Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing,
Speaker 1: My chance to talk with artists, policy makers and performers,
Speaker 1: to hear their stories. What inspires their creations, what decisions
Speaker 1: change their careers, what relationships influenced their work. Today I'll
Speaker 1: be talking to two theater artists. One writes plays and
Speaker 1: the other brings them to life. My first guest is
Speaker 1: the great American playwright John Guare, best known for his
Speaker 1: plays Landscape of the Body, House of Blue Leaves, and
Speaker 1: Six Degrees of Separation. Guare's absurdest style and use of songs,
Speaker 1: asides and monologus keeps his audiences on edge. Guare's good friend,
Speaker 1: the late Louis Mall wrote about Gware that his quote,
Speaker 1: brilliant at tearing apart the logical and the expected, make
Speaker 1: him stand pretty much alone unquote. A lifelong New Yorker
Speaker 1: where lives in Greenwich Village with his wife Adele. He
Speaker 1: writes every day anywhere he can, he says, to keep
Speaker 1: from getting sick. He's taught playwriting at Yale, Harvard, Princeton,
Speaker 1: n y U, and Juilliard. John Ware says teaching others
Speaker 1: ultimately helps his own work. I selfishly use the class
Speaker 1: to teach what I'm going through, to teach problems that
Speaker 1: I'm having that they don't know it. But if I'm
Speaker 1: having this last time having problems, well, no, like once
Speaker 1: many years ago I taught it Yale Black one to
Speaker 1: eighty five or something. I um, I was having trouble
Speaker 1: starting a play. I was having great trouble with exposition.
Speaker 1: I thought of all those nineteenth century plays, you know,
Speaker 1: where the butler comes to the two servants come in
Speaker 1: and they say, oh, you know, five o'clock, the master
Speaker 1: not home yet, and they just say yes ever since,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean whether or else the phone or
Speaker 1: the heroine, you know, the wife the fan picks up
Speaker 1: the telephone and says, no, no, no, we're not here
Speaker 1: because we're involved in this terrible divorce case and my
Speaker 1: but everything is fine with us and we'll be better,
Speaker 1: you know. And I could not figure out how to
Speaker 1: begin a play in a neat way. So I thought
Speaker 1: about Moss Heart said it's something rather true and fantastic.
Speaker 1: He said, the audience will give you fifteen minutes, will
Speaker 1: give any play fifteen minutes that they'll listen to it.
Speaker 1: But at the sixteen minute there is some connected whether
Speaker 1: to the base of your spine or whatever legs. You'll say,
Speaker 1: I either want to go on this trip or I
Speaker 1: don't want to go on this trip. So I said,
Speaker 1: I'm just going to take the first fifteen minutes of
Speaker 1: my favorite place and go through them. And I just
Speaker 1: taught the first fifteen minutes of The Homecoming, the first
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes of Waiting for Godot, the first fifteen minutes
Speaker 1: of the Cherry Ords, of the first fifteen minutes of
Speaker 1: Yours sty Every week we just say what do we
Speaker 1: learn in the first fifteen minutes of these plays? And
Speaker 1: with spectacular it was spectacular and something I'm still learning.
Speaker 1: It's something where I'm still funny. I still go back
Speaker 1: to that class. Do you find that it's that it's
Speaker 1: difficult to teach the went how to write? No, you
Speaker 1: only can help them to find. You can't teach them.
Speaker 1: All you can do is help them to say, to
Speaker 1: help them find their own voice, because young playwrights are clever,
Speaker 1: and they're fantastic, ventriloquous, and they can write a play
Speaker 1: that sounds like Sam Shepard or David Mammaged or Harold
Speaker 1: and Mimic mimic mimic, but to help them find their
Speaker 1: own voice. That is the key. And they might write
Speaker 1: a fifty page play and there might be four lines
Speaker 1: where you say, that's I've never heard that voice before.
Speaker 1: That's original. That's where you've got to find that where
Speaker 1: that's the task. Yeah, it's about finding your own voice.
Speaker 1: Why did you stop? Uh? It just got no fun.
Speaker 1: And it was the last time I talked was last year.
Speaker 1: I was writer in residence at Hunter, and Hunter to
Speaker 1: me was spectacular. Hunter was great because these were kids
Speaker 1: that of course that I mean, you know, to pay
Speaker 1: eight thousand dollars. The money was real. The money was real,
Speaker 1: and they would make take them seven or eight years
Speaker 1: to get a degree because they're working. And uh, you know.
Speaker 1: And there was one young woman who wrote a play
Speaker 1: about being trapped in the projects uptown, you know, And
Speaker 1: I said it, So this play was so interesting, I said,
Speaker 1: but you know, the problems that are in your play,
Speaker 1: I can't I can't sell them. But you know who
Speaker 1: has so dealt with your problems you're dealing with Samuel
Speaker 1: Beckett read Waiting for Good Reading, you know, endgame, trying
Speaker 1: to get out, And she said the most wonderful words.
Speaker 1: Who's Samuel Beckett? And that to me was because you
Speaker 1: get kids at unnamed schools of higher learning and you'll
Speaker 1: say so anybody, and they'll say, I know Samuel back
Speaker 1: and I know all about them. I know all about him.
Speaker 1: I took a class. They were going to graduate, you know, uh,
Speaker 1: but in ten days or so, and we had she
Speaker 1: was the last class. We were talking and it turned
Speaker 1: out that none of them in the class had read
Speaker 1: Madame Bovary, seen The Marks Blow this movie. And I said,
Speaker 1: you have no right to get this degree. You should
Speaker 1: say where. I'm sorry, I can't. I should until you
Speaker 1: go back and read and see at least you know,
Speaker 1: to see animal crackers, animal crackers or duck suit, no
Speaker 1: duck soup. They'd have to see because all modern heroines
Speaker 1: come out of Madame Bobery. Blanche Boy had a caple.
Speaker 1: They're all the daughters of Madame Bobery. And uh, it's
Speaker 1: um yeah, so, and but you'll say that each of
Speaker 1: them said, well, I know about Madame Bovary. I mean
Speaker 1: it's by Flowbert, I know all about the Marks Brothers.
Speaker 1: They're anarchic, right, yeah, And one doesn't speak and one
Speaker 1: is wise. Yeah, I know all about them, but have
Speaker 1: you ever seen No, I don't have to know about them,
Speaker 1: So I just got bored teaching. You grew up in
Speaker 1: Queen's You've got your a lifelong New Yorker. I'm born
Speaker 1: in Manhattan. I'll tell you so funny. We my parents
Speaker 1: lived in the four hundred block on eighties six Street,
Speaker 1: and they want to be closer to Columbia Presbyterian, where
Speaker 1: I was born. So they learned that the people who
Speaker 1: had built our apartment house on Stree had built the
Speaker 1: identical apartment house up on Fort Washington Avenue. So we
Speaker 1: moved when I was going to the same apartment, and
Speaker 1: then it was too far away from the beach, because
Speaker 1: I really called my home with the Atlantic, the East
Speaker 1: Atlantic Beach, or a place where I still go a
Speaker 1: house my father built with his buddies in nineteen and
Speaker 1: still I still have it. I still go there. It's
Speaker 1: great and that I called and I call home. That's
Speaker 1: where my friends are. And uh, and it was too far.
Speaker 1: It was too hard to get him. Fort Washington underworked
Speaker 1: Penn Station. So they learned that those builders that built
Speaker 1: the exact same apartment uh in Jackson Heights so they
Speaker 1: moved to the same apartment again with the furniture fit
Speaker 1: and so I grew up there because it was also
Speaker 1: in the same block at Saint Johanavar Grammar School, I
Speaker 1: didn't have to cross the street. Do you have any siblings, son?
Speaker 1: You were an only child? Absolutely? It was great. And
Speaker 1: then and then when you were parents year agoers were
Speaker 1: the estate in that way. They like musicals, only like musicals.
Speaker 1: What about you? What was the theater in your life
Speaker 1: when you were a child? Well, I mean it was magnificent.
Speaker 1: I mean, well sure an You get your Gun was
Speaker 1: the first show I saw and a ethel Merman and
Speaker 1: it was I can still remember. It was absolutely devastating.
