WEBVTT - Julie Taymor, Before and After 'Lion King' 0:00:06.200 --> 0:00:09.360 This is Alec Baldwin, and you're listening to Here's the thing, 0:00:10.119 --> 0:00:14.320 My chance to talk with artists, policymakers and performers, to 0:00:14.440 --> 0:00:18.760 hear their stories, what inspires their creations, what decisions change 0:00:18.800 --> 0:00:27.920 their careers, what relationships influenced their work. If you're going 0:00:28.000 --> 0:00:31.200 to see The Lion King on Broadway, don't be late. 0:00:31.800 --> 0:00:35.040 The first number, The Circle of Life is as miraculous 0:00:35.040 --> 0:00:39.040 an opening as you'll ever see. Life sized animal puppets 0:00:39.080 --> 0:00:44.599 parade through the aisles to African music. It's breathtaking. Julie Taymore, 0:00:44.680 --> 0:00:48.120 the woman who brought this animated Disney musical to the stage, 0:00:48.479 --> 0:00:51.400 which went on to become the most successful Broadway musical 0:00:51.440 --> 0:00:55.960 of all time, is my guest today. Since The Lion King, 0:00:56.240 --> 0:01:01.240 Julie's work has run the gamut. She's directed Shakespeare operas, films, 0:01:01.480 --> 0:01:05.160 and a solo show. Her recent staging of A Midsummer 0:01:05.240 --> 0:01:09.360 Night's Dream christened a new theater space in Brooklyn this summer. 0:01:09.400 --> 0:01:12.400 She released a movie of the production, and we prepared 0:01:12.440 --> 0:01:15.280 it over three days and shot it. But I knew 0:01:15.280 --> 0:01:18.200 the play well and I could make a shot list. 0:01:18.240 --> 0:01:20.640 I knew it very well, so I could I could 0:01:20.640 --> 0:01:23.240 really think about what would be the scenes that I 0:01:23.240 --> 0:01:25.200 would want to do. And that's it. The last week 0:01:25.240 --> 0:01:28.360 of performances. Whose idea was it to do the play itself? 0:01:28.360 --> 0:01:31.240 What was the genesis of the play. Well, the theater 0:01:31.280 --> 0:01:34.679 for new audience was getting a new new theater, and 0:01:34.840 --> 0:01:37.880 Jeffrey Harwitz, the producer, asked me if I would inaugurate 0:01:37.959 --> 0:01:41.240 the new house, and you know, he knew I wanted 0:01:41.280 --> 0:01:43.360 to do Macbeth, but he said go ahead. I said, 0:01:43.400 --> 0:01:45.360 are you out of your mind? You can't open a 0:01:45.400 --> 0:01:48.800 new theater with McBeth. So I had read, sure you 0:01:48.880 --> 0:01:52.400 can her house down? I don't think so. But we 0:01:52.480 --> 0:01:55.400 did readings of four or places Harness on our back. 0:01:56.560 --> 0:02:01.240 You've done it. I know that. Um So I decided, 0:02:01.280 --> 0:02:04.160 even though I hadn't really been all that interested in dream, 0:02:04.280 --> 0:02:06.280 I decided it was the right one to bless a 0:02:06.320 --> 0:02:10.120 new house because it's the new Amsterdam. It was it 0:02:10.200 --> 0:02:14.280 blessed that house years ago. It's it's it's was created 0:02:14.320 --> 0:02:18.760 by Shakespeare for a wedding. We hear, and that's what 0:02:18.840 --> 0:02:21.320 a new theater is. It's a wedding between a new 0:02:21.360 --> 0:02:25.200 audience and the artists. And I felt that it would 0:02:25.200 --> 0:02:28.160 bring in the audience that would cross from young kids 0:02:28.280 --> 0:02:32.480 right up through old age and deceased. And we we would, 0:02:32.600 --> 0:02:36.280 we would, um, we'd be properly doing what I think 0:02:36.320 --> 0:02:38.120 a new play has to do it in a new house. 0:02:38.160 --> 0:02:39.880 I mean, not a new play, but a production should 0:02:39.880 --> 0:02:44.400 do in a new house. So it was Jeffrey was thrilled, 0:02:44.520 --> 0:02:46.960 everybody was happy, and it worked out. How do you 0:02:47.080 --> 0:02:53.760 cast well, t Tanya Oh, Tina benk Oh, my god, 0:02:53.919 --> 0:02:56.440 well you should see you didn't know her, right, she 0:02:56.440 --> 0:02:58.960 should be a national treasure in America. She's an American 0:02:59.040 --> 0:03:02.080 New York City and come out on stage. I was like, 0:03:02.120 --> 0:03:07.880 oh my god, she's gorgeous. She's so talented and amazing. 