
this change-s-what happe ned to the play, sa me the acid trip. He'd just see n a twenty-minute

26 pages{31 mln)left ,n 'his chop'er

re-creation. So, I cha nged the name to Just the went to the original Salem Witch Trials, then he
High Points. We didn't advertise. So we got away went to the House Un-Ame rican Activities Com-
with it. mittee and mixed the two. Sometimes it didn' t
scan or I did have something I wanted to get
But there is the issue ofthe words. across. We would be able to say seven or eight
Yes. We had this wonderful and incred ible and words. What is it? Before you're illegal? So we
greatly influential person working with us, would be able to get that in, if we needed the line
Michael Kirby. I said , "We'll do it in gibberish"- or it was something I liked. And at that point,
because I wanted to keep the meter. Everything somebody would buzz out and then we'd have to
was scored around the meter of the words. I go back to the other script. So we could get Miller
didn't care what they meant , by this time, I just in when we needed him just enough to keep the
wanted to hear them . Well, I cared what they story going. We had a lot of lawyers advising us.
meant , but not that way. So we bought all the Some said seven words . Some said seven sen -
Samuel French versions and marked the section tences. Some said seven minutes. We just tried to
and put them on the back of the chairs and asked stay just under the line of something that would
everyone in the aud ience to read along as we gib- make it an Arthur Miller play. We heard later we
berished. But, of course, then they found out could have gotten the rights under parody, the
about that and said, "No. You can't do that." way we did it.
Michael said, "I can just take all the words from
the transcripts of the trials." So he got the tran- I do want to pursue this notion of beginning. It oc-
scripts of the trials, and all I asked him to do was curs to me that we should either talk about Poor
make sure what he wrote was in exactly the same Theater or Hamlet, since you're just beginning
meter. It had to scan exactly so I didn't have to Hamret.
change any gestural language . I didn 't want to I'll talk about Poor Theater because Hamlet's so
have to reblock it. That was importan t. So, he new. This is going to be all one piece,
went back to the transc ripts , and a lot of Arthur eventually- two pieces next to each oth er, Poor
Miller's words are directly from the transcript. He Theater and Ham let. Poor Hamlet? It's a really

24 pogoeo (28 mn) "'fT nit> chopt",

intuitive process for me. I do remember having a As your final piece for your career?
hard time around To You, the Birdie . A lot of times I thought , I'll show them. They want to see cold?
it's a conversatio n with my last piece--what I'll show them cold. So, I had this idea that
d idn't go into it, what got me angry. LSD. was in there'd be two visual images, so mething to do
reaction to Rouu 1 (( 9 because I thoug ht, Oh, with Grotowski on one and something to do with
this big white male had writte n a black woman's the sky on the other. We applied for a grant to
part. let's see how they take this. Then it takes me discover-we made up language-what hap-
som eplace else. So, peop le said To You, the Birdie pened to Po lish theater. But the truth was that I
was cold. that it was hard to warm up to it. I think I just wanted to hear tha t piece in the
would feel that in the audience. t would feel their Garage do ne by live actors as a kind of homage,
respect for it. For me, it was so em otional. It was you know, just as a way of saying, "Here's my
weird. I thought, Oh. wow. I've just gone to a connection ." People loved that piece. I thoug ht
place that is not where my audience is. They ad- maybe I could find in me what was in that---if 1
mire this piece, but they don 't love it. And. you just rubbed up against it, I would find my bear-
know, you go into theater because you want them ings again. And either go out with that , saying, "I
to love it. You reallydo. I would have long ago left can 't do this. That's the end," or it would give me
it---but I want to be loved. So, I thought. What's a new way, another avenue to go. There's a tape
wrong? I think I'm just not a theater person , and I of an Akropo/is rehearsal, a 16-millimete r film that
have to leave the theater. So, that made me go was made of it. We watched that a lot, and I tried
back to thin king about what I first loved in the- to put in the in-ear receivers. I would tell them,
ater, that piece I saw. Richard Schechner had "Get up and do it. Make the piece for me here."
brought Grotowski to New York, and I was lucky And of cou rse it was just horrendou s.
enou gh to get a ticket to see The Constant Prince. I
saw that and I also saw AkropoUs. Something in So at a certain point, you said to eac h ador,
me just thought, well, maybe fo r my final piece I "You're playing Ryszard Cieslak."
should just do a videota pe. No. I just said, "Do it," and they decided . Things
seem to flow down to whateve r the y d id. We

Z2 pages (26 mn) lell n Itol chapt&/

began reading things on Grotowski. When I have when she asked that. It was about making work. It
not hing to do and I don 't know what I'm do ing, a was about whet her or not I was go ing to continue
lot of times I' ll watch TV. So we watched every working. So I felt like I had to have that question
piece of television we could find o n Grotows ki. In there . She as ks it in s uch a fabulo us way. "Why
fact, we made a faux documentary tha t kind of fol- would you want to do that?" And it's true. Why
lows the documen tary of earlyGrotows ki. wou ld yo u want to copy that piece? I didn 't know
why. And so I needed that question, not from me.
Produced by Margaret Creyden, right? I needed it from somebody else . I d idn't need it
We interviewed Margaret Croyden. I knew her be- once I realized why. Once I found Max Ernst I
cause Richard Schechner was wooing her to re- realized why. I put a sectio n on Max Ernst in.
view Commun e back in 1970, and we had a resi-
dency in New Paltz at the time . On ou r days off At the end of Akrop olis, all of the actors crawl into
we'd all go up to High Falls and we'd all take ou r this tiny little hole in the ground and then they
clothes off and swim in this beaut iful place---just shut the door.
hippies, everyone with no clothes on. And Yes . Grotowski used the meta phor. The writer,
Richard decided to bring Margaret Croyden with Wyspianski, was actually just talking about All
him and be interviewed by her sitting on that high Saints ' Day or All Saints ' Eve, when all the spirits
rock-him naked, and her fully dressed. And if of the past come back from the dead. They reen-
you know Margaret Croyden-hairdo, makeu p, act scenes, in this case , from so me Greek history,
everything there . So I remembered her when she from some European history, and the re are these
called us and said, "I know a lot about Gro- tapestries in Poland and a story about how these
towski." She, of cou rse, was very upset with the tapes tries come alive on All Saints ' Eve. Gro-
piece, that we put her in it. But J too k her out. I towski took that and put it in a concentratio n
learned. She's not in it anymore. I only needed cam p. And we took his concentration camp and
that as a tran sition- because she as ked the ques- put it in William Forsythe's d ance. We just relo-
tion: "Why would you do so mething like this ? cated the way he relocated. So, at the end, they go
What is the point?" And I d idn't know the point down into what for Grotowski was an oven. For

2{) poges(23 mn) left n II>I chopt",

us, I do n't know what it is. It's a hole. But a hole wanting to know more about him, so we asked
has a lot of mean ings. him to come, and he d id a workshop with us,
then we went to see stuff, we got every tape we
How did William Forsythe find its way in? could. We worked with four or five of his da ncers .
At the same time as I was thinking abo ut how I Each one would come in with a different idea of
was going to leave theater, I heard that all of Bi lly what Billy Forsythe was about, and we'd take that
Forsythe's funding had been withdrawn, and I in. But at the same time, we'd always go back to
realized that it was the end of a certain time. It the televisions. improvising off them. The biggest
was the end of postmodemtsm. in a way.And I'm thing was that you're not Billy Forsythe. You're
a child of postmodernism. just copying-or not even copying.
This is a really difficult thing because the way
The end of pc stmcdernism is marked by what ? we work off the television sounds like copying,
By people not coming to see his work. People but it's not quite like that. Television can be a way
were going to see more narrative stuff and more to channel energy. It takes you outside yourself.
individual people telling their stories. Spalding We don't see you making up what you're going to
was a huge influence on that. I felt like I work like tell us. Film does it all the time because they can
Forsythe. in a way. 1 identify with him. So I take a cut where the actor didn't realize he was
thought. Oh. wow. Times are changing a lot. I on-c-or if the actor is particularly good at fooling
wanted to chronicle that in some way. himself or herself into one time, one take. But th e
big. beautiful thing about the theater is that you
So you invited him to come into th e Garage? can see the actor controlling the situation. It's
Well, I just said to the actors, "Dance like William what Crotowski talked about. You see the actor
Forsythe-at least you can try to dance like controlling the situa tion, knowing what he's going
William Forsythe." And they did. You should see to tell you. and then telling you. And that's both
the tapes. Horrifying. They didn't have the fo rm, its beauty and its limitat ion, because we now
but the tim ing was there. So I tho ught. Well, this know the real thing. What are we watching now all
is a place to sta rt. But the n we ended up just the time? We're watching people really live all the

18 pages (21mn) left 'n thISct.:Jpler

time. Nobody even wants to watch the soaps any- Cun ningham' s pieces. They're random ly sup-
more. They're watching peo ple really perform live plied, so each night in To You, the Birdie they had
on all the reality shows. That's been a huge a certain sco re. They had to get from one side of
change for theater. It's decimating it, in a way. I the stage to the othe r. But they could take off of
wanted to find the same thing I love abo ut tele- and make the psychology using these im pulses
vision and film to some degree. I wanted to find from these othe r dance works.
the way to get that experience out of a performe r
where you lessen that gap between when they get So there' s so mething live happ en ing at every mo-
the impulse to say or do something and when ment that is unrehearsed.
they do it. And if you take it off of somethi ng Yes. Now, mind you, performers are interested in
that's out there, then you're channeling it. You routine. Some people would ta ke that and find
don't make the same kind of decisions. that same place every night. But the trick was that
It's a technique. We use all kinds of things with you can't think about it. I think everybody does
it. If you're watching the television, if the camera this-any good acting training. Again, it's coming
moves this way. you have a choice. You can move around the backdoor-to try not to think of what
your head that way. You can move your arm that you did in the past and what you're going to do in
way. You can move that way. So it doesn't take the futu re. to be able to give over to that mom ent.
away the creativity of the performer. It actua llyen- It's the most incredible thing in the world and
hances it because they make up their own block- very difficult to do. So, even with the televisio n, if
ing. Or if they see a person who sc runches their there's a certai n image that co mes up. they have
head, they can do that literally. Or if the person to not plan when they're going to see it. They have
d isappears off the screen, they can follow that to to do the sa me thing every acto r has to do with
the next TV that has anot her image on it and pick the words. They have to do that with the images .
that up and continue. There was a lot of chan- It's the sa me techn ique.
neling, of course, in House/ Lights. We used it in a
d ifferent way in To You, the Birdie, where we took I'm always drawn to see the work your company
a lot of Martha Graham's and Merce does . There's something att ractive in that

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approach to acting-in the sense of a magnet. Audience: When you look at the performers,
there's a kind of oscillation that happens. Some-
Audience: Isn't it the element of suspense? Just body can be making fun of something and paying
the total unpredictability, like reality TV or an ani- homage to it at the same time. It can be cold and
mal moving on stage. hot at the same time. It can be very removed and
Yes . It's like an animal o n stage. very e motional at the same time. Is that sort of a
byproduct ofthis process?
AB: Although you always sense that there's some- It's probably mo re my personality.
thing very organized there. There 's an organizing
principle that's very, very compelling. Audience: It looks like they're having fun . They're
not trying to work.
Audience: If I'm going to do a piece and I feel I That's interesting. though, because this woman
may need a reminder about doing only what I'm just said it looks like such hard wo rk. Bot h things
going to do and not what other people are going exist at the same time. I used to say that I like you
to do, then I'll always go to see a Wooster Croup to laugh and cry both at the same time. To me
show, becau se it's a touchstone for integrity in the that's the greatest theater, if you can laugh and
form. In every other show I've seen where people cry at the same time.
use microphones, the body is relaxed and the
microphone is exactly where it should be, right in Audience: What I experienced in Poor Theater
front ofthe mouth. And I was watching a Wooster was a virtuosity that I get very rarely in the theater,
Croup show where they would be speaking into but I do get in dance, depending on the choreog-
the microphone, but the y would be contorted in rapher, when the dancers are asked to do things
these weird positions where they would physically that I can't do. I think from the copying I get this
be working really, really hard with an object that's sense of virtuosity that you get Hom a great ath-
actually supposed to make it easy to speak. lete or pianist.
There's an intensity there. We sta rted perform ing it whe n they co uldn' t
s peak really good Polish. Because it was about

14 pages (lS m n) lItft nih $ chaplet

the attempt. It was abo ut how you make work, would be wrong. I'd have to go back in and figure
how we live our lives in the sa me way. So it's not o ut where I went wron g.
about whether they're good at Polish o r not.
They'd like to get good because they en joy doing AB: You listen? Or you just feel the audience?
that. But the truth is they're not that good at Pol- Oh, yeah. I can tell.
ish. If Polish people came, they'd say, "Oo h. Ari
could be a Polish Czech. But the rest of the m are AB: That must be painful sometimes.
just not so good." People are com ing and saying, But I obviously have a comp ulsion to do it. Be-
"Oh. you're such good dancers." And then the lieve me, it's not fun all the time. But in Poor The-
Billy Forsythe company would come and say, ater it was really a joy, because we can' t lose. If
"Oh. That was just horrible. But the Po lish was re- we' re really bad, tha t's what the piece is abou t. I
ally good." Billy says it the best. He says, "We made it failsafe in that way. So, that was a plea-
don't go to the theater to see what's done right. su re to do. The way I got around it in To You, the
We go for some kind of transcendence." And it's Birdie was I finally had to go on the in-ears myself
hard to come by. and speak in a microphone to the performers so I
could be part of them because it was so painful
AS: Why do you have audiences so soo n in your being outside of that piece.
rehearsal process?
I'm always dealing with these things about hot AB: That's like a d irector's dream , being on in-ear.
and cold, and sad and happy, crying and not cry- "Don't do thatl "
ing. There's a balance in that when you're dealing But it's a funny thing- that's when I know I've got
with those two very different impulses. You need so mething else going on. I can be pretty down to
an audience to let you know how far you've gone eart h in a rehearsal, "Oh. that's boring. That's
with on e or the othe r. It's a balancing effect. If I horrible." But when the performe rs were coming
just went on my own, I would be lost. It could be out on the stage, I found myself going, "Oh. you
that I'd made the whole thing and then everyone look great. You're looking like a million bucks."
laughed instead of laughing and crying. And that Why? I don 't know. I'd say that every night. Then

12poges (14mil) lefTIII th chapTer

I'd go on to say. "No. Stop!" I wanted to te ll them comes off the videota pe that we 're using mixed
how great they looked. And they would look up at with peripheral so unds that we found , o r tap ing
me and smile, but it was to the audience. It was th ings that actually happen in the room and then
wonde rful. I needed tha t connect ion. Of cours e. I putt ing them onto the sou ndtrack. John Cage was
used that as an organizing principle as well. Be- a huge, huge influence.
cause there was so much chaos in the beginning,
and they were working from so many different AB: You keep a healthy balance of low-tech with
tapes . The on ly organizing principle I had was to high-tech .
say, "Turn left" or "turn right." We don't have enough money for it.

Audience: The sound in To You, the Birdie was 50 AD: But it actually seems really wise-s-like if you
incredible. The whole thing was like an opera . I'm just went high digital, I th ink something would be
assuming th at the sound starts from day one . lost.
Something like To You, the Birdie is a little mo re Welt, I wouldn't be doing theater. With high dig-
complex because we did two outside things that ital I'd be making something else. I mean, the
we don't normally do. Suzzy (Roche] and Koosil-ja thing about theater is you have a performance ev-
and Katie (Valk) wrote music, then Katie took Paul ery night, and it's all about mistakes. The grea t
Schmidt's text and made songs. So they worked thing about technology is that there are mistakes
outside on the songs and I integrated them in. all the time. The performers are always dead on.
And we worked with David linton, who made The tech nology has mistakes, so there's always
loops of material, then he brough t them in. So this room for accidents that the performers have
d uring the process of working we would just to deal with. And you know, if you're a perfor mer,
experiment with different things. I have this great how fabulous that is to deal with. If you're
team of technical people who like to do that kind comfortable and know who you are on stage, to
of thing- build it in the same way as the per- deal with a mistake is this fantas tic opening.
formers build the perform ance. So many of o ur
pieces are the combination of the so und that Audience: I read somewhere you said, ' Theater is

10 pages (11 mn) left n >hJ1 chapter

entrances and exits." Can you talk about that? Somebody has a successful piece in Europe that
Oh . that was one of those cute things that I said. is twenty-five years old, that perso n could be run-
think I was just trying to say that the thin g abo ut ning the Schaubuhne in two years. That doesn't
theater is the expectat ion of coming onto the happe n here. There isn't that access. For us, the
stage . That's what's exciting. If you go to see a space itself gives a certain kind of bottom line.
film, you know what's going to happe n. When you So, we can have all kinds of things go on , we can
go to the theater, when so mebody comes on have fights, it can be awful, but finally everybody
stage, it's big, it's in real time. Whereas with a cut, comes back to tha i space. They don' t only come
you don 't have that. That's something that's so back to me. They don't only co me back to the
unique to the theater . That, and the curtain goes work, so to speak . They come back to the space,
up and the curtain comes down-even if there with the pos sibility that there 's someth ing there
isn't a curtain . There's a certain beginning and a that they can make. Then it happens naturally. I
certain end in the theater. If you have a film. you think that's one of the reasons for the longevity of
know it's going to go on again, and the tape is a this company and a really important one .
loop and it could go any time.
AB: It's different, I th ink, not having a space. Ours
Audience: You're both sort of unusual in that you is shorter, fourteen years. We've lost two people
both have these companies that have survived in fourteen years, which is remarkable. One, Jef-
and grown and stayed together over quite a long ferson Mays, I refuse to accept that he's left, but
period of time, at least by American standards. he's got this career. With KJ Sanchez, it was a hor-
How does a company continue? rible fight, And she came back last year and did
We've probably dealt with this really differently. another show with us. We call it dating . We're
For me, it's about the space-that everyone dating again. It's ownership, I think. In other
comes to the space every day to work. In America words, it's not my effort to keep the company go-
it's so much about personality. There aren't insti- ing. It's the fact that everybody involved in it feels
tutions that are built for great directo rs to come in terribly personal about their relationship to it. It's
and o ut-great young directors - like in Europe. not a space, but it's a thing or an idea or an

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agreement. It's alchemical , I would say-kismet Auditions. I wrote a letter to Equity saying this is
and timing and the right personalities, who are ridiculous. People come into the company
willing to make certain sacrifices. But also, early through the training program . We do long-term
on I said-although I couldn't always follow workshops . The response was that I was being
through on it-that you get paid. A lot of theaters snooty.
in New York say two hundred and fifty dollars a Oh. we've been th rough that. When we performed
week is enough to live on. Equity will say okay uptown in different theaters, we had monstrous
about thaL And we sa id, although we can't always fights, where we had to hire an d pay people to
do it, actually you need at least eight hundred dol- sit-wardrobe people when we didn' t have a
lars a week. So I think the actors in the company wardrobe. Thou sands and thousan ds of dollars to
really feel that that is a commitment to them, even sit the re all night. But it's one of those things
ifit isn't always successful. where that system just doesn't work, doesn't
We always had that too. We committed very early mesh up. But that's whywe stayed downtown.
to have insurance, which is incredible. We can't A big portion of our money that we take in is
pay as much as you pay, but we do try to pay. We box office. So that means a lot of performing. You
pay a full-time salary, but basically it averages ask why we do performances before we're ready.
twenty-eight thousand dollars a year. That's another reason . We get money in. It is
good in the sense that it does force you to do a
AB: You pay more regularly. We pay per show. lot of performances. Everyone thinks of us as this
Oh. that's it. We pay the whole year. And that's company, "Oh. they only do one piece a yea r." We
incredibly difficult to do. perform so much . That's really great for per-
formers. That's another reason, I think, why peo-
AB: You're not Equity?You don 't deal with that. ple stay arou nd. is because where else can you
No. have that kind of performing? Where else can yo u
perform so many roles? The old repertory theater
AB: We deal with union issues. The union just is kind of go ne. Companies like ours, you get to
told us we needed to do EPAs-Equity Principle do som ething you wouldn't normally.

6 pages (6 mil) left III !Ill chapter 58'1. ,00<

I also work around everybody who wants to do not there. And if they're not the re, I have to go
any commercial work. If they get a job, I make the back and say, "Do I want that?" And if I do, why?
piece around that in some way. I mean, there's a And what does that mea n in terms of this section
certain amount of-if Kate went out and got a job, of the piece? Do I need them to leave that there
I don' t know if I could go on. But it has never even though the audience is bored? I have to
been a deep artistic problem . Sometimes it's make all kinds of decisions that way, which are re-
annoying because the scheduling is really difficult ally important why I'm making the work. A reality
and you might be working on a scene and that check.
person's not going to be there, but that always
sends you into a place, and you find another way Audience: I'd like to hear you s peak a little bit
around that. It's just a problem. And a problem's more about the role of emotion in postmodern
a chance for new solutions. theater.
Well, I can't speak about it in postmodem theater,
Audience: You mentioned the love from the audi- but I suppose I could in my work. I think that I re-
ence. Do you have an expecta tion fOt" the aud ience late to two things happening at once. Paradox. I
going in? think that I'm an incredibly sentimental and emo-
Yes. But it's not articulate -able. It doesn't mean, tional person. My natural balance for that is to
at the end, that I want the audience to clap or check it with form-some kind of form to hold it.
whatever. I have a sense when I'm with the audi- Because if I didn't hold it, it would just be gush. I
ence that I want to rivet them, that I want them to spend a lot of time making a form to hold this
be interested, that I want them to listen. Or, if I incredible amount of junky emotion. And some-
don't want them to listen, I want to be in control times it seeps through and seeps out, and when it
of that. If they're bored, I want that to be because does I'm like, "Oh. is that too much of it? Is this
I've decided that they're supposed to be bored at too much?" And sometimes I feel like I've hidden
this time. So I have an expectation, but I can only too much. I love the two things in balance-form
sense that when I'm with them, whether it's work- and content. If it's too formal, I feel bored and
ing. You know when people sit back and they're lost. If it's too emotional, I feel too exposed . So

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those things always work toget her. But I thi nk movie star in it. This was the first play that they
that's a modern thing. I'm working on Hamlet reco rded with seventeen cameras, and they called
now. He's always in at least two places at the it Electro novision. It was going to open in movie
same time, too. thea ters across the United States, and som ehow
that was going to save theater. It was going to be
AB: But yo u're also dealing with Richard Burton "epoch-making," as Richard Burton says in the
playing Hamlet in 1964 on Broadway, which is trailer promo. So, in two ways these things are
what's so fascinating. crucibles or something. In the sixties, there were
Yes.There's another example of someone who's a a lot of changes in the way we-the way l-saw
totally emotional performer. And John Gielgud theater. So these two pieces will be about that,
(who directed it) is totally into the meter and the among other things . That's the form outside. The
sound of the words. The two things together are emotional part is always about loss.
fantastic. Why they worked together. I don't
know-why Richard Burton said, "I need you,
John."

AB: Right now, the company is working on copy-

ing Richard Burton's Hamla.
We haven't quite gotten to the copying stage yet.
We have this record of it, like we had for Akropolis.
That, again. was a changing point in the theat er.
just as Akropolis was. After Akropolis the people
who were interested in that incredible gripping
thing about theater ended up in a cult in Cali-
fornia and left theater altogether or killed them-
selves or died of drugs. After this productio n, no-
body did a play, especially Haml et, without a

2 poges{2 mn) left., thoschoptElt 58'1. ,00<

Meredith Mon k Mered ith grad uate d from Sara h Lawrence in
1964. A few yea rs late r she founded The House,
Meredith Monk exerts more in flu ence on all of us dedicated to a n inte rdis cip lina ry approach to
than we are conscio us of and mo re th an she performance. In 1978 she formed Meredith Monk
prob ab ly wo uld ad mit to. Robert Wilson would & Vocal Ens em ble. She co ntinues to th is day to
not be who he is if he had no t seen th e early wor k tour exten s ively with her m us ic an d dance-t heater
of Mered ith. Bruce Na um an , Bjork, Joh n Zorn an d wo rk. A sample of her pe rfo rmance pieces include
ot hers are marked. Me, too. Mered ith's work tran- Vessel. Education of the Girlc.hild, Recent Ruins,
scends definitions because it crosses so many Specimen Days. Turtle Dreams , The Games. Facing
d isciplina ry boundaries . She is a compose r, a North. ATLAS and impe rmanence. She has per -
playwright. a choreographer, a filmma ker, a singe r formed several times at Carnegie Ha ll. BAM and
and a dancer. She pioneered the use of mu lti- linco ln Center a nd international venues every-
media in her work. She con tinues to experiment where. She has been commissioned by t he KfO-
with new technologies. nos Quartet and Michael Tilson Thomas a nd the
In the mid-seventies I saw a seminal work of New World Symphony, she collaborates with the
Mered ith's entitled Quo rry. I returned to th e La visual artist Ann Hamilton, and sh e has per -
MaMa Annex almost every night to be wrap ped fo rmed for the Dalai l a ma. He r music can be
again in that vision. in that extraordinary and rari- hea rd in films by Jea n luc Godard and the Coe n
fied atmosphere. The production combined in- Brother s. Her albums inclu de Dolmen Music. Tur-
te nse intimacy with a wide political an d his torical tle Dreams. Book of Days, Facing North, ATLAS,
canvas. What this play/opera/dance did for me , is Volcano Songs an d mercy. She has also ma de film
it gran te d me pe rmission. And pe rm ission is the a nd televis ion : Ellis Island, Book of Days and Qua r-
mos t prec iou s commodity for an artist. Embold- ')'.
ened by Mered ith's example, I we nt on to pro duce Mered ith's wo rk is informed by a deep co nnec-
and d irect big dance-theate r works and stopp ed tion to t he bardic tr aditions of the world. Inspired
wor rying abo ut how 10 define what it was s up- by cult ures whe re perfo rma nce is co nside red to
posed to be. be a s piritual disci pline with hea ling and

47 pogoeo (56 mil) lefIlll ltlil chapTer 58'1. ,00<

t ransform at ive power, she ma nages to reest ab lish work in the Annex at La MaMa . It is uncatego-
the unity that unde rlies music, theater an d dance. rizable, because it's not theater, it's not dance, it's
Her form s are definitely co nte mporary but her not music. Maybe it's opera, I don't know. Fund-
the me s are redole nt with the authori ty of myth ing is difficult with Meredith because people nev-
an d legend. er know where to put her. Where doe s she be-
Meredith has received numerous awards long? I'd love to start by talking about what made
including a MacArthur Fellowship, two Gugg en- you who you are.
heim fellowships, a Brandeis Creat ive Arts Award, MM: My mo ther.
t hree O bies (includ ing one for Sustained Achieve-
me nt), two Villager Awards, two Bessie Awards So we'll sta rt with your mother, who's ninety-four
for Sustained Creative Achievement, the 1986 Na- and lives in Southern California . Maybe it does
tio nal Music Theatre Award, the 1992 Dance start with your mother, but what was your train-
Magazine Award, and a 2005 ASCAP Concert Mu- ing? How did you get into that container that you
sic Award. In 2006 she was inducted into the created?
Ame rican Academy of Arts and Sciences and I said my mother because I'm actually a fourth -
named a United States Artists Fellow. She holds generation singer. My great-grandfather was a
an honorary Doctor of Arts degree from Bard Col- cantor in Russia. My grandfather was a Russian
lege, the University of the Arts, The Juilliard bass baritone. He came to the United States in
School, the San Francisco Art Institute an d th e the late 1800s. He didn't do the Ellis Island rou te,
Bosto n Conservatory. but traveled second-class. which was un usual for
a Russian Jew at that time . He opened a conser-
MAY 16, 20 05 vatory up in Washington He ights and also
co ncertized all over New York, Broo klyn Acad -
AB: Mered ith Monk had a huge influence on me. I em y, Carnegie Hall, with a cont ralto, which was
moved to New York in the seventies and I think an unusual co mbinat ion. You do n't see tha t any-
the first work that truly blew my mind-was it mo re. My mothe r was a co mmercial singer. She
1976?-was Quarry , which was this immense sang the original Muriel Cigar co m mercial, DUZ

45 poges{54 JMl) IefI'" thiS croplat

Does Everything, Blue Bonnet Margarine. . So music through the body. I remember catching
my whole childhood was spent in NBC and CBS balls and balloons in time. We learned solfege,
control rooms during soap operas. which is the do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-tl-do system , but it
was also always in relation to the body. I think I
So you grew up in New York? remember musical staffs and seeing the notes on
In Queens. My childhood was a lot like Radio a blackboard. I knew music already and I was very
Day-; because every single day at one o'clock she rhythmica lly gifted as a child-but my body didn't
would sing the DUZ Soap commercial live with know some basic skills. I didn't know how to skip
an organist. I was usually in the control booth or anything. I was learning my body through mu -
with a script. I'd draw pictures on it, trying to be sic; the other kids were learning music through
quiet. watching those actors with the micro- the body. That early background of having a kind
phones. Music was a very early language for me. I of kinesthet ic idea of perception. and then also no
was sung to a lot and there was a lot of music in separation between music and the body really
the house. The way that I comforted myself was influenced my life.
singing. Apparently I sang melodies before I
spoke. and I could read music before I read What age was th at?
words. so music was like a primal and primary I was three to seven . I never realized how impor -
kind of language for me . tant that Dalcroze training was unt il I made my
I have an eye challenge where I can 't fuse two piece ATLAS in 1990 for Houston Grand Opera. It
images. I see one image at a time out of each eye. was like a real opera in an opera house with an
I was right-left uncoordinated. My mother heard orchestra and everything. I auditioned hundreds
about Dalcroze Eurhythmics. and every Saturday of people to get eighteen because I wanted them
we would go from Queens into Manhattan to to be good actors . They had to be open to do dif-
Steinway Hall where I would take my Dalcroze ferent things with their voices. and they had to be
lessons. Eurhythmics was developed by a Swiss at least game physically and have a generous spir-
composer, Emile [acques-Dakroze in the late it. I needed people that weren't afraid to impro-
nineteenth century, as a way to teach children vise sometimes. Improvisation was also a part of

4~ P<J9"'I (52 mn) left n t!ll chapler

Da1croze trai ning. I neve r realized how engrained Lawrence. This is so rt of the ki nd of person I was
th at Da1c roze was until I tried to teach my rhyth- at that age. I was so intense. I just went in and
mic kinds of phrases that ca n be q uite compli- to ok all these art boo ks out of t he library and I
cated. In Western Europea n, classical traditio n, gave myself a cou rse o n the hist o ry of art. Then,
the rhythm ic articulation is not as com plex. That's when I came to New Yor k, my ea rliest perfor-
not what that tradition is really about; it's much mances and my ea rliest interes t was going to gal-
more abou t line and sustained breath. The class i- leries. I performed in a lot of galleries at the
cally trained singe rs couldn't hear what I was do- beginning.
ing if I would go off into a lo ng cycle of rhythm
and then come back around . Or they'd go, "Well, Would you consider yourself part of the Judson
how did you find bea t one? " And I'd go, "I don't Church movement?
know. I just feel it. I feel that I can come back No. Well, it was going on when I was in school,
th ere." And they said, "It's that Dalcroze thing." and I was definitely aware of what they were do -
Then I realized, "Wow, that's probably what it is." ing. The spi rit of it felt very harmonious with what
I never thought of how important that was to me. I was exploring. I was making pieces already in
school that combined different modes of percep-
Did you also have a background in visual arts? tion. This idea of combining forms was som e-
I think that, because of my strange eye situation, I thing that I needed to do probably because of my
compensated. When I was at Sarah Lawrence I de- fragmented sense of self. It was more like a kind
signed and combined a performing arts program. of psychic necessity of identity o r somethin g like
I was in the voice department, the dance depart- that. When I came to New York, which was in
ment and the theater department. In my senio r '964. the Judson Dance Theatre had disin tegrated
yea r I realized all I hadn't done, because at Sarah as an entity, but Judson Church was still available
Lawrence you can only take three courses and you for performances. I did a few performan ces over
study them in depth. You ca n invent the wildes t the years the re, but I was never part of that grou p.
projects with your teac hers, but I realized I never In a way, I was in a dialectic relationshi p with that
had visual arts in the time I was at Sarah group.

41 pages (SOmn) left In thOi chop"","

Can you describe that dialectic? of precious, expressionist and very rarified idea of
Well, first of all. let me tell you what I felt close to. art in t he fifties. They broke through. "Yes. I ca n
There was a wonderful comm unity of peopl e t hat just walk across the stage and th at's a dance."
were com ing from all different arts. They were the That was very. very-
downtown world, you could say. There were
painters and sculptors, and they were doing the- Anti-theater and anti-magic .
ater pieces and they were doing wonderfu l danc e Anti-theat ricality and ant i-illusion and
pieces, and there were dancers that were writing anti-magie-that kind of honesty. What you se e is
plays, and there were playwrights that were writ- what you get. If you saw Yvonne Rainer's work,
ing music, and there were poets that were making The Mind Is a Muscle, it has its own magic be-
sculpture. It was an exploration of the "anything cause it's going into the most truthful idea of the
is possible" kind of spirit, which I still try to main - body and the most truthful idea of art with every-
tain to this day. It had a sense of expansion. What thing stripped away except what's necessary. To
we're working with now is a world that's very me that has a different kind of magic but it didn't
compressed . I still feel that this sense of expan- include a lot of the aspects that I was interested
sion is what we as artists have to give to this poor in. You could say my work was mythic in terms of
world. I felt very close to that aspect of it, the making contemporary myths, and more mystical.
exploration of, who says that dance is this, and I hate to say that word, but it was. It was much
who says that music is this, and who says that a more ephemeral , more dealing with not neces -
play is this. and who says that a poem is this? To sarily what was actually there but what wasn't
me that's very exciting. there.
But the dialectic was that I always was very
interested in theatricality, and I was very inter - That notion of the compulsion, in a sense, to put
ested in magic. In a way, the beauty of what the disparate part s of yourse lf together-I don't want
Judson Dance Theatre did was tha t they were very to let that go.
ico noclastic because they were reacting to I think I always knew that I was going to be per-
choreographers like Martha Graha m and t his kind forming somehow. When I was fourteen I

39 p<>g'" [47 mn) left n 11>1 Chopl",

sensed-and this is just very intuitive-th at I school the first piece I presented in New Yo rk was
wanted to make things myself, my way. I do n't ex- called Break. It was also a kind of break with what
actly think about it as compulsion. There was an I'd learned-both in music and in dance. There
internal necessi ty to weave things together, to were these certa in compositio nal principles-li ke
find these forms tha t were woven together. Also you bring things back. You use a little bit of mate-
early on-I don't know if it was in school or after I rial, theme and variations , the n you bring thi ngs
left school-I realized that there was a very spir- back. So I decided, "I want to do absolu tely the
itual and social aspect to this. One can say that opposite." So I did Break.
the Western European tradition is the only one
that separates these forms , actually. t was very Great ideal Take all the rules you learned and
aware that by putting together these forms it was break them in one piece.
also a way of affirming the human possibilities of Do the opposite. Also my parents had been in a
all our perceptions. That was also a kind of car accident, so I think that was in my mind, that
counter impulse to the society that does want to moment of impact . This is in retrospect. I was
continue fragmenting . There was a social aspect thinking much more about form when I made the
to it-a healing aspect , holistic. piece. I was extremely interested in cinema , which
I still am, and I was thinking about how would
Could you describe the piece that you did at Sarah you make a solo piece where you have constant
lawrence ? sharp cuts as if it were a film. The solo figure can
I did a piece called Arm's Length. I think it had five shift instantaneously from one energy or emotion
garbage pails in it. There were crinolines. There or character into another . In those days I was
was movement, and then there were little bits of quite fast. My movement was very sha rp and very
text and little bits of voice, of singing. There was a fast. In the Washington Square Galleries where I
main character, and then there was a group of first presented Break, there was a white wall, and I
about five or six people that were in counter pat- was dressed completely in black. There would be
tern . I was very interested in the relat ionship be- times when I would literally disappear; at one
tween the performers and objects. After I finished point I stood behind the audie nce and so there

37 pages(45 mn) "'fT n It>l chopt",

was an empty space. Then I ran in and flung my- em otion by flattening it out, which act ually cre-
self against the wall so it was like som ething ated more emotion.
splattered against the wall. The sou ndt rack was-
had made these collages of car crash so unds. At Was your vocal work in conjunction with the the-
that time there were no multi-track tape record ers ater work, or was there a separate track?
so I worked with two tape recorders and built up I was in the voice department, and I was ea rning
tracks. There was a little bit of text. Break had a my way through Sarah l awre nce partially by
very Beckett-like quality to it; a very Buster Keaton singing with my guitar and doing folk songs for
kind of deadpan , seemingly nonemotional but children's birthday parties , which sometimes
actually heightening emotion. I was trying for the turned into glorified babysitting. I came from a
space between laughter and tears. folk tradition . Then I was doing lieder at Sarah
lawrence.
The Beckett th ing-where d id that come from?
I hadn't read Beckett by that time , and I knew So you were classically trained?
Buster Keaton when I was a kid, but I think it was I was classically trained . I was in the Opera Work-
this idea of dealing with emotion in a new way. A shop but I knew I would never do that. I was try-
lot of people were thinking in those terms. I was ing to keep the singing going as much as I could.
very interested in phenomenology. It was more My first season in New York I did a lot of stuff. I
like, how do you actually take the emotion away did my own work, I performed in some of the last
but somehow by doing that get more emotion? "happenings." That was 1964-1965.
That was a real style. A lot of my early work was
likethat. How was that? You look now at the New York
commun ity and it's very d ifferent.
That's also in the generation of Judson Church, When 1 was working on Break, I met a friend of
getting rid of nuance . mine, Kenneth King, who's a wonderful danc er,
I think Break was pretty nuanced, but it just was choreographe r and writer. You know how you just
not expressing emotion directly. It was implyi ng bump into peop le, and we liked each oth er and so

35 poges [42 mn) left n t!ll chapler

we shared that first conce rt and then that creat ed The visual artis ts were smashing up.
an audience. Toward the end of the year I did a Dick Higgins was a person that I also worked
co ncert at Judson , and that situation already had a with, and he foun ded the Something Else Press,
built-in audience. People saw me perform. I think which publishe d all kinds of happenings' scores.
one of the hardest th ings was saying no. Peop le He had studied with John Cage an d was a mem -
wanted me as a performe r, but I knew that I had ber of Fluxus. Thai generation was very kind to
to concentrate o n my own work. me . I think they saw that my work was very dif-
ferent than what they did, but th ey were very wel-
What did you th ink when you thought, My own coming. There was a piece called Cefestiafs that
work? Vocal pieces ? Dick d id in a boxing arena out in Queens. I loved
Vocal, physical and image pieces. I remember performing that piece.
some of the happenings, which were much mo re But I actually started missing out -and-out
improvisational kind of pieces . They were not all singing-missing the intensity of singing. I start-
free-fo r-ells. although some of them were. ed going back to the piano and vocalizing. Then
Painters and sculptors were really trying to th ink one day I had a kind of revelation that chang ed
about how to put their work into a time-art struc - my life. I realized in a flash that my voice coul d be
ture. To be totally honest , a lot of the time-art as- an inst rument-thai I could basically build a
pect of them wasn't necessarily the stron gest vocabulary on my voice just in the way that I'd
part. So there were pieces where the images were built movement on my body. Withi n th e voice
incredib le. I mean , you would have to wait like could be gender, male -female , within my voice. It
half an hou r for the next image to come, but usu- could be any age. It cou ld be animal, vegetable,
ally if the work was good it was worth the wait. I m ineral. It could be different ways of produci ng
sa ng in those a lot. (Allan) Kaprow was still doing the breath, different ways of producing sound. It
work outdoors. A lot of peo ple, like (Robert] cou ld be landscape. I sensed that it had th is
Rauschen berg, Jim Dine, Ken Jacobs, [Claes] incred ible, primal power- that it was the earliest
Olden burg, d id pieces. Unfo rtun ately, I never saw human instrume nt. I se nsed the power of it. The
Kaprow's work, but I certainly knew about it. other part of that moment was that I felt that I was

33 poges [40 mn) left n Ih'l choplef

coming ho me to my family lineage, but in my own I d id, for the first few years. I wen t to Judith Dunn ,
way. The movement and the the ater had given me who'd been a teac her of mine at Sarah Lawre nce.
a little bit of my own place in a family of singers, And then I went to Mia Slavens ka every day for
but that day when I had my revelatio n, it was also about a year o r two. That was to keep my physical
like coming home. strength going. I didn' t begin voice lessons until
many years later and took them just to maint ain
It's also remarkable becau se it's actually very nov- my voice. Because of my family background I had
el. I mean, people weren 't thin king that way. a virtuosic instrument even though the virtuosic
No they weren't. I was very alone , which I think aspect never did interest me particularly. After a
was a blessing, actually. I had no precedent at all. year or two, I slopped taking class becaus e I
But you know, I'm a Scorpio and I have Aries ris- wanted to start working more intently on my own
ing and I am a pioneer kind of person. If som e- vocabulary.
one's done it before, I don 't want to do it. That's
kind of my nature. I don't know if it's ego. It's re- There was a gener ational change happening in
ally more curiosity. musi c. There's John Cage, who was a gene ration
before. There's Steve Reich and Phil Glass . Did
But beliefin your path . you feel yourself a part ofthat?
In the deepest sense, but believe me-I've got a I didn't really know their work in the early days.
lot of doubt. All the time . Steve and Phil are a bit older than I am. They and
other composers of that generation, like Terry Ri -
Stubbornness, then? ley and La Monte Young, came through music
There is a kind of stubbornness. Movement was conservatories. There were two different mod els
always really challenging for me, so I had to find they were very consciously breaking away fro m.
my own way. I did find a kind of style that was They were breaking away from the nineteenth -
built on limitations. century European model, which is the c1imax-
denouement narrative structu re of music. And
Did you take classes in New York after college? they were breaking away from the European

31poges (38 JT'On) leI! n this cropler

music of t he fifties , which was serial, to ne-row player. We made a record called Candy Bullets and
music. Rock and ro ll was comi ng in, and I think Moon. I was playing bass and si ngin g. and he was
that they were all bas ically instr ume nta l co m- playing o rgan and dr ums. That was 1967. A few
pos ers and they found this niche in very different cop ies of th at still exist. My first album was in
ways. I don 't like to put them into a school at all. 1970. It was called Key . And actu ally my partner,
Each person found t heir own way of, in a way. go- Mieke. met me th rough that album before she
ing back to the body and in another way going in- met me. lucas Hoving, who was a very famous
to a much mo re circular form of music. I was dancer and cho reographer who had origina lly
co ming from a song background , so even my ear- been in the Jose li m6n company. was teaching in
liest pieces have some kind of inherent song Holland while she was teaching there, and sh e
form. It was like taking a so ng form and then was kind of unhappy being in Ho lland . It was feel-
making it more abstract because I was not using ing too claustrophobic for her. He would always
words. That day of revelat ion in the mid-sixties I talk about. "There's this woman, and she does
realized that the voice itself was a very, very deep pieces with horses and motorcycles and a hun -
language and that it cou ld unco ver energies and dred people in four different places . And I have a
feelings for which we don't have words . su rprise for you," and lucas put her in this room
that was all silver and he put on Key. And sh e said
You hear it in your work. It's e motio nal and some- that she heard it and it was like the most familiar
times ancient. th ing in the world to her. It was like sh e knew this
I sense that ancient th ing. And maybe it's becau se person.
I came from a movement background. tha t the
nonverbal form didn 't scare me. It felt nat ural to That's amazing. When d id you meet her?
me. The end of the seventies . Her hearing Key wou ld
have been the early seve nties.
When did you start recording?
My first record was with myoid friend Don Pre- In Quarry there was a piece that yo u did that was
ston , who was t he Moth ers of Inven tion keyboard on a bed. What was that choreograph y?
My characte r was a child sitting up in bed . I d id a front and back. I tho ught of that audience set up
complicated rhythmic so ng with my breath while I as an aerial view of the piece, and yet you cou ld
performed simple arm ges tures. At the end I to uch the people. They were so close. It was sort
slowly rolled down my back to a lying position as of epic and miniat ure simultaneously. I thoug ht
I was singing. I had to have very strong stomach of the four corners as the four corners of the
muscles. It was almost like doing sit-ups. She world. In the first corner, you had one couple who
was a sick child and her sickness was a met apho r was elderly. both with white hair. They were obvi-
of this world. There are many ways of thinking ous ly European. The man was probably a Euro-
about the piece. Her nightmare or her illness be- pean professor. An intellectual who ends up get-
comes a kind of metaphor of the world illness, ting taken away. In the second corner you have
World War II. So. little by little. the piece goes on three young women at a table with linoleum o n
and it gets more and more dark. But there was a the floor and they're American young women who
little whimsical dance that I did with the maid just came back from the factory. Then in the third
character, where we danced around and around you have an urban and sophisticated woman
the bed. My character was mischievous and who's an actress and she 's rehearsing her lines.
wouldn't go back to bed, and the maid kept trying And last you have a biblical Jewish couple, and
to make her go back to bed. then as the piece goes on and the re's a rallyand a
dictator and things start getting bad, they turn in-
You were in the middle of this huge space and it to a Jewish couple from World War II, and within
really all could happen on that blank-on that them you get that ancient root. That corner is a
bed---and yet there was film. kind of time warp, which is something that I've al-
There were four different corners. I thought of ways been interested in. This time travel thing.
that piece as a mandala . I love that visual config-
uration very much, but it's harder to get that form I felt as a young director that what that piece gave
o n a stage. La MaMa Annex was always my pe r- me was permission. It basically said, "You can do
fect space. You could have the audience looking anything. Whatever you want." The lesson is: Be
down, and they were on two sides. There was no very specific, have a heart in the middle of it, a

27 JXlg<'.(33 mn) lefl n Itlischapte<

heartbeat, something vulnerable, something per- years ago. A num ber of years ago the great co n-
sonal. You can be as extreme as you want , so long d uctor Michael Tilso n Tho mas cam e and said to
as that heartbeat is there. For me that permission me , "Meredit h, why don' t you do an orch est ral
was important. What gave you the permission to piece ?" First I said, "No, Michael. I don't know
do that? anything abo ut an orchestra." But he kept on ask-
I'm not sure how to answer that , but part of t he ing fo r years, and I finally thought, Well, maybe it
process each time is to give myself permission to would be interesting to try it because it's so
walk through my fear into my curiosity and not weird. I' ll learn something about the orchestra.
get in the way of the world of the piece. Some- There were times in the five years I worked on it
times I'm able to not get in my own way. Fo r that I was in the fetal position in terror, thinking,
some reason, Quarry came through me, and I What would Igor Stravinsky do in this situation?
wasn't in its way. But between works like that, This was way over my head! And then something
which seem to come naturally and organically- happened where I started getting into it, and then
you might have a few of them in your lifetime- interest took over and I wasn't really fearful after
you have to be a good shoemaker, and you have that. I always say I start from zero. It's really not
to keep your chops up and keep your craft going comfortable, but I think that a part of being an
and you pray that another one's going to come artist is that you tolerate the discomfort of hang -
like that. ing out in the unknown .
One of my strategies is to keep on putting my-
self into risky situatio ns where I'm doing some- That 's big. That you can tolerate hanging out in
thing I don't know. I always think that every piece the unknown .
brings up certain questions , and that tha t's actu - That's a spiritual practice . also . My Buddhism has
ally what t he piece is about. I've done a few really helped me a lot in that.
risky things in t he last years. Where I'm sta rting to
understand myself a little bit better is I see t hat You and I both took part in something three years
I'm really sca red, but working with that is part of ago called Show People at Exit Art. They chose
th e process. I made my first orchestra l work two certain theater artists who'd been around the

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block and said, "Here, take this space and do had a piece called the Life Backpack, and it was a
whatever you want for peop le who might not giant backpack hanging ups ide down. Projected
know your work because they're too young." How out of the backpack o nto the floor were slides of
did you put that togeth er? Obviously you were all the different pieces. not in any part icular order,
thinking of the past and the present at the same dissolving from image to image.
time. What was the process? I st ill am very interested in the sh rine idea as
I had done a huge installation at the Walker (Arts part of a piece. In Volcano Songs at P.S. 12 2 I made
Center in Minneapolis], which was a room on e a shrine that had video images an d objects. The
hundred feet long and fifty feet wide. and people installation was open an hour before the perfor-
walked through this whole thing. It was gigantic mance and you could sit in front of that shrine
retrospective and took a number of years to make. and just quiet down. Then you went upstairs to
So for Show People. I had already explored some the theater. Some of the images in the piece had a
of that. There were a lot of great things I could little bit of resonance from what you'd seen in the
work with within the Walker because I built rooms sh rine. There was another shrine for Politics of
and I had music in each room. It was music from Quiet of this beekeeper figure with a video of bees
different pieces . but I transposed each compo- in what would have been his face. There were
sition into the key of A. so that when you were in everyday objects covered in wax in front of him
a certain spot in the room you heard all of them at and you could smell them . In the piece its elf, the
the same time. but in the same key. I had these performers d ipped objects in wax.
d iffere nt layers so there were some things in The Show People exhibit was much smaller tha n
these rooms that you could walk into, micro- the Walker. I had two main pieces as installations
cos mic aspects, but then the mac rocosmic as - and then so me other elements. On on e end of the
pects were like nmebne principles tha t went room I had a screen with the rock film from Quar-
through all the work. So, for examp le, there was a ry. which was an actual fil m that was in the piece.
history of shoes called the Shoe Timeline. There Then on the othe r end of the room I had elements
was a long glass case containing shoes that I had from 16 Millimeter Earrings. which was a very
used in my pieces from the sixties to now. I also important piece for me from the mid-sixties. That

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installation included a projection on the wall of a and I did another piece called Anthology. I d idn' t
doll in a miniature room burning, and a dom e have all the wild experiences, but I sense it's why I
that I had put over my head with my face pro- started getting interested and cu rious [about a
jected on it. as if it were a mask that was alive. 16 spiritual practice] . It took me years unt il I became
Millimeter Earrings was very much about sca le. It a practitione r-years because I was very skept ical.
had a giant table I would sit on top of like this But I sensed this incredible trust in silence and
tiny, little person on this giant table with this big space. which is what I always try to do in my
head on my head . work. I felt that the audience was completely in
In the Show People exhibit I also had on the wall tune with that. that I didn't feel like I had to ent er-
little. teeny monitors with earphones so you could tain or speed up anything. My work always had
see two films from both of those pieces. The exhi- that kind of existential space and silence within it.
bition also included the Shoe Timeline on one I felt very close to that. to those people. I felt a ba-
long side of the room, and in the middle of the sic affinity to that way of thinking about things. I
space was a tree that was made out of these do remember parties and people do say that they
singing suitcases. That was like an installation took off their clothes . but we all took off our
piece that stood by itself. You could open each clothes at the drop of a hat in those days. you
suitcase and hear my voice coming out of it, and know?
then. when you closed it, it stopped. Three of
them together were like a little composition. But it d id lead to a spiritual practice .
Eventually. after a lot of resistance. I would say it
You had so mething to do with Naropa from the has saved my life. You know those Chinese toys
beginning. I always heard these wild stories about where you put your fingers in and the more you
summers in Boulder, Colorado, with these wacky pull out the worse it is? There was a certain time
artist s who would get together. Is that true ? in my life that was like that. I'd gotten myself into
Well. I was there in 1975 but I heard that the first situa tions that no matter what I did I just could n't
summer in 1974 might've been wilder than 1975. I find my way out, and I was making oth er people's
taught a workshop, and I sang Our Lady of Late. lives rather miserable, and so I was kind of at my

11 poges (26 m.,j lett IO! chop!&< 61'l.,00<

wit's end. I was in my pu nky period at that time, this practice I do feel that they become more and
so I was very skeptical. But a friend of mine said I more the same. We do at a certai n point try to fig-
should read Shambhala: Sacred Path of the War- ure out how much time we have on earth and,
rior by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche. When I was having had a death close to me, I see that nobody
at Naropa I had gone to his lectures , and I had knows . The on ly thi ng we all do know is that we
liked them very, very much . But I think I was will die and we don' t know when-so you sta rt
scared of what you had to give up or something thinking what are you really giving and what are
like that. There was this kind of fear as an artist: you really doing and what is your life about at all.
"No one can take my art away from me," as if it's I've been feeling that all along my work was deal-
on e or the other. I remember crying tears of relief ing with these timeless sort of things, but 1guess
reading the book, and so I went to the Shambhala that now I'm more aware. I'm contemplating
center and started doing the Shambhala practice. something at the same time as I'm making the art
It's like Buddhism, but it's for laypeople. It's quite piece. Doing a piece called mercy was contem-
close to Zen. It's basically sitting and watching plating mercy. You're not going to be able to
your mind reel itself off and trying to come back make a statement about mercy, but just contem-
to your breath. It's very simple , very down to plating the notion of mercy and making the piece
earth, but a very disc iplined thing. Everything become the same process.
starts softening up, and I think particularly as a Now I'm working on a piece called The Imper-
person getting older I feel like I've learned so manence Project, which was begun with a group of
much from that. I'm so grateful to those teach - people about two months after my partn er died ,
ings. so I was thinking about nothing but imper-
I think as I go along what I've been finding is manence. They're a group called Rosetta Life, and
that my practice isn't over here and my art is over they go to hospices all over England and help
there. It's really one in the same. I feel as a young people who are dying make art pieces. One per-
artist 1was mo re evolved than I was as a person . son might want to write a play; one person might
There was definitely a split between me as a per- want to do a musical; some woma n wanted to do
so n and me as an artist, but as I get older and do cho reography. They facilitate them doing their

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own artwork about the dying process. We d id it as in the cast. Then you got a ticket a month later at
a work-in-progress last July, but it's not a piece the Minor Latham Playhouse, and it was nine per-
about impermanence. How can you make a piece formers. Then the third part was in a gallery, and
about "about"? It's really more exploring what there was just a videotape of the four main char-
that is exactly. acters and all the clothes, the eighty-five pairs of
combat boots , all the objects from the other two
Giorgio Strehler, the Italian director, said that parts, were arranged in the space so you could
when he does a play he feels like he's making an touch them and smell them , but there were no
ess ay about a play, which is a kind of contem- people.
plation. Can you talk about your work with your Ping Chong was a student of mine at NYU in
com pany? the spring of 1970. I took one look at him and
My first group was Monica Mosley, Signe Ham - went. "Wow this guy's amazing." He always had
mer, Blondell Cummings, Dick Higgins and his own sensibility and he knew a lot about film
Daniel Ira Sverdlik. I would bring the six of us to a and he came from a visual arts background. The
place, like Chicago, and then I'd get one hundred first piece of mine that he was in was Needle-Brain
people from the community and work on these Lloydand the Systtms Kid at Connecticut College.
large mass kinds of things. Sometimes the six That was the one with the motorcycles and the
people would help the other people, but some- horses. I thought of it as a live movie. I was think-
times they would be making other images. I was ing a lot about cinematic ideas of long shots,
pretty much the only singer. I did lots of music close-ups, cutting , dissolving . The audienc e
scores with me and the organ . At that time, the would move from one outdoor space to another.
late sixties, I was working with big pieces where The piece began at four o'clock and ended at te n
the architecture informed the structure and I was o'clock at night with a one -hour dinne r break.
trying to subvert our ideas of time and space in That company was Ping, Lanny Harrison, Blon-
performance. ForJuice you got one ticket and the dell. Signe. Danny. I think of my companies as
first part was at the Guggenheim Museum, using family. After a few years of Ping being in my com-
the whole building. I had about eighty-five peop le pany it just felt right to make a piece together, so

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we made Paris. Conceptually we started out to- yo u did Venel at the Anhalter Bahnhof, the train
gether qu ite aware that if we were going to com e station .
out with a third thing each of us had to give up In 1980, just one wall of the old railroad station
something that was very recognizable as ours. remained because the stat ion had been bombed
That's the thing about collaboration-you have to by the Russians at the end of the war. This was a
know what to give up. So I didn 't do that much revival performed by the Schaubuhne Ensemble
singing. He didn't do any audio -visual stuff. It of Vessd, which had originally been done in 1971
was a very different piece for both of us. We did in New York. The first part was in my loft at 9
that whole Travdogue Series collaboration , which Great Jones Street. The poor audience had to walk
was three different pieces based on place. Then up five flights of stairs . J think we could get abou t
there was a long period of time where I think he a hundred people into my loft. It was pitch black,
really needed to do his own work away from my so people were led in groups . I had a long, long
work, away from my group , which at the time was skinny loft. It had a low ceiling, and then the
mostly actors and some dancers. whole piece was looking down this black alley to
Then, with Quarry, something else happened. I these images that would come out of the dark.
started wanting to work with more complex Then the aud ience would co me back down the
forms, instrumentally and vocally. There was a big flights of sta irs, and I had rented a bus for them
chorus of twenty-eight young people, very good and they were taken down to the Performing
singers and very good dancers. I'd never had very Garage. I had this big mountain that was mad e
good singers to work with, and I got really excited out of muslin . I used the Performing Garage as if
about that. I made a piece called Tablet that had it was a vertical, almost like it was a medieval
equally complex vocal parts for women. That was tapestry. The audien ce was sitting down at the
the beginning of the Vocal Ensemble , and that be- bottom looking up-a lot of people performing in
came the next group. I was doing some theater that little space. It had the density of a crowded
things, but I also wanted to work strongly vocally. kind of tapestry. The first part of Vessel was black
and white. The part in the Performing Garage was
I was in Berlin but never at the right time when very colorful. I was working like a painter in thos e

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days. All the audience members that had come just got these costumes in thrift shops ." He said,
from Monday to Friday fo r those two parts-c-one "There are no thrift shops in Berlin." He basically
hundred people each night-had a ticket to com e built those cos tumes. I was in complete shock .
to an outdoor parking lot where the Soho Grand Then for the Anhalter Bahnhof-c-this is how far
Hotel is now. There was a church there at that they would go. In New York those motorcycle rid-
time. That was the third part, a sort of Joan of Arc ers were some Hell's Angels and some friends
thing of her being killed publicly. It was the first who had bikes. In Berlin the motorcycle riders
time that I used any kind of reference to a char- didn't want to get their bikes dirty. It was raining,
acter at all. It was still very abstract, but it was the so there was too much mud. They were all
closest to working with narrative that I'd come. dressed from head to toe in leather like you could
not believe, and they didn't want to get anything
Did you replicate those three stages in ~in? dirty. So Peter Stein went and got trucks to dump
Yes. The first part in Berlin was at the 5.0. 36, clean dirt on the site and pack it down.
which was a punk club from the period. Then they
rented a double -decker bus and brought the audi- I do have to ask you about your work with Ann
ence to the Schaubahne and set up a fancy ver- Hamitton, who I think is such an extraordinary
sion of our funky little muslin mountain that we'd artist and installation-maker, You did a piece to-
put up ourselves in the Performing Garage. gether at the We){n~ r-n Columbus, Ohio), and
now you're doing something new.
They bought New York culture , didn 't they? That was very risky. It was the beginning of the
Yes but they fixed it up. My first meeting with my risky period. Both of us are very strong. We're
costume designer, Yoshio Yabara, who I ended both used to making our complete and total
up working with for many years-he had this worlds. Julian Beck said something one time. He
book and he started going through the two hun - said, "The subject of Meredith's work is percep-
dred fifty characters that were in this piece: "what tion." So when I'm making a piece, the way tha t
does this one look like? What does that one look these different things weave together-it's very
like?" He drew them all, and I said, "roshi. we important to me. And the same with Ann. She's

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dealing with sound, she's dealing with video, she's alive makes me feel better, just knowing
she's dealing with space , everything. We liked that there's an art ist like that.
each other a lot. That was numbe r one. Now I just finished my fi rst st ring quartet for
The second thing we did was cook together in the Kronos Quartet which was another one of
Columbus, Ohio. We felt that if we could cook to- those risky things.
gether we could work together. Some of the chal-
lenges were who is going to do what and what are Do you write for strings from the voice?
you going to give up. I gave up the video aspect I did. I also wrote some of it with keyboard, but I
of it, for example. Obviously I was going to do the think that what is most successful is what I did
music. I was going to do the more live kinds of vocally. Krenos performed Stringsongs at Carnegie
stuff. We worked together on the overall spatial Hall in February and they're doing it on Thursday
thing. The second part of the risky thing was our night in Paris. I need to revise it a little bit and
vocabulary. We realized at a certain point that she that's a whole other story about scores, music on
meant same words differently than I meant the paper, which is very difficult and challenging for
words . For example, for me , "struct ure" is time. me. I don't reallywork that way. I usually score af-
I'm a musician . I think of structure in time. She ter I finish.
thinks of structure as space. I think "space" but I
don't call it "structure." It was about trust, about Audience: I'm hoping that you will expand on
building trust as the year went on. I think what what you touched on briefly earlier in the conver-
was really beautiful about mercy was that first im- sation about expansion , The world needs more
age of us sitting across from each other at a table. space, air.
Sitting together is, in a sense, the most funda- In my moments when I try not to get too de-
mental and elemental idea about mercy. The pressed about the political reality that we're living
process was contained in that image and you in, I think of it as larger movements. There do
could sense that we'd gone through quite an in- seem to be these periods where things do expand
te nse journey to get to that place. Now I consi der and then they seem to have to contract in order to
Ann one of my dearest friends . Just knowing that expand again. So growing up as a child in the

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fifties was like the ultimate compression. Girdles I pray that now there will be some loos ening
is a good metaphor. Everything's so tight-rules, and we'll fee l this sense of, just as you said so
fea r, politeness. When the sixties came-s-ev en beautifully, space and breath. No one's breat hing.
though I was very young , it was such a relief. Gir- That's why I feel that doing art is so important. It
d les off] We weren't totally aware of it, but t here makes you dig in your hee ls even more. It's a
was a sense of relief, a sense of exhalation, and life-and-death kind of thing . What is t he oth er
there was a kind of illusion that we could change alternative? The other alternative is tha t you're liv-
the world. I think that what happens is tha t it does ing in a culture that's basically trying to distract
get wider and wider, and then the fear starts you from the moment. It's trying to distract you
again, and the backlash starts happening. That's from your life. It's trying to distract you from who
what we're in now. you are, and it's trying to numb you. and it's try-
I'm struggling a lot financially. struggling a lot ing to make you buy things. Now. I don't really
to keep my group going , struggling to keep going think that that 's what life is about. I'm excited be-
in every way. but I feel like I try so hard because I cause now I have this real sense that there's this
think that every time I'm able to go to a college or counterculture, you could say, or counter-
to be with young people that they need to know impulse. It's not fer-and-against. but there is a
that there is this "anything is possible" idea. They kind of dialect ic where there's a kind of resistance
need to at least see that. I intend to continue you can actually hit against, or at least address in
nevertheless. Somehow that seems very impor - one way or the other.
tant right now. It isn 't that you go to school just
to find out everything you need to get a job or AB: I feel th at the cultur e we're living in is more
something. We never thought of what we did as a and more fundamental ist. Not jus t religious. I find
job. We thought of it as our work, our life. Then that in audiences these da ys there's this sense
t here was a certain point, I think , in the eightie s that: " I bought this show, it's mine, ifl don't like it
where people though t of thei r identity as this and I'm going to leave. It's not what I expected it to
th en what you did was a job. There was a sepa- be." There's a kind of ownership of the work as
ration between the two things. opposed to being part of the pro cess of the work.