Speaker 1: It was still was shocking that that could happen. And
Speaker 1: it was mainly the now racist I'm an Indian two
Speaker 1: with this great ballet by I found it years later
Speaker 1: by Eugene Loring. It was spectacular, I must say. It
Speaker 1: was terrifying. And because they were gonna put ethel Merman
Speaker 1: the tire up at the stake and they're going to
Speaker 1: burn her and eat her and everything, it was, oh
Speaker 1: my god. There was no business taking a little bit
Speaker 1: of time to burn. No, she would have gone up anything. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and uh no, we saw it, just saw musicals. I
Speaker 1: could see. I remember, like from my twelve thirteenth birthday,
Speaker 1: I could see one show. I could pick either King
Speaker 1: and I or wish you here? And which one did
Speaker 1: I pick? Well? I wish you were here because King
Speaker 1: and I had some old lady named Gertrude Lawrence who
Speaker 1: would always be around it. But I wish we had
Speaker 1: a swimming pool on stage, and I was died diving
Speaker 1: and swimming water ballets. It was great. And Eddie Fishers
Speaker 1: sang the hit song They're not making the Skies is
Speaker 1: blue this year, and I saw that and it was
Speaker 1: And then I started going to see plays and uh well,
Speaker 1: the TV hadn't taken off in the in the fifties,
Speaker 1: it was about to Were you a filmgoer as well?
Speaker 1: Did you enjoy films or was the theater always? I'll
Speaker 1: I didn't I tell the movie saved me because in
Speaker 1: nine my father had a heart attack. This was so
Speaker 1: great and he had to had to take a year
Speaker 1: off from work. And at the same time, his aunt
Speaker 1: who had raised him up in Allenville, New York, so
Speaker 1: we moved up there because my father loved his auntie,
Speaker 1: and so I missed a lot of school because my
Speaker 1: father checked the school up in allen Bool, New York,
Speaker 1: and they did not say the pledge allegiance to the
Speaker 1: flag or the our father. And my father said it
Speaker 1: was a commed den and it was better than I
Speaker 1: didn't go to school. Then went to a communist den
Speaker 1: and the nuns at Saint John Novar and Jackson. I
Speaker 1: just agreed with that. So we lived in Allenville good
Speaker 1: part of the time. But those last two years of
Speaker 1: grammar school and I went and I had nothing to do.
Speaker 1: I was given a homeware. I go down of the
Speaker 1: city every every a few weeks and take a test
Speaker 1: or something. But what was great there were two movie
Speaker 1: theaters in Allenville, the shadow Land and the Danbury, and
Speaker 1: I went every day to the movie's first short to
Speaker 1: in twelve o'clock, and it was Spectacle. Father went with
Speaker 1: you because he was convalescing from his art attack. Don't know.
Speaker 1: I went by myself. They didn't I just the little kid.
Speaker 1: They didn't ask the little kid up in ellen Though
Speaker 1: what he was doing going to the movies in the
Speaker 1: middle of the day. They knew everybody was a small.
Speaker 1: Everybody knew was my uncle Frank, my and Teen's husband
Speaker 1: had been the president of the bank, and everybody knew
Speaker 1: who we were, so I didn't have to pay. I mean,
Speaker 1: I was treated and Uncle Frank's bank on everybody's mortgage.
Speaker 1: So during the week I'd come back. We live in
Speaker 1: Jackson Heights. But then if we have an element would
Speaker 1: be like the King with the giant popcorn and a
Speaker 1: soda and your feet up. Oh it was pretty and
Speaker 1: I'd watched him twice. It was just great. And so
Speaker 1: the movie is literally saved my life. And I read
Speaker 1: and read and read, and I went to Georgetown in
Speaker 1: Washington college I had to. You weren't allowed to. Johnny
Speaker 1: was not a communist. Stand no, you owned the St. John's,
Speaker 1: Prepp and Williamsburg and uh. And then you know, talking
Speaker 1: about that, maybe going to Harvard, and they priests there said, Johnny,
Speaker 1: what's which. You go to Hall, but you get a
Speaker 1: great education and you lose your soul, or you go
Speaker 1: to Catholic college, so maybe it's not a grain win.
Speaker 1: It's okay, but you come out with your soul intact,
Speaker 1: which is more Diplomat the commencement, Jesus gives you the diploma. Wow,
Speaker 1: that's a great idea. Well, it was lucky when we're there.
Speaker 1: We had a smart class and that we had there
Speaker 1: was the first thing called an honors program. For the
Speaker 1: last three years you didn't major in anything specifically. Everybody
Speaker 1: had one specialty that they then would teach the other
Speaker 1: nineteen guys in the class. And we were spending a
Speaker 1: number of weeks on you know, on Henry James, and
Speaker 1: then we would go to uh Lobachevsky to remain in geometry,
Speaker 1: and then we'd go to history. You know. It was
Speaker 1: all so it was all it was a very grab
Speaker 1: bag education that was terrific. But not there. No, but
Speaker 1: because the national the well no, because I was writing,
Speaker 1: I started they had a second I can still remember
Speaker 1: the drama club there was was called what mask the
Speaker 1: Mask and Babble. How do you know that it's widely
Speaker 1: known Mask and Babble that you were affiliated with that? Really?
Speaker 1: I consider remember Kathy Eno, she was the only champion.
Speaker 1: He's there were many girls around George now, but there's
Speaker 1: this one girl, Kathy, and I started putting a sign
Speaker 1: up on a tree that said player and the first
Speaker 1: annual play running contest that Georgetown the masking Ball will presents.
Speaker 1: And I said, that's a sign. I took this. I
Speaker 1: took down and I wrote the play and and I yes,
Speaker 1: and I came in second because I wrote a comedy
Speaker 1: and the first play had to be serious, and the
Speaker 1: second play was a comedy. Second prize play was a comedy.
Speaker 1: And I wrote a play every year there and then
Speaker 1: I went to Yale, and but also the same ye
Speaker 1: for what play? Right? So he went to the graduate
Speaker 1: program A game? Yeah yeah, But I also, what did
Speaker 1: your father think about that? What did your favor where
Speaker 1: we were? Did your mother have an opinion? My parents
Speaker 1: were absolutely thrilled. My father said to me one thing.
Speaker 1: He said, I don't care what you do, Johnny, never
Speaker 1: get a job. Don't end up like me. He hated
Speaker 1: Wall Street. He shauld never be a wage slave. Just
Speaker 1: even keep it fairly legal if you can. But Mate,
Speaker 1: when I have one happy moment all day long, I
Speaker 1: wake up, he long goes off. I pushed this news button,
Speaker 1: roll over, sleep, have a deep sleep for another couple
Speaker 1: of minutes, and it goes and I'm so happy, and
Speaker 1: then it goes off again, and then my feet hit
Speaker 1: the ground. And it's downhill the rest of the day.
Speaker 1: That the Yale program is two years, three years, three years.
Speaker 1: It still is good God And and I all. I
Speaker 1: went there also because the draft was on in those days,
Speaker 1: and if I was if he weren't in grad school,
Speaker 1: you would have been drafted immediately. So I went to Yale.
Speaker 1: And Yale was just after George Holt was sort of
Speaker 1: like a little high school, you know. It was like,
Speaker 1: you know, very small. And I got to Yale and
Speaker 1: who spoke to us there about six weeks who came
Speaker 1: and spoke? Did everybody we want to hear? T? S Elliott?
Speaker 1: And I said, this is Yale is really different And
Speaker 1: it was great. I had a great It was very hard,
Speaker 1: but I had a great time there. And when you
Speaker 1: left there, what did you start? How did you start? Well?
Speaker 1: I was incredibly lucky. Tennessee. Williams was having something done
Speaker 1: at the play out of town. I don't know what
Speaker 1: it was, and Audrey what his agent was coming up
Speaker 1: to New Haven to work something out, and there was
Speaker 1: a store or something had rained or something, and the
Speaker 1: meeting was canceled and she came to the drama school
Speaker 1: and see what was on. And I had a play
Speaker 1: on and she signed me. So I graduated from Yere
Speaker 1: with Audrey Wood, who was the greatest agent in the universe,
Speaker 1: the one who discovered Tennessee Williams and built his career
Speaker 1: as my as my agent, and that really, uh, that
Speaker 1: was fantastic. Why do you why do you think she
Speaker 1: signed here? I hope because she liked my work? When
Speaker 1: when when she you had written? How many plays? When
Speaker 1: someone signs you out of Yale, you're just finished three years?
Speaker 1: And this is right out of Yale. You know I
Speaker 1: was in Yale. I was, I was under Then you
Speaker 1: make my point, you're still in Yale. She thought, she
Speaker 1: she has to show you. Do she read some work
Speaker 1: you've done. She didn't even read it. She just thought
Speaker 1: it had possibilities. And then when when you left Yale?