0:03:08.000 --> 0:03:11.080 There was the most amazing representation of ever saying, well, 0:03:11.120 --> 0:03:15.200 that's great. She she auditioned. I didn't know who she was. 0:03:15.280 --> 0:03:16.880 I heard that she had done a one woman show, 0:03:16.960 --> 0:03:20.760 Jackie on Jackie Onassis and Peter Sellers had used her. 0:03:20.800 --> 0:03:22.640 But if she were in England, if we were in 0:03:22.680 --> 0:03:25.480 London was set from tempest. If we were in England 0:03:25.480 --> 0:03:29.400 now is once we were, um, she'd be known. But 0:03:29.480 --> 0:03:33.200 the person who I've cast first was Katherine Hunter, who 0:03:33.200 --> 0:03:37.240 played Puck and and She was pivotal for me because 0:03:37.280 --> 0:03:39.160 if I didn't find my Puck, I didn't know if 0:03:39.160 --> 0:03:40.840 I wanted to do the play. So I asked her 0:03:41.520 --> 0:03:44.119 over a year in advance, and I had seen her. 0:03:44.120 --> 0:03:47.840 She's she's sort of she's English and American, she can 0:03:47.840 --> 0:03:49.800 work in both places. And I had seen her in 0:03:49.840 --> 0:03:53.160 London at the National ten years ago in Carol Churchill's 0:03:53.200 --> 0:03:56.080 The Striker, and I had seen her here a couple 0:03:56.120 --> 0:03:57.960 of times, and I went, oh, my god, this woman. 0:03:58.560 --> 0:04:02.080 She is the background that I have Lecoq studying in Paris. 0:04:02.720 --> 0:04:05.160 But she's one of the greats. She's played King lear 0:04:05.400 --> 0:04:08.240 in She's one of the only women Richard the Third. 0:04:08.560 --> 0:04:13.000 She's just brilliant and uh. She came over and we 0:04:13.040 --> 0:04:16.560 did workshops with children because if I I felt if 0:04:16.640 --> 0:04:18.720 I couldn't figure out how to do the fairy world, 0:04:18.839 --> 0:04:21.640 the supernatural fairy world, I wouldn't find I had to 0:04:21.680 --> 0:04:23.680 find my way into that because I didn't want to 0:04:23.720 --> 0:04:25.800 do puppets. I didn't want to do what people expected 0:04:25.839 --> 0:04:28.320 me to do because for years, oh, you've got to 0:04:28.360 --> 0:04:32.279 do Midsummer Night's Dream, right, you know why, Oh, because 0:04:32.320 --> 0:04:34.240 you can do that? And then oh, good reason not 0:04:34.400 --> 0:04:37.799 to do it exactly, so there aren't there's a few 0:04:38.320 --> 0:04:42.479 deer masks, but I wanted to figure out if I 0:04:42.520 --> 0:04:47.479 could create this rude elemental world as opposed to fairies. 0:04:47.520 --> 0:04:50.160 I called them the rude elementals. You know. The mechanicals 0:04:50.160 --> 0:04:53.760 are the rude mechanicals. And we did workshops, three or 0:04:53.760 --> 0:04:56.040 four of them with the New York City schools, children 0:04:56.279 --> 0:04:59.359 from all over start out with eight and we whittled 0:04:59.360 --> 0:05:02.680 it down to seventeen or eighteen after a couple of months, 0:05:02.680 --> 0:05:06.039 and Catherine came over was the pied piper, and together 0:05:06.120 --> 0:05:10.040 we had these wild workshops where we try out these 0:05:10.120 --> 0:05:14.200 young kids playing the forest, the maniacal part of the forest, 0:05:14.839 --> 0:05:20.600 the malignant, the terrorizing. The What why I felt they 0:05:20.600 --> 0:05:23.200 were important is because the play, which is about marriage, 0:05:23.240 --> 0:05:27.560 is about codifying love right. It's about putting strictures. What's 0:05:27.560 --> 0:05:32.080 a marriage, but putting fetters on something that is natural, 0:05:32.880 --> 0:05:36.400 human being civilized. We need to organize. But children under 0:05:36.440 --> 0:05:40.360 a certain age or pre that they're raw, they're rude there. 