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I'm not sure what to do about it. Audience: I moved to th e States about three years
This is part of what we were talking abo ut before, ago from Germany. That st ruck me when I would
of not want ing to be part of the discomfort of t he go to theater-and also to opera or to dance
unknown. Starbuc ks is Starbucks. You know what performances . But then I thought: People here go
you're going to get when you go the re. To me, to theater, Broadway mostly, but all the way down
when I go and see something, I'm most excited if the line, and the y con ceive it as entertainment.
I don't know what it's going to be. If I know what There 's this "give me, feed me " attitude. As a
it is, then why would I go to it? If I know what my theater-maker myse lf, I depend upon an inter-
piece is going to be and make a grant applica tion action between the stage and the aud ience. I no-
three years in advance, why would I make the ticed people with petul ant ton es : " I did n't under-
piece? If I could verbalize it already, what am I stand that." I would say, "Well, what did you see?
working on? I think that what we're working on in What did you hear? If you didn't understand it,
art is the unnameable. did it make you th ink of someth ing?" Sometimes
they would play along with that, but so metimes
AB: Then how does an audie nce relate to that? I they wo uld look at me like, "Well, t hey s hould tell
find th at in a rea lly recent time t hat the qua lity of mel"
the aud ienc e, not just in my shows but in shows In the kind of work you are talking about the audi -
in general, has cha nged. Their attitud e, what they ence actually hasn't been given anything. The
bring into the room is different-an intolera nce, a experience is just so empty that you basically go
sense of funda mentalism and a se nse of owner- home and forget about it one minute after you've
s hip, as oppos ed to being part of th e proces s. I walked out of the theater. When you ask how do
don't want to just complain about it. I want to you adjust to it, the ultimate of that is Broadway,
actually contemplate it in a sense of making work where everybody is trying to second-guess.
about it. There's so much mo ney involved. Everyone is try-
What do you think is th reaten ing for them ? You ing to second-guess a gro up of peo ple who are
have to think. What is th reate ning? act ually a group of individua ls. On a certain level,
you ca n never seco nd -guess an audien ce. I know

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what you're saying. You 're saying, " How do you you're working you' re trying to be very clear, and I
open the door so they ca n co me th rough the don't think t he first thought is necessaril y th e
door ?" best t hought. I don 't t hink th e first solution , the
eas iest so lution, is necessarily the sol ution you're
AS: I thin k th at audiences are detectives. What going to keep. There's th is kind of strange thing
you do is leave behind dues. If you lea ve too when I'm working that it's like, first the material is
man y dues you lose t heir interest, and if you leave coming from the inside out. Then there's a part of
too few d ues you lose t hem. So is the so lution to me t hat steps back when I make my st ructure. I
leave a few more clues? ste p back. trying to see , "Is this dear so that hu-
This is something we thi nk abou t all the time. It's ma n beings can actually see what this is or expe-
hard to figure that out. It's not like you're doin g it rience t his?"
in the closet for yourself. We are working as
communicators. We're working to get this figure- Audience: Do you reach a point where you can't
eight of energy going back and forth in one way or see it d early?
another. So how do you do that and keep the Oh . all the time .
com plete and utte r integrity of what you're doi ng?
If you don't do that then nothing's left there . You Audience: What do you do?
might as well not do it. Cry. Get on my hands and knees. Ask for help.
Maybe so metimes let something go for a while
Audience: You've just done what you wanted to and come back to it. People don 't talk about how
do. Whet her it's today or twen ty years ago , the hard it is to be an artist, act ually-I'm not co m-
fea r of the aud ience and t he fear of how they're plaining. but it is. I feel I deal wit h do ubt and self-
going to take it is so met hing you've dealt with, do ubt all th e time. That ends up bei ng a quite rich
and I'd like to know what you've done when you source ultimately. Maybe it's a female t hing. The
knew so met hing was n't good ? How do you keep boys don't seem to do that as mu ch, I notice.
yourself moving ahead ?
It's about co mmunic ation. At the sa me time Audienc e: Yes. Some of us do.

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Oh. I'm so glad to hear tha t. I was thinking maybe need s to rest. We are making it so that Mother
men are brought up differently, to t hink th at Earth ca n rest so that in spring she can co me
the y're supposed to be o n the plane t and they're fort h." I felt that t hat was so co mfo rting; to act u-
going to do really great st uff. I think tha t t hen the ally nurture t hose times where it seems so empty,
next level is. "Why am I do ubting, and why do I al- to have faith that something will happen if you sa -
ways have to do this?" As time goes by you realize vor those times. not try to pus h against the m or
t hat do ubt is okay. Doubt is good , actually. You're fight them.
also aski ng. "What am I missing? What is miss -
ing?" AB:That's just gorgeous.

AB: I think it's an ingredient. I th ink if there's not Audience: You were saying earlier about finding
doubt in your work you look like an asshcle. your best work when you were able to get out of
You have a smug quality. The times in between your own way. Are there any symptoms that you
things are always very hard for me. and there have can see when you're starting to notice that you are
been times when I felt that I'd never have an idea getting in your way ~ feel that yo u are not on the
again. or that I've explored everything that I pos - right path ?
sibly can because as the years go on you have the It's deceiving because I can say. "Well. th e ones
backpack of your history. How do I find some- where you're not in your own way feel easier, as if
thing new to work with? I read a beautiful book by everything is flowing," but that's kind of a lazy
Mable Dodge Luhan. who lived in New Mexico man's approach. you know? In fact it might be
and started Ghost Ranch in the 1920 5. She mar - that you do have to work really hard and then you
ried a Native American. Tony Luhan, who lived in find what it wants to say. It's hard to figu re t hat
t he Taos pueb lo. She said that she noticed in the out. It seems like the ones tha t are coming
pueblo that in t he winte r everybody had very soft through you are coming easi ly, but then there are
moccasins and t hey tiptoed arou nd. They hardly pieces tha t I worked very, very hard on . and then
talked at all and it was very, very quiet. She asked so mehow t here's been a kind of release at a cer-
why they did tha t, and they said, "Moth er Earth tain po int. Maybe when you get in your own way

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it's when you're thinking too much, expecting Eduardo Machada
something, or when habitual patterns start show -
ing up. Ed uardo stirs the pot. Whatever pot is around he
is sure to sti r it. And the world is a better place for
AS: It seems like habit is the biggest ene my. that st irring. He is a great playwright and a master
You know, if Anne were working on someth ing teacher of playwriting. He is very articulate about
and she goes, "What would Anne do here?" his influences and he is, in tum, an influence to a
That's not a good thought. That's like Anne hav- vast array of young playwrights and theater peo -
ing to have Anne's fixed idea of Anne . That's dan - ple. Eduardo was the artistic director of INTAR in
gerous. "What is a Meredith piece?" That's so Manhattan and is currently a professor of play-
dangerous because you are going to make the writing at New York University.
same thing over and over again . Many of Eduardo's plays are biographical , and
for good reason. His life story is traumatic and
AS: In a way I'm very lazy, and if I didn 't work the imbalance has had a dramatic effect upon his
with a company of people who really bust me, I writing. 80m in 1953 in Havana , Cuba , Eduardo
could just do the same habitual things over and immigrated to the U.S. at age eight, sent by his
over again because it makes everybody happy. It's parents to flee Castro's revolution. He arrived in
the colleagues that keep me awake, and my stu- the U.S. speaking no English. He lived with rela-
dents as well. tives in Hialeah, Florida , and moved to California
If you have people that really hold up the mirror, when his parents arrived a year later. Eduardo be-
you are really lucky. gan to write plays when a therapist suggested that
he compose an imaginary letter of forgiveness to
his mother for sending him away. In 1977 he me t
playwright Maria Irene Fornes who proved to be a
powerful inspiration in his life and work. In 1980
he moved to New York City. Since then he has
been busy stirr ing many pots. But mostly

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Eduardo has been writing. the status quo; frustrated by the way things are
Eduardo is indeed prolific. His plays include po litically, artistically, economica lly; impatient for
The Modem Ladies of Guanabacoa, Once Removed, change; ready to slash out verbally and call things
Broken Eggs, Fabiola, A Burning Beach, Stevie the way he sees them. He is infamo us for his fiery
Wants to Play the Blues, /n the Eyeofthe Hurricane, speeches and his loyalty to people that he be-
Kissing Fidel, Cuba and the Night, Crocodile Eyes, lieves in.
Havana Is Waiting, The Cook and That Night in
Hialeah. And this is just a small sampling. SEPT EM BER 2 6 , 2 0 0 5
Eduardo also directs , acts and makes films.
When he is unhappy about something, he does AS: Eduardo Machado is now the artistic director
something about it. If he feels, for example, that a of INTAR. He has a show there right now called
particular playwright is being ignored, he will pro- Kiss;ng Fidel, which is controversial as hell, right?
duce and direct a play of their's . He makes sure EM: Yes.
that it gets into the world.
I had the great fortune to direct Eduardo's play He's a writer I've adm ired for man y years. I had
In the Eye of the Hurricane at Actor's Theatre of the great pleasure of directing his play In the Eye
Louisville during the Humana Festival of 1991. of the Hurricane years ago. Eduardo really writes
Besides the play being big, beautiful, personal, for theater, as oppo sed to film or television. I'd
poetic and political, I have to say that Eduardo like to talk a little bit about where this really
and I had an awful lot of fun together. We laughed un ique vision of a theater comes from in your
a lot, we gossiped a lot. and we thoroughly en- deep , dark past. And I'd also like to talk about
joyed the process of rehearsal, talking and eating. process and also just about the field we're in to-
Sometimes we cooked. One night we cooked a day, what it's like-your thoughts and ideas . What
Cuban shrimp and rice for the entire cast and was it that drew you to theater in the first place?
crew. It was fantastic. I never wasn't in the theater-since I was a very
But there are more sides to Eduardo than the little kid. The house I grew up in in Cuba had a
fun one. He can be passionate and angry about roun d ta nk of water that looked like a stage to me ,

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so I started acting out plays when I was like two. How old were you when you left Cuba?
neve r ever tho ught of doing anything else. I was eight.

You started as an actor? Can you describe that circumstance? I think it has
I st arted as an acto r because I could n't spell, so I a huge effect on who you are.
thou ght I would never get to be a writer beca use I left right after the Bay of Pigs. We left becaus e
of the language difference. And because I love ou r businesses were taken over by the govern-
becomi ng other people. I fou nd that very com- ment. I left on one of the Peter Pan Flights for
forting. Then, at a certain age, I found it extre me ly kids. I didn't end up at an orphanage like other
frightening to become other people . I came to kids did. I ended up with my aunt.
realize that I couldn't shake it off. I would realize
two months later that the part that ' was playing So your family sent you?
was not me. I got in a very harsh place in a play by My family sent my brother and me.
a writer named Jo hn Steppling. So I wrote a play,
and then Ensemble Studio Theatre in l.A. did a Why?
reading of it. It was a half-hour play. They talked To . . . not become communists. And to, I think in
about the play for like two hou rs, and 1knew them a certain way. protect us. They thought we were
well enough that I knew if they were talking about go ing to go to Russia. It was actually a CIA scam
it for two hours , it meant something hap pened. A as it tu rns out.
friend told me we were getting NEA mon ey so I
co uld app ly for a grant. I did, and I got a grant for In the Eye of the HurriclJne is a beautiful play
my first play. My friends who are playwrights te ll about that time. When you and I first met to talk
me that that's not fair. I locked myself up in a about the play, you said, "You know, Anne, you
room to write and stopped acting, which is so me- have to understand"-we were talking about the
thing that I regret. I thought you could only do design-"people think that Cuba's like any other
one thing- and I became a writer. latino country. My family wanted to be the
Kennedys. The way we dressed-we were really

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not what people imagined ." Of course, the first like it to be is nam ed Fernando. My oth er grand -
design we got back from the designer was full father started off selling fruit on the street when
of- he was eleven and the n owned a bus comp any.
l ike Taco Bell. So bot h were pretty driven peo ple .

It was like Taco Bell. Exactly what it sho uldn't And they stayed behind?
be-the worst cliche. I think that the family you They stayed behind and then came in '66.
came out of is very particular, and I know some of
your family members through your plays. There And where did you go first?
you are in this cauldron , in this huge political mo- I went to Hialeah. next to Miami. Then we moved
ment . Your family stays. You leave. to los Angeles. which is where I grew up.
It's very dramatic and it makes great stuff for fic-
tio n. My family never did anything quietly. They And that's where you started acting.
liked the newspapers, they liked the ta bloids, so I got my union card when I was seventeen years
whatever power they had, they used it to be in the old. I played extras on Maude and All in the Fam-
pape r-especially my dad's father. If he was dat - ily. Then I joined Ensemble Studio Theatre where
ing a sbowgirl. it was in the paper. When I went 1d id more se rious theater. Then I was part of Pad-
back to Cuba to the town where I'm from, which ua Hills Playwrights Festival.
is near Havana, I saw this huge house amon gst
the very little houses, and it all becam e very evi- This is where Maria Irene Fornes comes in?
de nt to me why they could want so much atten- That 's where I met Irene. She mistakenly on e day
tion and get it. That colors my work. My work is told me to write something. And I did. Because I
about very egomaniacal people who only know walked into her class.
what they want-and get it.
Irene had a huge influence on you.
You grandfather was Oscar in Hurricane? When I look at my writing I think I'm very lucky
I have two grandfathers. The grandfather I would because I had Irene, and I had the peop le at the

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Ensemble Studio Theatre. James Hammers tein the Pied Piper. Yo u can drown if yo u fo llow her all
ta ught me so methi ng else, which was how to re- the way. but if you follow her just enough it can
write, how to be toug h, how to have sta nda rds. give you a tremendo us am ount of liberty to ex-
press yourself.
Can you describe Irene 's workshop?
Irene's workshop was upstai rs at the INTAR You are in the process right now of rescuing
building that was just to rn down. It had an ori- Irene 's work from oblivio n. Irene IS

ental rug. Irene had these eight tables built. We disinteg rating-I think that's no secret-and her
had a coat hange r that had brass elephants. All apartm ent is full of plays that nobod y knows what
the co ffee and demitasse cups we re paper cups. to do with.
She didn 't want writers to have real cups. And She really influenced my life for ten years, until I
we'd do kung fu for forty·five minutes. The n we was around thirty. We had a falling out. And now
would sit down and all write togethe r. I lived that I'm fifty-two I'm back to being com pletely
across the street from Irene at the time , and Irene su rrounded by her. It's really fascinating. She for-
and I wrote every day together for two or three got we had a fight, though, so it was good.
years. We would read stuff to each other after we
wrote it. It was alllong-hand. We'd go home and You know I'm going to ask you about the fight.
type it. There'd be piles of scripts. In her work- I think the fight is an important thing. I was writ-
shop. I wrote Broken Eggs, Rosario and the Gypsies, ing The Modem Ladies of Cuanaoacoa. The
The Modern Ladies ojCuonobocoo. Ensemble Studio Theat re was going to do it, and
Irene hated the play. She said it was the worst
And what was it th at Irene released in you? play I'd ever written.
Passion. She taught me that anything can happen
and anything goes. Irene gave me the right to ex- Did she say why?
pres s myself. which no one had ever given me. No, but o ne d ay she invited me over for dinner
She gave me freedo m. Irene's a very interesting and she said, "I haven't read the rewrite, so we' re
perso n. Being around Irene is like being arou nd going to read it together." Carmen, her mother.

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was sitting right there. She starte d readin g the day and said that Irene could be sitting anywhere
play. She went, "'Short hair, short hair, the answer and say, "Oh. is that Eduardo?" So it was a very
to all my prayers.' Bad line." And she cross ed it dee p thing for both of us, but som etimes you
out. Three hours later she had crossed out the need to get away.
first twenty-two pages of the play. It took that long
to read twenty·two pages. I went home and I woke You killed your mother, right? But in a way, that's
up the next morning and I thought there was a great gift, as you sa y. Her crossing out your
blood all over my walls. I called the guy who ran lines is-
the apartment and I said, "Did somebody die in A fuck you.
this apartment before I rented it?" He looked and
then he said. "We'll repaint tomorrow." I was You need a huge "fuck you" to get on in your life.
walking to EST, and I said to myself, That's not Reviews are hard and we have muscles we can
blood, that's ink. 1 went back to the apartment build.
and I had taken every pen in the house and When I get a good review I get really happy for a
thrown it against the wall---unconsciously broken day. Then I throw it out. When I get a bad review.
them and thrown them against the wall. That's the I get reallydepressed for a day, then I throw it out.
biggest lesson Irene ever taught me. I go on with my life and I judge my work by my
own standards. Being a playwright is a funny
Which is? thing. You have to be strong and you have to have
Do what you want to do. It doesn't really matter if an open ear at the same time. or you get nowhere.
people who you admire like it. And so we had our I try to listen to what people say, then I make my
big fight. At that point I thought it was either her own decision.
or me, and that I needed to survive. Irene used to
tell me stuff like, "You're as bad a writer as Eu- That notion of being really strong and having an
gene O'N eill." And I went, "Oh. thank you." We ear is beautiful. If you just have an ear, you have
had a very turbulent relatio nship. The person who no way to edit, right? You have no take or some-
is making a documentary about Irene called one thing. But if you're just your vision-

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You can't see the world, And a play's about the Ense mble and at Padua. I by cha nce did this
world, and a play is abo ut everybody who's in it. Brecht play. a showcase, called The Beggar or The
The play is about t he stage managers and t he Dead Dog. Flo rence Eldr idge waite d for me after
ush ers. The play is about the desig ne rs. The play th e s how. She was the orig inal actress in Long
is abo ut the relatives it was based on. The play's a Day's Journey into Night, She s aid, "You know
big thing t hat you can't control yourself. I always what? You have what it takes." Those words -
te ll my students: "If you think actors are assholes, hearing them from her-I left t he world of sitco m.
go to a play on a Tuesday night afte r the opening I t hink it was also doing a Brecht play. I was
night and see how hard actors work. You don't twenty-one years old, and I really did n't know
know what it's like to be in a play with a hostil e what the play was about, except that it really ups et
aud ience because that's one of the things play- my dad that I was playing in a Brecht play. But
wrights don't have to do ," something in saying those lines on stage changed
me completely. That play got me to meet the pe0-

So you're also talking abo ut compassion. ple at the Ensemble, which got me to th e people
Well. yes. Theater is about being compassionate at Padua.
for the people trying to create your image. It is not
about yourself. I have no idea how to write these So, when did you stop acting?
plays really. I stopped acting when I moved to New York. I
came to New York because Dolores Sutton told
I want to go back to Los Angeles : We're in Los me. "You've got to come to New York to act ." I
Angeles, you're writing ... came to New York and I acted a little bit, the n I
No. I'm acting. And I have dyed hair and a mus - started writing all these plays. I felt like I was
tache. I wan t to be Freddy Prinze more than any- telling my story and I didn't have to t ry not to be
t hing else. I figured since he got praise, it's my Cuba n. I didn't have to worry about gettin g hired.
t urn next. I think I was a very funny actor. I just I d idn't have to be worried abo ut wha t I looked
wanted to be in LA. I did n't know anything about like. I was ab le to gain weight, whic h was a big
t he th eate r very m uch until I met th e peo ple at t he th ing for me. I didn't have to live on zucc hini and

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st ring beans. I read this play called The Cuban wanted another cycle.
Thing by Jack Gelber when I was a young kid-it They wanted to do Floating Islands as a four-play
was just so off what happened in Cuba. That was cycle. I could have said, "Do the plays in rep." But
the only play about Cuba that I ever read. I wanted I just wanted it so bad. I just wanted it because I
to say something about Cuba. I was lucky. Frank was from L.A. Unfortunately they figured out too
Rich liked my first plays, so that gave me a career. late that the plays were eight hours long. So we
had to edit them and screwed them up. I under -
Where were your first three plays? stand that people can't do eight-hour plays. There
At the Ensemble Studio Theatre. are teamsters to worry about. I understand the
financial implications of bringing down a theat er.
That was related to the same EST in Los Angeles? So I did the best I could with it . It was not the
They were siste r comp anies? best for the play. I've never seen so much money
Same one . I had a very lucky couple of years. 1 spent on sets. I could do plays for the rest of my
once had four productions in New York and three life for the amount of money that we spent there.
in L.A. I thought that was normal. But. even though it was disastrous, everybody
knew who I was after that. So, actually, it was the
Would you mind talking about the LA. experience right risk.
at the Mark Taper Forum wrth The Float ing Island The other part that I think about a lot is that
Plays? you're only supposed to get so much. If you get a
I grew up around the Taper. The Taper was the little more than you're supposed to get, then
only thing I ever wanted in my life. I said, "Some they're going to co me after you. That was the first
day they're going to do my plays." So I went on time that I was really confronted by it. I didn't ask
this tirade of getting this to happen. Gordon for all that attention. I just really wanted to sell
[Davidson, artistic director at the Taper) didn't tickets because the theater expected me to do it. I
think one play was enough. still have to explain my plays in the same way that
I had to explain them years ago. They st ill want
This was after they did Angels in Amelica, so they the set to look like a taco stand. They still say,

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when they're doing Broken Eggs, well, let's get the life as a playwright. I stopped being in bed be-
clothes on tat h Street [in Manhatta n] . I still can't cause I had to go to rehearsa l.
believe it. In many ways at the Taper I got the
whole pie-ali i could want. I couldn't resist it. So Ifthe basement ofthe work isn't something that is
I made comp romises that I don't think I will ever in a little room-like in some ways kids playing in
make again. a basement-if you start working in a way that ig-
nores that root, you die. If you lose it you have to
What were the compromises? go back to it again.
I edited my plays. I didn't believe what was going You have to play the strange line between being a
on on stage and 1 let it happen. 1 didn't fight to commodity and being an artist because no one's
make them in rep. I just cowered myself away be- allowed to be just an artist, unfortunately.
cause I wanted the big bang.
What do you look for in a diriW:or?
When they do that much press buildup on some- Someone who likes my plays. (laughter) That's
thing, one of two things happens: They either kill the first thing. Someone who's not going to do
it completely or they praise it to the skies. There's exactly what I had in my head . Someone who be-
nothing in between. lieves in my political beliefs. That's very important
You know what I did after this? I was in bed and I to me. Someone I could have fun having drinks
couldn't get out of bed for three months. So I de- with. Someone who challenges me. Directors are
cided to do a play set in an office. And I wrote this a tough thing for a playwright. You're handing
play, called Three Ways to Go Blind, and I asked over something thai is you for someone to turn
my friends to be in it. I ran the lights and I di- into something that isn't you. I like to go to re-
rected it. I could only have thirty people in the hearsals. I like to give notes and shape things. I
room at a time. I told the critics they'd have to like to listen to stuff so I can rewrite because I
write me letters so that they could review it. I had love rewriting more than anything on earth.
the best time of my life, and I unders tood why I I can ta lk to you about a bad experience with a
was a playwright. It was the beginning of my new d irector. We will not name names. I was writing

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this piece. A year ago, for the first time in a long But you're supposed to try not to fail. Yo u're su p-
time, someone said, "Hey, we have a job for you." posed to try to say what you want to say. Som e-
I tried to write this piece. After we'd done two times you fail. And it's not a big crime.
workshops. my friend Estelle Parsons wrote me a
very good letter about what was wrong with it. A conductor was ta lking to directing students at
She said, "You're the real talent here. Why don't Columbia, and I asked her, " Desc ribe a nightmare
you start using it?" I kept the letter for a while. director." She said, "It's very simple. It's a director
Then I hid the letter. The director was someone who arrives at the first rehearsal and opens the
who didn't want to understand what the subject score, and as it opens it goes creak ." I always ad-
they were doing was about. They didn 't read a mire directors who have the ability to say to a
book about it. Everything's a formula. You just playwright, "You know, you've got to work on that
start going crazy. They changed all my lines to second act, and here's why." I've never been able
make it easier for the actor s . It was a nightmare. It to do thaL I always th ink the play is written by
continues to be a nightmare, except that I decided God and it's perfect. If I'm working hard enough
Sunday morning I was just going to give them all on it, and I'm deepl y engaged in it, then the play-
the material-for a price. I said I wanted to be wright will see whatever it is that needs to be
called Oscar Hernandez in the program. Now rewritten .
they can do whatever they want with it. That was That's true, too . But most playwrights only want
completely freeing . to hear the play the way they hear it in their
So, that's the worst , someone not respecting head-which is so boring . Most directors want to
you. I guess what you want from a director is start talking to the playwright before they've really
someone who wants to get into your head and gotten into their head . You have to really get into
challenge your head -someone who will go in the play's head or the playwright's head before
t here and not say everything's great, but also you start talking to them about the play because
know what it is you're saying. The terrible th ing in they'll eat you. The playwright will devour you.
this coun try is that you're not supposed to fail. The easiest thi ng for a playwright to do is take
Well. to be a great artist , you're supposed to fail. control of rehearsal. They're saying your lines. All

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you have to do is nudge the director and the n you Because the re are plays you don't want to direct
have chaos. It's all over. It's the last thing I ever because they're too personal. When I choose to
want to do to a directo r. I think it's a mut ual study d irect one of my plays it's becaus e I feel like
of each othe r for a play to really work. The actors, there's somethi ng I want to finish and som et hing
by the end of rehea rsal, know the play better than else I want to say. I haven't d irected very ma ny of
the playwright or the director because they've my plays.
been learning the lines and they've been doing it. The trick about directing is that you have to
The playwright can really rewrite the play when an give actors the play and then you have to pretend
actor really understands it. He's giving them the that there's this big picture in your head. The hard
play-and giving them the silences . which are the thing about playwriting is to shut up because the
lines that you should cut because they know how actors are going to find something better than
to play it. Then, miraculously, after that happens. you thought it was.
every other actor who plays it will know. even
though you took that line out , what that moment What do you look for in an actor? I mean , you
is. That is the magic. have big, voracious actors.
I love truthfulness. I love actors who can speak
You're an outrageous director. When I saw your and have real voices rather than fake voices. I love
directing of your play Crocodile f~s--it was a actors that don't overact, but can fill the room
reaction to The House of Bernarda Alba---l with emotion .
thought that it was so me of the best directing I've I' ll tell you what my two favorite performances
seen. It was sort of balls to the wall-is that the in my whole life have been : Maggie Smith in Pri-
phrase? Balls to the wall? Balls to the wall acting? vate Lives and Nuda Espert in Yerma. They still
Really out there and physical and it was a spec- play in my head . Nuda Espert was doing Yerma
tacle. How did that happ en? on a trampoline--everything was downhill with
That's the kind of theater I want to see. Lorca after that. I saw it when 1was twenty. What I
always remember about Maggie Smith in Private
Why don't you direct all the time? Lives is tha t when she saw her husband on the

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other side she started to vomit. She stopped her- look like yo u've just had the best sex in the world.
self from vomiting and then she said hello. I've It's a pleasant experience. It's voices. It's very
never been able to forget that. I rememb er it at Joan of Arc sch izophre nia playwriting. I write very
least once a week. I think, Oh, that's great acting. fast. I wrote a musical this weekend because
we're having a fund raiser and we needed a musi-
Compression. Expression. cal. I knew who I was writing for. I had been want-
Yeah. ing to write about J. M. Barrie. I had seen a play of
his. Dear Brutus. that was the greatest play I've
How do you write? What is that process for you? seen in about ten years. Dear Brutus is like Peter
, think about a story for a long time. But I don't Pan for adults. It's about having a second
think about anything that 's going to happen in the chance-about late middle-age . They did it at
story. I think about characters. I think about how I Joanne Woodward's theater, Westport Country
feel about things . 1 think about how I feel about Playhouse, this spring. I saw it, and 1started read-
the characters. ing about him. It just fit into this musical. I didn't
go outside all weekend.
When you say "thi nk," what do you mean?
I talk to them in my head . They tell me things, and I don 't want to drop this iss ue of characters ta lk-
I tell them things back. Then they start telling ing to you and in particular of you knowing the
things to each other. I don't write when they start moment to not write, listening to them, and then
telling things to each other . I wait to see what else all of a sudden writing.
they have to say to each other. And then when There are fake lines in your head. I'm going to see
that's been happening for a while in my head. I if I see a play now. There's a woman in this big
start writing a play. I usually write plays in four or dress. There's a guy with cand les . The fake line is,
five days. then I rewrite them for three years. "Oh , why are you here?" He goes, "To light your
way." But actually, tha t's the real line. So, "To
I've see n you in moment s when you've just fin- light your way:' is the real line. And she says, "But
ished writing, and it's usually very fast, and you I don't need to see." Those are the real lines. If I'd

11poges (25 m.,j left ,n this chapl.

gone through t he fake lines, it would have been a I sta rted writing. My plays were surreal. I think
scene abou t what's happening rath er than a scene I've only written o ne naturalistic play-The Cook. I
about what they're feeling. write plays that are surreal, but I think they need
to be based on someth ing. The se t t hat we e nded
But in watching you just now, you w~r~ listening. up having in Eye ofthe Hurricane, which was fabu -
Writing is all about listening. Writing initially is lous, was just a wall of wallpaper, a table and two
about listening, and then after that it's about pro- big tires that came in as the bus.
ducing. Writing is initially about listening to the
characters, and then after that it's about editing 'Ien -fcot-high tires.
the characters and setting up a world for the char - They were rather big. When they did Hurricane at
acters and setting goals for the characters and the Taper they got two buses that cost two hun -
setting goals for yourself as a writer-like, I want dred thousand dollars. I kept on telling them,
this play to only have one blackout. That leads "These buses are not going to work. This play
you to a certain kind of work past the initial inspi- can't be this real." It ended up that they could on -
ration . You find different restrictions for each ly fit one bus onto the Taper stage. Everybodywas
play-like, the band always has to be on stage. All freaking out , going , "How the hell are we going to
of sudden you have a world that these characters do this scene?" And I looked at the back fence
can inhabit. and I sawall these bus lights. I said, "Can't you
just light two of those and two of those?" They
I th ink that's so met hing th at can be forgotten-- went, "Yeah." I said , "Okay. That'll work." And it
t he notion th at t here's freedcm. You say you worked.
learned freedom from Irene. Then from Hammer-
stein you learned- That's th e difference betwee n theater and film or
He taught that we're going to pretend we're on television . Som~th i n g fascinating in your writing
t he road-because on the road everybody rewrote is a deep se nse of th e real. Then at th e same time
everything. there's th e poetic. As a director, when I read your
Peo ple wanted my plays to be very sur real when plays, I want the langu age to lead, the s poken

19 poge5 (22 m.,j lett 10t chapter

language. I want to get rid of most of t he crap on Not great plays . Great plays are abo ut everybod y.
the stage. That then demands that you speak a
theatrical, poetic language that is not descriptive It's about fam ily-and insanity.
of a place but expressive of it. It is abo ut insani ty. In many ways my plays are.
That's all I want from my plays. Except The Cook,
which is very natura listic. All I want is to for you We were talking before about the difference be-
to say, "Ali i need is a tile floor and som e lights." I tween, say, an academic situation like Columbia ,
want my plays to be cha racte rs in action witho ut where you have meetings that go on forever that
any of the bullshtt . I don't want the cut eness. I aren't really about anything, and when you have a
t hink it demeans the art form . I don't want any- meeting about a real th eater or theater company.
t hing else but the characters' struggle and what- Everything you're talking about really has real
ever you need to bring the characters' struggle meat -and-potatoes mean ing-which way you put
across. out the ga rbage can . It all evolves from a vision , a
hope , a belief, so that you're deal ing with real
Your plays are like Chekhov in the sen se that issues-getting butts in seats, getting shows up.
they 're not---or rarely-about one ~rson. Your These are all real, real-world issue s. You like being
plays are about society_ I remember somebody an artistic director, don't you?
came in to our rehe ars al for E~ afthe Hurricane I do. I don't just want to speak for myself. When
and you said, "That person looks immediately you're heading a group, you're allowed to say a lot
Young Man because most plays are about the of things that I've kept inside of me. When I was
Young Man. But he's going to be confused be- in my twenties I saw great theater. I know the
cause he's going to find out that it's not about that difference between great theater and mediocre
young guy at all. It's about th is family and this old thea ter. That's always been my d ownfall because
man and this old woman and the y are as impor- even in my own work I ca n see what's not good
tant as thi s young man ," Usually audiences go, enough.
"Oh, who's the pretty young man or pretty young
woman who it's about? " What did you see?

17pages (20 mn) left 'nthls chopt ....

I saw Follies. I saw Yermo. I saw Private Lives. I I thin k that's probably one of the reasons that your
saw Moon for the Misbegotten directed by Jose production of Crocodile Eyes was so st rong. You
Quintero, which was someth ing. Also, his Long feel like the actors were listened to.
Day's Journey, his Doll's House were so ama zing. I really listened to them . But also I am a compl ete
His Miss Julie. The thing I believe in most- d ictator when I direct.
maybe because I didn't spend my life doing it-is
acti ng. I believe in actors. I don't think they get What do you thin k about aud iences the se da ys?
enough credit in the theater anymore. I think the And what about INTAR aud iences? Well, INTAR
big relationship is just between the playwright needs to find an audience. And we're working very
and the actor. It's easy to write a play in a week- hard at it.
end if you know who you're writing for. I don't I had a great experience with the audience at
think actors get enough freedom to contribute. Hartford Stage . That's where I did The Cook. It's
They used to get a say at rehearsals. Great theater been the greatest experience of my life anywhere
acting is really special , and it's really transporting. I've done it because people fall in love with that
It isn't just the lines. And if actors are difficult actress. Then, secondly, they fall in love with th e
people? Well, they should be. They have to put it part, but first they fall in love with Zabryna (Gue-
out there every night. The rest of us are protected. varaj. The first day I thought, What are all thes e
Nobody's going , "That's filthy," to me. They're people here in Connecticut going to think about
going. "That's filthy." to the actors. I can say, "He this? And they stood up every show, every night.
takes out his cock," but I don 't have to take out the whole run. An audience can 't fake it-because
my cock. I think the problem in the theater is it's happening. When I see my movie, sometimes
t hinking that actors are dumb, thinking that ac- I think the movie was really slow and the perfor-
tors are difficult. Most of my friends are not mances were off, depending on the audienc e.
writers-they're actors . And that's mos tly be- Sometimes I wo uld see it and think it was really
cause I trust what they have to say more than I do great and really funny. One day 1 tho ught, But it's
write rs. the same movie. And th at ta ught me som ethi ng
about what people think about theater-th at it's

15 poge5 (18 mil) left '" lh schopler

off and stuff. But it isn' t. It's the same play mos t to change. But it's not like an a udience at Man-
of the time. It's just that t he audie nce is different. hattan Theat re Club or anything like tha t. It's like
an aud ience downtown. Our zip codes are th e
I remember I worked with Christine Estabrook on Upper East Side and the East Village-t hat gives
Oece in Q Lifd im#!. She 's a fantastic, big actress. I yo u some idea. And Connectic ut.
came back at the end of the run , and I said, "So ,
Christine, how's it been going? " She said, "O h, What zip codes do you want?
there's good audiences and there's bad audi- All of tem.
ences." I said , "What do you mean? " She said,
"Well, there's audiences who know how long to How are you going to change?
laugh . There's some who laugh too long." She Begging. No. Going out to schools. It depends on
said, "There's some that have good timing and the show. A show like The Cook, you don't have to
some that have bad timing." For comedy, which is do anything. Everybodyshows up.
what Once in Q Lifdime is, there's a rhythm . You
watch actors play an audience. It's all about That's part of your job, proselytizing for the art.
breath. An actor who can get an audience to Yes. I really believe in it. I really believe in the t he-
breathe at the same time-that's the thing. ate r. I really believe that people who don't get a
But it's not in the moment. It's perceived as in the voice should get a voice. I read this thing from
moment. I'm telling you. Do a movie. It's really Te G that said how many plays have been don e in
just the energy that's coming from the audience. regional theaters since 1980 by playwrights who
The moment can be the same. are l atina . I started looking at it and I had like six-
ty percent. Nile Cruz had forty (just because I
What would you say about audiences at INTAR? started ea rlier). That leaves nothing. It was like
How wou ld you describe them? two percent. That's not fair. We're both Cuban.
I think they're, ah . .. a mixed group. Everybody That leaves t hat whole other co ntinent on t he
co mes . It's Ame ricans mos tly. Latinos aren't that s ide. And tha t's one of t he reaso ns tha t I have to
intere sted in Latino theater. That's what we have run INTAR. I think the proble m is that t he peo ple

13poges (15mil) Iefl '" thISchaplet"

who are building these theaters like INTAR and hund red pages you're out of control with the play,
other Lat ino theaters-when they got a lot of so you have to take tha t and bring it back to life,
money they didn't use it to deve lop new work. and figure out how to write the play so that it is
two hours long. It does n't mea n you don't use the
They used it for what? mat erial that you have . You have to put it aside
For Lorca. It should have been balanced. It and say. "How do I limit myself so tha t this story
should have been about Lorca and people in Latin can happen in two hours?" That 's why I to ld you
America and new work. I could n't get myself ar- to throw it away.
rested at INTAR. It took twenty years for t he m to
put on my plays. Audience: Do you thin k that if, as we change as
people, we revisit the sam e material somet hing
Then they took you as artistic director. So you better will come?
ha ve now a lab, right ? No. The material should be left alone. I wouldn't
Yes. I started Irene's lab again . INTAR is now only want to write Broken Eggs again. I think after five
doing plays written by Latinos who live in th e years you should stick with it. I don 't think you
United States. In English. And a little bit in Span - should have a play produced unless it sat in your
ish. We changed our mission. The board actually closet for a year so you can look at it again and re-
changed the mission before I ever came. write it. The key to writing is rewriting. The first
time you write a play it's just a personal gripe. The
Audience: Once I'd written about five hundred second time you write a play you pay attention to
pages of a play, and you sa id to me, "Throw it the characters . The third time you write a play
away and go home tomorrow and sta rt it again. " you're in control. It doesn't mean you changed
Do you think that as we change as humans we everything in the play, it just means you learned
write a better play? Do we take whatever it is that how to control the personal angst you put on the
exists , the story, and are able to write something page.
better with time?
Here's what I think. I t hink if you write five AS: I love t hat the first version of the play is a

11 pages (13mn) left onIto$chop/a<

gripe . all my lines. I unders tand that now.
It really, really is. Because it's always from your
point of view no matter how gifted you are. It's AB: Why did she cu t out all your lines?
the reason why you're writing a play. If you're gift- To have me really question myself. Teaching IS

ed , then the other characters will come to make not just stu dents and the teac her. A lot of stu -
more sense. If you're not gifted, then it's just dents treat you like you're a machine and you're
completely a gripe and you have a lot of hard supposed to immediately have all the answers
work to do. But you always have work to do. that you don't have, so you manufacture answers.
It's also very creative and very fulfilling. But it's
Audience: Could you talk about teach ing a little not an easy ride. It's harder than writing. The
bit? hardest thing about teaching is to keep a
Teaching is the most frustrating thing on earth. perspective-to have your students keep a
I've been thinking a lot about teaching because perspective and to have you keep a perspective.
I'm on sabbatical. I've been teaching for a really Every day I think I'm doing it all wrong.
long time now. I've been doing this since 1990.
You have to be very strict and very giving at the Audience: You once said that plot is your enemy.
same time. It's a really hard balancing act. You How do you balance plot being the enemy and
can't teach people how to be talented. That's still havie str ucture?
impossible. You can teach people how to find When you start writing. plot is your enemy be-
their talent. You can't even teach people how to cause all your scenes are about plot. Once you
write a play. You can guide them so they're not learn how to write, plot's your best friend -
falling off a cliff. But it's frustrating because you because then your scenes don't becom e about
want to help and you want to slap at t he same plot.
time. I tell you it's the most goddamned frus -
trating thing I've ever done in my en tire life. It al- Audience: When you're building t he play in your
so taught me a lot about writing and I'm very head, do you start with the ima ges? And when
grateful t hat it did. But I know why Irene cut out you're laying t he lines over it, do you t hink of

9 pages (Il mill) left IIIth>1 chopTer

gesture and movement? I had this great experience. I worked with Joe
I just listen and look. I do n't th ink when I start Chaikin right before he d ied. They were doing th is
writing the play. I write a play because I have to, improvisation at the Actors Stu dio that som ebody
not because I think I should. I write a play be- was supposed to turn into a play about 9/11. And
cause I thin k I have someth ing that I have to say, th e guy who was supposed to write the play from
that I need to say, that if I do n't say I'm going to th e improvisat ion couldn't write a word. So Joe
d ie. So I start listening to the voice inside of me called me and said, "Please save us." I wrote like
that wants to say this. Then I start listening to th e twenty pages a night, and we had a full-on play
other voice telling me what I want to ask for. with five songs in two weeks. It was just about
Somehow those two voices become characters. I getting into what they were saying: UWhy are thes e
started writing because I was losing my mind. I actors wanting to improv that? What does Joe
had had a nervous breakdown and I'd been in bed Chaikin think he should spend the last thre e
for four months. I went to a therapist and he told months of his life doing?" It's about looking at
me I had to write a letter to my mother to forgive what's going on inside of them and becoming
her. I couldn't write it. I spent three days writing aware of their soul. Then you ca n write it. Was it
this letter and tearing it up and throwing it out. my best play? No. Did it have something to say?
And then one night I wrote that first play that I got Yes. It had something to say about peopl e as a
the NEA grant for. I wrote it in one night. I knew group, not just me. When I'm writing a play I
enough about writing because' was an actor and don't just think it's me writing it. My ancestors
actors know how plays work, but I wrote becaus e are writing it. It's not what they would like to say.
I was losing my mind. I only write what I'm losing It's what they think they can say. That's what the
my mind about. play is abo ut. A play is a very se rious subjec t. It's
not like a screenplay. A screenplay is a series of
AB: It sounds like it's an act of survival. images that then becomes a very serio us su bject
And it's an act of definition at this point. I've s ur- unde rneath the coun te r. But a play is all abou t
vived. At this point it's an act of defining fo r my- language and the strugg le of lang uage and these
self what's in my head. characters

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I think yo u have to live to be a writer. Yo u can't I've changed sce nes. Fo r Modern Ladies, we had a
just be in show business or see your wo rld like reading and Irene came-to the play that she
this. Yo u have to live. I think to write yo u have to scrat ched out. This actress named Diane Venora
like peop le. And hale them. And you have to loo k is there . She's ho lding her kid beca use the kid's
at them . And you have to have so meth ing to say. sick. She sta rts read ing this play and she's just
If you don 't have anything to say and you want to phe nom enal. II's about this wom an who is preg-
be a writer. make a lot of money and write for nant in the seco nd act. At the end of it I had cof-
te levision-because that's just about technique fee with Irene and she goes , "So I suppose you
and not having to say anything. J'm not being know the actor is a hundred times better than
mean..- it's a great profession. You become so your fucking play. That's the only reason it
rich. Then you can give back to the theater. It's a worked." So I became friends with the actress and
big job. Make su re you want it. I studied her all the time and the play beca me
much better. She did n't tell me the lines. But she
Audience: I was interested in what you were say- happe ned to be the right actress because she was
ing about the difference between the playwright a repressed Catholic like all the characters in my
and actor. Where does your understanding of the first four plays. She inhabits thos e first four plays.
character and my understanding of the character, She was never in them, but she did readings of all
as an actor, overlap? of them and she dictated what those cha racters
My unde rstand ing of the character is linear be- were about . She really helped me create these
cause I created it. Your unde rstanding of the characters because I didn't know enough.
character-s-that has nothing to do with lines. It I wrote this play called Stellie Wants to Play the
has to do with behavior and emo tions. You r Blues for Amy Madigan. That play sounds a cer-
understa nding of the character is mu ltifaceted . tain way because I know how Amy Mad igan
sound s so I know how to write for her. It's not
Audience: Have you ever changed lines based on any different tha n using your relatives or so me-
something an actor did on stage ? body you met. It's not just you.
Never. I wo uld never let them have that much .

5 pages (6 mil) left In !II chapt....