Speaker 1: What was the first play you had produced? And how
Speaker 1: long after you left Yale? Well, I got out of Yale?
Speaker 1: What year? In sixty three? She got me a job.
Speaker 1: She said, you don't have any money, and she said,
Speaker 1: I'm going to get you a job. I got your
Speaker 1: job at Universal Pictures, and I went out to California
Speaker 1: to work at Universal Pictures to make money. Yes, we're
Speaker 1: writing screens. I didn't know what it was. I would
Speaker 1: go out there to find out. And I got there,
Speaker 1: and what was waiting for me when I arrived was
Speaker 1: my draft notice. And because I still was under and
Speaker 1: so I literally, at the last minute got into the reserves.
Speaker 1: And then I got out of the service, and I
Speaker 1: realized I never wanted to be in California again. Why
Speaker 1: I hated it? What about it? It wasn't East Long Beach,
Speaker 1: East Atlantic Beach, East Atlantic Beach. My soul would have
Speaker 1: died in California. I just knew. I said, that's not
Speaker 1: very We had nothing to do with screen writing. I mean,
Speaker 1: I mean there was a movie life and uh back
Speaker 1: east As my friend said to me once where he
Speaker 1: was an agent. He said, I said, do you think
Speaker 1: so and so I didn't want to hire me and
Speaker 1: this one didn't want to hire me. This is, you know,
Speaker 1: back in the early two thousands. And I said, do
Speaker 1: you think this one doesn't want to hire me because
Speaker 1: they don't like me or they think I'm going to
Speaker 1: be difficult to work with? He says, no, I don't
Speaker 1: think that's that they think badly of you. He said,
Speaker 1: I think it's that they don't think of you at all. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's to me with l a like like everything
Speaker 1: burns bright. You get your three years of the tail
Speaker 1: of the comet streaming behind you, and then you're gone.
Speaker 1: I mean, nobody really really thinks of you. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's still one of the great moments in my life.
Speaker 1: It was so shocking and hilarious and I mean it
Speaker 1: was is that I was nominated for an oscar in
Speaker 1: Atlantic City and Adela and I went in, you know,
Speaker 1: to where it was held that year and there were
Speaker 1: five hundred photograph say two camera lights, lights, light lighte fantastic.
Speaker 1: I didn't win. We came out and there were the
Speaker 1: two D and fifty camera and waiting there and they
Speaker 1: saw a DELI came out and as if on stig
Speaker 1: all two cameras dropped. They just dropped to silence and
Speaker 1: waited for us to pass. It was jaw dropping. It
Speaker 1: was great. Right to the airport and going home. I
Speaker 1: did right. What was that experience like making that film?
Speaker 1: One of the greatest mom you enjoyed working with Mom?
Speaker 1: Louie became one of my best friends. We became great, great,
Speaker 1: great great friends. And what was the origin of that?
Speaker 1: They came to you had written the screenplay they hired.
Speaker 1: You know. I got a call one day and this
Speaker 1: man with an accent said, is this junkua I'm looking for?
Speaker 1: John said, yes, is he? And he said, did you
Speaker 1: write that play I would have seen last year at
Speaker 1: the Public Theater coll Landscape of the Body. I said yes.
Speaker 1: He said, I've been looking for you. I would like
Speaker 1: to talk to you about a project. If I said
Speaker 1: where he's where, I said, come over, I'm out here.
Speaker 1: So he came over to my apartment and he said,
Speaker 1: I have got money to do a thrillout with Susan
Speaker 1: Surrandon and an unnamed mail star. That is, there's a
Speaker 1: big tax thing in Canada right now where you get
Speaker 1: right off every every dollar invested in UH movie made
Speaker 1: part of it has to be shot in Canada, with
Speaker 1: the Canadians and with the Canadian Yes, And he said,
Speaker 1: the screen we just we have no screenplay. What I hope,
Speaker 1: It's just it's impossible. We have Susan Surrandon and a
Speaker 1: building full of Canadians and no, it was not even.
Speaker 1: And it was also what I loved about it was
Speaker 1: that it was the money was it was a rabbi
Speaker 1: from Winnipeg was in charge of the of the fun
Speaker 1: that was putting this together. Had come to Louie to
Speaker 1: direct thriller, and so he said, did I have any
Speaker 1: ideas from moving? And I knew that Louie I'd loved
Speaker 1: it because he was always made great documentaries. You know,
Speaker 1: he'd started out of life as Jacques Cousto's cameraman and
Speaker 1: you know, dope under this travel around the world diving
Speaker 1: under the sea to day the Calypso is Erica, that's right,
Speaker 1: the silent world. And they wanted to ask, you know,
Speaker 1: and our Jackson Heights neighbor when I was a kid,
Speaker 1: it was still my mother's my father's not since long dead,
Speaker 1: but our neighbor was a man named Tony Ray who
Speaker 1: was head of Resorts Internationally Chalfon Hadden Hotel, which was
Speaker 1: going to become the first the first hotel to go
Speaker 1: to turn into a casino called Resorts International. And my
Speaker 1: mother would listen to Dorothy all the time, saying how
Speaker 1: exciting it was a game that was coming to Atlantic City.
Speaker 1: Going to rescue this time was Tony and I had
Speaker 1: moved from the world off down to the Atlantic City
Speaker 1: and I was throwing it aways, and my mother bought
Speaker 1: stock in It's International and so and I kept reading
Speaker 1: about in the paper. It's how this whole city was
Speaker 1: going to change thanks to this, And I said, it
Speaker 1: seems to be really interesting what's going on down in
Speaker 1: the Atlantic City right now? So he said, let's go down,
Speaker 1: and we went down and Tony took us around and
Speaker 1: the first thing we saw was in we went into
Speaker 1: Resorts International and there was a clam bar, a wet bar,
Speaker 1: and there was all these good looking girls opening clams,
Speaker 1: shocking clams. So what's that, he said, Well, to prove
Speaker 1: that they are serious about they wanted to be card dealers,
Speaker 1: they have to work at a job like this for
Speaker 1: three months before they're able to take lessons, you know,
Speaker 1: learn how to become card dealers. I said that Susan Surandon,
Speaker 1: Susan Surrandon will shuck will chuck clam. That was the
Speaker 1: first image. Well that, yes, and her breasts and her
Speaker 1: her shoulders and anyway, so in that time we met
Speaker 1: Skinny Tomato, who was the number one mobster in town.
Speaker 1: It was a great, great day. We stayed up all
Speaker 1: night talking because there was so many rules in Atlantic City.
Speaker 1: What you had to do in order to qualify for banking,
Speaker 1: to make yourself legit. And I saw a book Atlantic
Speaker 1: City biker named Vicki gold Leby was sailed down there.
Speaker 1: I forgot her name. Yes, that's what it was. And
Speaker 1: there was a picture of a gangster's convention in al Capol.
Speaker 1: Was up at the top, like the far left corner.
Speaker 1: There was a young boy smiling in the gangster's convention.
Speaker 1: And I said, that's our male star. That's him as
Speaker 1: a young man. He's he went for that picture and
Speaker 1: he's been here ever since, and so the picture just
Speaker 1: he But he said, the only problem is he said
Speaker 1: that today is named male Star. Where did his character
Speaker 1: come from? Well that that guy was that it was
Speaker 1: a kid. The kid would yeah, yeah, Lancaster. Well but
Speaker 1: it was like the seventh choice, Luis, there's only one
Speaker 1: problemises today is July. And he said, we have to
Speaker 1: have the picture in order qualify with the tax dollars,
Speaker 1: and we have to finished shooting by December thirty one
Speaker 1: nine this year. Get typing. Get typing, and I did,
Speaker 1: and two weeks later I went over to Dynn. I
Speaker 1: wag to Frands and I gave him a first draft
Speaker 1: and we started working and we started filming on into October.
Speaker 1: It was absolutely wonderful. Now we we talked because I
Speaker 1: just finished doing a film with Will Smith. I did
Speaker 1: this song about the NFL concussion policy that Peter Landisman
Speaker 1: wrote and directed. And I told you that I worked
Speaker 1: with Will who I had always loved me right movie
Speaker 1: stars in this generation. And we talked about six Degrees
Speaker 1: in the film and how you had said you didn't
Speaker 1: see him in the part when you first no, because
Speaker 1: they were were told that the guy who was bringing
Speaker 1: a lot of money to the picture said he had
Speaker 1: one His money came with one price that it had
Speaker 1: to be uh, Will Smith had to play the league.
