WEBVTT - From the Archives: Jon Robin Baitz 0:00:00.600 --> 0:00:03.560 This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the 0:00:03.600 --> 0:00:06.120 Thing from iHeart Radio. 0:00:06.240 --> 0:00:11.360 Whatever it is, whatever you do, You're our daughter and 0:00:11.400 --> 0:00:12.039 I will love you. 0:00:12.960 --> 0:00:17.000 John Robin Bates has a new play on Broadway, recently 0:00:17.079 --> 0:00:21.000 nominated for a Tony. Other Desert Cities is about family 0:00:21.280 --> 0:00:23.799 dysfunction and the choices we make. 0:00:24.079 --> 0:00:29.040 There are consequences to our actions. What does that mean? 0:00:29.640 --> 0:00:35.080 How could I trust you? How could I ever be 0:00:35.159 --> 0:00:36.040 in your presence? 0:00:36.120 --> 0:00:39.879 My dear Robbie, as he's known to many, pursued similar 0:00:39.920 --> 0:00:43.559 themes in the drama he created an executive produced for 0:00:43.640 --> 0:00:49.320 ABC Brothers and Sisters. Robbie's strengths as a playwright magnified 0:00:49.360 --> 0:00:53.959 by the talent he surrounds himself with. Dan Sullivan directed 0:00:54.160 --> 0:00:58.120 Substance of Fire in nineteen ninety two. Joe Mantello directed 0:00:58.240 --> 0:01:03.400 Other Desert Cities. Robbie Bates often writes for specific actors 0:01:03.400 --> 0:01:07.480 he admires, like Stacy Keach and Ron Rifkin, who have 0:01:07.560 --> 0:01:11.320 worked on several of Robbie's stage and screen projects. In 0:01:11.360 --> 0:01:14.440 the theater world, you'd be hard pressed to find someone 0:01:14.480 --> 0:01:17.600 who wouldn't want to work with Robbie. He comes across 0:01:17.600 --> 0:01:22.319 as kind, human and humble. During our conversation, he confessed 0:01:22.400 --> 0:01:25.039 there's been a dark side to his success on Broadway. 0:01:25.480 --> 0:01:28.880 He's been spoiled. John Robin Bates can barely think about 0:01:28.959 --> 0:01:30.840 going back to the smaller theaters. 0:01:31.040 --> 0:01:34.759 I'm ruined. I'm ruined from off Broadway. Now, I sort 0:01:34.760 --> 0:01:37.560 of say things like, well, that plays an off Broadway play, 0:01:37.720 --> 0:01:41.200 it's not a Broadway play. Making fun of myself. The 0:01:41.240 --> 0:01:44.600 difference is, you know, you're in this great, great, grand 0:01:44.640 --> 0:01:47.920 old house, you know that's built for a kind of 0:01:48.760 --> 0:01:53.400 big experience, and the drama is somehow expanded. I mean, 0:01:53.480 --> 0:01:56.000 I listen. I never knew the difference, so I was. 0:01:55.960 --> 0:01:58.200 Always and when you're there, you feel there's just a 0:01:58.240 --> 0:02:01.280 different tapestry there. When you're in a broad that lends 0:02:01.320 --> 0:02:03.920 itself to the kind of the import of the project. 0:02:03.560 --> 0:02:06.000 Or there's a lot of different things going on. You know, 0:02:06.160 --> 0:02:10.520 the audience has bought into an experience for which they've 0:02:11.040 --> 0:02:15.400 usually sadly paid more money, and so it changes the dynamic, 0:02:15.480 --> 0:02:19.399 it changes, there's more ornamentation around it in some way. 0:02:19.919 --> 0:02:24.639 The laughs change, which is odd. The laughs are sort 0:02:24.680 --> 0:02:28.760 of bigger and more expensive inside. 0:02:28.800 --> 0:02:31.240 So what was the arc of other desert cities before 0:02:31.320 --> 0:02:31.919 you went to Brovi. 0:02:32.080 --> 0:02:34.840 It began where in the Mitsi New House, which is 0:02:34.840 --> 0:02:38.280 the beautiful Jewel theater in the basement of Lincoln Center. 0:02:38.320 --> 0:02:40.640 How many seats ninety nine? 0:02:40.880 --> 0:02:45.040 I think small, small, intimate and in fact even claustrophobic. 