MURRAY SCHISGAL, PLAYWRIGHT

BY

Kenneth Stuart Blatt

A DISSERTATION

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements

for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Department of Theatre

1991

ABSTRACT

MURRAY SCHISGAL, PLAYWRIGHT

Kenneth Stuart Blatt

One of the first American playwrights discussed in the
context of the "theatre of the absurd," Murray Schisgal has
written forty plays in the avant-garde drama of the United
States. This study attempts to provide the basis for
understanding Schisgal's process of crafting these plays.

Schisgal's recognition and success began in 1960 with
the first American production of his one-act plays, The
Typists and The Tiger. During the past thirty years this
still active playwright continues to embrace elements of
bold theatricalism as he experiments with dramatic form and
structure. By extensive personal conversations and
discussions, as well as a detailed analysis of his theories
of comedy and three of his major works(The Typists, Lux,
and Jimmy Shine), it is possible to understand Schisgal's
methods and ultimately his purpose as an artist. Schisgal

concerns himself with the question, "How does one live

given the circumstances of the hands we are dealt?" In his
search for answers, he abandons conventional drama's cause
and effect logic and experiments with a variety of dramatic
situations that reflect the irrationality of modern life.
His comments brought into focus the resources or creative
"seeds" that Schisgal draws upon to accomplish this
including cliche, an array of theatrical devices (music and
song, monologues, rhythmic and percussive sounds, dance,
vaudeville) as well as inspirations derived from both the
conscious and subconscious states of mind. The resulting
plays epitomize Schisgal's personal style of American
"absurdism" that seems to benefit from a combination of
realistic domestic comedy and elements of "theatre of the

absurd."

Copyright by
Kenneth Stuart Blatt

1991

To

My Beloved Mother and Father

For Their Lifelong Support and Inspiration

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

During the past two years that I have worked on this
dissertation, I have received encouragement, support and
inspiration from people whose contributions I would now
like to acknowledge.

From the time I first suggested this as a possible
dissertation topic, I have had the full support of my
advisor and friend, Dr. Georg Schuttler. We worked closely
together on every phase of the writing and he continually
challenged me to probe deeper into my research in an
attempt to truly capture on paper the essence of Mr.
Schisgal's work.

I would also like to thank the members of my committee
for their valuable advice and ideas: Dr. John Baldwin,
Professor Frank Rutledge, and especially Dr. Jon Baisch
whose kind words and warm encouragement have been very much
appreciated.

At this time, I would also like to thank my dear
mother, Edythe, for her loving support and guidance as
the work on this dissertation progressed. In addition to
the fact that her friendship with Mr. Schisgal's aunt and
mother instigated my reacquaintance with his work, my

mother's wise suggestions and advice proved invaluable to

vi

me throughout this project.

Finally, I would like to acknowledge my deep sense
of gratitude to Mr. Murray Schisgal. From the time that he
agreed to allow me to interview him, I have received his
full support and cooperation on every phase of this
project. He has proved to be exceedingly generous with both
his time and attention. The hospitality that he and his
wife, Reene, extended to me when I met with him in New York
City will always be appreciated. His accessibility went
beyond the bounds of what any writer could have ever hoped
for during the entire time that I have worked on this
project. To my friend Murray Schisgal, I can only say thank

you for everything.

vii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List Of AppendiCESoooooooooo00000000000000.0000090000000000 ix

Chapter

II

III

IV

APPENDI

INTRODUCTION000000000000000000000000000000000000.000001

OVERVIEW OF LIFE AND CAREER0000000000000000000000000012

THEATRICAL THEORIES OF MURRAY SCHISGAL

A. Schisgal Interview:The Creative Process
Of writing00000000000000000000000000000.000028

B. Discussion and Evaluation of Schisgal's
Theories Of C0medY00000.000000000000000000.0059

SCHISGAL INTERVIEW: THE PLAYWRIGHT'S ROLE IN THE
PRODUCTION PROCESS00000000000000000000000000000076

ANALYSIS OF THREE SCHISGAL PLAYS
BaSj-S For AnalYSiS0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 094
The TypiStSoooooooooooooo 00000000000000 00000098

A.
B.
C.
D.

Luv00000000000000000000000000000000000000000105

Jimmy Shine.................................115

CONCLUSION000000000000000000000000000000000000000000139

CES
Appendix

Appendix
Appendix
Appendix
Appendix
Appendix

Appendix

A.

B.

Transcripts of Conversations(12/12/89)..145
Transcripts of Conversations(12/13/89)..176
Transcripts of Conversations(12/15/89)..210
Followup Interview I(10/15/90...........215
Followup Interview II(ll/7/90)..........216
Followup Interview III(11/30/90)........225

Followup Interview IV(12/15/90).........231

BIBLIOGRAPHY0000000000000000 00000 00000000000000000000000000244

viii

APPENDIX

APPENDIX

APPENDIX

APPENDIX

APPENDIX

APPENDIX

APPENDIX

LIST OF APPENDICES

Transcripts of Tape Recordings
Conversations With Playwright
Murray Schisgal——December 12,1989........145

Transcripts of Tape Recordings
Conversations With Playwright
Murray Schisga1--December 13,1989........176

Transcripts of Tape Recordings
Conversations With Playwright
Murray Schisgal-~December 15,1989 ........ 210

Transcripts of Tape Recordings

Conversations With Playwright

Murray Schisgal, Followup Interview One-—
October 15, 1990.........................215

Transcripts of Tape Recordings

Conversations With Playwright

Murray Schisgal, Followup Interview Two--
November 7,1990..................... ..... 216

Transcripts of Tape Recordings

Conversations With Playwright

Murray Schisgal, Followup Interview Three--
November 30,1990.........................225

Transcripts of Tape Recordings

Conversations With Playwright

Murray Schisgal, Followup Interview Four--
December 15,1990.........................232

ix

INTRODUCTION

American playwright Murray Schisgal concerns himself
with the question, "How does one live given the
circumstances of the hands we are dealt?"(Schisga1
Interview 2)1 In his search for answers, he abandons
conventional drama's cause and effect logic and experiments
with a variety of dramatic situations that focus on the
irrationality of modern life. The purpose of this study is
to provide the basis for understanding Schisgal's process
of crafting these plays, which may be construed as
"absurdist"2 in many ways. By means of extensive interviews
and a study of his plays, it becomes apparent that his

approach derives from a wide array of stimuli or "seeds" of

 

1 The termination "Schisgal Interviews" refers to
the original conversations between the author and Mr.
Schisgal on December 12, 13 and 15, 1989. Four telephone
interviews were subsequently held and will be referred to
as "Followup Interview I" on October 15,1990, "Followup
Interview II" on November 7,1990, "Followup Interview III"
on November 30,1990 and "Followup Interview IV" on December
15,1990. The subsequent number in the notations refers to
the page numbers of the verbatim transcripts of all the
interviews included in the Appendices.

2 The term "theatre of the absurd" has been
credited to critic Martin Esslin and was used as the title
of his book to describe the work of several playwrights who
seemed to share a common philosophical point of view.

2
creativity which will be identified and discussed in
Chapter IIA. Chapter I will provide an overview of
Schisgal's life and career. This material enhances an
appreciation for his struggle to find success as a writer,
a factor which I believe strongly influenced all of his
work. In Chapter IIB, the comedic devices and techniques
that Schisgal utilizes to transform these creative stimuli
into dramatic action are examined. The case will be made
that Schisgal employs comedy to investigate and satirize
very specific social issues and concerns facing
latter-twentieth century America in much the same way that
Aristophanes satirized Greek society in Fifth Century B.C.
Athens. Schisgal's theories of comedy also point toward his
brand of American "absurdism," an approach he utilizes to
ask probing questions about man's existence, but which he
skillfully combines with elements of domestic,
situation-comedy. The purpose of Chapter III is to reveal
Schisgal's role in getting his work produced on the stage.
This discussion conveys this savvy businessman's sense of
accomplishment with his successes, his anger and
frustration with the present dearth of theatrical
opportunities in New York, and his ability to maneuver
adroitly, his work into the hands of the "right" people. In
other words, those collaborators who can maximize the
possibilities of bringing productions to fruition must be

recruited. Chapter IV will illustrate the positive results

3
achieved in the original productions of The Typists, Luv

and Jimmy Shine, when creative process and business acumen

 

come together successfully.

Scattered throughout this study are references to
Schisgal's affinity with the European dramatists of the
"theatre of the absurd," a conclusion which Schisgal
rejects for a variety of reasons(Schisgal Interview
150,170,171,201,202,203). During the interviews, this
particular line of questioning, which was raised several
times, strongly provoked his ire, primarily because Schisgal
eschews any and all attempts to categorize and classify his
work. Nevertheless, Schisgal's credentials as an
experimental playwright derive from the "absurdist"
characteristics that exist throughout his entire body of
work. During the past thirty years, Schisgal has continued
to write distinctively "off-beat" or "perverse"
p1ays(Schisgal Interviews 177,167) in which elements of
realism often alternate with moments of heightened
theatricality. A very active playwright now in 1991, he
continues to experiment with dramatic form and structure in
his typically unpredictable manner.

The primary evidence for this study was provided by
Mr. Schisgal through a series of extensive interviews with
the author. During these discussions he disclosed the
sources of his creativity, his comedic theories and

techniques and his business-like approach to getting his

4
plays produced. It seems pertinent to provide the
background which led to the opportunity to interview him.

My initial awareness of Murray Schisgal derived from
my mother's friendship with his aunt, Anne Cohen, a next
door neighbor in south Florida, and then later with
Schisgal's mother, Irene, around 1979. A few years later,
I also met Mrs. Schisgal at a social function and can still
vaguely recall her great sense of pride when she spoke of
her son, the playwright. Although this occurred many years
before I began my theatre studies, the incident came back
to me when I started to explore possible areas of doctoral
research. I was surprised to learn that in spite of his
prolific career as a New York playwright(thirty-three
published plays), no serious or extended studies of
Schisgal's work had been undertaken. Commentaries on his
writing consisted of critiques and reviews of his
theatrical productions, brief newspaper, magazine or
theatre book articles and cursory introductions written by
the playwright to accompany publications of individual
plays or collections of his plays. Considering his
impressive output and his longevity as a working and
regularly produced playwright, I concluded that an
examination of Murray Schisgal certainly warranted further

investigation.

I wrote to Mr. Schisgal on May 10,1989, indicating

my interest in his work and requested the opportunity to

 

RONl G Hug—Iona.
fig M5 [é TELEGRM 7139

May 15, 1987

Dear Kenneth:

I'm flattered that you're interested in doing
your dissertation on my writings. I don't think it's a wise
ChOiCOO

Why not write on the plays familiar to whoever it
is who reads your dissertation?

If there's one thing I've learned is hat if you
want an even break don't ask anyyody to do anything for you.

And another thing. you re young yet and I don' t
Want to see you get hurt.

Besides, I don't have the time to go through all
this.

I'm doing a new play at the Gem Theatre in Garden
Grove, Calif.: July 5 to August 5. Come out and see it.

Or, if you're busy, read a good book.

Be well. Good luck. And goodbye. ‘ ,
M W

, ' ’ ‘ ’/

fl! M U/

 

discuss my proposal with him. I received the above prompt

response five days later.

6
Although disappointed, I decided to present my "case"
to Mr. Schisgal one more time to see if perhaps I could
persuade him to change his mind. In this correspondence I
provided him with more detailed information on my own
background and pointed out the following:
Your body of work is worthy of a scholarly,
critical analysis on the Ph D level, it's that
simple. What a shame it would be, however, to
study your plays in depth and write a detailed
critique and analysis of them without ever
getting any input from the playwright.
I must have struck the right chord because four days
later I received the positive response that I was hoping to

get(next page).

THE RITZ-CARLTON

Lou \A Xkd t:

May 21, 1989

Ken:

Okay. You passed the age and perseverance
tests. The following may be of some value to you.

I'll be in Garden Grove, Calif (it's about
45 minutes SOuth of L.A.; at the Gem Theatre), rehearsing
a new play from June 19th on. The play, "The Songs of war,"
opens July 7. I may do a new play,"0atmeal and Kisses," at
the American Jewish Theatre in December, a reading possible
at The Manhattan Theatre Club in June. I may do an old play,
"FOpkins" in Paris during Jan. or Feb., of '90.

I have 16 books published (acting versiOAS,
not books) by the Dramatists Play Serivice and two acting
versions of plays published by Samuel French. I published
one novel, "Days and Nights of a French Horn Player." And
there's other stuff I can make available to you.

I'm sure we can arrange a mutually satisfactory
time to meet. Afternoons only, please.

I prefer a phone call to a letter. My home
number is 212 - . Call only at five o'clock in the
afternOon, New York time. I do not accept calls in the
morning.

What else?

Let me know.

But keep it reasonable.

Don't ask me to write anything.

Don't ask me to read anything.

Good luck.

M

33533 SHORELINE DRIVE. LAGUNA NIGUEL CALIFORNIA 92677 (714) 2402M

8

The reader may find it interesting to note the unusual
stationary headings on the reprinted letters. Furthermore,
the notes were enclosed in unmatching envelopes originating
from equally exotic locales. It seems Mr. Schisgal
corresponds on an assortment of stationary collected from
hotels all over the world.

Following our exchange of letters, I spoke with Mr.
Schisgal on the telephone several times over a period of
six months and this led to our first meeting in New York.
he sent me a copy of his novel Days and Nights of a French
Horn Player as well as a copy of his professional resume in
the interim.

On Sunday, December 10,1989, I met Murray Schisgal for
the first time. He had invited me to his home in New York
City for a reading of one of his more recent plays,
"Oatmeal and Kisses." It was a day I will probably never
forget. As I entered the lobby of his apartment house
building, I was ushered into the elevator by the elevator
operator with three other people: Dustin Hoffman,
Schisgal's close personal friend; actress/model Twiggy; and
British actor Lee Lawson, who was playing Antonio opposite
Hoffman's Shylock in Peter Hall's production of Th2
Merchant of Venice. As the elevator started to go up, I
called out Schisgal's apartment number for the elevator

operator. Mr. Hoffman immediately turned to me and said,

9

"Hi, I'm Dustin Hoffman," to which I replied, "Nice to
meet you. I'm Ken Blatt," and we shook hands. By the time
we stepped out of the elevator, the four of us were all
introduced and I was ready to meet Mr. Schisgal. He greeted
us at the door with a warm, beaming smile. When he saw me
he said, "You are young," an apparent reference to his
first letter, and we both laughed. Murray Schisgal is quite
a disarming individual when you meet him. His warm,
avuncular smile, his thin, almost frail-looking build, and
the disheveled wisps of gray hair on his mostly balding
head belie a razor sharp intellect and wit.