Speaker 1: And I said, well, I don't take TV sitcom rap
Speaker 1: singer and a TV in my important yes, and so
Speaker 1: I said no, And so all we have. But so
Speaker 1: both Fred Skepsy who was the director, and I we
Speaker 1: agreed that we would meet Will separately and not and
Speaker 1: you know when flipp a Coin and Fred would go first,
Speaker 1: and then I would go the next night and meet
Speaker 1: Will and then we would meet and to decide, you know,
Speaker 1: if we wanted him or not, because we were ready
Speaker 1: to you know, to tank the picture would just say, well, well,
Speaker 1: you know, if he isn't right, we'll walk from it
Speaker 1: and I'll tear him. I went, and we'll open the door.
Speaker 1: And within thirty seconds, I said, I let this guy
Speaker 1: into my house. I mean, he was just great. He
Speaker 1: was great. Will was absolutely first rate, was absolutely wonderful.
Speaker 1: When you when you produce plays, when you premiere plays,
Speaker 1: I mean, like any playwright, not all of your plays
Speaker 1: have been as successful as the others, and and and
Speaker 1: the ones that have been successful, do they have something
Speaker 1: in common the ones that worked best? I have no idea,
Speaker 1: but of course six degrees people. If I knew, I
Speaker 1: would just push I would push that. But I would
Speaker 1: just push that button open keep scooping. There's no play.
Speaker 1: I know, I'll taste something. It's not like the play
Speaker 1: was more success. That's I'm not trying to, you know,
Speaker 1: to cover my tracks. But I know the reason why
Speaker 1: I wrote every play. I wrote. What that that play is,
Speaker 1: not whether it's a failure or success. I mean it
Speaker 1: might be whatever the reviews are, which I consume a report.
Speaker 1: You know what your life will be should I get
Speaker 1: that job teaching? You know, what what should I do?
Speaker 1: You know, to get the money next year or else, Hey,
Speaker 1: we're gonna take you know, wow, we might have you know,
Speaker 1: things might be good. We can you know. But I
Speaker 1: know the reason why I wrote that play, and I
Speaker 1: can look back in the past and said, oh damn,
Speaker 1: I see how I screwed that up. I see what
Speaker 1: I see what I did wrong in that. But I
Speaker 1: must I can't fix that place, but I must be
Speaker 1: aware of that in the next play. Uh No, So
Speaker 1: I mean there's no button that you push to say.
Speaker 1: I mean, how many people have destroyed their careers because
Speaker 1: they say how and they keep trying to write the same, replace, recreate,
Speaker 1: recreate the same. So you have no idea. And if
Speaker 1: you're new, if you said, okay, well, I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: I don't know what I mean, I'm gonna lie. But
Speaker 1: now now I don't gonna have too long, and then
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have pushed the hit button and I'm going
Speaker 1: to write that Yeah, it's as I plan. No, and
Speaker 1: then I put that hit combination, that hit recipe, and
Speaker 1: that's it's no. There's no such thing as a hit recipe.
Speaker 1: It's all in the left. Is there one that was
Speaker 1: less commercially successful than the others that you have a
Speaker 1: tremendous fondness for. Is there one that you sit there
Speaker 1: that you're child that you love the most. I wouldn't
Speaker 1: dare to pick one of them. I wouldn't mean they're
Speaker 1: all you know, Yeah, I mean my bother Yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't have any favorites. Is there something that your characters
Speaker 1: in many, if not all, of your plays have in common?
Speaker 1: Is there something that they're striving for? There's something that
Speaker 1: they're seeking. Is there something you're working out yourself that's
Speaker 1: manifested all of the players or most of the players.
Speaker 1: You're right, it has to be. I mean what would
Speaker 1: that be? I don't know. You just want the best.
Speaker 1: You want the best. The truth seekers they want the
Speaker 1: truth because my ultimate question is are you? Are you
Speaker 1: as honest as the characters are on your play? Oh? No, oh,
Speaker 1: of course I am. I am, I an. I have
Speaker 1: no idea. I mean, I would think that would be Uh,
Speaker 1: I can't. You'll have to ask other people. In my
Speaker 1: own mind, I'm perfectly life and ask Adele Yes, let
Speaker 1: me get to her first. Yes and no. But it's
Speaker 1: uh no, I mean I think they so. I think
Speaker 1: they all want something. I think they all want something ineffable.
Speaker 1: I think it's maybe some sort of divine in the
Speaker 1: largest sense of the word, to my dissatisfaction. Is this
Speaker 1: all it is? Is this? I want? I want more,
Speaker 1: I want more, I one, What do you want more
Speaker 1: of it? What did you want more of? Well? I
Speaker 1: don't know what I wanted. I just wanted immortality. You know,
Speaker 1: it's just as simple as that. Do you have that?
Speaker 1: Of course? Not? Of course what do I do? All
Speaker 1: I know is I'm but Kitty Hart, remember Kitty Carlisle.
Speaker 1: I love Kitty, And she said, John, I'm not a
Speaker 1: religious person, but I have one prayer that I said
Speaker 1: every day. Oh dear God, I don't want anything more,
Speaker 1: Just let me keep what I have, and that, to
Speaker 1: me is the best. That's I'll settle for that. Now
Speaker 1: you go to the theater, You go see theater, absolutely
Speaker 1: right now, What was it changed in your lifetimes? Is
Speaker 1: it basically the same way you feel it has changed?
Speaker 1: The Broadway theater. There are things like you know, Curious
Speaker 1: Center of the Dog in the Night, which is still thrilling.
Speaker 1: You know, you just say theater is dead, and then
Speaker 1: you go see that and you just say it's from
Speaker 1: a book. I didn't like especially and you go see
Speaker 1: in your eye jaw drops it how wonderful it is.
Speaker 1: And I'm going to see Hamilton's this weekend, and I'm
Speaker 1: seeing it tomorrow night. I'm seeing Nathan tomorrow night and
Speaker 1: have a double espresso and always going to be great.
Speaker 1: And Hallie FIfF for this young playwright has a remarkable
Speaker 1: play down at Atlantic Theater. Cool. I'm gonna pray for
Speaker 1: you so hard. Uh, I mean, there's always stuff to see.
Speaker 1: I love an economics, doesn't You don't find that daunting
Speaker 1: or difference it was ever? Thus, I don't know. I mean, luckily,
Speaker 1: I'm a Tony voter, so I get a pair of
Speaker 1: tickets every show, which means a lot. But I mean
Speaker 1: I was shocked at the price of the tickets for
Speaker 1: for Iceman Cometh. You know. So the theater has always
Speaker 1: been dying, It's always been horrible. It's always been terrible.
Speaker 1: It's always no, I mean, it's just there, it is,
Speaker 1: It's just it's just there. Do you think that New
Speaker 1: York is still the most democratic? Say? Uh, as New
Speaker 1: York changed in your lifetime or that still the same? Well? No,
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean my New York is so many landmarks,
Speaker 1: my personal and marks and missing you know from Uh,
Speaker 1: I mean I when I first came to New York
Speaker 1: fifty years ago, when I first go when I get
Speaker 1: out of the Air Force, like, I had an apartment
Speaker 1: corner of four Street and tenth Street in the village,
Speaker 1: fourth floor, walkup, twenty ft ceiling with the skylight, wood
Speaker 1: burning fireplace, eating kitchen in the bathroom, looking out on
Speaker 1: the fourth looking out in the gardens below. What was
Speaker 1: the rent? What was the rent? Two thirty two dollars
Speaker 1: a month. Uh, you could really live in New York
Speaker 1: and I just but kids now live in find new
Speaker 1: places to live that the rules are always the rules
Speaker 1: are always changing, and we're always looking for Paris in
Speaker 1: the nineteen twenties, and it was a really rare time
Speaker 1: in the early sixties in New York with Cafe Cino
Speaker 1: and La Mama and the off off Broadway scene which
Speaker 1: had never there never been anything like it in New
Speaker 1: York before. And uh, yeah, so what do I miss
Speaker 1: New York? No, I'm so New York still. I was
Speaker 1: born here, conceived here, drug up here, and it still
Speaker 1: makes my jaw drop with something you say, wow, wow,
Speaker 1: I know it's throwing. The theater, John Guare says, is
Speaker 1: a place of dreams where you lay out the unconscious
Speaker 1: and make it visible. After the break, I'll talk with
Speaker 1: Lisa dun a London based actress who's now tackling the
Speaker 1: works of another influential playwright who exposes the unconscious, samuelil Beckett.