AB: There's something you said that I don't want fiction because I d idn't fuck you." In the play the
to let drop because I've been th inking along sim- characters have se x with eac h othe r. She went ,
ilar lines about giving voice to peop le who are "Can we watch Hoirsproy?" That char acter is
dead and didn 't have a way to sa y it. everything th at my aunt has n't said . I know that
Giving voice to what they think they can say. Not because I know my aunt well eno ugh. The char-
what they act ually said. You look into yourself and acter is fun ny because my aunt is so funny. Not
you look into the characters and you go, "What because I'm funny. It's her humor that 's in the
do these characters actually mean?" This is how I play. It's her saying things she's kept to herself
actually work. It's very Stanislavksi. I go: "What I bet if my aunt actua lly saw it she'd have a
do these characters actually mean? What do they good time. She'd want to kill me afterward with a
need? Where is that need in me? What got in my knife, but she'd have a good time. We talked her
way; what got in their way; and what did that per- out of coming . My sisters did. We told her it was
son need that got in their way?" That's how I re- also about homosexuality and that crossed th e
ally start writing a play. It's about being very per- line for her.
sonal and very outside of myself at the same tim e.
Then they start saying things they didn't say. Then Audienc e: What does the rest of your fam ily sa y
somebody has to stop them . Drama is between about your work?
the two lines. It's not the line. The line is super- You don't write plays for your family. They're nev-
fluous. Nobody remembers the line. They only er going to be your audience. My sisters like Kiss-
remember that little area, the seconds in between ing Fidel. You can't write plays for your family be-
the lines. This is really hard to puzz le out. cause that's not the job of a playwright. The job of
My aunt called me because Kissing Fidel is the playwright is to have people having fistfights
abo ut her and she said , "I'm coming to New on stage. You cannot be midd le -class and be a
Yo rk." I said. "What?" She said, "I'm coming to playwright. It doesn't work.
New York. What's the play abo ut? Anti-Fidel or
pro-Fidel?" I said, "Both." She goes, "So what's it AB: What' s middle-class?
about?" I sa id, "You. But you will know th at it's Middle-class is want ing to have a nice family and

3 pages (3 m n) Iefl 'n lhischopter

having your parents to likeyou. Ben Cameron
The actor David Warrilow once handed me this
little piece of paper, and it said, "Being a play- Ben Cameron is an amazing public speaker. He
wright is going up to your best friend, sucking all galvanizes and inspires vast numbers of people
his blood out and spitting it on the page." I really who come into direct contact with his special
think that that's what it is. It's not nice. And the brand of passion, warmth and powers of
person whose blood you really spit out is yours. communication . Ben is also a workhorse. He is
It's not comfortable. It's not fun. Any playwright constantly on the move, all in the service of the
who can sit through their entire play is faking. It health and effectiveness of the American theater.
should be unbearable. Even if it's a comedy. You Most recently he was appointed program director
should have a moment like that about all your for the arts at the Doris Duke Charitable Foun-
plays. "This is crap . I don 't want to listen to it any- dation in New York City. Before that Ben was the
more." And you should walk out. That's being a executive director of Theatre Communications
playwright. I've never seen a whole play of mine Group for eight years. And before that he was ac-
ever. It's too personal and uncomfortable. You tive in corporate philanthropy at the Dayton Hud-
want to vomit and you can't stand the thought of son Foundation and Target. From 1990 through
looking at it for another fucking minute. People 1992 Ben was director of the theater program at
want to tell you, "O h that was nice." And you just the National Endowment for the Arts.
want to say, "Fuck off." That's really what I feel Ben also worked in the proverbial theater
when I'm in the audience of one of my plays. trenches. For three years he was the associate
artistic director at Indiana Repertory Theatre after
a stint as literary manager for PlayMakers Reper-
tory Company in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, as
well as freelance work at Baltimore's CENTER-
STAGE and Yale Repertory Theatre. He is also an
educator. He taught at Yale School of Drama, the
University of North Carolina, Virginia Tech and

1poge (1mn) lefl n Ito$chapte<

Columbia Unive rs ity, Tony Awards No minating Committee.
A Southerner to his bones, Ben grew up in
North Carolina, and he claims that the South is O CT O BER 24, 200 5
part of who he is. But he also claims that New
York is a part of who he is and that gay culture is AS: Ben Cameron is th e person who knows more
part of who he is. Ben belongs to the many cul- about what's happening in theater in this county
tu ral pockets that he inhabits. But he does more than anyone else in the world. He came through
than belong. He takes responsibility for the many working at the NEA for fou r years . He was at the
constituencies. He stands up for art and artists now Target Foundation, which was then called
and boards and cultural organizations, he ha- the Dayton-Hudson Foundation. He taught at Vir-
rangues and cajoles and entreats everyone to do ginia Tech and University of North Carolina-
their best and to be smart and to make progress Chapel Hill. Before t hat he was a director.
in a humane and expressive way. He's been around the block. But I also th ink
After receiving a BA from the University of that he is particu larly su ited to his cu rrent job,
North Carolina, Ben studied dramaturgy at the which is exec utive d irector of Thea tre Communi-
Yale School of Drama and received his MFA in cations Group . What prepared you for thi s? What
1981. Since then, he was awarded an honorary tools do you need as the execut ive director of Tc e
doctorate in Humane letters from Depaul Univer- to actually function ? Where did you figure out how
sity in Chicago and an honorary MFA in Acting to do t hat?
from American Conservatory Theater. BC: That's an interesting question. I don't know.
Ben currently serves as the secretary of th e Next question? I would say it's a good fit in terms
American Arts Alliance and the vice president of of the moment in time for TCG.That's not neces -
the national Arts and Business Council. He serves sar ily the same as saying I'm the ideal lead er for
on the boards of Crantmakers in the Arts and the long-term or even the next ten years. But one
Theatre Development Fund. He has appeared as a thing that pro bably led to a right fit was my expe-
panelist on the Metropol itan Ope ra Quiz each rience as a director. I'm certainly not a great direc-
season since 1996, and he is a member of the tor. The field did not lose a great director when I

44 pages (54 mn) left., th chapter

decided no longer to ply my craft in that area . But had . I learned so much at Target and I tho ught
the way I directed was by listening and byorch es - this could reso nate on the not-for-profit side of
trating. I really valued that kind of depth of lis- the table.
tening. Do you want to get really Freudian about The third th ing is that I was an English major in
these things? college. As an English major you learn to think
analytically. you learn to think in large systems.
Oh , absolutely. and you learn to be curious and loo k ahead. A lot
I think three things have suited me for TCG. My of what I really love about my job at TCG is that a
father was profoundly hard of hearing . He and I lot of what I get to do is ask interesting questions.
were never really able to have a significant conver-
sation with any depth. So I learned to put a pre- Could you tal k a little bit about the inception of
mium on listening at a really early age. A lot of TCG--what it was meant to d o and what it's
what I thought TCG needed at the time I was in- turned into?
vited to join it was listening to conflicting and TCG was called into being in 1961 by a man
sometimes difficult and fractious opinions about named Mac lowry, the head of the Ford Founda -
where our field might want to go. That was what I tion's Arts division at that point . who had th e very
thought I could bring to that moment in TCG's simple premise that if you assembled all of the
history. not-for-profit theaters in the country in one room
The second is the diversity of experience that I at one time. they would know more collectively
had in both the for-profit and the not-for-profit than anyone theater knew individually. So they is-
worlds. What I appreciated when I went to Target sued the invitation. and all twenty-three theaters
was that my fantasy from a not -for-profit side of showed up. I say that quite deliberately because
the table of what corporate life was, was totally it's a reminder about how young our field is. J
misplaced . I had large assumptions abou t how mean . there were literally twenty-three profes-
the corporate world worked. Target was the least siona l not-far-profit theaters.
hierarchical place I have ever worked to this day. A lot of the theaters we take for granted now,
TCG included. It dismantled every perception I like the Guth rie. did not exist yet. American

42 pogoeo (51mil) left IIIthos ct.opte<

Conservatory Theater did not exist yet. Yale Rep peo ple; we do manager training. Fifth and, finally,
as we know it did not exist yet. TCG's initial pur- are o ur artistic programs. We give away about
pose was just to say to a burgeoning industry, "If three and a half or four million do llars every year
you want to be a professiona l not-for-profit the- in grants to individual artists: to di rectors, design-
ater, this is what tha i means. This is how you ers, so und designers, playwrights, etc. In abou t
st ructu re an organiza tion, this is what a board three months we will announce our newest grant
does. this is what you should pay atten tion to." program. which is for actors, completing our indi-
Over time that's changed . We've grown. We cur- vidual artist portfolio in a more comprehensive
rently have forty·two discreet programs. all of way. Additionally. we give money to theaters to ex-
which fit into one of five big "bowls." Bowl num - pand the rehearsal process. to premiere new work
ber one is publication : American Thcatrc maga - and, through the New Generations program,
zine; we're the largest publisher of drama texts sixty-five-thousand-dollar grants over two years
and trade editions; we publish ARTSenrch . the for one of two reasons. Reason number one:
employment bulletin for the field. The second developing a new generation of theater audiences.
bowl is advocacy. With dance . presenting and The other is New Generation: Future leaders-
opera we lobby for federal legislation favorable to sixty-five thousand dollars over two years to men -
the arts. Bowl number three: international. tor a future leader of the field. What I love about
There's a ninety-country network founded by UN- that program in particular is that in addition to
ESCO for the exchange of artists and theater fellowship money, if the leader has outstanding
companies across international lines. Each of the student loans. we'll cancel out fifteen thousand
ninety countries has a designated international dollars of student loans on top of the grant. Peo-
center. We are the center of that network for the ple say. "I'd love to stay in the theater, but I'm
United States. Bowl number four is management coming out with fifty thousand dollars on my
services. We do the on ly fiscal assessment of the back in student-loan debt. You expect me to work
health of the nationa l field; we have a program for for th ree hundred and seventy'five dollars a week
tru stee leaders; we hold what is now an ann ual at a regional theater? I've got to go do soaps ."
natio nal conference for eight hundred or mo re And even tho ugh we can't pull that whole stu dent

40 P<J9"S (49 m n) left n lhis chapter 68'1. ,00<

loan balance away, we try to mitigate it. institutional models, which are great for som e
In addition to expanding what we do, I would t heater s, don't apply to everyone. One t hing t hat
say t hat we've changed in another twofold way. If really stuck with me: Keryl McCo rd at African
you take the Peter Zeisler [executive director of Grove Inst itute said th at the reaso n African-
TCG from 1972 th rough 19951 era where we really Amer ican thea ters are so fragile is because
said, "This is how you think about being a they've patterned themselves on white main-
t heater"- a lot of that early model was like king of stream theaters. and white mainst ream theat ers
t he mountain. There were the amateurs at the bot- depend heavily on individual contributions. She
tom of the pyramid, then the semi-pros. then said, "I give back to my parents and my grand -
summer stocks. then small LORTs (League of parents who took every nickel and dime and quar-
Resident Theatres) . And the idea was, sort of, the ter to get me through school and have nothing to
more money you had, the fewer of you there were. retire on. My children are going to give back to
so therefore the more important you were. What me a little bit and they're going to secu re th eir
nobody expected was that there would be an own future. It's their children who are going to
African-American professional theater commu- give to the arts because giving to the arts is a
nity. Nobody foresaw gay and lesbian theaters or third-generation, middle -class activity and we are
Asian-American theaters or feminist theaters or the first generat ion of African Americans in Amer-
theaters for young audiences as a field. With that ica with our own playhouse. Therefore, the model
diversity, we've reframed the field as an interde- you've posited doesn't apply." That need for di-
pendent ecosystem. You'd better believe the verse models changes fundamentally t he origi-
LO RT theater needs the African-American t heate r nally prescriptive role we were designed to do. So
and the African-American theater needs the gay we're a gathering place now rather than a
and lesbian theater. It loops back. We can't be prescriptive place.
talking at each other vertica lly. If it's an ecosys-
tem. we're going to talk horizontally. That's really I don't want to jump over what actuall y hap pened
cha nged, I thin k. the dynamic of the co nversa tio n. to t hose th eat ers. When you started with-what
The ot her th ing we've recognized is that the was th e number?

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Twenty-three. And now fourtee n hundred. the fifties the Ford Foundation spent millions of
do llars- millions of dollars - starting theater
Going from twenty-three theaters to fourteen hun- companies and operas and ballets all over the
dred . Could you talk a little bit about the chaos country on that premise , that it's going to be
theo ry of explosion. I know it was n't a gradual good for the aud ience. Mac also said. if you do
build. There were explosions . that, artists will have more jobs and a better stan -
There were. I think there was a thing in the envi- dard of living, so it's going to be good for the
ronment and then I think three things happen ed. artist. And you're going to be able to take chanc es
The thing in the environment that we rode the and stretch the art outside of the comm ercial
wave of. even if we didn 't articulate it at the time, spotlight in New York. So it's going to be good
was when Gis came back from World War II there for the art form. It's almost inconceivable how
was an awareness of world culture and a curiosity much they spent. They gave the Guthrie in the
about world culture that had not been present. Guthrie's first five years of existence . I think. mil-
It's hard for us to imagine because we're so lions of dollars. When you factor inflation that's
hooked into the internet and TV and to film that like a foundation giving roughly tens of millions
the idea that we didn't all grow up knowing those of dollars to a startup company in today's math.
images seems impossible to us . And then , the GI Now. the other two things tha t happened: On e
bill said if you were a GI you could go to college. was that Look magazine ran an article that said. if
The whole liberal arts thing exploded. The GI bill you want your city to be a world-class city, you
also said we'll help you buy a house. So there was have to have a resident theater in your midst. The
a perception of affluence and there was a percep- reason a lot of theaters are where they are is that
tion of cultural curiosity. Now, more particularly, the city fathers sat up and said , "If you will come,
three things happened . Mac Lowry, God love him, we will build it."
and the Ford Foundation said, "It's important and The great story about the Guthrie is that Tyrone
critical that no matter where you live in this coun- Guthrie was given a full page in the New York
try you should have access to the work of the Times and said, "I want to start a theate r com pany
professional artist on an ongo ing basis." And in and here's what I want to do with it." And

36 p<>g'" [4.4 min) left nih I chop'"," 68'1. ,00<

multiple cities aro und the country called him and had seeded. You put those th ree things togeth er
said. "Come to us . We'll build you the building and , zoom , the thing goes. Yo u loo k at any of the
and make it happe n." They chose Minneapolis for biggest theaters in the country, with the except ion
two reasons . Minneapolis had the highest per of really two or three, virtually all of them had
capita reade rship of Harper's magazi ne anywhe re been sta rted by 1972 or 1973.
outs ide of New York City. So they knew there was
a lite rate public interested in the kind of work they The thing that's also moving about that story is
had to offer. And the biggest thing, which I think that it's individuals-a Mac lowry who says to
is fantastic. is that they went to all the cities and Ford, "This is where to put your money." Or a Ty-
in ten of the cities the mayor and the city council rone Guthrie who writes in the newspaper. These
were all men in their fifties or early sixties. They are big steps by big courageous people, and I
went to Minneapolis and everybody around the think we need to take courage from that, espe-
table was thirty to thirty· five . And they said if we cially in a time when we have basically nothing to
go anywhere else those men will write a check lose.
and be gone. If we come to Minneapolis, we've I agree. There are two things I'd add to that. On e
got them with us for the next thirty years. is that Mac as a grant -maker responded to vision.
Finally Kennedy and Jackie, when they were in Mac invested in the Arena because he had Zelda
the White House , made a home for arts and cul- (Fichandler) in the room and he said , "I believe in
ture to an unprecedented degree. When Kennedy what you're trying to do. I don 't need fifty pages
d ied there was all sorts of sentiment that led to of documentation . I believe in you and here's a
legislation. and one of those pieces that was big check." The other thing I love about the
passed was the creation of the National Endow- Guthrie is that they had a volunteer network of
ment for the Arts in 1965. When that happened wome n who sold twenty-one thousand subs crip-
state arts counci ls were started in every state that tions to the first season before the first actor had
d idn't have them . l ocal arts age ncies were started ever set foot o n the stage. So they opened to
in so many m unicipalities. The government kick- twenty-one tho usand subscribers because a
started or really th rew into hyper-drive what Ford commun ity came around and said, "We share

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that vision and we'll work to make it happen." quest ion?
Some of the work I do now with theate rs in trou- Yeah, we could talk for abo ut twenty hours o n
ble is say, "Look, every theater starte d with a this. But I love this idea of the cells. Did you read
dream, but it only happened when people rallied the New Yorker article about Rick Warren about a
around their dream and sacr ificed a lot of hard month ago? Rick Warren is this guy who is a pas-
work and a lot of money." tor in a church in Southern California. He's writ-
ten a book called The Purpose-Drillen Life. This sto-
There are problems that go with inheriting those ry is about how he started his church. He didn't
institutions . I remember being in a room with have a congregation so he had gone and knocked
Gordon Davidson, who was then the artistic direc- on every door and said, "Hello. Do you go to
tor of the Taper, and I think Bob Falls was there. church? Why don't you go to church? Okay,thank
There were some big, major artistic directors of you very much ." And he just took notes. And he
these big, huge institutions. I think it was Cordon started a church based on why everybody told
who started by saying, "I think the only thing to do him they didn't go. And right now they are train-
is blow 'em up." What? " It' s not working." Going ing little group leaders because the congregation
back to that top-down thing. These other major doesn't come just because they believe in God.
artistic directors were saying, it's just not working. They come because they're part of a group of ten
This hierarchical system we have doesn't work. people and they have book dub together and
And so I said, "Well, what should it be?" I can't volunteer together, etc. It's a culmination of their
remember who said it, but someone said, "Cells." social infrastructure. I'm interested in the cell
I said, "What do you mean? " "Like groups of pe0- idea.
ple coming in and taking over parts of the the- In terms of the resident theater, there are a cou-
ater." Like communist cells, I wonder if we could ple of things I'd say-and this is my own per-
go into this area, these huge institutions. Now you sonal bias. I think of "institution" as less about
have the Guthr ie building this huge new building. size than about history. It seems to me that when
What about them? Do you see them in trouble? an organiza tion comes together around a partic-
Do you see them flourishing? Is that too genera l a ular artistic energy, there's a vibrancy and

31 pages (39 mil) ell '" thil Chapter 68'1. ,00<

responsiveness. At a given moment, that person t he biggest institutions have now t rus ted lead-
says, "I'm done." Or that group of peopl e says, ership to scrappy, far-left individu als who sta rted
"We're old and stopping." At that moment, do we small ensem ble theater companies years ago . Are-
stop and say, "Weren't we all luckyto be t here for na Stage is now run by Molly Smith, who sta rted
t hat, but we're done"-which is a great option? Perse ve rance Theat re in Alaska to be a fem inist
Or do we say, "No, we've got to keep going"? The alternative to the movement in tha t landscape.
second we say, "No, we've got to keep going," And the Public Theater here is now run by Oska r
t hen we start to answer questions for different Eustis who started the Eureka Theatre in San
reasons-now it's not because we are continuing Francisco. I mean , Oskar still ca lls you comrade.
to support that artist; it's because we have a staff So, while we worry that institutions are going to
we have to keep employed, or we have a building, the middle-I think this is an interesting moment
or we have an audience, Suddenly the rationale about whom we are going to trust them to.
that keeps us going shifts . In my mind, the sec- I think any organization worth its salt wants a
ond you say. "No. we're not going to stop, we're new building because of what it will afford the
going to keep going," that's the moment you be- artist. I don't think any organization worth its salt
come an institution . And so, for me. there are a wants a new building because it's going to seat
lot of very small groups out there that I would call more people. When you talk to Joe Dowling at the
institutions, and a lot of big groups that are only Guthrie, he says, "I want a new space because I
now having to confront what true institution - have a thirteen-hundred-seat house and that's all
alization is going to mean. For example. David I've got. I want to develop new work and you can't
Emmes and Martin Benson, who started South put a new play straight out of the gate in a
Coast Rep together in 1963, are still there. They thirteen-hundred-seat house. I want an intima te
don't know what that's going to mean to how that space where I can do that." That's what's driving
place th inks when those guys say, "The end." that sucker up the hill. All the other things come
Part of what's exciting to me right now abou t with it that are going to please a lot of people, but
inst itutional leade rship, which does n't feel to me a lot of th at is an artis t saying. "For this work to
incidental to some of these worries, is tha t two of come alive, I need a different spa ce."

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Or, in Molly's case, the Arena has predica ted a were positioned to run the space could afford to
massive reconfiguration of t hat building based on perform there. The re's a lot of that--out of very
what it's going to offer as the even t-ness of the good intentions. Those city fathers som etim es
theater. Arena is three different spaces each of love the arts, they love what the arts can bring.
which has its own entrance. It was built in t he But it's not coming from an artistic place, neces -
fifties. As Molly says, part of the excitement when sa rily. And that then invites all sorts of miscon -
you go to the theater-when you go to the struing around what the space can be.
Public--no matter which space you're going to,
we're all in the same lobby. You feel the buzz. The I selfishly want to talk about audiences because
heart of her renovation is a common lobby be- I'm a little obsessed with them right now. I find
cause if we're going to be a social form, we need the kinds of audiences going to the Ar~na, for
the space where we can take advantage of that so - example, very fTustrating as an artist because they
cial dynamic. are so old. I don't mean in y~ars . I mean old in
Now, there are a lot of empty, badly conceived spiriL There's a tiredness. I know that's some-
spaces I think going up right now for a lot of oth- thing Molly is struggling with. I find that audi-
er reasons where people haven't even conceived ences at arts centers are very different than audio
of the programming. I see it in the creation of ences in regional theaters. I find people who go to
community arts centers or civic arts centers, international festivals, or festivals in general, djf
where civic leaders come together and say, "Let's ferent . I find myself frustrated with regional the-
just build a big complex , and then we'll bring in ater audiences and I want change. The New
all this stuff"-without engaging artis ts in the Generations Grant is something that is fantas-
conversation. We saw this confusion in Yerba tically trying to do that, but what else? Do you
Buena (Center for the Arts) in San Francisco a few have any words ofwisdom?
years ago. This was going to be a great gathering You know, it's the single biggest thing tha t I think
space for all these small, poor companies to per- wo rries me and us more than anything else. I had
form in. The n they put the whole facility under an epi pha ny at Barnes and Noble . I came tearin g
unio n contract, so none of the compa nies who arou nd t his corner, and I almost tripped over this

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kid who was sitting on the floor with his back up meaningful. who still value those things- they
against a bookshelf reading. And part of what would be o ut the door so fast you sho uld sta nd
st ruck me in that moment-after apologizing for back because the suction would drag you down
spilling his coffee almost-was that when I was the highway. There's a real generational gap in
growing up, if you wanted to read in public, you what we expect a meaningful social experience to
went to the library. And the library was about big, be. I don't know how we reconcile those things
leather armchairs . It was about total quiet. You very easily.
washed your hands . You were not allowed to carry The two biggest predictors if you will go to the
food or beverage in. Often the book you wanted theater are your income level and your level of
was kept away from you and the library would education. If you've got a post-graduate degree
have to bring it. It was a sort of sacred space. and you're at least middle-class, boy are you low-
Churchlike. almost. Now, for a lot of people, if hanging fruit for us. And if you didn't get out of
you want to read in public, you go to the Barnes high school and you're in a lower economic class,
and Noble. You sit in the cafe. You sit on the we've got to struggle to get you in the door. I
floor. The big leather armchairs are gone. Not on - used to think that was about how, in the theater,
ly is it not quiet, there's big, loud music over the we love ideas and the higher up you get in the
speakers. You carry your coffee with you, you system, the more open you are to the discussion
don't have to wash your hands, you get the book to ideas. Then I started thinking , self-critically, if
yourself. And I thought, Okay, is this the answer that's what we do, what happens when you go to
for regional theaters ? We pipe the music in, we most theaters ? You walk in an area. It's somewhat
tell people to bring their coffee in, and we tell quiet. There are often muted colors, often car-
them to sit on the floor or whatever those adjust- peted. If there's music it tends to be quiet. It's a
ments may be? But 1 guarantee you if you said, place to sort of mute your energy. We hand you
"Let's revive the libraries. let's bring loud music something, we say, "Here, read this. Go sit in that
in, allow people to bring coffee." the people who chair. No, you're not allowed to sit there. You
gave thei r lives building those libraries, the peo- have to sit right the re. You're not allowed to ta lk
ple for whom those libraries are deeply to those acto rs. We'll tell you when you can go to

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the bathroom. If you get there late or try to go to make a strategic choice: Do I like the people who
the bathroom we're not going to let you back in. are coming? I just want more of the sam e kinds of
And at the end of the thing we're going to stan d people. Or, do I like the people who are coming, I
somebody up in front of you and tell you why you just want them to come more and deepen their
were too stupid to appreciate what you just saw." investment with us? Or, no matter what I think of
I'm being hyperbolic. But on an odd level, we've the people that I've got, who I like, presumably, I
re-created 1950s school. Maybe we with the want to att ract people who are different. Each one
education degrees go because we flourished in of those decisions is confronted by different
the education system and we feel absolutely at obstacles and different issues. And around issues
home there. But for people who didn't come of age and race especially, we have said we want
through that educational system there's not that people who are different than the ones who come.
connection, and it's a deadly thing rather than a But we have used cosmetic solutions that don't
vibrant thing. really address the core problems that keep other
I think part of this requires examining our own people away.
rhetoric about ourselves . We all say in the busi-
ness, "No two performances are alike." I think Where is that happening? Where do you get a
that's sort of technical for those of us who are in sense that theater is not like the 19505 envi-
the business, and I think that's highly suspect if ronment, but there's a sense of fluidity and
you're not used to coming. But if no two perfor- change?
mances are alike, how come every time I come in I think a lot of smaller, young companies, as they
the lobby it's the same lighting? Are we reallyseri- form, begin to address that different dynamic as
ous about that? let's pay the set designer another part of who they are. That often manifests itself in
two hundred and fifty dollars and extend the set the work. I see a lot of work where I'm really en-
into the lobby. I mean, if we're promising that, gaged by the way the audience is engaged by this
how do we promise that? work-because I'm 100 old to quite get the work
When you talk about aud iences, really you're itself.
talking about one of three things. You've got to There's a lot of those groups , also, who are

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being aggressive about how they think about Mo nday." And assuming there's still a Monda y
orga nization. A group called Sledgehamm er The- seat, you get to come back on Monday fo r free.
atre in San Diego was seeing a decline in their Everyo ne knows that a full house plays bette r than
subscri ption audience. They loo ked around at an empty house. If they have an empty seat, it's
some of their colleagues. Orchest ra subscriptions being filled by somebody, and it's being filled by
are holding and opera subscriptions are holding. somebody who likes the show. So the qua lity of
What's that about? Maybe part of that answer is, performance ratchets up. They're coming back for
if you're an opera fan, in certain cities, and Renee free, but ninety-nine times out of a hund red
Fleming is going to come to town to sing La they've picked up the phone and they've called
Traviata, she's probably going to sing two or somebody. They're doing a ta rgeted audienc e
three performances and if you don't subscribe, development, reaching people whose names and
you don't see Renee Fleming. And if you're an addresses we don't even know how to get. It's
opera fan, you're going to see Renee Fleming. Or about really tossing out the assumptions and say-
if Martha Argerich is going to play Tchaikovsky ing, "What are the liabilities that we have and how
once, you don't subscribe to the orchestra, you do we make them a strength?"
don't see Martha Argerich. What does that mean
for theater? We play forty performances. We don't The few times I've been to HERE Arts Center-c-it's
play one hundred percent. Why would you sub- such a happening place. You go in and there's
scribe? If the number of performances is a lia- three theaters there and you never know who's go-
bility, how do you make that your asset? So they ing into which the ater and you feel actua lly at
said, "Let's not have subscribers anymore. Let's home ther e. I think that Molly Smith is really right
have repeat offenders." And what that means is that you need a space where people hang to-
that you pay actually a higher premium and you gether.
can sign up to see any show as many times as You know, on one level we think about rein-
you want. So if you go 10 Streetcar on Friday and venting the work. O n the other level we think
you love it, you can stop by the box office on the about reinventing the totality of the experience.
way out and say, "I love that. I'm coming back on I've heard you talk about this-about what it

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means to an audience to let them witness the re- Part of what I've been having my own bugaboo
hearsal process. It's a real question o n the table-- about-you say, "Now we're going to have audi-
are we willing to open the halls? What would that ence participation, we're going to pull somebody
mea n? You 've had great success with that. Streb's from the aud ience." And I think, Oh. dear God,
had great success with that. Miami Ballet had please don' t choose me. No matter what I do,
huge success when they put their rehearsal studio you're going to spend all of your ene rgy trying to
on the pedestrian mall. People would watch dur- get me to do what you've predetermined I shou ld
ing lunch. Now that they've moved their facility, do, rather than respo nding to what I actually do.
thei r numbers have gone down. People love to be And in a lot of subtle ways, we have trained ou r
part of the process in a different way. People are audiences that way. Now we're reaping the re-
hungry for social experience. wards of it. One of the few really good tatkback
sessions I ever really saw-and I was a dra-
I asked Chuck Mee [the playwright) about th is. maturg, so I say this with all due respect to my
He's recently spent a lot of time going to Euro- fellow dramaturgs-was for How I Learned to
pean fest ivals. Chuck said he thought it was be- Drive in San Diego. The night of the talkback the
cause in this country we've gott en to a place staff and the actors sat down on the front lip of
where we think in terms of ownersh ip. The audi- the stage, and basically said , uWe're here if you
ence thinks they own what they bought with their need us. Go." And that was about the last word
money. There is a kind of fundam entalist intol- they said. That audience went at each other for
erance, which he didn 't find in the theater festi- about an hour. They got about to the exact real-
vals he was going to. He sa id he'd felt like what ization the dramaturg would have explained in the
those European artists and theaters were saying first three minutes , but they got there in a way in
was, "You are participating in our proces s." As an which they felt heard . They felt recognized, they
American I feel I'm making a product: Here it is. I made the journey of discovery themselves. If you
hope you like it. That attitude, in a se nse, perpet- go back to the root of educa tio n, it was a leading
uate s the problem. It's a completely different atti- out, rather than a cramming in. But that was
tude toward making and present ing work. about genuinely being willi ng to s urrender to

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what the aud ience want ed to tell t hem or not, down. Boy, wasn't that lovely. Good night." But
rather than predetermining what t he audience's t here is a t heater now doing a six o'clock cu rtain
app ropriate role sho uld be. And we haven' t done with th e pre-fix es at eight-thirty and when yo u ar-
that as a field. rive at the tab le th ere's a jar of qu esti ons. The play
is becomin g a springboa rd for t he social en-
That makes me think of Grotowski and the termi- counter rather than the terminus point. Now.
nology "active culture." We live in the most pas- maybe nobody will succeed in t his. But it's at
sive culture in the history of humankind, I th ink, least an inte rest ing quest ion about how do we
in the sense of being fed and expected to accept act ivate rat her t han dead en.
that regurgitated knowledge . I think we have
developed an inferiority complex about partic- More Statefy Mansions is the longest O'Neill play
ipation . It goes back to your intentions as an insti- that nobody ever does except for Iva van Have at
tution or as an artist: Is it to deliver, or is it to acti- New York Theatre Workshop . It was a lesson to
vate culture? It's a completely d ifferent process. me as a director. These three actors come out.
On e of the few places we've seen large socia l Joan Macintosh was in the middle . They kind of
growth is in book dubs . When you buy a lot of bow to each other. Two of them sit on folding
novels now it's not critical notes in the back but chairs on the side of the stage. Joan Macintosh
ques tions for discussion. Have you noticed that inhales-and then starts to speak, at top speed,
in books? Nobody's giving them the answer. I O'Neill 's first twelve pages of monologue. I have
think there's something really fantas tic there. A never seen anybody ever speak that fast . And then
lot of the theaters in the country have a pre-fixe you start to hear flip, flip , flip, flip . The seats are
deal where you go to a restaurant aro und six and flipping. People are leaving in droves in the first
t hey give you a piece of beef and a glass of red ten minutes. I would say, I don't know, forty per-
wine and you go to the thea ter at eight where you cent of the audience left. And the rest of us, for
str uggle to stay awake with the beef and red wine. five hours, were completely transfixed. What I
And at ten -thirty, you look at that other co uple learned from that is, again , the American
yo u came with and you say, "Okay. curtain's proclivity-Iva van Have is Dutch--to say to

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everybody at the beginning, "lt's going to be okay. emo tional tone, you know if it's go ing to be com -
After a while you'll sort of have to kick in and ic or tragic, you know if it's going to be violent,
participate ." But he said, - Nc l Right ncwl" I don't you know if you want your kids to come, etc. You
have the arrogance to do that as a director. But see "More Stately Mansions at New York Theatre
what a lesson , you know? Workshop," in print, you know nothin g about
I'm really interested in buildings in terms of how what that is. We know we can stream video on
they subliminallyaffect o ur respon se to the work. websites. We're going to have the ability to do
My favorite building for theater in New York is by that. So that might be a good thing. In som e way
far the Harvey at BAM . Because of the lack offin - it's abou t expectation .
ish in the building, the way the walls are sort of The piece about walkouts that worries me right
san dblasted out, the building signals to you the now is what I worry about as a nation--our inabil-
minute you walk in the doo r something unex- ity to listen to anybody's ideas that don't conform
pected and unfinished and exciting is going to to what we believe. Al the Alliance Theatre appa r-
happen. I don't respond the same way when I go ently, they did a Pete Gurney [a.k.a. A. R. Gurney)
to the Opera House because of the polished mar- play-and Pete's a great playwright in his style,
ble, the chandeliers-c-it's telling me a different but not exactly what you'd call a social provo-
thing about the finished level of the work. cateur. There's a character who says , in effect, "If
When you read audience focus groups , and I've I had time with W I'd tell him to play nice with
read a lot of them , the re are two things at the the- others and sha re his toys." And peop le d id not
ater that upset people time and time again. One is wait for intermission . They climbed over each
language--when people say ' fuck." The oth er othe r to get out of there--loud ly. They were so
thing is "betrayal"-a nd the focus groups didn't angry they wouldn't sit throug h a play where
use that word-because the show wasn't what so mebody had insulted the president. That's
they were expecting. I wonder how we're, in a symptoma tic of a larger collapse in the frame of
positive kind of way, going to counter that. When social d iscou rse that if we don't solve, we are
you leave from a fifteen-seco nd movie trailer you down the tubes as a country, I think.
know so much about style, abo ut period, about

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Audience: I want to go back to what you said plays. But we're neve r going to p ut the basketball
about cult ural curiosity com ing out of the fifties in your hands ," who would ca re about s ports? We
and sixties. Certain people see m to go to the the- love spo rts because we had to do what Michael
ate r becau se t hey wa nt to see so met hing the y Jordan does and therefore we get how hard it is.
recogn ize, th at' s familiar. Oth er people-I'm not So mu ch of o ur arts ed ucat ion was, "Watch.
s ure it's generational-want to see so met hing Don 't touch." I'm hopeful, now that arts edu ca-
new. tion is putt ing kids in the positio n of being cre-
We recently had a meeting in Portland. In our ators as well as observers , that tha t may reverse
meetings we tend to engage somebody we call the the dynamic a little bit.
fly on the wall, which is somebody who observes I t hink the re's a group of people from about the
th e meeting who is not from our field, who then ages of twenty-eight to forty th at may behave
reflects on that meeting. This person said, "It's re- differently than people older or younge r. When
ally interesting that all of you in the theater"-this the internet first exploded and when Sesame
was a mee ting of theaters and presenters-"are Street first exploded there was such a pendulum
really taken with this idea of how hard it is to sell swing . Kathleen Hall Jamieson calls it the "visual
new work. From where I sit in ad vertising, new is associative framework of perception" as opposed
the asset. That's the single biggest th ing you have to the linear narrative . I grew up on linear narra -
working for you. Every single consumer wants it." tive, but suddenly there was this visual asso-
We reap rewards in retrospect of what we have ciative. On Stsame Stru t, lette r A, number ten .
done badly. I think we train a lot of theater audi- Afghanistan, as opposed to an hour of history. an
ences badly. through schoo l programs and well- hour of math, an hour of science. What we're see-
mea ning education programs , to be passiv e ob- ing now is a mo re moderate place where peop le
servers . We've inculcated a whole generation of are both . Sma ll kids now are linear narrative and
passivity to the thea ter experie nce. I always con - visual associative. After Sesame Strut, t he next
t rast that with sports. If gym class had been. generatio n of TV shows was not hyper-Sesame
"We're going to watch Michael Jordan play on t he St reet , but Blue's Clues, which is a do g tha t solves
videotape. We're going to draw diag rams of t he mysteries for the linear narrat ive th inking. There's

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a res po nsiveness to linear narrat ive, but I think religious co mmunity of twenty to thirty-five where
we lost a group. The people that made those the- peo ple in many cases just disappe ar. But they
aters received information differently than the come back. A lot of people as k, co uld that be the
people between the ages of abo ut twenty-five and same in the theater. Should we be worried about
forty. gett ing the pre-eigh teen year a ids and the forty-
There is some question about the degree to five year a ids and let the thirty year a ids go?
which we should be concerned about the twenty
to forty year olds not coming to the theat er. The AB: I think you're right. I think we have hit the end
ques tion's being raised for two reasons. When of a pendulum. I think it's the end of postmod-
you look at national demographics, the general ern ism. It's the end of deconstruction. We've
populat io n is skewing old. With life expectancy, deconstructed to the point where nothing needs
the real people we need to engage in the theater to be anymore. And the as sociative visua l is
are the forty-five year olds because that's where unsatisfying spiritually, I think there's a redis-
the demographic growth is going to be. covery of story. I find that we're at a birth of that
The other question somebody raised tha t was place. I th ink it behooves us to name th is new
really interesting is what if going to theater was place because in the naming of it we create it.
like going to church. What we tend to know about
religious attendance is, for many people, you go Audience: As a young artist, I wonder how I will
until you're eighteen because your parents too k pay for my rent when I haven 't been working for a
you or made you go. You go to college. Sunday corporation that's mat ched my 401(k) and I
mornings are about brunch, racketba!l. recovering haven 't retired with full benefits. Where do you
from Saturday night or whatever. You stop going. see the artist community respond ing to that? How
Around the time you are thirty·five or forty, if you do you see that shifting in this generation where
were raised going, you start looking for deeper art seems to be thrown away even more than it ev-
meaning in your life, you have children of yo ur er has before?
own, they need to go. You sta rt going back when What's just really interes ting to me is that I d idn 't
you are thirty-five, but there's a big hole in the even think about retirement unt il I was probably

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forty-five. It's inte resting to me that you're cog - physical exhaust ion is so met hing we all have to
nizant of that arc. I didn 't even own a bed until I be protective against, but burno ut is som eth ing
was thirty-six or t hirty-seven. Wherever I moved to else . Burno ut for me is not abo ut t he hours on
town, I'd just go to the foam -rubber store and just the clock-beca use if you spe nd e ighteen hours a
buy a big piece of foam rubber, and when I day doing so met hing tha t feed s your so ul, you
moved. I'd throw it away. say. "Keep it coming, keep it coming." Burnout is
I think the real work for me has bee n les s really when you discon nect from you co re values.
about-and this is a personal thing-being able If we're not clear about what those t hings are,
to move through the morass about what is going how can you pos sib ly recon nect with a life t hat
to constitute my life having been worth living and would be fulfilling? That's sort of a circuitous way
t he life I was meant to live. Put in another way, to say. basically, I th ink what we've got to be really
what will you do even if you are punished for do - clea r on as a nation , which we're not, is ou r core
ing it? If you're clear about what those things are, values. That starts with us being clea r individua lly
your life's journey sort of reveals itself to you in a and going out and fighting for them tooth and
way. What I really try to convey to people is: nail. I think one of the ways to galvaniz e commu-
"Does that give your life the substance tha t's go- nities around that is through art. Art has a power
ing to give you the other things and benefits in a to achieve that end , which we have not begun to
way that's appropriate a nd proportional to what's ta p.
really important?" Power and material things are
great. They are fanta stic. If you want th em , abso- Audience: I am a latina, who happens to be black,
lutely go into politics . Go to Ho llywood . Don't too. When I thin k of my fam ily, the y are people
work in the small , resident theater, becau se thos e who came to t his country and a lot of them work
t hings aren 't offered to you there. If tho se th ings very hard and do very well. They don 't go to the
are impo rtant to you, you'll find a way to pu rsue th eater. I go to the theater and th ere's no one who
t hem. And if they're not importa nt to you . you're looks like me. There 's no one who looks like me
allowed to make other choices. on stage. The product ion s tha t cater to a young,
I really believe in the bottom of my hea rt tha t urban aud ience, if you want to call it that, tend to

10 pages (12mo)lefI '0 Th schopTer

be really dumbed down. Why can't we find some ten most frequent ly produced plays in the not-for-
middle ground ? I'm frustrated by that. profit American theater. And this year, six of the
I do think that every theater experience, or every top seven plays were written by women. Choices
mea ningful connection, starts with seeing your- one and two were written by wome n of color:
self on stage on some level---or seeing yourself in Crowns by Regina Taylor and Intim ate Apparel by
the story. I think we've wrongly assumed about Lynn Nottage.
changi ng the audience that people aren' t coming If you want to see a young audie nce, go to Uni-
because it's too expensive or they don't know verses in the Bronx. If you're twenty-eight you'll
about it. so if we just eliminate those two logis- probably be the oldest person in the room-and
tical barriers they'll come. If we're serious about what's going to happen in that space is kaboom.
transforming organizations, it's not about mar- The fact that you don't see young people in old
keting events ot groups, it's about making theater organizations doesn't mean you don't see
relatio nships with groups . That's a very different a lot of young people in theater. You just don 't
dynamic than we've historically employed. see them in that theater . You may see them in
The only qualifier I have about this is-I as- other theaters.
sume that what you're saying is that most large, One of the things I was really taken with was
mainstream theaters have that dynamic. There are Indiana Rep-a big theater-beating their head
a lot of very vibrant Latino, Chicano theaters out against the wall about not being able to break
there that are doing work where absolutely people through to the African·American audience in Ind i-
are going to recognize themselves and see them - anapolis. They were making all sorts of pejorative
selves. Part of what I love about this fiel d is tha t I assumptions abo ut why that was. One of the peo-
am able to say I can't imagine an American who ple from the town said, "You're all white peop le
can't see the mselves o n stage. You may not be who haven't been here lo ng enough to know this.
able to see it in your dty. You may not be able to That building was built in the 1920 S and until
see it in this thea ter. But as a field, boy,there's so about the 1960 s it had a colored-only entra nce.
mu ch great work. O ne of the th ings I found really We're not going in that building." They d idn't
interest ing this year is-we do a survey about the know. You can't have a conversation or a

8 pages (10 mn) left on Ito$chopra<

relationship if you don't know what's keeping thei r arms folded. I want a theater where people
people out. Yo u can make the assumption that sit forward." It's about being engaged. I t hink a lot
it's t he wrong play, but that may not be the issu e of people feel deadened and not engaged. I don't
at all. That's a transformation of how we t hink necessarily want to work. But I also don't want -
about that. this is me-to be where my imagination is not en -
E'Vonne Coleman , an African-American woman gaged and all my work's done for me. I can get
who was at the NEA when I was, in expansion that on TV. So the idea about how is my curiosity,
arts, moved to head the Durham Arts Council how is my imagination, engaged. is a very vibrant
and, in Durham, North Carolina , she basically piece of it for me, whether it's engaged intellec -
formed a breakfast group of ministers. She spent tually or engaged visually. If what you mean is,
about a year with them having breakfast with "I've got to engage with," if you're equating that
them and saying , "What do we want for the with work. then I disagree with you. But I get the
community? What do we dream for this commu - point about work. even though 1 think there are
nity?" A year or so later when she decided to bring some people who are hungry for it.
Tim Miller in. who was one of the NEA Four, very
controversial at the time. the ministers rallied to AB: The theater, from my experience, is a gym for
her defense because they were part of the same the soul. And I think when you get off work and
vision for the community. you go to the gym for your body, you actually feel
better. You generate more energy. To say, "Come
Audience: We want to feel that safety when we go here . You actually have to change your clothes.
to the theater. We want to be guided through and You're going to have to shower afterward"---that
not be forced to feel, and that's what theater is. invigoration is actually contagious.
When you go, when you're reatly at the theater Maybe that's the asset that we've been trying to
and the audience is active, you're forced to work. deny that we should sell. Nike is about how hard
Anne gave me what is still one of my favorite im- the work's going to be. It's not going to be easy.
ages, which I think about all the time. You said All those "Just Do It" commercials-it's peopl e
that, "I don't want a theater whe re people sit with pouring in sweat. Maybe what we should be

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saying to people is, "Hey, are you ready fo r the thirty-three cents to thirty-seven dollars-and that
theate r? Are you ready for this? Step up to the- thirty-seven dollars is largely about keeping the
ater." Maybe we sho uld be the Nikes of the spirit. tickets affordable so that everybody can go.
Pat Craney, a choreographer from Seattle, once
Audience: I have to talk about ticket price. We just said that part of the battle we all have to fight
spent a couple of months traveling through the around the subsidy issue is we're a Puritan nation
former Yugoslavia. The packaging is very much and we ultimately believe that if what you're doing
the same. Theaters look the same, the doesn't cause you intense pain and suffering, it's
advertising-but the ticket prices are unbelievably not worth giving money to. Everybody looks at
affordable. You can see any show in any country arts and says, "They're having such a good time.
for the same that you'll pay for one or two beers in Why should we give them money?" There's a de-
a local bar. Yes, I can use my expired student ID gree of truth in that. It's compounded by, in cer-
and get a discounted ticket, or get a discount tick- tain countries like England, geography. Maggie
et through my church group , but the message I'm Smith can walk out on stage and get paid a buck
getting is, "You can't afford a real tickeL" I just ninety-five, and you keep your ticket prices low,
think in this country, if ticket prices keep going because London is the theater capital and the film
like they are, we can forget about ever breaking capital of Britain. So at night, when she 's on
that income barrier. stage, she's been shooting movies that afternoon.
This goes back to that political question. There There's a permeability of the sectors that finan-
are two reasons thai difference exists. One is that cially reinforce each other. In our country you
their government subsidy dwarfs what we do. work anywhere other than in L.A., which is not a
When I was at the NEA-and these are old theater town, you don't have that option. That af-
numbers-we paid sixty-three cents per tax payer fects ticket prices.
for the arts in this country. That was when the In our research we're seeing that right now tick-
budget was twice what it is. Now we pay thirty- et prices are tending to segrega te. People are re-
three cents. In France, they are paying thirty-seven ally bumping up the to p end, while trying to keep
dollars per tax payer. There's the difference, from the low end as low as they can. What they're

4 page! (5 mfn)lef! nThschoplet

finding is that people who can afford the to p, Gordo n because it's like having conversatio ns
don't mind if you say, "You paid fifty dollars last with your grandp arents. Gordo n and I can have a
year, you pay seventy dollars this year." That al- conversatio n that Gordo n can't have with the per-
lows us to keep the bottom end at fifteen dollars so n who follows him," It's eas ier for us to be
or whatever. honest with our grandparents than it is with our
The other thing that's interest ing in ou r re- parents-c-or maybe you have more functional
search is that typically it's the perception of price families than I do and that's not true. The reason
more than the reality of price that tends to act as a that we all want to talk to Gordon and Zelda right
barrier. Most people, when you ask, "How much now is that they made a path where the re wasn' t a
does a ticket cost?" They'll say seventy-five dol- path. Instinctively I think artists know, "I'm going
lars. because Broadway is now one hundred dol- into a moment where there's not a path out there
lars a seat. And when you say, "Actually, the top for me."
price here is thirty-seven dollars and fifty cents I'm really excited by the number of unsolicited
and you can get in any night, as tong as you're manuscripts a typical dramaturg gets. It's through
willing to sit toward the back, for as little as the ceiling-eight hundred fifty, nine hundred
twelve dollars or fifteen dollars ," people are as- manuscripts a year. That's a lot of writers.
tounded. I agree with you about the perception. Somebody said we graduate four hundred thou -
sand MFAs in this country every year-in all arts
Audience: Where do you feet the kind of vitality is disciplines, not just theater. As much as we deni-
that could take us to a new place? grate ourselves, we've convinced enough people
I feel it in a couple places . I'm really interested in that this is a life worth investing in. What's more
young artists who are coming up the ranks right exciting to me is if we lose three hundred ninety
now. Peter DuBois, who is now at the Public The- thousand a year-that means people running the
ater, who followed Molly Smith at Perseverance, political system, people running the school
is part of a younger gene ration. He wanted money systems-they'll be peop le trained in the arts, and
to travel arou nd and interview Gordon and Zelda boy is that an exciting notion for this cou ntry.
and those peop le, He says, "I want to ta lk to

2 poges{2 mn) left., thISchoptet

Tina Landau Advanced Training at Harvard. I quickly learned
where to find her after the ope n ing night curta in
The muscu larity, intelligence and theatric ality of a call of any play she d irected: hiding und er a wood
Tina Land au prod uction are unde niable trade- saw in the sce ne sho p.
marks. I, like many others, am drawn to her work In those early days Tina claimed that she hoped
becaus e it is always full of life, ideas and a cert ain to reinvent the American musical. And to a large
irrepressible joy. And yet she is so seldom satis- extent she has done exactly tha t. Her ongoing
fied. She tort ures herself with doubt while audi- works with composers Adam Guettel and Ricky
ences gush and rave. She reads the critics' re- Ian Gordo n have born rich fruit: Floyd Collins,
views of her own shows searching for clues and Dream True, Stott's of Independence (all of which
useful analysis. She is a glorious and uncompro- she also co-authored) and Safurn Returns . She
mising theater artist. brought a bright new perspective to th e classic
Tina grew up in New York City and Beverly Bells Are Ringing on Broadway and is currently
Hills, the daughter of film producers Ely and Ed ie working with composer Regina Spektor on th eir
Landau. She likes to joke that the pinnacle of her new Broadway musical, Beauty. She writes plays
career transpired in high school when a profes - too: Beauty (on which the musical is based),
sional producer picked up a play that she wrote Space. 1969, Theotrical Essays and Stonewall. She
(composed and directed at Beverly Hills High adapted Daphne Du-Maurler's Rebeua, Dickens 's
School), then transferred it intact to a commercial A Christmas Carol and the epic Gilgame sh. She
venue in Los Angeles. In fact, Tina went on to stages classics, Shakespeare, Chekhov and th e
undergraduate studies at Yale where her prod uc- Gree ks. She works with contemporary playwrights
tions are still legendary. It seems that the grad - who adore her--eharles L. Mee. Jr., Tracy Letts,
uate students at the Yale School of Drama pre- Tarell Alvin McCraney, Jose Rivera. Tina is an
ferred to work under her direct ion than with their ensem ble compa ny mem ber of Steppenwolf The-
own Schoo l of Drama contemporaries. I first met atre Compa ny where she directed Hot L Bahi-
Tina at the Ame rican Reperto ry Theater where she m ore, The Brother/ Sister Plays, The Tem pest, Supe-
was studying directing at the Inst itute for rior Donut s, The Time of Your Uf e, The Diary of

4~ P<J9"'I (53 mn) lei! 'nlh'l chapTer

Annc Fran k, Thc Cherry Orchard, Time to Bum , She was named a 200 7 United States Artists Fel-
Bcrlin Circle and The Ballad of Little )0. In New low.
York. she directed Mee's Iphigenia 2.0 , Thc Trojan
Women and Orestes, and McCraney's Wig Out! N O V EM BER 14 , 2005
and In the Red and Brown Water, as well as var-
ious othe r plays at the Vineyard Theatre, the Pub- AD: I'm a little bit prejudiced in introducing Tina,
lic Theate r and Playwrights Horizons. The lists go becau se I would say that she's one of the finest
on. Tina is prolific. People love to work with her director s in the the ater world right now. She is a
because she is at heart a great collaborator. She is member of the Steppenwolf ensemble in Chicago.
incredibly intelligent and always listens intently to And we have collaborated together over many
what is happening around her. She is self- years and also collaborated on a book . Although
depreciating and brilliant. Tina and I share a lot of beliefs and ways of work-
Tina and I worked together on several plays and ing, the result is very, very different. When I first
our book The Viewpoints Book. I never cease to met Tina one of the first things she said to me
wonder at and admire her thoroughness in was, "I want to reinvent the American musical ."
thought and consideration for detail. At the mo- Where d id that come from?
ment when I think that we must be finished, when TL: I grew up here in New York. Both my parents
I am ready to move on to other things, this is usu - were film producers. Way back they did a se ries,
ally the very moment when Tina begins to se ri- Play of the Week, that was on the original Chann el
ously question, penetrate and find better ways of Thirteen , then did The American Film Theatre,
accomplishing whatever we are attempting to do. which were plays on film. They've recently been
Tina is the recipient of numerous hono rs, re-released on Kino International. My family was
including the Richard Rodgers Award, the Lucille an odd hybrid of film and theater. As a kid we fre-
Lortel Award and numerous Drama Desk nomina - quent ly went to see Broadway musicals. When I
tio ns. She also received support from the was young, my biggest influences were Hal Prince
Princess Crace Found atio n, the NEA/ TCC Direct- and Michael Bennett, especia llyA Chorus Line and
ing Fellowship and Rockefeller and Pew grants. Dream girls. I grew up loving musicals. I went to a

41 pages (SOmn) left In !hOi chop"'"

theater camp called Stagedoo r Manor, which this-going, "Wowl There's this book about Or-
so me of you might know from the now-released son Welles." They're going, "Anne. We have to fin-
fil m called Camp by Todd Graff. I played piano as ish the piece we're doing now." I'm a terrible en-
a kid, and, when I first moved to New York after der. I get bored in the ending-which is why I
college, I actua lly played show tunes as a living. I work with actors and designers who are great en-
played cocktail piano for a while. ders. Tina is a magnificent ender. When previews
So half of me was firmly ent renched in the come, she will work until the cows come in. And
American musical. When I went to college, at as much as she seems to be a great beginner to
Yale, I went into the close t a little and developed other people, she hates it. She gets panicky.
this sort of schizophrenic artistic personality. I'm I have had major anxiety and problems with first
a Gemini also. One half of me was this would-be days of rehearsals. About ten years ago I had a se-
experimentalist. I probably would have said the n ries of really intense panic/anxiety attacks that
that I wanted to usher along the next wave of the kept me from finishing jobs. So if anyone wants
avant-garde. And the other half of me was running to talk about that kind of neuroses of being a
off in the summers to direct Music Man and Guys director, I have much to say about it. But the
and Dolls and Brigadoon in summer stock. I feel good news is that for years and years I've worked
like, as an adult, a lot of my journey has been hard to contend with it and have made much
attempting some kind of synthesis, trying to fig- progress. I hate speaking in public, to the extent
ure out where those two people meet and live and that I've decided at times I'm going to follow
make art happily together. Woody Allen's footsteps and just not do it, pe-
riod. In the last years I've gotten better and better,
I have a theory that every director is either a good and then, just a few weeks ago, I started having
beginner, a good rniddler or a good ender. I, for these anxietyattacks again.
example, flourish in the beginning. I love bringing First days of rehearsal are, to me, so sac red and
in research . I love uploading every idea. I could so much set the tone for everything that's going
begin forever. But when it gets to the ending, 1 to happen. Right when I graduated from college,
walk into tech rehearsals-SITI members know my first professional job was at the Yale Cabaret. I

39 p<>g'" [48 mn) left In th,s chapter

was twenty-one or twenty-two, and the artistic project is so full and intense that I very often hit
director came in and said, "We're now going to this kind of-what Anne, a la Ma rsh all McLuhan ,
do our meet-and-greet." I said, "What are you calls "information overload." But sometimes it
talking about? What's a meet-a nd-greet>" And he didn' t equal pattern recognitio n, as McLuhan sug-
said, "Oh. it's where we all come in with the staff. gested it would. It just equaled brain shutdown.
We all sit around and introduce ourselves. And It's that feeling you get when you have so much
you'll talk and explain about the process, and you want to say so quickly, and you're so impas -
everyone will get to know each other." I said, "Oh , sione d about it, and words sudd enly seem highly
no, I don't do that. I would like to sit in a room inadequate, and your senses sta rt shutting down.
alone with the actors and talk to them about why
this project now." And he said, "No , we don't do The director les Waters said something that I
that." We got in a big old fight, and I stormed out found amazing, which was that directors have to
on the first day of rehearsal. I went back the sec- function with a million things happening, but
ond day. He had coo led down and said it was when all of that stuff's happening, he gets very
okay if I started with just the actors in a room. But calm and can do one thing at a time.
it took me a long time to get used to the institu - The breakdown moments started when I was at
tional brou-ha-ha around making art, and I had a Actors Theatre of louisville. I had been invited to
really hard time with it. create a new piece with five actors, and we de-
There was a Macedonian director, Siobodon cided to work on Freud. In retrospect, I'm sure
Unkovski. at American Repertory Theater when that was part of it, because I was so immersed in
Anne and I were both there. He said that , as a and overwhelmed by the mate rial. I ended up
director. you prepare alone, and you sit in the fire leaving that job. My next job thereafter was a
and fever of what you're doing for a long time. musical called 00/1, in Houston. It was the first
Then your job at the beginning of rehearsal is to day of rehearsal, and I was sitting in a roo m like
spread the contagion -to pass the disease. But this, talking about the piece and why it matt ered
he said dis·ease-to pass the dis-ease o n. I've al- to me, and I zoned in on a guy's foot right next to
ways felt that the sta te I enter when beginning a me, which was shaking. I'm thinking of this
because of what you said about Les. It was exactly freefall. To surrender for and in the pres ence of
that feeling of there was so much going o n fo r others.
me, and alii cou ld see or concentrate or focus on
was t hat one foot. I stopped talking and said, "Ex- A student who went through the directing pro-
cuse me, I have to leave now," and I got up and I gram at Columbia said to me the most obvious
left the room. And Stuart Ostrow, who was the thing I'd ever heard and never thought of. He said
producer, came oul into the hall and said , "Come that a director, in rehearsal, has to do everything
on, kiddo. Jerry (Jerome) Robbins used to throw that the actor has to do in front of an audience.
up before every first rehearsal. Just buck up and You have to be spontaneous, ready to laugh , ready
get back in there." I did-but I let the authors do to change.
the talking. And that was the second job I left. I ask most of my ensemble in the beginning to
That was over ten years ago, and of course a lot work with an open heart. If I had any mantra to
has changed for me since then. kick us off it's the idea that there's a sense of gen-
erosity in the room . We can go anywhere, and I
Is it the same level of an xiety in the commercial am so committed to the notion that I have to
world as it is in the nct-fcr-prcfit, would you sa y? practice what I prea ch and that it does trickle
I have to say that the anxiety has nothing to do down from the top, and therefo re my practic e is
with anything rational. It doesn't have to do with all about being in the room with an open heart.
high pressure around a show. It has to do with
some sense of the enormity of what's at hand and How does that relate to peop le who are not ac-
a sense of my own inadequacy in the moment to tor s? In oth er words , if you' re in a sit uation with
convey it. It has to do with the ways tha t, as direc- producers .. , I'm interested in that issue of the
tors, we perform . The challenging part of being a difference between the commercial and noncom-
director isn't just knowing the work or being in mercial.
t he moment, it's also knowing the res ponsi bility I've only really had one commercial experience,
you have for a group of peop le. My growth as a which was Bells Are Ringing on Broadway. I mean ,
directo r has been about learning to t rust myself to I would love to direct again on Broadway. This is

35 poges [43 mn) lei! 'nlh'l chapter

not answering your question, but I would say the the world, potentially. And that inte rests me. It is
big lesson I learned personally is that I am ready true that when I was working o n Broadway, I used
and willi ng to go through the backdoor, but not to walk out of the theater every d ay and feel com -
through the front doo r if it's on someone else's pletely in my element. It was so strang e. But it
terms. It was one of my childhood dreams. And was the same season Metam orphoses opened on
it's very odd to achieve at age thirty a goal you de- Broadway- Mary Zimmerman's piece. That to me
cided when you were four. But although I was was that kind of odd mirror image reflection of
strong and smart and dear about what I wanted yourse lf that you both hate and wish you were at
that experience to be, I was really surprised at the the same time. I remember thinking, Yeah, I want
end of the day about how much it diffused in to be here. 1 want a show that can run, that can
ways I didn't even see happening in the moment. have audiences. But I hope I can do that in the fu-
It was a watered -down versio n of where we began. ture with work thai I'm really clear about why and
I can't even place to this day when and how that what it is. Mary went about doing her work at
happened exactly. Northwestern, and it had a very natural life.