0:02:46.280 --> 0:02:51.720 What happened was Joe Mantello, who directed it, immediately had 0:02:51.720 --> 0:02:55.000 a sense of having to build space around things, and 0:02:55.000 --> 0:02:58.359 that when once it moved in the transfer, I actually 0:02:58.360 --> 0:03:03.160 believe the play got better in its move It just 0:03:03.200 --> 0:03:05.000 all came together and some why I did a little 0:03:05.040 --> 0:03:06.160 work on the play, And. 0:03:07.000 --> 0:03:08.520 For example, what work did you do? 0:03:09.200 --> 0:03:11.120 I worked a little bit on the ending of the play, 0:03:11.200 --> 0:03:13.280 the last few minutes of the play. 0:03:14.720 --> 0:03:17.799 But it went so well off Broadway Lincoln Center. When 0:03:17.800 --> 0:03:19.360 you do that kind of thing, What is it that 0:03:19.440 --> 0:03:20.520 propels you to do that. 0:03:21.040 --> 0:03:24.880 It's just the knowledge that there's more to mind from it. 0:03:24.919 --> 0:03:27.960 And mostly it was, you know, Joe's great sort of 0:03:28.040 --> 0:03:32.519 probing sense of I think there's a deeper truth there. 0:03:32.639 --> 0:03:35.400 I think we've glossed over something or skipped over something. 0:03:36.000 --> 0:03:38.880 You have a success now on Broadway that if I 0:03:39.320 --> 0:03:41.560 could be mistaken, but it's been a while since you 0:03:41.600 --> 0:03:44.760 had it to this level. This is a substance of fire. Again. 0:03:44.920 --> 0:03:47.160 You know where you had great, great notices and people 0:03:47.240 --> 0:03:50.600 have said wonderful things about your career and your future. 0:03:50.640 --> 0:03:53.000 That was twenty years ago. I know when you look 0:03:53.040 --> 0:03:55.120 back on some of your players, would you change them? 0:03:55.240 --> 0:03:58.160 I can't. I just have to keep moving forward. I 0:03:58.200 --> 0:04:01.320 can't do it. I know that people do, but you 0:04:01.360 --> 0:04:05.240 know I can't fight old wars. I would find it 0:04:06.200 --> 0:04:11.960 disablingly backwards looking for myself to go back. I think 0:04:13.680 --> 0:04:18.400 some of my plays have been less successful to me 0:04:18.880 --> 0:04:24.440 than others. And to me, it's all been about the 0:04:24.480 --> 0:04:27.400 process of getting to the next play or getting to 0:04:27.440 --> 0:04:32.880 the next day. This play, though at the core of it, 0:04:32.880 --> 0:04:36.360 it comes out of trying to understand the ways in 0:04:36.440 --> 0:04:41.599 which people collapse, even though the subject is not necessarily depression. 0:04:42.960 --> 0:04:46.880 I want to take two plays substance of Fire. Sullivan 0:04:46.960 --> 0:04:49.480 directed and now You're on Broadway and had been at 0:04:49.480 --> 0:04:54.200 the Midsia with other Desert Cities, and Joe directed. Compare 0:04:54.240 --> 0:04:57.760 and contrast Sullivan with Joe in terms of the direct Yeah. 0:04:57.720 --> 0:05:05.520 They're very similar. Yeah, they are meticulous, meticulous miniaturists with big, 0:05:05.600 --> 0:05:12.200 expansive visions of what logic and a world are comprised of. 0:05:12.880 --> 0:05:17.919 They're both indefatigable. They never give up, they live and 0:05:18.040 --> 0:05:24.200 breathe it. Their approaches are very different. Dan has a 0:05:24.320 --> 0:05:31.200 kind of almost holistic view of the logic of a play, 0:05:31.960 --> 0:05:36.360 and Joe because I don't know, maybe because he was 0:05:36.400 --> 0:05:40.040 an actor for a long time. Even though Dan had 0:05:40.080 --> 0:05:44.479 been an actor, Joe looks for a different kind of 0:05:44.720 --> 0:05:50.680 character logic. He's always asking and what happens next. Dramaturgically, 0:05:50.720 --> 0:05:53.880 he's very much about the engine and the motor and 0:05:54.560 --> 0:05:59.920 Dan is, well, he's also actually, he's actually all there. 0:06:00.160 --> 0:06:02.640 If they're so similar that it's only a matter of 0:06:02.640 --> 0:06:04.920 their temperaments that are different. 0:06:04.640 --> 0:06:08.919 How are they different? Dan is like a priest. 0:06:09.320 --> 0:06:11.719 Yeah, he's more jesuitical. 