Speaker 1: Take a listen to our archive where director Stephen Daldry
Speaker 1: told me about the difference between working in theater and film.
Speaker 1: One is it in the theater. Everybody's in the same room,
Speaker 1: so everybody can see what the beast is. Everyone can
Speaker 1: see what it's made. And you start at the beginning,
Speaker 1: and you finished with people. You start with, the people
Speaker 1: you finish with, and the movie the people you prep with,
Speaker 1: the people you shoot with them, the people you shoot with,
Speaker 1: all the people you finish with the people. It's more
Speaker 1: like a relay base making a movie. Take a listen
Speaker 1: and here's the thing, Dot Org. This is Alec Baldwin
Speaker 1: and you're listening to here's the thing. No matter, parents
Speaker 1: are known, unheard of. Saving Valage not I is a
Speaker 1: one woman play by Samuel Beckett, performed here by my
Speaker 1: next guest, Lisa Duan on Speechless infant in the home.
Speaker 1: No no, indeed, for that matter, any of any kind,
Speaker 1: no love of any kind at any subsequent stage. It's
Speaker 1: a typical affair, nothing of any note till coming up
Speaker 1: to six D. The physical demands of not I are extreme,
Speaker 1: and who better to rise to them? But it classically
Speaker 1: trained a dancer like Dwan. For the past year, Duan
Speaker 1: has performed three Beckett plays together, not I, Footfalls and
Speaker 1: Rockabye last year at the Brooklyn Academy of Music last
Speaker 1: month at London's Barbican. Lisa Dwan had done not I
Speaker 1: on its own before, but wasn't convinced she could do
Speaker 1: the trilogy. But Martin Sheen, her co star in a
Speaker 1: movie about the bull Pall disaster, suggested a one woman show.
Speaker 1: At the time, Duane, an attractive, petite blonde, was tired
Speaker 1: of the roles she was being offered. She was desperate
Speaker 1: for a challenge. I was feeling very frustrated, you know,
Speaker 1: being a woman of a particular look. You're given these
Speaker 1: kind of cardboard cutouts, these pithy little lines, these one dimensional,
Speaker 1: little flimsy rolls, and it's demoralizing, it's depressing. I mean,
Speaker 1: I sprung on the scene, thinking, I was like the
Speaker 1: guys when I wanted to become I was a ballet
Speaker 1: dancer first, and when I became an actress. And you
Speaker 1: mean that transition because you were injured. Yeah, ballet ended
Speaker 1: because of an injury. Would you have kept on if
Speaker 1: you could have? Probably that was your passion? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know. I found I could express myself so much
Speaker 1: more as a dancer. And yeah, it seems you've gone
Speaker 1: from one extreme to the other because dancing, which is
Speaker 1: purely physical and Beckett, which, in my mind of the
Speaker 1: least the pieces you're doing are strictly about language. I disagree.
Speaker 1: In fact, I feel I dance more now and express
Speaker 1: myself more through kind of the principles of dance then
Speaker 1: I ever did. In which of the three pieces or
Speaker 1: all of them? All of them? All of them and
Speaker 1: not I, which is you know, such a contradiction. The most,
Speaker 1: I feel like an element in not I, I don't
Speaker 1: even feel like a woman, are a human being. I
Speaker 1: feel like an element. And the fact that my head
Speaker 1: is trapped in and my arms are strapped in and
Speaker 1: into this head harness, so I don't move, so my
Speaker 1: mouth is eight ft above the stage and doesn't move
Speaker 1: out of this pinprick of light. So for people to understand,
Speaker 1: because we're getting to this, we've gotten right into try
Speaker 1: to get a tiptoe up on the Beckett and the
Speaker 1: Nati tab low. But now that we've gotten right to
Speaker 1: the to the steak and potatoes, here were skipping the
Speaker 1: salad course. Ladies and gentlemen, For those who don't know,
Speaker 1: briefly describe for us what you're talking about. The contraption
Speaker 1: and everything when you look at it, if isolation of
Speaker 1: the physical mouth, the tableau is of a mouth speaking
Speaker 1: and everything else is blacked out. And you will explain
Speaker 1: how that's achieved. But it couldn't have been achieved in
Speaker 1: some more simple way. You couldn't have been sitting in
Speaker 1: a chair and they put they draped something over you,
Speaker 1: or I'm sure it could. That could demands sacrifice snow
Speaker 1: in fact that he's not some sort of fetishist or something.
Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, could you hold this cactus
Speaker 1: between your knees while you're performing? I wouldn't put it
Speaker 1: past him, but I don't think that was his intention.
Speaker 1: And I think if technology had caught up with him,
Speaker 1: such an innovator in theater, I would love him to
Speaker 1: be around today because you could just imagine what he
Speaker 1: could do with we're going to talk, We're going to twitter,
Speaker 1: be it on Twitter. Well, I don't think it'd be
Speaker 1: interested in that, but I just think technology could offer expression.
Speaker 1: You know, I want to talk about the Beckett ethos
Speaker 1: if you will, or pathos. But describe to me because
Speaker 1: with this kind of thing, I find this fascinating. Described
Speaker 1: to me how the day begins doing the not I process.
Speaker 1: You wake up and what's the day like to the
Speaker 1: moment that they're you know, they're greasing you up with
Speaker 1: the black face and strapping you w into the contraption. Sure, well,
Speaker 1: just for the listeners at home who don't know what
Speaker 1: this is like, not I is a disembodied mouth eight
Speaker 1: foot above the stage. It was a play that was
Speaker 1: written in one and Beckett wrote it in a stream
Speaker 1: of consciousness. Although I don't hear just one stream of consciousness.
Speaker 1: I hear layers of them, a kind of cacophony of voices.
Speaker 1: But it was first performed in one in the Lincoln Center.
Speaker 1: Jessica Tandy performed it. That was the first one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she did in about twenty three minutes and Beckett went
Speaker 1: backstage and said, you've destroyed my play. I mean, it
Speaker 1: didn't harm her career clearly. But he then wrote to
Speaker 1: Alan Schneider and said, I'd like to direct Billy White
Speaker 1: Lawn this myself and find out if its theater or not.
Speaker 1: And and he had had an ongoing relationship with White
Speaker 1: law was his just a year before she had performed play,
Speaker 1: which is these three people and Earns and these kind
Speaker 1: of fragmented monologues. So Beckett was really working towards not
Speaker 1: I It was always part of a trajectory of pairing away,
Speaker 1: stripping away the unnecessary. This is when we get into
Speaker 1: laid Beckett, which is distilled language. I mean, art is reduction,
Speaker 1: and early Beckett is when he really had the albatross
Speaker 1: of Joyce around his neck. You know, the verbosity and
Speaker 1: in my view, slightly pretentious inaccessibility. You know Beckett later, Okay,
Speaker 1: you're the Beckett interpreter who can label Joyce and I
Speaker 1: don't know what I mean. I'm just shameless, I guess.
Speaker 1: But your entitled to your opinion. Yeah, you've earned it
Speaker 1: after what I've seen, But go ahead and continue. Never
Speaker 1: be allowed to perform choice. But anyway, I first heard
Speaker 1: about this play when I was about eighteen, just around
Speaker 1: when I started to kind of start acting after my
Speaker 1: my knee injury. Yeah, when I first heard about it,
Speaker 1: and meanwhile I was doing this awful TV series where
Speaker 1: I was the leading lady, and I just felt embarrassed.
Speaker 1: Why I just feel very underused. Oh that's what you
Speaker 1: think woman is? You know, maybe not very complex roles.
Speaker 1: You're probably sick of hearing this, but don't know what's
Speaker 1: what's the job? The job was what like a soap? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was a TV series and American TV series. I
Speaker 1: did fifty six episodes of leading actress and this was
Speaker 1: what my first professional gig. My first professional gig was
Speaker 1: a soap opportunity. Okay, and you know you have all
Speaker 1: of these romantic notions. I was reading the Greeks. I
Speaker 1: wanted to play antigny. You know, back when women were
Speaker 1: multifaceted and multi dimension you made that mistake of bringing
Speaker 1: your appetite for fuagra to the hotdog stamp. Many people
Speaker 1: do that a mistake. But whereas I when I did
Speaker 1: a television series like that, I said thought to myself, Okay,
Speaker 1: what is this. You've been acting, but you did fifty
Speaker 1: six episodes, and it wasn't It was less about the
Speaker 1: material than you being cast and how they saw women.