I remember com ing into the rehear sal, and I was You also have that Gemin i thing in that you'll do
so thrilled at the end of it. You had so much free- Theatrical Essays in the Garage space at Step-
dom and these Broadway singers, dancers, the y penwolf, which is the opposite impulse of a
were having the time of their life. I thought, This comm ercial Broadway musical. What is it, this
is extraordina ry. I fett you w~e born to do this . Gemini issue?
There's a little part of me that's still ashamed to It really does feel like a war inside myself Step-
say this, because we associate so much of the penwolf asked me about a year ago what project I
Broadway commercial world with something that want to do next on the main stage. I said, "You
is crass or sellout or about making money. For know, I don't want to do another slick, ambitious
me, it's about the power to communicate with a somewhat-successful show that opens and doses
lot of people. It's the place in the world where and who cares and what's the point of theater
som ethi ng can run the longest and speak across anyway?"

33 poges [40 mn) left n !h'l choplef 73'l. ,00<

When we were talking in Chicago the ot her day, Matte rs to You and Why"-everywhere I turned I
someone said, "How do you deal with burnou t?" felt the universe was asking me that. And I kept
You said, "I don' t know. I just love what I'm do- adding the word "really." Thankfully that year I
ing." That's one way we're opposite. I go through, fou nd William Saroyan's play The Time of Your
"I'm going to quit," at least every six weeks. It Life, which I did at Sleppenwolf.
comes from this incessant questioning.
The other commercial piece I did do was a And it toured .
piece with Disney that I worked on for about three It went to a number of theaters. The paragraph
years. It was called When You Wish. It subse- that Saroyan wrote at the beginning, that we actu-
quently became something completely different ally painted on the theaters, begins with "In the
called On the Record. But I was originally given the time of your life, live,"
catalogue of Disney music to make a new piece
out of. This was pre-jukebox musicals. We devel- You also wrote an amazing piece that you ema iled
oped this thing over three years, did workshops me that you read on the first da y of rehea rsal. It
that I am positive cost more than a full produc- was one of the most beautiful th ings I've ever
tion at Steppenwolf. And ultimately, because of all heard.
sorts of corporate thorniness around that time Well, that's related to my first-day anxiety. The
and some displeasure at the top, that project nev- way I've gotten through this is my therapist
er happened. That was 200\ . It was the same year helped me figure out that it was okay to write
I turned forty, and the year of 9/11, obviously. everything down. If I got stuck on the first day, I
Most people I know went through something could read it, I woke up that morning of the first
extraordinary that year. But those kinds of events day of The Time of Your Life and my girlfriend at
were really a wakeup call to me in terms of asking the time, who was also the dramaturg, came into
that question of why we do this-really. I was run- the room and said. "So, do you have your
ning around Chicago, and at U of C they were do- speech? Are you ready to go?" I said, "Well, I
ing a series, "What Matters to You and Why?" know I'm supposed to be talking about 'Why
Seeing that plastered all over campus-"What Saroyan?' And how 1939 parallels today and why

31poges (38 ...n) leI! n this cropler 73'l. ,00<

it's important. And that's not coming out. Let me least anything ever mattered to me, because I
read to you what I wrote." And I did that, and she wasn't thinking about critics an d how the show
said. "Yes. Read that. It's from the heart." And was going to go. And in a way it was the mos t
what I basically said to the cast was that in took- anything ever mattered to me, because I had no
ing around the room on the first day- instead of stakes other than knowing that something had to
feeling like the cheerleader that could answer all happen.
its questions as to why and why this now, I was
mostly filled with dread. I was tired already at the It's a huge production-a huge ensemble piece
mere thought of starting this process. Getting and a great American play about issu es that we
older-it's not getting easier for me. It's not like I shou ld think about every morning when we wake
can just slough it off and I know my bag of tricks. up: Why are we living? But I felt in that piece that
It gets harder with every show because I know the en semble's brain, led by your brain, met
what it takes to really go there in making a piece Saroyan's brain. The biggest collisions are the
of theater. I said to them, through what I read, most beaut iful pieces of work that you do. The
that I knew we had to make something actually collabora tion comes nom a kind of collision, and
happen in the theater-that I was really tired of therefore you're not called on to ma ke t hings hap-
this feeling of going to see plays where nothing pen. You had a careless att itude when you were
actually occurs in the room , on that night, with doing thaL
that audience watching . We always pretend some- I did. A sense of abandon. But it also matched
thing happened, and it never does. I didn't know Saroyan's. in a way. When I read the play for the
how to do it, but if we couldn 't all commit to do- first time my impressio n of it was that it reminded
ing that in some fashion , making an event in The me of Chuck Mee. Saroyan wrote a beautiful
Time of Your Life live, and being in the room in a description of the play where he said, "Let this be
present, live moment where something extraor- like a circus , an opera, a melodrama, a tragedy, a
dinary occu rred, I'd rather stop on the first day. courtroom drama" -and he goes through this list
I'd rather go open a shoe store. That's a feeling of of like thirty kinds of genres. "Anything you wish,
being at the end, of burnout. In a way it was the anything you can imagine." To be given that kind

73'l. ,00<
of blessing-to have the aut hor say to you, "Go dr am atur gically correct? li ke I had never actu ally
anywhere," was suc h a gift at t hat time. bee n free until that moment to say, "Because be-
One of the moments in that piece that peo ple cause." It was pure intuition. And that was t he
talked to me a lot about was at the very end of Act kind of abandon that I was working with.
One. There's a guy, Joe, the main charac ter, who
sits at a tab le the en tire first act. He never stands It's interesting th at you mention t hat you compare
up. He finally stands up at the end of Act One, Saro yan to Chuc k Meet becau se something that I
and as he was walking out he turned and looked learned, and that the SlTI Company learned, from
back. All of a sudden for about eight seconds t he Chuck Mee and working with him, was that we're
entire cast that was on stage at the time broke out so disciplined . We start on time. We work really
into a little bit of soft -shoe to "Sunny Side of the hard. And if we're not suffering , it's not good . But
Street," and did it in perfect unison on this set we started working with Chuck on bobrausch en-
that was broken out into the theater, so it was bergamer;ca, and I'd say, "Chuck, should it be
sprawled like one of those murals from the thir- this or th is?" And he'd say, "Well. which fee ls bet-
ties. They tap -danced for a second, and then we ter ?" I'd go, "Feel better? I don 't know. What do
went to black. A lot of people said to me, "What you like?" He'd say, "Well, th is one feels good to
was that? That was so amazing." What it came me. It feels delightful." And it was a contagion
out of was, in rehearsal, I was talking to Jeff Perry, that s pread in the compan y. And now we just
who was playing Joe, and I turned around and want to work t hat way. We just want to be com-
Guy Adkins, who was playing one of the char - pletely happy and do th ings not becau se the y
acters, said, "Tina, look what just happened." The dramaturgicall y line up but because the y feel
cast had asked him to teach them how to do this good-and to tru st that the aud ience is delighted,
little soft-shoe moment. They said, "We just want just as the audience was delighted with that tap-
to show it to you. Surprise!" And without think- dance soft -shoe.
ing, I said, "It's in." Honestly it was probably the As soon as I say t his, however, I think: Yes/and . I
first time in my life where not a cell in my body think: Everything and its oppos ite. I think: That
thought, Why? What does that mean? Is tha t works sometimes-but not necessarily every time.

27 JXlg<'.(33 mn) lefl n Itlischapte< 73'l. ,00<

One of the thin gs I've never been so clear about influenced by the Judson Church movement ofthe
is how Viewpoints has really functioned well for late sixties , early seventies-and literally went into
me as part of th e "Everythi ng and Its Opposite" a kind of hibernation, asking herself, "What is
philosop hy. The SITI Comp any trains physically performance? What is space? What is time?" She
but is classically trained and does text wo rk. I was came up with what she called the six View
thinking about that with the Saroyan. too-that Points-two different words in those da ys. Two of
you work truly with both your head and your those, story and emotion, we mention in the book
heart . It's my Gemini leaning aga in. I remember as hers , but we don 't even use .
Chuck said that once , and I too k it as the biggest She and I got to know each other at NYU where
compliment. He said he thought 1 was able to I was teaching in 1979 and 1980. We co-d irected a
work from both my hea rt and my head equally. show, and she started showing me what she was
Sometimes it does feel like war. But it was a good doing with the six View Point s, and it really
lesson on the Saroyan to let my heart truly win knocked my socks off. I found it incredibly,
out. immed iately useful to actors and to director s in a
way that I d idn't see any equ ivalent in the theater
Audience: I know you, Anne, said you got View- scen e. The majority of the theater scene felt really
points from Mary Overlie and Tina got Viewpoints old-fas hioned to me. The wor k that Mary was do-
from you. Could you talk about differences in ap- ing see med to me to be far more related to brea k-
proach that you feel Mary Overlie has and that you throughs in quantum physics , for example .
feel you have? Now, theater is known to be , throughout its his-
tory of its existence, the slowest art form. It al-
AB: First of all, and it's important to say: I th ink ways comes last-maybe because it carr ies so
there are real inventors and then there are sca v- much baggage. It's all ofthe art form s in one , so it
engers. Mary Overlie is a real inventor. I'm a scav- goes slowest. So I was thrilled by the speed of
enger. I look around the room and say, "That's Mary's thinking. Much to her continued simul-
great. That' s great. Let's put 'e m together." And taneous chagrin and delight, I really took what she
Mary very deliberately looked around-she was was doing and started playing with it and

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changing it and forgetting what she did and mov- One of t he differences, I t hink, in the way we
ing in another direction . To this day, that some- work with the applicatio n of Viewpoints has to do,
times annoys her and sometimes delights her. I for me, with working with fo lks like thos e at Step-
think it's very, very hard for her at times. She said penwolf where sometimes the notio n of what you
she was in Chicago, I th ink, and somebody sa id, set or at least discuss is the acting beats , the
"O h, did you study with Anne?" So this has al- intern al life. You do your emotional-relationshi p-
ways been an uncomfortable issue. objective homework, but what keeps t he work
I met Anne in 1987 at A.R.T., where I was going to fresh and spontaneous every night is that wheth er
assist someone else and sat in on Anne's first re- I throw the chair at you or the bottle at you-it's
hearsal for a Kleist play. I barged up to Bob going to change. Perhaps a slight exaggeration,
Brustein and said , "I have to be in the room with but the point being: You better be on your feet,
that woman 't-c-and I was for the next eight years. because something different is going to happen
Watching the training of the Sill Company, I used every night . So. while there's an agreement about
to bug Anne a lot about things like duration. what needs to go on in the meat of it, the physical
When we started talking about duration , it really behavior is really up for grabs. That creates th e
came from watching the company, so adept at so danger of the spontaneity.
much. and yet there were things that we felt that At the other extreme-s-sometimes Anne works
we could point to and discuss about what was go- this way and other people do-is the notion t hat
ing on in the training that we couldn't quite name what you set is the physical life. It's exactly the
yet or talk about. Out of those years and us talk- opposite. You set a physical score whereby tha t
ing about it. eventually came three additional cross happens on that word. That light cue hap -
Viewpoints that we both use now. pens on that hand gesture. What remains open is
Then, after that , we started doing work on how it's filled every night. It's how you might
what's called vocal Viewpoints. That came out of think of a piece of music or a score, if you were
an interest not so much in text, although it is text- playing the piano. The notes and the me ter are the
related , but more in the voice as an extensio n of same. but how you fi ll it and the attack change o n
th e body. a nightly bas is. I so rt of negot iate o n every piece,

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depending on the material, this very tricky q ues- Another huge difference in t he way Anne and I
tion of what is set and what is left open. I've o nly work with Viewpoints comes simply from the fact
recently started incorpo rating into my work sec- that she's working with an ensemble that does t he
tions that are purposefu lly designed to be open training co nsistently, if not daily. She's creating
Viewpoints sec tions, even if they only last for thir- material with people who do n't need to be
ty seconds or a minute. On Time of Your Life I did trained, but are practicing. It's sort of second na-
a thing where there was a mural that was being ture forming what gets made on stage. For me,
painted on the back wall that started on the first Viewpoints is something else because I'm almost
performance and wouldn't be finished until the always working with some people who have not
last performance. I was really trying to open up done the training, and I use the work a lot as an
questions of what can remain authentically open ensemble-building technique.
in performance to address this issue of allowing
something to actually occur. AB: For the SITJ Company it's a way of practicing
creating fiction and using time and space on a
AB: I think it's true that whatever your process is, daily basis . You have to practice, like sca les, in a
you need to make certain agreements that are like sense. Although what will happen is that we do
signposts, and there need to be certain things that fifteen minutes of Suzuk i training and fifteen min-
are free. Because if everything is set-if the emo- utes of Viewpoints improvisation before any re-
tionallife is set, jf t he physical life is set-c-it's life- hearsal and any performance. But sometimes, if
less . But if nothing is set , then you can 't see any- we're about to rehearse a scene that is, say, deal-
thing. It's all improvised . Depending on the ing with Restoration comedy, I'll sa y, "Restoration
project, you decide the agreements. The agree- comedy" for the Viewpoints , and stuff will come
ments are basically the foundation of any produc- up in the Viewpoints training or the Viewpoints
tion. They can change per production. It doesn't improvisation. Somehow the play gets filtered into
always have to be t he same kinds of agreements. the improvisation. The mistake I t hink people
But you come up with a set of agreements, then make about our work is that they think that we
you bring the chaos of living into that. actually improvise to make a play, which we do

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not. We do not do imp rovisations. I would go so AB: It's a big deal. You know the playwright
crazy. I would get so bored. It's essentially a train- Romulus Linney? Great playwright. He used to
ing technique. It informs how peop le work to- teach at Columbia a long time ago. His secon d-
gether. year playwrights and t he second-year directors
Also, in res ponse to your ques tion, I really hope wou ld do a project together, and at the end of t hat
there are more people in th at line-Mary, Anne, Romulus and myself and the playwright and t he
me. I think part of why we wanted to do this book director would sit in a room and talk about how it
was really as an invitat ion to say, "Think about it went. And at one point we were talking about how
as ser iou sly and long and dee ply as we have, and a piece had gone with th is playwright and direc-
then chuck all this out and find t he next four tor. And Romulus said, "After all, t he first rule of
Viewpoi nts." theater is never move while you're speaking." I
sa id, " Rom ulus, I've dedicated my life to the rela-
AB: I think one of the great innovators in View- tionship of moving and speaking." But actually,
points right now is Barney O 'Hanlon , a Sill Com- he's right. What he means is: "When you're mov-
pany member. He's really extended the View- ing I can't hear the lines." He's absolutely right.
points more than anyone else I know in that direc- But what I want to say to Romulus is that if the
tion ofcon stantly reevaluating it. gesture ends at the end of this word or begins be-
fore the word, you can actually u se movement as
Audience: Can you talk about your relationship punctuation, as periods, commas, exclamation
with text and where it lies in the ser ies of agree- marks , and actually create the grammar of stage
ments? For instance, when you write Theatrical language. Using the Viewpoints ca n, I th ink, help
Essays, the text doesn't come first necessarily, but do t hat.
when somebody hands you a script and says, "Di- One of the things that really st ruck me about
rect this play," or you pitch a play or you have Viewpoints as I learned about it was t his notion of
Chuck's play-where does the text come in in the nonhierarchica l eleme nts in the theater. The
setting of agreements? Western the ater in particular has been so
language-driven and text-based. and the notion

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Anne and Mary were playing with, as were many wha t's dominan t? You might say mood and char-
peop le in all the art forms, was: What if we took acter an d maybe secondarily theme , but you
all t he eleme nts tha t we know make up a perfor - wouldn't necessa rily say plot. But if you're loo k-
ma nce eve nt -text, lang uage, lights, so und, ing at The Mousetrap, you'd say plot, maybe. Or if
move ment, time, audience, whatever-and in- yo u were looking at Beckett- it's interesting to
stead of lining them up vertically, with text be ing me .
t he mos t important at the top, we're go ing to line But. anyway, the point is that, the way I look at
t hem up horizontally, or on a circle. I like to think it, it's really project -specific. Where the text is in
of it as a multiple track recording studio or some- tha t configu ration is really based on what it is and
t hing. You can say, "We're turn ing this knob what the project at hand is. I also want to say in
down to point five for this show and this one up regard to Theatrical Essays: When t hey came to me
to eight." That the hierarchy of wha t reigns in and said , "Do something on the mainstage," I
performance can rea lly be juggled around and said, "I don't want to direct in a big space. I wan t
switched. to go into the Garage with nothing. Give me six
lights and one boom box." We are really, in mak-
AS: So the knobs are like text, music, emotion. ing composition work, writing on our feet and
Well, yeah. You might break up language; and creating meaning and telling stories and crea ting
then sound, which is related to music, but it events, characters , through light and sound and
would be separate; light; movement, which can be movement and time and space. In that case, that
broken up into a million d ifferent elements. You became the text. The text was an ube r-three-
can put anything on there . You can put costumes dim ensional text.
on t here. You can put the seating arrangemen t of
audience--how important is that? The time the Audience: I've seen three SITI shows, and I saw
show sta rts. The re was a book I read on ce that Time of Your Life at A.C.T. What struck me about
listed the key elements as theme, cha racter, sp ec- all of those was the actual use of stage and how
tacle, plot, mood, I thin k. It was talking abou t it's completely open . I saw the wings . I haven't
playwrights, and it said, if you look at Chekhov, seen that with a lot of other di rectors. And I'm

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wondering if you can ta lk about what you're also developed work in spaces t hat are made of
experimenting with there, e lem ents that I can use in rehearsal. I can not bea r
rehearsing in one place with certain things, then
AS: Well, the question is whether you want to moving into a theater and having all new th ings.
represent places or describe places , or create an It's tha t simp le, In terms of the "practice what you
arena. For example , if a play is written in a living preach" mode, architecture is one of t he View-
room, you can say, "00 I want to create a living points. Designe rs I work with will come in, scour
room in which this happens?"--in which case my rehearsal room, and take away anything they
you build a set that looks like somebody's living don't want to appear in the production. I tend not
room . The other way, which leads to sets that to have sets thai are built elsewhere while we re-
you're describing, is where you say, "This is the hearse here . Now, part of this came from early
arena of a living room , What are the most essen- lessons I had with En Garde Arts. That was a site-
tial aspects of a living room?" You aren 't actually specific theater com pany here in New York, where
representing a s pace, but you are expressing a I learned more about the Viewpoint of archi-
space, which is very different. The spa cial tecture than I could have possibly dreamed. But
relation sh ips between ob jects can change because when I go into a theater, for me, it's really becom e
ofthe subjective nature of reality, You know, if you about the question of an event that actually oc-
walk into a living room in a certain mood, it's curs. It's like an honesty issue. I've grown fond of
spinning around you. So yo u could create that the notion of acknowledging where we are-coot
kind of reality on stage, if that's the expression of in a Brechtian way that reminds you every mo-
the moment-as opposed to locking it into a repe- ment. A lot of theater spaces are amazing and
tition of something we see in daily life. We want to architecture is amazing. I always go into a space,
use a more cubist approach. I like the word and I can start dreaming the piece in tha t sp ace,
"arena" because it makes you think, even though and I have really taken to heart the notion tha t
family com es into the arena of the living room, architect ure can talk to you and give you stagin gs
they are gladiators. and notio ns and a way of experiencing so mething
My answer is, in a way, much more practica l. I've t hat you can' t dream alone with a set designer

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looking at a little box. Viewpoints.
Well, I'll tell you a little story. It's not a produc-
AB: In that spirit, for the SITI Company there is tion . But it's a Viewpoints story. I went to te ach
the issue of touring, because our bread and butter th e first day of Viewpoints one summer at the
is touring, nationally and internationally. You Step penwolf school. I walked in and I was in a re-
don't want to go into a space and say, "This space ally bad mood because Bells Are Ringing had
doesn't exist. I'm going to put my set inside of it." closed the night before on Broadway, and I was
You want to create a design that can adjust to foul. and it was eight o'clock in the morning and I
whatever space you go into , in the sense that didn't want to be there . I walked in, and they had
Tina's tal king about, and saying, "It really feels dif- put me in this room that was the lobby of the
ferent in here, what the audience's relationship is Garage Theatre at Steppenwolf where they had
to the actors is very different. So how do we ad- put up velours with paintings hanging on t he
just the elements th at we have and keep the spirit velours that they were showing as part of an art
of the piece ?" exhibit. I said to the guy who was running the pro-
It's really the heart of Viewpoints, which is how to gram. "You have got to be kidding me. I cannot
work with what's actually there rather than what work this way. Viewpoints cannot occur in here."
you wish would be there or impose on being It was like walking into a theater and saying, "I
there. cannot do my show here ." I said, "You have to
leave right now and find me an alternate space."
Audience: Since the sp ace seems to be such a big And he scampered out. And I sat down and
component of your perfor-mance work--have you looked at the students and said , "All right. What
ever been invited to direct a work in a space that do you guys want to do?" They were like, "Well,
you didn't feel was going to work? And then what it's only our second day here, and we talked a lot
do you do about th at? yesterday, and we're really looking forward to get-
Gosh. Have you? I don't know that I have. ting o n o ur feet and moving today and it's a litt le
cold this morning." They were all kind of looking
AB: But I think that's against th e spirit of at me . And I t ho ught , I ca nnot sit here for t he next

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six weeks and talk about working with what you around. Really physical stuff." And I was excited.
have and what you are given and say, "But I can' t So I went in and there were about eight people in
work in this space." And so I said, "All right. Let's the room, and I started with this physical stuff.
get up o n ou r feet." And we did an extraordi nary And they hated it. They really were not into it. So
Viewpoints session in the twenty-foot space with the next week I went back to teach, and there were
the velours and the art, and we made something like three people there. And I tried again. Physical
of it. I can't think of a para llel situation in the t he- stuff. And they hated it. Next time I came back
ater. I think the reason I probably can't is be- there were two people . I thought, This is not work-
cause-s- ing. So I said to the two people who were there,
"Well, what do you want to do? " And they said ,
AS: It's against the philosophy of Viewpoints. "Musical comedy." I said, "You know, I don 't re-
If it's wrong and small and bad and unheated and ally know much about musical comedy. Can you
uncomfortable, then we'll make something of show me?" So they said, "Yeah," and they got up.
that. The next week I came back and there was like sev-
en people there. We did this musical comedy
AS: last week, somebody asked me, "What do you stuff. The next week I came back there was like
do if you're working with a group of actors and twenty. And the next week, forty, I swear to God.
they don't want to do this viewpoints thing?" I They had to change us and put us in a huge room ,
found myself telling this story: When I was in my and there were mats on the floor. This one guy
twenties I had a job in a halfway house. It was for was way puffy because of too many drugs. He
people who had schizophrenic breakouts, who came every week and just slept. One day he stood
were not well enough to be out on the streets, but up in the middle of an improvisation and just en-
were also not sick enough to be in the hospital. tered it. Unbelievably creative people . It was
They were on a lot of drugs, and my job was to amazing. I had to follow it. I had to follow what
give theater workshops. When I got the job I was was happening. I learned so much.
really excited. I was like, "I'm going to go in and Now I think that's Viewpoints. It's not making
do a lot of physica l stuff. Run in circles. Chase people do spacial relationship or run in circles or

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anything like that . I think it's in what Tina's saying person's job is to disagree a litt le bit. It sounds
about your space question. To me, the heart is like you're ta lking about a disagreement to the
when you ask, and always ask, "What is it? What point where things shut down . Many of you prob-
is it really?" And now I find myself having to say, ably know Morgan Jenness. She was a dramaturg.
"What is Viewpoints really?" It's about working She is now a literary agent. She was Joe Papp's
with what you have, being present and listening. assistant for years. She 's somehow at the heart of
It's so interesting because I definitely started do - everything that happens in the theater. Since I've
ing Viewpoints as a technique for helping me known her-I 've known her twenty-five years-
make theater. These days Viewpoints are really she's always walking around with a stack of plays.
teaching me how I want to live. It's amazing. Who She's reading everybody's plays. She's always go-
knew that would happen ? Thanks , Anne. ing to meet her playwrights. I asked her once,
"How do you read so many plays? I can't read
AD: Thanks, Mary. one ." It's so hard to read a play. It's an investment
Thanks. Cod . Or whate ver you understand That to of imagination unlike any other literature. It's
be. hard. She said, "Well, what I do is I read very
quickly, and when I feel that the play stops mov-
Audience: sometimes feel like small artistic ing, I turn over the page, the corner of the page,
disagreements can seem like huge chasms be- and I keep reading." And then when she meets
tween people. How do you deal with that over the with the playwright, she'll sit down and open the
long term-you know, when you're working with play up to the pages that are turned over and dis-
people for, like fifteen years? When do you put in cuss why the play stopped moving.
your feet? When do you compromise? I think it addresses your question. If things
stop, then you've really got to work differently-if
AD: Well, it's a way ofthinking. In other words, ifl the disagreement stops the process. You actually
had an idea and I presented it, if the actors or the have to become incredibly sensitive in your
designers said , "Okay," and did t hat, nothing sinews to the moments when things stop moving
would happen to it. Everything I put out, the other in rehearsal. So, what I would suggest is

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whenever that happens, give up your idea for the think, something Viewpoints is about, which IS

other one. Always. Ideas are cheap. They're the saying: The person on stage makes the choice.
cheapest things we have. We tend to think that
ideas are the reason that we're in the room. But Audience: I'm curious about your anxiety and your
you know, as Picasso said, you paint the first research-like what you're actually bringing to
stroke on the canvas and all the rest of your work that first rehearsal. Are you the kind of person
is to correct that mistake . That stroke is going to who will cram your brain full of research? Does
be a mistake anyway. So it doesn't really matter that make you more nervous? Does that shut you
which idea you choose. It's how you handle it and down? Does that help you?
develop it. I would say get very sensitive to the The thing I've found that has realty worked for me
moment it stops, then go somewhere else. And if is a notion of being prepared, in order to forget-
somebody has an idea that they feel strongly to fill up to an extent that you feel comfortable
about-God bless 'eml That means they have and not like you're a fake or unprepared. and then
ownership, which is a commodity much more really trust it enough to let it go. In a way. it's the
precious than an idea. same thing we ask actors to do--to come in with
In terms of the Viewpoints and in terms of the something. and then be open to what changes.
notion of the first stroke-and this seems so sim- That actually requires a kind of confidence.
ple and stupid, but it's very radical-many direc- I will admit that I no longer do classic. old-
tors think that their job is to make the first stroke fashioned. read-the-play research. I just don't. I
on the canvas. What if you say, "No ." What if the don't want to say I don't read the play-s-becaus e
actor makes the first stroke? And I think that's the it's not quite that extreme-but sometimes it's
heart of the Viewpoints . They're responsible for close. I'm about to do A Midsummer Night's
making a choice . And then the director responds Dream at McCarter and Paperm ill with this rock
to that. You adjust, you adjust, you adjust. So who band, Croovelily, and what I have been doi ng in
starts first? Why should it not be an actor? I think the past seve ral weeks is reading about every oth -
the result has more ownership ultimately, and it's er production of Midsumm er th at has ever been
not about who has a better idea anyway. That's, I done on t he planet, and I have to tell you, it is

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really inspiring me. I'm understanding context in me, "Work begets work. Just work." I never really
a way that I never thought about before--what it bought it. What I bought instead was: " Do the
means to be in dialogue over time with other kind of work you want to get hired for next. Only
artists that might not even be alive. do what you want to do a year from now." There's
I tend to do a lot of visual things. In the last no s uch thing as, "I'm doi ng this now, but really
several years I've started painting and making col- later ...." I found as soon as I star ted doing that
lages like crazy. I bring those in and I plaste r kind of work. I discovered a million opportunities.
them all over the walls. I'd say, mostly. collage I've done a lot of projects where I've gotten a
and music are where I go--so what I'm coming in group of people, started with a word. done
with is not the details of the staging or the block- composition work, research, Viewpoints. other
ing or how the scene is broken down, but a pile of things. let it go for a little while, come back and
toys and mud for people to play and swim around done the next step with another group of people,
on. often through universities-and ultimately devel-
oped full-length projects . That's my way of saying:
Audience: Where do you begin when you have "Do it.n
basically just the emb ryo of a project that doesn't
yet have a script? 00 you start with the ensemble ? AB: I do it very differently. I spend a huge amount
That seems like one of those tasks that there's so of time doing resea rch and I'll usually come in
much, it becomes very d aunt ing. with about o ne hund red fifty page s of possible
A number of pieces I've done-a musical called text that I've sampled, and I'll ta lk for about two
States of tndependence. the musical Floyd Collins, days about every idea I've possibly had. I ta lk a lot.
the play Space, Dream True-all started by walking I upload everything, every thought, every notion,
into a room with a group of people and saying, "I every st upid idea, so then it's in the common cul-
know one word." In the case of Space it was ture. Some of the things I say on the first day
"space." Fortunately I have found, in this country come back in tech to surprise us all. They've
at this time. even without a company, there are a somehow gone into the uncon sciou s and they
lot of oppo rtunities. My mother used to say to come up at a very fruitful moment. I find it really

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important to spend a couple of years research ing there's so much that is upsetting to me. I often
a project if it's an original piece-really living with feel that I live on ano ther planet-"This is what
it. Not that it's the on ly thing I'm working on, but peo ple are responding to?" So feel ing like quitting
collecting, so I feel like my image is: I come in really comes out of this. It has nothing to do with,
with everything, I dump it on the table and say, "Can I make a living at it?" or "I'm d iscouraged
"It's yours. Now we'll make it come together." I al- career-wise." It's about longing for connection.
so feel that my job is to descr ibe the world in Whether or not you're being true and brave, and
which the play takes place, whether it's an original then whether or not you're being heard and
piece, devised piece or a classical play. That's understood . I think of it like Kier kegaard--in Fear
basically what I do. I desc ribe it as much as I can, and Trembling what he describes as "the leap of
then we see what happens to that. But I have to faith." In that book he uses Abraham having to
imagine a world that the actors feel the y can in- kill his own son as an example. But when he talks
habit as actors and as characters. Sometimes it's about the leap of faith, he also references
really crazy. With La Dispute I said, '" th ink every- dancers, actually, and what it feels like to be in the
body's a bird." air and to be in that moment where you know
you're going up and you don't know what's und er
Audience: I was surprised to hear you say that you your feet or where you're going to land or how
felt like quitting every six weeks. I'm an actor, not you're going to land. In this lifetime I want to
a director. I feel like quitting every second day. I've somehow feel like I was a citizen of the world, so
always assumed that you get to a certain point I sometimes question what it means to do things
and you don't do that anymore. You just think , I'm in little black boxes for all my little friends who
getting what I want to do consistently. come to all my same plays. I go through that a lot.
1love it so much that it hurts sometimes. Making I go to a place of just questioning what theater is
som ething, having it judged , having it evaporat e. I in this day and age and how we're speaking to
can 't go see theater. I hate going. Someon e really people. I feel like the monks who did the illumi-
got on me about that the othe r day. And I said, nated man uscripts- the monks, trying to keep a
"Well, I'll go see great things." I can' t go because thing alive.

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I was thinking about Midsummer. Part of me Oska r Eustis
wants to embrace the eleme nts-water and eart h
and do it all by candlelight, only people o n stage. I first met Oska r when he was still a teenag er. I
Anothe r part of me wants to do the mus ic video, was already in my mid-twenties. We participat ed
cyber, hyperlink version . One slows the world in a workshop conducted by the Iowa Theater Lab
down, the other ;s the world. You were talking the in a sma ll space above Playwrights Horizons led
other day about tempo in the theater, and how by the visionary director Ric Zank. Already an out-
important it is to work with a certain extended standing intellect and person -in-the-world, Oskar
time in the theater while the world goes fast like had , by the mid -seventies . moved to New York
this. And as you were talking, I was thinking, No. City from Minneapolis and founded a theater
The world is going fast like this. So why aren't we company, Red Wing. with his friend the remark -
going fast like this to express it and riff with it? able Swiss dramaturg Stephan Muller. A couple of
No wonder no one 's coming . I'm just being dev- years later, he and Stephan left New York to take
il's advocate. I go back and forth between the two their act to Switzerland . They opened an experi-
frequently. It's these kinds of questions that keepe mental wing at the Zurich Schauspielhaus and
me wondering. And these questions never go conducted highly suc cessful workshops through-
away: Why do I do this ? For whom? To what end? out the German-speak ing world. I missed Oskar
As long as these questions remain , you remain in mightily when he left. He did not return full-time
midair like that dancer of Kierkegaard's--having to New York City until almost thirty years later
taken a leap but not knowing if or how you'll land. when he became the artistic director of the Public
Theater /New York Shakespeare Festival. But in
my mind he had been circling the building on
Lafayette Street the ent ire time he was away.
Recently I was standing in front of City Hall in
downtown Manhatta n. I looked u p and saw a vi-
sion: Oska r rid ing a bicycle down Cent re Street in
my direction. a cigar firmly between his lips .

1 poge «1 mn) H!fl 'n Itol chap!« 76'l. ,00<

When he saw me he pulled to a stop and ex- reputatio n and history. Oskar is in the habit of fill -
plained that he was on his way home across th e ing very big shoes.
Broo klyn Bridge. Of course he was. What a per- Perhaps the mos t remarkable achievement of
fect expression of his physicality, bravado and Os kar's is his support and encouragemen t of
practical sense. playwrights. He contributed and continues to
I have always been in awe of Oskar. How did he contribute to the trajectories of Tony Kushner,
become so erudite without ever attending univer- Emily Mann. Susan-Lor! Parks, David Henry
sity? How does he instill such confidence and Hwang. Craig Lucas , Anna Deavere Smith, Paula
ease in everyone he commiserates with? How Vogel, and the list goes on .
does he function so emphatically and intelligently
and with such infinite humanity in the world? He D ECEM BER 7, 20 0 5
is a brilliant public speaker, a soc ialist, a political
animal. tremendously e mpathetic and humane. AS: Osk ar Eustis has an I!xtraord inary life story.
He has big plans for the Shakespeare Festival, HI!'s been an institution-builder from New York to
and I hope with all my heart that he can achieve San Francisco, Zurich, kind of a builder in Los
them . If anyone can, it would be Oskar. Angeles, Providence and now back in NI!W York. I
During Oskar's return visits to the States from want to discuss where he's going right now with
Switzerland , he headed to San Francisco and be- th e! Public Theater. Os kar's work with playwrights,
gan a long-term relationsh ip with the Eureka The- with Tony Kushner and man y, man y ethers, is
atre Company, eventually becoming its artistic amazing. His family is communist. Oska r does
director from 1986 until 1989, when he moved on not have a bachelor 's degree. HI! has a high
to the Mark Taper Forum as associate artistic sc hool diplom a. Is th at true now? You have hon-
director. In 1994 he became the artistic director of orary degrees. OE: I claim to have a high school
Trinity Repertory Company in Providence, Rhode diploma, but my high school shut down the year
Island. and finally, ten years later, he landed at the afte r I left it. so maybe I should p rove it.
Public Theater/N ew York Shakespeare Festival to
take the reins of an institution with a substa ntial He's also the most well-read pe!rson I know.

4~ P<J9"'I (51 mnJ left., th,s Chopl 76'l. ,00<

We've known eac h other for t hirty years. Could we against it by running away and joining t he avant-
start with your background-Minnesota, New garde . Thirty years ago, I followed t he Perfor-
York. mance Grou p into tow n and lived at the Pe r-
My stepfather and mother are members of the forming Garage in New Yo rk. It was a heady,
Communist Party, my stepfather for three gener- extraordinary and, again, profoundly sillytim e.
ations. My folks divorced in the sixties and as part
of the ferment around everything that was hap - You started a theater company ca lled Red Wing.
pening in the late sixties-including the an tiwar You were how old when you started it?
movement, which was really central in my life, Sixteen.
and the civil rights movement-was the peculiar
way that artistic radicalism , lifestyle radicalism When I met him, he was sixteen.
and political radicalism all had these incredibly A very old sixteen.
blurry boundaries and seemed to flow into one
another. We had a belief that-the collective we, In New York. liv ing in a theater.
those of us who felt ourselves progressive in that And getting scabies. [t took about two months to
time, living in that com munity- there was no get rid of them. But what happened during that
distinction between being in an avant-garde the - time is that everyone sort of bought into th e idea
ater event and being against the war and living in of the avant -garde . The avant -garde is very broad
a commune and building socialism. It was all the and there was a lot of fighting within it at t he
sense that the world was transforming massiv ely time, but the spectrum ranged from Charlie Lud-
and we were part of it. It was an incredibly excit- lum to Robert Wilson, from the Performan ce
ing time-and an incredibly silly time. It was very Group to Richard Foreman , from Mabou Mines
interesting for me coming from essentially the to the San Francisco Mime Troupe. lt was all sort
most puritanical, rigid wing of that. My mother of in the realm of experimenta l, ensemble, avant-
joined t he party, a very distinct part of that move- garde t heater that I found myself right in the mid-
me nt, and t he party became centra l to her life and dle of and bought hoo k, line and sinker. [ found -
t he family's life. I embraced it and rebelled ed t he Red Wing company with my friend and

41 pages (49 mn) Ittf> nthii chopra< 76'l. ,00<

colleague Stephan MOller, who's a Swiss d irector aud ience. I didn't know who tha t audience was.
who I'm still close to. After working in New Yo rk The analogy that I used is: At t he Basel Zoo in
for a while, we went ou t to San Francisco, where Switzerland, there is, in the middle of the African
the company was in residence at the Eureka The- veld exhibit, a little grass hut. Until 1959, they had
atre. Ro bert Woodruff ran the Eureka at that time Africans livi ng in the hut. This is true. This is a
and brought us in. This was the fall of 1977. And country where wome n didn't get to vote until
then Stephan brought in some peop le he knew '971. Underneath its pacifism there is a river of
from the German -speaking theater landsca pe conservatism in the Swiss psyche that is so deep.
who hired us to come to Schauspielhaus in What I realized is that in a certain way this audi-
Zurich and found an experimental second stage. ence was viewing us-and I'm exaggerating to
So, at the age of nineteen, I was suddenly in make the analogy, but not entirely-as anthropo-
Zurich, running this experimental second stage logical. We were an exciting, exotic thing that had
for the largest of the state theaters and really sort been bought from Amenca-c-because we were
of running out the string on something I had paid an obscene amount of money to do these
been doing since I left home . I had a huge crisis exciting, exotic things . And I realized this is the
of conscience because what finally caught up to definition of decadence. I was doing som ething
me in my time in Zurich was the contradiction be- that pretended to be a work of art, pretended to
tween what I was doing aesthetically and what I be a communicative device between an audienc e
believed politically. That contradiction really hit and an artist, but really was a consumer expe-
me like a ton of bricks. We were actually very suc - rience . We were creating a commodity that pre-
cessful in Zurich. It was all going very well-and tended to challenge the identity of the audience,
yet, it felt terrible to me . The audience was app re- but its actual function was to totally reinforce the
ciating us, I think. They were coming. The critics identity of the audience .
were writing nice things about us. And the There's a wonderful essay I read at the time by
Schauspielhaus seemed to love us. And I didn't Ro land Barthes called "Whose Theater? Whose
believe for a second that we were actually Avant-garde?" that he'd written in the fifties . His
commu nicating anything of value to that point is that the re's a very specific kind of

39 p<>g'" [47 mn) left n 11>1 chopl", 76'l. ,00<

avant-g arde t hat seems to cha llenge bourgeois had a subscription to what was then called yale/
co nventions, but whose actual function is to ut- theatre magazine. I spent the Christ mas of 1978 in
terly sup port those conventions by supportin g t he Berlin, East Berlin, and I had a copy of this and I
high art mantle and therefore reifying the entire read an article by Joan Holden, who was the lead
socia l struc ture, We all know t his experience be- writer of the San Francisco Mime Tro upe. The
cause we participate in it in certain ways. We like opening sentence of that article is, "We are a th e-
being part of the in-crowd. We like feeling like we ater tha t does not despise its audience." And I
unde rstand what is going on in performance to burst into tea rs. Because I realized tha t act ion and
the exclusion of others, the sense that under- that ange r-despising and defensiveness toward
standing something that other people don't my audience-e-wes actually at t he root of what
understand is a way of reaffirming our special - was fueling my work here and that was wrong.
ness. We get it. They don't. That makes us spe -
cial. We may be poor, but we're special because You know, that really explains something to me,
we get it and they don't. Some of us may be very which I've been puzzling about for man y, man y
rich. but we get it and they don't-and that makes years . I've always been impressed by something
us wry special. And then what happens is that the you said years and years ago . You came here at
art form becomes not just a commodity the age of sixteen-and we were part of some-
experience-it becomes a socializing experience th ing together where every Sunday we did work-
in the worst possible way. It is a form of exclu- shops at 123 Prince Street, which so mehow you
sionary club membership, and it becomes a and Stephan got into for flee. The theater commu-
badge that you can wear to differentiate yourself nity, friends of ours, would come and go and we
from the others-the general public. You can call would do workshops and then talk and eat. When
t hem the bourgeoisie, but what you really mean is you left and went to Europe and really had a lot of
you're defining yourself as the elite in some way. succ ess there, at a certa in point the question be-
And as this idea became clearer to me, it was came abo ut whether you would come back to New
morally re pugnant. York. You said to me that if you came back-you
I remember the re was a terribly specific event. I didn' t say it would be too soon, but you said you

37 pages(44 mil) lefIlll ltlil chapter 76'l. ,00<

would be too accepted . I think it's actually a little Richard White were runnin g it. I walked in and
profound. You needed to go to a place where you said. "You guys do n't know me. but I was here a
would not be considered too good too soon . It's few years back. I'm going to work here." I had
why I celebrated when you were appointed at the enou gh money saved up from m y Swiss francs
Public. I thought , This is dest iny. This is what's that I co uld do that for a couple of years. Then. as
supposed to happen. And I feellike, as your friend now, when you show up as free labor at a theater
and someone who has been watching you over com pany. it's a very powerful thin g. They start to
the years, that you have circled this position at the think you're a lot smarte r than you are. Your goal
Public, waited for a time that was ripe, waited to is to make yourse lf indispensable so by the time
come back to New York and make a big splash. It your money runs out they have to pay you som e-
has to do with what you just said---that you can thing because they can' t afford to not have you.
have an effect without actually having a real rela- The interes ting part of it for me was that I knew
tionship with the audience. You can be accepted I couldn't do what I was doing , but I didn't know
without creating a link. And I think you have come what to do instead. Almost by chance I was able
to the Public Theater at the exact right moment. to start reinventing myself as a dramatu rg at the
After Zurich you went to San Francisco. You Eureka. There were sort of two different traditions
created quite a body of work there, at the Eureka. that I was combining. One was what I experienced
I appreciate your mining that. The way I put it. in the German-speaking world. from what I was
so rt of stupidly. was that I to re up my passport to seeing and learning of what the great dramaturgs
the avant-garde. and I didn't know how to be in did--what Hermann Beil did with Claus Pey-
New York without being part of that. I needed to mann. what Dieter Sturm did with Peter Stein. The
change. I needed to be different. I went to San great dramatu rgs of European theater provided
Francisco partly because it was beautiful and part- not only the research and academic and literary
ly because we'd had a really successful time there basis for work. but a theoretical basis fo r the
at the Eureka. J thought I might actually be able to wo rk. They were respon sible for helping you carve
make a seco nd home there. At this point it was no out the idea of their respec tive thea ters-why that
longer being run by Woodru ff. Tony Taccone and the ater deserved to exist.

35 pc>ges[42 mn) left nlttl chapler

When I was over there I got to see the last Bochum hired all of them (Bochum already had a
performance that Peymann did at Stuttgart. Claus resident com pany, and they all got fired, but
Peymann is one of the great directors of the that's . there's always bloodletting in a revo-
German-s peaking landscape, and he had forme d lution ). And this night that I got to go see Faust
a com pany in Stuttga rt that was o ne of the pre- was the last night that Peymann performed in
mier co mpanies in the world. Their sort of signa- Stuttgart. It was eight hours, and of course there 's
ture prod uction was a Faust in which they used a huge sta nding ovation at the end. They came
on ly German popular theater forms--everything out and bowed, and the standing ovation kept go-
from public plays to the mystery plays to carnival ing, and they came back. Fiftee n minutes in, it
to take this masterpiece of the German enlight- started to get kind of chaotic becaus e nobo dy
enm ent and create this brilliant, wonderful show. knew what to do. The standing ovation showed
But what he'd also done-this was 1976--was no signs of diminishing. The staff of the theat er
put a note up on the green -room board trying to started piling up on stage . Peymann got up on
raise money for Ulnke Meinhof's dental work. UI- stage. Everybody who worked at the theater came
rike Meinhof was one of the leaders of the Red out. The standing ovation kept going-thirty min-
Army, the Baader-Meinhof gang, and was locked utes. There was no stopping. At this point, every-
up in a windowless cell somewhere for being a body standing on stage has collapsed, bawling. 1
terrorist, and her teeth were rotting out, and felt like I was present for a city thanking the artists
somehow Peymann heard about this and was try- for what they had done for that city. It was the
ing to raise money and get her den tal work done. most moving thing I've ever seen ever. It was
Well, this gets out, there's a fiery debat e and Pey- asto nishing. That's the aliveness that's possible.
mann is fired. Whereupon everybody in the It's not easy, but it's possib le to make a theater
theater-these Germa n sta te-theater com panies that's that indispensable to people.
are big, so it was an acting company of seventy- So that's one tradition. The other traditio n that
five and an admi nistra tive and prod uction crew of was shared by almost all the ava nt-garde. from
abo ut four hundred fifty-all quit e n masse. The Mabou Mines to the Performance Group to
ent ire company resigned. Then the city of Richard Foreman , Robert Wilson, was the

33 poges{39 mn) left onth'l chapter

certainty that, whatever their aesthetic differences need an avant-garde passport; you don't need an
were, the era of the playwright was over. The play- aesthetic lice nse to understand what happ ened
wright might be over because it was the era of the next and "once upon a time." That is the aston -
director or the era of media or it was an era of ishing achievement of Shakespeare. With Shake-
collective creation -but what everybody was sure speare, what's different is that he wrote for the
of was that the playwright was a literary dinosaur most educationally diverse audience that had
left over from the pre-interesting days of the the - been in existence in the Western world since the
ater. In this brave, new world the playwright, if Greeks. That was the last time you got everybody
they existed at all, would be a minor and sec- in the city sitting there at the same moment-
ondary figure to the other auteurs of the theater. from the illiterate groundlings to the aristocracy
My realization-it's abstruse-was that that can't watching the play at the same time, all demanding
be true. At this point I was heavily influenced by to be entertained at the same moment. It's not
the English playwrights of the early-mid-seventies: Shakespeare that created that audience. It's that
David Hare, Caryl Churchill, Howard Barker, audience that created Shakespeare. That audience
David Edgar-the second wave of political British demanded writing that would speak to all of them
playwrights. However different, however devised, at once. You could go another step and say it was
only when the playwright was somehow present also because he had a resident company of actors
did I feel that you could get the combination of to write for, but that's a different story.
ideas and feelings and thoughts and experience All of this is a way of saying that I became con-
that could actually reach an audience with ideas vinced that I had to return to the playwright.
that were sharp enough to actually affect their which was something that had not been central to
minds and change them . It could be wrong, but my work for years, in order to achieve politically
that's what I felt. and socially what I felt I needed to achieve.
Part of that was also saying narrative is actually
fundamental to the theater because stories are the You were really affected by Heiner Muller, weren't
great equa lizer. Stories are the thing that you you?
don't need an education to understand; you don't Well, you know, I admired him. I got to know him

31poges (37 mn) lef!ln ltl chapTet

a bit. He was an un believably interesting and series of wavy lines from the to p to the botto m.
powerful man, but I did n't do any Muller unt il I He said, "That needs to be in your dr awing, too ."
came back. And then I found the re was not a great I said , "What's that?" He said, "That's your blood
love for Heiner Muller in the United States. It was drip ping ac ross the page." Sudde nly I felt like a
hard to figure o ut how to make Muller commu- very young man from Minnesota.
nicate in America. When I did finally produce the So I came back and ann oun ced to San Fran-
American prem iere of a play of his called The cisco that I was a dramaturg and no body ever
Horation in San Francisco, I went back to Europe, asked where I got my degree fro m, so I started
and, in one of his famous late-night drinking ses- working with playwrights, which I do to this day.
sions, two bottles of vodka vanished. At this point
I was an old man of twenty-one or twenty-two, How long were you in San Franci sco before you
and I was patiently explaining to Heiner that we became t he artistic director of th e Eureka? You
were going to produce his play in America and, of went, and th en you were free labor for a while,
cou rse, being an American I didn't have the cyn- then suddenly you were th e bos s.
ical worldview that he had . I said, "Here's what's No, I wasn't the boss . I was part of a group. They
going to happen with my production." I wrote on eventually called me the artistic di rector, probably
the back of an envelope . "Ihis line is the line of afte r abo ut five years, but it was always a very
your play."- Big Arrow-UMy production will par- egalitarian-painfully so-group of directors and
allel your play, but then at the end it's going to lift actors: To ny Taccone. Richard Seyd, Susan Mars-
away from it and create a distance from it, be- de n, Jeff King, lorri Holt. Abiga il van Alyn and
cause I don't believe in your cynical, dark, Sigrid w urschmidt. who has since d ied. It was re-
depr essing thing, but in hope and change." He's altythat collective gro up.
actually an unbelievably sweet man. He said, " But
you left o ne thing out of your line." I sa id, During the time there you commissioned Angels
"What's th at?" And he too k my pen- and at this in AmericQ. You had a lot to do wit h its devel-
po int, yo u ca n imagine, we had the straight line opment. What other plays yo u d id you do at Eu-
and the curved line going up-and he drew a reka?