After the introductions of all the guests, including

many other cast members from Merchant, everyone settled

 

down in the living room for the start of the play reading.
It was interesting to observe Schisgal's reactions as
actress Twiggy, and actors Richard Libertini and Victor
Slezak began to read their parts. Schisgal followed along
closely with the text, his lips silently mouthing the words
and his right hand pointing periodically to emphasize key
phrases. At times, a smile came to his face as he obviously
enjoyed the sound of dialogue that he had created.

The next day, December 11,1989, I asked him what he
hoped to achieve by having this reading. Primarily, he
wanted to hear it for himself, to see if it was ready to be
published. He considered "Oatmeal and Kisses" a

"lightweight," good for off-Broadway or off-off-Broadway.

10

He was reluctant to actually get involved in a New York
production because he did not want to be thrown into the
hands of the New York critics with this kind of material.
He felt that this play was good for "the regions" or
"summer stock," but not for New York. As a rule, Schisgal
believes that it is best to try to get a play published if
it doesn't get produced within five years. Although he
would much prefer to have it staged, since that helps with
the rewrites, having it published also increases its
exposure and opens up possibilities for productions around
the country. Oatmeal and Kisses has since been published by
dramatists Play Service.

I continued to meet with Mr. Schisgal on December 12,
13 and 15 for a series of lengthy conversations. When our
talks began, I realized that Schisgal was reluctant to
speak about certain aspects of his life and work. Initially
he did not make personal revelations gratuitously. I think
this is partly the result of his long and frustrating
struggle as a young writer. That period of rejection and
insecurity seems to have made him understandably defensive.
Years later, although his career has been highlighted by
moments of theatrical triumph, Schisgal's plays have
sometimes received scathing dramatic criticism. This
experience has made him leery of any attempt to analyze his
work. It may also have contributed toward his cynical view

of academic and educational theatre which characterizes

11
some of the remarks scattered throughout the interviews. In
spite of his personal reservations about discussing his work,
Schisgal's revelations provided an interesting and detailed
understanding of how he has functioned as a productive

playwright for the past thirty years.

 

CHAPTER ONE

OVERVIEW OF LIFE AND CAREER

Murray Schisgal has stated that he writes plays out of
a need to re-examine his own life; personal feelings,
relationships, situations and events are all subject to
this process of dramatization(Schisgal Interview 145,146).
The leading characters and protagonists in Schisgal's plays
often seem like extensions of himself. To appreciate the
dynamics at work, an examination of his background and the
factors that have shaped his life is in order.

Murray Schisgal was born on November 25,1926 in
Brooklyn, New York. His parents were working class,
Lithuanian, Jewish immigrants and his father earned a
living as a steam presser for a Union Square(Manhattan)
clothing factory(Litte 25). He has characterized his
childhood as an unhappy period of his life and indicated
that his recent play, The Songs of War(first produced July
7,1989 at Gem Theatre in Garden Grove, California), comes
"pretty close to the nitty-gritty . . ."(Schisgal Interview
165). The protagonist, Calvin Saks, states at the beginning
of the play that "there is only one question that interests
me. And that is, which one of my parents is responsible
for my miserable childhood? And that's what the play is
about"(Schisgal Interview 166-167 ). The play depicts the

12

13
life of a young boy caught in the crossfire of his
mismatched and incompatible parents. Whatever liberties or
poetic license Schisgal may have taken for the sake of
dramatization, there can be no doubt after reading this
play that his home life must have been a most unhappy one.
Perhaps out of a need to escape, Schisgal developed a
vivid imagination as a child:
I couldn't fall asleep without telling myself a
story. I needed another reality. From the bits
and pieces of the day's events, I scrounged about
for the thread of a story: once I had one, my
imagination took over and wove a facsimile of
myself into an elaborate melodramatic narrative
at the conclusion of which I inevitably triumphed
and was loudly applauded by my relatives and
neighbors . . . But always the pattern was the
same: I intruded myself into the story and
carried it off in a direction that would permit
me the hero's role. (Luv and Other Plays 1)
Schisgal grew up in Brooklyn and attended Thomas
Jefferson High School. At the age of sixteen, he quit
school and volunteered for the U.S. Navy. He joined in
December,l944, and was stationed at sea until his honorable
discharge in June,l946. He worked onboard as a radioman in
the Atlantic Ocean until the end of World War II, and then

served in the Pacific Ocean on a ship that was making a

l4
goodwill tour of the Far East(Followup Interview III 225).

The vivid imagination he possessed as a child stayed
with him as he matured and was even a strong factor in his
decision to enlist.

Well, I was always influenced by visualizing
myself in certain situations or professions. In
other words, truly the reason I chose to join the
Navy is because of the Navy uniform and the
lifestyle of the sailors, the freedom they seemed
to enjoy, the debauchery that they seemed to have
available to them. (Schisgal Interview 188-189 )

Apparently, Schisgal used this time well. "I spent a
couple of years at sea reading everything I could lay my
hands on, writing words and their meanings and committing
them to memory." The purpose was "to build a vocabulary so
that I could write and express myself more clearly and
better . . . . Every ship had a library; I read a lot of
Russian novels, English novels, American novels, I read
everything. In the main, fiction. I was never interested
much in nonfiction"(Schisgal Interview 189 ).

Following his stint in the Navy, Schisgal worked
briefly as a musician. That experience and the influence of
music seem to have profoundly effected his writing, as will
be discussed later. Schisgal played the saxaphone and
clarinet for a few small bands that performed at weddings

and cabarets, but then decided that he would never succeed

15
as a musician.
I was bad, embarrassingly so, so it took me
awhile to just get rid of it and recognize that
. . . . If I could have been a good musician I
probably would have stuck with it. I was, I tried
to be a musician. I've always had the desire to
write. I always had the desire to listen to
stories, to tell stories and to read stories, but
when I was a teenager it seemed, because I was
such a bad student and I was such an emotional
mess, I guess, I concentrated on trying to be a
musician. So I went through that period. I was
not very good . . . . (Schisgal Interview 188)
He sold his saxaphone and clarinet, and went to
Florida where he worked for awhile " . . . as a dishwasher
in a cafeteria. In a few weeks" he "was promoted to bus
boy." Later on he traveled around the South and managed to
hitch hike to New Orleans and then Houston, where he was
"thrown into jail for vagrancy." He had to wire "home for
money"(Luv and Other Plays 1,2).
When I came back from that trip, I must have been
twenty—one, twenty-two, I--even though I went to
college then and I went to law school, the idea of
being a writer grew bigger and bigger in my mind
. . . . When I thought of being a writer, the

first thing I thought about was being a

16
journalist, like Clark Gable in It Happened One
Nigh_, with a cigarette dangling from my mouth,
with a nice suit, tie and shirt, with the tough
talking manner about me, with whiskey at the bar
where you meet the other journalists and shoot
the breeze. These romantic images have influenced
me a great deal. Certainly that of the musician.
I saw myself as a black musician living out of my
case, working till four to five in the morning,
hanging out with guys and boozing, doing things
of that sort. Yes, those images were important to
me, those 'windmill' images. (Schisgal Interview
188,189)

Romantic notions notwithstanding, Schisgal did take
his writing seriously although he admits that he was
untrained and ill-prepared.

The thing is that when I started writing, . . . I
didn't have a background that warranted my even
trying to write. In other words, once again, I
just sat down and wrote. I wrote, if memory
serves, three novels and sixty-five short

stories, none of which were published. I just
wrote, I mean, without truly being equipped to.
write. In other words, I never took courses on it.
At the time when I started writing, I hadn't even

gone to college yet. When I came back from the

17
Navy, I went back to high school and then I went
to college and in night school, it all was pretty
much self-education. I didn't have a solid
background,education, I didn't. I just did what
I wanted to do and got by on everything else.
(Schisgal Interview 189—190)

Schisgal attended Long Island University at night for
two years and then decided that he would need a way to
support himself while trying to succeed as a writer. He
enrolled in Brooklyn Law School and received his degree, an
LLB, in 1953(Anderson 400).

At about this time, Schisgal shared a very special
relationship with a friend and mentor, George Bailin.

He was a 'neighborhood kid . . . but I was never
close to him until I got out of the service. He
was a couple of years younger, not many, maybe
two years younger . . . . I knew him, but I
became close to him after my discharge from the
Navy and during the years I went to law school,
so that was a period from when I was about twenty
to twenty-five, say. For those five years I was
very close to him . . . . He was a good friend

. . . and he was very influential during the
period of time when I was trying to write . . . .
He only lived a few blocks. What was unique was

that we saw each other every day, but

18
nonetheless, we wrote to each other frequently as
a way of writing. We enjoyed writing letters and
exchanging ideas and putting it on paper. It kind
of enriched the relationship. (Followup
Interview II 218 )

In lengthy letters they detailed their plans,
ambitions , opinions and observations. Ultimately, they got
into a literary argument about religion, and correspondence
ceased(Luv and Other Plays 2). Afterwards, Bailin's
interest in religion intensified.

He was going through a phase of great religious
yearning. Eventually, he joined an ashram of
sorts and I believe he's at one right now up in
upstate New York. He's devoted to a Buddist or
Hindu sect, I'm not sure . . . I have not seen
him in a score of years. (Followup Interview III
226)

Apparently Bailin's influence on Schisgal endured.
Yes, he helped me very much become a writer
because he was a brilliant young man. In fact, at
a very early age, he started teaching high
school. Uh--he just was very influential in
making me aware of language, of books and poetry,
of a whole world that was not easily accessible
to me and he kind of opened up a lot of doors

for me . . . intellectually . . . (Schisgal

19
Interview 195 )
Schisgal spent two years practicing as an attorney in
a law office in Manhattan(Anderson 400). Despite well made
plans, he didn't succeed.
I opened a law office on Delancey Street. My
partner used it to get laid. I used it to write.
Whenever anyone came in and asked us to take on a
legal problem we were both in a total panic.
I decided I couldn't write and practice law at

the same time, so I quit law. (Luv and Other

 

Plays 2).

Upon reflection, he does not feel that his legal
training enhanced his skills as a writer.
And if one wants to write, I think it is a bad
way to get into it . . . . I think it [khe lai]
treats language shabbily and I think it forces
you to become very stylistic in the use of
language and written language in a way that's
detrimental to truly being able to express
yourself . . . . (Schisgal Interview 211)
After giving up the law, Schisgal took on a series of
different jobs. He "worked as an order clerk, as a
biographical researcher, as a typist, as a teacher of
English in a Chassidic Yeshiva . . .(Luv and Other Plays
2). Most importantly, he continued to write. Out of work at

one point, Schisgal met Reene Shapiro, an elementary school

20

teacher who lived in the Bronx. They were later married in
1958 and had two children; a daughter, Jane, and a son,
Zachary. Reene Schisgal eventually entered show business as
a reader of screenplays, first for actor Dustin Hoffman's
production company, Punch Productions, then later as the
east coast story editor for Warner Brothers. She returned
to Punch Productions to become Hoffman's executive
vice-president for development. Since then, Mrs. Schisgal
has worked as an independent film producer. Among her
credits is the 1985 Sidney Lumet film, Power, starring
Richard Gere, Gene Hackman and Julie Christie. She is also
currently a director on "Women In Film," an independent
organization devoted to enhancing women's opportunities in
the motion picture industry(Followup Interview II 2l7).

Looking back at this period of his life, it was only
with dogged determination that Schisgal continued to write
in spite of the fact that none of his work, which consisted
almost entirely of novels and short stories, found any
sympathy from a publisher. He also returned to college
again, where he enrolled at the New School for Social
Research in New York City and received a Bachelor of Arts
in English(Luv and Other Plays 2) in 1959. Then he taught
English at James Fenimore Cooper Junior High School in East
Harlem(Anderson 400).

Oddly enough, I named some of the characters in

The Typists from my students at James Fenimore

21
Cooper 'cause I was writing also at the time.I
must say, I tried very hard to do what my job
was, but in truth that was half my day. The other
half was spent writing and I just walked the line
. . . . It was always a means to an end. I never
had it in mind to be a career teacher or anything
like that. I don't like teaching. I don't like
the position of a teacher in a classroom. And
although I did it afterwards at the New School of
Social Research and at City College for
semesters, I really loathe the notion of
teaching people anything. (Followup Interview III
225-226)
That Schisgal eventually turned to writing plays was

mostly a quirk of fate. He had seen plays as a youngster:
. . . but not so that I would call myself
knowledgeable about it. I never studied theatre
and I never saw plays beyond going to the theatre
once every couple of months. I went to the movies
a lot, I always went to the movies, but not to
plays. Plays I'd go to rather infrequently . . . .
I saw Iceman Cometh when it was first done at the
Circle in the Square. I remember I went there a
couple of times. I saw Summer and Smoke with
Geraldine Page. I saw stuff off-Broadway. I don't

recall going to Broadway very much. When I was

22
much younger, I used to go to the theatre with
relatives in Brooklyn. It was a Jewish theatre
and I would see plays there, the Hopkinson
Theatre . . . . They had companies going into
Brooklyn from Broadway and doing theatre. I may
very well have seen a few of those. But I was
never interested in writing plays or seeing plays
or the theatre per say . . . . I wrote it because
I couldn't get my other stuff done. I couldn't
get any response, any positive response. And then
I had an idea to try a play. I don't know where
it came from . . . . (Schisgal Interview 196 )

He was still employed as a junior high school teacher
when he tried his hand at writing one—act plays. "Out of
frustration, without training and without any particular
interest in the theatre, I wrote five one—act plays, each
taking about a month to write"(Luv and Other Plays 2).
Included in this group were The Typists and The Tiger.