Speaker 1: So did you start to develop your roles and and
Speaker 1: build the depth and what you were given as opposed
Speaker 1: to I think that for me, I remember, the best
Speaker 1: way to define it was I felt like I was
Speaker 1: a guest in people's house. And then a few years
Speaker 1: went by, and by the time I probably made my
Speaker 1: eighth film, I'm sitting on a set and I'm going
Speaker 1: you know, I've made as many films now as you
Speaker 1: have the director, I have enough experience how to say,
Speaker 1: I don't think I do that. You can't do good
Speaker 1: work in film or television without good directors. Otherwise they're
Speaker 1: just obstacles. But whereas in theater, in that moment, you
Speaker 1: have ultimate control. And with Beckett he removes really the
Speaker 1: necessity for directors. It really is a direct communication between
Speaker 1: the writing and the actor. Do you have some knowledge
Speaker 1: or in Psychi this would be fascinating as to what
Speaker 1: Beckett's relationships were with the directors of his material. You
Speaker 1: see Beckett's work as so multifaceted. You know, he he
Speaker 1: took care of absolutely everything. He still takes care of
Speaker 1: absolutely everything from Beyond the Grave. It's all the stage directions.
Speaker 1: I mean, they are like art installations. He writes his score.
Speaker 1: I wish I had it actually to show you, but
Speaker 1: like you look at the early drafts of Footfalls, the
Speaker 1: middle play that I do, which is highly complex and
Speaker 1: probably one of Beckett's least understood plays, but it's written
Speaker 1: like a score of music, so you have these ours
Speaker 1: were on the third bar may and the length of
Speaker 1: time spoken. He works out every step, so he's also choreographer,
Speaker 1: so you know, it's high poeticism, both visually orally and emotionally.
Speaker 1: And I feel Beckett's communicating directly with that instrument, which
Speaker 1: is me or whoever the actor is, and the director
Speaker 1: has to just kind of service that and get out
Speaker 1: of the way and not try to place their own
Speaker 1: stamp or ego on it. And I mean I've I've
Speaker 1: seen productions where it's such and such does Crabs last Tape,
Speaker 1: and they want to make it, you know, put their
Speaker 1: own stamp on it. And really I feel Becky can
Speaker 1: hang you out to dry. You start to watch this
Speaker 1: kind of tug of war between the language and the
Speaker 1: music and what this person is trying to do, and
Speaker 1: quite frankly, I've always felt that beck It always wins.
Speaker 1: Now that's not to say that's well said, that's not try.
Speaker 1: If you try to interpret Beckett, you're going to get
Speaker 1: some kind of metaphysical electric shock from Beckett. That's not
Speaker 1: to say that there isn't room for interpretation. There's plenty scope.
Speaker 1: I don't move away that much from the stage directions.
Speaker 1: Although I did take a big kind of leap with Footfalls,
Speaker 1: which is normally played by two actresses. I played both roles,
Speaker 1: this ninety year old woman off stage and May his
Speaker 1: own stage in her forties. That I played both roles
Speaker 1: and put together a kind of quite academic argument for
Speaker 1: the Beckett the stage, and thankfully they gave me the
Speaker 1: thumbs up. And it kind of worked because I wasn't
Speaker 1: kind of stepping away too much from what I felt
Speaker 1: was Beckett's intention within that realm, there's just so much scope.
Speaker 1: Before we talk about the trip tick of the three
Speaker 1: pieces together, well you did not I first and thought
Speaker 1: you didn't have the capacity to do all three. At
Speaker 1: one point you said, oh, I don't think I can
Speaker 1: do that. When someone began to suggest that, talk about
Speaker 1: the night you do all three or even not I.
Speaker 1: What's the day like for you? Describe what it's like. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So I get up in the morning and I meditate
Speaker 1: because not I as a beast, no matter how long
Speaker 1: I've been doing it, it's daunting and frightening and demands
Speaker 1: the most extreme form of concentration. And you know, in
Speaker 1: a crass sense, not I as a representation of thought,
Speaker 1: and when you're in it, you really realize he's a
Speaker 1: genius because it's exactly how my mind works. And when
Speaker 1: I read it first, did I be scared to be
Speaker 1: at this booth with you? I think in different places,
Speaker 1: the different plays resonate more or less, and not I
Speaker 1: resonated very strongly here in New York because of the
Speaker 1: loudness of people's it's manic. The pace here is just manic,
Speaker 1: and we're all feeling highly caffeinated, stressed out individuals trying
Speaker 1: to keep pace. People are awake here, yeah, or we're
Speaker 1: struggling to stay awake, very awake or there country, but
Speaker 1: they're in the ring and leading with they're left. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And you know, probably one of the biggest piece or
Speaker 1: obstacles when doing not I is your own internal not I.
Speaker 1: So here, I am trying to say this impossible piece
Speaker 1: at the speed of thought, which is what Beckett wanted,
Speaker 1: with my head tied into harness, so I don't move
Speaker 1: out of light. So I usually rehearse in the banisters
Speaker 1: at home. I time my head with a scarf into
Speaker 1: the banisters to train my diet from and I've got
Speaker 1: very understanding neighbors. Come over here, honey, let's put the
Speaker 1: groceries down on the table. I'm my face is lashed
Speaker 1: to the banister. It's meditation. And then I read somewhere
Speaker 1: where you do the piece a few times in the morning,
Speaker 1: because no matter how many times you do it, you
Speaker 1: have to kind of take a bite out of it
Speaker 1: during the day and just to get a little bit
Speaker 1: of a run into it. And then I use three
Speaker 1: different forms of memory. One is the oral, so you know,
Speaker 1: like a song or anything like that. The next is
Speaker 1: the narrative, which isn't that difficult. It's just very fragmented,
Speaker 1: and there's all these interruptions and insurrections and things like that.
Speaker 1: And then there's how the piece looks on the page,
Speaker 1: which is kind of my my visual peg. So memorization
Speaker 1: just bizarre, isn't it how you remember and the new
Speaker 1: monarchs you create. Like if I have a list of
Speaker 1: adjectives or a list of institutions or a list of names,
Speaker 1: I'll sit there and I'll say to someone, I'll go, well,
Speaker 1: you realize that he's just preposterously wealthy and sophisticated. And
Speaker 1: also then I'll go p w S, p w S.
Speaker 1: I'll say that to myself in the games we play,
Speaker 1: I know, and you need a few maddening Yeah, you
Speaker 1: need a few different tricks. Yeah. So you do the
Speaker 1: piece a few times. You get to the theater eight o'clock, Curt,
Speaker 1: Let's say you're there, what time? Typically I come in
Speaker 1: early and do a run in the head harness with
Speaker 1: my stay manager, because the head harness is a whole different.
Speaker 1: I mean, I could perform the piece here for you now,
Speaker 1: and all the energy leaks away, and it's a lot easier,
Speaker 1: and it's sayings and you see all the kind of dexterity,
Speaker 1: and you see the traffic coming and going around my face,
Speaker 1: and I could say the traffic because these are the
Speaker 1: little waves of stream of consciousness. You know the roads
Speaker 1: of Ireland, the sounds of Ireland. And then you lock
Speaker 1: tight and something else happens, and you just go deep, deep,
Speaker 1: deep into my consciousness. You know, I can't see. I've
Speaker 1: got black makeup from my cheap bones to my collar bone.
Speaker 1: And then I just release the lips. I just I
Speaker 1: don't wear lipstick aroundthing. I just take off the black
Speaker 1: where the lips should be. And then I put on
Speaker 1: a blindfold and a shawl and then I slip into
Speaker 1: the head harness so I can't see or hear, and
Speaker 1: then my arms are put into brackets and I can't move,
Speaker 1: and all of that energy, all the kind of the
Speaker 1: pace and the role and the judgment of Ireland and
Speaker 1: the hilarity my vision of it's just so the audience
Speaker 1: can get this sense. I don't want to lose this idea.
Speaker 1: Is when I saw the visual the pictures, it's almost
Speaker 1: like you're on a massage table and your face is
Speaker 1: through that cradle, you know what I mean, And then
Speaker 1: there's a bar that goes across your back that kind
Speaker 1: of smashes you into the massage table, you know. Then
Speaker 1: they tilt the table straight up. It's a weird position
Speaker 1: you're put in. Well, it's not something dissimilar from something
Speaker 1: you'd see in a bog Arab with the water boarding
Speaker 1: and just turned the other way. You know, it does
Speaker 1: feel like a torture device, but then something bizarre happens.