2'9pages{3<l mn) left nit> chopt",

There were six to ten shows a year, so there were of peop le had been together for a decade-an
an awful lot of things we did that were already incredibly prod uctive decade. It was coming to an
written. We did all of Caryl Churchill's work on end. It was shaking up. The sort of crucial mo-
the West Coast for the first time. We developed a men t was when Sigrid Wurschm idt, an actress in
very close relationship with her; with David Edgar, the com pany to whom the Angels antimigratory
a wonderful and still underes timated writer; epistle is dedica ted, was diagnosed with breast
Trevor Griffiths. We translated a bunch of Franz cancer. It was the day we were performing
Kroetz's plays. We did a number of Dario Fo's lat- [Tony's) A Bright Room Called Day. It was the on ly
er works. Those were the writers who were show we canceled . Sigrid went through three
mainstays-the European writers. I worked with years of struggle before she died. But on e of the
Emily Mann for several years on a play called things that was revealed is that she was the only
Execution ofJustiu, which we also commissioned, person that everybody in the company liked. You
about the murders of George Moscone and Har- know how it is with groups. There's som ebody
vey Milk. who's the glue, somebody who is the emotional
center of it. It's not that we all hated each oth er.
Why did you leave San Francisco? I mean, here It's just that Sigrid was the one we all believed in
was this theater that people were passionate and who made the connections between us and
about. It was very different than when you came. who softened all of the conflict. And when she got
It was a stridently political and yet artistic home sick, she withdrew. Then our managing director
for a lot of writers and actors and artists of all died of breast cancer. To be in San Francisco in
kinds. And yet you left. And I think in your leaving, the middle of the eighties and to be sort of in the
it fell apart. Am 1 being too bruta l to say that, do center of the plague and suddenly to have two
you think? women in your company die of breas t cancer, it
Yes. I think it would have fallen apart if I'd stayed. felt like God was laughing, and it was awful.
I think two things happened. The first was com - The second thing was an analytical thing. I
pletely person al. I expect most peo ple in the roo m made a choice, which I still sta nd behind, which
have experiences like this . That particula r group was that at the Eureka basically, in additio n to

27 JXlge. (32 mrn) left n Ih Schopte<

what we were doing artis tica lly, institutionally we I went to the Taper (the Mark Tape r Forum in Los
were part of a movement which I would now Angeles] Tony Taccon e went to Berkeley Rep,
characterize as t rying to inst itutionalize the and then I went to Trinity wit h exactly the sa me
co untercult ure. There was a wave of theate rs, impulse. What I said at t he time was, "It's time to
there was Wisdom Bridge and Victory Gardens in go to thea te rs with fountains in front of th em." It
Chicago; Empty Space in Seattle ; LATC down in just felt to me that for the particular agenda that
Los Angeles. There were a bunch of theaters all we had. this was the route to success. I still act u-
founded essentially in opposition to the dominant ally believe that , and it's obviously true for me
not -for-profit regional theaters in the community. personally. One of the things tha t is interesting to
Usually we were leftier than they were; usually we me in watching the younger generation form the-
were more avant-garde: usually we wanted ater companies is that I feel that there's not t hat
younger audiences. What we were trying to do same institutionalizing impulse. We were all t ry-
was say, "All right. There's room in the American ing to get subscription bases and find audi ences,
theater landscape for another LORT theater in San and now the younger theater companies that are
Francisco that is the countercultural theater as forming are much more entrepreneurial , much
opposed to Berkeley Rep and American Conser- more project -to-project , much more fluid. That
vatory Theater." I think that failed, and I moved organizational model feels to me like a much
on. It was absolutely an intellectual decision in smarter and realer organizational model than try-
1989 for me to say, "That isn't going to work. ing to become the dinosaurs that we were at th e
There isn't enough mandate in this culture to Eureka.
form permanent institutions that are analogous to
t hose other institutions , that exist in opposition A couple of months ago yo u wrote an article in the
to them." There is in some European coun tries. Village Voin:. I wept . One of the th ings that made
There isn't here, at least outside of New York. So, me so emotional in reading it is that you have the
t he job is to take over those institutions. The job balls to actually say the words that need to be
isn 't to form new ones. The job is to move ou r said, that people aren 't saying. like: Free theater
agenda and our bodies into the mothers hips. So, for everyone . I mean, this is insane, right? I

25 p<>g'" (29IlWl) left onth I Cho;llet 78'1. ,00<

wonder if you could ta lk about the impulse behind books. Co in and check it out. That's what Joe did
that article and describe a litt le bit about what in the park for free, obviously, famous ly. I was
you' re doing. here for the fiftieth anniversary an d yanked up this
It seems to me that one of the things that we speech that George C. Scott gave to the city cou n-
obviously have to look at is audience. If you look cil in 1968 in which he says, I'm s ure so mewhat
across the country, one of the trends that's hap- to Joe's surprise, tha t it's the goa l of the Public
pening at the institutional theaters-and I think Theater to give away all of its seats free all of the
most of the institutions would admit this-c-is that time , downtown as well as in the park. I just said,
ess entially the number of audiences have been on "Well, why not?" l ook at what happens in the
a slight decrease for a number of years now. The- park. In the summer I get completely roman -
aters are sustaining themselves by getting mo re ticized about it. The lines that line up at the park,
dollars per audience member. Essentially what is and then you sit in the thea ter and the audienc e is
happening is the beginning of a process that I younger than any audience for Shakespeare any-
think is really terrifying if you follow it through to where in the country. It's more economically di-
the end. which is to say, "It's all right if fewer peo- verse. It's more raciallydiverse than any audience
ple come as long as those who come give us for Shakespeare-practically for any theater. And
more money." And that of course is not utterly eighteen hundred seats a night and there isn't an
alien to the Public Theater downtown, having top empty seat all summer. And that audienc e is also
ticket prices that are pushing fifty bucks and an unbe lievably excited to be there becaus e, of
average ticket price of around thirty bucks. This cou rse, they've waited in line to get those seats.
was called the Public Theater partially because it's The one bad performance night all summer was
in a public library building and partially becaus e the big benefit gala-the night nobody had to wait
Joe taught himself English-apocryphally, but in line.
sort of true--i n the public libraries from read ing
Shakespeare. Part of the idea behind that theater What is that?
was always that theater sho uld be provided to the It's the desi re to be there. It's the desire to get in.
citizenry by the public the same way it provides Everyone in theater has heard some marketing

2l pages (27 mrn) left nih s cho pte< 78'l. ,00<

person or consul ta nt say that people don' t value lousy business plan for most com mercial theater
what they don't pay fo r, so you have to charge prod ucers. We all know that comm ercial theater
the m for it or they won't value it. Bullshit! Fifty prod ucing is not a sensible business. And cer-
years in the park! Bullshit! No, I'm se rious. These tai nly not what you've got in a not-far -profit mis-
people are valuing this event Wily mo re than the sion. And so, okay, what are you going to do? A
people who are paying for it-way more than the thought that was floated at one point is that you
audiences at some of my sister theaters around redesign the Public so you get a five hundred-seat
town, whom I adore and love. Young people don't theater.
go to the theater. It's not about economic bar-
riers? Oh yeah? You remove the economic bar- Audience: Joe wasn't crazy when he went to Lin-
riers, they all show up! coin Center. It may not have worked the way he
Well, okay, then you start to think and, you envisioned , but he knew what he was going to do
know, again, this is me s peaking. This is not the with that.
policy of the Public Theater. We are engaged in a But nor was he crazy when he turned his back on
long-range planning process and we'll see what it and gave it up. And he gave it up specifically be-
comes out of it. One of the things that you can do cause when A Chorus Line hit he said, "The money
economically is bemoan the fact that we have all we're making on A Choru s Line shouldn't be used
these spaces that are so tiny. The biggest theat er to subsidize the kind of work that I have to do at
at the Public is smaller than our smallest theater Lincoln Center. It should be used to subsidiz e the
in Rhode Island. It's two hundred ninety-nine kind of work I do at the Public." So the size of
seats. How the heck can you ever make an those theaters is not necessarily something to
economically profitable transaction? You have to aim for. Maybe the small size is an advantage. We
transfer things commercially to make mon ey off don't make any money at the Public. We can't
them. A Chorus Line becomes not this rare, iso- make any money. We sell out all the tickets and
lated gift tha t endows the theater. It becomes a we don't make any money. We're losing bucket-
business plan. But wait a minute. This is a lousy loads of money. So what if instead of trying to
business plan for a not-for-profit, just like it's a transfer shows-which everyone else IS

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doing-we said: "No, we're going to hold down but who do have some money, from seeing the
the not-far-profit fort with intensi ty and say, ' Not show. So, okay, do a membership. Somebody
only are we not-for-profit, we're like majorly pays two hundred fifty bucks. They're a memb er.
not-far-profit.' We're going to give up the idea of We reserve twenty·five percent of the seats of the
earned revenue." The Guthr ie Theater in Minne- thea ter and they can call up and get them. That
apo lis right now has an endowment of about sixty still means that we've given away seventy-five per-
million dollars. We have an endowment of about cent. And of course this is what we do in the park.
eighteen million dollars left over after various We took some flak in the press for this about
problems. It would require an add itional eighteen months ago, but in reality this is what
thirty-million-dollar endowment to entire ly replace has always been done since the Delacorte was
the earned revenue of the Public's earned box- built. There's been no change. The only thing is
office last season. One good cam paign for an that we made the program s public, so that people
endowment and you've replaced funds annually- can actually call up and join them, as opposed to
not once, but for every year in perpetuity. Sud- them being private deals . Always about twenty-
den ly the amount of those campaign dollars five percent of the seat s in the park have gone to
seems kind of small. What are they going to donors. And, you know what? I d on't care. That's
spend on renovating lincoln Center ? Seven hun - good. Because those donors are who let us give it
dred and fifty million dollars? free to everybody else. So on any given night in
the park we'll have three hundred seats that may
Audience: Or bu ilding a performin g arts center at have had money attached to them at some point.
t he World Trade Center site. But you have fifteen hundred people who stood in
Right. It's tiny. It's a drop in the bucket. And you line to get in for free. That's a pretty good ratio.
don't actually have to replace all the earned in- So, you apply that. You don 't even need to re-
come because: "I'm sorry, I can' t wait in line. My place all that earned revenue. But would people
life does not allow me to wait in line." And we wait in line for a new play they've never heard of
shouldn't actually prohibit people whose lives fo r in the middle of the winter? I don't know. But it
various reasons don't allow them to wait in line, would be reallyfun to try and do that as opposed

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to try and figure out how to afford ads in the New seventies is a musical about trying to get a job. It
York Times to fight what Charles Ishe rwood said was comple tely responding to the mom ent.
about your show, which is really boring. The other That's why it landed-not beca use it was an in-
thing about the park is that it's review proof. It's thea ter joke, but because it was a city winding up
not word-of-mouth proof. But it's review proof. trying to get back to work.
Nobody cares what the Times said about it. What
they care about is that they heard the show is AB: Going back to your avant -garde passport-I
worth seeing. And that's what propels them. Isn't always th ink that A Chorus Lin ~ only happened
that what we want? A world where that's what because Joe Chaikin's work at the Open Theater
matters? made that approach to the human being-actor-
playing character in relationship to a story like that
AB: That notion of lines , people actually having to happen.
underg o so mething to get in, is big. But there was I used to walk in the Public lobby not knowing
also somet hing in the article about how ther e what I was going to go see. It had that big board
might be a p'aywright·;n.res id~nc~ as well, which up there with the five different theaters, and they
was interesting. almost always had five things. If you couldn't get
It's a whole other subject. There's an actual, log- into one thing, you could get into something else.
ical connection between doing Shakespeare and It was not just new playwrights and Shakespeare
giving it to the people and then doing new work. rubbing shoulders. Mabau Mines was in resi-
Putting those two things side by side was a fan- dence. Why? Because Joe liked them. JoAnne
tastic, brilliant insight. They don't look on the sur - Akalaitis doesn't become JoAnne Akalaitis if
face like they have a lot to do with each other, but Mabou Mines isn't in residence at the New York
it turns out they have everything to do with each Shakespeare Festival. So the people who are do-
other. The New York Shakespeare Festival turned ing what Mabou was doing then and the people
out to be the perfect place to create Hair, to create who we re doing Shakespeare and the peo ple who
The Basic Training of Pavio Hummel, A Chorus are doing new plays are not in separa te niches.
Une-which, of course, in the middle of the They're all mixing up and rubbing should ers in

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the lobby and seeing themselves and thinki ng, pict ure of things to endow a chair of playwriting.
Oh. I wonder if I could do t hat? And "What can I If som ebody gave the Public two millio n dollars
learn from ... ?" That's what makes a great the- to endow a chair, and put their name on it for the
atrica l culture. rest of eternity, that kicks off a hundred t ho usand
For writers-as for actors, which is an even dolla rs a year. With that, on an annual basis, say
more complicated issue--one of our huge prob- you pay a playwright a sixty thousand dollar
lems right now is that the entire American theater sa lary. You pay all of their retirement, pension,
is taking this passive approach to allowing its health, cover all those matters, and there's
artists to create a life in the field. We're moving in enough left over for a workshop every year. And
this direction as a field where we're sort of saying you appoint senior folks to those chairs in five-
to writers, as to actors and to directors, "You year terms--or, I don't know, maybe ten -year
know, we actually can't support you. You actually terms. And it's exactly like a chair at a great re-
can't make a living in the theater. We're not even search university. You don't get one of those
going to say it out loud , but the way we pay you chairs in order to perform . It's the university say-
and the way we treat you is basically telling you ing, "We want you to be present here. Occa -
you're going to have to make your living in film sionally see a student." In playwriting terms:
and television. And you work out how you can Interact with the theater a little bit. We'd like to
make your living, then we hope you have time left look at what you write. But fundamentally, you get
for us and that you'l l come and see us occa - this chair to do your work because your work is of
sionally." The long-term consequences of that are value to society. Not because we' re going to make
so bad for the survival of the American theater. a profit off of it. Not because we'll get you to
How are we going to handle that with actors? This teach eighty hours a week at the same tim e. But
is not just the not-for-profit. The commercial the - because your philological research is of social
ater does this to acto rs. But with playwrights, I value that is not compensated by the ma rketplace,
feel like we should do what universities do and so we in the academic community will step up to
have chai rs of playwriting-endowed chairs. the plate and make sure that we can keep t he life
Again, it takes a tiny amou nt of mo ney in th e big of the mind alive. The reverberatory effects of t hat

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are not just whoever gets those chairs. If the Pub- AS: I don 't think it's necessari ly harder to do than
lic maybe establishes five chairs, ten million dol- to sa y. I think the first step is to think and connect
lars, five playwrights at any given moment are the words. And I think the action s follow. I think
having a living wage, pensio n. What you're also the people follow. I think there is a need in our
saying to the peo ple who do n't have those chairs field for tha t sort of articulation---because basi-
is, "Look, here's a mode l. You can look down the cally it' s logical. It's not like what you're saying is
line and not feel like an idiot because you d idn't pie-in-the-sky, It's based on ethics and philoso phy
take that TV series ." I bet you if we establi sh five and it's practical.
of them, Todd Haimes would have to look me in
the face and do two o f them. Every theater worth Audience: Is part of the plan for actors to work o n
its salt should have this . How the hell else are we th ings for a long time?
going to su pport a culture? We all work off these I wouldn't say plan yet. We're starting in a very
playwrights' work. If the great playwrights stop slow way trying to do some read ings, a few days,
producing great work, what are we going to do? sitting around the table with Three Sistersand King
So that's just one. There are other things we Leaf . We're trying to start a process with actors
should do for younger playwrights, too. sitting around the table with some of the great
works so that that becomes part of the normal
AS:What? presence without saying, "And it's going into re-
Money, money, money. Groups and commis- hearsal next March." Saying, "Let's take a little
sions and I've got a whole manifesto that I' ll pub- while to look." In every one of these conver-
lish. sations somebody says "Vanyo on 42nd Strut"
within fifteen minutes , so it's also the influence of
AS: Don't you feel happ y that not on ly is Oskar Andre [Gregory) and that methodology. Again,
thinking these things , but also spe aking them out we're trying to figu re out how we can be suffi -
loud? ciently creative, abo ut how you keep acto rs in-
But the real point is now succeeding in doing volved in the life of the theate r over a lo ng span. I
them , which is a lot harder than talking. knew how to do it when I was at my previous

13poges (15mil) Iefl '" thISchapter

home in Rhode Island, where we had an acting I do n't think we could be sitti ng here talking
company. That was a model that was simpler and about Angels in America. It's absol utely part of
that I understood. In New York it's more compli- what stretched that play to have the reach that it
cated, because it doesn't feel like it's the right ended up having.
thing for the Public to have an acting company. So, we have lots of informal ways of figuring
What feels right is to think about how is it pos- out how to keep the work going over an extended
sible to get actors engaged over a longer arc, to period of time. The only thing I'm sure of is tha t
find ways to work on material that's outside the we have to produce more work. There's no way
four-week rehearsal period . one Shakespeare in the Park in the summer pro-
Angels is a perfect example: We sort of created a vides enough employment for enough actors to
company around the development of Angels in keep those chops alive. So we have to do at least
America that went on for six years. It had lots of two.
firings, including my own, and that was part of it.
But it, nonetheless, was a continuous process of Audience: The theater scene in Minneapolis
work among a group of artists for six years, and seem s so vital and much more sophisticated. Do
that is abs olutely at the heart of why it's a great you have any idea why?
play. Tony had three women in Angels who would I attribute it to a couple of things. The first is that
not have been in that play. I can't tell you how there is a prairie socialist system that is epito -
many times Tony would whine to me, "Why do I mized by the Farmer labor Party, that merged
have to have these women in this show? This is a with the Democratic Party, that runs very deep in
play about gay men . I don't know what to do with Minnesota. There is in its trad ition community
them. Abigail, this mother . Okay, we'll make her and equality and a kind of Scandinavian gen-
Joe Pitt's mother, but I don't know what the moth- erosity on a social plane that underlies the city in
er's going to do in this play." Well, he had to have a very real way. I think that has had a real influ-
these th ree women in the play because we had ence o n its approach to the arts. You couple that
these three women in the company. If those three with the fact that when you're in Minneapolis,
female characters hadn't been written in the play, you're a long, long way from anyplace else, and

11 pages (12mn) lef! n Itol chapter

the winters are very cold, and therefore indoor Mi chael Langham replaced him. Seven years later,
entertainment is a very good thing. You have he was gone. So the Guthrie, from the beginnin g,
many months in which it's importan t to be in- though it was named after Tyro ne Guth rie, built it-
doo rs. You also had-until recently-a pretty self as a stable inst itution separate from any ind i-
cohesive corporate community. The senior sen - vidual running it. That traditio n stood them in
ato r, Mark Dayton, is from the Dayton-Hudson brilliant stead when it came time to do their big
family of the department stores, and is sort of the endowment campaign , because it wasn 't who was
perfect example. You have this man who was the artistic director. The Guthrie Theater had it's
raised in absolutely the height of, for Minnesota , identity. That's a lesson we can really all learn
old money corporate privilege, who goes into from in these big institutions. It's really important
politics and is elected as a quite liberal Democrat. that the institution plays its role in the commu -
That comes from the tradition of corporate nity, not simply the charismatic individual.
responsibility, which is certainly not without
blemish-Honeywell made napalm-but is none- Audience: I read in the Times, I th ink it was before
theless real. So you have a group of corporations, you cam e, that t he Public was th inking of reviving
from Dayton-Hudson to Target to Northwest, the mobile theater, which-c-l'm not exactly sure
who have a corpo rate culture that's seriously what it is, but I imagine so me kind oftruck going
interested in investigat ing community-and gets from borough to borough.
punished by the community if they don 't. And That was just as I arrived. There are nights that
then the fact that the Guthrie has been the most I've cursed myself for saying that because it's go-
financially successful regional theater-and at ing to be really hard-and important. We've got
times the most artistically successful. the plans in the works. The idea is that regardless
Here's an interesting thing that has nothing to of any other lack of economic barrier, ther e are
do with money. The Guthrie mastered the art of cultural barriers to people going to the Delaco rte
artistic director transition better and faster than in Central Park that we are never going to com -
any othe r theater in the country. It was fo unded pletely overcome. There are just peop le who will
by Tyrone Guthrie. Five years later, he was gone . not wait in line in the middle of Manhattan to go

9 pages (10 mn) lef! n Itol chapter

to Shakespeare that night no matter what we do. them?
So for those people we've got to go back o ut to We're compiling a big list of needs, but funda-
the boroughs and perform there . We've obviously mentally the support is spectacu lar. I have to say
been working off the ideas of a lot of our compa - tha t, regardless of what one thinks about the poli-
triots, including Cornerstone. Rather than put on tics of the Bloomberg administratio n, Kate Levin,
a production in the park and put it on the truck commissioner of culture, has been amazing -not
and bring it out and show it to folks, what we're just in terms of providing support, which she
trying to do is get teams of artists who we will does. but she's been a really interesting, valuable,
send into communities to form relationships in dive-in partner in terms of trying to figure out
those communities and try to create productions what we should be doing . A lot of the job right
there that are somehow grounded and specific to now is trying to figure out specifically what the
each of the five boroughs. Now that doesn 't mean Public has to offer that is not being covered else-
adhering to the Cornerstone model-amateurs where. I was here in the seventies, went away, and
performing alongside professionals-but it does I look at the Public again , and so many things that
mean trying to not simply take culture to the peo- used to be exclusively the Public's domain , now
ple, but actually derive culture from the people. I other people do. Everybody's trying to bring
think we·ve matured enough as a field to be a lit- shows to Broadway. P.S. 122 has taken on a lot of
tle more sophisticated about how culture impacts being the housing for avant-garde performance.
people and how much they hav e to be present The Shakespeare franchise is no longer exclusive
within what you'v e created in order for it to actu- to the Public. We have Theatre for a New Audi-
ally create a v iv id ev ent . It's turning out to be a ence, lincoln Center. BAM. So the landscape's
colossally expensi ve experiment . which is what's changed. for better or worse , mostly for bette r. So
giving me the headaches. but I think it's an idea now, you have to redefine the question of what
that has to happen. the Public adds to this mix. The worst feeling in
the world-and this has happened a few times-
Audience: How's the Public's relationship with is when you're competing with your compatriot
the city government? What do you need from theaters for getting a show. The reaso n it's such a

7 pages (8 mn) l&fI ,n 1M ot.:Jpter

terrible feeling is that ifwe're com peting for do ing not-for-profits-lincoln Cente r and Manhattan
a show, we're actually not providing so mething Theatre Club and Rounda bo ut here in town-they
that so mebody else isn't going to provide anyway. don' t have the boom-and-bust history that the
If Manhatt an Theatre Club wants to do this Public has. The Public has eco nomic crisis,
show-let 'em! If New York Theatre Workshop boo m-and -bust history. and that's scary. because
wants to do it, let 'em do the play becaus e the at a certain point, you have eno ugh of those
play will get done . And isn't our job to get the play boo m-and-busts and tha t Chorus Line mon ey is all
done? That's why we're a not-for-profit. If we were gone and somebody else is doi ng Shakespeare
a profit-making enterprise we might want it be- and, you know what? We don't own the Delacorte.
cause we could get something. We're supposed Maybe lincoln Center should be programming.
to be filling the need that othe r people won't fill. Christopher Plumme r should do Lear there. Sud-
denly the whole mission could go away. That's
AD: Do you have any idea what that is? what I feel my job is-to make sure that doesn't
I hope I've provided a few thoughts. I am a sec- happen. That's an institution-building job.
ond - or third-generation of artistic director in the
not-for-profit theater in this country, and I'm re- Audience: I didn't read the Voice article, but I'm
ally following in the footsteps of giants. I am here about to cry just hearing what you have to say. It's
at the Public because in their ways Joe and sort of amaz ing and incredible. But I was won-
JoAnne and George were each a giant. I feel like dering about the tens ion between the two things
my job is to-and reading between the lines in you were saying, which is that doing it isn't as
what I was saying about the Guthrie-not to be a easy as saying it. What's getting in the way? Why
giant. We've had giants . My job is to try to get the is it 5 0 hard? I sense that it is.
institution stabilized , focusing on its mission, I think it's hard because it's hard. If it were easy, it
focusing on what it's supposed to be doing and would have been done before-somebody giving
making su re that it is doi ng it as well as possible away all your tickets for free or endowing chairs
and it has the support to continue to do it in the for playwrights. They're not simple. However, I re-
long haul. If you look at the other major ally agree with what Anne said. I think they're

5 pages (5 mil) letTIII th chapTer 6O'l.,00<

logical. I think they are arguments that follow not AS: No-it's a great thing that Laurie does be-
from fiery persona lityand Blake-ian vision. I think cause you have to keep it fresh becau se she's
they're arguments that follow from the mission of hearing it again.
the theater. And what I'm hopeful for-a nd this is At the end of the day we're talking about fundrais -
where I think we have a little bit of a track record ing. right? It's a huge part of this. But really who
in Rhode Island- is that if an idea is good you have to convince is everybody. You have to
enough, if it really benefits what we believe about convince the audience who you expect to show
the theater, it attracts support. It takes time and it up. You have to convince the staff who are work-
takes persistence to attract that support. I have no ing themselves to the bone to try and make all
question that the resources are there-abut we this happen. You have to convince the board. who
have to make it clear enough and make it a com - are the fundamental fiscal guardians. You have to
pelling enough vision to attract the support. convince everybody you've set up to raise money
from. You have to convince the artists who come
Audience: I guess my quest ion is more specific and do work here. You have to convince every-
then. Who do you have to convince? body, and everybody is convinced by a different
slight angle of the story, but it has to be funda -
AS: What is that theo ry of memes? It's really kind mentally the same story. It's why I don't mind
of bullshit, but the theory is that we're put on fund raising. It's not really any different than what
earth to spread DNA Of" memes, which are ideas, I do in the rehearsal room . You have a text. you
and there's a kind of influenza of ideas Of influ- have people sitting around the table working from
ence of ideas that gets sp read from one person to the text. Essentiallywhat you're trying to do is fig-
anoth er. I think Oskar's do ing it. His work is hap- ure out how everybody in the room can feel
pen ing right now in this room . ownership over this text and care passionately
That's absolutely right-but the major thing in my about it-so passionately that they're willing to
head is my wife's horror that she's going to have throw their reso urces into that. It's exactly what
to listen to me do this how many millions of you're doing when you fundraise. You're trying to
times. Don't leave me, honey. get somebody to care enough about your theater

3 pages (3 m n) Iefl 'n lhischopter 6O'l.,00<

that they believe they own it and they're willing to Molly Smith
throw their resources into it. Their resources are
financial. Your resources are emotional or artistic. Molly Smith is one of the most courageous wom-
If your theater is actually doing what I said it's en I know. She once described how to handle a
supposed to be doing, which is filling a role in a kayak in dangerous currents. "Paddle directly into
community, it's not different. It's not just for the the roughest water," she said. Our natural incli-
artists. It's for the city. If Joe Papp made anything, nation is to avoid the trouble spot but that is an
he made a theater that was supposed to be for the unwise and unsafe thing to do. Paddle toward the
city. problem .
Molly is presently the art istic director of Arena
Stage in Washington, D.C. When she assumed
the position at Arena she made a massive deci-
sion . The work at Arena would celebrate the
American voice. She has made good on her
commitment. The theater has commissioned
countless indigenous writers, it has uncovered
the works of neglected American playwrights, and
it has produced beloved American classics right
alongside.
Then Molly made yet another courageous and
groundbreaking decision . She proposed changing
the existing Arena Stage building and con-
structing a much -enhanced, expanded and reno-
vated complex to be named the Mead Center for
American Theater, a three -theater facility dedi-
cated to the development and production of
American theater. She, Stephen Richard and her

1 poge «1 mn) H!fl 'n Itol chap!« 60'1.,00<

board and staff have raised well over o ne hundred work by Sarah Ruhl, Mols es Ka ufman and Tim
millio n dollars based upon her ent husias m for Acito. Playwrights benefit from Molly's belief in
and belief in the plan. Molly was able to articulate them in the fo rm of her support and through her
her excitement and vision, and people wanted to friendship and warmth.
be part of this new idea and endeavo r. In addition to receiving honorary doctorates
Molly grew up in Juneau, Alaska, transferred to from both Towson University and her alma mater,
Catholic University as an undergraduate and re- American University, Molly serves on the boards
ceived her master's degree from American of both Theatre Communications Group and the
University. All during her studies in the "lower Center for Internatio nal Theatre Development.
forty-eight:' Molly harbored a dream to return to She has directed two feature films: Ral'en's Blood
Alaska and found a theater in the city of her youth and Making Contact.
where there was none . And she did exactly that.
She and her then husband hauled fifty used the- D ECEM BER '9, 2 0 0 5
ater seats to Juneau and spread the contagious
excitement of her mission . The result of what she AB: Molly has one of the most extraordinary sto-
calls her "fire in the belly" is Perseverance The- ries in the American theater. Molly is the artistic
atre, which she founded in '979. She remained its director of Arena Stage in Washington, D.C.,
artistic director for nineteen years. The theater which has itself had an extraordinary history and
continues to prosper as the flagship professional an amaz ing woman who started that. We were on
theater in Alaska. a panel a couple of years ago in Baltimore with
While still an undergraduate at Catholic Univer- Tina Packer and Ellen lauren, and I sudde nly real-
sity, Molly began a creative relationship with the ized that all the women on the panel had actually
playwright Paula Vogel that continues to this day. gone through the backdoor to get to the front,
She has commissioned and directed premieres of including myself. Molly said, " I'm going to Alas-
Paula's plays, including The Baltimore Waltz, How ka." I had said, "I'm going downtown ." Tina left
I Learned to Drive and The Mineola Twins. At Arena England and started a company in Western
Stage Molly also commissioned and directed Massachusetts. And through that we came out

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into the major mainstream American theater. I that t ime it just hit me: I should stop following
might be overgeneralizing-but the boys kind of my head, which was saying, "Be a lawyer. You can
crash in the front gate. I thought that all of us ma ke mo ney," an d really liste n to what I wan ted
went around to the backdoor. to do, which was theater. So I decided. at t he ripe
I would like to st art with the past. You went to old age of nineteen. that I wanted to start a t heater
high schoo l in Alaska , is that right? in Alaska. I came back an d to ld my unive rsity
MS: Yes. I was born in Yakima, Washington. pro fessors. They patted me on the shoulder and
which is apple country. I always felt that I was said, "That's very nice , dear." And with that I took
there by mistake and needed to be in a city. From off. It had always been a family thing to finish
th e time I was a kid I was very interested in the school in the east. So J was a transfer student at
theater. My family moved to Alaska when I was Catholic University, and went on to get my mas-
sixteen. I went in some ways kicking and scream- ter's degree at American University. At Catholic
ing. although, after about six months, I fell com- University, my best friend was Paula Vogel. We
pletely in love with it and in love with the people. I met each other as transfer students, and we'd sit
think because of the mountains there I had a in the dark corners plotting the downfall of t he
sense of place that I hadn't had when I was in American theater. And then at American Univer-
Washington State. which was more of an irrigated sity I met Joy Zinoman . She was one of my bes t
desert. When I was nineteen I had just finished mentors and she eventually started the Studio
my first year of school at the University of Alaska Theatre, which is one of the best-known small
in Fairbanks, where it gets to sixty below an d theaters in Washington, D.C. By small, I don't
much more than that with wind chill factor. It's mean small-they have fou r theaters that are all
t he kind of place where you have to plug your car two hundred seats. She's really revitalized a whole
in. The most hip thing to do was to live in a cabin area of Washington, D.C., in the l ogan Circle
and have an outdoor toi let. Imagine the level of area.
ice on t hose outdoor toilets. After my first year, in I st ayed on in Washi ngto n, D.C., for several
which I pursued a pre-law deg ree. I t raveled for mo re years becau se my former hu s band was in
t hree months with a friend ove r to Euro pe. During t he Naval Academy. During that time I worked

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with a lot of small professional theaters like New So when we headed back to Alaska, Billy was
Playwrights Theatre, ASTA, Back Alley. But fro m st ill whispering in my ear as we drove across the
the time I was nineteen I wanted to start a theate r country, "If you want to stop someplace else, we
in Alaska. I was like a hom ing pigeon. I wanted to can." And I said, "No, we can't."
go back. Billy kept saying, "Shouldn't we go to
San Francisco?" "No, I've got to go to Alaska." Is this when you had gotten the seats?
"Shouldn't we go to Seattle?" "No, no, no. I have This was right at that time. About a month before
to go to Alaska." I studied everything I could in we left, a friend of mine who had another theater
Washington. D.C., because I figured when I that she was renovating, an old porno hous e,
would go back to Alaska I would need to teach called and said, "I have fifty used-probably very
people. used-theater seats. Do you want them?" And I
Alaska's huge. It's the fifth of the size of the said, "Yes, yes. I want them." Billy and a couple of
United States. It used to be five time zones. That his friends hauled them over to the house and
gives you an idea of how vast it is. You go all the stuffed them into the back shed. Then a month or
way down the Aleutian chain, to the panhandle, two later the military was moving us back to Alas-
up into Nome. It's truly, truly enormous. There ka. and the poor guy who came in to move us
was a professional theater in Alaska, Alaska opened the shed and was faced with fifty heavy
Repertory Theatre in Anchorage, but it closed in theater seats. He immediately ran inside to call
the nineties. Well, that's over six hundred miles the office. God bless the United States Military
away from Juneau. Juneau is in southeast Alaska. and Navy. The guy looked it up and pulled the pa-
It's on the panhandle, quite close to Canada. In pers and said, "It says right here that used the-
many ways it probably should have been part of aters seats are household items. You gotta take
Canada because it's just this little angle that them." So it's the story of how the military started
com es down. But it's the state capital. There are a theater company. For me, it was an icon. It was
no roads in or out. So you have to take a plane or this symbol of this thing that I kept wanting to do.
a boat in order to get the re. It has a popu lation of My friends in Washington, D.C., thought I was
thirty thousand. crazy. "Why are you going back ther e? Why do n't

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you stay here? Theate r's much more interes ting o n the Bering Sea, where the hunters are subsis-
here." It was kind of an odd trajectory to even- te nce hun te rs. They are whalers; t hey are sea l
tually come back to Washington, D.C. hunters; t hey are walrus hunte rs . And we would
Then, I thought it would take five years to sta rt ta ke productions like Taming of the Shrew. We
a th eater in Alaska, but in six mon ths the theater would take productions like The Im portance of Be-
was born. The first play that we did was called ing Earnest . We wou ld make a theater in each one
Pure Cold. We went out and interviewed fifty se - of these communities. We would go in and re-
nior citizens who were anywhere from seventy to build the inside of a Quonset hut or go into a
ninety-people from the Chitkoot Trail, all the chu rch social hall. We were a traveling theater
pioneers, natives, Native Americans who had troupe that would come to this place in the mid-
been there for centuries, the Filipinos who came dle of nowhere and bring a piece of magic to peo -
up in the mines-and did a readers theater piece. ple who didn't have one. Life was pretty rough in
That launched the theater. Eventually it toured some of those villages. We would teach work-
ninety times both around Alaska, to all those little shops.
strange places like Kotzebue and Nome where the
sun never sets or rises, and all the way around the I remember one thing that I don't want to forget.
world with a couple of productions. When you went to Juneau there was no theater.
My image of the story is you wandering down the
You tran sported t hos e actors by plane, right? street saying, "Who wants to be in a play?" What I
Yes. We would transport actors by Beaver Plane, find remarkable is th at you did Pure Cold, which
which I think is one of the best planes in the was about people's experiences. and the people
world because it's a World War II plane. It's very, who went to see it said, "Oh, theater's about us."
very sturdy. It has maybe about twenty seats in it. And the only other professional theater in Alaska
We would go out to logging camps on boats and at thi s point was Alaska Rep, which was about
ferries. We would go to native fishing villages. We bringing in professionals from the lower 48, and
t raveled up north to places like Toksook Bay, it dosed because it didn't mean anything to the
which feels like it's on the edge of the moon, right community. But Perseverance Theatre persevered,

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and to this day perseveres because of its rela- Is t his just socia l work?" This who le idea that a
tionship to the community, even t hough it's a t heater is a reflection of a com m unity was su ch a
professional theater company. The other t hing- rare idea at tha t time. Now it's become a part of
and maybe you don't want to toot your own our vernacular. We t hink, of co urse, t hat's exactly
hom-but I went there in 11)84 and was knocked what it's part of. I th ink it was at t hat time tha t th e
out. Alaskans are strong peop le. It was impres- th eater was really starting to stop from being so
sive. It changes you to be in that atmosphere inward looking and start looking around. For
among th at kind of landscape. But what is also many. many, many, many years it was art for art's
remarkable is not only did you do theater that was sake. And then there was this whole othe r piece.
about the community, you also trained not onl y I think Anne is absolutely right. In the early
actor s, but directors and playwrights. years of the thea ter I would go into bars and I
STAR Program (Summer Theatre Arts Ren- would drag people off barstools. and I would say.
dezvous). "Come. Audition for this play." Some of those ac-
tors have continued to be actors with Pers e-
Which was also amazing to se-e, again , that kind verance Theatre even now-which is so odd and
of ow nership by the community that was trans- wonderful to me. It was really about how you find
formed into professional ism . the creativity within each human being. It's also
It was a very interesting time . It is twenty-seven true that most people who live in Alaska don't
years old now. In those early days, coming to the think of themselves as a single thing. In cities,
National Endowment for the Arts to argue abou t a people tend to specialize. In Alaska, the first t hing
theater that had a relationship to a community you would ask somebody is, "What do you know
was a shocking notion . People did not believe it. how to do?" "Well, I know how to fix an engine. I
They did not understand that often times theater know how to make blueberry pie. I know how to
gets made by the ama teur coming together with fix a snowblower." You find out wha t people are
t he professional. That's where a lot of times you able to do because there's always a little piece of
ca n have tha t spa rk. I used to have lo ng, rabid s urvival. It's cold weather. It's difficult getting in
argume nts with them. "What are you trying to do ? and o ut. You co uld always end up in troub le. That

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ended up making people really wonderful story- home."
tellers. If you were a good storyteller, you would
probably be good on stage as well. So New York Times reviews don't mean anything
One of the most interesting projects we did was to them?
called Yup'ik Antigone, a retelling of the Antigone Exactly. It became the story of t he show t hat
story from a Yup'ik point of view. The Yup'ik Eski- didn't go on . Ellen Stewart was fantastic when I
mos live way, way, way up north . They are subsis- ta lked to her about it. She said , "Well, they've got
tence fishermen and hunters . Dave Hunsaker had to go home." I said , "Well. you won't stop a
this idea. What would happen if we married a re- Yup'ik Eskimo."
ally ancient tradition in Alaska, which had to do
with the Eskimo people, with the Ant igone story? I remember also that there was a discovery that
Event ually we had eight Eskimo actors in it. It was the Yup'iks have a similar story to Antigone. They
all done in the Yup'ik language with Yup'ik dance. said , "We have th is story." So it was not a new
Yup'ik movement. There was very little story- story.
telling in it. It was the first time there had been on In talking to the village elders. because Dave
stage an entirely Eskimo cast telling stories about Hunsaker worked through the elders the whole
who they were in the Yup'ik language. It had a time in translation , they said. "Antigone was right.
combustible effect throughout the whole state. She needed to bury her brother." During the time
Eventually, three different native theaters came we were there making this piece, there were two
about because people wanted to tell their own people in the Eskimo village of Toksook Bay who
stories. That traveled pretty much around the were lost. One was "lost" in Anchorage. and one
world because people were so fascinated by it. It was last out on the ice. Every night we would see
also came here to New York, to La MaMa. It about maybe thirty snow machines out trac ing the
opened. got fantastic reviews and sold out the run ice for hours and hours looking for this body of
within about two days. Then, two days later, the this ma n. They knew he was gone. It didn't mat -
Eskimos found out that an elder in thei r own ter. They did that for about a month. They also
commu nity had died, and they said, "We go sent another ma n to Anchorage to t ry and find

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this guy who was lost. He went down to all the I thought leavin g meant t hat my partner
restaurant s and ba rs and fina lly fou nd him coo k- Suzanne and I wo uld go down to Seatt le where I
ing in a res taurant. Eventually he bro ught him would make more films. Then a ph one call cam e.
ho me . It's kind of a fantas tic story. They really It was Arena Stage. They said, "We're interested in
loo k after their own, whet he r it's thei r de ad or throw ing your hat in the ring:' I said, "Are you
ones they feel s ho uld come ho me. crazy?" I had always loved the work of Arena
Stage . I was a young artistic direct or in tra ining
So Molly talked Juneau into starting a theater in a watc hing Zelda Ficha ndler in the seventies. As
bar on Dougias Island . And then at a certain point you said , Anne, I completely came in the back-
you said, "That's not good enough," because door. I was a dark ho rse at Arena Stage. I'll never
you'd sold out all the fifty porno seats. You built forget at one point as I was talking to the search
another theater. You made a company. You made co mmittee, the board president came ou t. an d he
a success. And at a certain point you also took a was a little bit rumpled looking. We'd just bee n in
sabbatical, I think . Then you decided to move on. t here for fou r or five hours and we'd don e lots of
What was your thought process in terms of hard questions. He said , "Do n't you realize, Mol-
leaving-in creating a successful th eater and then ly, you're a da rk horse?" I said. "Yeah, but I'm
leaving? running fast. "
I knew that the re was someth ing inside of me that
was changing. I was more and more drawn to You probably don 't know this, but you've had a big
film. I started to make films. I really t ried to move influence on me at various key moments in my
Perseveran ce Theat re in the direction of ma king life. At one very key moment, at a very difficult
mo re films. People were very unco mfo rtab le wit h time, you said , "When you're kayaking and you
t hat. It was too hard for the m to make the shift. come across rough waters, your inst inct is to want
But I knew. as an artist, tha t I had begun to mo ve to move away from the rough waters. A good
on. I felt as if I kepi hitt ing the same problems kayaker knows that you have to go right into the
wit hin the or gan ization over and over again . I midd le of it." I'm still working on thaL But you
th ought, "It's time for me to leave." seem to have done that with Arena Stage . You

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don't have a small opinion of yourself, and I don't She did. She was twenty-th ree yea rs o ld. As a mat-
mean that in any way in a derogatory sense. You te r of fact, today, she started rehea rsals for Awoke
actually have a strong sense of you in the world. and Sing! at Arena Stage. It's very exciting. Peop le
Does that come from being in Alaska? are really jazzed about it. She, in true Zelda
I think as women leaders we have to. If you don' t, Fichand ler fashion, spoke for abo ut twenty-five
someone else will take it away from you. I think minutes on the play. She's a great scho lar and
we're conditioned in society to be givers and let thinker. Anyway, she was really the beginning of
go and support other people, and as leaders, a lot the resident not-for-profit theater movement. She
of times, you need to lean into whatever the con - felt that you could do fantastic work outside of
flict is. New York, so she and her husband and a man by
You've had a major affect on me as well, both the name of Edward Mangum started Arena
in your work and in life. When you came to teach Stage. They started it with a theater in the round.
in '84 it was pretty spellb inding for me because of She wanted the theater to be world literatu re.
the way in which you were working- Eventually Arena Stage was the first theater to
improvisation with the actors-and the ideas you travel to Russia. It was the first theater to travel in-
had. You would just set people on fire. I would to China. First to have an integrated theater in
see these people who I had been working with for D.C. First to create Accessibility Programs. It had
five or six or seven or eight years, and suddenly an acting company with actors like Dianne Wiest,
they were spinning with ideas that they hadn' t had Bob Crosby, Jane Alexander, James Earl Jones-
before. It was incredible. You've always been really great luminaries of the theater. They did fan-
brave that way. tas tic prod uctions like The Great White Hope.
They did huge American cycles of plays. There are
I think as artistic director of Arena Stage it's part two theate rs spaces, one a large theater in the
of your duty to talk about Zelda. Zelda Fichandler, round that seats eight hundred and fifty and one a
who started Arena Stage in '950, is another per- beau tiful thru st that sea ts abo ut five hundred
son, a woman, who started something from noth- twenty-five. She really built Arena on the idea of
ing. She started with a brain. company. She was a ground brea ker. She is also

26 pages{31 mln)left ,n this chop'er

consistent ly one of those human beings who large arcs of time where theate rs need to be
teac hes and pulls others forward. It was always cha nged radically. Doug Wager was the artistic
her idea to start more theaters all over the coun- d irecto r after Zelda Fichandler. Doug had a real
try. Peo ple have always come to her for more interest in American musicals and producing and
sustenance. Now she's the head of the NYU grad- d irecting pieces like Coconuts and Animal Crackas
uate acting program. I think it's one of the best and fantast ic productions like that. He had been
programs in the country. her artistic associate for many years. Eventually
he left. As they were talking about this. between
She has such energy. You can package it. When one session and another, I went out to a book-
you came to Arena, yo u came very wisely with an store and really began thinking about. "What's
agenda about what you wanted to do. Can you talk Washington , D.C.. to me?" Having lived ther e for
about that process , what led you to make that pro- a number of years. I realized it was a major cross -
posal? roads for America. And so, by the evening ses-
When I came to Arena to speak to the search sion, I came in completel y on fire with the idea of
committee. what they talked to me about was that focusing the repertory of the organization--as op -
Arena had somehow lost its way. More and more posed to an eclectic repertory-on American
theaters grew up in the Washington . D.C.. area. plays and American voices. What would happen if
There are now eighty theaters in Washington. we really focused? What would happen if we
When I had been there in the seventies there were looked for lost American plays? The great Amer-
maybe five or six. so it's just been this tremen- ican musical? Contemporary plays. premieres of
dous explosion of theaters. Arena Stage was the plays?
major flagship. the mother ship that had start ed That was something that they were very inter-
all of this, but it had kind of lost its essential ested in. We are now the largest theater in Amer-
juice. We all know theaters have to be cons tantly ica that is focusing on American work. That has
reinvented. If they aren't reinvented , they die. been a very exciting process becaus e of projects
They have to be reinvented on a yearly basis , on a like working with you and SITI o n Sophie Tread-
mont hly basis. on a daily bas is . But there are well's Intimations for a Saxophone. Projects like

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Zora Neale Hurston's Polk County that had never Do you th ink that the search committee decided
had a prod uction before, that then went o n to sev- to go with you because of your idea about reper-
eral other theaters . Plays like Passion Play, a cycle, tory or because you were on fire when you came
Sarah Ruhl's great epic, which just prem iered this back from the bookstor~?
year. Or Cutting Up, about African-American men I thi nk it was probably because I was on fire. I
in barbershops, which is on stage right now, an- think that sea rch committees fall in love with peo-
oth er premiere. That also includes American clas- ple in the same way that people fall in love with
sics like South Pacific. I started directing musicals them. The guy who ran the search said, "We want
about four years ago. I just finished Damn Yan- you to come take a look at this position," and I
kees because Washington , D.C, has baseball said, "Why?" And he said, "You share similar val-
fever now that our Nationals are back. We also ues." That's a deep thought-and that made me
work with writers on adaptations of novels and start questioning: What are my values? What do I
things likethat. value in the theater? Well , it's pretty clear that
That idea, to really change the repertory, was there's often a social/political context. It's often
compelling to this board and to the staff. Zelda about reflecting a place. They were interested in
said repertory is destiny. I think that's true. You what happens when you dig underneath the skin
will get the audience that you want within five of Washington , D.C.
years of doing certain kinds of work. One of the
things that was very important to me was to re- You're an institution builder. I want to talk about
flect the Washington , D.C., area with the work. At the positive sides and the challeng ing and diffi-
least a couple shows a season are African- cult sides of running an institut ion and being an
American. Almost thirty percent of our single- artist in an institution devoted to making art. How
ticket holders are African·American now. That's have you changed? You said you had to start
pro bably a better percentage than just about any- thinking of deep thoughts. What' s the cost-both
body in the country. And it is beca use of doing in positive and negative ways?
consistent repertory and because of ope ning our Moving from Perseverance-it's a small organi-
doors to a cross -cultural community. zat ion. It's always been a million dollars or less.

Z2 pages (26 mn) lell n Itol chapt&/

To move from that to a thirtee n-million-dollar The cos t for me in being in a large organizatio n
organization, from a staff of nine to a staff of one like this-I think there's a cos t to my health .
hundred fifty with three hundre d artists a year There's a lot of st ress in these big organizations. I
com ing in, is quite a radical shift. I th ink the good went thro ugh breast cancer ten years ago. When I
cost of that is that I had to stretch and ope n my- came into this pos ition I said, " If it's too much
self as an artist and as a thinker. I've always been stress for me, I'm going to get o ut." I have to re-
really fascinated with structures and structures ally moni tor that. There is a cost for me in my
work within organi zations in terms of relation- fam ily life. I'm obsessed. It's not possible as an
ships. There are flattening structures and hierar- artistic d irector to comple tely, always put it away
chical structures. I've always been interes ted in when my family needs me or when my partner
flattening structures. So that was a lot fun for me needs me. I think there has also been a difficul t
to work with at Arena Stage. cost for me as an artist-both wonderful and also
A flattening or circular structure is a conver- difficult. If I were a freelance artist I would have
sation around a table. You think more in terms of the difficulty of, "How do I find the next job? How
equality. There's always a leader, but everybody do I find the right work? How do I find relatio n-
around the table is encouraged to lead. Hierar- ships with people that I want to work with that
chical structure is, "I report to you, I report to the re's a certain amount of freedom in the work?"
you, I report to you." It's more of a ladder, which For me, when I am directing something like
is what you often see in corporate America so that Damn Yankees , I'm also doing administrative
things can be done quickly. At Perseverance, things later in the day or in the morning or on my
since it was small, we were able to do much more breaks. I'm always quite tethe red to the organi -
of this flat structure arou nd my grandmother's ta- zation and look on the directing work as real free-
ble. 1 got to Arena Stage, and it was large charts dom. The good cost is that I think I've gotten
and ideas. I kept trying to flatten things becaus e much bette r as a director because I have a broad
as an artist, I like tha t. Different peop le have to canvas to work from. 1have an ability to work with
lead in different ways. They have to think in dif- very stron g artists at Arena, and I have the ability
ferent ways. It uses more of the creative being. to set the tune at d ifferent points , to have an extra

2{) poges(24 min) left In ThI chopTer

two weeks of rehearsal on something like Sarah of being an artist. At a certa in point , we do say,
Ruhl's play. But I do n't have the ability to do "It's not worth it. It's time for me to move o n."
things like I did at Perseverance Theatre, where I'd
say, "I want to spend two mo nths just working on Now, with this big new venture. redoing the old
Alaskan Odyssey, just thinking about it, before we theater and raising a huge amount of money, is it
even go to rehearsal." But, in Alaska, I really felt hard for you to make the ask? Are you straight-
that I needed to go to a larger stage. I wanted to forward about it? Do you get nervous before yo u
talk to more peop le. I think as artists, for periods ask for a huge amount of money? Do you feel sick
of time we're quite happy talking to small group s to your stomach?
of people. And then there's a certain point in our Fo r days. For days before I do it.
career where we want to talk to more and more
people. We want to have more and more conver- So it's hard for you.
sations. We want them to have conversations It is as difficult to ask somebody for ten thousand
with us. I had hit a point in Alaska where it wasn't dollars as it is to ask for twenty million. It's the
possible for me to do that. Washington, D.C., same story because it depends on the person that
provides that in a very, very broad way. you're talking to. For one person, ten thousand
I've learned so much . We're in the middle of a dollars is as much as asking somebody else for a
building campaign right now. I would have never million. The difficult point is when you get into re-
guessed five or ten years ago that' would be rais- ally large numbers like twenty million. My fear is,
ing over a hundred million dollars. What has that "Is this going to frighten them so much tha t
called on me as an artist or an administrato r? they're going to have a heart attack if I ask my
Those conversations about fundraising and talk- question?" They know that you're coming in to
ing to peop le about the needs and the desires and talk to them about money. They probably rare ly
the hopes and visions and wishes of the organ i- know that you're going to ask them for as mu ch
zation are inte nse. But that's all growth. I' ll keep as you're going to ask them . So everybody is brac-
at it until or if I reach the po int where I just say, ing for the mom ent of the as k. So, you say, "I
"It ain't worth it." In some ways, that's the beauty would like for you to cons ider-a nd please don't

18 pages (21mn) left 'n thISct.:Jpler

answer me now, but I think because of your love Do people usually give you half of what you ask,
for actors, I would like to ask you for a million or sometimes as much as you ask? Is there a pat-
dollars to pay for rehearsal halls." Then you shut te rn?
up. You do n't want to shut up. You want to sta rt Sometimes as much . Oftentimes less-which is
talking. You shut up. And then they sit back, think why they say to you, always as k for more than
about it, or immediately blurt things out like, "No what you think you want. You also want to know
way." I got that at one point. That kind of threw something about how wealthy they are becau se
me off. He eventually ended up giving about half you don't want to insult someone by asking them
of that , so it was fine. You let them talk. Then , at for too little.
the end of them talking, you say, "I would love to
leave this information with you. You've been a Can you talk about the Sarah Ruhl project-your
great friend of the organization and I really appre- relationship with her and also with Paula Vogel
ciate that you're even thinking about this, and and with other living writers, particularly women
let's talk within a couple of weeks." And then you writers and American writers?
talk in a couple of weeks. I first came in contact with Sarah Ruhl when she
was a student of Paula Vogel's at Brown Univer-
Now, who taught you this whole business about sity. I read a version the first part of Passion Play
how you shut up? eight years ago. Paula whispered in my ear, "She's
Steven Richard, who is the executive director of the real thing." So we started to track Sarah and
Arena. We also work with fundraising people. we brought her to the theater. We did a reading of
They coach you. You have to be coached. It's not her play Eurydice, and. fairly soon after that.
natural. But this is something that can work with commissioned her for a play. We asked her,
even small amounts of money. You ask the ques- "What do you want to write a bout?" We said.
tio n. l et them start talking, rather than you talking "We'd love it if you'd write something about
because what will happen is that you'll try to talk America. Whatever you want to write about Amer-
it down because you just get nervous. ica. Are you interested in politics? What are you
interested in?" And she said, "Well, actua lly, I

16poge5 (18mon) left on lh schopl<l< 83'l. ,00<

have this Passion Play that I have now writte n two writer!" Did you feel that? She's totally extraor-
parts to, and I would like to write a third part to dinary.
it." And we said, "Great. Do it." So withi n a year, Even with her very first play, it was clear t hat she
year and a half, she had completed the thi rd part. is a poet who can drive a plot-beca use a lot of
Passion Play's Act One takes place in 1 S7S in poets can't. She's origina l. I think ten years from
Northern England. Act Two is 19 34 in Obe ra- now people will say, "Oh, this is a very Sarah
magau, Germany. And Act Three is in the seven- Ruhl- like play." I think she will become part of
ties and eighties in Spearfish, South Dakota. In the common vernacular.
each one of these acts there is a group of artists
who are performing in a Passion Play. The person Mac Wellman once said to me, "All of the great
who plays Pontius Pilate plays him all three times. playwrights in th e hist ory of playwriting were also
The person who plays Jesus. plays him all three poets." And I realized that that's t rue. Even
times. But it is also about the political, social. but Brecht. You th ink back, they all are poets--and
mostly the political life of each of these commu - that poet ic impulse and its connection to writing
nities. I think Sarah is getting to something quite for the stage is remar kably palpable. I gue ss the
deep about religious and political icons and language emanates from the right hemi sphere of
about our relationship to the stage and reality. the brain as opposed to the left. What other play-
Paula and I became fast friends at Catholic wright s are you excited about?
University. A number of her plays were first pro- I'm very excited about-well, let me tell you about
duced or workshopped at Perseverance. like How a person who I am thinking about right now. You
I Learned to Drive, The Baltimore Waltz and Mine- were talking about women writers. I don't know if
ola Twins. We had a very long, creative rela- you all know what's going on with Wendy Wasse r-
tionship, which continues to this day. stein right now. She's very ill, gravely ill, in a New
York hospital. She has been sick for a number of
I remember first hearing Sarah Ruhl's work in the years with Bell's palsy and now with what looks
basement of Actors Theatre of Louisville. It's al- like a brain t umor. I'm very sad abou t that be-
most like you get a shock in your body. "This is a cause I've always felt t hat she is a very interes ting

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writer. I think she went through som e difficul t critics d id. What can I say?
times with some of her writing. I think that peo ple
have a tendency to think that writers who are able You said it. But you have a new commission with
to allow audiences to laugh are lesser writers. her?
Wendy is one of those writers who really elicits We do. She was writing a play about her mothe r,
that type of sympathy in an audience, and for that who was a great dancer, I believe in ballroom
I've always been grateful for her writing. She dancing or something like that. She was in the
strikes me as a whole theater person. Any person midst of doing that. We have also been working
who I consider whole is also an educator. She has with Nilo Cruz on a new play. Robert Schenkkan
always been someone who has helped young recently finished a play for us . We're working with
artists. She is someone who has always gone out David Henry Hwang and TazewellThompson.
and tried to garner young audiences in the the -
ater. She had a program where she would take He's usually a director, right?
groups of ten or fifteen kids out to see Broadway He's usually a director, but he's written two or
shows, then have pizza afterward and talk about three plays now. He's a very interesting writer. He
the plays. And what a gift, as a twelve-year-old kid. has this big love for women . You notice, maybe.
to be able to sit down and talk to Wendy Wasser- there's a pattern here for me. I have to say there's
stein about the play you just saw. an underground thing I'm doing, which has to do
with getting some great roles for women. I seem
You've commissioned a new work by her? to be attracted to people-whether they are male
We have. We did An American Daughter several or female writers-who do that. I try and balance
years ago. seasons, so even if there are a lot of male writers,
there are a lot of women directors, or vice versa,
I love that play. It didn 't really get very well re- to balance it. I'm very interes ted in Tazewell be-
ceived on Broadway, but it was a great impulse. cause he's writing a play about Elizabeth Keckley,
How did it do in Washington? who was a force du ring the days of Abraham Lin-
The Washington Post didn't like it, but women coln.