For the first time, Schisgal began to get positive
responses to his work. "People who read my plays said nice
things about them. I had never gotten a similar response
for my short stories and novels. I started to write more
plays"(Luv and Other Plays 2).

Encouraged by these developments, he quit his teaching
job at the end of the school year in 1960, and headed to

Europe with his wife. They planned to stay in Spain where

23

they could live cheaply and Schisgal could concentrate
fully on his writing. They stopped first in London, where
Schisgal submitted his five one-act plays to the British
Drama League, a theatrical producing organization. Three of
the plays were immediately optioned and produced: Egg
Tiggg, The Typists and A Simple Kind of Love Story.

From London, the Schisgals returned to New York
"without ever having reached Spain"(The Typists and The
Tigg; 5). More work and several trips to England followed:

a television production of The Typists, productions of The

 

Typists in Israel and the Edinburgh Festival, and one year
later, in 1961, a production of his full length play Ducks
and Lovers at the Arts Theatre in London(The Typists and
The Tiger 5).

Having attained some degree of recognition and success
in Europe, Schisgal submitted six scripts to the Phoenix
Theatre in 1961. " He was fortunate in having them land on
the desk of Claire Nichtern, his present, admiring producer,
then the Phoenix production coordinator"(Litte 25). The
plays were personally optioned by Mrs. Nichtern, who was
able to get the Wallachs (actor Eli and his wife, actress
Anne Jackson) interested in the projects.

The Schisgal's went to Spain in 1962. They spent about
two months in Ibiza, "rented a house for twenty-five
'dollars a month and drank cognac at four cents a glass"

(Kaye 14) while Schisgal "wrote Luv from an idea that had

24

been lying a long time in his mind"(Litte 25).

On February 4,1963, the off-Broadway production of
The Typists and The Tiger opened at the Orpheum Theatre.
Later, producer Nichtern again brought the Wallachs, plus
director Mike Nichols and actor Alan Arkin together for the
Broadway production of £31 at the Booth Theatre(Litte 25).

What may have seemed like an overnight success to
theatre—goers on November 12,1964, when Lg! opened to rave
reviews and a long, profitable run at the Booth Theatre was
in actuality the culmination of a long and tortuous journey
fraught with frustration and disappointment. Since 1964
however, Schisgal has written plays with remarkable
regularity and has managed to get many of them produced on
the stage. One of the keys to his longevity comes from his
repeatedly successful collaborations with other theatre
artists. For example, after working with director Arthur

Storch on The Tiger and The Typists, he teamed with him

 

again for the Broadway productions of The Chinese and

Dr. Fish in 1970, and once more for the very successful

 

Twice Around the Park, which opened at the Cort Theatre on
November 4,1982.

After their success in The Tiger and The Typists in
1963, Anne Jackson and Eli Wallach performed in the 1964
Broadway hit L3! and then in the two one—act plays that
comprised Twice Around the Park, A Need for Brussels Sprouts

and A Need for Less Expertise. The latter were commissioned

25

and written expressly for the Wallachs(Schisgal Interview
158 ). Schisgal also worked with the Wallachs on the 1967
Columbia Pictures production of The Tiger Makes Out, based
on his previously written play, The Tiger.

Schisgal has also worked more than once with actor
Alan Arkin. They collaborated on the Broadway production of
L21, and The Love Sggg of Barney Kempinski, an original
television play presented as an ABC Special in 1966, and
nominated for Outstanding Dramatic Program by the National
Academy of Television Arts and Sciences(Emmy Awards).

Probably Schisgal's most famous collaborator over the
years, as well as his close personal friend, is actor
Dustin Hoffman. They first met when Hoffman performed in
Schisgal's one character play, The Old Jew, which opened on
August 16,1966 at the Berkshire Theatre Festival in
Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Hoffman performed the title
role in Schisgal's 1968 Broadway production of Jimmy Shine
at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre and then later directed All
Over Town, a 1974 farce-comedy produced at the Booth
Theatre. Hoffman and Schisgal again worked very closely
together on the 1982 screen hit, Tootsie, which was
inspired by the actor's personal struggle to launch his own
career. They were both nominated for Academy Awards in their
respective categories. Schisgal continues to work with
Hoffman by meeting with directors, actors and writers to

put together packages and properties for future motion

26
picture projects. This position has provided him with
financial security and the freedom to write plays
regardless of their commercial viability.

Aside from his plays and screenplays, Schisgal has
written a hilarious autobiographical novel entitled, ngg
and Nights of A French Horn Player that was published
1989, and which he has adapted into a screenplay.

A few of Schisgal's later plays have employed comedic
treatment of issues which then became extemely sensitive,
such as "herpes" in Old Wine In A New Bottle, and
homosexuality in Closet Madness and Popkins. In view of
today's public concern over the AID's epidemic and sexually
transmitted diseases, these plays have been rendered
obsolete because the basis for their humor no longer
exists. Some other plays possess such bizarre plotlines
that they are seldom, if even produced. Examples of these
include The Flatulist, which depicts a comedian who has
perfected the art of breaking wind; How We Reached An
Impasse on Nuclear Energy, which deals with a bearded lady;
and Summer Romance, which satirizes a romance between a man
and his paramour, a lady gorilla.

Most recently, Schisgal has been extremely productive
as he continues to experiment with a variety of new
thematic ideas. His particularly ambitious two-act work,
The Songgvgf War, attempts to deal with his troubled

childhood and reaches certain conclusions about it so that

II.

In

27
he may have, as he says, "exhausted looking at my own
childhood and my relationship with my parents. At a certain
age, I think we come to terms with it one way or another
. . . . But I have no desire to go--to do more in that
direction"(Schisgal Interview 166). This piece borrows from
vaudeville and includes monologues, jokes, dance and songs
of World War I and I vintage. The use of monologues, a
favorite theatrical device of Schisgal, had also been
incorporated into two full length plays: "Theatrical
Release," a new and as yet unpublished play, and Roadshow,
produced off-Broadway at the Circle Repertory Theatre in
1987. This uncharacteristically serious drama takes a
cynical look at marital fidelity and individual greed in
the nineteen-eighties.

The purpose for providing this overview of Schisgal's
life and career was not only to describe his struggle to
succeed as a writer, but also to examine the rich variety
of experiences and situations that he has to draw upon as a
playwright. Together with his vivid imagination, these
experiences have served him well as a source of characters
and scenarios for his plays. As his life has become more
comfortable and secure, it will be interesting to see what
effect, if any, this situation has on the future

direction of his writing.

CHAPTER II

Theatrical Theories of Murray Schisgal

A--Schisgal Interview: The Creative Process of Writing

In the discussions with Murray Schisgal, the many
seeds of his creativity were identified and explored as his
method began to emerge. One might say that his method is
"no method." Rather, it is a stumbling and struggling
attempt to discover one's inner thoughts and feelings which
are then shaped into the form of a play. The revelations
which Schisgal expressed during our talks provide an
insightful basis on which to evaluate his entire body of
work.

Repeatedly, he refused to categorize or summarize the
nature of his work, or allow any generalized conclusions to
be made based on his plays. He believes that each piece
clearly speaks for itself and searching within them for
answers to any of life's great questions was purely a
pointless academic exercise, and one in which he did not
care to participate.

Another area of discussion related to the question of

28

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29
categorizing was an attempt to link Schisgal to the
"absurdist" theatre or avant—garde movement of the late
nineteen-fifties and nineteen-sixties. He repeatedly
rejected any association with this movement, which he views
as an archaic theatrical genre. Interestingly, he embraced
the philosophy of existentialism3(Schisgal Interview
l70,l74,203,206 ). Notwithstanding these considerations, our
conversations eventually brought into focus resources
Schisgal draws upon as a playwright including music,
rhythm, vaudeville, cliche, and both the conscious and
subconscious states of mind.

His experience as a musician has enhanced his
understanding of meter and rhythm. As a result, Schisgal
has infused his plays with music, rhythmic dialogue and
stage movement punctuated by percussive sounds. He also
finds himself attracted to vaudeville as a vital form of
stage entertainment. The basic elements of vaudeville,
consisting of a series of unrelated specialty acts
including songs, dance numbers, pantomimes, comic skits and

burlesque routines, have been incorporated by Schisgal into

 

3 Existentialism--" . . . the responsibility of
each man for his own acts and for the consequences of
those acts(Oxford Companion to the Theatre 732).

3. \

many of his plays.

The pervasive use of cliches in society provides
Schisgal with yet another resource of creativity.Words such
as love, friendship, happiness and success are so overused
in modern American society that they no longer convey
meaning. He has been particularly skillful in ridiculing
cliche in his plays.

Schisgal also utilizes his understanding of modern
psychology in all aspects of his writing. His creativity
draws upon elements of the subconscious, including dreams
and nightmares, as well as conscious desires, compulsions
and obsessions to motivate the characters in his plays.

A clue to Schisgal's creative capabilities and
prolific output of plays may lie in his simple and
disciplined working routine. Each morning he spends four
hours in an office of his high-rise Manhattan apartment
working on his plays. When he was younger, he worked in the
mornings and afternoons. He may work on one or more scripts
at a time, or he may just pace. "But I'm in the room, but
I'm in the room," he indicated with emphasis. Sometimes he
listens to the radio while he works. Surprisingly, he does
all his writing on an old Royal portable typewriter. When
asked why he doesn't avail himself of a computer or word
processor, his reply illuminated a factor of his
creativity.

I don't have the patience to mess around with it.

31
And also, there's something I find satisfying
about the sound of a typewriter. In fact, it's
not electric . . . . It's like having a wrist
watch that you wind yourself every morning and
it becomes part of your rhythm or whatever . . .
If you write a page a day that your satisfied with
you're doing terrifically. There isn't that much
typing involved in playwriting, you know. You
retype it . . . you change things and you hear it
differently maybe so that the mechanical act of
doing and redoing and erasing and inserting,
there's an advantage to it. (Schisgal Interview
211- 212)

Examining the plays for recurring ideas and thematic
elements may provide a useful approach to a study of his
work, yet Schisgal believes that each play speaks entirely
for itself. Attempts to classify or categorize his work
meet with great resistance from this playwright.

Well, why do I have to describe them? I don't
understand? What do you mean, 'describe them.‘
You mean give them a label? I don't understand
why you even want that. I mean, it may be nice to
have a phrase to use, but who cares? . . . You
want to do it, do it. Find a common thread or
whatever and do it. I don't care . . . .

(Schisgal Interview 203 )

32
I think that part of my problem as a writer
always has been the disinclination to summarize
anything or to generalize to the extent whereby
one can say that life is this or reality is that
. . . . So I don't answer those questions . . . .
answers aren't, in my opinion, capable of being
defined into cute little aphorisms, one or two
lines that would sum up what the experience is.
So I avoid them like the plague . . . (Schisgal
Interview 146)

Thus, while he refused to analyze his plays, Schisgal
was willing to discuss and analyze his personal reasons for
writing. This helped to define his purpose as an artist and
the sources of inspiration for his writing.

I believe that I write from a need to explore
certain issues that I feel warrant exploration,
and I don't choose my way in any methodical
fashion. I just always go into what I am taken
with at the time. I'm not interested in
necessarily following any particular train of
thought. If I had to say what I am about, it
would be, first of all, writing for me is a form
of self-analysis, a form of discovery, self-
discovery. It's a way of examining one's own
life, one's own emotions, etc., etc. That may

very well be primary because I do, more often

33
than not, write from a very personal point of
view about things that concern me as I am. So I
am very subjective in the main, although there
are exceptions because I write for money also.
And those things may take me into areas that have
nothing to do with my own personality. But given
the choice and given the time and given the
opportunity, I will always go back to examining
my own life. That's the bottom line of it, I
guess.

Two is, I am interested in one question and
that question is, 'How does one live given the
circumstances of the hands we are dealt?‘ So I
would go to those two as being primary.
(Schisgal Interview 145 )

. . . The attitudes we have about our relative
positions to each other sexually is a very
important one . . . . I'm also interested in
change, personality change, how much can you
change, is the change lasting? Are we doomed to
be the same? Is it impossible to change? And the
word 'change' is one that concerns me greatly
also. (Schisgal Interview 123)

When asked if his plays were meant to examine
different facets or different viewpoints of love

relationships between people, Schisgal noted that:

34
In so far as examining love or any of that,
those are merely offshots, they are not primary.
They are merely going along with an examination
of social habits, etc., in order to find out
what's real and what isn't real, what's true and
what isn't true . . . . (Schisgal Interview 146 )
For Schisgal, finding ideas for his plays is a
continuous struggle as part of his life as a writer.
Nevertheless, it is clearly the starting point and
everything else derives from it.
One always lives with the apprehension that one
won't have an idea to wOrk on and there are
periods where you don't have ideas, so it's a
mixed bag. You never lose that apprehension that
you may not have--I envy people that say 'I have
ten projects waiting to be done.' I've never had
ten projects waiting to be done. If I have one to
do, I'm quite pleased because the act of writing
is a rewarding one and gives one pleasure and
torment and anxiety and a host of other things,
but it's an act that one wants to, yearns to,
tries to always be involved with, whether it's
a love of language, whether it's a love of
structure, form, whether it's going into a
fantasy life . . . . Usually I will out of

desperation take the best idea that occurs to me

35
and work on it. If it works out, fine. If it
doesn't, throw it away. Sometimes I have the
ending in mind when I begin, sometimes I don't. I
like to have a little outline, ideally. It's
wonderful to do something that you've outlined
and the outline holds up. But then again, if you
don't have anything to work on and you just, say
a little skit comes to mind, you'll be working on
the skit. So . . . I am loathe to develop some
kind of methodology that holds true at every
instance, or that one can learn and say, 'Oh,this
is how you go about writing!‘ You scramble and
you scrounge is pretty much my way of doing it.
Mostly scrounging for ideas, things that would
interest me to sustain spending a period of time
on a single project. (Schisgal Interview 147-
148)

His search for ideas often begins with a personal
experience or something very close to him, although not
exclusively.

