Answers to Frequently Asked Questions

February 3, 1998.

I get a good chunk of e-mail every few days. I read them all and answer a few. I love getting the feedback, especially on things happening out of town. I get e-mails from places that seem very far from New York City. Like Maine and Oklahoma and Hong Kong. The correspondence from Poland has been very exciting.

Here are some answers to oft-asked questions:

Do you waive the normal fees, royalties and agent-stuff for shows by student groups and poor theater groups?

Sometimes people don't want to deal with the hassle or the money in order to secure a legal right to produce the work. The answer is: There's no alternative. I've signed an agreement with these entities to represent my work with the understanding that they get to charge for it. To everybody. Of course, if you're talking about a monologue for three nights at a theater festival, this amounts to about ten bucks. For people who can't afford the ten bucks, I've made a play available for free. It's called Scenes from the New World. That's the deal. If you don't like that deal, then steal the stuff. I can't advise you to do that, but you're free to do it if you so wish. And take your chances with Sam French.

What motivated you to start writing in the first place?

The simple answer is: I have to write. (I love to act, I have to write.) Thoughts charge around inside me and I write them down. I'm not the most coherent person, so I've had to teach myself how to organize my thoughts and edit my writing so that it makes sense. Writing is an heroic act to me. Since I was a kid I've been a book addict. So to me, writing is a magical thing and writers are heroes. There was a blank page and then there was a thought...To quote Omar Khayam: "The moving finger writes and having writ, moves on: nor all thy piety nor wit shall lure it back to cancel half a line, nor all thy tears wash out a word of it."

From high school onward, I wanted to write, but lacked the discipline. I thought it would be "cool" to be a writer. But I didn't have the stamina. As I've found out since, writing does require physical strength. And courage. Because you make an effort and get judged for it. Although I was writing bits and pieces and short plays through the Seventies, it was only after I started transcribing the monologues that I taught myself to stick to it. That process of teaching myself how to write continues.

In the film subUrbia, one of the characters says "Fuck Oliver Stone". Do you hate Oliver Stone? Why are you "disrespecting" him?

Here's the deal. I love Oliver Stone. He helped me tremendously when we were working on Talk Radio and he made a nasty good film out of my play. He's a kamikaze artist and I love him for it.

When he came by to see the play, subUrbia, when it was running up at Lincoln Center Theater, he stopped me before he went in and asked "Am I in it?" Joking. He's such an egomaniac. So when it came time to write the screenplay, I stuck in the line: "Fuck Oliver Stone." Seemed fitting to Sooze's point of view (Stone is notoriously macho) and at the same time fitting to Oliver's sense of humor. Don't worry, he can take it.

Is your work "post-modern?"

Come on! Post-modern is a meaningless term that attempts to describe the current state of mind or weltanschauung. Or something like that. The times we live in create our state of mind, not a theory. Theory can never encapsulate reality. Impossible. First the theater world was smothered to death by academics, now the film world. It's exactly when people try to figure out what pigeon-hole they belong in that they kill their work. I borrow from everything that turns me on. If that makes me "post-modernist", so be it.

I saw your new play "Griller" at the Goodman Theater in Chicago. The events in the play contain "every cliche in the book."

OF COURSE! Do you think I didn't notice that? I wrote the play. Do you think I have mashed potatoes for brains? I should get you touch with the post-modernist guy above. I look at it this way, everything you see on the stage is made-up, contrived. I'm the contriver. I'm not trying to re- create "reality", I'm trying to create a reality that's a reflection of the reality in my head. OK? As Picasso said "Art is a lie that tells the truth."

Will you accept my apologies for sucking up too much?

I want to clear the record on this one. Suck up. Flatter me. I like it very much. That anyone would take the time to write and discuss my work is the highest form of flattery. I'd like to think in my heart of hearts that some of the people who run across the stuff I make get affected by it. So thank you for writing.

Why did you move to the suburbs?

I didn't. I live in New York City and in the summer I spend a lot of time at a house way out near the Delaware River. A fairly normal thing to do if you're stuck in the city all year. While I'm out there I get a faint taste of suburban living: grass cutting, filling the gas tank, going to the mall. I am reminded of why I moved away from the suburbs when I was a teenager.

I find the suburbs a difficult place to live. They're cold and weird. I like people and in the city I get to see lots of people. Sometimes, when magazines or newspapers write about authors or actors, they cut corners on the bio-truth. That's probably where people get the idea that I live in the suburbs. It sounded good to some editor.

Do you think that theater has "received its last rites?"

Of course not. Theater is essential to the ecology of being human. The more dried-out and spastic human society becomes, the more we will need theater. And we will make it. It's very natural for people to make theater. Some form of theater exists in every human culture.

Commercial dramas on Broadway are another story. But that's like saying why don't they make big black and white movie musicals anymore. Doesn't make sense to. If you can see a drama with stars on a movie screen there is less incentive to go to a theater to see them. Spectacle, however, can never be duplicated on-screen. Watching light move is not the same as watching people move. So there will always be commercial spectacles like musicals and some plays.

I'm going to see Richard Foreman's new play tonight. That's theater.

What do you think happens to the characters after the end of the movie subUrbia?

Well, I don't know. I think that's the fun of it, musing on that subject. To some degree, Jeff's life is based on my own, so I guess Jeff gets off his duff and moves somewhere. Maybe to New York. Or LA. Probably gets a film into the Sundance Festival and signs with an agent and a manager. After that I guess it's just limbo.

Is your work performance art or theater?

I saw a lot of "performance art" in the Seventies. This was performance that artists made. Usually very expressionistic and wild, (when it was good), very boring when it was bad. My theater work has been influenced by seeing the work of Joan Jonas, Vito Acconci, the Kipper Kids. Also music folk like James Chance and the Contortions, Glenn Branca, the Screamers. Also "comedians" like Brother Theodore and Bill Hicks. I am not a performance artist because I've always worked and trained in the theater. The first role I ever played was Juliet's father in Romeo and Juliet. First thing I ever directed was Pinter's Caretaker. I'm in the theater. I write. I rehearse. I repeat my performances. P.S. This question hooks up with the old "who inspired me" type question. Over my desk here at work I have pictures of John Turturro and Thomas Mann. They inspire me.

Should I hang out with local experimental theaters or go to graduate school?

I'm not big on graduate school. I think it's just an expensive way to put off the inevitable. Unfortunately, because our country deems bomb-making and planes that don't fly a better way to spend money than making theater, the non-profit places that once gave young artists some breathing space are no longer there. Or if they are, they are under intense pressure to support already successful artists and entertain their "subscribers". (Yes, that's right, like Eric Bogosian.) Without the economic easy-feeling that separates trying to make a living from art-making, it's very hard to just hang out and enjoy yourself. I don't know how to enter this "business" and make a success of it. I've entered it ass-backward doing the work I like. I work hard at it, but I've never been able to predict what will work commercially. I've had the luxury of having places like PS 122 and the Kitchen in which to perform. So getting started in the theater today must be very different than it was for me twenty years ago. If this advice is worth anything: go to see things that turn you on, ask to help out with the company, work hard. There are never enough good people to go around. If you want to get rich, go to Wall Street.

Did you have kids when you were poor?

No.

How did Richard Foreman influence you?

Richard Foreman challenges himself to create onstage what he would like to see if he were sitting in the audience. It's not as easy as it sounds.

Also his work is funny, vigorous, clumsy, intense, loud, sexy. He's a great set designer and choreographer. And what makes Foreman especially bitter-sweet is that if you don't go to his theater and see his plays, you probably never will.

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