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Who is Elizabeth Keckley? I'm worried abo ut a lot of t hings.
She was a seamstress who had a friendshi p with
Mary Todd Lincoln. It's the story of their rela- Where is your hope? Do you have hope?
tionship. Yeah, I t hink I do have hope. I have hope abou t
young people-you ng people coming to the the-
I have a big question as my last question: How do ater and young people working in t he theater. I
you see the American theater right now, where do think that's where all the work gets infused. I have
you see it going, and what do yo u hope for it? Not hope for young peop le coming in and changing
only for your own theater and work---but where do the world. Change it. It always needs to be
you see the movement? changed. I guess I have hope that has to do with
I'm really concerned about shrinking audiences different forms being created in the theater. I'm
and the fact that more and more people want to always interested in that. I don 't know what th e
honeycomb. They want to go home. They've got next barrier is. For a while I thought it was sound.
their liVo. They don't want to go out. They want and I think that that really has become something
to stay in-for whatever reason. They're fright- quite impressive in the theater. I have hope that
ened or they feel that whatever they're doing at theaters will stop producing just two- and thr ee-
home with their television sets is superior to go- person plays. That there will be theaters who have
ing out and being with real people. I think that's imagination so that you see plays with fifteen and
scary. I think we've become less and less a coun - twenty-five people on stage. I think we're hungry
try that meditates on anything . More and more for that. We're hungry for those big, extravagant
it's just about information. I think t heater is a stories. l ia ng for poets in the theater. I really do. I
place of meditation. I have a concern t hat we're long for poets that can teach us about worlds and
becoming an uneducated country. and it's not places that we can't imagine.
possible to have a democracy withou t an edu-
cated cou ntry. It is not possible. If peo ple are not Audience: I'm curious about the balance of doing
read ing, if they are not thinking, if they are not more than two- or three-character shows with the
loo king at t he newspaper, it is not possible. So, dec lining audience participation. How do you see

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being able to take the leap to do a big productio n see the play. I don't have the time. I barely have
with maybe fourteen or fiftee n actor s wit h t he time to spend with my fam ily." Get peo ple who
funding as it is and the participation as it is? are loyal to t he theater and to the organi zation
Perhaps, save up for it. Perhaps do it as a reading and bring t hem on board. It's very old -fashioned,
series so it could be something that you're build- but I th ink t hat's the way you get people inter-
ing up to it. Find an angel . Find somebody who's ested. Those are also the kind of gran ts that big-
interested in large-scale work and encourage thinking grant makers are interested in. They'll
them to fund it for you, to become a sponsor for see a theater company going beyond what t hey
that single production . Frame a whole season normally do. They want to see something that's
around it so that people get really excited about it larger or something that's more intensive, som e-
as you go into it. It's always the great conundrum thing that's more unusual-and you can get them
in the theater. We never have enough money to with your imagination.
do what we want to do. It doesn't matter if you're
big theater like Arena or if you're a small theater. AB: It's a great th ing to keep in mind: No matter
It doesn't matter. You never have enough to do all what your budget is, you never have enough mon-
the things you want to do . So then what happens, ey. I mean , that's true of anybody living in life.
and this is the tough part, you have to get selec- Your ideas always should be larger-and your
tive. It's horrible . You have to make choices about ambition should always be larger-than whatever
things that you want to do . And then you have fo- your cash is. And it should always be a push with
cus. focus, focus like crazy. Or else it doesn't whoever you're working with.
happen. and nobody really knows what you are.
You have to get very specific. It's a very noisy Audience: What do you th ink about regional the-
market out there . There are things that are com - ater's place in the global con versation? It see ms to
peting for everybody's minds, thoughts, cash. be so interesting t hat regional theaters have really
time. Time is the thing people are most frighte ned been developing new voices in American writers ,
of giving up. We have peop le who will say. "I'll but also European countries that can 't play in
give you money; just don't ask me to come and New York are starting to play in regional theaters.

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I t hink that that's absolutely true, and I think that Arena has been t here for fifty- five yea rs and has
there are peo ple who have been wo rking to bring su ch a glittering history, expectation s of th e
internatio nal t heater to this cou ntry for a long organ ization are at a very high level. Any time it
time. Philip Arnoult has been working to bring t he does not hit tha i mark, it's a whipping boy. That
Romanians in. Now he's into Russia. Before t hat ma kes the wo rk very co mplicated in a way. You al-
he was into Hungary. ways see these things that peopl e say in their m is-
I think it's extremely exciting beca use you bring sion statements. "Excellence." It's actua lly alive
t his whole fresh energy to th inking here in th e and well at Arena . I've never seen an organi zatio n
United States and audiences are either really before that knocks itself arou nd as m uch as it
pissed off about it or are really going along for the does ifit doesn't hit that bar. It has to hit it on ev-
ride. I think we're seeing it more and mor e and ery single level.Those are the standards tha t have
more. The borders have to be permeable. Al- been built into the organization and , in a sens e,
though, I must say, it's becoming more and more the myth of what the organization is. From th at
difficult to bring in any foreign artists-more and point of view it's very difficult. There's ano ther
more difficult to get the paperwork passed. But it point of view, which is that Arena has been very
is happening at a lot of the resident th eaters well known in Washington, D.C., because of this
around the country. They're providing that wel- history, and in some ways becau se of the pres ent.
coming hand. But we are sitting in a forgotte n quadrant of the
city, in Southwest Washington. It is the small est
Audience: Thinking abo ut what you did in Alaska q uad rant in the city. It's cut off by th e freeways.
in a community th at is th e size t hat it is, where it's The best part abou t it is it's got a fish market
not hyperbole to say t hat everybody knew who you down there. It is very rich and very poo r, right
were and what you were t rying to do, and then next to each ot her. So it's a really com plex place
thinking about now being in D.C. Obviousl y to do th eater. The city has moved more and more
there's a sca le difference in what you're doing. to the cen ter of the city-the down town area tha t
Does that transl ate into an essential difference? used to be dead . Right now the re are thirty-nine
I think it does in lots of ways. I think that because cranes in the air. The amount of reworking

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infrastru cture in the area is incredible . Arena has t hat place. There was a profound respect for the
to keep pulling focus, pulling aud iences . Dist inc- environment we were in. I was just amazed by
tive wor k has to be able to pu ll peo ple over into t his, because I cou ld see that there was no sacri-
that area of the city. Peop le will say, "Oh, yea h, I fice ofthe integrity of the vision of the theater, or
know Arena. I was there te n years ago." "Oh, of your vision as the artistic director in doing that.
yeah, I know Arena. My pare nts were season ticket And that seemed to me to be a great place to be as
holders. But, hey, I go downtown to see this the - a regional theater-an important place to me, not
ater." That scale question is something that we've just as a theater, but as a presence in the commu-
bee n working on a lot. It's the same idea as we nity.
had at Perseverance Theatre in Juneau, Alaska: It was interesting to me when I cam e to Was h-
Yo u don't just reach out to a community. You ington and to Arena Stage and I realized it's t he
reach out to many different little communities. official Washington thea ter. Peo p le from the Hill
That's how you bring those communities back in- come to see theater there. Mrs. Bush will com e
to the center of the organization. and see a play the re. It's official in that way-
which also means that we can do provocative
Audience: You really changed my perspective work and that the Supreme Court justice, who
around what we as artists do in the context of the maybe you will influence , will come and watch
cities that we work in regionally. When I was that prod uction. It is a very interesting place to do
working at Arena, Ronald Reagan died. We're all th eater. It is possible to talk to people about the
way to the left in the company, and had our feel- given mom ent within what you are doin g. I think
ings about that. I remember the moment when my t hat that makes it a very powerful place to do the-
perspective changed. We were stand ing backstage ate r. It's one of those cities where I think t he two
having a moment of silence to honor this man . In favorite kinds of thea ter there are Shakespeare or
that moment what I realized was it's not about my musicals- becau se t hey are all s uch left-brained
ego . It's not about my personal agenda. It's about peop le th at they need so methi ng for their right
understanding the community that I'm in, meet- brains so met imes, jus t to let go. There are things
ing it, and still being-somehow my vision meets which have to do wit h abe yance to an office. It

4 page! (4 mn) left 'n It10I <ooplef

can have to do with abeyance to the image of a of Perseve rance Theat re. Are people uncom -
person as well, but to recognize that that person fortable with it in Washington, D.C.? Som e peo ple
has been a part of that town t hat many peo ple are are. Do other people absolutely adore it and feel
grieving, even if it's not my personal grief. as if it makes the theater permeable? Absolu tely.

Audience: When yo u're choo sing a se as on, are

you th inking about th e Suprem e Court justices?
You know what I'm thinking about? I'm thinking
about the Metro section in the newspaper. I go
around to the churches and I hear what they're
obsessed with, and that goes in the season. I walk
around the city and get a sense of what the people
are interested in. like, this year, doing Damn Ycm-
kees. People go, "Damn Yankees, why are you do-
ing that?" But there's a thematic idea which I
think is really important. I mean, it's the Faustian
story. What would you sell your soul for? It's got
great musical theater in it-and hey, by they way.
baseball is back in Washington after being gone
for thirty-five years and it's a non-booster town
and it's lovely to see it boost itself. Plus, we have
twenty-three different children's choirs from the
different metropolitan area who come in every
night and are part of a rally at the end of Act One,
singing "You've Cot to Have Heart." You've got
to give it up to them. So it's become a community
celebration. Now, that's like an idea straight out

2 poges{l mn) H!fl 'n lhisdl<lple<

Robert Wood ruff unt il 1978. And at the Bay Area Playwrights Fes-
t ival he bega n a five-year creative relationship with
Ro bert cultivates a dressed-i n-black-jus t- t he young playwright Sam She pard. The colla b-
climbed-off-a-motorcycle appearance that is part oration sig nified a t urning point in th e ca reers for
of his charm an d also pa rt of his myst ique. But both men . Robert, as the so le director of She p-
underneath the facade Robert is one of the most ard's work during those years, staged t he pre-
vulnerab le and accessible people I know. His mie res of Buried Child, True West an d SaVQgej
artistry as a director is a constant source of aston- Love.
ishment to me. His productions are bold. the - Since those ea rly years of working with Shep -
atrical, and contagious with energy, wild imagery ard. Robert has continued to forge strong
and a deep penetration of the text. relationships with living playwrights including Ed-
Despite his anarchistic persona, Robert is also ward Bond and Charles l. Mee. He is a natural
a great institution builder. His tenure as the artis - collaborator, working intensively with the Broth-
tic director of the American Repertory Theat er ers Karamazov on a celebrated production of The
(2002-2007) produced five years of ground- Comedy of Errors. His investigations of th e clas -
breaking national and international theater works. sics include The Tempest, Julius Caesar, The
Earlier in his career he founded not only the Eu- Duchess of Molfi, /n the Jungle ofCities, Medea and
reka Theatre in San Francisco but the still-thriving The Changeling. His long -term collaborations with
BayArea Playwrights Festival. designers include Douglas Stein , Susan Hilferty
Brought up in Brooklyn and long Island. and Geo rge Tsypin. Robert is not so inte rested in
Robert received a BA in political science from th e agreement. preferring creative disagreement in
University of Buffalo. He began graduate studies the process of making theater.
at the City College of New York. but , in 1971, In addition to directing large-scale pro ductions
d isap po inted with the int ransigent New York the- at home instit utions, regional t heaters and ab road
ate r es tab lis hment, he moved to San Francis co. It (significantly in Is rael and Holland) , Robert is
was the following year that he co-fou nded the Eu- co mmitted to me ntoring young art ists. During his
reka Theatre where he remained artistic director five years with me at Columb ia overs eeing the

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gradu ate directing program, he deeply affected talking about perfo rmance, theater and its value.
the lives and careers of many young directors. He Storytelling. A love of acto rs. A kind of simp licity
continues to be part of their lives and careers to- of de sign. And then he introdu ced me to Joseph
day. Chaikin. who introdu ced me to a spirituality and a
Robert 's life shifts between his com mitment to sacredness about the event of theater, co mbined
a home base and travel to far-flung lands and cul- with an un believable idea of physical rigor of
tures . Upon completio n of a prod uction. he typi- performance-almost a physiological ap proach
cally heads for an airport, buys a ticket to a re- to evoking emo tion in a roo m-to the idea of that
mote des tination and flies off with few plans. being the performer's job: to evoke though t. to
Adventu res ensue until he must retu rn to direct evo ke emo tion in a room. The com bination of
another show. Whatever experience he gathers on Sam's idea of storytelling, and how impo rtant that
those travels clearly feeds his rich theatrical vi- was to him, and Joe's idea of sacredness and the
srons. idea of performance being so alive and
evocative-c-l think that combination of people.
SEPT EMB ER '4, 2 0 0 6 LO B BY O F A .R .T. those ideas, got carried around for th ree decade s.
BO STO N , MA It was pretty seminal for me.

AD: The older I get, the more I realize we are who Since then , are there visual artists or musicians
we are becau se of the people we hung out with that you're able to translate into your work, that
earlier in our lives, who gave us goose bumps and make your pulse run faster?
formed the DNA of who we are as artists . What I've seen Godard's films since the late sixties,
are those major influences that you still feel in actually followed all the steps in what he's been
touch with toda y and still inform you when you making. from very political fil ms, fronta l in their
are working as a director? app roach to subject matt er, all the way to his
RW: I was very fortunate. I was out in San Fran- work now, which is really extraordinary in terms
cisco. I met Sam Shepa rd over a poo l ta ble. which of independence: He's one of the few
is the bes t place to meet a writer, and we sta rted ph ilosop her-filmm akers that we have in the

32 pogos (36 mn) lefl,n TnlSchOl'Ter

world. His journey-which included his idea of get th is feeling in my stomach. I was in a martini
filmic gesture, the idea of density, the vocabulary club with (sound designer] Darron West, and
that he introduced in film-that was readily avail- there was a jazz ensemble doing that noodling
able to theatrical exploration. I think his work has thing, and I said, "I can't stand unstructured
always been something that has been feeding jazzl" Darron said, " Follow the baseline. Just lis-
me--and also his independence in the system- ten to the baseline." I found that helpful. I still
that he's working in a system that he has almost have trouble. I'm curious: I love your theater-and
no right to survive in, and he's been able to do it when I think of it, yeah, I see the relationship be-
and make his own statement , which has been tween jazz-really free-wheeling jazz-and what
amazingly personal and political at the same time. you're doing. I get that in the theater. Can you just
Musically, the idea of the rhythms of jazz- say a little bit more about jazz?
difficult jazz, where sonically I've found it What's great is, you know, with jazz, like blues,
difficult-how do you reach that idea on the you have a great sense of form-you have a pat-
stage? I've always found that a challenge. Bob tern. The band starts with a pattern , and then they
(Brustein] gave me the opportunity to do that with get to go where they want to go. But they've given
In Jungle of Cities, somehow combining Brecht you a pattern, so psychically everybody's holding
and free jazz. When Arliss (Howard] was doing onto an idea-a musical idea. And hopefully, the
his monologues, we actually had free jazz under- tangent that you take is not too long, so when you
scoring that text. So you have this great poet- come back to the music, to the theme, to the
Brecht was just writing feverish poetry in the thing that's holding them in the roo m, they'll still
1920S, and this play came out of that-wedded be with you. If you're dealing with a play-if
with Coltrane at his most evocative. Putting thes e you're dealing with a classic-then how far away
two elements on stage at the same time was one can you go so you're still telling the story? How
of the great joys I've had in creating theater. far can you go in between the gestures? Then you
have to come back and hit the note of the story.
Can I pursue the jazz part for a bit? Personally, I How much can you extend the gesture before you
can' t stand unstructured jazz. It makes me mad. I come back, so you won't lose them?

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So it's not unstructured jazz-which reminds me that we all as sociate with , in our own way. That's
of a scene you did in Baal, at Trinity Rep. It was jazz, isn't it? Okay, I'll listen more. I'll listen to
the most extraord inary production. I've never seen Coltrane. I'll try.
a succes sful production of Baal before. There was We did a jazz piece with Sam [She pard]. Suicide in
a scene that Annie Scurria was in, and she comes B Flat. That was when Sam would do t hree world
up and has sex with Baal. The cha racter Annie premieres at the same time . We d id it in San Fran-
Scurria was playing was going to lea ve, and Baal cisco. That was literally a jazz imp rovisation. The
was in an att ic room . I had to see this scene ten music was improvised every night, and Sam
times; I d id n't believe it was possible. Annie Scur- would sit in on drums during the production.
ria, obviously in love with 8aal, who's so rt oflyi ng That's where the frustration would actually hap -
the re lethargically on the bed, not really caring pen. Danny Clover was actually in that produc-
abo ut her-and the stage is a floor Doug Stein de- tion; he played Niles . They would create this
signed wit h a t rap in it, as if she would go down- amazing improvisation where the text would meet
stairs , out of th is attic room, by going down the the musi c in some just stunning moment. I'd go
trap. She left. She ca me back. She looked at him. to the piano player, Harry Mann , and say, "That
She swore . She left. She cam e back. She left, she was great! Can you keep that?" And he'd go,
came back, I don't know how man y times. Every "Heeey. Some nights ; some nights, something
one of us in this roo m has probabl y had that feel- else . . ." The movement of that piece was so
ing about somebody, where we leave, we come alive. I think the basis of improvisation is tha t if
back, we leave, we come back. Your de scription it's structured enough, it's not about failure--but
about jazz of going out , co ming back-l com- it's how far you can push it and keep the t rain on
pletely see th at now, tha t that is a jazz notion. You the rails. We were off the rails in that production
can go away from the st ructure: The play never often , actually.
says, "She goes out, co mes back, goes out, co mes
back." It's like the play stopped , but it didn 't stop, 15 it poss ible to say, as a director-you're in t he
becau se the play kept moving like gangbusters. room , and it's really going so mewhere: Annie
And yet thi s relationship opened up into th is thing Scurria has left five times . How do you keep it on

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the rails? of running a road and leading a journey. She can
I'm act ually not sure all of those were sco red. On extend that mom ent, bring t hem with her-and
a different night she migh t have done it more or t hey' ll stay with the story,
less. I know we also threw Robert down t he stairs
seven times. "Get out! Get out! Get o ut!" And I'm obsessed right now with the function of the-
Robert would kee p coming up the stai rs. I think ater in our times. And we're living in difficult
t here was a negotiation in how many times he times. And one of the most profound things you
could do it. And I think it was probably abo ut lis- can do in the theater is change the time signature
tening to the room and feeling that night how in the room . We live in a really bad time. We went
many times they could do it: It was Robert's from MTV time to internet time to FOX News
choice about how many times he would go back. time to a time of manufactured paranoia: The time
signature is really inhuman. And to be able to be
Creat for a stage manager, huh? in a room and actually be able to change the time
There was a moment in Orpheus X where there's a signature, and to be able to invite an audience into
silence at the end of the production that lasted that alternate time signature, is a radical and polit-
six-and -a-half minutes. And it wasn't about: How ical act in our time s. Doing
long is that silence going to be? Suzan Hanson as bobrauschenbergamerica-the aud ience isn't
Euryd ice works with Rinde (Eckert) in the mo- used to using those muscles to change the time
ment. I said to Rinde. "The length of time in that signat ure with you, and it's awkward and strange.
event is just extraordinary. The audience is It occurs to me that ma ybe I should listen to more
breathing with you. Everyone is just waiting for jazz, becau se what you're describing also is an ac-
t he next moment." And he said, "It's all Suzan. tor having control over time--not really the direc-
She really cont rols this whole event." There's a tor, not the audience.
performer who really has a sense of s pace and I've noticed a lot of directors of late are startin g
time , and she knows tha t she can ta ke the audi - slower. I think it's harder to get people into the
ence with her; she's leading the event. She's really room . I've noticed a lot of pieces tha t are sta rting
a shaman, in the best se nse of the word, in terms with a longer se nse of stillness a nd allowing t he

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moveme nt, allowi ng t he heart-rate, allowing the measures. I t hink t here's more and more interest
breath ing of an audie nce com ing in from a world in differentiating of time, how one moment is dif-
in which they've bee n bombarded to begin to ferent than the other.
breathe in this sp ace. I love Krystian (Lupa]'s Evan Zipo ryn, when he wrote the Oedipus scor e,
beginn ing of Three Sisters-j ust th at note of mu- his time signa tu re-he d rove t he singers nuts .
sic when Molly (Ward] walked into that room and He'd switch on a dime . It was incredibly difficult.
a long extended stillness. A characte r con nectio n.
That beautiful note of m usic. No text yet. Noth- Speaking of difficult: You said something to me
ing. It really eased us into the roo m . before you ever became an artistic director or were
The opposite of tha t: When we did Orpheu s, I even thinking of it. You said that the health of an
didn' t want the audience even to have sat down . I institution is reflected in how it' s falling apart. I
wanted them to have been behind. $0 Rinde just wonder, now that you' re running an institution,
walked out on stage, and I said , "Can we go to what do you think about th at?
one hundred immediately?" The band was full Okay. I need context.
blast, and they were roc ked back in their seats,
and they were way behind: They were lost , they I'll tell you where you said it: I was running Trinity
were "What? Whoa ?" and informa tion is coming Rep for one glorious and horrible year, before I
at them-very soni cally, very dense-and t hat is was fired. And you were com ing to do Baal, and at
ano ther way of shocking the system and ma king some point you were argu ing with me on the
them get here. " Hurry up, come on, you've got to phone, and you said, "What is th is, summer
get here, you've got to get here!" It's the oppos ite stock? Four weeks of rehearsal? What are you do-
idea of. "O kay. let's bring the m in, let's chan ge to- ing?" And out ofthis arg ument thi s phrase came,
geth er. l et's breathe ." and it came from the point of view of an artist
who wanted to make his work, and wanted to
Also, composers in new classical are doing that in make it really good . And I was working from a
time signatures, too . They're writing in more point of view of having an instit ution, balancing a
extreme-music that changes every three budget, dea ling with the board-50 t here was t his

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odd stra dd ling going on . times, I said. "How do you ma ke th ings now?
Boy, I want to be really smart here. Maybe it's in How ca n you possibly keep maki ng t hings ?" And
the str uggle. The inst itut ion is really a reflectio n he said, "Well, I have to make som ethi ng so when
of the artist working t he re. The artists are t rying to t his all ends we have somet hing to point to and
create the work. and to create the work t here's a say, 'There. That has value." So when th e smoke
d ifficulty- and you see, on the stage, the difficulty clea rs, that's what we want to invest in, tha t's
of creat ion. You see the gris t of someth ing being what we've bee n fighting for. This is rea lly the
made, and I don't know that the instit ution light through that haze of this wa r and this insan -
should be immune to also feeling that heat and ity. If we have nothing to point to when it end s,
difficulty. The falling apart-maybe it's just in we'll go, "Why are we doing this? "
terms of the struggle-that parallels the artist's
struggle to create. AS: That's gorgeous.
It's an amazing metaphor, and when it gets dark
Audience : Can you talk about the different strug- there, it gets really dark . It is hard to figure out
gles that are happening here at A.R.T.? why you're going out and creating something.
Ultimately, it's how to maximize a real commit-
ment to creation and to freshness, and there are AS: In that spirit-and I'm not ta lking about
so many th ings pulling at that. The building is an choosing a season, but for you, in this time right
oasis, I think. What happens on that stage is now-how do you choose plays? How do you de-
t ruly-it's almost sacred space in the sense that cide what the content is going to ~?

it's a community that 's functioning; it has its own I think it's a reflect io n of that: "What do you want
politics, its own personality, and its goal is to put to leave behind? What is the imprint you want to
som ething on the planet which is a stat ement leave in the chaos?" This season, t his is it: It
about st rength and bea uty and idea and struggle. does n't get any better t han this. Thes e are am az-
Everything is committed to t hat, ultimately. But ing artists who are going places we've never been.
we're not in a vacuum, and it's a difficult culture: I There's a great sense of experim e nt, imag ination.
have a friend, an Israeli, who in the da rkest of tackling big s ubjects. It's political; it's persona l.

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AS: So the way you choose a play for yourself is I'd been sitting like this and worried that the
actually the same way you choose a season. collaborators didn't like it. I was just dead inside.
At some point, cu rating beco mes abou t what ex- That's when I really changed. It was because of
cites you. And tha t persona l-political thing ten ds being in the rehearsal with you. I just said, "Fuck
to be at the center of that. it. I'd rather do less good work and work with peo-
ple I have fun with and have freedom with and I
AS: I'd like to go back into the rehearsal room with can jump around myself, or I don't want to do it at
you. I mean that lit~ally and figuratively. A couple all."
oftimes, sitting in on your rehearsals, I've had fun Is there a way to talk about the rehearsal
contagiou sly because you're having fun. process? First of all the way you work with actors
And you're the only artistic director I've dragged is The Deal. The way you work with actors is un-
into rehearsal and said, "look at this. What do like anybody else, and it creates an active culture
you think? I have a problem with this scen e. What in the room rather than a passive one, where the
do you think?" Everybody else , you just hope th ey actors are doing what the director says.
don't show up. Somebody said something last night, describing
another director, and it was exactly what I do in
AS: I've never told you this or said this out loud, the room: "It looks like you're looking for an an -
but going into one of those rehearsals once, back swer to a question that you don't know." That's
in the time of Trinity- I was really in despair, not exactly right: I'm looking for an answer to the
only running a the ater, but also artistically I was question and I don't know the question. That's
having a hard time. I was in so me difficult ultimately why it's so open . I have so much re-
collaborations at that moment, and they were spect for peop le who go in and t hey know t he ex-
good, but I wasn't having fun. I walked into your act question that they're resea rching. "This is
rehearsal and you were hopping all over the place. what we're working o n. This is wha t we're t rying
You were hopping. I was so jealous, because I to understand ." That's a gift, beca use then the
realized for the last two years (so it wasn't just work gets very focused. I find however t hat I'm
Trinity; it was this situation I was in artistically), mo re insti nctive. I don't know what the question

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is. So it keeps moving. It's t rue there' s som e an- is being directed by the director. And I t hink one
swer. It's never found, maybe. Maybe t here's a of the reasons your room is very exciting is be-
sense of movem ent that's co nstant. cause every actor is directing their role.
You said you do n't direct acto rs, you direct a Could any actor in this room who 's worked with
play. That's a ma nt ra of yours tha t you've sh ared Woodruff describe what he's like as a director?
with st ude nts. There's something about--if you
put an actor in a great position and give him the Audience : As an inst ructor in our class , when we
physical landscape and give him or her enoug h of see him in then hallway, he's got such a mellow
an obs tacle to crea te something-they'll do it. personality. He seems very laid back. But when he
Yo u've given them the challenge. It's about gets into a rehearsal, or the clas s space, it's very
both-freedom and obstacle. If you can crea te frenetic and , like you said , jumping up and down .
both for them. they can paint it. It's putting the m And it gets into everyone else in the room.
in that position, and if you haven't done that , th en
you're failing. You're failing them. AB: It's contagious.

AB: The notion of the d irector directing the play Audience: It's kind of like good cop, bad cop ,
came from a Russian actress who visited us once where he'll tell you to do an exercise , and he'll lay
from the military t heate r of Moscow. She said the it out all nice, and you' ll start to do it, and he's up
actor 's job is to direct the role. It's the most rad- in your face, yelling at you and trying to get you to
ical thing everl Because it's so obviousl But I th ink lose concentration , and just when you're about to
most directors in this country think it's th eir job to give up, he'll get in your face: "00 itl Do itl" And
direct the actor 's role. Or most actors in th is afterward, you'll go up to him and ask him ques-
country th ink it's the director's job to d irect their tions about somet hing you might have a problem
role. But actually the actor 's job is to direct the with----and he'll let you answer it yourself. "What
role, and the director 's job is to direct the play, do I do about this?" "I don 't know. You figure it
and it's very different . I think you can feel in a out." So you get a bit of drill sergeant with a twist
room, in a rehearsal, whet her the play or the role of caring fatherly type .

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AB: So it so unds like what you're saying is, he AB: Somebody once to ld me a theory I t hink is
does make an obstacle: He's the obstacle. very funny: He said you can always see t he direc-
tor's body on stage. You go to see a Richard Fore-
Audience: I fee l when I'm working with Woodruff man play and it's like, "My foot hurtsl" You see
entirely safe and completely terrified , constantly. Robert Wilson and everything is very ta ll and
Safe in the sense that he won't let me do bad angular. You go to see Peter Brook and everyone is
work. But at t he same time the emotion level in so round and healthy, I remember one of the first
the room with him is unbelievable, and it's some- times I met you, we were walking down the stair-
thing I haven't experienced with other directors. well in the back of Playwrights Horizons's old
building , and-l swear to God--you were wearing
Audience: I want to piggyback on the safety idea. cowboy boots, walking down the steps, and , with-
My experience with this class and other situations out stopping, you took off your watch, threw it
is that you're simultaneously being stripped of down , stepped on it, and kept going . That's just
anything that's miscellaneous and really getting like your playsll didn 't know you well enough to
down to a specific grounda:l yet frantic core. And be like, "What did you just do? "
the safety is so important to that. I've exposed
sides of myself! didn 't know were there. Robert Brustein (Founding Director, American
Repertory Theater) : I'm interested in th is idea of
AB: I always t hink that, as a director, our job is the the relationship between the individual and the
atmosphere in the room , the philosophy-and inst itution . It seems to me very similar to the rela-
that our respect is contagious, our interest is tionship between the individual citizen and the
contagious. society. And it seems to me when people make an
Chuck [Mee]. when he sees prod uctions, says, "I artistic institution, they're trying to make an alter-
know how many times a d irector 's been fucked native to a bad scciety,
over, how many bad love affairs he's had." And you th ink tha t's wron g?
There's something about all that that you leave
behind. RB: No, I think that's right. In other words, they're

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trying to create a place in whic h people ca n work institution as the individua l and its relat ionship to
together affirmatively, well, positively, in loving t he larger society. How much d oes it have to
terms-which society does not allow them to do. sacrifice to its relations hip to the outsid e? I t hink
And that means some sort of a communal organi- whe re we have to grow as an ins tit ution-it can't
zat ion. And that comes into conflict with an indi- just be an alte rna tive, because then you get like
vidual ego . And the question is: How does that this. It has to have an excha nge. With fluids. With
individual ego adapt itself to that communal ef- th e larger community.
fort? That's a continual tension. I don 't t hink it
should ever be resol ved. If it's resolved this way RB: That's known as the audience.
you destroy the institution; if it's resolved this Yes. The audience, and not just the audi ence--
way, you make the ego conform to an impossible groups and interests and ideas and peopl e who
situation. represent ideas. An extended audience.

AB:Which is a kind offascism, really. AB: What you're sa ying is so beautifully put-you
can't adually swing in either direction. You can't
RB: Yes, it is. So it's ultimately a political idea, and make it an organization about individuals, and you
that is how you try to create that more perfect can't make it the opposite.
society and whether what is being produced there
is reinforcing this idea, or at odds with it, or com- RB: The collective.
bating it, or supporting it ••.
In its greatest sense, though, the community AB: If it's only about the collect ive, then it turns
doesn't diminish the integrity of each individual. into some communist nightmare. But we hear
It's still built on the uniqueness of each indi- that so rarely: to und erstand that there's no an-
vidual. and their st rength and their brightn ess, swer, no solution-that it's a constant struggle,
witho ut being subservient, and it's really the between the ind ividual running the company. I'm
co llection of all that individuality and all that looking at my gang back there. If anyone of us be-
brightn ess. Maybe you ca n also look at t he comes "The Thing," then it's gone. Yet we can't

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be a complete democracy. We can't vote about people were, on stage-that it wasn't a technique
everything. It's not collective. of affected memory or anything. It was that they'd
It's such an interesting issue-that will never never seen a culture behave together in that
be solved. Actually, the responsibility is to keep particular way. And then I think about the bit of
that dissonance and that irritation . I support that. revolution that the Viewpoints causes. It's not
I would love to look at that in relation to the social necessarily a technique, but it's the way people
system we're in: What does that mean in relation are behaving together on stage, which is in
to what we're actually experiencing? essence non-hierarchical and involves a tremen-
dous amount of listening, so that what we do--
RB: What we're experiencing now is the transfor- certainly with bobrausc.htrlbergamerjc.a--is create
mation of the country into some sort of corpulent a society or a tribe that is functioning in a certain
beast. I mean that physically as well as spiritually: way.
Everyone's getting much huger, and their souls Which brings up mirror neurons, which is this
are getting fatter. It's all thumbs and people's new discovery in science that everyone is up in
eyes . That's why 1think an artistic alternative is so arms about, discovered by some scientists in
important, and that ahemative must establish an Southern California. It's a neuron which we share
alternative way of being that reminds us that we're with other primates, with certain monkeys. The
human and compassionate and full of sin and full development of the species came about because
of problems and full of difficulties, and never- certain species had these mirror neurons which
theless that we're moving forward rather than muscularty imitate what we see. like a child, we
backward with the beasts. teach them to eat: "Open your mouth." And they
muscularty learn. We have grown as a species be-
AB: leon Ingulsrud said to me last summer that cause we can learn; we can see, and our muscles
actually it wasn't acting techniques that blew pe0- actually make movements-which means when
ple away when the Moscow Art Theatre came in you watch something, it doesn't look like it, but
1923 to visit the United States and changed the your muscles are repeating what you're watching.
culture of our theater. It was actually the way that What that means in terms of theater is an

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extraordinary thing. An audience is actually having But actually walking and talking on stage is very
a muscular workout in what they're experiencing. complicated. But I think that might work in our
I always Google it, every two minutes, to see what benefit in terms of mirror neurons.
the newest thinking in mirror neurons is. And the I t hink we're very engaged by things that are dis-
latest thing, in England, some scientists hooked tan t from us, because they're distant from us. We
up some Royal National Ballet dancers and some don't know. we don't recognize. the behavior.
capoeira dancers to fMRI (functional Magnetic We're in a foreign culture. Maybe we don't have
Resonance Imaging) machines and had them those neurons firing. but. still, it's so alerting. As
watch another dancer perform . What they learned opposed to something that's so familiar-s-thos e
is, the more you've trained in something, the neurons are static. If you present something very
more your muscles do the same thing as the per- foreign-when you look at something beyond
son you're watching. your normal range of perception. you can be
So in theater, because we actually reflect stunned by it. because it's so foreign.
behavior-we do the closest to how we actually
live-you are watching and practicing, because AB: Well, actually neurologically---l've been study-
you are the audience, a certain kind of societal ing neurology since you got me interested in it
behavior, which you are presented on the stage. when we were planning the brain project-what
It's amazing. The more you know, the more activates it is difference. The reason we don't
your muscles participate. Someone who hasn't remember th ings we do every day is because we
studied ballet-their muscles will not be twitch- do the same things. But as soon as we do some-
ing as much as a ballet dancer, watching another thing different, we remember that: It impresses it-
ballet dancer. self on us. So anything that is more foreign, it
Are you saying they're less engaged? makes an impression, whereas things that are
regular become a blur,
AB: Yes, someone with less training will be less
engaged. The old problem in theater is that people Audience: We've had a couple of conversations
think they can act because they can walk and ta lk. over the years about the audience and the

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relation ship of the artist to the audience, and I t hings on t he stage over the course of the year is
wonder if there's a difference , say, between the so daring. It takes such chutzpah. Yiddish is so
relation ship of the director to th e audience than good. It's just arroga nt to say, "I want you to
the artisti c director to the aud ience, or if being an co me here seven times. I'm going to take you
artistic director has at all influenced or changed where you've never been." Really, that's the only
your thinking about t he audience. thing the thea ter wants to be-and can be. So it's
You want to present work you're challenged by. I a monumental task.
think we're programming for ourselves, in the So, going from the micro-your own self, and
best sense-if we're challenged by it, and t hink the making of something once a year-to the
we can lead the audience to it. So, I think my work macro-the vision of an institution, doing it sev-
has been fairly aggressive in the past. Krystia n's en or eight times a year-that's a ride.
voice is aggressive in another way. To put that on
the stage, I think, is remarkable for this audi ence. AS: Doveta iling on that, what 's your relations hip
It's so distant from theater, from the sense of to aud ience developm ent? Cetting more peop le
time of what they've seen before. People have through th e doo rs?
strong voices, personal voices. I want to bring You know, I don't do it. People who are in charge
those voices to the audience. The connection to of that in this institution, they do it. It's their gig.
the material is very strong. For every artist that They have a question, I'll feed it. But my job is
comes here, it's different: There's something very big. and everybody in this institution has
about that person, their relationship to their work, expertise, and they have to do it. I really have to
their relationship to a given piece of material, that trust it's going to be done. If someone calls on
combination-it leads an audience to a place me and says "Can you help?" I'm going to com -
t hey've never been. There's a freshness to that mit whatever I can. But this is about everyone in
t hinking that we're trying to keep up. pulling thei r weight, and making thei r portion of
The hard thing is-I find it so hard to make the inst itution successful in t hat way. I do n't
anything, in general. I find it frightening. It's just know anythi ng about audience deve lopment.
scary. And then to profess to put seven or eight

8 pages (8 mon) left '" lh schopl>l<

AB: I think that's one of the great thi ngs about you been abo ut sp arsity. When you work and start
being an artistic director. I've known you for a yo ur ins titutions and you're working with nothin g,
long time. I've found ycu've become bigger-in a you learn the value of a dollar, and there's some-
good way. Easier. Wider. And your art has n't suf- t hing abo ut the spa rse ness you maintain in your
fered. It's actually better. It's more in the present aest hetic.
moment. Because you have so many thi ngs to
deal with , you've had to go-- AD: Spar se is expensive.
Well. there are also so many great people here. I know. It can be really costly. The opennes s of a
room-the breadth of that land scape is rea lly
Audience: Anne first asked you about influences, nice. The audience imagination in a room tha t has
and you talked about Shepard, Chaikin, Godard. space is bigger. They have a place to roam. It's
Music and jazz. But I wondered about other the- not dictated. There's more room. They can wan-
ater influences--other directors. I remember see- der.
ing In the Jungle oj Cities, and it didn 't look like I work with great designers. George Tsypin is
anything I had seen in th is country before. In a truly a magnificent man and an incredible collab -
way, parts of your work belong to theater aes- orator, and he delivers-he essentially gives you
thetics of other cultures. When did that contact an obstacle. He dares you to create th e work in
with other theater cultures happen for you, and this space. He gives you physical obstacles to
who was it you saw? creating the event, rather than giving you a path.
I made t he hajj to Berlin twenty-fiveyears ago. So you already have something you' re banging in-
to. And. boy. do I love that. There is something
Audience: What did you see? just extraordinary about that.
1saw (Peter) Stein's work there, Heiner Muller, Pe- Working with Doug Stein was t he o pposite. He
ter Zadek. I was captivated by the aesthetic. But in really gave you room . He did n't give you enough
t he end. it was abo ut space. The anth ropo- places to land. He wo uld give you too much air.
morp hisms of space. I've always liked the idea of So you'd fly around, loo king for that obstacle.
air and s pace. It's never been about den sity. It's That's grea t, too. Great colleag ues . And now

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David Zinn and Riccardo Herna ndez have be- parent and they're the child. So you have to give
come great partners. t hem the too ls to kill you. You have to give t hem
everything you know, so then they can just run
Audience: How about "revelation space"? amuck and destroy everything you believe in-
That's Anne's word . What's great about Anne is which is kind of the nature of, the evolution of,
she's given nomenclature to ideas that we use art. That's a big responsibility. All you can do is
though we don't know we use them. It's a great give them that, and then ... watch the blood flow.
tool . so you think about it. But. you know, when we were at Columbia
University, the great thing that we noticed right
Audience: The most beautiful things I've ever off the bat was that I think one person, out of the
heard you say are not necessaril y about students thirty-five wonderful directors that passed
but are in situ ations where you were as ked to through our program, who actually had the word
s peak to stud ents , beginn ing some number of "career" existing in his head . Everybody else was
years ago, before you were artistic director here at like, "I want to make things ." It wasn 't about, I
American Repertory Theate r, when you gave the want to work at this ins titution. You really had a
commencement addre ss here at the A.R.T. Inst i- sense it wasn't going to be abou t culture palaces.
tute. It was unbelievable. It was going to be reflections of society-
We have an inst itution of about eighty or nintey individual reflections of society. I think it's still
people. plus we have fifty students. So more than going to happen. They'll find a way to make it
a third of the population of this place is students. happen. And whether the institution responds,
That's really extraordinary. There's an artistic well. they're at their peril if they don't.
innocence, in a way, which needs to be honored. I
t hink it really creates a tone in the building. You AB: It's also a parad ox: The one person you're
can't put anything on that stage that could diss thinking of, who was ob sessed with a career, has
t hem. That's it: You burn in hell. So, you can't had t he least of a career. And the people who were
speak to them unt ruthfu lly. It sets the bar so high. least obse ssed with a career, getting their muscles
Plus, t hey have to kill you, because you're th e and working and craning-they're the ones who

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end up working. t he theate r should be about seei ng t he other. I
Good thing. don't know whe re that fits in with what you're say-
ing but somewhere in there it's really important.
Audience: What do you want nom your students, It's a great tho ught. Why Britannicus? God, tha t's
with your time? hard. I th ink it's a grea t story. You'd slit your
I don't know a short answer. I think getting big- wrists for a grea t story. The cha llenge is, how can
ger. Everybody gets a little bigger-their sense of you tell that great story? It's such a difficult story
themselves on the planet. They get more of a to tell. The personal part of that play is so raw,
sense of what that role is, and they want to take and yet there's a political frame. There's a meet-
on more. That'd be great ing of those two worlds again. Exciting.

AS: That 's the hardest th ing. It' s ea sier to sa y,

"Get th is techn ique." But "Cet bigger"---it's huge.
Nikos Psacharopoulos, th e once (now-deceased)
artisti c director of Williamstown Theatre Fest
used to say to actors: "Today you must kill for
love. Gol"

Audience: Doesn't what you were saying about

neuron s mean basically that Aristotle was right,
and it is about mimesis? It's what we're fami liar
wit h that creates the pity and what we're not
familiar with that creates the fear. Along those
lines, can you talk about why Br;tannicus?
Neoclassici sm?
The short answer : We're giving to the audience so
th ey're seeing themselves on the stage, and really

2 poges{l mn) H!fl 'n lhisd",pte<

Mary Zimmerman an artistic associate at the Goodma n Theatre . She
is a professor of performance studies at North-
I first got to know Mary Zimme rman durin g the western University.
interview for this book. Perhaps ou r lack of Brought up in Li ncoln, Nebras ka, the daug hter
acquai ntance is an express ion of a certain disco n- of two university professors, Mary grew up want-
nect between New York and Chicago artists. But ing to become an actress. She began her studies
her reputation certain ly preceded her. We met for as an unde rgraduate at Northwe stern University
the conversation on the cam pus of the University as a comparative and literature major but swiftly
of Chicago in front of a full house of Mary Zim- changed to the theater department. She late r re-
merman devotees who offered penetrating ques- turned to Northwestern as a graduate in the
tions at the end of our chat. department of performance studies where she
Mary's life and work in the theater express the discovered that , for her, creating and directing
depth and sophistication of her choice of sub- theater were synonymous. She received her BA,
jects, stories and themes. She creates completely MA and PhD all at Northwestern, and she is now
new works of theater by turning her attention and a revered and beloved professor there.
craft toward such great myths as Metamorpho5£s, Mary's incontrovertible success is matched by
The Arabian Nights and The Odyssey. finding suc- her demonstrated commitment to innovation in
cessful theatrical shapes that excite audiences the art of theater. She manages to focus her suc-
everywhere. She fashions fantastic brand -new cesses back into the projects with which she is in-
productions based upon the lives of Proust, volved. She is ambitious but not egotis tical. Her
DaVinci and Galilee. She directs opera. She di- enthusiasm for theater as an art form is conta -
rects classic plays including a great deal of Shake- gious not only to enthusiastic audiences nation-
speare. She has won countless Joseph Jefferson ally and internationally but to the countl ess stu -
Awards, and in 2002 she received a Tony Award dents who study with her. It is rare to find such a
for Metam orphoses. In 1998 she was awarded a genuine combination of schola r, artist, innovator,
MacArthur Fellowship. She is a mem ber of inventor and teache r.
Chicago's Loo kingglass Theatre Company as well

48 pages (57 mil) left III thOll chapter

NOVEMBER 7, 2006 rehearsal room talking abo ut. Lots of my shows
have ended up bent toward political means or
AS: I thought I'd start with the hardest possible express ion without my really intendi ng that.
question. Today is a v~ry particular day---election I'll give two examples. I was s lated to do The
day. It's a v~ry important election, and w~ live in Notebooks of Leonardo Do Vinci for the third time
exceedingly difficult times . Some people might at the Goodman in the spring of '03. and as
call it war time . I might call it junta time . Things things sort of heated up in the fall of '02 I said. "I
have changed. It is difficult to be an artist in this do n't want to do The Notebooks of Leonardo Do
time. Or maybe not. I'm curious as to your Vinci anymore. I want to do Seneca's Trojan Wom -
thoughts about how to be working in the climate en." And the Goodman , for all its being a gigantic
w~ are in now. Has it changed for you? tanker of an institution, was able to make this
MZ: Do you mean a sense of irrelevancy. or do wide turn in its season though tickets had already
you mean a sense of hostility in term s of funding, been sold and it was already out in the brochures
or do you mean ... ? and so forth. That was a scary experience to tell
the truth. because our first preview, maybe tech,
Keep going. Yes. was the actual day of the first crossing the border
I feel like I sho uld know what the answer to that from Kuwait, and every day that play felt as if it
is, but I don 't have a very good one . My own feel- had been written that morning. It was sort of
ing is that I have been doing what I do as a citizen unbe lievable. In David Slavitt's translation- I've
of my own community. It's the baker's job to used his translations now for three things-the
make good bread. And it's my job to do whatever very first speech by Hecuba talks abou t the ruins
I can do with my own skill in whatever way I find of smoking towers and how we gag when we
most interesting. But I will say that because of the think of what the particles in the air are mad e of.
way I work- I gene rally do adap tatio ns. but I have The demand for the son of Andromach e, who's
no script going into rehearsal- the final produ ct just this little boy, is a kind of preemp tive strike,
is always very contingent on and in relatio n to because he will grow up and avenge. All of that
events of the world and what we come into the felt so absol utely contempor ary. We d id it in

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contemporary d ress and the set was as tho ugh The second half of that book is abo ut Medea, this
the theater itself had sort of collapsed in o n itself. tee nage girl who is shot with an arrow of love by
We had trusses fallen in the middle of the stage. the gods because they want to use her to help Ja-
We littered the stage with that kind of 9/11 crap so n get the Colden Fleece. And she suffers and
that was on the ground -that gray, papery stuff. suffers and struggles and strugg les to not have to
That was a reallyconscious and deliberate choice, help him and not betray her family and her father,
and it was a bit of a scandal. I don't actua lly read but in the end she does. We all know how that
my reviews, but r know that one of them ended ends-although in The Argonautika it doesn't go
with the phrase, "This play does not make you that far. It stops where Euripides starts, with his
feel good about being an American." It was the abandonment of her. So then I thought, oh I see,
last sentence in a very negative review, apparently. it's all very personal. It's about betrayal and love,
But more subtly, in a way, less agit-proppy, I'm and now I understand why I really picked this. But
doingJaron and the ATgonauts right now. The rea- then very late in rehearsal, this third thing start ed
son I thought I chose that text, was because I re- to emerge-the story as a kind of antiheroic epic.
ally like episodic, really old stories that involve It's an antigo-to-the-foreign-country-
sea voyages. It's just a thing with me-really diffi- and -accomplish-something epic. They go--it is
cult things to stage, sea monsters and people fly- very much to the Middle East, to the Black Sea,
ing, dark, strange tales that feel symbolic, but you where no Greek's ever been before-to retrieve
can't reallyget to the end of their symbolism. You this Golden Fleece, which is believed by the per-
can't pin down exactly what you think they're son who owns it to have magical properties, but
about, yet they ftellike they're about something in in fact it doesn't. It's just actually a sheepskin.
a really strong way. So I thought I chose the text They achieve their mission . But so much is lost in
because it was that kind of story I've done several that attainment that the victory absolutely empties
times before. And then I started reading it- out. And so, toward the end, I took a phrase from
because I often pitch into these things without the o riginal text and expanded it into a speech for
having actually read the text since I was a child, the chorus that begins, "Oh the se glorious mis-
and the n usually only a children's version of it. sions of men- they start o ut so well, so full of

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noble intent." Somet hing like, "Go off and punish subconscious." That makes sen se to me in terms
the foreigner, defeat the tyrant, defend the nation of what you're saying. How do you deal with the
and hip hip hurrah hurrah, become a man. Seize political reality? Well, you make your work, you
that Golden Fleece and utop ia will descen d. Seize bake your bread , but at the same time you allow
that Golden Fleece and the world itself will your subconscious to work on it in ways that you
change. Seize that Golden Fleece and there will be can't control.
an end to evil. Whatever. They all turn out the I think that's exactly right. I actually work out of
same in the end." It changes this whole evening the unconscious. I believe in it really strongly.
that you've seen, that's very adventurous and a lot People think that because I go in with no script
offun initially-their energy to go is so infectious. that I develop these shows and work on them for
yet. when I was initially staging the show, I did two years in workshop. I've never had a work-
not have an ironic thought in my head about it. I shop. I have four to six weeks of rehearsal. then I
think this is why the play ends up being effective. go into tech like everyone else and then I open the
I wasn't really thinking about where this is going show. But I start with no script. I do that for a
to go. This is the result of having no script when I variety of possibly neurotic reasons, but one of
start. I'm in the moment. But then the piece the effects is that the pressure is so intense that I
comes to this barren condusion-this wiped-out, can't censor and I can't be polite. I have to go
bloody, empty betrayal and scene of destruction. I with the first fucking thing I think of Then, in tech
don't think the play would have ended that way if previews, that other half of the brain comes into
I'd done it-l can't say ten years ago anymore, operation. I usually don't change a lot during pre-
but fifteen years ago. views, but with Argonoutika I cut twenty minutes
out of the first act and rearranged a story. I actu -
That makes me th ink of something that Leonard allydid it on opening night.
Bern stein said once: "If somebody asked me to I'm not making these things up whole doth.
write a symphony, I could do it overnight . I have They're books or stories or myths that exist al-
the technique. But it would n't be very good . It ready. My feeling is that I'm always trying to get
hasn't had the time to pass through my out of the way. It's the way musicians talk all the

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time, tha t they're the vehicle or the ante nna of the because of the persona lities- I have my cast, I
music, that they're just catching it, but its own have my design, I have my openi ng night. And
so rt of spirit is comi ng through. That's always yet, it's unpr edicta ble and unknow able. It's utte rly
how I feel in rehearsal. That kind of pressure of absolute, and it's also co ntinge nt. It's a rea lly
four weeks and all the tickets are being sold and parad oxical thing. It's an object tha t we've already
you don't have two words of it written-that made , but we've forgotten how we made it. We
cracks me open in a way. have to so rt of reco nst itute it through t he act of
performance.
That's a really big deal. We thi nk utopia is having I have a bunch of conflicting metaphors for
tons and tons ohime, but- how I work because it's not really describable. It's
That would be hell. a sort of mystery to me.