0:05:40.920 --> 0:05:44.159 They don't understand those limitations. And I wanted to play 0:05:44.200 --> 0:05:47.440 that aspect because the night of Midsummer Night's Dream as 0:05:47.440 --> 0:05:50.880 a night where everything goes topsy turvy and haywire. So 0:05:50.920 --> 0:05:53.720 the kids could be many, many things, including finally the 0:05:53.800 --> 0:05:57.640 children of the court. When you said you had to 0:05:57.640 --> 0:06:02.040 have my puck. Are you from this school, I should say, 0:06:02.120 --> 0:06:05.359 or maybe you It varies where you know what you 0:06:05.400 --> 0:06:07.279 want and you go and find that, or someone shows 0:06:07.320 --> 0:06:09.520 it to you, or both both. You asked me about 0:06:09.520 --> 0:06:12.120 how I cast I knew I needed someone who understood 0:06:12.160 --> 0:06:15.839 that Shakespeare. There's two parts to Shakespeare. Of course, there's 0:06:15.839 --> 0:06:19.640 the language. Usually people separate, they go, oh, we shouldn't 0:06:19.640 --> 0:06:22.040 do spectacle Shakespeare. We want to hear the language in 0:06:22.080 --> 0:06:26.239 the Iamic Bentameter, and it's Shakespeare wrote visual effects play 0:06:26.440 --> 0:06:29.400 and by the time Midsummer Night's Dream happened, it was 0:06:29.480 --> 0:06:32.640 inside and there were footlights, and there were fairies. I'm 0:06:32.640 --> 0:06:35.240 sure that they did their little fairies coming in on 0:06:35.360 --> 0:06:37.880 ropes and stuff like that in his day. But I 0:06:37.960 --> 0:06:41.960 knew that that with Pack you needed a transformer. You 0:06:42.000 --> 0:06:45.040 needed someone who could not only deliver the incredible language, 0:06:45.320 --> 0:06:48.560 but who was neither male nor female, neither eight or 0:06:48.640 --> 0:06:53.120 nine or fifty or eighty. She's everything, She's he she 0:06:53.960 --> 0:06:58.279 and Catherine has that. She's she's your age and yet 0:06:58.520 --> 0:07:00.600 you think she's five years old. Some of the time 0:07:00.680 --> 0:07:03.680 she's four ft eight, So she mixed with these kids. 0:07:03.680 --> 0:07:08.159 You're remarkable looking actress. She's totally you know, her body 0:07:08.320 --> 0:07:11.160 is all different. She can do anything with her body. Yes, 0:07:11.200 --> 0:07:13.560 and she's got that all Julie, Let's do it like that. 0:07:13.680 --> 0:07:19.080 She always talks in this voice. Now you um, I 0:07:19.120 --> 0:07:21.280 want you to describe in whatever word you want to use, 0:07:21.280 --> 0:07:23.040 the period from when you're like ten or eleven years 0:07:23.080 --> 0:07:25.680 old and you go into Boston and your parents have 0:07:25.760 --> 0:07:29.480 you going by yourself and too well, you live very 0:07:29.600 --> 0:07:33.560 unique period there that leads to a lot of very 0:07:33.600 --> 0:07:37.720 eclectic things in France and Japan. And what was that about, 0:07:38.320 --> 0:07:41.000 you know, in those days, the early days, in the 0:07:41.280 --> 0:07:45.800 late I guess sixties and seventies. First of all, I'm 0:07:45.840 --> 0:07:47.760 a lot younger than my brother and sister, and my 0:07:47.840 --> 0:07:50.360 parents had a lot to contend with with them going 0:07:50.400 --> 0:07:53.000 through the sixties, and they let me alone. I don't 0:07:53.040 --> 0:07:54.720 know if you ever saw across the universe? Did you 0:07:54.720 --> 0:07:57.440 ever see the Beatles physical? Okay, that's the closest thing 0:07:57.480 --> 0:08:00.080 to my family and that older brother and sit my 0:08:00.320 --> 0:08:03.680 sister was very politically active. My brother was a musician 0:08:03.680 --> 0:08:06.640 and a captain. Anyway, my parents had their hands full. 0:08:06.800 --> 0:08:10.320 They were great parents, but they basically let me be free. 0:08:10.760 --> 0:08:13.960 So I literally took the the the t in Boston 0:08:14.480 --> 0:08:17.080 and I would go to Boston Children's Theater at age 0:08:17.320 --> 0:08:22.400 probably starting eight or nine, after school ten eleven and 0:08:22.400 --> 0:08:25.480 and started acting. But I was in more of the 0:08:25.680 --> 0:08:29.440 Cinderella's and Tom Sawyers and I think Cinderella was the 0:08:29.440 --> 0:08:31.840 first thing I ever played. And I always wanted to 0:08:31.880 --> 0:08:34.920 be the evil step sisters, but I was never