Speaker 1: So just from the audience point of view, I'm going
Speaker 1: back to when I first heard about this play. I
Speaker 1: remember this greatback at actor Stephen Brennan, when I was
Speaker 1: in the middle of this TV series is my father,
Speaker 1: and I'm just pent up with all of this kind
Speaker 1: of I suppose what I recognized now it was artistic frustration,
Speaker 1: but I didn't know what it was then. I was
Speaker 1: just frustrated. And he told me about not I and
Speaker 1: he said, there's this play, which is the toughest play.
Speaker 1: Many actors have gone mad trying to learn it. But
Speaker 1: this disembodied mouth hovers across the stage. And even though
Speaker 1: the mouth is locked into place because of the sensory
Speaker 1: deprivation in an entirely blackened out auditorium, the mouth appears
Speaker 1: to osculate or travel across the audience. And that's different
Speaker 1: for everybody in the audience. They all experience an optical illusion. Yeah,
Speaker 1: fires around the place for people, and it's different for
Speaker 1: every member of the audience. No, I don't really, but
Speaker 1: the audience thinks I'm moving, and I think Becat takes
Speaker 1: that to the extreme here. And this is why you
Speaker 1: feel so safe. This is why I can splain myself
Speaker 1: onto this torture chamber, because he's taken care of everything.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you've ever felt like that with
Speaker 1: another writer, but you know one of his rehearsal periods
Speaker 1: with Billy White and he said, Billy, Billy, bring your
Speaker 1: pencil over here, three lines down, four words in. Can
Speaker 1: you make those e dots to dots? And he took
Speaker 1: up a dot. And if a writer can be that
Speaker 1: pedantic about that, you can pretty much feel safe about
Speaker 1: the whole. And I just feel his genius makes me
Speaker 1: feel so held that all I have to do is
Speaker 1: give him everything. Do you find it difficult not to
Speaker 1: channel White Law? I was lucky the sequence of events
Speaker 1: and how I ended up doing Beckett. I've just been
Speaker 1: incredibly lucky. I hadn't seen White Laws performance and it's
Speaker 1: on YouTube, and I didn't watch it when I first
Speaker 1: got cast, so I had the image of my mind.
Speaker 1: I still never seen nott I in the theater, only
Speaker 1: my performance, so I only know what it's like to
Speaker 1: be in it. And when I read the script. I
Speaker 1: heard Ireland, I heard my father. I heard the streets
Speaker 1: of Athlone, and the scorn and the bitterness, and the
Speaker 1: nuns and the humor, and my family, and there's my aunt.
Speaker 1: It became my personal landscape. And I didn't have this
Speaker 1: kind of reverential holy Grail feelings of intimidation in regards
Speaker 1: to Beckett. I suppose I was slightly sacrilegious or or
Speaker 1: you know, I might as well have been wrapped to you. No,
Speaker 1: but it was home and it was mine, and I
Speaker 1: think that's why I got the part, you know. And
Speaker 1: then my director said, I don't want you to see
Speaker 1: Billy's performance. This has to be yours. And that was
Speaker 1: hard to do because Billy and Beckett, it's like a
Speaker 1: natural call off response. Yeah, and I avoided it. And
Speaker 1: then Edward Beckett came to the opening night into thousand
Speaker 1: and five and said, you know, I think you could
Speaker 1: meet Billy now that you found your own way and
Speaker 1: we met each other. Did she come see you know?
Speaker 1: She was quite reclusive at that point, but she agreed
Speaker 1: to meet me because she'd never met anyone who had
Speaker 1: played not I, and she was a beautiful woman him
Speaker 1: when she was young. She was I've seen shots of
Speaker 1: people forget that about Whitelaw because she played you know,
Speaker 1: the wacky nun and the almend nanny and the almend
Speaker 1: very severe and very kind of scary, the older, middle
Speaker 1: aged Billy Whitelaw. But young Billy Whitelaw. I looked online
Speaker 1: and there was She's like ravish, She's like the smugging
Speaker 1: musty and you know, and she played that when she
Speaker 1: did Happy Days as well. You know, she was no
Speaker 1: kind of character church. She was a leading lady when
Speaker 1: she was when she was younger. But but so you
Speaker 1: finally met her. So I met her, and we greeted
Speaker 1: each other like a long lost war veterans, and it
Speaker 1: was just this immediate access, comrade. Yeah, and you know,
Speaker 1: we were straight into the most intimate details. And where
Speaker 1: did you go on? What did you think of this?
Speaker 1: And you know, when did you swallow? Did you feel
Speaker 1: like a Pelican? Yes? Or did I you know? And
Speaker 1: and also I asked her a lot about Beckett and stuff.
Speaker 1: And I'm so lucky. And if there's anything I can
Speaker 1: ever pass on to any other actor in the future,
Speaker 1: if they ever want anything for me, is to remove
Speaker 1: all the am I all that swear? No, I'll think
Speaker 1: of something to remove all the kind of rubbish. If
Speaker 1: you don't swear, I'm going to be upset now all
Speaker 1: the bullshit surrounding Beckett. I can do better. But well,
Speaker 1: but but if we can remove all of that and
Speaker 1: really get down to the crux of the matter, to
Speaker 1: the truth, like I'm only beginning to find out, actually,
Speaker 1: And I think Beckett is what has taught me this
Speaker 1: Beckett and maybe a few other things, but I don't
Speaker 1: know if I really knew what truth sounded like. And
Speaker 1: being Irish, we can pretend to be all hard in
Speaker 1: your sleeve and sure we're so open and you know,
Speaker 1: and that's an act, but when you hear real truth,
Speaker 1: you can't argue with that. And Beckett is the type
Speaker 1: of artists that if you try and bring him anything
Speaker 1: less than that, he hangs you out today. But how
Speaker 1: do you feel, because I want to get back to
Speaker 1: the night of and then the three and then the
Speaker 1: three pieces together, But how do you feel when you
Speaker 1: say that? I want to read you a quote you
Speaker 1: talk about how Beckett looked down the barrel of life
Speaker 1: was a quote I got from here and you said,
Speaker 1: I met David Hair recently, and he said he wasn't
Speaker 1: convinced that Beckett believed his own worldview, that if he had,
Speaker 1: he wouldn't have gotten out of bed in the morning.
Speaker 1: The truth is he didn't often get out of bed.
Speaker 1: He was depressive, he was considered maladjusted. He suffered a
Speaker 1: great deal. And people have said to me, meaning you
Speaker 1: you know, Beckett's a very cruel writer. It might be
Speaker 1: okay for him to describe the world in that way,
Speaker 1: but the rest of us need our delusions unquote. Well,
Speaker 1: there's a certain amount of truth in that, but once
Speaker 1: you've looked down the barrel of life that way, it's
Speaker 1: very hard to forget what you've seen. Now, how do
Speaker 1: you think this is going to affect your work? Meaning
Speaker 1: when you do something that's as raw or whatever adjective
Speaker 1: you want to use, that's as truthful. That was the
Speaker 1: word you I think you use when you do a
Speaker 1: piece that reaches into you the way this has reached
Speaker 1: into you. What do you do when you go to work?
Speaker 1: And it's not that I don't know, you know? And
Speaker 1: I remember after meeting Billy, she wanted to direct me.
Speaker 1: She wanted to pass on Beckett's notes and I had
Speaker 1: been trying to do Beckett as I thought beck it
Speaker 1: should be done. You know, I had heard no color
Speaker 1: and don't act, and I was trying to kind of
Speaker 1: put this kind of monotone and not be too indulgent.
Speaker 1: And you know, I come from a strict classical ballet world,
Speaker 1: so I was adopting that kind of control and technique
Speaker 1: and not trying to be flashy in all of that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. And Billy said, what are you doing?
Speaker 1: Bring that all in? Because I was resisting these urges
Speaker 1: my own landscape, you know, my own sense of home
Speaker 1: and what that provokes in me. To bring that all in,
Speaker 1: And then the piece just started to sing and it
Speaker 1: was unlike anything that had been done before and not
Speaker 1: I and it worked. So Billy Billy into thousand and
Speaker 1: nine directed the version I did solo then without any director,
Speaker 1: and the night or the week I was opening, she
Speaker 1: went into hospital and that was it. And she's so
Speaker 1: desperate to pass on the notes. But I read a
Speaker 1: review that night and it said, this is going to
Speaker 1: spoil her for anything else. I don't be daff for
Speaker 1: Christ's sake, you know, beck And it's highly disciplined work,
Speaker 1: but you know, you can't have a symphony all the time.