0:06:11.400 --> 0:06:14.880 And then tell her was what to the extent that 0:06:14.960 --> 0:06:16.160 you want to say. 0:06:16.520 --> 0:06:23.200 He's passionately, passionately dedicated to leaving no stone unturned. And 0:06:23.560 --> 0:06:26.400 I think one of the reasons he went back to 0:06:26.520 --> 0:06:30.400 acting this last year did The Normal Heart on Broadway, 0:06:30.480 --> 0:06:34.599 and I think it's because he had to re experience 0:06:34.800 --> 0:06:37.839 the sort of dynamic of what it means to be 0:06:37.880 --> 0:06:42.159 an actor, to get under the skin of the experience 0:06:42.160 --> 0:06:46.000 and find out what kind of communicator he is with 0:06:46.120 --> 0:06:50.800 actors by acting again, Dan has a kind of remove 0:06:50.960 --> 0:06:59.320 about him, and Joe tends to delve, oh sort of 0:06:59.360 --> 0:07:05.160 with sword kind of play vistal play. Yeah, but they 0:07:05.160 --> 0:07:11.360 both have in common is real rigor about their work, 0:07:11.400 --> 0:07:17.800 ethic and their intellectual understanding of a subject of a world. 0:07:19.480 --> 0:07:22.680 Sometimes, although it's not always useful, I divide directors between 0:07:22.680 --> 0:07:26.080 directors that you want to please because you want them 0:07:26.080 --> 0:07:29.239 to like you, and directors that you want to please 0:07:29.280 --> 0:07:32.320 because you don't want them to hate you. And I 0:07:32.360 --> 0:07:34.080 don't think I need to tell you which one would 0:07:34.080 --> 0:07:36.920 be which in this case, you know, because Joe seems 0:07:36.960 --> 0:07:41.720 so intense. It just seems so smoldering all the time. 0:07:41.800 --> 0:07:46.000 Well he is he No, he wants you to show him. 0:07:46.240 --> 0:07:48.760 He doesn't want to have to tell you what to do. 0:07:48.840 --> 0:07:52.520 He wants you to bring something amazing to the table 0:07:52.640 --> 0:07:56.760 every day. It's why one loves, for instance, our mutual 0:07:56.840 --> 0:08:02.360 friend Nathan Nathan Lane, because every day he brings something new, 0:08:02.880 --> 0:08:04.320 what they call a money player. 0:08:05.400 --> 0:08:07.440 Many people, I think don't understand, and this is not 0:08:07.480 --> 0:08:12.120 always the case, that the theatrical experience movies are very, very different. 0:08:12.440 --> 0:08:15.280 When you work with a director in the theater. A 0:08:15.360 --> 0:08:18.960 lot of them don't tell you this or that they edit. 0:08:20.520 --> 0:08:20.680 You know. 0:08:20.720 --> 0:08:23.320 The most famous example who I love is Joey Tillinger 0:08:23.720 --> 0:08:28.160 who Tillinger basically says nothing for the three weeks, and 0:08:28.200 --> 0:08:32.439 then in the last week he selects my recollection of 0:08:32.520 --> 0:08:34.720 Joey was it was three weeks of me doing something. 0:08:34.760 --> 0:08:36.160 I'd say, what do you think? He can say, what 0:08:36.280 --> 0:08:37.920 do you think, Bavid? Do you think it was? 0:08:39.080 --> 0:08:41.880 I just I can't do it that way. I see 0:08:41.920 --> 0:08:48.840 it as all about stripping away and finding the kind 0:08:48.840 --> 0:08:54.080 of improvisitory freedom that's locked in the text, and that 0:08:54.320 --> 0:09:01.719 involves a combination of savviness and analysis and getting off 0:09:01.760 --> 0:09:05.800 book really fast and being able to move around really fast, 0:09:06.120 --> 0:09:08.760 and then setting. 0:09:08.720 --> 0:09:10.560 Joe I'm told is a stickler for that get off 0:09:10.559 --> 0:09:13.800 book well exact, because nothing really happens until you do. 0:09:14.200 --> 0:09:16.640 Yeah, it's difficult. 0:09:16.720 --> 0:09:19.480 Well, especially in a world now, where as I recall, 0:09:19.840 --> 0:09:22.600 you used to have five weeks a rehearsal for a 0:09:22.640 --> 0:09:25.200 straight play, we've gone to a four week rehearsal. Four 0:09:25.200 --> 0:09:27.839 weeks that goes by like you sneeze. 