If I don't have it, I'll start out with something
that's close to someone next door to me . . . .
It depends on what my mind has brought to the
fore and what I've been able to dig out. Ideally,
yes, I'd like very much to be able to write about

a friend, try to use his life in some fashion and

36
connect my own life to his so that it will have a
genuine engine, or I can project into it.So to
answer your question, yes, I look always to be
very subjective and write . . . very personally

. . . . The Typists was very subjective and

 

personal. It was an experience I had; The Tiger
wasn't. That was a character I used in that I
identified very strongly with that character and
felt a real thing happening to me. Nonetheless,
that character was not me as I envisioned it.
Clearly part of it was, but I had a friend in
mind. I didn't when I wrote The Typists, where I
really envisioned myself caught in that trap. I
had never been a postman, as in The Tiger, but I
had been a typist and I have had that experience
of feeling-~working at the typewriter, feeling
trapped and at five o'clock I walk out of here an
old man and that's my life . . . . (Schisgal

Interview 148 )

Beyond his ability to dramatize events and ideas from

his own life, Schisgal often depicts the dramatic action of

his plays through characters whose lives seem detached from

the real world and devoid of any direction or purpose.This

suggests an affinity for the avant-garde or absurdist

Writers of the late nineteen-fifties and nineteen-sixties.

However,

Schisgal completely divorces himself from that

37

literary movement.
Like they talk about the 'theatre of the absurd,'
and I have never yet met a playwright who was a
member of the 'theatre of the absurd' who says
he's an absurdist . . . . Beckett denies it,
Pinter denies it. No doubt Genet and Ionesco deny
it. I'm sure Ionesco denies it. I don't know what
it all means. It's academic bullshit . . . . The
word 'absurd' means literally nothing when
thinking subjectively. No one looks at the world
or reality 'absurdly.' One looks at it hopelessly,
painfully, full of awe, full of apprehension. You
could go on and on with--with adjectives, with
descriptions of what it is, but 'absurdly?' How
do you look at the world 'absurdly?' The word
itself is so academic, so dry, so divorced from
human thought and feelings . . . . (Schisgal
Interview 201 ) The word is dead. The school of
the 'absurd' is dead. You can't have a movement
that started if the fifties and sixties and has
not been fed or has not flourished, has not been
nurtured. It's all archaic bones in the dust. It
doesn't mean anything . . . . If you're talking
historically, who gives a shit! Who gives a shit
about the 'theatre of the absurd.‘ It's not

feeling theatre, it's not exciting to audiences.

38
It's history. Yes, there were a group of writers
that critics, for whatever reason, put together
under the title and they were-- they wrote plays
that expressed a certain attitude or whatever.
That's no longer true. Who cares! . . . And I
would call to your attention that there were no
Americans included in the 'theatre of the absurd'
with any respect or lasting or permanent place.
There were none . . . .(Schisgal Interview 202)
If, as Schisgal states, the European absurdists had no
influence on his writing, then we must look elsewhere for
the origins of his dramatic point of view. He contends
simply, that his creative ideas derive from within himself.
This issue remains a difficult one to reconcile.
You see, that's why they say, 'Who influenced
me?’ I am more influenced by the vision I have
and the sounds I hear when I am working than I am
by any particular playwright. I don't think of
Pirandello or Ghelderode or Ionesco or any of
those group when I am writing or when I'm even
thinking about writing. And I'm not truly
interested in that, or what they wrote. I'm not.
What I'm interested in is seeing before my mind's
eye the people come to life that I'm writing
about and hearing their voices. Not only their

voices, but with The Typists, hearing those

39 X
typewriters. And it's structured musically so\
that the sound of those typewriters were as vivid
to me as any sounds that I or any of the
characters ever uttered. And the punctuation of
the typewriters were crucial to giving that thing
a structure. So that's what I look for. I look
for the vision and the sound and to structure it
so that it has an energy . . . . But . . . I have
never felt I had a mentor, a sense that I
identified strongly with other writers . . . .
I've never been cerebral about writing. I have
always been visceral and I pay a price for this.
I've written a lot of crap. I made a lot of
mistakes in writing, But that's alright. I feel
at this stage of the game that maybe some of it
has seeped through and I've learned a few tricks
here and there. But that's been my method. In
other words, to jump in and flail about and try
to grab hold of the rein. (Schisgal Interview
149 )

’“Eluding all labels, Schisgal merely identifies himself
with the modern theatre:
. . . a theatre that does not concern itself with
psychological characters . . . {and} doesn't
concern itself with sociological character. It

concerns itself with existential character, and

40
as such, you do not need, in order to fully probe
your character, narration on the chronological
events of a man's life . . . . I am interested in
character that lives in a state of constant
apprehension, and I do it in different ways at
different times without the consistency or the
obviousness of most existential theatre, but the
truth is my interests are quite similar . . . .
(Schisgal Interview 170 )

Schisgal creates conflict or "states of constant
apprehension" by imposing strong, immediate, emotional
pressures on his characters which drive them into some very
unusual directions. In his play Popkins, meant as a sequel,

of sorts, to Ibsen's classic A Doll's House, the emotional

 

pressure is an unquenchable desire for change.
He [Ibsen] has Nora say that before I come back
to live with you [her husband, Torvald], the most
wonderful thing would have to happen and that is
that we would have to change, we would be
different people, but they're quite messed up . .
. . So change, in and of itself, is not
necessarily a desirable goal. There is a naivety
to that notion that if we change we're better and
. . . that's the crux to the play . . . . Because
change is what America's about. We all want

change. We want to be smarter, we want to be

41
thinner, we want to be healthier, we want to be
fit, we want cosmetic surgery, we want toupees,
we want this, that and the other thing, as if
it's going to make our life necessarily better.
Well it may very well not, so that's what that
play is about . . . . (Schisgal Interview 192 )
Change is a powerful notion: personality change,
behavior change, people changing fascinates me
because like everyone else, I guess a part of me
always seeks to change and I just question
whether that, in and of itself,is a goal, a
desirable goal. (Schisgal Interview 193 )
Another strong emotional pressure that Schisgal works
with is "wanting." As opposed to the obvious human needs
such as air, food, water and shelter, the real fuel for
plays according to Schisgal are "wants" and it proves a
powerful spur to his creativity.
. . .I think the word 'want,' 'wanting,‘ to me is
a very meaningful, significant word. 'To want' to
me, is incredibly important. Because wanting is
in large measure the lives we lead, what we want
and to want the wrong things is always a
possibility. (Schisgal Interview 206) . . . Once
again, it has to do with wanting. The real
challenge of most marriages is that you don't

really want it anymore. It doesn't give you

42
pleasure anymore. You really want something else,
you really want out . . . . (Schisgal Interview
207 )

Schisgal uses this concept of "wanting" when analyzing
the relationship between a man and woman in his play 91g
Wine In A New Bottle.

. . . so anyway, the guy in that play, it
wouldn't make any difference what his wife did.
In truth, he's in love with that younger woman. I
mean he just, he wants her. Wanting is so
important. It's, I mean it's so weighty, so
filling. (Schisgal Interview 207 )

In terms of his own life, Schisgal considers his
marriage in terms of "wants."

. . . . I think I have a good marriage. In other
words, I want no other and I don't look for any
but don't, don't once again categorize marriage
as a happy or unhappy marriage. I mean, see
that's in stasis, that's in concrete. I don't
think the term's applicable, I don't think you
can use the term 'happy marriage.' Just like I
don't think you can say someone had a 'happy
life.‘ That means nothing . . . . (Schisgal
Interview 206) Yes, I mean it's so volatile.
Who's so arrogant to think he has a 'happy life?'

My God, that phone can ring right now and the

43
world can come to an end for me or for you or for
all of us. Who lives happily? We've had happy days,
happy weeks, happy moments. To have a happy day is
pretty good, to have twenty-four hours without
something hitting you in the head or some fear
taking hold of you by the throat and saying "Good
God, I better do something quickly or I'm going
to be living in the gutter.' So I, you know, I
define my marriage only today in the sense that
I am fully committed to my wife, heart and soul,
and have been for a long while, but not
necessarily during our thirty—one years of
marriage. I'm sure that there were occasions when
we've experienced all the ups and downs that all
marriages must, of necessity. I would not
describe my marriage as a 'happy marriage.' I
would describe it today, today, today in
retrospect, etc., as one we both want with all
our heart and soul, we want it and we fight for
it and we don't want it to change . . . . Well,
oddly enough, the things we want I do feel there
is a safety catch on it in some way . . . I think
they're expressions of our personality. I don't
think they're necessarily that unreasonable or
that far-fetched . . . . (Schisgal Interview
206-208 )

44
'To explicate the relationshp between "wants" and
"needs" and how they can be utilized by the playwright,
Schisgal related a story about a friend of his, fellow
playwright Howard Sackler, who wrote The Great White Hope.
. . . I'll never forget it. He said--we were in
London together and he said to me, 'You know they
have this large shaving brush . . . an enormous
shaving brush with a lot of hairs, bristles on
it.' They were beautiful. They were enormous,
with an ivory handle or whatever. He said, 'I saw
this shaving brush in a window of a shop and God,
I don't know whether to buy it or not.‘ And I
said to him, 'Well, do you need it?‘ And he said
to me, 'If I want it, I need it.' And that always
stuck in my mind. And that's the kind of guy he
was. 'If I want it, I need it.' And
I--emotionally it took me a long time to
understand what he was talking about . . . . But
anyway, yes, wanting is . . . that is for me one
of the real motors of plays. Wanting, I want
something, 'I want to be king!‘ says Macbeth,
you know. To want something badly so that it
forces the action and doesn't let the action sit
still . . . . You can push that right through for
your whole story, because that 'want' is so

ferocious. And to want things, . . . and it can

45
be spiritual things, I'm not talking about material
[thingSJ--is the motor that keeps most of us
pushing through life. It's to get something, to
get some recognition . . . .(Schisgal Interview
208)

. . . . You can't come in small, you shouldn't
anyway. You should be terribly, terribly hungry
for something if you're forced into a play.
That's why,I just reread Pirandello's Six
Characters(In Search of an Author). It's such a
wonderful play. Why? Because these people want so
much to live their lives on stage, have it
written out. They want it, they need it, they're
lost. What a wonderful idea . . . . Their
appetite is so desperate, so enormous, and they
don't have to shout about it. It's persistent.
It's persistent. Ah, it's wonderful! . . . What
you need is obsession to be a character in a play
. . . . I tend to exaggerate it and play it and
go to extremes . . . . for me it has to be that
strong. (Schisgal Interview' 209 )

.According to Schisgal, one of the major characteristics
Of his writing is a lack of consistency in the way he
handles the dramatic action of each play. Each time he
writ43s, he approaches his material differently because each

time"he writes he feels differently about the material.

46
To Schisgal, this is a natural progression since everything
in :Li.fe exists in a state of flux. To do otherwise invites
staggriation and boredom.
See, that's why you can't freeze it, you can't
put it in the refrigerator like ice cubes that
are all in the cube tray. I could never write Lgy
today. I probably couldn't write it a year after
I wrote it, or write like it . . . . Not only I
feel differently, I'm not interested in it
anymore. I'm not interested in maintaining a
stylistic integrity, so that my works are all cut
out of the same piece of ice. . . . Clearly, one
looks at Beckett's plays and they all bear a
strong resemblance to one another and they are
cut out pretty much in a very similar style. His
early plays, his late plays, they are all
'Beckettish.‘ I've never sought that. He has a
coherent philosophy no doubt, feelings about
reality, I don't. I don't have any, I define
nothing and therefore it's pretty hard to hold to
any style or perspective for any period of time.
(Schisgal Interview 150)
His continuously dynamic approach to writing accounts
for the wide variety of structural and thematic elements
that? are found in Schisgal's plays. Once the script has

beerl completed and the original production opens, Schisgal

47
has no need to go back and re-examine it.
I'm really not interested in going back to them
in any way. I don't reread them. If there's a
production, I won't see it unless there's a
special reason. As a rule, I usually see the play
once it opens rarely. We work on it before it
opens, but once it opens, I don't like seeing it,
my own plays again. I don't enjoy it and I'm
preoccupied with what I'm doing now. I'm not
really interested in what I've written before. So
that I never reread them and I rarely see them
when they're produced. (Schisgal Interview 151 )
The effort that Schisgal puts into rewriting his plays
Will. enhance an appreciation for this point of view. He
Stated, "I would say every play I do is at least ten
rew’ri‘tes and sometimes it gets sick. I do it so many times
and 12 do it from the top . . ."(Followup Interview IV 238 )
Once: 'the play goes into production, Schisgal continues to
work; <:losely with his director and the rewrites continue,
sometimes until the play opens(Followup Interview IV 232 )
At this point, he is " . . . sick of it . . . and . . .

can'-t, stand it anymore . . . . I don't want any part of it.

It's history!(Followup Interview IV 239 ). Nevertheless, the

aeti‘fe process of writing a play still brings Schisgal the
greatest satisfaction:

. . . Working on a play everyday is precisely

48
what I want to do. It's not painful. It's
frustrating and it can become painful if it turns
out not to be as good as one's expectations. It
does hurt to do bad work. Yes . . . . I primarily
am concerned with putting on paper the play I
want to see. I may never see that play, but it
has to be on paper, so that when I read it, I get
a sense of it visually. And the process of
writing must, in view of the difficulty of
theatre today, of getting plays on etc., must
give me a sense of gratification. I think it was
possible, and still is possible no doubt, for a
playwright to derive his primary joyful
experience from watching a play in production.
Today, that is such a helter—skelter kind of
effort that I have put upon myself the burden of
realizing the play on paper. Hopefully of course,
I'd love to have it produced and I'd love to have
it look well and go well. But if it doesn't, that
doesn't deter me in any way. (Schisgal Interview
151, 152)
iMbst of Schisgal's plays can be considered avant-garde,
Strallge or as he sometimes characterizes them, "perverse
and "off-beat"(Schisgal Interview 168: 177). The ideas or
creailive inspirations are not always derived out of

CircHamstances in his own life or anyone else's life for

49
that matter. Often the source of the play is from a
child—like motivation to toy with his ideas and throw them
at the audience.
So writing for me is a form of 'play' as well as
the other things I said: self-examination, trying
to explore certain questions. The idea of play,
why do I choose to write this thing which is so
fucking off-the-wall, and where did it come from?
It's a form of play for me and I love to play. It
took me a long time to admit it. I love to play
with my imagination and with characters and with
language and with play. That's where it comes
from . . . .(Schisgal Interview 168 )
Other sources of creativity come from his subconscious
ihl‘tlue form of dreams and nightmares.
Nightmares. I'm conscious of that. You see, I go
through periods. I went through a period where I
would try to put a cat in plays. I wrote or I'd
put a knife in plays, all images that come out of
my nightmares: the cat, the knife or whatever. I
will consciously look for the opportunity to
insert. Even if I do a humorous thing . . . I
said, uh—-'meowing like a cat in a garbage can.'
I will put that in because it is out of
nightmares, because those images are so vivid,
convey such magic that I'd go after them . . . .

