Playwright at Work; 6; James Lee

earth bad bird bird <unk> bone bone bone you know the other thing i think i do have this is terrible said to have a perception i believe about relationships between people and what is meant in the things they say and the activities between them and and their reactions and i think it's if i can tell a truth the audience the audience to music genius not as an individual but as a group it's in a sense the troll as readily as they sense the falls americans there always seems to be in a state of crisis and invariably

the theater looks to the new writer for help the day that help may be forthcoming with the emergence of an exciting group of younger playwrights our purpose on playwright of work is to investigate and examine the working methods the problems and the philosophies of these new writers our guest for today is james lee mr lee began his career as an actor and television writer his first later reached the art opened off broadway in nineteen fifty seven and won international recognition play was called career he's written since for american heritage and on the bus and he's currently at work on two new plays for the broadway theater the first of these is an adaptation of a television program he did for omnibus based on boswell slifer johnson the second is an original the golden days later in the program we'll see a scene from the golden days which will be directed forest by jack's might it's just my directed the original visit to a small planet on television

and was won an emmy for his direction of the goodyear out of my house it was just mike directed his first broadway play in nineteen sixty five comedy the forty nine because the scene will be played for us by ms jane hoffman and mr william when jimmy before we get around this scene let's talk a little bit and ask you a few things about yourself just before the program you told me that you were hooked on naturalist like what'd you mean by naturalism and for that matter what you mean by court well you know these things are so much through that so much your choices through necessity i have to examine what mac certain acts i have for the theater and i don't have the poet's gift and about two thirds of a good ear and

i so i must rely on what they know i think i can you've got yourself a naturalistic writer yes ma'am and by naturalism i mean the nature of relationships in the nature of the action and eight rather than to be heightened or eccentric or the classical annual classical kind of theater yeah i haven't gotten life it's not nothing original with me that when you do a play when you write a play do you and draw on life do you reveal everything that's happening at the time to the characters to try to reveal everything that's going on or is this something else that's also going out the same time and your work well this plane is a good example and i'm trying and in the golden days to start to tell the story without ever allowing

the characters to know what the story is terribly confused how can you do that as well because i have i have a theory that you have a stake here oh i'm like what times now what time is it an exchange between two strangers in the subway has a direct surface mean and what time is it kind of a man who's been waiting for a very important appointment to a receptionist as another meeting and meeting out what time is it coming from a boy on a date with a girl means on board or this or that the audience already over here in any of these three situations will know the truth of the relationship it doesn't need to be spelled out in its border or this job is important to me and he rose and i've lost the thread of what the original question that's what i'm curious about is are you ever worried about losing the audience do you how do you know that the audience will follow your you're sort of

hidden meaning or you're under media well i think it you know the only i think i do have this is terrible said to have a perception about i believe about relationships between people and what is meant when the things they say and the activities between them and and their reactions and i think it's if i can tell it truthfully the audience the audience to music genius not as an individual but as a group and they sense the true as readily as they sense the falls well we're going to see a scene from the golden days and will be able to watch and then discuss the scene afterwards and see how much truth we sensed as opposed to how much of what might have been false this is an opening scene a scene of exposition of any particular problems that arise faces a sea of exposition yesterday you know it's a head to one extreme is above the limits of america ten years and now the

masters going on the other extreme is senate gracefully getting in here we are in this year of our lord and as the ocean of time i'm trying to write a scene of its position with out coming on and saying something with establishing relationship between people could only exist as a certain wonderful will be very interesting to see exactly how you do it if czechs might well set the scene for us will know where we are and what's going to take place jacqueline we ask you to imagine here are very stage a comfortable middle class home in the midwest furnished in typical grand rapids style the time is nineteen thirty five the middle of the great depression and the place is cleveland ohio this bill take a good look at yourself

and all the mayor somewhere and take a good long look in which you say a white male american free white and twenty one of sound mind and by a college graduate with a fine education that a lot of people sacrificed a lot us what for or a clean and presentable appearance that leaves an impression on people when you introduced it that's fine for the abcs know about the rest of it and boy you're almost thirty years old you're practically in your thirty first year a man of your age should have a a wife and home and going and children you know kid anymore you should have a job and be getting somewheres in life by this time what's to become of the archie ever been a warm up to a damn it would you'd better do if you don't do something pretty quick you'd better get yourself a gun somewhere unwrap a

handkerchief around the business and that it and put it in your mouth or your brains out i'll tell you what you are and it doesn't take a college education to find the right words either pure simple in a nutshell your of failure and that is the truth and by the media and you know i just had it usually a lie now thankfully