0:09:28.520 --> 0:09:33.199 I like shorter rehearsals with Bob falls. Another great director. 0:09:33.320 --> 0:09:37.480 I did three hotels this last summer at Williamstown with 0:09:37.679 --> 0:09:40.000 more Tyrney and Stephen Weber, and they had two and 0:09:40.040 --> 0:09:45.239 a half weeks Everything is Dangerous two and a half weeks. 0:09:46.120 --> 0:09:50.400 Tell me about when a play like Substance of Fire? 0:09:51.000 --> 0:09:52.120 How did that come to you? 0:09:52.120 --> 0:09:54.160 You know, it's interesting to sad that play and this 0:09:54.280 --> 0:09:58.480 play share something in common. They came out of despair. 0:09:59.440 --> 0:10:03.280 They both out of trying to write myself out of 0:10:03.320 --> 0:10:08.160 a kind of real sense of despondency and loss. 0:10:08.320 --> 0:10:10.040 And to the extent you want to talk about it, 0:10:10.040 --> 0:10:12.160 what was the despondency? Back in ninety one. 0:10:12.440 --> 0:10:14.960 I had been working on a play for a long 0:10:15.080 --> 0:10:19.880 time that was eventually became a play called A Fair Country, 0:10:20.000 --> 0:10:22.280 but at the time it was called Dutch Landscape. And 0:10:22.320 --> 0:10:25.560 I worked on an impossible play to do when you're young, 0:10:25.640 --> 0:10:29.479 about growing up. Did it at the Taper in Los Angeles, 0:10:30.280 --> 0:10:33.760 and I lost the play. I actually lost it, you know, 0:10:33.960 --> 0:10:38.040 in rehearsal and development through nobody's fault, you know, certainly 0:10:38.080 --> 0:10:43.760 not Gordon Davidson's who directed it. If anybody was at fault, 0:10:43.800 --> 0:10:47.080 if you can even use that word, because it's it's theater. 0:10:47.760 --> 0:10:48.160 It was me. 0:10:49.400 --> 0:10:51.880 I was just in despair over how did I let 0:10:51.920 --> 0:10:55.880 this happen to me? I used to work at book 0:10:55.960 --> 0:11:01.600 Soup in Hollywood, and I I urrowed the office above 0:11:01.600 --> 0:11:03.760 book Soup to try and figure out. You know, I 0:11:03.840 --> 0:11:06.480 was no longer working there. So I was sitting up 0:11:06.520 --> 0:11:10.760 in this office above the store, and I was surrounded 0:11:10.760 --> 0:11:12.719 by books, and I thought, oh, yeah, I've read all 0:11:12.760 --> 0:11:15.000 of you. I've read you uu u u u you, 0:11:16.040 --> 0:11:20.000 and none of you did me any good whatsoever. I 0:11:20.040 --> 0:11:23.160 don't know how to fight. First line of substance fiers. 0:11:23.360 --> 0:11:26.400 Look at all these books. The play is about learning 0:11:26.400 --> 0:11:30.760 how to fight and articulating the things you need, articulating 0:11:30.800 --> 0:11:35.880 the ways in which you have to express yourself in 0:11:35.960 --> 0:11:40.560 order to somehow achieve a kind of victory that goes 0:11:40.559 --> 0:11:41.480 beyond words. 0:11:41.920 --> 0:11:43.000 What's isaac victory? 0:11:44.160 --> 0:11:48.040 Isaac doesn't really have a victory in an odd kind 0:11:48.080 --> 0:11:52.480 of way. He goes down with his own ship, but 0:11:52.600 --> 0:11:55.920 he's unyielding. And I think I tried to learn how 0:11:55.920 --> 0:11:58.120 to be unyielding, and writing that play it didn't do 0:11:58.200 --> 0:12:02.400 me much good. Why well, because life is life and 0:12:02.400 --> 0:12:05.160 plays or plays, and you can't actually learn that much 0:12:05.240 --> 0:12:08.280 by writing them. You have to live. 0:12:08.720 --> 0:12:11.560 Do you find that in the ensuing years you wind 0:12:11.640 --> 0:12:15.800 up going up against things that just crush you so right, 0:12:15.880 --> 0:12:18.280 they crush you as you realize that. I'm not going 0:12:18.320 --> 0:12:22.160 to compare battles with television networks with going through the Holocaust. 