(Schisgal Interview 172 )

50
This love of 'play' perhaps pushes Schisgal's work in

the direcrtion of emphasizing situations and plot lines at

the experise of detailed character development.
Yeah. I fight boredom all the time. In other
words, no doubt I pay a price for it because I
don't have those fully drawn, probing, profound
characters who answers in the course of a play
all the big questions about his or her life. And
so you're absolutely right. In other words, I
avoid at all costs the familiar because I fight
always naturalism, I fight always exposition, I
fight always the familiar. And so I do a little
dance to get around it. I really think that the
play of 'character' as it is historically known
will, let me say, it's of little interest to me
. . . . I know, when you read reviews of plays
and they talk about the richness of character,
well that's pretty hard to do without being
tedious. (Schisgal Interview 169 )

AS £3chisgal begins to shape and craft a play, he has a
very real and specific setting in his mind as he visualizes
the movement of his characters around a particular setting.
In Spitfi! of the detail provided by his imagination, his
Strong (aislike for "words in the theatre"(Followup
IntetVfiJiw IV 237 )usually yields succinctly written plays

I . . .
( usually don't overwrite, I underwr1te.") and a minimum

51

of stage directions(Followup Interview IV 237 ).
Well, I see it, oddly enough. And I don't always
see it on stage. Very frequently I'm not on the
stage when I'm visualizing what I'm writing
about, hearing it . . . . Sometimes I'm on the
stage and I can actually see the stage boards and
I can see the sides, my mind puts me on that
stage. Sometimes the stage disappears and I'm in
reality, in a different way. So it shifts on me.
I prefer being on stage because then I can count
the steps it takes to get from here to there.
Accurate or not, but that's very important for
me. See, I'm overwhelmed by the spatial aspect of
theatre. Bodies on the stage fascinate me. The
dimensionality of the characters on the stage is
of greater interest to me frequently than any
other aspect of theatre, including language. The
body on stage, how it sits, how it stands, where
those arms are; I can never put down all those
directions that I see because I hate stage
directions . . . . The theatre that I can't stand
besides naturalistic theatre, is verbal theatre.
I cannot stand going to the theatre and seeing
people sitting in the living room talking.
Whether they're wisecracking or not, or joking,

I'm not interested immediately. And I can't help

52
it because the stage is a magical place and
placing the body on stage becomes a magical being and
therefore it is not ordinary. It is not natural
. . . . And to watch that body on stage to me is
one of the main reasons to go to the theatre . .
. . (Schisgal Interview 172-173 )

This importance which Schisgal attributes to bodily
movement on the stage is evident in much of his work and it
is one of the techniques he utilizes to enhance dramatic
tension. He has taken physical movement on the stage to an

extreme degree in two plays that are farces: An American

 

Millionaire which opened at the Circle-in-the-Square

Theatre on April 20,1974, and All Over Town, which opened

 

on December 29,1974 at the Booth Theatre. Interestingly,

farce appeals to him for philosophical reasons as well.
The truth is that farces are interesting to me
because of movement and they're choreographed.
But too, equally important is that farces are at
heart existential. They don't deal with
character, they deal with the frenzy of social
relationships and I think that Feydeau was a very
important existential writer. One can enjoy his
work on more than one level. (Schisgal Interview
174)

In addition to the element of movement, Schisgal uses

other dramatic devices to enhance theatricalism and

53
maintain the "magic" of the stage. One device that he
Particularly likes to utilize is the soliloquy. It seems to
Provide him with a very effective means of attacking
realism in the theatre.
I did it in my first play, one of my first plays,
The Typists. The two typists come forward
downstage and talk to the audience. Light hits
them and they tell their personal experiences
because they don't want the other person to hear
their inner monologues . . . . Well, it's a way
to break through the wall, the fourth wall, which
I think is essential to do when you can do it,
when it works. As I told you, I loathe naturalism
. . . . (Schisgal Interview 185 )

VH1EEII asked if his use of these presentational devices
was in any way influenced or inspired by the plays of Brecht,
Schisgal responded vehemently.

I don't give a shit what he wanted. Most of the
Brecht I've seen has bored the shit out of me.
I've seen a couple of good things. I truly
respect him as a playwright and as a poet and
think Three Penny Opera, to say the obvious, is
by far the best modern musical ever written. It's
wonderful and I love it. And I love many parts of
many of his plays. But frankly, I have no real

identification with him; his temperament, his

54
milieu, his interests. (Schisgal Interview 185)
Schisgal uses the soliloquy when he wants to provide a
character with the most dramatic means of expression at his
disposal. It is a device that harkens back to the time of
the (old variety form of vaudeville.
Yes, I am very enamored of vaudeville. I think
vaudeville is a great theatrical way of
presenting an event. I really feel a closeness to
vaudeville and would love to find ways-- that's
why frequently I'll use song and dance and break
it up with jokes, like skits or whatever. I think
there's something to the vaudeville rhythms in a
theatre, the authenticity of it is what attracts
me, the up-frontness of it. That is, the
performer downstage talking to the audience. And
who can forget the way Olivier did Egg

Entertainer, in both theatre and film. How

 

wonderful that is. (Schisgal Interview 186 )
M“Sic can also augment the theatrical qualities of a
play. SChisgal's training as a musician has influenced his
use Of mnusic and musical rhythm in his plays. Sometimes

mu51ca1_ aselections are indicated in the stage directions

' £30 I use music that usually, that I have some
f e
eellng for or that evokes certain emotions in me
(er °
p sonally and I try to communicate that through the piece

t4)
the audience"(8chisgal Interview 187 ).

55
Rhythms of pure sound may replace the use of music and

have led to some very interesting results.
Well, I do something else. I always try for
rhythms. In other words, I consciously try to
write to a beat and that includes dialogue as
well as introducing the chattering of
typewriters, the slamming of doors, the ringing
of bells. I will deliberately look for a rhythmic
pattern to what I do. If I can find it, it
pleases me. The Typists, the whole thing was
written, almost was orchestrated, as was say All
Over Town. And it's not only introducing music.
It's the rhythm of dialogue and the rhythm of the
choreography. And I try to get all those elements
together. And my failures mostly come about, in
my mind, is when I can't sustain those ideas so
that the whole is imbued with a rhythmic base . .
. . (Schisgal Interview 187 )

This examination of Schisgal's method of creating a
play 5° :far indicates his use of a wide array of stimuli and
ideas to ignite his imagination. In effect, his approach is

Spontaneous and haphazard. He emphasized this point and
compared his techniques with those espoused by Harvard's
pioneer dramatic writing instructor, George Pierce Baker.
He pointed out that that kind of an approach would be

'tCDt
ally anathema to him:

56
Phillip Barry, Sidney Howard, S.N.Behrman—-they
were all in Baker's class and he had a book that
he wrote that encompassed his idea about dramatic
writing . . . . And it says things like, 'A
cluttered play is always a bad play. Selection
with one's purpose clearly in mind is the remedy
for such clutter. How may we know whether our
motivation is good or not? First comes structure,
ordering for clearness and correct emphasis in
the storytelling.‘ My God! I couldn't read more
than a page of this, I find it so boring and
tedious and such academic bullshit . . . . if I
had to sit down and write a play and answer
questions as to its motivation and clarity
and to define it in terms Mr. Baker evidently
thinks is necessary before sitting down to write
the play, I could never write. I'd rather write
the play, as I do, using what experiences I've
acqvlired, certainly trying to learn from what
miStakes I've made, but doing it with as much
S'Polntaneity and as much visceral feelings as I
can muster, as much life and energy as I can
muStar. (Schisgal Interview 183)
By describing his process of creativity in terms of
strong thSj-Qal and emtional analogues, such as "giving

birth '. and I. , . . o o
catharsis," Schisgal seems to minimize writing

57

as

an intellectual exercise. In effect, his is attacking
afi‘ther cliched idea:
I've always been the same. And it fills me, you
see, it fills me emotionally, this impetuousity,
this heedlessness, this stupidity. I wrote a book
called Days and Nights of a French Horn ler. I
took about, maybe a dozen lessons on the French
horn, from a French horn teacher from Juillard,
read a few books, listened to records, a great
many records of French horn concerti and that
Was it. I mean, while writing. I mean, I know
alibout as much about the French horn as the 'man
in the moon' . . . . I couldn't wait to write
What I wanted to write. And it truly wasn't that
important to me. I wasn't interested in the
mechanics of the French horn, but yet truly, the
Work must suffer because if you're going to do
something decent, you should know--have a good
knOwledge of what the hell you're writing about.
But my main concern in writing is not that. My
main concern is always, for want of a better
expression, 'giving birth.‘ I am truly filled
Vi th it. I must get it out. And the compulsion is
to get-it-out, because it is forcing itself on me
and so all other things are thrown to the side.

(Schisgal Interview 190-191 )

58
It is clear from the preceding interview statements
that Schisgal's creativity derives from his own need to
Explore the conscious and subconscious elements of his
Characters as they attempt to cope with the circumstances

of trueir lives. Although his plays do not attempt to

the exploration of the problems

provi de any solutions ,
resulJ:s in intriguing dramatic situations. Rejecting

conventzional realism, he has consistently embraced those

elements; of presentation which promote bold theatricalism,

that 154' an appreciation for the stage as a special:

perhaps (even a magical place. This adventuresome approach

seems tC) be his primary function as a playwright and

underlieagg the impact that all his plays have on an

audience2..

CHAPTER I I
Theatrical Theories of Murray Schisgal

B--Discussion and Evaluation of Schisgal's

Theories of Comedy

Comedy is the dominant dramatic form or characteristic
found 1111 Schisgal's plays. He has a penchant for creating
"off-beaait" comedies with strange plot lines and troubled or
disaffeaczted characters. Unlike the domestic situation
C0m6d1€2=s that appeal to mainstream American tastes.
SChngEiZl consistently aims for something different. The
f011°WTilng discussion attempts to explain the reasons for
his reliance on comedy, describes the nature of the comedy
he writes, and also provides a detailed analysis of the
comedic: techniques utilized in several of his plays.

Surprisingly, in an interview with The American
IQEEEESEo. Schisgal stated, "Well, I really don't think of
myself Ens primarily a comedic writer. I frankly write what
at the| nnoment strikes me as being worthwhile and I just
don't categorize myself for what I am doing"(130)-

Arljyone familiar with his plays will find this

sat
atement confusing and perhaps attribute it to another

59

60

example of his resentment of classifications. This

Conclusion becomes more evident after examining a followup

Statement made later during that same interview:

Ass

Yes, it won't do to adhere to classic
distinctions between comedy and tragedy. I don't
know if they were ever valid, but certainly they
have little use in our vocabulary today. I think
a play primarily should not shy away from any
attitude which it needs to fulfill itself, and if
one would deal with contemporary society, I think
that of necessity one has to laugh as much as cry

0 o o o ( 130-131)

a general observation on life, the above statement

maY'hoJ.Ci true, but it becomes contradictory when you

consideaz: the majority of Schisgal's work. In fact, in a

1982 interview with New York Times reporter Helen Dudar, he

discussed with her the basis for his proclivity toward

comedy.

'Let's go out' is Mr. Schisgal's favorite
expression and an invitation he extends
profligately. In the days of his East New York
childhood, he was a skinny kid who used comedy to
cope with a hostile environment represented by
bigger, tougher boys--'Everybody wanted to kill
you,’ he recalled. Persuaded though he is that

humor is born of cowardice, he now finds he can

 

61
be funny even in the absence of terror, a

discovery that has unleashed chronic friendliness

in most public places. (Dudar 5)
If Schisgal's flair for comedy evolved from a need to

Survive during his childhood, it is also important to

reconsider statements he made regarding his approach to

Writing. "I look always to be very subjective and write . .

- Vet); .personally." Later he added, "When you asked me
What's my view of reality, I go back to what I said
originally in that insofar as my view of reality is one
that asks the question, 'How do we live?‘ That's my view of
realitgz’.. How do we live? How do we experience joy?"(SChngal
Interij«£aw' 151). That Schisgal developed an understanding of
comedy 23s a child and now utilizes it to explore the
madness of modern life, provides a starting point for a
discu5353 ion of the way in which he develops comedy in his
plays-

S=‘-<2‘hisgal satirizes man's existence by selecting
SPeCi-fic vices, follies and controversial issues, and then
examixl‘es them in some form of dramatic action. His
Characrters are thoroughly unremarkable people, certainly
diffelTent from traditional dramatic heroes. They are

plagued with insecurities, doubts and fears, and often
resort to ridiculous behavior in order to make it through

ano
ther difficult moment in their lives. Schisgal's comedy

101
Q
has cutting satire with a dose of compassion for man's

62
innumerable foibles.
An interesting analogy can be drawn between
Schisgal's use of comedy to dramatize the way modern man
Tlives" and "experiences joy," and the purpose of comedy in
Aristuophanic Old Comedy. Writing during the latter part of
the .Ftifth.Century B.C., Aristophanes presented his comic
premise during the prologue in the form of a "happy idea"
that was "fantastic in concept and comic in its absurd lack
Of'tratizitional logic"(Pickering 37). In terms of his use of
comedic: devices, Aristophanes displayed in most of his
forty E>:1.ays "an unparalleled comic imagination, managing to
combine: exquisite lyric poetry with obscenity and farce,
and hiSIlb1.seriousness with low comedy. His primary concern
was alVTiELys the welfare of Athens and thus, in a sense, the
welfarea of all mankind"(Pickering 40).