there's i've read gothic of a very i don't know and i like to see them or not though i think it might spoil a thing an eye on the letters to finish up right here yeah it's been pretty good catherine brandon these letters bear fruit and he thought though he only really did you write it fowler she called me back in cleveland guess electorate they're very big concerns you for the son of a process that way if you miss made you had a star well he's right that we

use right and actually transfer they do a big business and ohio brass and copper knows how often it ever happened right at our climate debate about worn wool warner baal no you know it's not bad what would be i don't know was an obituary about a man named per month showing that henry clay tillinghast the way past of its and paper i don't know that he was on the border directly he should not dear sir

i was shocked to read in our great daily press of the passing of mr henry clay tillinghast of the board of directors of your greatest do you think that's going to go along i'm sure that emma jacobs which must inevitably follows such a loss you will have made of fresh young blood and therefore i would be therefore i would be most appreciated if you would keep me in mind to speculate wayne g change year this recipient of the time there's only one thing about i do differently you write that letter to the attention of mr warner of all he's a very manly he engages a wedding present from one thousand and i used to go to dances with him when you met in our girls well i

don't know that he did now you've been a real help to you and yet i remember one where we are and there was a prize to the girl named musta read you know i want thyme is chocolate family for fifty two years is a red light this is a white bread and inside was chocolates all cut up whenever new mothers know anybody with a lot of names and can burn but it's going to happen though everybody enough no no no yes pirates think years all

the boss was only r block and how why you left when all the old home when you thought you just said some committees have a shot a while resting proper thing around feed every parent much for warner cable now i think it falls a lot of things that happen when you're good do something bad i don't know not that kind of thing we were only ten or eleven store was warner it wasn't right well were out of water came over one day massacre over his plays that candidates had kittens he asked us if we could we would like to come over and see well cornering get upgraded bucket and we both were so when i'd already is played

dr magid backyard where they can live and again well worn a ball and got out of a bucket list the yellow things were running around the backyard crying prof bowen lay i know how hard it is the few don't you worry about it though me they already are thank you will

patient safety you think you know jack thanks very much like this to me i'd like to open the discussion by asking you what your intention was in the scene and how well you feel an intention was realizing what we saw well i think at my intention was to set the scene of the relationship between the two people into after much to start the story of what is going to happen will find a job and to set the sort of lack of communication between them in the end and she

thinks that he's upset because of his inability to get a job and everything he's upset because he is sensitive tough to be upset by that dreadful story and yeah i've thought that if there was anything to be done it's to be done in the writing it wasn't it was and it wasn't anything like that they get a moment jack you're going into rehearsal with this play tomorrow what would change is if any would you ask the author for the script well it's a little difficult to say because actually the scene around about nine minutes and of course it's true that the organ plays very important but i like jimmy's way of in getting into a play without hitting you over the head with certain facts see for instance in a company has a larger name it but i sat and toys i watched

one of our finest writers spend an entire act saying you remember when i was on the forty years that modern the summertime and that's it this is unthinkable origin of it so i don't know that i'd asked treating change second like to do it was i mean the words i don't know about my work i think they see some glaring errors a gentleman of change that then supposing instead of going into rehearsal tomorrow you're faced with the panic of an opening out of town tomorrow at night and you were in your last twenty four hours is there anything that either of you would ask the other to work to work on to work to develop and the scenes were there any surprises for example tuna well i asked her about the surprising staging but it is there anything that any interpretation that you would ask her to be changed or that you're curious about him interpretation dr art direction know i think they were very much on the right track i think there was possibly a more of a motive for this

good humor maybe could have existed toward the beginning of the scene that that is not so much terry jacks problem as putting number one is putting words in there that must be said good humored and you know it did seem to me that on an office in writing the fact that we were we lacked a physical place in which to live and then do this that after overhearing something like this it sounds like a story to me about your cousin to the attic in relation to the etiquette here is this guy talking himself i think that that she would have had an attitude that would've remained longer being an easy but having heard of a sail these days but seems more after that you get a what's the theme of the golden days of house this essay nicola straight at me as the opening scene of the play when i suppose that the theme of the whole play is that you can't hope to have anybody else celebrate problems he has he's a sensitive quite direct