0:12:22.200 --> 0:12:25.240 But on the other hand, the Isaac character, there are 0:12:25.240 --> 0:12:29.080 some people who they are just incapable of the happiness 0:12:29.120 --> 0:12:31.840 that leads to real intimacy because there's something that just 0:12:32.080 --> 0:12:33.120 cannot get over. 0:12:33.440 --> 0:12:36.400 I think it's very true, totally true of that character. 0:12:37.040 --> 0:12:41.360 And in his case, he has very little choice. He's 0:12:41.440 --> 0:12:46.880 locked in battle with this melancholia that won't lift. 0:12:47.280 --> 0:12:50.920 Which I think people don't have a real honest understanding about. 0:12:51.640 --> 0:12:53.440 They don't know what it's like to be betrayed on 0:12:53.520 --> 0:12:56.199 like the ninth level, you know, something really hideous. 0:12:56.480 --> 0:13:03.200 I think despair is the demension of one's despair are 0:13:03.400 --> 0:13:07.120 so difficult to quantify, so difficult to paint, so difficult 0:13:07.160 --> 0:13:14.520 to expose, and it's such a huge subject. Certainly, other 0:13:14.559 --> 0:13:17.800 desert cities is steeped in despair. You know, you say, 0:13:17.920 --> 0:13:24.200 talk about network battles, but I sort of, you know, 0:13:24.360 --> 0:13:28.200 was ejected from my one adventure in television up to 0:13:28.240 --> 0:13:30.920 that point, I was creating brothers and sisters, and it 0:13:30.960 --> 0:13:34.560 was a very unhappy, very difficult experience for me. And 0:13:34.800 --> 0:13:37.800 again at the end of that thing, I sort of 0:13:38.559 --> 0:13:42.480 I came back east, you know, after having been west. 0:13:42.280 --> 0:13:43.719 For a little bit. What was the first thing you 0:13:43.760 --> 0:13:44.240 wrote after that? 0:13:45.520 --> 0:13:48.800 There are three plays in my drawer because I had 0:13:48.840 --> 0:13:51.720 forgotten how to write that. This is the thing I 0:13:51.760 --> 0:13:54.480 think about with other desert cities is it's the play 0:13:54.520 --> 0:13:58.079 where I learned. I taught myself how to write again 0:13:58.880 --> 0:14:02.880 because I was so you to writing to please people. 0:14:04.040 --> 0:14:07.600 What happened with ABC, Well, first of all, networks being 0:14:07.640 --> 0:14:11.760 what they are, the people who commission the piece and 0:14:12.040 --> 0:14:15.800 are invested in putting it on the air end up leaving, 0:14:16.800 --> 0:14:18.920 and so you're left with a kind of in a 0:14:19.000 --> 0:14:25.040 kind of parents and not necessarily particularly. 0:14:24.880 --> 0:14:27.000 Caring support of step parents. 0:14:27.600 --> 0:14:32.280 Slightly bewildered. I mean, the guy who really ran the 0:14:32.440 --> 0:14:36.280 entertainment division kept saying, I don't understand why anybody watches 0:14:36.320 --> 0:14:39.800 this show, and I would say the same thing, except 0:14:39.800 --> 0:14:43.720 for different reasons. I mean, it was really it was bizarre. 0:14:45.360 --> 0:14:47.720 He would call me and scream at me. I actually 0:14:47.760 --> 0:14:49.640 said to him, I don't know who you think you're 0:14:49.680 --> 0:14:53.080 talking to and I would, you know, politely hang up 0:14:53.120 --> 0:14:57.400 and say I'm leaving the conversation now. At one point 0:14:57.480 --> 0:14:59.760 I said to them, don't you feel like there's something wrong? 0:15:00.000 --> 0:15:06.360 I mean, look at this amazing cast, Sally Field, Callista Flockhart, 0:15:06.640 --> 0:15:11.880 Rachel Griffith, Ron Rifkin, Patty Wedding, on and on and on. 0:15:13.200 --> 0:15:17.160 Don't you think there should be some higher intention, some integrity, 0:15:17.200 --> 0:15:19.480 maybe some I don't know, do you want do you 0:15:19.520 --> 0:15:21.880 want to try and get an Emmy or something. I 0:15:21.880 --> 0:15:23.760 didn't even know how to speak their language, but I 0:15:23.760 --> 0:15:27.200 thought Emmy would be something that they would recognize. And 0:15:28.800 --> 0:15:32.280 a literal quote from the head of the studio was, no, 0:15:32.440 --> 0:15:34.960 I don't need awards. The ratings are good enough for me. 0:15:36.000 --> 0:15:39.480 This happens in the first season, the first season. Yeah, 0:15:39.640 --> 0:15:42.040 and you are gone after how many seasons after the 0:15:42.040 --> 0:15:42.600 first season? 