cast. 0:08:35.440 --> 0:08:38.000 I said, I wanted to be a character actress, but 0:08:38.320 --> 0:08:40.720 I had this, you know, nice pretty little face, and 0:08:41.200 --> 0:08:44.320 so I never really liked doing that. That's why I 0:08:44.320 --> 0:08:46.520 didn't go into acting, because where I want to play 0:08:46.600 --> 0:08:49.079 is not what I look like. Probably maybe now, maybe 0:08:49.080 --> 0:08:52.559 now when you get older. But uh, then when I 0:08:52.600 --> 0:08:57.080 was about thirteen or fourteen, and this is um what 0:08:57.240 --> 0:08:59.280 is this? You know, this is a time where Gratowski 0:08:59.559 --> 0:09:03.439 and the Living Theater and many people were creating theater 0:09:03.480 --> 0:09:06.400 from scratch, from ideas, and I joined a company I 0:09:06.440 --> 0:09:09.720 was the youngest by far, Theater Workshop of Boston, and 0:09:09.800 --> 0:09:13.280 Julie Portman was the director. But they were creating work 0:09:13.360 --> 0:09:16.640 based on political ideas, and the first one they did 0:09:16.720 --> 0:09:19.880 was called Riot, which was really about the racial issues 0:09:19.880 --> 0:09:23.280 in America. The one that I got involved in was 0:09:23.280 --> 0:09:26.800 was called Tribe, and it was about Native Americans and 0:09:26.880 --> 0:09:29.559 all the people in the company. This was a younger company, 0:09:29.679 --> 0:09:33.440 probably sixteen seventeen through twenty, and I was the youngest. 0:09:33.760 --> 0:09:36.080 We would bring in the material and we were working 0:09:36.160 --> 0:09:38.959 very physically with our bodies in a church basement, the 0:09:39.080 --> 0:09:43.120 Arlington Street Church. What was exciting was we were responsible 0:09:43.200 --> 0:09:47.400 for creating the content of the material. But even at 0:09:47.480 --> 0:09:51.480 that age of fifteen sixteen, I felt that though I 0:09:51.520 --> 0:09:55.400 was good physically, I wanted more disciplined. So I graduated 0:09:55.480 --> 0:09:59.360 high school early and went to Paris at sixteen. Yeah, 0:09:59.440 --> 0:10:02.440 these parents, they went okay, fine, And I lived with 0:10:02.480 --> 0:10:06.680 this twenty one year old Deborah Tate, who was a 0:10:06.720 --> 0:10:10.079 photographer and who was wild. We're living in Paris, and 0:10:10.080 --> 0:10:14.800 and I mean, and I went to moms school. I 0:10:14.800 --> 0:10:19.840 went to it called him mean Jacques Lecoq, Yes, let 0:10:20.080 --> 0:10:24.640 Jacques Lecoq. And that's where Simon McBurney, a lot of 0:10:24.679 --> 0:10:27.480 directors and actors whom I really admire. Now, a lot 0:10:27.520 --> 0:10:30.160 of us went there and had this training, which was 0:10:30.640 --> 0:10:33.320 physical training, how to use your body to express, not 0:10:33.400 --> 0:10:35.400 to do mine, not to end up being a mime. 0:10:35.840 --> 0:10:38.760 But this is where I started really understanding the power 0:10:38.760 --> 0:10:42.640 of mask, the mask and even poppetry. She would this 0:10:42.760 --> 0:10:47.000 this crazy lady named Madame Citroen, who looked like a lemon. 0:10:47.520 --> 0:10:50.160 She was like a lemon. She was very brutal, but 0:10:50.280 --> 0:10:54.520 she would take We would take objects, brooms and candles 0:10:54.520 --> 0:10:56.959 and all kinds of objects and make them come alive, 0:10:57.160 --> 0:11:01.400 understanding what what hardness, what metal? What what kind of character? 0:11:01.760 --> 0:11:03.720 You know? How when we say someone is, you know 0:11:03.800 --> 0:11:07.600 they're they're They're as brittle as a break or something 0:11:07.640 --> 0:11:10.040 you know, eat to express it. So we would take 0:11:10.080 --> 0:11:14.480 shapes and materials and make stories and characters out of them. 0:11:14.480 --> 0:11:17.560 So it's a different approach to puppetry, but very interesting. 