3111- a similar structural approach, the comic premise or
"haPEY' :idea" can usually be identified in the introductory
scenes of Schisgal's plays and they then form the comic
basis for everything that follows. Although Schisgal rarely
uses I><Jetry, he has a keen awareness of rhythm and music,
and frequently incorporates these elements into his plaYS
as Well. As with Aristophanes, the concept is often
fantastic and the logic usually absurd and ridiculous,

lacking a rational or scientific explanation.
Schisgal possesses a unique inventiveness in which he

fre
e
11’ combines a variety of comic effects or devices. In

 

U

63
his book, Anatgom/ of Drama, Alan Reynolds Thompson provided
a method for analyzing comic effects based upon a hierarchy
of their intellectual appeal. His scale ranges from
indecent and obscene effects which would appeal to "the
Simplest minds,"(196) to physical action and mishaps,
effects that arise from the development of plot, verbal
Wit, inconsistencies of character and finally the
intellectual "comedy of ideas" and "satire"(205).
Schisgal skillfully combines the "comedy of ideas"
With inventive verbal wit. He does not hesitate however, to
also incorporate crude sight gags and farcical slapstick
into the same scene. To some, the result is hilarious
€01“an , while for others it approaches comedic overkill. In
his book The Juming Off Place, Gerald Weales commented
that " Schisgal is among the cleverest of the playwrights of
the 19360's, but even his best work hints that his
Cleveli‘rless may be a burden as well as a blessing"(106).
Weales may have been referring to this overabundance of
comedic devices.
Analyzing comedic techniques used in specific plays
may elucidate Schisgal's approach. In The Flatulist and M

W O
eR\eached An Imgsse 0n Nuclear Energy, two of his later,

1e
88 Commercially successful plays, the "happy idea" or
CO
mic premise that Schisgal has crafted has been taken to a
par
t31<2ularly ridiculous extreme.

:I‘he Flatulist, first produced in February, 1980 at

64
Rip Torn's Sanctuary Theatre in New York, combines serious
e"lotional content with crude, physical comic effects
resulting in a kind of obscene fantasy. The dramatic action
bagins in the office of Jack Kohane, a talent booking
ageurt, who receives a visit from his former client, Gregory
Horowitz. Unlike many of Schisgal's other plays, here the
events of the past impinge strongly on the present
Circninistances. Gregory is a former comedian with a history
0f being temperamental and troubled. As past problems are
diSCussssed, Jack tries to instill guilt in Gregory for the
way he; behaved. More importantly, Jack raises the point that
Gr990zfzgr's deceased father, Buzz, a trained violinist-turned—
comic, always felt that his son was ashamed of what he did
to eaITJFI a living. Gregory pleads with Jack to allow him to
demonas‘tzrate part of his new act. He won't tell him what it
is, kru11: mentions that it was once performed in France.
Acconfllbianied by an introductory tape recording from an
earlier performance, Gregory warms up his body "with almost
fanat'ical concentration" by doing a series of knee-bends,
squat;53’ jogs-in-place, and other exercises.'rhen he bends
forward at the knees, opens a flap at the rear of his pants
and begins to flatulate to the tune of "Home on the Range."

Ja .
c1: looks on in "absolute amazement," which turns to anger.

He
SJ(Des to raise the venetian blinds in order to open the

‘Vfii
IIde as Gregory yells out to him:

'No, leave it! I'll do it!‘ He bends over, breaks

65
wind: the venetian blinds zoom to the top of the
window; he breaks wind again, and the window
flies open: he now changes his position, aims at
the blade fan on the ceiling, breaks wind: the
blade fan whirls about soundlessly, speedily. He
rises, feeling very pleased with himself. (The

Flatulist 36)

 

Tibere can be no doubt that in performance, this moment

from the
member s ,

comica .1

humoro u S

play would shock and disgust some audience

while others would probably find it crudely

When asked about this, Schisgal recalled a

story from the February, 1980 performances.
I tell the story of a man who walked out, a
middle-aged man and I was pacing him back and I
followed him out and I said, 'Sir, I can
understand your being offended by this play and
I'd like to give you your money back. He said,
'No, no, I don't want money back, I don't want
it.' I said, 'No really, I wrote the play, I'm
the playwright and I can understand that you're
sensitive and you took offense and please let me
give you the money.‘ He said, 'No, I don't want
the money.‘ He said, 'I'll tell you something,
Mister.’ He said, 'I loved that play. I think
that play was terrific. And then that guy started

farting on the stage and I couldn't take it

66
anymore. (Followup Interview II 219 )
Apparently, this audience member missed the point of the
Play and mistook the actor's flatulence for the real thing!
Schisgal also utilizes comic inconsistencies between
Gregory's statements and his actions, to compound the comic
Effect. For example, Jack threatens to walk out on Gregory
unless he agrees to go back to doing the old comic
rOUtiries that his father did. Gregory responds, "He was a
Vulgar: and obscene little man. His act was an abomination,
an ineslllt to the intelligence. He groveled and whined to
please; his audience. That, I submit respectfully, is not the
° ° - Ealttitude of an artist"(The Flatulist 37). One can
ODIY Klialrvel at the irony of such a statement coming from a
flatul-Ii.st. Then, as if to underscore the absurdity of his
Prece<3-fiLng statement, Schisgal takes the dramatic action to
the most ridiculous extreme. Gregory loses control, again
unbutrt;<3ns the pants "flap, assumes the posture and breaks
wind. :several times, knocks the books off the mantelshelf,
tossegss Jack's homburg into the air, starts a roaring blaze
in t}lee fireplace as a painting whirls around on the
wallV" (The Flatulist 37-38). In spite of this cascade of
SigTrt' gags, the serious tone of the scene continues. Jack
maiutlains his refusal to send Gregory out on any
performance bookings. Gregory blames Jack for ruining his

fa
Itllfiér's career by destroying his confidence as a serious

l'l'ltas
itlian and turning him into a "hack" comic. He

 

‘r

67
characterizes Jack's "influence over the lives of others"
as a dangerous weapon. The melodramatic quality of these
reCriminations between the two men is broken by the
absurdity of the final moments of dramatic action. As Jack
begins to exit from the room, Gregory blasts him directly
With four or five "huge, thundering wind blasts that shake
the office furniture and reverberate against the walls.
Jae): is shot again and again, stumbles across the room,
gasps - . . , clutches his throat, flails his arms" and
finally collapses dead on the desk as the room fills with
"nOXiOus, toxic gasses"(The Flatulist 40). The scene ends
as Gregory picks up Jack's homburg, places it on his head
and walks out of the office singing the refrains of "Home
on the Range."

In spite of its unusal construction containing
diSjOinted moments of crude comedy interspersed with
excess ive melodrama, The Flatualist apparently succeeded as
a comedy in performance. Although it played for only a few
days as a showcase production and, according to Schisgal,
left 113he audience "open-mouthed and aghast by what they
were witnessing” the comedic moments worked, providing him

w. . .
1th " some of the biggest laughs I've ever gotten 1“ the

th
eat‘-J:‘e"(Followup Interview II 219 ).

VVith a scenario even more outlandish than that of The

Fla
1:"qlis , Schisgal's politically motivated How We Reached
A

1'1
We On Nuclear Energy seems overburdened with comic

68
buSiness and devices that obscure its attempt to seriously
address the issues that it raises. First presented in 1988
in a public reading at the Apple Corps Theatre in New York
City, this comedy-drama juxtaposes two of the most
Controversial issues of the nineteen—eighties: male
ChaLIVfiinism versus women's rights, and the dangers of
nuclear energy.

.Ajs the dramatic action begins, Dennis Wilson, the
NUCleasz Power Commissioner, has just returned home from a
lnonth .1.c:ng fact—finding trip overseas to assess the safety
StandaJENcis of nuclear power plants. Unbeknownst to him, his
Wife hEiwss grown a beard and when he first sees her, is quite
unders‘|1‘—-Eandably taken aback!

Dennis. Rosalind . . . what . . . what is that
. . . (Forces a laugh) It's funny. It is funny.
Where in the world did you get it?

Rosalind. Get what, Sweetheart?

Dennis. The . . .beard.

Rosalind. Oh, how stupid of me. I completely
forgot.(Strokes beard) I grew it while you were
away.

Dennis. (A short puzzled beat) You grew it?
Rosalind. Why are you surprised? You knew I
shaved. I made no secret of it.

Dennis. Yes, but . . .

Rosalind. But what?

 

69
Dennis. I . . . I was under the impression that
you shaved only your legs and . . . your armpits.
(Impasse 24)

The typical situation-comedy dialogue between Rosalind
and Dennis continues in this mundane fashion, further
emphasizing the comedic understatement of the situation.

Rosalind . . . . I take it you don't like the
beard.

Dennis. Like It?

Rosalind. Dennis!

Dennis. I'm sorry dear. I've been flying for the
last fifteen hours and I haven't turned around
as yet. Is it . . . a genuine beard?

Rosalind. Darling, I told you . . . !

Dennis. Just asking. I'm just asking. Frankly, I
don't understand why you . . . want it. It does
nothing for your appearance.

Rosalind. (A short,sad beat) You're the first one
to say that.

Dennis. I am?

Rosalind. Everyone else has complimented me on
it.

Dennis. They have?

Rosalind. Perhaps you should think of going into
analysis.(Impasse 25)

Izcgss
allLind goes on to defend her right to grow a beard,if she

 

70
so desires, as a natural expression of her male secondary
Set“Characteristics. To prove her point, she reminds Dennis
(at the times that he has expressed his female secondary sex
eraCteristics.
Rosalind. You seemed to me to be so gentle, so
sensitive; you weren't ashamed of your female
qualities; you expressed them freely, and I loved
you for it.
Dennis. Don't misconstrue my position, Rosalind.
I'm not ashamed of my womanhood.
Rosalind. I know you're not. That's why all this
is so absurd.
Dennis. It's one thing to express the opposite
sex inside oneself, it's another to physicalize
it.
Rosalind. But I've seen you physicalize the
female in you.
Dennis. When have you ever seen me . . .
Rosalind. Many, many times. Don't you enjoy
opening my perfume bottles and sniffing at them?
Dennis. Oh, that.
Rosalind. How about when you look through my
jewelry box and casually put on a necklace or a
bracelet?
Dennis. For fun. That's merely for fun!

Rosalind. Do you remember the night you came home

71
drunk from a party at the Belskys?
Dennis. (Thinking) Uhhh . . .(Abruptly) No.
Rosalind. You put on my bra and panties.

Dennis.(Thinking) Uhhh .

Rosalind. And you pranced around the room as if
you were Queen of the May. I rarely saw you as
happy as you were that night.

Dennis. Ah! I remember now.I was quite drunk and
I had no idea what I was doing. (Impasse 29)

By means of these hilarious inconsistencies of
character between the staid outward appearance of this "man
()1? ssczience" and his private dress-up fantasies, Schisgal
(21:622113es comedy and advances his political agenda for the
play- He also continues to assault the audience with
alternating moments of serious drama and absurd comedy.
Following this scene, Dennis allows Rosalind to make him up

as a woman with lipstick, powder and wig and then admits

that he likes the way he looks. To this Rosalind adds:

Rosalind. You don't feel physicalizing your
female characteristics demeaning, do you?

Dennis. Surprisingly not.

Rosalind. There's a naturalness about your

appearance now. (Impasse 30)

The burlesque effect from this making-up scene stands
in
I‘tlv‘arked contrast to the serious tone of the play which

en
estles. Rosalind confesses her new-found knowledge and

72
(fears concerning nuclear power to Dennis and pleads with
111m to resign from the Nuclear Power Commission. Dennis,
frowever, sees the issue as an attempt on the part of
Izcasalind to try to dominate him, setting up the impasse.
Even as the discussion attempts seriously to address the
‘j,g;:sues of power, nuclear devastation, and equal rights, we
Irrnzsst.remember that the dramatic action of this scene calls
for a woman with a beard, arguing with a man made up to
L1uC><Dl< like a woman. Exactly what the final effect of all
these conflicting images would have on an audience cannot
be determined by a reading of the play. Perhaps with
ImEasse, Schisgal's attempt to explore serious issues by
<=c>nn13cining domestic, situation comedy-type dialogue with an
absurd set of circumstances fails to achieve his previously
Stated objectives for writing a play. Those are:
self‘analysis/self discovery and examining the question,
"licy‘T do we live? . . ." This time, the comedy seems too
heavily dependent upon sight gags, while the scenario is
sgitnE>J.y too far-fetched to be believable on any level.
Instead of the comedic and dramatic elements reinforcing
‘311‘3 Einother, they work against each other, weakening the
o‘rerall dramatic impact and leaving the reader confused.
It is interesting to note that in his more recent
w°rks Schis ' ° ' '
, gal has headed in many different directions. He
wrote Oatmeal and Kisses about five years ago in an

at
t‘empt to find a "commercial performance" play(Schisgal

73
Interview 160 ), in other words, something that would
appeal to general audiences and make some money. Using
similar characters to those in Old Wine In a New Bottle,
but avoiding the herpes issue, this light, frothy comedy
concerns itself with the fitness and nutrition craze. It is
as close as Schisgal ever gets to pure situation comedy.

The Songs of War, produced in 1989, is an
autobiographical play with music and songs. Its intent is
serious and the style comes across as very theatrical by
its use of songs, monologues, narration and vaudeville
format, although its portrayal of characters and events
suggests a realistic approach.

With "Yellow Cat," Schisgal has ventured into the
realm of fantasy romance, but with a serious moral. The
protagonist in this fetching and far—fetched tale of love
and Chivalry is Mike Orkin, a swashbuckling folk hero who
combines the best attributes of "Spiderman" with those of a
modern day "Robin Hood." Once a yuppie-type, he walked out on
his Wife Lucy, and eventually joined the ranks of the
hotneless on the streets of New York. He shows up at his
former wife's literary agency office twenty years later in
tatters . . .

, pushing his belongings in a shopping cart. It
turns out that Yellow Cat, Mike's alterego, prowls the
city . . . .

at night helping to move homeless families into empty

a
pal‘tments of the wealthy who are away on vacation.

F0
llowing the renewal of their romance and some other minor

74

plot complications regarding the literary agency business,

pdike and Lucy decide to give marriage another try. Overall,

it is frivolous fun which also focuses some much needed
attention on the plight of this nation's homeless
population.