fellow without being hypersensitive to and has taken advice from both the woman and uncle paul does not appear in the city and it to the extreme which he writes that crazy letter to because he's read an obituary he thinks they've paul has talked about gonorrhea go getter in this way go do things and so he writes that idiotic letter of thinking that that's right to do because he's a he's a stranger hand he doesn't know in the end of the play he realizes that he's got to listen to himself and to the first token which was this should be established in the scene which we saw is that as i say he is upset when he hears the awful story about the cavs and as toddlers and he tries more morally havens the way the rest of them want him to be gay and if i really can't he broke

good job someday it'll take more or two no you know what struck me and it's also things to change so many things that you need to unconsciously in the play is about libya body of the play the issue to the fiesta of the play involves the problems of the burial of a grandmother who's been a long dead and buried and i noticed that for the first time what you just know that this thing the article or the identity reasons papers about an obituary and a strange effect saying yes sets the tone of the burials and funerals and think i could've chosen to have it be about a guy who'd moved on to a better job retired unconsciously huge his obituary says please could i ask you one question is very small thing that disturbs me and i didn't notice it until later years yes to take our the names there are perfect midwest names and viable rails

warner ball but the the boys named bothers me it sounds bourbon somehow blame chambers and it struck that final digit did you feel at all when he's not at his mother's maiden lane she chairs his mother's father's name was george boring and so when he was born they named him blame george i don't feel safe haven and i read the play set in nineteen fourteen the names and the characters are made then steven and pieter an almost and i know that those were the popular names then you know that the names now jimmy is that unusual for an author to open a play a guy as always you'll excuse me a statement of two of the leading characters as you've done in this one for example you have and just stand up and say my name is plenty to measure in a lot of trouble and year but he doesn't say my name is that he gives almost a complete actual biography of himself well i think you know i'm on forever starting employees late as possible there

was no sense in ten minutes of well imagination before you one of our audience is aware of that because we were working in the medium of television we had to photograph that little differently in other words part of what you did was it a good theatrical effect but at the rise of the curtain you see part of the set and saw it but that room that he's in has absolutely dark and you cannot see him so that it amounts to more than just exposition it's a theatrical there's only one when he turns on the light she didn't reveal your fear was that not talking to many of the law and try to start the scene with a heightened moment which is this moment of saying that he is so distraught assad's position which is in and ended with an absolute rich was a tail are aligned and have it sound like a domestic comedy with some recognizable ingredients set the tone of the timing

and reminiscences and then and it was that terrible story in order to tell the audience this isn't that's going to be on your terms see it the pirates got to be a performer and he's got a dazzle prestidigitation he's gonna turn the audience within its own will basically keep them awake so for all of that has to do i really have to say this is it and if you'll likely go up and walk off levy more of these ranches later in his play yes but not just for us but never just for for shock value you know this ranch is very closely related to the whole problem of the planets closely related to the story of the play which is this getting adjourned the blame or warble although show up later in a one handed so that yes there will be other edges but nothing that you would get your edge go to

established as to volunteer in the same interview that he used human and chicken dog now i haven't read the play as you know when this is all over it as the ones we did job is there a lot of humor and the point is you're writing again speak as the things that happened in our city drama of humor is the most serious thing one of the things that happen right neutrality the facts but their approach to them has is not naming their own goody two shoes are smiling the last that absolutely last minute all the minutes because they've they haven't blames the only one who's as good a chance for redemption if our neighbors to beat as in all capital in all theatrical bromide that says that every writer has won major org they safely and his work as a continued reflection of that thing which you

were graded that in your head yes i think so the wisest thing i ever heard in my life was for my own guy named archie moore who is that i worked for the movie of the reason is the light heavyweight champion of the world in certain states and he said there's weapons of you were born rich and some people are born a handsome and others town tonight but there's one thing that you can be any of them if you have and anybody can have it doesn't matter that's what factionalism persistence absolutely right you know the toasters the used to fight a certain way when he started to realize that a chorus instead and i think that things are persistent career that was the thing boswell that was john snow is nothing in this is in here to redefine to fight through and it doesn't get into self pity and it realizes that he's got weapons of his own jack is there anything

you'd like to do one thing that i would like to ask jen records one of you i know you're an actor and there's nothing worked you feel that having been an actor never gone through those particular problems and worked as an actor is that helpful to you in your writing oh yeah i don't know how anybody would start are at play with all its with all its confines is that without knowing that the physical problem but gentlemen thank you both very very much for being with us today enjoyed enormously and i fly right at work today we've seen the work of james lee seeing directed by mr jaques might and we've seen one of the most exciting of the younger members of the new group of writers bringing the theater to a richer if i felt it this is at

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