0:11:18.320 --> 0:11:20.679 And the mask work was there to understand to get 0:11:20.720 --> 0:11:23.040 yourself out of yourself, Like when you can wear a mask, 0:11:23.600 --> 0:11:26.360 you can transport yourself to being a completely different human 0:11:26.360 --> 0:11:29.920 being because you lose your identity. And I understood how 0:11:29.960 --> 0:11:33.000 the body then becomes a complete sculpture. So I learned 0:11:33.040 --> 0:11:35.000 a lot that year at Lecoq. I didn't stay for 0:11:35.040 --> 0:11:37.240 the full two years. The second year was clowning, and 0:11:37.280 --> 0:11:40.520 I'm not The red nose didn't appeal to me. I 0:11:40.559 --> 0:11:42.880 didn't want to go there, but but I did get 0:11:42.920 --> 0:11:47.679 a lot out of that. Where from there, Yeah, I 0:11:47.720 --> 0:11:51.280 went to college. I went to Oberlin. I went to Oberlin, 0:11:51.520 --> 0:11:55.960 and I I at Oberlin there was a man from 0:11:56.160 --> 0:11:58.400 named Herbert Blow. Did you ever hear of Herbert Blow? 0:11:58.880 --> 0:12:01.480 Us to run Lincoln Center. Then he went to cal Arts, 0:12:01.480 --> 0:12:05.000 started cal Arts, and he brought Bill Irwin Um Sharon 0:12:05.080 --> 0:12:07.840 at and about four or five actors came from cal 0:12:08.000 --> 0:12:12.160 Arts and he started a program at Oberlin, an interdisciplinary 0:12:12.200 --> 0:12:15.960 theater thing. At this point, for you, it's mostly about acting. 0:12:16.440 --> 0:12:18.319 You're an actor. No. I went to Oberlin to study 0:12:18.360 --> 0:12:24.640 anthropology and religion. Yes, No, I just couldn't stay away 0:12:24.640 --> 0:12:27.120 from theater. I didn't really want to study theater. I 0:12:27.160 --> 0:12:30.760 didn't mind doing it because that's the origins of the 0:12:30.920 --> 0:12:35.679 I loved I loved Antipope, I loved um traveling. I 0:12:35.720 --> 0:12:38.560 went I'd have to go back for a second. Before 0:12:38.559 --> 0:12:40.800 I went to Oberlin, I went to Sri Lanka one 0:12:40.840 --> 0:12:45.040 summer to Ceylon was Cylon back then and on the 0:12:45.080 --> 0:12:48.520 experiment in international living so you sort of see I constantly, 0:12:48.559 --> 0:12:53.760 whether it was Boston or out to Asia. My parents 0:12:53.840 --> 0:12:57.800 let me go and I loved. I loved experiencing other culture. 0:12:58.120 --> 0:13:01.040 There's a big part of you even touch treated parents. 0:13:02.640 --> 0:13:05.200 I'm very close to them. I never had I never 0:13:05.240 --> 0:13:07.320 went through all the crap that people do with their parents, 0:13:07.360 --> 0:13:12.000 because they treated me with enormous respect. And I was 0:13:12.080 --> 0:13:14.280 called they did, and I called them by their first 0:13:14.360 --> 0:13:17.040 name since I was little. I didn't call them mommy, daddy. 0:13:17.080 --> 0:13:20.040 I don't know what that was about, but they I 0:13:20.080 --> 0:13:22.240 never had to lie to them, and when I did lie, 0:13:22.280 --> 0:13:25.120 I lied once and told them afterwards, I said, you 0:13:25.160 --> 0:13:27.360 made me lie because you didn't trust me, And that 0:13:27.440 --> 0:13:30.640 never happened again. I was about fifteen, you know. It 0:13:30.760 --> 0:13:33.480 was about going away with my boyfriend and they didn't 0:13:33.480 --> 0:13:36.720 want me, so I lied and went anyway, miserable the 0:13:36.720 --> 0:13:43.880 whole time. That's right, Ka. Well, I lived to the 0:13:43.920 --> 0:13:48.199 family and UH and saw this extraordinary culture. I was 0:13:48.240 --> 0:13:50.640 in India, went through India a bit of India and 0:13:50.640 --> 0:13:54.280 then Ceylon, lived with the Ceylonese family and started to 0:13:54.320 --> 0:13:56.920 get my interest in that part of the world back then, 0:13:57.440 --> 0:13:59.480 and I did come to New York in between. Actually 0:13:59.520 --> 0:14:01.079 I did do at New York. I came and I 0:14:01.120 --> 0:14:03.480 went to Herbert broke Off School of Acting. I acted 0:14:03.520 --> 0:14:06.640 in the Lower east Side. I worked with Bob Californ 0:14:06.679 --> 0:14:10.520 at the in Brooklyn, at the Chelsea Theater Center. But 0:14:10.920 --> 0:14:13.280 I didn't I had my resume and I went out. 0:14:13.480 --> 0:14:15.760 But that's what I'm saying. I didn't really want to do. 0:14:17.040 --> 0:14:18.959 I wouldn't be playing the roles I wanted. So I 0:14:19.040 --> 0:14:22.560 was more interested in theater that you created from scratch. 