0:15:42.680 --> 0:15:42.800 Oh? 0:15:42.880 --> 0:15:46.880 Yeah, So all this takes place in one television season. 0:15:47.000 --> 0:15:48.280 He has one nine month period. 0:15:48.640 --> 0:15:52.680 Yes, you know, someone comes in to sort of manage 0:15:52.720 --> 0:15:57.040 the show, and they're beholden to the network in the 0:15:57.080 --> 0:16:00.520 studio as they should be. And I'm beholden to an 0:16:00.560 --> 0:16:04.360 aesthetic and I'm an idiot for being beholden to an aesthetic. 0:16:05.120 --> 0:16:07.240 But you know, people love the show. It went on 0:16:07.360 --> 0:16:09.280 for another four seasons after. 0:16:09.120 --> 0:16:11.120 That, and you maintained some participation in the show. You 0:16:11.760 --> 0:16:14.840 how was that possible? You created the show, You were 0:16:14.880 --> 0:16:16.600 the creator of the show. Correct. 0:16:17.880 --> 0:16:22.240 There was a writer's strike, and there was a force 0:16:22.360 --> 0:16:28.000 masure clause force masure being active. God, the studio network 0:16:28.000 --> 0:16:31.960 could use that clause to nullify any contract they had 0:16:31.960 --> 0:16:35.680 with anybody they liked. I had been very vocal during 0:16:35.680 --> 0:16:39.840 that strike about what I considered at the time the 0:16:40.480 --> 0:16:45.160 very unhealthy dynamic between the producers and the writer's guild. 0:16:45.240 --> 0:16:48.640 And I wrote about this way too much, was it? 0:16:48.640 --> 0:16:51.240 What was the name of those blogs you wrote on 0:16:51.280 --> 0:16:54.360 Huffington Post leaving La Yeah, a lot of them were 0:16:54.520 --> 0:17:00.400 very insanely painful and actually lead to again other deserts cities. 0:17:00.840 --> 0:17:03.320 The girl in the play can't stop writing about things 0:17:03.320 --> 0:17:06.760 that affected other people, and. 0:17:06.880 --> 0:17:07.760 She wants some truth. 0:17:08.040 --> 0:17:12.679 Yeah, and then she's left with the debris. So it 0:17:12.760 --> 0:17:15.480 all came out of you know, I pick up the 0:17:15.520 --> 0:17:18.280 phone one day and I see that, you know, people's 0:17:18.280 --> 0:17:22.160 deals are being canceled, but there are people who haven't 0:17:22.160 --> 0:17:27.600 made anything, And I suddenly I was gone, and I 0:17:27.880 --> 0:17:30.840 even before that, wasn't sure to what extent I was 0:17:30.880 --> 0:17:32.679 ever going to go back. I knew I would have 0:17:32.720 --> 0:17:34.760 some involvement, but then I had none whatsoever. 0:17:34.880 --> 0:17:36.520 And for me, what's curious, And again you don't have 0:17:36.560 --> 0:17:38.760 to answer this question. I'm just curious, which is, as 0:17:38.760 --> 0:17:42.119 the creator of a television show, there is typically a 0:17:42.160 --> 0:17:45.080 windfall for that person is the creative that show. If 0:17:45.080 --> 0:17:48.040 that was taken away from you, and through some contractual 0:17:48.080 --> 0:17:50.720 slide of hand, where did all that go? All went 0:17:50.720 --> 0:17:52.440 to the network? They took it all for themselves. 0:17:52.560 --> 0:17:54.760 I can't speak to that. I'm just not going to 0:17:54.800 --> 0:17:58.800 talk about them, but I am going to say that 0:17:59.080 --> 0:18:01.240 I think it was the best thing that ever happened 0:18:01.240 --> 0:18:05.399 to me, because it would have been dirty money, right. 