Speaker 1: You can have occasional pop song. He does. Once you've
Speaker 1: tasted truth to that level, once you've had the most multifaceted,
Speaker 1: expansive landscape to work in, you're completely spoiled. So they
Speaker 1: strap you in when you do the three pieces, not
Speaker 1: I as the first, and then you take off the
Speaker 1: makeup and the you do the other two pieces two minutes.
Speaker 1: You d rig from that I in two minute, then
Speaker 1: go and do the other piece. So you're strapped in
Speaker 1: and you're in the on the launch pad there and
Speaker 1: it's five four three two go? Do you get it?
Speaker 1: Letter perfect? Every night more or less there's the out
Speaker 1: on my skip a section, you know, a little two
Speaker 1: words or something like that, and give my stage manager
Speaker 1: a heart attack because you can find it. She can't
Speaker 1: keep up at that kind of speed. But it's terrifying
Speaker 1: because you know it is a tightrope act. If I
Speaker 1: trip up or make mistake, have killed the piece. But
Speaker 1: what happens, and this is where I feel like I'm
Speaker 1: an element. So there I am unable to move our
Speaker 1: ce or here, and I take flight. So while the
Speaker 1: audience are experiencing this hallucinations, all the exit signs are
Speaker 1: taken out, every led, everything is just blacked out. And
Speaker 1: they're experiencing this optical illusion of these lips hovering about
Speaker 1: the stage and moving rapidly, are coming really close to them,
Speaker 1: are going further away, and just moving like a spaceship.
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm taking flight. And that's a bizarre
Speaker 1: experience where I feel I'm circling around the old storium.
Speaker 1: It's a bizarre experience. Then two minutes to decompress, if
Speaker 1: you will, to go to the next piece. And the
Speaker 1: next piece is What Footfalls, And that's a piece about what,
Speaker 1: among other things. It's like a chamber piece of music,
Speaker 1: but it's an exploration of trauma and conflict. Well, it's
Speaker 1: a jew log with myself, with my mother in my head,
Speaker 1: the critic, and it's it's this call and response, you know,
Speaker 1: Beckett described as kind of thogy. She's trying to kill
Speaker 1: the voice in her head, the oppressor, the critics. And
Speaker 1: what's the third piece, rock a Bye, which is like
Speaker 1: um being rocked to death, summoning death. Well, I think
Speaker 1: death is summoning her. Are you afraid to die? Well?
Speaker 1: The thing about Beckett's characters, they kind of laugh, of death.
Speaker 1: They've been well, they've been dead already. You know, these
Speaker 1: works are a kind of haunting. I don't know, I
Speaker 1: kind of feel the death or among us, you know,
Speaker 1: either in our minds or in the ether. You do
Speaker 1: these pieces, and you do especially not I, which is
Speaker 1: this very difficult piece in your personal life? Without getting
Speaker 1: two personal do you like things to be when Lisa
Speaker 1: Dwan goes home? Does she like everything to be nice
Speaker 1: and easy? What do you like? A complex and challenging
Speaker 1: in all things? I tend to gravitate towards those. You know.
Speaker 1: My mother said that would you stopped doing that now,
Speaker 1: you'd be like Joan Crawford comedy next, you know. But
Speaker 1: I guess one of the things I find hard, And
Speaker 1: I don't want to sound like one of those kind
Speaker 1: of winging women, but I do find it hard when
Speaker 1: people present I I went to see Angels in America.
Speaker 1: Amazing play. What a poet, What a poet, what amazing
Speaker 1: nuanced roles? Faceted? Yeah is the Eva who but all
Speaker 1: these amazing complex roles for men. The women get the
Speaker 1: two stereotypes, the hysterical wife and the mother. Rosenberg is
Speaker 1: in there. Well, it's frustration. Well, we're gonna get to
Speaker 1: that lastly. But what has Beckett? What has the truth
Speaker 1: or truths that Beckett compels us to look at or
Speaker 1: stare down if you will. What's it told you about
Speaker 1: being Irish? Oh? I don't know much about what it
Speaker 1: means to be Irish. To be honest, I have a
Speaker 1: complex relationship with Ireland, does becketted? You know, kind of
Speaker 1: loving and loathing of the place. You love about it?
Speaker 1: The poetry, the poetry in the everyday language at humor um,
Speaker 1: the beauty of the music, you know, the inherent music
Speaker 1: and poetry. Oh, the small mindedness, the tall poppy syndrome,
Speaker 1: the misogyny. I sound like such an angry feminist. And
Speaker 1: maybe it's a phase I'm going through. Open When you
Speaker 1: say face, is it something you felt this way throughout
Speaker 1: You've been acting for a while now, have you have
Speaker 1: you felt this? I don't think I had the balls
Speaker 1: to put my finger on it. And I'm nowhere near
Speaker 1: your level or anybody's. But you know where you can
Speaker 1: actually just allow yourself, give yourself permission to have a viewpoint.
Speaker 1: And I suppose Beckett's kind of pushed me in that
Speaker 1: direction where I start to notice things. No, you're trying
Speaker 1: to squeeze me into this little box. You can't come
Speaker 1: at truth from that direction. You know, it comes from
Speaker 1: another place. And that's what Beckett has taught me more
Speaker 1: than anything. I had to use my personal landscape, my
Speaker 1: own story, the wounds of I don't know, rejection, whatever
Speaker 1: I grew up with. I use those, you know, really
Speaker 1: ordinary things, these these wounds, these weapons. And when the
Speaker 1: bell goes and footfalls, I picked those gaps and they
Speaker 1: bleed up. Well, let me just mention this because we're
Speaker 1: going to run out of time, and I want to say,
Speaker 1: you have a lot of energy. You have a lot
Speaker 1: of creative energy. I mean, you're like a real you
Speaker 1: know flame, you know, and in your work you're doing
Speaker 1: this remarkably difficult work, and it's remarkably precise work, and
Speaker 1: this remarkably disciplined work that you're nailing. I mean, people are,
Speaker 1: you know, lauding you and saying, well, these wonderful things.
Speaker 1: But you are someone who, as I said to you before,
Speaker 1: there are princesses of the theater, which they have a
Speaker 1: seat here in New York for you. They got a
Speaker 1: seat here for you. They're ready for you. You come here,
Speaker 1: you're gonna work. You're gonna work and work and play
Speaker 1: great roles and whether you do head of Gabbler or whatever.
Speaker 1: You they had a lot of parts here for you
Speaker 1: to play. So what are you moving here? That's really
Speaker 1: kind of what do you need the name of a broker?
Speaker 1: I have? I need everything? You should come here. I'd
Speaker 1: love to come here, But there's no. But no, that
Speaker 1: doesn't that that doesn't mean there's there's going to be
Speaker 1: opportunity here, not necessarily happiness. Oh I've given up. See
Speaker 1: that that's the Irish landscape. What's that? I wouldn't recognize
Speaker 1: it a bit in the urs. Well, i'll tell you what.
Speaker 1: That's another thing about Beckett. You know, he's hilarious and
Speaker 1: he laughs at our situation. But you know what, he
Speaker 1: doesn't sell us anything. He doesn't he doesn't sell us anything.
Speaker 1: And well, he's at war with sentimentality and he has
Speaker 1: taught me what you know, emotional gangsters are. He's been
Speaker 1: great at helping me not pick the duds that I
Speaker 1: used to draw in the past, you know, And he's
Speaker 1: been greater kind of helping me to thine own self
Speaker 1: be true. It's a big eye opener, and I think
Speaker 1: I could move to a place like New York with
Speaker 1: that kind of strong sense of myself and maybe not
Speaker 1: fall apart if things don't work out as planned. I
Speaker 1: have a hunch things will work out very well for
Speaker 1: Lisa Dwan if she makes the move. She'll have another
Speaker 1: chance to try out New York living when she performs
Speaker 1: two more Beckett pieces at Lincoln Center this fall. Billy
Speaker 1: Whitelaw will not be there to guide Dwan. The actress
Speaker 1: passed away in December last year. This is Alec Baldwin
Speaker 1: you're listening to. Here's the thing