0:14:22.640 --> 0:14:27.160 You wouldn't be playing the roles you wanted. No, I 0:14:27.200 --> 0:14:30.320 didn't want to don't No, not a seventeen right, No, 0:14:30.440 --> 0:14:34.760 I really didn't. And soap opera's and you could. You're 0:14:34.840 --> 0:14:36.800 naming all the things I ended up doing. By the way, 0:14:36.800 --> 0:14:39.040 you're you're kind of pissing on my whole early crept. 0:14:39.800 --> 0:14:41.920 But but you stayed with wanting to be an actor, 0:14:42.080 --> 0:14:46.600 right reluctantly. You look what you're doing. Well, I mean, 0:14:46.640 --> 0:14:48.920 it's it's it's it's changed so much in my lifetime. 0:14:48.960 --> 0:14:50.800 It's very different. You know. When I started, there was 0:14:51.280 --> 0:14:55.280 um it was easier to make it. It wasn't easy, 0:14:55.320 --> 0:14:58.600 but it was easier. You could slalom between the one 0:14:58.680 --> 0:15:00.560 for them, one for me, one for the one for me, 0:15:00.680 --> 0:15:02.520 go to a play, come back and do make some 0:15:02.600 --> 0:15:08.520 money backing forth. And now it's not like that anymore. No, 0:15:08.760 --> 0:15:11.280 not in any in any of those areas, it's not 0:15:11.360 --> 0:15:14.160 like that. And when do you start directing? Well, I 0:15:14.200 --> 0:15:17.120 started in college a little bit, but then I went 0:15:17.160 --> 0:15:19.640 to Indonesia. At the end of Oberlin, I got a 0:15:19.760 --> 0:15:26.520 traveling fellowship in visual theater, experimental puppet theater to Eastern Europe, Indonesia, 0:15:26.560 --> 0:15:30.240 and Japan and pronounce it for me, Oh, where's my glasses? 0:15:30.680 --> 0:15:34.240 Tatulaw Well, that didn't happen right away. I was going 0:15:34.280 --> 0:15:36.440 to spend a year in Japan with have you ever 0:15:36.440 --> 0:15:38.760 heard of the buon Rocku? Okay, So there's a folk 0:15:38.800 --> 0:15:42.000 buon Rocku called the awaji and this is where it 0:15:42.080 --> 0:15:46.120 is a very ancient technique where three people manipulate the puppet. 0:15:46.160 --> 0:15:48.640 And I was on my way to Japan, but I 0:15:48.680 --> 0:15:50.720 went to Indonesia first. I was going to spend three 0:15:50.720 --> 0:15:53.240 months in Indonesia and I ended up four years at 0:15:54.600 --> 0:15:57.280 because Indonesia Java. I was in Java first, and then 0:15:57.320 --> 0:16:02.720 Bali and then Sumatra toward I had never experienced theater 0:16:02.760 --> 0:16:06.720 in its original form. Now, going back to Oberlin, those 0:16:06.800 --> 0:16:08.600 were the days where you made up your own major, 0:16:09.160 --> 0:16:12.880 and my major was folklore mythology, and I studied shamanism. 0:16:12.880 --> 0:16:15.560 In the early forms of theater. I was in a 0:16:15.640 --> 0:16:18.600 country now where I was watching traditional theater function in 0:16:18.640 --> 0:16:21.000 all of its original ways, because there was no television. 0:16:21.240 --> 0:16:23.880 There was very little film. I mean I was forty 0:16:23.960 --> 0:16:26.200 years ago. I was in Java and Bali, and there 0:16:26.240 --> 0:16:29.360 was so little of that. Villages were distinct from a 0:16:29.440 --> 0:16:32.680 village ten miles away. They had their own culture, distinct. 0:16:33.320 --> 0:16:36.640 And I saw nine hour plays that would be from 0:16:36.680 --> 0:16:39.640 the Mahabad, the Ramayana, the epics, you know, they're like 0:16:39.680 --> 0:16:44.360 our epics, are Shakespeare there or our Greeks. And watch 0:16:44.800 --> 0:16:47.480 these plays that would go on in the audience, moving 0:16:47.520 --> 0:16:50.840 back and forth behind the shadow puppet screen or behind 0:16:50.880 --> 0:16:53.800 and in front, and see that during the nine hours 0:16:53.840 --> 0:16:57.480 of a play, teenagers were flirting with others. Where people 0:16:57.520 --> 0:17:00.560 would talk or children would fall asleep, where you you 0:17:00.720 --> 0:17:03.080 wake up for the clowns, you know, the fools, like 0:17:03.160 --> 0:17:06.760 in Lear, where politics of the day were discussed because 0:17:06.760 --> 0:17:10.119 the comedians would speak in the local language, where philosophies 0:17:10.160 --> 0:17:14.320 were all done in ancient Sanskrit kaoi, but nobody understood 0:17:14.320 --> 0:17:17.800 it except for the you know, the Hindu priests or whoever. 