An Interview with the Dramahound (that's me)

An interview with me by Meaghan Meehan on axs.com:

http://m.axs.com/news/interview-with-playwright-anne-phelan-86519?utm_campaign=ex_content_axs_approved&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Sailthru

A Delicate Balance

Tom and I were lucky enough to be invited to the final dress rehearsal of "A Delicate Balance" (thanks, Edward Albee and Jakob Holder!) and had fantastic seats.  Neither of us had seen the play before, though I'd read it, and seen the Joseph Cotton movie. 

We loved the play, the production-  Santo Loquasto's set, Ann Roth's costumes (though why Lindsay Duncan is wearing a dark-colored bra under her nightclothes I didn't really get).  John Lithgow, who I've seen onstage plenty of times, gives the performance of a lifetime-  he's even better than he was in "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels."  I can't imagine another Claire other than Lindsay Duncan.  It turns out

I've seen Clare Higgins for years-  I'd never put it together that it was the same person in such different roles.  She and Bob Balaban were great as Edna and Harry.  Martha Plimpton (of whom I've not previously been a fan) gave a nuanced performance as Julia.  So there must be kudos to Pam MacKinnon's direction.  

Me, Myself and I

On Saturday, Tom and I went with a group of friends to see Edward Albee's Me, Myself and I (N.B. The title actually has an ampersand in it, but Blogger won't accept one with a Mac platform) at Playwrights Horizons. I did not see the 2008 production at the McCarter with Tyne Daly, but I certainly read about it. The show is still in previews, so I saw the playwright sitting alone, listening intently, and the director, Emily Mann, looking as if she was going to find the playwright at intermission. She looked very tired.
The play is about a mother (Elizabeth Ashley), and her twin sons OTTO (Zachary Booth) and otto (Preston Sadlier). Mother is attended by Dr. (the always engaging Brian Murray). OTTO has decided that otto no longer is his brother, that his mirror reflection is his true twin, and that it is time to break away from his family. Chaos, hilarity and the impossibility of communication between parent and child ensues. I will not reveal the last ten minutes of the play, but it is inspired, hilarious and true to everything that has come before. I cannot decide whether the first act feels slow because of the direction or the writing (it feels to me like it takes longer to get where we're going than it should). But the actors are very engaging; Elizabeth Ashley made me feel like I had played those scenes in my own life. Booth and Sadlier look very alike onstage (I couldn't tell them apart) and as rooted in the world of the play as Ashley and Murray are. I may have to go see it again.

Happy Birthday

Eighty years ago tomorrow in Washington DC, a woman gave birth to a baby boy named Edward. He was adopted by a couple from Westchester named Albee, and went on to become the greatest living English language playwright. Mr. Albee has also helped hundreds of artists (the Hound included) through his decades of work with his Foundation and the William Flanagan Center for Creative Persons. Far from retired, he is directing “The American Dream” and “The Sandbox” at the Cherry Lane Theatre, which open March 25th. Which I think is a pretty good birthday present in itself.

Back from Christmas- "Peter and Jerry"

It’s all started receding into the past- the music, the present-wrapping, the shopping, my 76 day saga of trying to get Tom’s present (ordered October 21st, arrived December 27th), cooking, cleaning, the houseguest that was supposed to come for Christmas but came for New Year’s, and, at least until the 23rd or so, trying to write at least a little.

But today, the presents are given, the guest returned home and I finished the second draft of the libretto I’ve been neglecting and emailed it off to Alan Cancelino, the composer. The one theatre thing I did make time for over the holidays was last Friday I went to see “Edward Albee’s Peter and Jerry” at Second Stage, which has since closed. I have seen many amateur productions of “The Zoo Story” (what would college drama departments do without “The Zoo Story”?), but I’d never seen an Equity production of it, nor the new first act, which was originally produced at Hartford Stage in 2004.

What a treat! Other than the Anthony Page directed “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” on Broadway in 2004 and the Larry Sacharow directed “Counting the Ways” in 2003, it is by far the best-directed Albee play I’ve ever seen. Pam McKinnon has a much stronger grasp on “Peter and Jerry” than David Esbjornson did of “The Goat” or Emily Mann did of “All Over.” The first act flies by, and Johanna Day is absolutely delightful as Ann, Peter’s wife. Peter is played by Bill Pullman. You completely believe that these two people love each other and have been married for years. The exposition is deft (of course, we’re in the hands of the master), the conflicts deep and not easily resolved, it was a joy to watch.

Then after intermission, it’s time for Jerry and the dog. The first half of it went as well as the first act had (the friend I saw it with had a similar experience). Something happened that brought the play to a grinding halt. My first thought was that because the actors had a second show, they were saving themselves for the evening performance. Then it seemed to me they stopped acting on the lines at some point, and got lost in subtext land- it all got slow and murky. My third thought was that perhaps Dallas Roberts wasn’t as generous an actor as Pullman is, and they weren’t working off each other so much as they might.

This morning as it happens, I was reading the late Mel Gussow’s biography of Albee (Edward Albee: A Singular Journey), and got to the description of the first American production of “The Zoo Story,” which starred William Daniels and George Maharis. Even that production had problems with keeping the conflict rolling all the way through. But I swear that problem is less in the text than in its execution.

Reading Plays

I have read a lot of plays, and I still do. I read plays because I’m fascinated by how they work (each them its own little kingdom), and because I love stories. Another reason I read plays is because if I’m writing a play about characters or a situation that has been a play already, I want to read it. I don’t want to make the same mistakes another playwright already made. I want to make my own, different ones.

There are many people who don’t like to read plays. I remember actor friends from college who’d complain bitterly about the reading list we had to slog through. It was quite extensive, and there are certainly plays on it I have no desire to ever read again (“Secret Service”? “Fashion”? I shudder at the thought). But I always thought it was weird that my pals complained about reading plays so much. They were all readers; they read history and novels and whatever else. But plays were somehow more work to read.

I’ve had playwriting students who don’t like to read plays. Somewhere they’ve read, or someone has told them, that playwrights should not read plays written by other people. That they will somehow be unduly influenced by reading other writers, and lose their own voice. I admit I did used to go through a period if I was writing a first draft of a play, I didn’t read other writers. I don’t need to make that demarcation as clearly anymore. I’m not so afraid of another style creeping into mine anymore. But I admit I find it counter-intuitive to ignore millennia of plays that have come before us.

Plays cost money to buy- I’ll grant you that. I have been building a library of libretti for the past two years, and it hasn’t been cheap. But I do hit the good book sales, and I know about the secret weapon: Project Gutenberg (link is above). Project Gutenberg has hundreds of plays in the public domain, in many languages. It also has foreign language (including Middle English) plays in translation. It is a wonderful, wonderful thing! It has poetry and prose as well.

I have heard Edward Albee say (and I’m paraphrasing) that he doesn’t understand why people don’t like to read plays. A play is as much of a story as a novel, and it takes a fraction of the time to read. Makes perfect sense to me.