You put pressure on yourself, intensel y, but at the let's try to figure out how you got that way. We're
same time---and I know th is is tru e, so you can 't going to go back a little biL So, you're this kid
lie and say it's not true---you have to slow down from Nebras ka. I'm interested in your influences.
under that pressure. You have to slow your blood What happened to you that forged who you are?
pres sure down, because if you get rushed, you're My parents were both un iversity p rofessors, and I
sunk. was in a really academic environment. When I
My metaphor is that creating works-devising was five, my dad was on a Rhodes scholarshi p in
theater-is an act of archeology: You are an Camb ridge, England, and my mom took me to all
archeologist who is rubbing away the sand from sorts of plays. And I had a primal scen e of t he-
an objec t that 's been buried so me time ago. If ate r. We lived in Ham pton Gardens subu rb on
you rush, you will damage that object tha t is try- the outskirts of l ondon , and there was a wood s
ing to emerge. If you are not disci plined and on behi nd ou r house called t he li tt le Woods , which
time , you will arrive o n opening night with d irt is a very English type of name . Down t he street
st ill obscuring the for m. All of t his implies t hat was th e Big Woods . I would play in the litt le
the object already exists . In a way, it's inevitable Wood s all day long. Unbeknownst to me , every

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year in the Little Woods, there was, in a clearing, a back to Northwestern as a graduate in perfor-
perform ance of A Midsummer Night's Dream. I man ce studies, which at one time was the depart-
came upon a rehearsal- Hili met by moonlight, ment of oral inte rpretatio n, which concentrated
proud Titania." They weren't really in cos tume. on literature in performance and so forth. I had
They said their words to each ot her, then Oberon th is very strong narrative imp ulse, but then also I
took off and this music came on, I think, a vic- too k this performance art class. My perfor mances
trola. He had these stream ing fabric things on his started getti ng more and mor e elaborate and
arm. And he ran around a few times and the m u- longer and longer, and eventually it was easier for
sic was playing and suddenly he started laughing me to not be in them-and that's actually how I
and everyone started laughing and they all kind of became a directo r. I kind of discovered directing.
fell on the ground. And he said, "How many I'd loved thea ter since I was five and had done
times ? How many times do I run?" I had no plays, community thea ter and in my backyard and
confusion that I was seeing actual fairies. It was in my basement and had written plays as a child,
nothing remotely like that. The really striking but I never thought for a moment that I could be
thing for me was to see adults playing like that an actress because I knew I wasn't pretty enough,
and to see adults laughing like that. I'd never seen and I was told that as well, quite explicitly or
anything like that in my life. I was just so attract ed implicitly, wheneve r I spoke of my desire.
to it. I went and got my sister and we would So I had initially come to No rthweste rn as an
watch. And to this day I can't believe this, but the unde rgraduate majo r in compa rative literature,
d irector kicked us out from watching-as though but two weeks in I transferred over to theater. I
we were some sort of a threat to the process. never for a second thought I'd have a caree r in the
theater. I just could n't not do it. I remem ber just
It became forbidden to you. horrific guilt HI'm wasting my pare nts' money ..
I guess you' re right. But then we went and saw the ." As a grad uate student I sta rted doing these
show. I think we went and saw it every night. That perform ance pieces and sta rted directing that
was just th rilli ng. way, and it was like a doo r openi ng up. I under -
But the method I have as a directo r . . . I went stood tha t th is was how to be in the thea ter for

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me. I'm everywhere in it, and I'm nowhere. I'm arrows-h uge bows. They wo uld take the arrow
visible in it, and I'm invisible. To tell the truth, all and go "fwump" with their hand , and that equaled
my life in theater, I loved rehea rsal, but I d idn't re- shooting. That kind of slightly symbolic vocab-
ally like performing tha t m uch. I didn't like getting ulary, prese ntational vocabulary, was so huge to
d ressed up. I didn' t like putti ng on the makeu p. I me.
d idn't like uncomfortable costumes. But I loved And the n Arien was done in water, which stuc k
rehearsal. So, that's now the part of it that I have. with me for a very long time. It's this dance piece,
but people talk. I think what it might have taught
And what would you say were the big influences me-and lots of things at school taught me this
aesthetically and otherwise? too-was that, in spite of all the evidence to the
A lot. Frank Galati was a teacher of mine, but al- cont rary, things can be profound ly emotional that
so, when I was in my early twenties in Paris, I saw are not narrative and do not contain story. You
The MahabharalO by Peter Brook at the Bouffes pour yourself into these visions. Pina Bausch's
du No rd. Also in my twenties, I saw Pina pieces, they go on without an intermission and
Bausch's Alien at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. they're kind of a scene and another scene and
Those two things are extremely important for me. they sort of overlap and there's a lot of quiet in
them sometimes and there's a lot of music and
What was it about The Mahabharata and the Pina running around. The dancers are trained danc ers.
Bausch? Again, very international. But their vocabulary of
I guess it's their scale. Mahabharata was three dance is often related to everyday movem ent: sit-
evenings long and over th ree hours in each ting around and talking, brushing your hair or at a
evening, and it was done on basically on an emp- dinne r party or just walking or sitting in a cafe. It's
ty stage in this old theater. It was also done out - very ordinary.
door s in Avignon, through the night and the sun I think both of those things were influential-
would come up with it. It's very intern ational in its the vocab ulary they both employed, how stu n-
cast. Its story was so rich and large and dee p and ningly emotional and bea utiful I found both
big. I rem ember that they had bows and pieces , one very narrative-based . including having

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a narrat or, and the ot her withou t narrative, but It was formed by a set of people so me of which
equally so mehow complete. are now different peo ple and have different feel-
ings about th ings, and their differ ences have be-
And both with a company. I'm curiou s about your come more appa rent rather tha n more integrated .
relationship to Lookingglass and your relationship There isn't always room for every co mpany mem -
to people you work with over a long period of ber in every show. And I'd like to point out that,
time. un like Steppe nwolf our company membe rs---Ji ke
I'm not actually a founding member of Looking- ninety-eight percent of them---Jive in Chicago and
glass, and they were very hesitant to take me on. are in all ou r plays . We didn't move away.
They'd been in opera tion at least five, six, seven
years before I became a member, but I had di- What do you feel like your responsibility to th at
rected them three times during that period. They company is?
were started as an actors' company, as many I go to the monthly meetings. I d irect there when I
companies are, and I wasn't really an actor. I think feel like something I feel like directing is right for
they feared I would sort of take over-I had no the company or right for the space. In term s of
desire to take over-and it would become my Argonautiko, I think our new space, our Water
company. That very clearly hasn't happened. The Tower space, is fantastic . J know that citizens go
thing about working with a company-it has in it and they don't realize they've been in it be-
advantages and disadvantages, which are all kind fore because when it's a proscenium, it's like it
of the same. Like, you've worked with them twen- was built as a proscenium. When it's alley, it's
ty years-and you've worked with them twenty like it was built as though it was alley. Whatever
years. I always say that the first day of rehearsal at way you do it. it kind of mathe matica llyworks. It's
l.ookingglass is actually the twentieth year of re- just a great, intimate space . It also has the prob-
hearsal. There's just such a shared vocabulary lems of an intimate space, which is that its max-
and such an immediacy and such an efficiency. imum seating capacity is like two hund red and
The disadvantage, in a certain way. is that the twenty. and we traditionally do rea lly large-cast
comp any was formed twenty years ago next year. shows. And financiallythat's-

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The mathemat ics doesn't work. lights and sound, now I can say, "Well, sort of like
It's ruino us, and the re's no way aro und it. It's just the waltz in Proust, but don' t do it on piano." We
a sort of insoluble problem. have this vast reference libraryof our past works.
But also, I was teasing my set designe r about
let's s hift to the relationship with actors, design- Argonautika. I went out on the first day of tech
ers, writers that function over time . You have a with him for dinner break and I said, "It's really
reputation . When anybody's in tech rehearsals good, right?" And he went, "Yeah ... it's good.
with you, the rest of their lives go down the toilet. ." He doesn't see it yet. And I felt bemused. It's all
(Laughter) kind of in my head and a lot of my stuff in the re-
Meaning I'm so exacting? hearsal room looks like nothing-because it's flat
and it's nothing . There's a paucity to it. It's miss-
Meaning it's so all-encompassing nobod y has a ing its elements. I know there will be this exquis-
life out side of these tech rehea rsa ls. ite music and these ten hundred things scenically
But that's brief. I have no life outside of anything will happen and then , you know, this costume
anyway. I actually would say, Anne, my designers isn't in yet. I'm not saying I'm in control of any of
are much more OeD than I am, and I just sit that or know it exactly, but I know that it's going
back. I'm doing the Times crossword puzzle to come together. But in a couple of days he was
sometimes. I mean , they are so, so obsessive running up to me in the house, and I could see
compulsive about the shows and about minutiae that he sees it because the elements were there.
of design and timing. I've managed to find the But I was bemused because we've been working
people who will do it for me. together twelve years. Unlike for a lot of plays, the
script is only an equal element to those scenic
That explains it. I won't blame you for it, and gestural elements. It's not the dominant ele-
Working with designers is my very most favorite ment.
thing. And I've worked with them enough now
that we have, again, a huge vocabu lary. The things That's a big, import ant dea1. Non-Aristotelian.
that are really hard to talk about, which I thi nk are It is extreme ly non -Aristotelian. I wish I were, but

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I'm not. I rely on all of the elements of th eater to generate
meaning. not just dialogue. The story itself is at
One of my students at Columbia made me under- the center of all, but how that sto ry is conveyed
stand that the Aristotelian notion of catharsis IS relies o n certai n images tha t are not co mplete un-
essentially a male orgasm as opposed to-- til all the scenic and technical eleme nts are there.
A female one? Couldn't it be? Light not only reveals the image, but creates it.
Though I say there's nothing in the rehearsal
Not from my experience. The sort of non- roo m. I need them to have the rehearsal props. I
Aristotelian structure of many orgasms. need the space to be right. We need to do this like
Well. I do think, without a doubt, the narrative we're actually doing it. I always tackle the transi-
structure as described and graphed by all of ou r tions in the rehearsal room . I never leave them till
professors is absolutely male. But I don't think tech. I love transitions. I always do them a vista. I
arousal and release is necessarily just male. I always try to make them part of the thing. It's
think it's sexual without a doubt, and it has to do choreographed . I like to do sort of cross fades of
with suspense and anticipation and approaching scenes. I think I've had two go-to-darks in my life
and retreating and then you're kind of ready for it du ring the course of a play-and they were not
to shut down after the big moments. for transitional purposes. That's what I love about
theater-it's half the illusion and the eph emeral
I was yelled at once by a really great opera singer, beauty and all of that, and then, on the other
Lauren Flanagan. At one point I said to her, "Oh , hand, it's so heavy and mate rialistic and practical.
you know, the lights will fix thaL" And she As a director, and as a great acto r too, you have
screamed, "The lights never fix anythingl" She's one foot in each of those . You have to be really
absolutely right, and it was a great lesson-you practical about, "Can this be carried on? Is it
can't say that the dramaturgical issues of a play worth it to be carried on at this point?" It's not
are going to be solved scenically. fil m, which can magically transpose things . It has
I agree. But in the sort of theater I do, image to em brace its c1 unkiness and the laws of physics
somet imes carries the story, carries the mea ning. and the weight of it. You have to play into that

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and remember that it's there. of the play-that may or may not make it into the
final show-for the sake of auditions and the call-
How about working with actors over a long period back was a more traditional scene reading. In re-
of time ? You start with no script . Can you just de- cent years, I've reversed the order and the initial
scribe the process with actors? aud ition is a read and the callback is the group
I used to begin with group auditions. They are thing- which shows a shift in my own values, I
very physical. very ensemble-oriented. Actors th ink. They have to get past the qualifications of
came in groups oflike eight to twelve for forty-five st rong abilitywith text before we go on.
minutes . I always have a musician . I always have a Then in rehearsal, o n the first day, we show the
drummer. We do a lot of different things: every- set, because that all has to be design ed. same as
o ne goes to one side of the room and som eone on any othe r sched ule as if there were a script.
leads the others dancing across the room, just Same with costume for the mos t part, althou gh
whatever that means to them . 1 have a thing lots of roles are not assigned when I cast. I'll cast
where they're in pairs and one closes their eyes the ensemble. I'll know who's playing the leads. If
and the other has their eyes open. I go through a I'm doing Ovid's Metamorphoses or Arabian
series of movements, and the person with their Night5, I do n't even know what stories are neces-
eyes open has to make the person with their eyes sarily going to make it into the show. I have ideas,
closed do what I'm doing without talking. All of but I'm not certain. O n the first day, we ta ke the
this tells me a lot about a bunch of stuff, not al- book and we'll read a section I'm thinking of do-
ways the obvious thing that it seems to be about. ing, and we'll pass it around. We'll read it para-
It tells me how able they are to throw themselves graph by paragraph. Then we'll talk about it. Then
into the other person and even forget that they're I talk about why I like this story and the cool parts
auditioning. It shows me how they are in their of it that 1think will go in and things I don't know
body. There are other things I do that show me a how to approach and problems there seem to be
little bit if they're show-offy o r if they're selfish, in the original story that are hard. Then I start
where I as k them to compose themselves in stagin g generally, I'm not kidding, the first day. I'll
scenes. Then, I've generally made up a few scenes say, "l et's do six ways to do a boa t. Let's do five

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ways of how to fly. Can we have a camel? I have Ovid's Metam orphoses; t here a re hundred s of
this idea. Let 's see if we can do it." myths in t here. I'm pulling from t he ca pabilities
Every single day it's more. I usu ally write be- of my acto rs and what the set is pushing us to-
tween two and six in the morning, then I bring ward.
that in. The single hardest part of working this way is
that every night I'm cas ting it. I'm terrified of ma k-
When do you sleep? ing a mistake--either a mistake involving t he ac-
I go to bed early. Like at nine . Then I wake up at tor's aptitude for that part , which I'm sort of just
two. This is how Argonautika went. Went back to guessing at, or a logical mistake. If I use them
bed at six. Slept until nine again, then went to re- here--I'm thinking about doing this other story
hearsal. and would I then use them there? Or what if I re-
So there will be a little bit more every day. verse this order of stories like I'm thinking about.
When it is something I am adapting, I don't actu - then someone is the lead in two stories in a row?
ally read a lot of secondary criticism. I'm suscep- That haunts me . Sometimes I'll change my mind
tible to smarty-pants commentary; and I want to about assignments walking into the room. I start
have my own strong, intimate dialogue with the with the caveat on the first day t hat I may end up
text itself and not beging from a point of received reassigning. but I've only ever do ne it on the most
or standardized interpretation . I need to be experi- minor. tiny things . I've never act ually wrenched a
ential. I often have an opening image and a clos - part away from someone after they'd been prac -
ing image that I'm working toward. With some- ticing for a week.
thing like The Odyssey, the structure is one of the
great literary structures ever. It's so good. So you When you say, "Six ways of stagi ng a boat," how
follow that structure and really what you're doing do you start staging?
is just editing episodes. But with something like Well, you might go, okay, we can make a boa t
Arabian Nights. which in every edition the 384 sto - physically by doing this move, which we've mad e
ries are in a completely different order, what up in Lookingglass. called the prow of t he boat,
you're doing is sea rching out the str ucture. Or someone standing on someone's thig hs while

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they're holding their arms. What if we have rowers yourself a minute you can do the same thing.
behind that? No, that looks like shit. All right, let's That is you, right?
try fragmenting the boat. You do the sail over
there and oa rsmen be here. It is.
I've told that story a lot. And I recognize it very
How much of it do you come up with and how mu ch. You know. you fall, and you grow wings on
much do the actors come up with? the way down. You just have to let go.
I generally come in with an idea, but that idea can
just go instantly. In one second, you go, "Oh. that I think that's what an actor does as well. They dive
doesn't actually work with real people." The ac- off of a cliff and they start speaki ng and they have
tors tend to exceed those ideas and improve upon to carve it on the way down. Otherwise, they're
them. constantly stopping. But I think the sam e thing in
terms of directing. You have to just go.
I always find that if you don 't have that idea, yo u I think my actors are way, way braver than I. I
haven't earned the right to walk in that room. But mean. it's brave. I guess, for me to step off that
if you hold onto it aft~ you get in the room, then cliff. but I'm in the driver's seat. They are handing
you're in trouble . that over to someone else. They are definitely
Actually. Anne. I'm pretty sure this is a story contributing hugely to that process, but when
about you. which' tell all the time and which I they go home at night. they're not respo nsible for
love. Someone up on stage asks, "How do we do making up the next day's work. They just
this ?" And I've heard that Anne Bogart says, "I surre nder-it's an incredible act of trust. There's
have it," and stands up and starts walking toward a perpetual thing that's said abou t my shows:
the stage when she does not have it. But by the "Oh God. it was so good. If on ly you had really
time she arrives on stage. she has som ething. great. fam ous actors in it." No great, famous ac-
to r would agree to this process in a thous and
That's a miniaturized version of what you de- years. They just wouldn't. A rare few might. But
scribed as your four weeks of rehearsal. If you give most peop le, if they're famo us and lauded. it's

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because they've looked out for their own spot- son or whatever. He's just the man or the woman
light. They know how to do that, and they're o r the child, and you pour into it. But people who
charismatic. They're not very interested in enter- are really, really interested in acting, in repre-
ing somethi ng where they don 't know the scope senting a character and taking him through the
and size of their role and where it's not really arc of a three-and-a-half hour play-they're not
about anyone actor. The story usually in my work interested in that.
is so much more important. The longest role in
Metamorphoses is seventeen minutes. That's the In my conversation with Julie Taymor she brought
longest anyone is a single character. And yet I find up ideograms-making ideogram s rather than
it remarkable that the audience is weeping and making characters or moments.
weeping for a character they met eleven minutes That's a really great way to put it.
ago.
I'd never heard that, and I found that very
What do you think that is? useful---that you make a gesture that the aud ience
I don't know. Even Shakespeare: "What is Hecuba reads into.
to I or I to Hecuba that I should weep for her?" I It's a sign and symbol and it resembles the thing
love that it's a mythic reference, because I feel the that it stands for.
same way. I do these little pieces and they're very
episod ic sometimes and you meet a man and wife It's not the whole thing , so a resonant one can be
and they part and the man is killed. And the audi- very powerful.
ence is practically keening. They're so broken up. Less is more sometimes . And that, again, goes
I honestly think it's because that person has not against the ideas of Method acting or maybe even
had time to become particularized to them, and ideas of Aristotelian investment in the tragic he-
so he stands in for the beloved in one's own life. roes. It goes against a lot of theories abo ut how
He is the one I loved and lost. And he has not catha rsis and identification work-to dare to say,
had time to prove that in fact he's a very differe nt actua lly, the more general the characters are--
cha racter than your father, your boyfriend, your wait, that sou nds wrong: I don't believe in general

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acting. Everything mus t still be very specific in So that's one. Another, Paul Giamatti is a friend
your body and detailed in gesture and voice, you of mine. He's now a famous actor. But I ran into
don't approach the text generally-but none- him outside of Coliseum Books. He is a huge
theless, I've seen these huge effects on the audi- reader, like no one I've ever met-and that's say-
ence's part given almost no time and no acqua in- ing something because my mom and I, we're
tance with the character at all. huge readers. Bul he's got us beat. He's compul-
sive. He had a stack of books and one of them
How do you choose material, and what attracts was called Haft Paykar. It was a Persian twelfth-
you in particular in terms of myth? century story, and I read the back cover and it
Very tiny, little moments attract me. All of my said, a king has seven brides, and they live in a
choices have been very peripatetic or random- castle with seven domes, and each dome is of a
feeling or could seem that way. Two examples: different color, and each princess is from a dif-
Joumey to the West, I loved the title. My boyfriend ferent county. Every night for one week he goes
at the time was reading it, and he read me a scene and hears a different story from each princess.
aloud about a man crossing a river to enlight- They are stories of alternating fulfilled and unful-
enment at the western heaven. As he crosses the filled love. And the objects in the stories usually
river in a little boat , he sees a figure in the water have the color of the dome . So if it's the green
floating by. He says, "Who is that ?" And his dome it has tree s in it or whatever. And that was
companions say, "It's you, master, it's you. all I needed to hear. What a visual opportunity. I
Congratulations." And we know he has tran - love old poems. I started to read it. And that's
scended. And on stage, you know, to have this ac- Mirrorofthe Invisible World, which I'm remounting
tor holding an actor clothed like him, as himself, at the Goodman this spring.
and then . . . letting him go into the water quietly. I always say that I don't choose what text to do
1 went to Bob Falls and I said, "I want to do this any more than you choose who to fall in love
thing called Journey to the West. I've never read it. with. It's just happened before you know it, and
It's two thousand pages long." I knew the gene ral you're utterly compulsive about it, and you can' t
out line of it. And I loved the title. stop yourself. And as soon as I get some idea to

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stage something, I'm convinced that everyo ne in got paid, but then I write a little check back be-
the world has the same idea-because it's so cause otherwise my costume budget is four tho u-
obvious that you must stage this- that I have to sand dollars. I don't want a cos tume budget
hurry to do it because so many othe r peop le are that's four tho usand dollars, so I write a little
going to be do ing it, because how could you not? check and I put it back. This isn't really altruist ic
So, you run across something. You get a whiff because the show has to look good for me. I do
of it. And then you become possessed with it, and have a portion of the backend. as they say. But
it ruins your life for the next year. I'm compulsive about how I want it to look. The
company doesn't have much money. No com-
But you've got to have your antenna out. pany does. But I have this really good living. I'm a
I don't really because I'm really lazy. I'm a full- professor at Northwestern University.
time professor, and that's actually a great thing. I
don't need to direct to support myself. I don't What do you actually teach t h~r~ ?
need to hitch my little creative pony to the plow. I'm in the department of performance studies.
So anything I've ever done has always been be- teach performance art because of the brilliance of
cause I've just had a huge bee in my bonnet someone who came way before me who snatched
about it. I've just had to do it. But I've never lived that class into our department, so at North -
the freelance life where you're actually earning western it's not in the art department. I teach
your living solely from that. courses called, literally, the Solo Performance of
Poetry,Solo Performance of Drama.
I wonder what kind of different director you'd be if
that were true. So, practical classes.
1 don't know. I'm not actually paid for Argonau- Yeah. I teach graduate students, too, and som e
tika. And it almost killed me. theoretical classes. I don't teach directing. I never
took a directing class.
Why?
Because we don 't have enough money. I actually Audience: Earlier in the conversat ion you said that

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the object exists, we've already made it, but we've that for over a decade. Then I discovered that my
forgotten how we made it, and it has to be recon- shows have some kind of portability to them.
stituted for performance. I really like the metaphor They could be imported or exported onto oth er
of reconstitution. I'm wondering if, within the bod ies. I didn't think they could. Part of that is be-
metaphor, you see that actors as ingredients. Are cause, for example, if someone in my cast can
they part of the reconstitution? sing. then suddenly there's a so ng for that char-
I think they're partly the archaeologist that's acter. Someone in my cast can play drums, sud-
scraping away, but they are part of the object. I denly that happens. Trying to recast that in a dif-
think who you cast in a play is destiny. You have ferent city. to find thai exact skill set in anoth er
signed, sealed and delivered your fate. They say person adds a whole other dimension to the cast -
it's ninety percent of the director 's job, and it is. It ing that makes it even more difficult. Some of the
is everything--everything to do with your per- acting in my older plays was more general than
sonal pleasure in rehearsing or not. And every- one would like. It wasn 't masterful-a-because they
thing to do with the whole gestalt of the play, just had so many other skills, like the ability to lift two
by virtue of who they are and the ten thousand people at the same time. We were specialists; my
choices they are going to make specifically that shows got made around those specia list qualities.
are different than the ten thousand someone else I have three plays in print. They're now done all
would make in a paragraph. You can direct as the time in high schools and colleges . I love see-
much as you want, but direction's just that. It's ing the photos that they send . You can sort of
kind of a blunt-you know, I'll shove you in that shift those skill set s, and the tracks of the partic-
direction , but it's a big stream . You 're not in con - ular actor could be different that the track that I
trol of someone up on stage at all. So, I guess assigned. which is something I didn't und erstand
they are part of the object but the makers of the for a long. long time .
object as well.
Fo r years upon years upon years I wouldn't re- AS: I remember seeing the Martha Graham com-
mount any of my shows with anyone othe r than pany for the first time after Martha Graham was
the peple I had originally made them with. I did dead . I was so knocked out because there were

16 poge5 (19mil) lefT IIIth chopt ....

dancers who weren 't born when the origina l He knows so me of the elemen ts . Then it all has
dance was created. They somehow brought from to co me toget her over the cou rse of the week. I'm
the past something extraordinary, and I think it not at all as hamed o r think it's a bad t hing to have
changed them as human beings to step into those what you called a for mula. What I st ill find inter -
roles. It's moving, t he idea of a piece that's made esting about doi ng plays is trying to unde rst and
on the body. th e dee p st ruct ure of aesthetic pleasure. It exists
I have to say. as much as it has an air of virtue to and you feel it. You 're always looking for the feel-
it. preserving all the originals. there's som ething a ing of rightness . That's what it's all about. It
little narcissi sti c about it, about me. I had a dee p snaps into focus . It eludes you , then it's th ere and
feeling these shows would fail if I had replaced it's so obvious and everyone feels it. Learning
t he casts. When I did Arabian Nights at Manhattan more and mo re about that stru cture just makes
Theat re Club in New York, the set was better, the me feel better and better, even though it is not the
acting was better, costumes were better, lights wild. crazy left-brained side. It's the logical side.
were better-show was not as good. There was a It's the more boring, work hard, disciplined,
little spirit thing that was not right, that did not unglamorous-and yet I think that 's what re-
quite carry over. mains the perpetual mystery for me , the thing that
you're perpetually chasi ng.
Audience: Ira Class talks about writing for radio, In Argonautiko I made this huge change t hree
and he has a formula . The formula doesn't make nights before opening. The next morn ing I woke
or break your story, but , he sa ys, on This American up and I knew it was wrong . I've never had this
Life, we need to change pace every forty-five sec- experience before . I had to sit th rough it again
ond s. 1would never suggest you use a formula for that night beca use we didn 't have rehearsal t hat
anything , but I wonder if you have a theory about day. Then I woke up the next morning, opening
this . day. and we put back in the cut that I'd made and
I th ink the way Ira and I work is very similar. He took out a different twelve-minute scene. So the
sta rts the week not quite knowing what t he first time I saw it run in co ntext was opening night
show's going to be. He knows th e o utlines of it. in front of one hun dred press. I've never don e

14 pages (lS m n) lItft nth $ chaplet

anything like that. In schoo l I always got my We came so close to not making that change be-
homework done o n time. I never pulled an all- caus e-how can we? O pening night ? But we did.
nighter. I'm not one of those people in previews And we didn't do it in pan ic. If it had been like a
who just cuts and pastes mad ly. I actually think panicky th ing. the n I don 't know that it would
those little flaws, if you just wait long enough, the have been the right thin g.
actors will sort of fix them . Those little irritants
are like the grain of san d in the oyster-they will Audience: I have a lot of friends who are classi-
become pearls, they will become inevita ble, they cally trained ballerinas, and when they try to
will become the right thing. switch dance genres it's very hard to get that out
We had received a standing ovation the night of the body. Do you find that with classically
before opening. Everyone was like, "Phew. She trained actors?
probably won't want to make those chan ges ." Sometimes in ou r cas t we have people who went
And I said, "We just have to." It was totally struc - to Juilliard and people who went to NYU and it's a
tural. The first act was too long. Not one of those very funny debate. I honestly think a good acto r is
scenes was bad , but this one scene was tonally a good actor, and they're really flexible in terms of
wrong, and it was in the wrong place. It was fan- style and they have great taste in their choices.
tastic. But we just had to cut it. And the actors With a dancer, maybe the body just automatically
were all so brave and glorious about it. I was so goes to the place. In acting, they do n't do those
proud of everyone. Everyone was so studio usly exercises every day that dancers do, the barre.
calm. Everyone was joking like we always do. They just kind of hang out all day at the coffee
There was no sense of urgency or panic. We de- shop, then do the play. I think they have more
cided to make the play that we wanted to run for flexibility.
eight weeks and that press night was not the
important night. I went hom e after o pening night, AB: It's that T word, which is not talent, but taste.
and it was one of my happ iest nights in the the - It's the hardest thing to talk about.
ater. It was just two weeks ago. I d rove home It's all about taste. I always feel like what being a
down Lakeshore Drive, and I knew it was right. director means is your taste wins . You get to be in

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charge of the taste of the show. Physically, in the virtuoso actors on stage whose virtuosity you are
set, your taste in actors, your taste in sto ries. aware of at all times. And I liken it to that op tical
illusion where there's two halves of the face or a
Audience: I'd like to know how you watch theater, vase and sometimes you see the face and some-
and the kind oftheater you like to watch that's not times you see the vase. It's that tra nsitio n be-
your own. tween the two that's physically pleasurable. You
You know, I don't go to as much theater as big think, "look at AI Pacino go!" It doesn't mean that
theater-lovers do. I'm in it too much-going to you aren't caught up in the chara cter or the story,
the theater is a sort of busman's holiday. I would but you're caught up in his virtuosity as well. And
always go see something by Anne, something by you're going back and forth. Whereas, in Method
an interesting director. I don 't want this to sound acting and the kind of conventional way of talking
snobby, but if an international troupe comes to about theater is that you forget it was theater.
town, that's always more exciting. There's so That's a retroactive pleasure-and I've had that.
much that I have to go see because I know the You leave a movie and you're talking about the
director, the writer, the actor. the designer. You movie and about twenty minutes later you say,
have so much obligation theater-students, for "Wait, that person was an actor." It didn't provide
God's sake. Although, some student theater is the pleasure in the moment of, "look at the ador
just fantastic , and some is, "Kill me now." go." "look at the des igner go." "Hear the com-
I think you might be asking, can I forget I'm in poser go." But in my opinion it's often the rub be-
the theater while I watch? I can absolutely get tween being inside the story and simultaneously
swept up in something. And yet, here's another seeing the manufacture of the story, being inside
thing that I think is against conventional wisdom. the character and seeing his manufacture, seeing
Conventional wisdom is that you see an actor in a the real and the unreal right on top of each other
play and you forget you're in the theater and and feeling the friction between the two that caus -
you're in the story and you're utterly subsumed by es such pleasure .
it, and that's what makes it good. I don't thi nk so.
I always point to John Matkovich or certain AB: A theater audience is actually part of the

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artistic creative act. And in the artistic creative act Audience: I'm interested in something you said
you have to have ecstasls, ecstasy, stepping back when you were talking about the experience you
and closeness, intimacy. The audience has to had in the woods . You came across adults play-
have both, too, and gives you, I think, what Artaud ing. I'm interested in how you bring that into what
called the double-in it and out of it at the same you do now.
time. In film you let it wash over you. Well, it's not called a play for noth ing. I said that
Film is utterly concerned with the erasure of its once, and the next year it appeared on all ou r ban-
own production. If you see the shadow of the ners around town. If you're not playing-if there
mic, if you see a mistake, that's a weak, bad film. isn't the spi rit of play in the roo m--even if you
It has "ruined the illusion" In the theater the are doing Beckett or Lear or the hardest, dee pes t
essence of the theatrical is metaphor. When thing-if you're not laughing every now and then,
someone dies they may not necessarily die a lot. and kind of giddy and joking around and be-
"realistically" but instead pull from themselves a ing with each other in a kind of wa rm way, I don't
length of red silk. You know there's nothing real think it's working. I mean, I might be wrong, but
about that, but you're glorying in metaphor and in I'm in it for the laughs . The great richness of
the precise distance between the tenor and the working in the theater is that you're working with
vehicle of the metaphor. Visual metaphor in th e people who are charming on a professional level.
theater creates intimacy: it is like the language of Peo ple pay to be in a room with them and watch
lovers, unspoken. No one says , "And that cloth, them walk around and sing. And that's who you
that's the blood ." Yet everyone is having that spend you r days with.
same thought at the same moment, and you real-
ize t hat we have a shared experience of life, a AB: Then comes a really curious issue, both in the
shared vocabulary, and here is a symbol that's commercial world, and you're also about the work
telling us that. That creates intimacy and is a bul- at the Met. As you start dealing with commercial
wark against loneliness. And th at's what I t hink producers, the object is not for that joy. The object
abo ut meta pho r in the theater-that it act ually is to make money.
works to defeat lon eliness. I agree. Metamorphoses accide ntally beca me a

8 pages (9 mil) letT IIIth (hopTer

co mmercial production. But I've not don e any- chorus member, or even some bod y who's a lesser
thing that was, from the begin ning, a commercial singer, and you say, "Well, would it be funnier to
productio n. Even the Met is a not-fa r-profit insti- do this action on bar sevent y-two or ninet y-six?"
tution. But you're right. Working in opera is a And th ey look at you like, "Well, you're the direc-
whole different conversation, Your role as a direc- tor. Tell me how to do it." "No, you know more
tor is like a zillionth of what it is in the theater. about mu sic. Which would be funn ier?" "Well, bar
There are so many things that you are hand ed. seventy -six would be the funniest." And after a
But since I've been going to the Met a lot in the while th ey're going, "Um, 'scuse me, Ms. Bogartl
last year and a half, because I'm hired there now. I We of the chorus, we thin k it would be funn y to
am floored by how it is a meritocracy. The best do t his." And t his th ing happens, and it starts to
singer really does get the job regardless of age or move through t he inst it ution. I saw t hat even in
body type or whatever . because there are just very l os Angeles Opera, which is just as str atified as
few people in the world who can produce that ca n be.
sound at that volume. I must take a page from your book! I've only done
a couple of operas locally, and none of them have
AS: You know what I love about working in o pera ? I come anywhere near -I'm just scared and want
It's an impo ssible circumstance where the y've for- them to not yell at me.
gotten t he fun about being in th e small woods, Of

they never knew. As a director you go in and you AS: At l os Angeles Opera , on the dress rehearsal,
see a st ratified situation, and yo ur job, or at least I th ere was this really mean woman who was t he
find that it's my job, is to make an active culture production manager. She scared the hell out of
out of a passive one. me. I went backstage, and s he said, "Anne, I gott a
That's so greatly put. talk to you." I sa id, "Okay." She's a really scary
woman. She sa id, "Well." And th en she sta rted
AS: You start in thi s little insidious way. Chorus crying. She said, "You've reminded me why I got
members in oper a are notoriously mishandled. into thi s business." And I thought, you know, you
They are really t reated like catt le. You go up to a can---it happens. It's like a virus-that se nse of

6 pages (6 mil) left 'n !Ill chapter

humanity. Audience: I want to go back to t he first question
I'm going to have to so try and do that. Because Anne posed about this being a difficult time to be
the thing about it is th at you're handed your cas t. an art ist . I have a lot of friends and colleagues
You have no choice. The cast is cas t five yea rs be- who are wondering what they as theater artists
fo re you're hired, in my case wit h Lucia. You feel can do in a political sen se . I th ink you ment ioned
sort of compromised. The other th ing with this agitprop a little earlier. Is the re room in th is coun-
Lucia is we start with ou r tenor for four days, then try at all for th at?
he goes away for two weeks. Then, after he has There used to be. I do not mean to be depressing
left, ou r l ucia arrives . The first time they're or dis piriting, but I've always been extreme ly
together- the first time they will in fact mee t---is dear-eyed about t he fact t hat the theater is not a
during tech. So the minute you hear that, you popular form. Apparently, two percent or six per-
think, "Oh. I see. So it can't be any good." The cent of Americans have ever seen a professional
temptation is to give up because, Anne, my feel- play in their lives. It's not a huge form. I know the
ing has always been in terms of rehearsal it's go- smallness of what I do, and the depth of what we
ing to be too painful to invest in this because it's do sometimes lodges in someone and has a long-
too compromised to begin with. But I'm taking a term effect. Maybe it's a big copout, but I don't
page from you. Actually, the people I've got on think my time is best spent trying to invent a new
Lucia are notoriously game. So I will do my best. aesthetic for myself in which I write political dra -
There are reasons to do it. And the number one ma. I wouldn't be any good at that.
reason is that you' re in a room sometimes this I do think that the re was a time and may com e a
size with someone singing at the top of th eir time again when, as long as it's commercial, you
lungs, and it goes into your body and it vibrates can be political. Saturday Night Vile used to be-
in your body. The notes hit down in here and we're talking twenty -five years age-e-extrem ely
shake and ravish you. It's an extrao rdinarily rare political. Now what they make fu n of are celeb ri-
huma n experience. There are people who would ties and pop ular cult ure. But th at's all a much
pay te ns of tho usa nds of dollars to be in that larger discussion. Theater is ext remely physical
room. So it's a selfish thing. and local and im media te, and it escapes and goes

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under the wire of corporate money and funding there on stage, the matinee. It's terrible. You're
and influence. But tha t also means it's not as hating it. And someone in row XX is having their
loud and broadcast as far. It's narrower. But also life changed." It's abso lutely true.
theater is extremely fleet. Theater responded really
quickly to 9/11. There were plays with in a year.
Whereas, with a movie, the financing for that, the
planning for that, the apparatus that has to be put
in place, and then if it is political, it's, "Oh. well it
might not make that money back." We're never
going to make any money. Theater is the thing
that loses money, as a friend of mine says. So
we're already there . There's a kind of liberation in
that. I don't mean that to be depressing. But we
are small. Deep and small.

AS: I want to jump on that small---the notion of

revolution s in small rooms. What is it they say?
Americans imagine the French Revolution like Let
Mis, even if they've never seen Let Mis. Culture is
pervasive . I think A Chorus Line would never have
happened without Joe Chaikin and the Open The-
ater doing these things in little rooms. As I was
talking about in an opera institution, the virus or
disease----disease-that you put into a culture-
we can do that, and people are affected who you'll
never meet . It's odd. It's interesting.
A friend of mine once said, "You know, you're up

2 poges{l mn) H!fl 'n lhisdl<lple<

Mary Overlie Mary was born in Terry, Mon tana and is the
first to ad mit that the geography of Montana con-
Mary Overlie is the originator of the Six View- tinues to influence who she is, what she does and
points. But she is a lot more than that. She is a how she does it. She spent time in San Francisco
theorist, a choreographer, a teacher, a maker of working with Jane Lapiner. She met Yvonne Rain-
communities and an avid learner. er and then made her way to New York City where
Perhaps there are two kinds of artists in the she began making work as part of the Soho min-
world: the inventor and the scavenger. The inven- imal conceptualists. She was highly influenced by
tor descends into the depths of their imagi- the work of the Judson Dance Theater of the late
nat ions. uses everything learned and experienced 1960s and early 1970S and formed a company
in life, and re-emerges with a shiny new thing. The from 1976 to 1980. She has taught at NYU for
scavenger is the one who notices the shiny things thirty years and has spent a large amount of tim e
and begins to make necklaces . Mary Overlie is an in Europe. in particular in Holland and Austria.
inventor. I am a scavenger. where her influence spread.
I met Mary in 1979. We were both hired to teach Mary is a founder of Danspace at St. Mark's
at the newly founded Experimental Theatre Wing Church in-the-Bowery and Movement Research.
at New York University. We became good friends both influential and long standing institutions in
and she began to share her work with me. When New York City. Her impact on the Experimental
she showed me her Six Viewpoints I couldn't sit Theater Wing at NYU is profound and long-
still for the excitement. Ever the scavenger I standing. She has collaborated with artists such
tho ught, "Now this . is useful!" Much to Mary's de- as Lee Breuer. JoAnne Akalaitis, Lawrence
light and chagrin, I did use her Viewpoints and Sacha row, Paul Langland, Nina Martin. Wendell
teach them and develop them in directions that Beavers and many others. She and I collabora ted
inte rested me. I think that Mary was delighted be- on several produc tions toge ther including South
cause of the excitement that the Viewpoints Pacific and Artourist. She has written a beau tiful
engendered in the world and chagrined because book on the Six Viewpoints which I hop e will be
of th e cha nges I made. published very soon.

39 p<>g'" [46 mil) left III thOfl chopl.

NOVEMBER 27. 2006 ownership is an issue. The difference between us
is that Mary is an innovator and inventor and ex-
AB: Mary Overlie, among many things, is the plorer. She goes into herself and comes out with
inventor of Viewpoints , and I have spent the last something truly original. I'm a scavenger. I look
twenty-some years trying to say that out loud. around and go, "I like that. And I like that and
Mary Overlie is truly an inventor. She went inside that, and I think I'll put them all together." What
of herself and asked , "What is performance? What Mary had innovated made more sense to me than
is this thing we do? " And she came up with this anything I'd ever encountered in my life-and to
system, in a sense, a way of looking at it, We met this day.
in '979, when both of us, much too young, were I was talking with leon Ingulsrud, a member of
teaching at NYU. We did a number of shows to- SITI Company, about the Moscow Art Theatre.
gether in addition to teaching. We d id South PQ- When Moscow Art Theatre first came to the Unit-
cific, a play called Artourist, which we co-directed. ed States in 1922/23, with plays by Chekhov and
Mary introduced me to this system, this ap- Gorky, these young people who came to see these
proach, which pretty much blew my mind. It productions-who had names like Strasberg and
seemed to be addressing all these issues that I Adler-were knocked out . I used to think they
had problems with in the theater---in two words , were knocked out by the technique, which became
"couch plays." The way that Mary approached the an approach to acting. But what I began to under-
stage actually said to the actors Of to the dancers, stand through a discussion with Leon is that what
"Make work yourselves. Make it eloquent, Don't they were knocked out by was not a technique of
wait for so mebod y to tell you what to do ." acting, but the way that people were being to-
Then Mary went away for ten years to Europe. gether on stage. They'd never seen people be to-
We lost contact for a long time. I started bas- gether that wayan the stage, and that changed the
tardizing her work, adding things and changing whole conception of what it meant to be human. It
things. When she came back to the States, Mary was certainly affected by quantum physics, Picas-
said, "No, they're this." I said, "No , I changed so's Cubist theories, Freud's theories of the time,
things." This has been a long process of-I guess but it was manifested on the stage.

37 pages(44 mil) lefIlll ltlil chapter

I thin k that the reason why what you invented, deep, quizzical, assembling things, very inde-
Viewpoints, was so profound is that whenever you pendent. My theory is that it's becaus e of the way
watch people doing Viewpoints it feels good . It's Montana is geologically. The prairies sta rt at the
about wit nessi ng people being together in a way Missou ri all the way across, so yo u don 't even
that is unique-in a way that is lateral as opposed know you're climb ing-up, up, u p, up, up to this
to linear. plain at three thousand feet above sea level, and it
MO: I have one last question about Viewpoints. I loo ks flat. The feeling you get is that you're loo k-
do think it is the last question. It's been hang ing ing over the curvature of the eart h. Kate Matschul-
there-j ust hanging there, seeming as if I would lat, the theater director, is from Neb raska. She
never be able to answer it. The question was said that Viewpoints couldn't be without the
about what kind of theater is Viewpoints West-that they are the voice of the West in som e
making-and you just answered it by that story. way. They're also a voice of oriental, Buddhist
that parable. Viewpoints changes the way people philosophy, which is also to be found organically
are together on stage. That 's the answer. Thank in Montana.
you, Anne.
There was also the influence of peop le in Mon-
You're welcomel Let's go back--because I think tana, correct?
all of us are but the bundle of things we expe- Yes. My mother was particularly loving. She had
rience and people we meet and how we grow up. six child ren. I think her attitude to each of us was
How did Montana affect you and your trajectory? that we had all it took to do whatever we wanted.
I have never left Montana, first of all. It's not a She would just take care of the ironing and the
past thing. This gives me the opportunity to say cleaning of the clothes and the cooking of the
som ething about Montana that I've been wanting food, and let us just evolve. I was severely dyslex-
to say forever. I would like to write a book about ic as a child. There was a clock in the kitchen. I'd
it. Mont an a to me is a place that propagates a Zen try to avoid being in the kitchen so I could avoid
mind. You discover it in people you wo uld not ex- som eone calling and saying, "What time is it,
pect to be Zen-c-broad-minded. flat-thinking, Mary?" I did n't want to go to sc hoo l. I always had

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bad stomach aches and this and that. I would get lipstick and always a white man's shirt and Levis
very sick in the winter-kind offake sick becaus e o n-which was just not the way women dressed .
the pressure would become too much for me to Peo ple were still wearing nylons and things.
be at schoo l. My mother just got it. She'd say, Something happe ned where I just identified with
"You are very sick. Why don't you go back to her completely and basically took her personal ity.
bed." So I could recuperate from the world and I studied her like under a microscope. To this day,
get my nerve back together to go out. During one we're just incrediblydose.
of those periods of convalescence I got this idea.
I was very much into the idea of the Greek myths, What made you go to San Francisco? That was the
even though I couldn't read. I don 't know how next stop on the Mary Overlie train, I think.
dyslexic people do that, but they know about it. Yes. I wanted to go to New York, because that's
They pick it up from pictures . I decided that I had where the ballet and all the dancing was. But I
to have baths, and the bath was like the Aegean was too afraid to go-thank God, because I think
Sea. I crawled inside the bath and thought about New York City would have eaten me up at seven-
ancient times . One day I said, "I think I'm ready to teen. I was in a summer theater thing , and the
read." So I asked my brother Eric to get some owner of the theater, who was very wealthy, his
books out of the library. Mythology books. And son wanted to hop the freight train to go to Cali-
damned if I couldn't read . fornia. The only person I knew who wasn't in
Then, I fatefully grew up across the street from Montana was in Berkeley, and we'd been in the
painters, who are actually mentioned in Zen and theater together. She was about four or five years
the Art of Motorcycle Maintt:mma . Robert Pirsig older, and had married and moved to California.
was their friend and would visit them, and talked So I got there-I can't even believe this-i n 1964.
about Robert and Gennie a lot in the book. A You know what was going on in 1964. I just
mysterious thing happened to me with Gennie dropped into the generation as this little Mon-
DeWeese. They were a nest of Capricorns across ta nan. It was very, very funny: "No, I don' t want to
the street, the likes of which Montanans had nev- smoke grass. No, I'm going to the ballet. No, I'm
er seen. She was a beatnik, ponytail and bright red listening to classica l music. What are the Beetles ?

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No." they're going to get us to do." I alread y had quite
a reputatio n for being a performer. They started
Were you thinking of yourself as a dancer or a all moving in the sa me direction, knocking me
choreographer at that point? down. I was terrified .
Both. I met this woman who was teachi ng dance
at a commu nity rec center. She saw my fearless They were doing combinations and you didn't
interest and my extreme poverty, and said, "You know what they were doing?
know, I have friends teaching ballet at UC Berke- Yes. I didn't know people could do combina tions.
ley. I bet you could just come and take classes
with me." So I went up to take class at the ballet. Was it in San Francisco that the Natural History
I'd only seen one dance performance ever in my of American Dance started?
life, which was when we went up to Canada to see No. It actually started here in New York. When I
a ballet. I was so confused by this. What I'd been was about nine I started studying dance. But Iwas
taught was ballet barre and improv-floor work. already heavily under the influence of Bob and
That's what I thought ballet was. Genn ie Deweese and the beatniks across the
street. Shortly after that I started choreographing
That's an influence. That's big. because I wanted to be an artist. I wanted to read
That's a big influence, yes. I have a theory that a some books about choreography: How do you do
dancer's first teacher is the direction they will go it? What's dance? Painters would talk, critique
in. Whatever strange combination they are teach- each other, exchange ideas-c-centu ries of devel-
ing you or how they approach dance-you will go opment: What is perspective? Where do you put
that way. So, first of all. seeing the ballet in Cana- the image in terms of the frame of the canvas,
da, I was so confused as to how everybody could light? I thought I'd find out all that stuff that
do the same ste ps. That was a major mystery to choreographers do. There was nothi ng. Not hing. I
me. Then I went in to take the ballet class. I was thought dance should have a tech nical voice like
fine doi ng barre. And then everybody got out on that. Performance should have that. So I decided
the floor, and I said, "Oo h. I wonder what improv that I, Mary Overlie, would go forth in the world.

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So I already had that project o n my mind when I elementa l?
was in San Francisco. Mary Overlie is going to A black square on a white canvas. That's ele-
find out how to write this down. It seemed like a mental to me. Mary Campbell Schmid t, the head
century of modern dance classes, which I hated. of Tisch School of the Arts, once said to me,
had to ta ke them . But I hated them. "You're a phe nomenologist." I like to see what's
happening. I like to lift the lid u p. I can fix Toy-
What did you hate about them? otas. I got a car apart. Eric had to come put it
Basically that they weren't postmodern, but r back together again, but I got it taken apart. I like
didn't know what I was looking for. They were to repair things . I used to have a construction
about stories. They were about emotion. They company in New York City. I did all the plumbing
were way too visceral for me. I suffered through in my own loft. Those things fascinate me.
them. Then Margaret Jenkins, who worked with
Merce Cunningham, moved away from him, Were you connected at all to Anna Halprin? She
moved to San Francisco and opened up her own was really influential in San Francisco in the six-
studio. I was there . I took her first Cunningham ties.
class. I was like, "Everything's okay now." I wouldn't go near her-even that side of town
where she was. I never saw a performance. I just
What was it about Cunningham that made sense? got this feeling like . .. it was too modern dance.
The larger question is what is it about postmod- There was lots of emotion there. It was an energy.
ernism that makes sense to me . I think that I'm
drawn to art that's elemental-because then I see What was it then that brought yo u from San Fran-
it as being powerfully universal, yet specifically re- cisco to New York?
lated. Cunningham's work was about spac e and Yvonne Rainer. Barbara Dilley had a commission
time. There were no sto ries. There were no emo- from the Whitney Museum to do a danc e. That
tio ns. was the old days when dancers got to do dances
in muse ums and galleries. It was a really lively
What doe s that mean to you-art that IS time. She was gathe ring people's work. I took her

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workshop when she was in San Francisco and solo, and there was a sickening silence. Things
she invited me to come to New York. Yvonne flashed thro ugh my mind: "Well, I guess I'll move
Rainer gave me a ride. She took me with her. away from New York. I guess I'm leaving the com -
Yvonne had just tried to comm it suicide. 1970. pany." They sat there for a really long time, and
Barbara performed in concert , then I worked with someone was like, "Are you going to tell her?"
that group. We named it the Natural History of One of them finally said, "Okay, Mary. Do you
the American Dancer; lesser known species; vol- know where you are?" What a creepy question! I
umes 1-25. We just had a very, very weird way of said, "I'm in New York." She said , "Well, yeah.
working. I don't know how it evolved, but we nev- But do you know where you are?" Someone finally
er spoke to each other about what we were said, "well. what do you think? She's about four
doing---ever, ever. When we started teaching we feet from the building?" I said, "Yeah. I'm four
exchanged a few words . It was very illuminating. feet from the building." They started giving m e
But that was it. I think about that era as being the these measurements about where I was standing.
era of inventing the wheel backward. We decon - And I, in an instant, turned from an ignorant
structed dance in some strange way, and in the dancer. Actors are like this before they get the
process the Viewpoints fell on the floor, and I was Viewpoints. They think space is only where they
like, "what's that?" are. They don't see anything else . They don't see
The other women in the dance company were the room. They don 't see their placement in the
much hipper than I was. They'd gone to Sarah room. Dancers are like this . I woke up. I was like,
l awrence. They were advanced. They'd been on "Help! I'm four feet from the building!" I spent
the East Coast all their lives. They were in Soho. I the rest of the summer co mpletely space ob-
arrived late in Soho. We decided before we took sessed, measuring and walking patterns, prac-
the summer vacation we would do solos as intro- ticing walking perfect circles. and slowly accumu -
ductions of ou rselves to the company. I though t I lating space language. I can speak space. A lot of
was going to be the sort of hip Californian, so I people who can do Viewpoints can speak spac e.
decided to make the piece outside. I took them up
on the sidewalk on Greene Street and d id my Around the same time, to contextua lize a litt le bit,

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was the Judson Church movement. In the sixties, on ly with the human beings in the room, but with
ear ly seventies, peop le got togeth er in Judson the things with which you make art . It seems
Church becau se ofAI Carmines, who was the pas- that's one of the principles upon which the View-
tor who gave them the space. These young peo- points stand, that it is a nonhierarchical system.
ple, whose names were like Trisha Brown, Yvonne One aspect ofthe performance is not more impor-
Rainer, David Gordon . Steve Paxton, took apart tant than the other. The text is not more important
everything. You were around in the latter part of than the space, which is not more important than
that period. What was your relationsh ip to that the time. That was becoming clear to you, right?
work? I always say this about this process. I like it mor e
They were my gods . They taught me what and more as it matures . I may have started out to
postmodernism was . Also, up to the point that find out the techniques of choreographing, of
they started working, the entire history of dance, making performance. But that is a vastly different
of Western dance, had been structured around thing. and it has been a vastly different journey
one lucky devil who co uld be the choreographer. than the Crotowski journey, or the Stanislavski
They could be the artist. There was only one per journey, or the Hagen journey. The character of
chorus. Everyone else was just the little dummy, the Viewpoints is really, really different, th e way
the puppet. Dancers were never seen as creative it's taught, the tone of the classroom, how people
people or artists. Part of what happened with Jud- evolve themselves in it. I think where the differ-
son is that every dancer was seen as an artist with ence originates is that Crotowski set out to create
their own creative voice. Boy, did that shak e my a new acting technique. Stanisfavski set out to
life up. I could be seen as an artist and take my- create a new acting technique. I just set out to
self se riously and come up with my own state- find some rules, some mechanics. It was a
ments, my own prose, my own work process. hunter-gathe rer mission . There have been times
with the Viewpoints , a seve n-year st retch where
I read in some of your writing the use of the word it's just me sitt ing there being quie t, waiting for
"nonhierarchica l," which brings up the really huge the next part of the quest. I knew t he re was so me-
word, "nonhierarchical creation," which is not th ing m issing. And the n, wham-it would be

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clear. horizontal with Wendell Beavers and Paul Lang -
I sit with the Viewpoints a lot, and I play them land, two really old-time dance partn ers. We had
like a Rubik's Cube or something. If we take the- been working on process for about six or seven
ater apart into six things-six voices. Taking the- years. Once a year we'd get together and put a
ater apart . . . six voices. That means they're inde- piece together. We were trying to conq uer specific
pendent. Time is independent. That means. problems in dance improvisation. They had been
One day I was demonstrating for class with some members of my dance company, so they had a
empty coffee cups , and I lost control of them. I tendency to continue to treat me as the leader,
was making space in between them , but they were which was rather annoying because that meant
independent. They fell out of my hands onto the that I had to do all the organizing. I was the disci-
floor.That means they're ho rizontal. Horizontal is plinarian. They also liked to pick my brain for
nonhierarchical. That thought about the hori- thoughts. I discovered doing the unnecessary in
zontal has turned into a lab for me that I can ei- Holland. and I thought, "I'm not going to throw it
ther physically or mentally enter. I can enter it into the mix. I'm not going to talk about it. I'm
with people. It's an exploration about what goes tired of sharing things with them." I did the
on in the horizontal world, which we know very unnecessary and they did the old type of improv,
little about because we live in hierarchy. Our and I started scaring the bejesus out of them.
education is hierarchical. We live in hierarchical Why would I be standing over here? There's no
structu res. So we know very little about the hori- logical reason for it. They'd make me tell them, "I
zontal structure. But certain things have been don't know exactlywhy."
discovered in there--like the work of doing the It was coming dangerously dose to perfor-
unnecessary. and playing pool on an egg-shaped mance time and we couldn't get this thing settled
table. down because they were so freaked out, and I was
just like, "We'll just do a bad performance. I'm
Would you like to te ll us about playing pool on an not giving my secret away." They ca lled in a friend
egg-shaped table ? to loo k at the thing and to give them some feed-
It came about because I was working in the back. This guy said, "I know this is the correct

2l pages (27 mrn) left nih s cho pte<

angular move, but actually the re is an egg shape how things are going to pattern .
in here. Like a bowl. You 're sitting in a bowl, and It's very simple to se t up, it turns out. Each per-
things are ricocheting off the sides." I put in a former has to metaph orically face away from ev-
str ange att ractor, like chaos theory, tha t was sort ery other performer-turn their back and go only
of flying arou nd, and they'd chase it, but they'd into the ir project. You may not beg, borrow, stea l,
miss it. so we were ricocheting. It wasn' t one of playback anything from those people. You can't
these nice, com posed or prosceniu m, organized ta ke their rhythm, you can't take a mood, you
spaces. It was this invisible other space that had can't sha re a world. They're gone. You can only
grown in there. That helped them somehow. They have your own material. Then the secon d step to
realized they were in a bowl, and that sto pped that is that while you're doing your own material,
them from getting so frightened. We had a beau- you check back over your shoulde r-just to see
tiful performance . what's happening. That acknowledgem ent is what
Afterward I analyzed it because I was so thrilled makes it become a unified art project. It has a way
by the effect. I call it playing pool on an egg- of gene rating energy. I swear that ther e's some
shaped table because most performance is like physical physics thing going on here, because the
playing pool. An acto r throws something to an- number of strange phenomenon that will hap-
other actor. That actor catches it and throws it pen-
back-those prosa ic theater games. It's like call
and response. The problem with that is tha t en- Coincidences.
tropy sets in very fast because it sta rts getting Coincidences are very, very odd . Someone is like
empty of any content. Then the poo r acto rs have tossing their arm over their shoulder like this , and
to pu mp it full of life again. They're trying to keep there will be som ebody else who just moves the ir
this thing alive as they toss it back and forth. hand back, and the ball falls in your hand.
Meanwhile, in a real pool game , the balls are
d isappe aring and you end up with very little left As you say, it's ent ropy. It's also the disease of
on stage. If you imagine an egg-sha ped tab le--it agreement. As a species we end up in un ison. As
can't be a circular bowl because you can predict a species, we tend to want to glom and be the

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same. Subconsciously we gravitate tow ard th at. co urage to be different ." So what he's yelling at
So t hat means t hat the effort as an artist is to people about is being too much th e sa me wit h
move away from that, knowing that t he te ndency ot her actors . The haranguing is about trying to get
to glom will hap pen by itse lf. th em to be more ind ividual.
It was a cultural difference I learned t he first At Experimental Theatre Wing we had a visito r
time I ever saw Tadashi Suzuki in rehear sal. There from the Peking Opera. They set up an year
were three American actors and about fifteen Japa- abroad study over there. He's here to pitch t he
nese actors. I was watching, and in this inim- studio and also to just take a look around. I was
itable, hierarchical way, Suzuki would dap, and very excited to have him come in and obs erve my
everybody would have to stop wher e they were on classes. I was so curious because' thought this is
stage, no matter where th ey were, and hold that either going to be really good or really bad. He
position while he went up to an actor and ha- could take a look at this stuff and say, "Idiot
rangued them for twenty minutes . Really vicious Western artists thinking you are doing Buddhist
haranguing-and everybod y just had to stand practices. Ugh, chaos ." Or it wou ld work. but
there. At one point I asked one of the Japanese ac- would he be able to recognize the Buddhist
tors , " Isn't that a pain , to have to stand th ere?" essence? And--he didn't show up. I was wan-
They said, "O h, no, no, no. It's really good . Be- dering the halls, worrying. Rosemary, my boss,
cause usually he'll stop you in a moment when saw me and she said, "What are you doing?" I
you're making a mistake . While he's haranguing said. " He's not here ." She said, " He's watching
somebody else, you have to deal with the mistake the acting class ," I got a terrible feeling because I
you've made." But then I noticed t hat he ha- know that acting teacher and she's very enthu-
rangued the Japanese actors, but not the Amer- siastic about her work and kind of forgets to
ican actors . I thought, "Oh, he's showi ng fa- share sometimes . So he stayed there. But Rose-
voritism to t he American actors." I asked that mary saw how devastated I was , and she got him
question. The answer was, "Oh , no. He likes to come the next day. He got so excited. and he
American actors because Japanese actors really t ry sta rted saying, "You can't just do everything the
to be t he same, and American acto rs have t he same. It's so bad for people. Look at the chaos up