0:18:05.960 --> 0:18:08.920 I think it would have destroyed me in some way. 0:18:09.080 --> 0:18:13.040 To have no pride in the thing that made me 0:18:13.640 --> 0:18:16.840 wealthy would have made me terribly uncomfortable, and I would 0:18:16.880 --> 0:18:20.600 have felt that I'd betrayed whatever promise or potential I'd 0:18:20.600 --> 0:18:24.239 set up for myself as a writer that if I 0:18:24.280 --> 0:18:27.080 was going to survive at it, it couldn't be compromised. 0:18:32.880 --> 0:18:35.639 This is Alec Baldwin, and I'm talking with playwright John 0:18:35.880 --> 0:18:40.800 Robin Bates more in a minute. We're taking a break. 0:18:40.960 --> 0:18:45.520 Stay with us. This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening 0:18:45.600 --> 0:18:49.120 to Here's the Thing. The idea for John Robin Bates's 0:18:49.119 --> 0:18:52.240 new play, Other Desert Cities came to him when he 0:18:52.320 --> 0:18:53.600 was back on the East Coast. 0:18:54.080 --> 0:18:59.760 I was sitting at a beach with my notebook, and 0:18:59.760 --> 0:19:03.560 I'm thinking about how to get back into it and 0:19:03.680 --> 0:19:08.640 what matters to me, and I just sort of self 0:19:08.760 --> 0:19:15.879 destructed at Brothers and Sisters. I had written about personal 0:19:15.880 --> 0:19:20.119 events that implicated other people in some way that I 0:19:20.160 --> 0:19:23.919 hadn't taken into account the consequences. And I found myself 0:19:24.000 --> 0:19:27.840 very much like the character in my play played by 0:19:28.200 --> 0:19:32.200 Beth Marvel and Rachel Griffith at various points, a writer 0:19:32.400 --> 0:19:36.080 who is a dangerous creature. And I had a note 0:19:36.280 --> 0:19:42.240 to myself play about daughter of a famous family who 0:19:42.240 --> 0:19:48.360 writes a book about her growing up in this family, 0:19:48.440 --> 0:19:52.480 something like that, the danger of telling the truth that 0:19:52.560 --> 0:19:53.159 turns out. 0:19:53.040 --> 0:19:53.640 To be a lie. 0:19:54.760 --> 0:19:57.920 And at that moment, this lady of a certain age 0:19:57.920 --> 0:20:03.480 walked by me, and she looked to me like Pat Buckley, 0:20:04.240 --> 0:20:08.359 the old doyenne of New York conservative politics, the wife 0:20:08.359 --> 0:20:12.359 of Bill Buckley. Bill Buckley, and I had lunch with 0:20:12.400 --> 0:20:15.040 her once and found her to be charming and engaged. 0:20:15.080 --> 0:20:18.840 And this woman walked by me on this beach with 0:20:18.840 --> 0:20:22.840 her hat and in a one piece bathing suit. I 0:20:22.840 --> 0:20:26.760 immediately felt the mother in that play, and I suddenly 0:20:26.800 --> 0:20:29.639 remembered old California the way it was when I was 0:20:29.680 --> 0:20:32.840 a kid, and we were just in the throes of 0:20:32.880 --> 0:20:35.600 an election at the time, too were about to be 0:20:36.480 --> 0:20:42.160 and the Republicans, certainly of that period and even more 0:20:42.200 --> 0:20:45.720 so today, were very confusing to me because they didn't 0:20:46.160 --> 0:20:50.879 seem recognizable to me as having a coherent, cohesive cog 0:20:50.920 --> 0:20:54.080 and argument for their principled positions, which had to be 0:20:54.119 --> 0:20:57.639 principled in some way. The play just came together in 0:20:57.680 --> 0:21:05.320 one fell swoop. California Conservatives, the old Holidays, and Reaganites. 0:21:06.200 --> 0:21:09.000 I even remembered I'd gone to high school with I think, 0:21:09.040 --> 0:21:12.040 the daughter of John Gavin, and I thought, you know, 0:21:12.119 --> 0:21:14.680 because I love Touch of Evil, and I think, isn't 0:21:14.760 --> 0:21:16.760 John Gavin. No, he's not in Touch of Evil. He's 0:21:16.760 --> 0:21:18.879 in Psycho, He's in all these movies. 0:21:18.920 --> 0:21:21.000 And I thought about he was the ambassador to Mexico. 0:21:21.119 --> 0:21:25.640 That's right, as is the Stacy Keach character in my play. 0:21:25.680 --> 0:21:26.760 And I thought about. 0:21:28.320 --> 0:21:30.920 Your characters based on John Gavin. 