0:17:18.480 --> 0:17:22.679 I watched theater function in its original humanizing way, and 0:17:22.720 --> 0:17:25.320 that blew my mind as an artist, As an artist 0:17:25.400 --> 0:17:27.720 who was trying not to be an artist, meaning I 0:17:27.760 --> 0:17:30.280 could never commit to saying I was going to do theater. 0:17:30.800 --> 0:17:33.879 I suddenly found myself in a place where I understood 0:17:34.200 --> 0:17:37.359 the origins and watched it function in this most astounding way, 0:17:37.359 --> 0:17:40.159 and I decided to stay. And I got encouraged to 0:17:40.200 --> 0:17:45.240 stay by a major political theater figure who was always 0:17:45.280 --> 0:17:49.200 imprisoned in an out rendra a w s Rendra Javanese Muslim, 0:17:49.240 --> 0:17:53.040 who thought I'd be his fourth wife. And I said, now, 0:17:53.080 --> 0:17:54.560 I don't sign on. But I did sign on to 0:17:54.600 --> 0:17:58.240 do choreography for him. And um the problem with radio 0:17:58.280 --> 0:18:05.640 as you can't see facials. A Taylor of Java, Julie 0:18:05.640 --> 0:18:11.800 Tamore now makes her home in New York City. Listen 0:18:11.880 --> 0:18:15.199 to our archives to hear what Debbie Reynolds says of 0:18:15.240 --> 0:18:18.320 working with the real Elizabeth Taylor, as well as Joan 0:18:18.440 --> 0:18:21.399 Collins and Shirley mcclaim. Well, we had a lot of 0:18:21.400 --> 0:18:24.680 fun working together. That Joan never lets you watch her makeup, 0:18:25.000 --> 0:18:27.959 and she hides in her trailer and all her makeup. 0:18:29.000 --> 0:18:31.920 But we all kind of quite an operation. Well it 0:18:32.040 --> 0:18:34.080 is an operation for all of us as a certain 0:18:34.119 --> 0:18:36.480 point when you look in the mirror and everything is 0:18:36.600 --> 0:18:40.560 moved someplace else, take a listen, and here's the thing. 0:18:40.800 --> 0:18:51.520 Dot Org. This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to 0:18:51.640 --> 0:18:54.840 here's the thing. The New York Times called my guest 0:18:54.960 --> 0:18:59.600 Julie Tamore the cosmic p. T. Barnum of contemporary stagecraft. 0:19:00.160 --> 0:19:04.439 Her work draws heavily on her eclectic life experiences. In 0:19:04.440 --> 0:19:07.359 her early twenties, Julie was the director of a theater 0:19:07.440 --> 0:19:10.320 group in Indonesia. She could have stayed and lived a 0:19:10.400 --> 0:19:12.919 very different life, but she had a sense it just 0:19:12.960 --> 0:19:16.840 wouldn't work. I felt, after living that many years in Indonesia, 0:19:16.880 --> 0:19:19.679 I would never ever be accepted as an Indonesian. But 0:19:19.720 --> 0:19:22.320 if a Javanese guy came to New York, they could disappear. 0:19:22.840 --> 0:19:25.240 I was always that white woman with the bula booloo, 0:19:25.240 --> 0:19:26.919 which is I don't have it now, but hair on 0:19:26.960 --> 0:19:29.760 the arms, feathers, you know. And also I had to 0:19:29.760 --> 0:19:32.480 deal with the fact that there's two words that describe 0:19:32.560 --> 0:19:37.159 human beings in Javanny in Indonesian halusen kassar. Hallus is 0:19:37.200 --> 0:19:40.679 refined and kassar is crude. Well, being the head of 0:19:40.680 --> 0:19:45.000 a theater company at a two, you can't be hallus. 