19 poge5 (22 m.,j lett 10t chapter

there!" But I have observed the Japanese and the every canva s is a mistake and you s pend the rest
Ch inese also are so hierarchical. They have a hard of t he time correcting that mistake, somebody's
time breaking the box. got to make the first stroke. If the first st roke is
the actors' it makes a big difference in terms of
For me, the ncnhierarch ical system, which seems ow nership-and if it's always going to be a mis-
radical, is very simple-the question of who take anyway, why can 't the acto r ma ke the mis-
makes the first stroke on the canva s. For me as a take?
director, the assumption is the director makes the Because, after all, you're making it easi er for the
first stroke. "Okay, go start upstage, go down- director to see .
stage, turn right, pick up the teacup." Then you
as sume that then the actor is going to take that You said at a cert ain point that t he Viewpoints just
and start to make it t heir own , and then you hope dumped out . They fell out. You sh ared with a lot
that you have a resp on se to that. What th e View- of peop le. You went off to Holland and Austria for
points propo se is to let t he actor ma ke the first like ten years. While you were awa y a lot of st uff
st roke. Once an actor is t rained in th e Viewpoints , happened. 1 wonder if you co uld ta lk about that a
they don 't wait few you to tell th em what to do. The little bit.
issue few me always is: When does th e art start? I 1 really wanted to give the Viewpoints to people. I
remember watching a director whose name I wanted the world to use that language. I don't
won't mention rehearsing years ago at th e Public mean in a dominant way. For a choreographer to
Theater. The whole rehea rsal was really boring. simply be able to say, "I work with space," is a
For two hours he was giving t hem blocking. I kept huge step from what was there and what is still
thinking, "When does the art start?" In most situa- there. The Viewpoints were around for about ten
tions, t he art starts when there's an audience. But years in New York and no one seemed to pick
t he que stion for me is why ca n't th e director be them up. I got discouraged. So I thought, "Well,
t he aud ience, and wit h th e force and qua lity of I'll go to Europe." And I left with t his thought that
attention, say, "Okay, sho w me something." So if the Viewpoints would be discovered and used af-
it's true what Picasso sa id, that the first stroke on ter I was dead . I had full confide nce in the m . I just

17pages (20 mn) left Inthls chopt ....

didn't think it was going to happen in my life. them was to look at having devastated life . It does
I paticipated in an organization as a part of the happe n to artists. Loie Fuller was knocked off by
Vienna dance festivals. There was an experimen tal Isadora Dunca n. Well, how many peo ple know
teaching program. And then Kevin Kuhlke called Lo ie Fuller? Nobody. And Isadora Duncan just
me and said, "Do you know, Anne Bogart's flew out into the world and became a star. So I
becoming known for your work." "Kevin, that's came back, and I started asking people to help me
great! That's just wonderful." He said, "No. I somehow. At the Viewpoints conference, I told
think you should come back." I said, "No. That's David Diamond from the Stage Directors and
good. That's what's happening. That's great." And Choreographers Foundation that I needed to
then he called me again about a year later and reestablish my name in the work in this country.
said. "No, I really think you should come back." I He took it really. really seriously. He's a very gen -
said. "What are you talking about?" He said, "The erous man. He started arranging-l would teach
theater community is getting split. There are the all week and then fly out to Minneapolis, Chicago,
Bogart Viewpoints people and the Overlie View- all around the country, and do twenty-four hours
points people. and they don't talk to each other. of work with the Viewpoints in three days. We'd
They're angry at each other." I went, "Oh, that's be so tired. But it gave me a chance and it slowly
not good." The idea of inventing something that turned the tide. After about two-and-a -half years
would split the theater community really dis - of that I felt sure that I heard that my nam e was
turbed me. I'm a builder of communities, not a back on my work. It wasn't just going on in my
splitter of them. Bells went off. Then he called head. I had almost weekly jolts of it where I would
and said. "Anne Bogart is having a book come be standing in a theater lobby and someone
out." "I don't think I feel very good. I feel like would be talking, "Anne Bogart. The Viewpoints."
someone is taking my life away. I feel like I'm dy- And someone would look over and say, "That's
ing. I feel bad." Mary Overlie. I think she's attached to those
It woke me up to the idea-basically I had no somehow." I was getting erased. And then I
concept that the Viewpoints were like my flesh. I would fight back. My brother Eric helped me a
spent my whole life working on them. To lose great dea l. He told me, "The more corporate

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salesmen on your block, the mo re carpets are down those social aspects. The students coop-
so ld." He really has helped me unde rstand this. erated with each other-not just in the rehearsal
That your working with my work has helped more hall, but at lunch and throughout the day. I have
people know about it. pictures of them Viewpointing after they went out
to dinner in th is parking lot. It really opened them
Eric lin the audience) : Jesus had his Paul. Jesus up as peop le. It gave them so much confidence .
didn't get the word out. Paul did. That's the per- Also, it made me feel so good when you said
son who is capable of putting it together and get- Viewpoints has such a Zen aspect to it. I've been
ting it out. a longtime meditation and Buddhist practitioner.
So I'd go back and say. "what's bothering you, As I was teaching this , I was thinking this is just
Overlie?" And I would grow. It's been this really like a Zen meditation-c-or any kind of
interesting experience for me. It forced me to see meditation-because essentially what it's doing is
a part of my nature that I had. I could have crum - saying, "Stop thinking. Just do." And when myself
bled if I had a different personality. and my students step into that place and just do
we have what I can only describe as Satari experi-
Audience: I came to Viewpoints very piecemeal ences in the midst ofdotng that work.
over several years-a workshop there, a session Eric, my brother, is a huge meditator. I've had a
there. I finally got to put it all together with the hard time describing to him that even though I'm
publication of your book this year (The Viewpoints not a practicing meditator anymore, that I'm still
Book by Anne Bogart and Tina Landau]. I teach evolving and I think it's because of these Satari
acting, so I thought, what the hell, I'll take this experiences.
book and I'll teach the thing. I took a group of 8y the way, Anne is a good example of this be-
high school students and taught it to them, and cause she never really studied the Viewpoints
had just a mind-blowing experie nce with them. with me. She just came in contact with me. I have
What it did that I found so powerful was-and for years and years and years observed that if you
this IS why I think you've transcended get o ne little scale of them and you get that down,
postmodern-that it broke down cliques . It broke they will recreate themselves. If you spend time

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all the rest of it is there. That's why you ended up found them. You pull the skin back and that's
with this funny little machine-because it recre- what's there. The theory ended about six or seven
ated itself for you in a system that was n't mine. I years ago-and now I've gotten the answer to my
like that about them too because it means that last Viewpoints question. I'd never realized you
ther e's tremendous power in them and it's or- could finish a theory. I literally cou ld barely talk
ganic and simple-and each little part holds it. for two weeks. I'd been working on this for
twenty-seven years. Obsession. I think that I'm
Audience: At what point did you really feel like you obsessed with them. I am fascinated by them.
were onto somet hing cohesive-and then how And they keep teaching me things and that's what
did you find the strength or courage within your- kept the energy up. Ifwe start to lalk to each other
self to articulate that and say, "This ne-eds to be on that level we go off into another planet in a
heard "? spaceship. We get into the Viewpoints world.
The Natural History broke up because we started
trying to talk to each other about dance, and the Audience: Could you talk a little about emot ion as
first thing I knew was that I was being strangled a Viewpoint? When you were talking about San
on stage. The next thing I knew I was in my studio Francisco, you said the y were deal ing with emo-
and I started studying the Viewpoints. I knew tion. How do you see emotion as a Viewpoint?
there were six of them . Because I had been look- How do you talk about it?
ing for them I knew they were there. I just re- When I go into that language I reduce it to its
moved the Natural History work from them and simplest expression to me. I call it the "dog sniff
looked at them on my studio floor. There was dog world." Two dogs meet on the street and
space, time, shape, emotion, movement, story. It within seconds they know all kinds of stuff. They
doesn't seem like courage to me , because they know if they like that dog . I believe we do that as
seemed so implicit. I would just tell people about human beings as well, but I also believe we have
them. They'd say, "Yeah. Wow. It's true." If I felt I guards and blackings and we don't let people
had invented it I think that would have taken sniff us and we don't go up and sniff because we
courage to get that out to people. I felt I'd just don't want that much information. But we always

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have the ability to do that just like a dog does . If But t hen we get to this point about, "Why
we brought some perso n in here from the street doesn 't Mary like Ann Halprin? Why doesn't Mary
and had them walk in a circle and then go out, we like couch drama?" Actually, it's not tru e. I like
co uld sit and talk about tha t person-their level co uch d rama. but I don't like to make it myself. I
of health, their psychological being. We know this sometimes think of myself as an auto mec hanic.
kind of stuff about each other. If we didn't, th en I'm a phenomenologist. I have a brain functioning
we would be dead. We are very, very, very sensi - and a perspective that wants to keep things at a
tive. That's the world of emotion. distance. I love the interchangeable parts. You
In the Viewpoints, the basic practice for emo- can't do that with the world of emotion. It doesn't
tion work is presence work, which is putting have interchangeable parts. I'm not drawn to it.
somebody in a chair and having them perform People scare the shit out of me. People who are
themselves while everybody sits and watches. really magnanimous and open and friendly- I'm
There are practices about staying open and just scared.
sniffable--having to do also with not letting the
saliva dry up in your mouth . People actually stop Audience: How does this tendency to be in unison
saliva and retreat. Some poor actors hold the role and fight aga inst cooperation coincide or d iffer
in front of them, and they themselves are never from the improv world-always saying yes to
on stage. I've actually had people come to work- everyth ing?
shops, thirty, forty years old, really top profes -
sional actors, and just walk around the space for AS: If I were working in a Viewpoints situation in
a few days and take a look at their arm, make a thi s room with a lot of people , I would somehow
few shapes. and then just burst into tears and go, be taking in everything that's happening-who's
"Oh. my God. I've always been so insecur e on got the ir legs crossed, who 's nodding, who's nod-
stage. " That has influenced my life a great dea l, ding off, who's sleeping, who 's coughing-and all
t his practice. beca use I'm uncommonly presen t of those things would be in me and I'd be aware
o n the stage. You can cha nge atmospheres and of them. And then I might make a choice that is
even ts from being that open and sniffab le. none of those th ings. That would be an informed

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choice. But making a choice without taking in or breath ing pattern s.
noticing all of those th ings would not be in the I like to play wit h partkle-lzi ng. The Viewpoints
s pirit of what we're dis cussing. have particle-ized theater. First it was deco n-
I love unison action . It actua lly helps to focus a struc tion of t he six voices, an d th en you get clos-
lot of performances in a lot of productions. The er and you deconstruct those voices and those
theory is if you want to make people look different voices and those voices. The finer t he att ention,
on stage, put t hem in the same clot hes, beca use th e freer things are. I swear that there is a so cial
then you see the different people rather t ha n the movement in t hat. There's a new governmental
clothes. I love repetition because it organizes t he pattern in there. vaclav Havel once wrote that he
stage so that you can see more . There's a book felt that communism, socialism, democracy, capi -
called MOIl;ng ;n Time, which is about th e history talism. and all of the world government syst ems
of unison action . German actors are terrified of and corporate systems were absolutely failing,
unison----because they have a history of unison and that we needed something new. 1 was like,
that got them into a lot of trouble. Americans have "Mr. Havel. I'd like to tell you about the View-
less problem moving in unison. In the spirit of points." In some strange way there is a new way
Gertrude Stein, the same only different. If you use of cooperating. It affects how people are tog eth er.
unison or glomming, you want to do it with an in- It's particle-iring, and particle-izing attention to
tense awareness, so that it's the same, only detail.
different--instead of the same mindlessly. So it's You said another thing: always saying yes. I
not to say one should always do somethi ng dif- hate doing that. I don't like theater gam es. I think
ferent. they're stupid. They don't teach you anything.
I'm fascinated with unison, also. I've pe rformed a They don't teach you to think. I think Viewpoints
lot of unison. That was one of the fo rms that teaches you how to think. Rather t han turning th e
would come up in the Nat ural Hist ory. The bett er mind off, I think it teaches you think, but think in
we got at it. the freer it would be. I think that it's different languages. One year Barney cam e and
in how you approach it mentally. O ur thing began ta ught with me. We were up in t hese big dance
to be that we wo uld even mimic eac h other 's st udios on Second Avenue. Ther e was a piano

7 pages (8 mn) l&fI ,n 1M ot.:Jpte< 95... ,00<

that had messages all over it: "Do not touch this emotion question? How does emotion play into
th ing. Don 't even t hink of it." It gleamed . He re we the way you work in Viewpoints?
are doing the Viewpoints and everything gets ex-
plored. The piano had a weird effect o n us; the AB: You know, when Mary went away I forgot
work was just stymied. So we actua llysta rted a lit- what her six Viewpoints were. Then I think Brian
tle saying: "Do n't go near the piano. Don't go Jucha said to me, "I think one of them is emo-
nea r the piano." It loosened things up again. I tion ." I said , " Nol Nollt's noll It can't ~I"

learned something crucial: It's very important to I think it's written down somewhere that you said
not do things that come to mind. It sets the bal- that. "Viewpoints don't have emotion. Emot io n's
ances. The negative balance is really that impor - not a part of Viewpoints ."
tant.
So. particle -izing: In the Viewpoints theory AB: Not that I don't love. My belief is that we
th ere's a part of a bridge. The very first step on don't own emotions; we experience them, we
th e bridge is called News of a Difference, which have the honor of allowing them to pass through
comes from meditation. News of a Difference is us. Although my belief is changing now since I've
letting your thoughts refine until they're clarified been thinking about sniffing. I've got to take this
into a thought and then you transcend. The more in a little and let it alter everything. My reaction is
I look at this chair, the more possibilities will against a lot ofthe American misunderstanding of
come out of it. I could find a lifetime of work in Stanislavski-that the idea of a rehearsal is that
this chair. It's a way of talking about what an artist somebody has a really strong emotional moment,
does: look at something and familiarize th em- and the director says , "Kee p thall That's it." You
selves with it until they can develo p a co nver- have to keep something, and so we jump to the
satio n and it can begin to give you ideas. That's a emotions. But any actor knows that if we're going
visual arts thing t hat's bee n app lied to theater to repeat an emotion, it's going to be false and
now t hrough Viewpoints . bad and dead and fake, and you can actually never
resurrect an emotion because it will always be dif-
Audience: Anne, what 's your answer to the ferent. But ultimately you have to set something.

5 pages (5 mil) letTIII th chapTer 95... ,00<

Much like when t here 's an ec lipse ofthe s un and peo ple in a room st udying emo tio n. I read some-
you can't look directly at it because it will burn whe re tha t in the developme nt of Amer ican acting
your eyes 50 you make this cardboard thing 50 you tech niqu es, way. way back, they were terrible at
can look at the reflection , the Vie wpoints are a po rtraying peopl e. They were all very stiff and
cardboard thing t hat you use to loo k at the th ing childlike, with poor voices and all t his squiggling
you're act ually interested in. aroun d . forgettin g that they were on stage . It
We are in th e theate r. We are interested in emo- slowly evolved. This picture I got fro m this thing I
tions, in the human experience of new circum- read is t hat they slowly started to stu dy how to
stances that ch ange us , that alter us, that trans- make facsimiles of emotion on stage, and tha t
form us-the glorious thing of emotions . I think that is basically the history of acting techniques.
they are so important that I don 't think we s ho uld all the way up to the super Cadillac of Stanislavs -
tou ch them. We should create th e circumstances. ki. I'm thrilled by Sranislavski. I thin k th at the
In thi s moment of the play I'm always going to be Stanislavski method does make it possible to de-
here . You have to agree on someth ing. If you don't velop an emotion repertory--of facsimil es.
agree o n anything, it's mes sy. If you agree on They're all facsimiles. This dog sniff dog thing
everyth ing, where the bod y is and where the emo- isn't a facsimile-but what is it?
tions are , everyth ing, then it's anal and has no life. Wendell took me to a show on Broadway called
So you set something and let someth ing free. For Tango Argentina. a few years back. It t urned out to
me it's importa nt t hat the emotions change. The be just very old tango partners-the top tango
cheaper t hings, t he things that we could man- pa rtne rs in Argen tina-tangoing on stag e on e af-
handle, could be set . But the reason we're in the te r another to this rinky-dink ba nd. No glitzy cos-
room is for things to change. Yea rs ago somebod y tu mes. They were all different sizes an d d ifferent
said to me , "O h yeah, Viewpoints. That 's that ages. By t he time the perfor ma nce was done the
t hing where t here's no face and no emotions." I audience had bee n s hown wo rlds of em otion
wanted to slit my wrists. That 's a deep misunder- through t hese ta ngo perfo rmers that t hey had
standing. So it' s a t ricky issue. never exper ien ced in thei r lives. Me too. People
I have for quite a long t ime wanted to get so me cou ld just not leave the th eater. Then we were

3 pages (3 m n) Iefl In lhischopter

outside and crowded around the marquee-- SITI Company
because no one wanted to go get the cab o r
anything-and here were all these couples from Imagine my delight when the great Japanese the-
New Jersey, who had been married for years, and ater directo r Tadash! Suzuki proposed that to-
it was so hot. The atmosphere was like crackling gether we inaugura te a new initiative in the United
with sex. That was an emot ional experience in the States that could become an expression of the
theater that came from just a weird sou rce. They fellowship of theater artists from aroun d the
weren't actors . These were people. world. We launched the enterprise in 1992 in
Toga-mura, Japan and Saratoga Springs, New
York. and called ourselves the Saratoga Interna -
tional Theater Institute. We wanted to do nothing
less than redefine and revitalize contemporary
theater in the United States thro ugh an emphasis
on international cultural exchange and collab-
oration. Although originally envisioned as a sum -
mer institute, SITI quickly expanded to encom-
pass a company with a year-round presence in
NeYI York City and a summer season in Saratoga
at Skidmore College. Although Suzuki's direct
involvement in the company only lasted four
years, he has maintained a benevolent , supportive
stance from a distance ever since .
Recently the company joined together to reex-
amine our mission statement. After much d iscus-
sion. the following was written co llectively and
feel it beautifullydefines our place in the world:

1 poge «1 mn) H!fl 'n Itol chap!«

SITI Company was built on the bedrock play to los Angeles . That's four plays. I was talk-
of ense mble. We believe t hat thro ugh the ing to my friend Jocelyn Clarke, who is a dra-
practice of collaboration, a grou p of artists maturg and a playwright, and I asked him, "How
working together over time can have a is this even possible? How are we doing this?" He
significant impact upon bot h co ntemporary said , "The training." I thought about it, and I think
thea ter and the world at large. he's right . Maybe we can explore that a little bit
Through our performances, ed ucatio nal among wider issu es . But I'd like to start by asking
programs and collaborations with oth er about the pros and cons ofcompany.
artists and thinkers, SITI Com pany will
continue to challenge the status quo, to Stephen Webbe r: One of the cons that was artic -
train to achieve artistic excellence in every ulated to me by Jefferson Mays, who was a form er
aspect of our work, and to offer new ways company member, is that in any group. on e plays
of seeing and of being as both artists and a role. It's true in a family, and it's true in a work
as global citizens. environment. The other members of that group
count on you to play that role. And even if it's the
SITI Company is committed to providing a grumbler or the complainer or the person who al-
gymnasium-for-the-soul where the interaction of ways plays devil's advocate and t hrows a wrench
art. artists. audiences and ideas inspire the possi - in the works. you're counted on to be consisten t
bility for change, optimism and hope. in playing the role, good or bad. Once you're in
that group and your role is defined. it's hard to
JUN E '7. 20 0 9 change it because the brain doesn't like change.
We like to get into repeatable patterns with peo -
AB: This past fall the SlTI Company toured two ple, so to change one's role in a grou p is
big plays to the Dublin Theatre Festival. After difficult-and tha t can be personally and/or artis -
putting them up, performing them, on Sunday we tically.
got on the plane, and on Tuesday we opened a The pro tha i comes to mind imm ed iately is go-
third play at BAM . The following week we took a ing into a rehe arsal hall and be ing able to work

40 P<J9"S (44 mn) Iefl ,n fh15 ct.:Jpler

very quickly on a deep levelwith people. up on, being sensitive, is the thing that's wrong. I
find the more the years roll by. the more sensi tive
AB: That's a gauntlet to all of us to say: Who are the group is to anything being off in the room. It
you becoming? I'm speaking that for us together. might be a glance that lands wrong. It might be
It's a beacon for us to hear. somebody who doesn't say hello in the morning.
It sets the day off enough that by the end of the
Barney O'H anlon: One thing that takes work when day the trajectory is way far from where you
you've been with a group of people for as many wished it would have gotten . To bring up the im-
years as this, has been coming into a room and age again of the brain, the tiniest firing can set off
allowing yourself to look at them with fresh eyes. an enormous effect in the body.
And I need to do something so that I can perhaps
be perceived with fresh eyes." You know their Tom Nelis: I want to say something in support of
quirks. you know their ticks. you know their re- role playing. Outside an ensemble you have to
hearsal process. How can you work in such a way find your role every damn time you get every job
that these people are fresh to you? you ever get in this industry. You have to plant a
flag for who you are and get other people to
Ellen Lauren: And the things that tend to rise up recognize you for being that person. And it's
first that you perceive. as Jeff Mays said. are the tough. You spend a hell of a lot of your rehearsal
things that you don't recognize or the things that time doing that . The fact that I know who I am
you qualify as negative, rather than all of the among these people in this ensemble is a great
amazing things that drew you to this group. You advantage to me. I don 't feel that the ensemble is
begin to make assumpt ions at a very, very high so dosed so as to not allow me to grow as an
level of talent, of thoughtfulness. of ability. of individual. One of the things that has happened
emotional availability and deep history together- to us over the years is that the company creates a
and I don't just mean history of making plays. piece, and then everybody who creates the piece
You live a life with a group after so many years. is not around to do the piece next year when the
So the things that spike out, that we tend to pick piece has to happen, and somebody has to grow

38 pages [42 mn) left "'!hI chapler

in that role they did n't create. It changes the co m- company, and I actually feel like I have to do that
pany. Yo u do n't find that outside of ense mbles . because then I miss this ensem ble. I have mo-
ments of sitt ing in t he rehearsa l hall at the Mc-
AB: In designing a show for a company, Darron Carter th rowing my hands up trying to explain to
and Brian, how does that work well for you, and an actor, "Can you just wait until the ce llo hap-
how does it drive you crazy? pen s to open the door?" And I just go, "I wouldn' t
even have to be having this conversa tion if Ellen
Darron West: You sit so many hours with thes e were gett ing ready to open the door." We feed off
guys, you really have to let yourself be open to ev- of one ano the r in that way, and t hat doesn't ha p-
ery single member of the company and allow pen except within this group of people.
t hem to surprise you. It is incredibly hard work.
Inevitably there will be tricks, things that we have AB: How about as a stage manager who manages
learned in previous productions that we might try both in the company and occasionally outside of
again. I'm usually the one who will throw the the company. What are the pros and con s?
siren on and try as a designer to take the rehearsal
in a different direction because I see it going Elizabeth Moreau: In this company I have an idea
where it went on a previous show. of where you guys are on any given day, and that
facilitates how I might push th rough a tech, what
AB: Would you say you're more aggressive with I might emphasize, what I might prioritize tim e
the company that you are in a freelance setting? for. It takes a very small amount of information to
affect a larger plan. When I'm wo rking outside the
Darron West: Oh, yeah. com pany, I'm starting from sq ua re on e. I have no
idea who these people are. I have no idea how to
AB: That was a leading question . read t hem as peo ple. I don't know if their way of
saying hello is how they always say hello. Maybe
Darron West: It's really interest ing, t hough. I today is really bad, and I have no way of knowing
spend a lot of time doi ng plays out side t he th at. It's not th at knowing th em or not knowing

36 p<>g"" (39 mon)lIIft n III s chaplet

them makes it a good or bad experience. I've had share the sa me language, the sa me vocabulary.
great experiences o utside the company also. We've worked on the creation of twenty-five-plus
There's a deeper experience with the company. shows toget her. In the same way that they share a
comm on experience in the rehea rsal room , I feel
AS: Can I also suggest that you breathe with the like we sha re that in the planning of how we're go-
company? I've been close to you. You actually ing to get them into the rehearsal roo m. Anne and
breathe when they breathe. I work really closely, someti mes a year and a half
out , for a project. Sometimes I say, "Well, we
Elizabeth Moreau: Ellen has a solo show about have this grant due . let's ta lk about which
Virginia Woolf where she spends the majority of project." We start talking about how many acto rs,
the first twenty minutes balancing on one leg. what do you think the set will be, what do you
You'd never know that if you saw it. I realized the think the subject matter is, who's the playwright?
last time we did the show, that I call the first It takes that articulation, those questions, to make
twenty minutes of the show standing on one leg. those projects come to fruition. That's exciting. I
Mirror neurons. anyone? If I'm doing a show with also think because we are a group that's worked
the company. like, for instance, Ckath and the together a long time, we've been able to stay really
Ploughman, it's tightly choreographed. If Banda's nimble. really flexible. We run a really lean
walking at this speed, then that changes how all administrative structure underneath this group .
of the light cues happen . I'm so tuned into what and we've been able to do that because there 's a
you guys are doing-and that is really rewarding. sort of efficiency to how we go about creating.
knowing that we can make a new piece in four
AB: I'm going to open up the big can of worms weeks. or having the trust and faith in one an-
right now, which is about managing a company. othe r.
What are the pros and cons of managing a com- In te rms of roles, I'm a perfect cas e-in-point.
pany, Megan Wanlass? somebody who came into the compa ny in a dif-
ferent role, as the stage manager, then had to
Megan Wanlass: I think it's helpful that we all fight like hell to become the managing

3~ P<J9"'I (371lWl) lefI,n thtl chaplet

d irector-not with the company so mu ch , but abo ut t his company thing?" And she looked at me
with the boa rd of directors. It's possible. It just really ster nly and said, UWhat are you going to do
mea nt tha t I had to work- and I still work on a without a company? Don't get rne wrong. It's a
daily basis t hat much harder. pain. You lose people. It's always a problem. But
What we're trying to do now in imagini ng t he what are you going to do?" In that moment, in the
next five or ten years is say: This is our mode l way that epiphanies happen, I realized that every
now. Where do we see a very self-sustaining but great production I'd ever seen , with no exception,
yet growth of a model ? And how are we going to was done by a company. And in that moment it
get to what we need to become, keeping th e became v~ry, very clear that this was my path . It
t hings tha t are fun ctioning, but blowing open oth - took a while to actually find a company. I went
er areas where this doesn't work so much? Let's through a false company first , called Trinity Rep.
pretend we're in the rehearsal room and tha t The lesson in that is that you can't inhe rit some-
scene isn 't right. Let's imagin e and innovate body else's company.
something new. So the answer is the same as what Ariane
Mnouchkine said . It's a pain in the ass because
Will Bond: Anne is a SITI Company member as there are always problems. People have other
well as being arti stic d irector. In the spirit of this things to do. There are issues of imbalance be-
non hierarchi cal and democratic company, Anne, cause it's not a democracy, It's actually quite an
what are the pros and cons of being an artistic unfair situation, not totally non hierarchical, and
d irector of an ensemble? there are people who suffer more than ethers. But
when you go in the room with a group of people
AB: In 1986 I was in Berlin, and ended up in the like this, and speak a world that you imagine, and
same room with the woman I admire the most in for them to get this strange look in their face and
the world, the director Arian~ Mnouchkin~. I knew start entering this world profoundly---that feels to
I had a question for her, but I didn't know what it me like flyi ng. They can realize things that I can
was . So there I was on my knees, speaking Fren ch only s uspect. And they realize it in sinew, in mus-
with a red face, and the question carne: UWhat cle, in sound, in voice, in interaction. I can't do it

31 pages (34 m.n) left n III schop!et

outside of a company. Much like Darron, I think to happen. The con in it is when we don 't valu e
it's great sometimes to go and work with not the t he d iversity that's in the group and, fo r whatever
company because then you actually realize the reasons, we shu t down dissent-that's when I
magic, the alchem y that happens with a group of think we get into t rou ble. When we 're able to cre-
people that you trust, and who trust you. This is a ate an environme nt that's fostering a disse nt tha t
group of people who actually trusts me. That's an leads to a d ivers ity of opinion, we actually make
amazing feeling. It's hard . But it's worth it, ulti- some really coo l shit.
mately.
AB: Could you briefly describe our process in re-
leon Ingulsrud : If you take a jar of jellybeans and hearsals?
you ask a number of people to guess how many
jellybeans there are in the ja r, then you take the Will Bond: I think that we don't go about any
average of guesses. it's been shown across many, production in anyone way. As you've said. Anne,
many different situations that the average of the you can tell the rehearsal process by what you see
guesses is always more accurate than anyone of in the final product. You can't hide your rehearsal
the guesses-which is just a way of saying that process in a well-acted show. It always reads.
groups are smarter than individuals . The way the
brain works, it's not one thing, it's a network of Kelly Mauer: The only constant is that we train.
neurons. I mean , every one of the members of And then after we train, we step into the world of
this company is amazing in their own way as an the piece.
individual. But as a group we're actually smarter
t han any of us. What that's based on-and this is AS: One thing th at is true is that we don't go out
where it gets tricky-is that we don't always agree. of order, except songs and dances. We start at the
If we all always agreed we'd only be as smart as beginning and we don't jump. I wouldn 't know
whoever the person was who said it. But we don 't what to do with scene six before I do scene five.
always agree. That ma kes us as sma rt as the en-
tire group. when we have the grace to allow that Kelly Mauer: When we're working o n a piece,

30poges(32mn)lefT nit> chopt",

whether you're in the scene or not, you're in th e Megan Wanlass: I think we changed the ending
room. I'm t hinking of MissJulie. How many weeks o nce in the bar.
did I sit on my behind before I got o n stage? I
played Christine, so I watched Jeff and Ellen re- AB: So a lot gets done in the bar during a re-
hearse, but I was in the rehearsal room every sin- hea rsal proces s.
gle day. I cou ldn't imagine how I would make an
ent rance into this play if I didn't know what they J. Ed Araiza: Most projects, with very few excep-
were building. tions, start with an idea or interest of Anne's, and
she thinks way in advance, even more in advanc e
Megan Wanlass: If we have an actual play with a than how long it takes to plan the management
script and a text already made before we get into part of it. She thinks and reads books and , as she
the rehearsal room, the actors are. on the first day starts getting interested in the topic more, sh e
of rehearsal. already off book. Imagine the starts telling us about the books . We love the re-
progress they can make by already being that far search part of it, so we're learning about th e
along in the process. They also approach each world. We immerse ourselves before the first day
and every rehearsal with just an amazing amount of rehearsal starts. We continue that process all
of discipline, from the moment that they're there the way through until the end .
until the wee hours of the night. They are living There's always someone in the room who has
this project. I try to reflect and mirror what I see an idea. I think it's very rare that there's not an
in the rehear sal room in the administrative office. idea or an abundance of ideas coming from the
company. Anne says that she sometimes func -
AB: A lot of work happens in the bar. I don't go to tions more as an editor than a direc tor. She'll say.
the bar so often, so I com e in the next da y and it's "I think it starts this way:' and then she just
like, "We were in the bar last nighL We've decided opens the door, and we rush through t he door,
that the first act really sh ould be th e seco nd act." not even knowing what's on the other side. 1find
That happened once. I cam e in in t he morning that very exciting as a member of th is company.
and the y'd switched t he order ofthe acts.

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Akiko Aizawa: The rehearsal process, if it's the to answer a certain se t of quest io ns. But my ques-
scene betwee n Kelly and me, it's not about two tion s m ight not be the sa me q ues tions as Ke lly's
actresses- no: it's about everybody, includ ing t he or Akiko's o r Brian's. You've got all the se peop le
stage manager, desig ners , everybody watching trying to answer their own q uestio ns to the same
us-and t hen idea, idea, idea, idea. It's so open , end. Most of t he time when you do a play, you go,
and then open disagreement in a beautiful way. "This is the play. and this is how we're going to
It's not about the two brains here and the strug- do it, and this is what the sce nery is like." But in
gle. Everybody is taking care of us-even in a so lo our process it works best when we all have a se-
show. It's really close , so I don 't feel alone and ries of questions and we go about the process try-
stupid . ing to answer them as we make it.

Brian Scott: It is good to note that often it's not Brian Scott: The one given agreement that we do
just the people who are actually working on the have is that we agree to get together and do this.
project that are in the room. With the piece we're We never come in agreeing to agree with each
doing now, Stephen isn 't in the piece but was other. thank Cod . But often , working outside th e
there for our enti re period of rehearsal. And I company, the agreement is to d o it in a certain
don't know how we would have pulled it off with- way. And you're all kind of cast rated, and it's a lit-
out that mind. that set of eyes. J. Ed has done this tle boring . But to be in the room with th e com -
too. It's so hugely impo rtant to have another ac- pany. you're never off the hook. You're always ex-
tor looking at you and being ab le to point at con - pected to work at the highest level you can. and
text or push on . That 's another function-it's all that's beautiful .
of us all the time .
Ellen lauren: Who was it who said . "You r resp on-
Darron West: We don 't ever go into the rehearsal sibility as an actor is to direct your role, and it's
process thinking we know what this is. When yo u the d irector 's res po nsibility to d irect the play"? I
sta rt, you've basically down loaded a whole bunch think we take thai at face value and step up to that
of informa tio n. and then we're all in a room t rying resp ons ibility. As collaborative as t he proce ss is,

26 pages (27 mn) leI! n Itol coop'«

we are all individually focused on our job, on our responsible for directing their role, the thing that
role, on our path in th e event t hat we're mak ing. gives us all t he ability to do t hat is the training.
Anne is directin g that event, and we're just pour -
ing stuff in. Some times my directing my role is Ellen lauren: Oh. without a dou bt.
going to clas h with Stephen or Barney because
t hey're doing that too , and we'll hit this place Tom Nelis: The training. ultim ate ly, gives yo u
where that conflict is either exponential and freedom to know who you are o n stage. freed om
explosive in a way that will move t he piece to a to have aesthet ic choices about how this thing
new place, o r it shuts it dow n. It's a very old- might be better. You st udy those techni ques for a
fashioned environment in the rehea rsa l room . I while. and then you go outside of the co mpany
don't understand it to this day, but it is this and do so methi ng. and you have the tech nique
mysterious alchemy that happens between peo - and wherewithal to go after ideas som ebody
ple. and it happened between us. We've been to- throws out at you. It doesn't feel like anything is
gethe r a very. very long time . That, in and of itself, impossible. It just feels like, "G reat, th ere's the
in ou r culture. is pretty unique. We have personal obs tacle. Thanks for identifying it for me. Now let
relationships. We have a very st rong leader who is me go afte r it." The training tha t we sha re is th e
intellectually very rigorous. who we chas e after to co ndu it t hrough which we can each direct ou r
keep up with and never can . Yet somebody will own role.
watch us rehearse and go. "Oh my God. the level
of collaboratio n." It's all of these things that cre - J. Ed Araiza: And in terms of the rehear sa l
ate this thing called the SITI Company. I don't process, t he t raining gives us the ability to build
mean t his discou ragingly, but I don 't know if just mate rial very fast. which then we migh t keep or
doing Suzuk i training and Viewpoints training and we might change. Dependen t on how much time
doing this play act ually makes that thin g. It's we have. we do as much table wo rk as we can, but
someth ing else--as all good comp anies are. then we get up from the table with. as Megan
mentioned . as much script as is available in our
Tom Nelis: When you say the acto rs are bodies , and we start build ing material very

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quickly. We don't do a lot of sitti ng arou nd hem - the co mpany, you're not paid-which is normal
ming and hawing. Somebody makes a choice and in the real world. But I think t hat the future of the
somebody goes . That's because of the t raining company is to get pas t that. Anne has said a few
and also because of the freedom Anne allows in times that the way that she works is a product of
the room. the environment in the States which has to do
with three-week rehearsal periods. I'm interested
AB: I would say that in pursuing the word to see what happens with us if we're not tied to
"alchemy," that nobody knew what putting the that production model. Right now for a project to
Suzuki training and Viewpoints training would do. get going, Megan has to put an enormous
I brought the Viewpoints tra ining, which was very amount of work into lining up com missio ners,
much from the modern dance world, from Mary lining up presenters, figuring out how to make it
Overlie, with me because it had been work that work before we can get into the rehearsal hall with
had fed me for years. Then Suzuki wanted to each other to have our magic time. I just fantasize
make sure that every actor who came to Japan the all the time about-and I mean this in the most
first year had Suzuki tra ining. We put the two to- positive way possible-punching a dock: Going
gether and it was alchemy. That was not ever a in every day and working on whatever pro ject.
plan . This is the combination that now a lot of
training programs are doing . It' s this magic duo. Ellen Lauren: I was so inspired by watching the
Could you describe the future ofthi s company? Graham Company. There's the sense of a master
in the room, and the com pany members have en-
leon Ingulsrud : A situation in which we are not coded into the ir bodies lessons and chore-
project-based, but we have some kind of context ography from Martha Graham . They're a living
t hat allows us to support our lives throughout the culture. In that spirit that leon describes, 1 see
year and work together in a situation where artis- being in the room where we are teaching a good
tic choices about projects don't have direct eco- solid repertory that we built years ago and watch-
nomic ramifications on ou r lives. Right now if ing it in another generation-watching it on other
you' re not working on a project , in most cases, in bodies and personalities, and stand up against

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time. To me this would be an extraord inary water- bypass surgery. He has a pacemaker that sticks
mark of what we put in the world. out of his ches t from under his skin, about a half
inch-a box. And you see it-beating. I'm not kid-
J. Ed Araiza: The future is many more d ing. He gets up to do his sto mp ing, and he does
perfo rmances- and more performances in our it with this un believable elegance. And yo u're
home base. We don't perform nearlyeno ugh, and watch ing this box, und er his skin. There's some-
we don 't perform nearly enough in New York City. thing that I'm not elegant eno ugh to articulate
I would love us to be able to get to that point- about that that leads to this idea that the real val-
and I think it's connected to what l eon and Ellen ue isn't always abou t the speed. You have to work
said-where we're performing so much that we're th rou gh that to get to the other sluff.
able to pass on what we're doing to the next
generation of the company. That's hard to envi- leon Ingulsrud: When I look into the future, I see
sion now because we're not performing enou gh this as a context in which, as my artistic interests
as it is. It's hard to let go of something when evolve, as my body deg rades , I will continu e that
there's not that much, but I would love to get to exploration with this group of peo ple. If that
the point where we're able to say that it's time to means we're going to figure out how to do it on
pass some of this on. crutches, these are the people we're going to do it
with.
Akiko Aizawa: I'm thinking about the futu re, the
faraway future. Even if we are aged in our nineties, Barney O'Hanlon: I still see a really beautiful
we will train-with a crutc h or a wheelchair, I building that has a theater in it, and perhaps a
don 't know, but somehow I envision we will train. smalle r space that has three go rgeous studios,
Maybe we're teaching . Yes, we are performing in with windows, and that has, perhaps-this is the
our ninet ies. really dreamy part- an apartment attached for
guests or for peo ple from othe r co untries. I see a
Ellen lauren: There's an acto r in Sukuki's com- beaut iful sign o utside that says, "The SITI Com -
pany who is in his late sixties, who has had triple pany Space." It's a place that peo ple can find us.

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It's a place t hey ca n co me and find the t raining. Everybody wants som e of the training or some of
They can find us individ ually, a place where they the company. We've been sending people out, 50

ca n find ou r work, and ho pefully work by ot hers we're rarely ever together, which is why this time
who we've come into co ntact with over ma ny in Sarat oga is so precious to us. My d ream, and I
years. It's a resour ce and a place for them to think it reflects what everybody s aid, is for people
touch base and to sha re their work with us and to co me to us. I kee p reading new brain books be-
with the com m unity. cause we 're working on a brain play. The latest
brain boo k says it's not about be ing able to de-
Megan Wanlass: That's possible. We had a com - scribe so met hing into existe nce; it's about feeling
pany meeting, maybe seven or eight years ago, it. If you don 't feel it, it's not going to ha ppen. It's
where we all talked about what we saw th e com - about visuali zing and imagining and feeling what
pany becomi ng in five years or what we wished you believe in. The feeling for me is associated
for. We have the minutes, which were typed up on wit h a place where we are actually able to be to-
an old Apple Powerbook. We pulled them out a geth er consistently outsi de of Sa ratoga . Outside
couple of years ago when we were starting an- of Saratoga we're just jets, shooti ng in opposite
other strategic planning process. We wished for direct ions .
things like heat in our office. We wished for blue
road cases. We wished for windows in ou r office. l eon Ingulsrud : This is the entire acting company
And I'm happy to report that we have those things sitti ng in a line with half of our designers and ou r
now. We've achieved so much together as a administrato r and our stage manager. This is the
group-and now what? What do we see, and how first time since we were with bobmu'>Chen-
are we goi ng to get there? bergamerica in Boston . We just do n't get to sit in
a room together very much.
AB: I remember in t hat list saying I want us to go
to Azerbaijan. We ended up going to Tblisi in- J. Ed Araiza: And we've never don e a play with the
stead. But we are the victims of su ccess, which is whole co mpa ny yet. That's so me thi ng I would re-
there's a great deal of interest in what we do. ally love in the future-the who le company on

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stage together. beings make hu man actio n wort h watc hing. One
of the t hings he talks abou t-and I totally agree-
Audience: Is theater necessary, and if so, what is that what makes us human is our capacity for
makes it necessary? empathy. To me that's the heart of the theater.
The other thi ng is what we do as a group is pro-
Brian Scott: On September 30, 2001, we left New pose an altern ate kind of societ y. When you see
York to tour War of the Worlds , the radio play, Who Do You Think You Are?, it's about a bunch of
which I think people thought was ill-advised. really bruta l, mean people, but actuall y what
you're watching is a group of fucked-up people
AB: We had a lot of calls fioen arts centers want- played by a group of people who really function
ing to cancel. The invasion of Martians was too beautifully together, who listen to each other, who
clos e to what we had just exper ienced. are kinesthet ically resp on sive in the moment, and
who have created something qu ite beautifu l to-
Brian Scott: After every performance we had a geth er. Every time you do a play you're proposing
tafkback At every performance people were like, a way that people might be together that is alter-
"Fuck you for doing th is," or "Thank God for giv- nate to ways people are in the world around us.
ing me a reason to be in a room with somebody." We're also offering alternate time signatu res,
It really drove home this notion that there is which is one ofthe most radical th ings I th ink you
something that television and film and other can do in t his day and age. We're actuall y propos-
mediums can't give you. which is an organic rea- ing alternate ways of being in a room, alternate
son for human beings to be together in a room kinds of breathing and heart beating, and alternate
experiencing. ways the neuron system funct ion s in the prox-
imity ofother humans.
AB: This book just cam e to me from Amazon.com ,
written by t he philosopher Paul Woodruff called Elizabeth Moreau: One of the major tenants of re-
The Necessity of Theatre. I haven't read it yet, but sea rch for this new play that we delved into is this
his definition oftheater is: th e art in which human idea of mirro r neu rons. They've tested it on

16 poge5 (16mil) lefT IIIth chopt .... 98'1. ,00<

gorillas. So if you're a gorilla, and you're watching experience a disaster and go see a play or listen to
another gorilla, and the gorilla that's being music, but that conversatio n is in there.
watched is peeling a banana , the watching gorilla
has the same neurons firing in its brain as if it l eon Ingulsrud : Part of what these sorts of ex-
were the one performing the action. One could treme situations bring ou t is the need for an expe-
suppose for an audience watching a play there's rience where you're sitting next to peop le who you
actually a neurological learning process going on. may not sha re a 101 with. Politics, religion. even
education. sports-all of these things are con-
Will Bond : Or theater is only necessary for goril- texts in which you are divided into dearly defined
las. groups. Theater can be more ecumenical than
I don't know what this story means, but on Sep- that. You may be sitting next to somebody who
tember '4, 2001 , I was walking down the street in you may not go to the same church with, or what-
New York Cityand there weren't very many people ever euphemism you want to use . You have a
walking around . and those who were were sort of common experience. You may have two totally
dazed . I walked by the town hall, and it said that different interpretations of what that experience
Laurie Anderson was playing tonight. I didn 't go, is. but there's something going on in the fact that
"Oh. I've got to go see laurie Anderson on Thurs- you're having that commonality of experience. In
day." I just turned left and walked in. I think I the world now. if you want to. you don't have to
bought a ticket. I don 't know. There weren't a lot get any news that you don't already agree with.
of people. but everyone was sort of facing the That's the way most people function. So being
same way. And she came out and did a numb er. thrown into these kinds of spaces is, I think,
At one point she said, "We have an opportunity to necessary.
see everything completely differently right now."
Everyo ne sat up a little bit and said, "Right. We Ellen Lauren: The next time you're stuck in an air-
actually from now on can see everything com - plane o n the tarmac, remembe r how necessary
pletely differently." It struck me that that speaks theater is. It's the same thing, right? You're next
to a kind of necessity. We don't always have to to somebody in a communa l experience.

14 pages (l4 mm) 101ft "' thll CIlopI9l"

J. Ed Araiza: I don't know if this is why theater is l eon Ingulsrud: Ducks quack. Th is is what we do .
necessary, but every time-a nd I mean this The su m tota l of the performa nce, tha t's what hu-
since rely-I go to the theater, before the lights ma ns do. That's our quack.
co me up. or the curtain, I always get very excited
because it could be the best t hing I ever saw in Audience: I think it's proper to describe the
my who le life. It very rarely happens, but I really cornerstone of your company as collaboration. In
have that feeling before every show starts. today 's society, we take so much pride in the ind i-
vidua l and in ownership. Artists copyright their
Audience: I often wonder, becau se I don 't have a material s. It's hard for us as a t heater, a collab-
trade, what would I do in a World War III situ- orative art, to be able to ta ke from other artists
ation . And then I go back to boys in the first world who are creating. How do you respond to people
war who would go around with costumes and who might call your work plagiarism or stealing?
women's dresses, and were found with those
tools of the trade in t heir soldier's bags. I often Ellen lauren: Certainly the musical world does
wonder what is it about that entertainme nt that is it-steals thematic material as well as technical
neces sary. material. I think it's a muscle that has to be exer-
cised rigorously in the theater. I think it is som e-
AB: I thin k the word entertainment defines it- thing that should be freed up and it can get stiff
which is to create a spa ce between ten sions. and hard, and when that happens between human
think all great t heater is also ent erta ining. beings, it's not a great thing. The words-the la-
bels "plagiarism" or "thievery"-we can change
Barney O'Han lon: Oliver Sacks in his book Music by not describing ourselves that way. It's how we
Ophelia describes that. There is no explanation use our language about what we do that sends
for why there is music in the world. It's com - the message or signal to people who perhaps
pletely abs tract. And why is it human beings get aren 't privyto how we do what we do.
it? It's a very similar question, actually, in relation
to art or theater. Tom Nelis: Do you mean, do we see t he world

12poges (11 mn) lef! n Itol chapter

around us and lift them to make pieces? We do not come back. They had t he experience, and it
that. If text that somebody else wrote is in our was a heck of an experience, but it was like, "This
work, then we get the rights and credit them. is not t he rest of my life." The second year was
time to-well, to start from that point. It seems to
AS: We pay for it. me a lot was learned going through tha t.

Tom Nelis: I'm not sure that this company in any Ellen lauren: Certainly administratively, until
way is based on plagiarism. Megan came along, we've had a series of disas-
trous love affairs with managers and a variety of
Audience: I just wanted you to articulate that. different ways of trying to do that-hiring con -
sulting managers. II was a very difficult. long
Audience: You've spoken about the current state time--the first six, seven years.
of company. You've talked about the future. I
would really like to know about the early stages of Megan Wanlass: I think the other difficulty was
the company. Can you talk a little about the diffi- that it was started with some Japanese seed mon -
cuhies and the failures , especially? ey. If you were starting a company now, it would
be started with not a lot of money, and you'd be-
Kelly Maurer: You mean in the days when we ing trying to figure out how to raise money. We
didn't have heat? were started with money, and then due to a lot of
really poor management decisions, we took a
Tom Nelis: The first year was a dry run. I'll make it crash landing, and then had to say, "Now what?
simplistic. but from my view, Suzuki said, "Anne, Are we going to throw in the towel and say, [eez.
you bring some people, and I'll bring some peo- we're a hundred thousand dollars in debt and we
ple, and we'll meet in Toga, and we'll put two have no way of figuring out how we can do this?
productions up and we'll see what happens." Or are we all going to say we believe enough in
How many people came with us? It seems like each other, and band together and figure out how
there were twenty or something. Most of them did to get out of debt and move forward?" We all said

10 pages (9 mn) lef! n Itol chap''''

we're not ready to quit. Again, it was a bondin g Ellen's apartment.
thing. Tho se were really tough years. We all
worked a lot without getting any money at all. I Barney O'Hanlon: Three apar tments, act ually.
think we would be even farther tha n we are now,
had really firm management been put into place Stephen Webber: We would work for free. We
in the early years. would go teach workshops in Ohio or whereve r,
and instead of taking a paycheck, just give all of
Stephen Webber. We were already in financial the money to the company. We did whatever we
straits. We weren't in debt yet, but we were having had to do. As Megan said , we pu lled together. But
trouble paying for Going. Going. Gone in 1995. We that was a dark point.
were building productions that we were just at the
edge of being able to afford, and then we decided Ellen lauren: Also, and this is a hard one because
to produce three of our shows in New York City- it isn't money, but I think one of the darker times
the infamous Miller season. We had a hundred was in Edinburgh . Our first big booking interna -
thousand dollars in debt. tionally was at the Edinburgh Festival-not th e
fringe. And we were booked to do three shows in
AB: But what a se asonl two weeks-the radio play and two very large
Stephen Webber. It was amazing. But the result shows. We went with our guns blasting and our
was that we were really in trouble. crappy plywood road cases. The load -in crew
laughed in our faces when they unloaded t he m. It
Barney O'Hanlon: Also, we weren't being commu- was not good. I guess financially it was good. But
nicated to very well by our managers. They led us spi ritually, artistically, socially, it wasn't good, for
on to believe that we had the money to do a really many, many reasons . That was for me the first
huge thing. And we just didn't. slam into the brick wall. We're either going to
stop. because this is too painfu l, or we're going to
Stephen Webber: But we worked without a man - get through it. And we chose to get through it. I
ager for a while, and the com pany was run o ut of remem ber t hat meeting. dow n in that green

8 pages (7 mn) l&fI ,n 1M ot.:Jpter

room-it literally was green-a nd Anne saying, circumstances. If I happen to see the stag e in the
"Look. This is a choice." We were freaking out , perspective of someone who's been doing View-
individually and as the group-the body of the points fo r however many years, or who has don e
group was freaking. The inability to communicate a lot of Suzuki training, I'm still just making that
and the missed marks and stuff started to add up. scene.
And the audience s didn 't like the work that much.
Kelly Mauer: In a way, whatever your process is,
Audience: As actors , can you speak to bringing whatever your-I hate this word-technique is,
your training into working with artists outside the it's sort of your own little secret , isn't it? I did a
company? What's it like? play this February, and if anybody saw my work
and went, "Oh. look at her Viewpoint" then I
Stephen Webber. People ask this all the time , and failed-miserably. They didn 't have to know that.
it seems to be a burning issue. I feel strongl y that
as an actor every rehearsal situatio n I go into, Audience: If one day Anne were to stop exist ing,
regard less of whether it's with the company, or would SITI Company still continue to exist?
with a group of people I've never even met before,
or with other friends who don 't happen to be in Darron West: I would like to think it would. But
the company, I'm bringing my training. I'm bring- every one of us would make our own individual
ing what I know. That's alii can do. Even if I want- choices as to what our roles inside of that new
ed to, I couldn 't do anything but that. And even if organization might be. I would say I got involved
I didn't want to bring part of that , I couldn 't do in the SITI Company because I got involved and
that either. My training is my body-as Bondo interested in Anne's ideas, so everything else is
said eloquently one time . That's what I'm bringing bonus. Cod forbid I ever have to make that deci-
into the room, and that's what every other actor in sion, but I would like to thin k that company
the room is bringing, and on that level every- would continue.
body's equal. It's just about the work. It's about
making a play, and usua lly quickly under difficult Tom Nelis: "Whatever this new organization

6 pages (5 mil) left III !II chapTer

would be" is apropos. It would be new. It would be together---it's actually a way ofleaving a legacy
be differe nt. It would be decided if I could go for- of a way of being together. The legacy is not so
ward with t his new vent ure, but it would not exist much the human beings who inhabit the com-
or function the way it does. pany, but proposing a different way of creating,
and a way of looking at the role of theater or the
Darron West: It wou ld have to redefine itself be- necessity of theater. Unless we find a way to coa-
cause this group of people is the SITI Com pany. lesce, we can 't leave that legacy. I hope that I have
and this group of people is the Silt Company long enough to live where it's something that is
even when we're not in the same room. patterned enough for other people to inhabit,
whether it's repertory or just a way of making
J. Ed Araiza: I think we would continue to make work. But I don't think it can happen now because
work. We would continue to make work as a we're not together enough.
group. but without Anne it probably wouldn't be
the SITI Company. Kelly Mauer: But we will be.

AB: I've actually been thinking about it a lot. About

fifteen years ago when I first saw the Martha Gra-
ham Company, I thought I was hit in the stomach.
Here were these young dancers who were doing
work that she had made in her youth, and she's
dead, and it was still embarrassingty bare, and ex-
posed, and powerful. I started thinking: What is
legacy? For awhile I was thinking maybe it's the
plays. As Ellen said , watch ing younger people put
on those clothes, and I still think that's valid and
true, the idea of passing on repertory. But our new
thinking about the future and this place we can all

4 page! (3 mil) letTIII th chapTer 100'1. ,00<

be together-it's actually a way ofleavi ng a legacy
of a way of being together. The legacy is not so
much the human beings who inhabit t he com-
pan y, but proposing a different way of creating,
and a way of looking at the role of the ater or the
necessity of th eater. Unless we find a way to coa-
les ce, we can't leave that legacy. I hope that I have
long enough to live where it's something that is
patterned enough for other people to inhabit,
whether it's repertory or just a way of making ANNE BOGART is the Artistic Director of SITI
work. But I don't think it can happen now because Company, which sh e founded with Japanese
we're not together enough. directo r Tadashi Suzuk i in 1992. She is a pro-
fesso r at Columbia Univers ity where she runs the
Kelly Mauer: But we will be. Graduate Directing Program. He r works with SITI
include Trojan Women ; American Docum ent (with
the Martha Graham Dance Com pany); Antigone;
Under Construction; Freshwater ; W ho Do You Think
You Are; Radio Macbeth; Hote l Cassiopeia; Deat h
and the Ploughm an La Disput e; Score;
bobrauschenbergamerica ; Room; War ofthe Worlds;
Cabin Pressure; The Radio Play; Alice's Adventu res;
Culture of Desire; Bob; Going. Going. Gon e; Small
Lives/Big Dreams; The Medium ; Noel Coward's
Hay Fever and Private Lives; Augu st Strindberg's
MissJulie and Charles L Mee's Orestes . She is the
author of three oth er books: A Director Prepares.
The Viewpoints Book (wit h Tina Landau) and And

3 pages (l mn 191> In 1tIo1 chapTer ( Bock To page 757)

1OO'l. ''''''
Then, You Act. Conversations with Anne is copyright © 2012 by
SITI Company

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