0:21:31.000 --> 0:21:35.400 To some extent. There are all these archetypes in At 0:21:35.440 --> 0:21:38.800 the back of all this, of course, there's also Joe Mantello, 0:21:38.880 --> 0:21:41.320 who you know, we're no longer a couple, but he's 0:21:41.560 --> 0:21:43.720 my family, my best friend, and you see s being 0:21:43.720 --> 0:21:46.720 a couple of what year two thousand and two. 0:21:47.040 --> 0:21:48.159 So it was a while. 0:21:48.200 --> 0:21:51.880 And he kept saying to me, with all possible respect, 0:21:51.960 --> 0:21:55.800 nobody's waiting for the next Robbie Bates play. And you know, 0:21:55.880 --> 0:22:00.320 these are chilling words because I have so much and 0:22:00.359 --> 0:22:01.640 it's not coming out. 0:22:01.760 --> 0:22:03.719 My equivalent of that. As my agent said to me, 0:22:03.920 --> 0:22:05.480 he goes, it's not that these people don't want to 0:22:05.520 --> 0:22:08.199 hire you because they don't like you. He says, they 0:22:08.240 --> 0:22:10.560 don't want to hire you because they don't think of 0:22:10.640 --> 0:22:11.160 you at all. 0:22:12.000 --> 0:22:15.120 Jesus. I thought, wow, well, it's terrible, because the worst 0:22:15.160 --> 0:22:18.679 thing that can happen to an artist, I'm invisible. I 0:22:18.800 --> 0:22:23.240 no longer matter for me. Writing plays has always been 0:22:23.600 --> 0:22:28.119 very tricky. I don't know a lot, I don't have 0:22:28.160 --> 0:22:31.359 a lot to say. I reach things very slowly, and 0:22:31.400 --> 0:22:36.879 I sometimes it seems facile and easy. And to me 0:22:37.000 --> 0:22:42.000 sometimes my thoughts and my sort of expressed opinions in 0:22:42.080 --> 0:22:46.399 plays seem hollow or naive even why because I know 0:22:46.440 --> 0:22:49.960 they're deeper truths always to be found and that I'm But. 0:22:49.960 --> 0:22:52.240 Don't you think that seeking them and being aware of 0:22:52.280 --> 0:22:55.280 that makes you more likely to find it than anybody else? 0:22:55.280 --> 0:22:57.720 You didn't go to college, did you know why you 0:22:57.720 --> 0:22:59.520 wind up educating yourself? 0:23:00.000 --> 0:23:03.960 I wish I'd gone to college. It was a depressed 0:23:04.000 --> 0:23:10.040 and unsettled kid. And why I don't. I think I 0:23:10.160 --> 0:23:16.280 wasn't at peace with probably any element of who I was, 0:23:16.840 --> 0:23:19.680 whether it was a sort of nascent intellectual or sort 0:23:19.720 --> 0:23:24.800 of pre expressive homosexual kid. Or you grew up where 0:23:25.600 --> 0:23:27.520 variously La. 0:23:28.480 --> 0:23:30.600 You were born in La and you live there to 0:23:30.640 --> 0:23:32.040 your how old seven? 0:23:32.080 --> 0:23:35.720 Then Brazil for three years in Rio, and then South 0:23:35.760 --> 0:23:40.280 Africa for six and a half years till I was eighteen, and. 0:23:40.200 --> 0:23:42.119 Your father was in the condensed milk business. 0:23:42.160 --> 0:23:47.200 My father worked for a giant multinational carnation milk. Yeah, 0:23:47.359 --> 0:23:48.760 it was a condensed milk business. 0:23:49.200 --> 0:23:52.720 Was so La, Brazil, South Africa and then back to 0:23:52.840 --> 0:23:54.560 La back and when you finally get back to LA. 0:23:54.600 --> 0:23:55.080 How old are you? 0:23:55.280 --> 0:23:58.760 Eighteen? So high school's over? I just finished high school. 0:23:58.880 --> 0:24:01.360 I'd sort of lost time through all the travels high 0:24:01.400 --> 0:24:04.000 school in South Africa, like I couldn't get used to 0:24:04.080 --> 0:24:07.720 things like cricket and corporal punishment. You know, you'd get 0:24:07.760 --> 0:24:10.679 caned for like not doing well on a spelling test, 0:24:11.240 --> 0:24:15.240 literally caned. And I think I was so busy trying 0:24:15.240 --> 0:24:19.439 to be sly and charming that I forgot how to 0:24:19.560 --> 0:24:24.640 be me. That I think led me to rebel against 0:24:24.840 --> 0:24:28.879