0:19:45.040 --> 0:19:47.160 I had to deal with the fact that just being 0:19:47.200 --> 0:19:51.919 in that position was really tricky because you're the boss. 0:19:52.200 --> 0:19:55.440 And I had a fifty year old master mask performer 0:19:55.480 --> 0:19:57.920 from Bali who was one of the company. But I'm 0:19:57.960 --> 0:20:00.760 the director of the company. And at that time I 0:20:00.800 --> 0:20:03.959 had a great partner of photographer, Javanese photographer, who was 0:20:04.200 --> 0:20:06.840 sort of the daddy. We were the mommy and daddy 0:20:06.880 --> 0:20:09.480 of the company, and we all lived together in this 0:20:09.600 --> 0:20:15.080 Mother Death Temple hotel and we started to create this 0:20:15.119 --> 0:20:18.040 original piece of theater and I acted in it as well. 0:20:18.080 --> 0:20:21.600 I acted as the outsider, the one who's trespassed. We'll 0:20:21.600 --> 0:20:24.160 come back to you And did you enjoy that? Oh yeah. 0:20:24.200 --> 0:20:27.399 I hadn't stopped acting then. I hadn't. I didn't stop 0:20:27.440 --> 0:20:32.240 acting professionally or literally until I came back to the States, 0:20:32.760 --> 0:20:35.000 where you have to be put in boxes and you 0:20:35.040 --> 0:20:37.480 can't be a director and a designer and an actor. 0:20:37.480 --> 0:20:40.080 You have to be one thing or another, and I 0:20:40.520 --> 0:20:42.880 had stories to tell, so I decided the best thing 0:20:42.960 --> 0:20:45.439 was to be the kind of I call myself a 0:20:45.480 --> 0:20:48.199 creator more. And then I got boxed into being a 0:20:48.240 --> 0:20:51.000 designer in New York because I designed at the Public 0:20:51.040 --> 0:20:55.159 Theater for Elizabeth Swados. I designed the Hagada, you know, 0:20:55.200 --> 0:20:59.119 the passover, which was done every three years. I was 0:20:59.160 --> 0:21:01.800 the set, cost him, mask and puppet designer. And I 0:21:01.800 --> 0:21:05.680 had never studied that. I just did it and choreographer 0:21:05.920 --> 0:21:07.960 and sort of created that with her because that was 0:21:08.040 --> 0:21:10.720 the She liked that. That was the kind of background 0:21:10.720 --> 0:21:14.520 that I had really had, which was to create from 0:21:14.560 --> 0:21:17.240 a ritual. I've just been in a country for four 0:21:17.320 --> 0:21:21.720 years where theater comes from ritual and religion. So doing 0:21:21.720 --> 0:21:26.680 the Hagada, the Jewish passover ceremony was really something I understood. 0:21:26.800 --> 0:21:29.560 I'm jumping around here, So when do you come back 0:21:29.600 --> 0:21:33.800 to the US. Well, four years of Indonesia, Well, I 0:21:33.800 --> 0:21:37.640 have to tell the story. I we created this play 0:21:38.119 --> 0:21:40.919 in Bali. We had a tsunami in the meantime, and 0:21:40.920 --> 0:21:43.280 everybody was living. They had moved that one hotel got 0:21:43.320 --> 0:21:45.800 taken away by the tsunami, and we're all living crowded 0:21:46.040 --> 0:21:48.040 in these rooms and we're ready to go on tour. 0:21:49.200 --> 0:21:54.080 And this mixture of Hindus, Muslims, um Jews, Christians and atheists, 0:21:54.080 --> 0:21:56.239 you know, we're all there, and we all get on 0:21:56.280 --> 0:22:00.360 this night bus. Uh. We take the ferry from Bali 0:22:00.440 --> 0:22:02.600 to Java and get on a night bus to go 0:22:02.680 --> 0:22:06.800 to Surabaya. And we crashed on our way to our 0:22:06.840 --> 0:22:11.800 first performance after a year of rehearsal and total truck 0:22:11.840 --> 0:22:14.800 and bus. The truck driver died and I got glass 0:22:14.840 --> 0:22:18.040 all over and people's backs. So you can imagine being 0:22:18.040 --> 0:22:22.240 the mommy of this troop. It was horrendous. It was horrendous, 0:22:22.280 --> 0:22:26.320 and I had two operations and but talk about my parents. 0:22:26.400 --> 0:22:29.800 I finally I came home and then I said to them, no, 0:22:30.040 --> 0:22:31.800 I have to go back again, and they let me, 0:22:32.280 --> 0:22:34.520 and I went back and my troop got together, and 0:22:34.520 --> 0:22:36.399 then we toured for three more months, and at the 0:22:36.520 --> 0:22:39.199 end of that I just felt I I wanted to 0:22:39.240 --> 0:22:42.879 go back to the States. I felt I needed to, 0:22:42.920 --> 0:22:45.280 but I also wanted to bring what I had learned there. 0:22:45.640 --> 0:22:48.439