"Theatrical Release," completed in 1989, is an unusal
piece of theatre that blends abstract, nonrealistic sets
1nd costumes with realistic dialogue, plot and characters.
‘he story examines the relationship between Allen
:irmingham, a Wall Street stock broker, and Tommy
>1enville, a high rolling "wheeler-dealer". The stage
irections indicate a stylized ballet motif in the design
f the set, costumes and much of the movement.
LDec—Tifically, the stage directions indicate set pieces that
.re Obviously "stage—fake" with the characters dressed in
full 1~bodied white leotards, white shoes and no socks"
"Theatrical Release" 1-1-1). The dramatic action is
Frequently interrupted by songs and dance. To prove his
’oyalty and confirm their new friendship, Allen commits
:Orporate crimes by providing Peter with "insider"
‘nformation. Allen gets caught and both men eventually
to to jail. There is a subplot that involves Allen's

71
£9 0 Becky, who has recovered from a serious bout

’1
th cancer. The fear of a recurrence of the disease
Lm .
plhges heavily on their lives and casts a somber mood

§
‘Vs
r1 on the lighter moments of the play.

75
The very latest Schisgal offering called "Snowball,"
returns to the idea of "talking gorillas" that began with
1:11e 1983 play, Summer Romance. In terms of the nature of
the play, Schisgal noted, "My thrust is not to be
offensive. My thrust is to turn myself on"(Followup
Interview II 124). In other words, for him, the process of
wr i ting plays approaches the thrill of sexual excitement.
Schisgal's method of creating bizarre, comedic
si tuations as a vehicle for his exploration of serious
human concerns consistently characterizes his work. His
abi .1 ity to transform the previously discussed array of
creative elements or impulses into theatrical comedy
accounts for the diversity of his plays and tends to
Confirm his own admission of being unable to write domestic
SitUation comedies for mass consumption. Nevertheless, his
playS often struggle with this very dichotomy, that is, a
willingness to risk offending an audience's sensibilities

while at the same time trying to insure their enjoyment by

punch Zing each dramatic moment with a maximum amount of

c
omed ic business .

CHAPTER III

Schisgal Interview: The Playwright's Role in the

Production Process

Like any artist of the theatre, the playwright's
grasp of the business and financial aspects of his field
j.£3 czrucial to his success. Schisgal's thirty year career
5:132:118 the vital period of commercial Broadway productions
Cilllf'j.ng the early nineteen-sixties, the development of
alternative theatres off-Broadway and off-off—Broadway
(3111::i4ng the nineteen-sixties and nineteen-seventies, the
c:c>r1<:warrent growth of the regional and university theatre
m'O‘VG-ements, and the present collapse of opportunities for
Serious new works on Broadway. His ability to somehow
maneeuver through all these changes and still get his work
produced on the stage is a testament to his uncanny
survivability as a working New York playwright.

One factor that should not be overlooked has been
SchiSgal's ability to attract distinguished actors,
directors and d '

pro ucers to collaborate with him on
IDirgfiuctions of his plays. Some of these, a few of whom
lléixrea .

already been mentioned, include Dustin Hoffman, Gene

Plaitzktman, Anne Jackson, Eli Wallach, Alan Arkin, Rip Torn,

76

77
Iuike Nichols, Vincent Gardenia, Arthur Storch, William
lyevane, Marshall Mason, Paul Sorvino, Cleavon Little,
Barnard Hughes, Adolph Green and Phyllis Newman. Yet with
each new play that he writes, Schisgal must work just as
hard to get it produced.

In the case of his recent play, The Songs of War, he
sent the script out to regional theatres all over the
:ountry and received over a dozen rejections. He also
sent it to his friend Jerry Gardeno, a director who had a
relationship with the Gem Theatre in Garden Grove,
reaJLgigfornia, and they produced it during the summer of 1989.

There's no hard and true rules. You scramble
and you hustle and try the best you can to get
people to read it. If I did Songs of War in
July and I'm going to do Popkins in March, I
guess if I can do one play a year, that's not
too bad. I don't feel deprived or panicked or
anything. That's not where I'm at. What I'm
interested in now primarily is what I'm writing
now. Hopefully, I can get something done. I
would like the plays to be done, but if not,
they're written and they're there and I just
keep moving. (Schisgal Interview 177 )

You have to understand that that many plays
don't get done. A lot of these repertory

theatres which now is where it's at, certainly

78
not on Broadway, off-Broadway, you can't do all
kinds of plays. You can do small plays, you
can do plays that have four, five characters,
who sit and talk the whole evening . . . . So
the real life of the theatre today is in
repertory theatres and LORT theatres throughout
the country. And they do not do that many new
plays. They do a lot of classics, a lot of
tried and true plays. They'll do four plays and
one will be a new one and three will be remakes
. . . . You can't compare the theatre today and
go back twenty-five years to 1963—64. I mean,
they're not the same theatres . . . . No, it
was a different ball game. There was different
action. I mean, Broadway in the early 1960's
was doing a lot of new plays. A lot! That's not
true today at all . . . .(Schisgal Interview
178) And it's all so institutionalized.
Off-Broadway there used to be quite a number of
off-Broadway producers as well as a lot of
Broadway producers. Well, will you do me a
favor and name me three off-Broadway producers
or three Broadway producers who are not
institutions, and who are producing plays on a
regular basis? Will you name those names for me

and tell me where our producers are? There are

79

none!(Schisgal Interview 178 )

Since the option of doing new plays on Broadway,
off-Broadway and in the regional theatres has become
severely limited, our discussions turned to the
possibility of utilizing alternative performance
situations. As far as Schisgal is concerned, taking a new
play over to London or having it produced by an
experimental theatre group or a university theatre
department does not represent a viable alternative.
Regarding a production in London he said:

It's not a practical possibility because when I
did it, I did it in very small theatres and
under very limited--I don't choose to have it
done there now unless it was done well. If the
National Theatre wanted to do a play of mine,
fine. If they wanted to do a play of mine in
the West End, fine. I don't think I write that
kind of play that they'd be interested in
That's my educated guess. (Schisgal Interview
179)

In terms of experimental theatre groups or
off-off-Broadway,Schisgal held little enthusiasm for that
idea because of previous negative experiences and the
minimal public exposure that such performances attract:

Those experimental theatre groups that I know

about or I have heard about do not do good

80
work. They do not have the money, they do not
have the resources, they do not have the acting
and directing talent, they are really
'fly-by-night' outfits that get by as best they
can . . . . No, I don't know any experimental
groups where work can be done and done well!
Now, what do you mean by it being 'done well?‘
That means you need time, that means you need
talent, those ingredients are wholly missing
from most, all of off-off-Broadway or
experimental groups that I know of. They have
neither the time, money nor the consistent
talent that's needed to do a good piece of
work. What's the advantage of doing it there?
(Schisgal Interview 179 )

Schisgal usually does not consider the educational
theatre environment as an option when looking to get a
new play produced. He is most confident when working
with professionals and will only pursue university
theatres with recognized reputations or when he can
collaborate with a friend. One such example is Arthur
Storch, Chairman of Syracuse University Department of
Theatre and artistic director of Syracuse Stage.

Well, I'm not familiar with educational
theatre. No one has ever written to me asking

me for a play to do there. Experience has

81
taught me that unless you have a foot in the
door, you're going to be short shrifted. Some
reader's going to read your play, some student
in graduate school or whatever, and turn it
down or I don't know what, pass it on maybe. I
don't know. I sent to Harvard, I sent to Yale
. . . . I'm sending something now to Arthur
Storch at Syracuse. I've worked there. I've
done a play there. So yes, if I know someone
there I will do it . . . . (Schisgal
Interviews 182 )

Despite the current situation which makes it
extremely difficult to get any new work produced,
Schisgal refuses to let it deter him:

. . . Obviously, to a degree, I'm affected by
it and I don't pretend I'm not. I'm
disappointed when I'm rejected, but that is
something I've grown a bit thick-skinned about
over the years. And I am affected by the fact
that it is so hard to get a play uh--but I
refuse to permit it to be important to me . .
. . I'll send it out to Mark Taper or to the
Old Globe Theatre or Harvard or Yale or
something I've heard of or read about. If I saw
Sweeney Todd recently at the

Circle-in-the—Square and I liked the work of

82
the director named Susan Schulman, I send her a
play. I say, 'I enjoyed your work. Here's
something I've written. Are you interested?‘ I
haven't heard from her yet, but as I say, I
keep in there, I go to the theatre a lot and I
send out my stuff. This week I sent something
to Arthur Storch . . . . I mean, I would send
out script a week (Schisgal Interview 182 )
Successful collaboration means more than turning a
completed script over to a talented director. Schisgal
becomes a very active participant of the production team
for one of his plays. He believes that this
follow-through during the production process is critical
to the success of the play:
. . . I involved myself in rehearsals. I would
not give out a play as a rule that I did not
have input in terms of casting it, in terms of
possible rewrites, in terms of staging, in
terms of everything. That's why ideally, I love
to work with friends, with people who are on
the same wavelength with me. That doesn't always
happen. You end up firing directors, fighting
with them. It's a mixed bag. What I seek is to
work with friends, people I've worked with
before, who share something in common and we

have a place where we can discuss and argue and

83
fight and everything else, but do it towards
the work and improve the work. . . I sent the
play [The Songs of War] to my friend Jerry
[Gardeno]. He knew a theatre that was
interested in doing it. I went out theretGem
Theatre, Garden Grove, CA) and picked the
actors with Jerry and the producer and then I
was there. I left them alone for the first week
of rehearsal, so that Jerry could work with his
cast and not have my presence there which is
intimidating frequently. The second week of
rehearsal I was there; the third week of
rehearsal I was there. Through the previews I
was there and I listened and I suggest cuts, I
suggest staging, I suggest everything--I mean,
I talk to my friend about the production . I
have imput and he may disagree with me. We may
argue, he may agree with me, but we work it out
so it's something we want. I may lose one or
two and he may lose one or two. I don't know,
but this is collaborative and it's good to be
collaborative with friends who will be
objective about the work and not get into a
whole personality thing with you which
frequently happens when you work with people

you haven't worked with before. You're suddenly

84
worried about his ego, your ego, hurting, not
hurting each other, all the rest of that stuff
. . . . Well, the director will usually spend a
good deal of time on the phone or in person
going over that with you. I have a list of
questions to ask them and will have some
thoughts about the style, about the sense of
it. If he has any answers, actors have
questions, we address them . Yes, it's a very
time consuming effort to do, but you need the
time. Unfortunately, you know, except for very
rare circumstances, you just don't have the
time and you don't have the money either. So
it's always an uphill battle (Schisgal
Interview 154-156 )

When the collaborative efforts for a theatrical
production do not come together, the effect on the first
production of that play can be devastating and everyone
involved suffers. Again, the key to avoiding this type of
outcome, according to Schisgal, is to work with friends.
People that have worked together harmoniously in the past
greatly enhance the prospects for future success:

. . . two years ago, I did a show called
Roadshow, very off—beat kind of thing . . . .
Now, the mistake there was the production.

Because of the theatre and the set-up and

85
because my director and I weren't on the same
wavelength, I couldn't present the play, I
couldn't have the play produced as I had
envisioned it, so that when it came out, it
fell short of the mark, to say the least . . . .
I feel I've made a number of mistakes in getting
my play on: by miscasting it, by having the
wrong director, by being in the wrong theatre,
by not having solved the third act . . . .
The obligation of the playwright really is to
see that the thing produced in some way
resembles what he had in mind when he wrote
the play. And you have to fight for that, you
don't get it. Nobody gives it to you. You have
to fight. I'm talking about the initial
production, which is the one that really counts
in terms of giving a life to the play . . . .
(Schisgal IntervieW' 183-184 )

One of major problems facing contemporary playwrights is
the demise of Broadway as a producing center for new plays.
The expenses of mounting a new production in New York
are now so prohibitive that producers are very reluctant
to back anything but mainstream entertainment, plays that
look like guaranteed hits at the box office. It is a
trend that severely limits the options of working

playwrights such as Schisgal.

86
Very few playwrights are connected with
companies so that they can work on their plays
with actors on stage. So it becomes a very
private, cloistered kind of thing. And I think
it's necessary to make that adjustment. I can
have actors come up here to read my plays, I
can read them in theatres, I can probably get a
play done every year one way or the other; but
it is not a daily theatrical life I'm living. I
mean, the truth of the matter is the playwright
has pretty much divorced himself, because of
circumstances, from the theatre. So anyway, to
get back to the point I'm trying to make, I
try to put it on paper so vividly and so
accurately that looking at it, reading it,
visualizing it gives me a sense of
accomplishment, even if I never see the damn
thing produced. Otherwise,I couldn't keep
writing. So that's the challenge. (Schisgal
Interview 152 )

Our discussion pursued this question of whether a
play is a finished piece of literature or the framework
for something that must be ultimately realized on the
stage. Schisgal's response was surprisingly definitive:

No, no. The ultimate test of a play is its

production. Nonetheless, it is literature. It

87
can be enjoyed on the page, not as much, not as
satisfyingly, not as fully as a production, but
nonetheless one can sit down and read Genet and
get a charge out of him and enjoy him. So,
you know, it's not one or the other, it's a
mixed bag, but ultimately, the test is its
playability. Clearly, that's what its function
is, but that's not the whole story since we all
read plays and derive great pleasure from that
experience. (Schisgal Interview 154 )
Schisgal writes probing plays that address the often
strange and maddening nature of modern city life. He
incorporates topical issues and social questions into the
dramatic action. As a result, his plays are often
considered too controversial or inappropriate for
mainstream viewer tastes. While he is aware of these
limitations, he feels that he cannot change the way his
mind formulates plays.
. . . Yes, but my personality is perverse. The
perversity of it is that my sense of what's
commercial is far off the wall, I mean
unfortunately. I thought I'm being commercial.
Then everybody tells me it's off-the-wall and
it's this, that and the other thing because the
truth of the matter is that I can't change the

way I see reality. Whether I'm commercial or

88
not commercial, whether I think I'm commercial
or I think I'm not it doesn't matter. I see
things the way I write them and so it's a game
I play with myself because when I try to be
commercial, when I deliberately try to write
something to make money, it doesn't come out as
a commercial vehicle for most producers. It's
too off-beat one way or the other. It's
'herpes,I it's a 'bearded lady,‘ it's
'gorillas,‘ a whole menagerie. And so,
everything has to be taken in context in so far
as ultimately I pretty much see things the way I
see them and I can't suddenly become a sit-com
writer for television, which I've tried. I've
tried to write sit-com for television and I've
never been able to do it. I've tried to write
film. The reason I was lucky with Tootsie was
because I worked closely with my friend Dustin
(Hoffman), but I've written half a dozen screen
plays which have never got done. Two, I did
Tiger Makes Out and I did Tootsie. But I've
done a half dozen more and I've never been able
to get them done because they're too-—they're
just not right. They're not 'Sally meets Irving
or Harry.’ I just don't know how to do that. I

can't sustain it. Not only don't I know how to

89
do it, but it's that I don't know how to
maintain an interest in it . . . . that's the
real problem. I get bored writing dialogue
coming out of these mundane, realistic
situations that general audiences respond to.
(Schisgal Interview 161, 162)
ffine truth of the matter is however, that the present
theatrical climate in New York is such that only a
preci.c>11s few plays are considered for a Broadway or even
off-Broadway run. Schisgal's plays may be looked upon as
tOO kfiizzarre, too avant-garde or even too silly by
PIOdUCers, but he also points out:
. . . no one is getting producers . . . . So on
the one hand I'm not getting produced for the
stuff I've been writing lately which I'm
sending out because it's half alive and half
dead until it's done.' I don't know how it's
actually going to work out . . . I can't truly
hear those lines and watch those actors moving
about spatially. On the other hand, I always
comfort myself, I think of my peers. I mean, I
don't find anybody on easy street who I admire
or I respect. So I don't hit myself over the
head too hard if I can't get my stuff done.
That may all be a rationalization, but that

doesn't stop me from going to the typewriter

90

every day, which I do. And that's the most

important thing, that I don't permit the

reality of how difficult it is to get a play

done to prevent me from working. And that's

what I'm truly interested in, working. And

since I'm a writer, the bulk of my work is

writing. (Schisgal Interview 168 )

biany times during our discussions Schisgal brought

up titles importance of artistic freedom. The issue is not
one (31? censorship or infringement of personal freedoms,
but rather one of economic survival. It isn't until a
writexrr achieves financial security that he can usually
afford to devote all his energies to projects that are of
greatest importance to him. For Schisgal, this security
has 1>€e<an attained through his executive film development
POSitii.<3n with Mr. Hoffman's production company. He
belierxrtes that his last four plays reflect a marked
difference because he made "no effort to write stuff that
I thirl}( is going to be commercial . . . "(SChiSQal
Interview 161 ). Was this not the same dilemma faced by
the alDESIirdists in the fifties? Yet they chose to follow
their Eithistic instincts, ignored economic considerations
and Wrote plays regardless of mainstream bourgois tastes.
Schisgal thinks that there is no comparable situation

today.

I really think that there is more tolerance for

91
theatre, there's greater diversty of theatre in
European countries. In London, you've got
fifteen or twenty critics, you've got a good
chance of knocking off four, five, six good
reviews which can sustain you. I spoke to Peter
Hall about this recently and he told me it's
just death here. It's not the same, it's not.
This is a 'tough cookie' country for theatre.
It is tough! And for things that truly aim at
something, that try for something, I'm telling
you we do not have today, in my opinion . . .
one single prominent playwright of the
generation let's say of Sam Shepard, David
Mamet, who can make a living at playwriting.
Neither of them do, they are both into films
every chance they get . . . . Say I came up in
the early sixties with Albee, Arthur Kopit,
Frank Gilroy, Jack Gelber, Jack Richardson,
those guys coming up out of off-Broadway in the
early sixties, late fifties—early sixties, etc.
All those guys, including myself have been
pretty much wiped out in terms of having a life
in the theatre.They hang in there, they do
something, as I do, but there's no real
productivity, there's no real vitality, there's

no real yearning for anybody. I guess of all us

92
guys, Albee had the biggest reputation and the
most success. He won two Pulitzer Prizes. It
doesn't mean baloney; he can't bring a play
into this town if he stood on his head. The
money isn't there.So my point is this: my point
is, how important is theatre? I think a cynical
reaction or response to that would be, 'not
very,‘ and theatre is going the way of ballet
and opera. It's going to be subsidized . . . .
However, does that stop Don Quixote or prevent
him from going after his Dulcinea? No, it
doesn't, because there will always be a theatre
and it could always turn around, who the hell
knows. Broadway is not dead and I don't think
it's going to die, and there's off-Broadway
and regional theatre and stock theatre. And
none of us are in it really to become national
heroes. We're in it because that's what we want
to do. (Schisgal Interview 162—163)

The current state of the theatre in the United
States therefore, presents a discouraging array of
ObStaCIJ-ees and difficulties to playwrights attempting to
get their work produced. Schisgal has confronted this
Situation in a variety of ways. While he continues to
write plays that express his personal artistic vision and

attempts to stage them in regional theatres,

93

off~off-Broadway theatres or through rehearsed readings,

he also has utilized his creative talents in the more

lucrative area of motion picture development. In effect,
5729 financial security derived from film-related
activities subsidizes his ongoing theatrical endeavors.
It is a sad commentary on the vitality of the American
theatre, and yet it represents one pragmatic approach
for theatre practitioners who wish to contribute to the
theatre in order to maintain it as a viable art form for

the future.

CHAPTER IV

Analysis of Three Schisgal Plays
A. Basis for Analysis

IEach play that Schisgal has written during the past
thir13)’ years represents a dramatized expression of his
thougfrlts and feelings toward a certain situation at a
given period of his life. He has clearly stated that the
PliYS Inust be allowed to speak for themselves;
concllzisions or generalizations derived from or imposed
upon his work have no validity, as far as he is
concerned. It may prove worthwhile, however, to look at
three (of his plays in order to illustrate how his ideas
on thia creative process and the production process, as
StatECi in the previous interviews, have actually been
translated into specific theatrical experiences and
realized on the stage. The Typists, Luv, and JimmY Shine
represgeallt the culmination of his creativity and business
acumerl (:oming together. These productions all had
success ful runs in New York's commercial theatres during
the nil"leeteen-sixties and although they primarily

94

95
rePresent an early phase of Schisgal's development as a
wt'iter, they are probably his most recognizable play
titles to the '
general public.

In terms of the actual writing process, Schisgal has
indi.c:arted that he rewrites each play extensively, at
leas;t: ten or fifteen times, primarily by retyping the
previous scripts, occasionally making notes directly
with: Ilis pen. He noted, this process is crucial "because
the EiCZt of typing a script is very important to me
. . - . the physical act of typing and re-hearing the
lines; and re-visualizing the people on the set in my mind
are important to me because that's the strongest evidence
I ha‘rea ‘whether the thing will work or not . . . "
(F0110wup Interview IV 232 ).

()Jnce the process of rewriting is complete, Schisgal
attempts to get the script produced. He does not read
the Play to anyone or use anyone as a "sounding board"
for Personal responses to it until he actually becomes
invoi‘reed in a production situation, "so that I would only
be Working with the director who directed it, since
every1><3<5y has an Opinion about everything"(Followup
Interview IV 232 ). Perhaps because he rewrites
eXtenSj-Vely on his own, his plays:

. . . remain pretty much the same once they
went into rehearsal. In other words, the

production of The Typists that was done in

96
London . . . hadn't changed at all. Very minor.
The same is true of Jimmy Shine and guy. guy,
the New York production, the ending was changed
and there were some additional lines, but
nothing of any dramatic nature. (Followup
Interview IV 232 )

()nce the play goes into production and the actors
begigrl to work on the stage, "the problems start
presenting themselves." The need for rewrites becomes
"further exacerbated when you're in front of an audience
- - - so the majority of rewrites happen during previews
and rehearsals rather than prior to going into rehearsals
(F011<Dwvup Interview IV 233 ). Of the three plays under
discuSsion, Jimmy Shine proved the most problematic in
terms (of the script and the need for rewrites. "It did
requinzree major rewrites and they were done out of town
during; previews . . . ."(Followup Interview IV 235 ).
SChiSSJzal recollected that rewriting occurred while they
preViEB‘ved in Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.:

because the play didn't stand up in front of an
audience and we tried to make it better by
rewriting it . . . . And, of course, there is
an attempt to be professional about it, but
underlying it all is a good dose of hysteria

. . . . The important ones [rewrites] are

structural problems, those are the ones that

97

are most painful. It's not a question of lines

It's a question of clarity,

a question of design

usually. its a
question of intention,

(Followup Interview IV 235-236 )

In the discussion that follows, each play will be

individually examined to determine the playwright's

Laurpose for writing it and the thematic ideas which are

Important plot elements, as they relate to the

expressed .
careative process, will also be discussed. A review of
(:17itiques from the original productions provides insights

:irlto the public's perception of Schisgal's unorthodox

style. The plays will also be evaluated in terms of their

dzraimatic structure. This assessment will include this

alli:hor's subjective response to the plot, characters,

dj.ailogue, production style and a determination of whether

tllee playwright's purpose in writing the script has been

realized.

B. The Typists

This early, one—act play contains most of the
essential structural and theatrical elements which
Schisgal continued to utilize and develop in his plays
over the next thirty years. In The Typists, the lifespan
(sf two menial office workers has been compressed into a
ssingle day.The dramatic action takes place in a realistic

business-office setting where Sylvia Paxton, a young
secretary, greets Paul Cunningham, a new employee about
13c: begin his first day on the job. Paul attends law
school at night and struggles to make ends meet. The work
tlliat Sylvia and Paul perform involves taking names and
addresses out of the telephone book and typing them in
alphabetical order on postcards which get mailed out to
'Plfcaspective customers. Specifics regarding the nature of
trleair business are not disclosed, nor does Schisgal ever
hiixre their often-referred-to-boss appear on stage.
Keeping these factors unknown enhances the universal
qlladjtdes of the play.This "one" day in the office seems,
tc’ them, to drag on forever and acts as the metaphor for
tlmeir lives. Although the dramatic action represents an
eight—hour work day, comic moments are created by the
idiosyncrasies of these characters as they age from their

twenties, to their thirties, forties, fifties and finally

98

99
into their middle sixties. By means of the dramatic
action, the relationship between Sylvia and Paul develops
from that of co-workers to friends, then to confidantes,
potential lovers and ultimately to that of life-long
working comrades on the brink of retirement. Utilizing
this fantastic device, Schisgal conveys the tedium and
detachment of man's existence in a mechanized, modern
society.

In one particularly funny moment, Paul and Sylvia
get into a vicious argument because they cannot agree on
tvlmen to eat their lunch. Paul tells Sylvia that he
J.c>athes her, and Sylvia retorts to Paul that the sight of
lljgnlumkes her ill. Paul rises ominously, goes over to
533’1via, and tells her that what he really wants to do
153 rip the clothes off her back, "piece by piece," and
Inailce violent, passionate love to her(The Typists 18 ).
Srlee admits to feeling the same impulse. Later on in the
Play, in an effort to demonstrate his prowess on the
tYpewriter, he resorts to a series of "shticks" including
t”'Yping with his back to the machine, typing
53itnultaneously on two machines, and finally typing with
}Ii£3 feet. As a contrast to these obviously funny bits of
'Prrysical business, there are other moments of
t'heatricality. All activity on stage freezes as each
(Eharacter delivers a monologue which provides insights

into their feelings, failed expectations and unfulfilled

100

dreams. These reflective interludes provide a very
theatrical counterpoint to the otherwise realistic style
of the play. Schisgal has also established a variety of
rhythms within the piece by using the clattering of the
typewriters and the ringing of their bells to accentuate
the dramatic action of many of the scenes.

Knowing Mr. Schisgal personally, I can easily think
()f the character, Paul, as the embodiment of the
Lalaywright. As previously noted, Schisgal has said that

(Flue Typists "was very subjective and personal. It was an

 

eergperience I had . . . . I really envisioned myself
caught in that trap . . . but I had been a typist and I
have had that experience of feeling, working at the
tli'pewriter, feeling trapped and at five o'clock I walk
0111: of here an old man, and that's my life"(Schisgal
Interview 148 ). So, in a way, this play not only has
autobiographical significance, but also represents a
hi ghly subjective rendering of his experiences. In a
wlTitten introduction, Schisgal has provided further
irlssights for The Typists which clearly establish the
blueprint for this comedy.

I once worked for an employment agency that
sent out typists to companies . . . . I was
usually sent out with a fellow named John
Bageris(today a teacher and painter of

wonderful abstractions). We'd sit beside each

101

other, typing names and addresses on endless
sheets of paper. When the supervisor wasn't in
the room, we stopped typing and talked about
everything under the sun. But as soon as the
supervisor walked in, we'd start typing
furiously again.

When I wrote the play I heard the clacking
sound of the typewriters, I saw Paul and Sylvia
age in front of my eyes, and I prayed with all
my heart that I could live another life. (guy
and Other Plays 7)

Schisgal has endowed The Typists with all of the
creative elements that he considers essential. He
hdisghlights the theatricalism by means of long monologues
tllaat Paul and Sylvia deliver directly to the audience,
arl<3 uses typewriter sounds and slamming doors to heighten
tllee tension and energy level of each dramatic moment. The
irrelevance of previous events and relationships in the
1~3'L‘nres of his dramatic characters illustrate Schisgal's
ennbrace of existentialism. Ultimately, we do find out a
gr‘Eat deal about the private lives of Paul and Sylvia,
'btrt this knowledge has no bearing on the outcome of the
Plday. What concerns us is the developing relationship
between Paul and Sylvia as this day and their lives pass

before us .

The original production of The Typists took place in

102
London in 1960, under the auspices of the British Drama
League. A production was also presented at the Edinburgh
Festival in 1961. The play opened at the off-Broadway
Orpheum Theatre in New York on February 4,1963 with Anne
Jackson as Sylvia, and Eli Wallach playing Paul. Arthur
Storch directed the production and the set design was by
INolfgang Roth(The Typists 6 ). The Typists was the
lionored recipient of the 1963 Vernon Rice Award, the
ESaturday Review Critics Poll Award, and the Outer Circle
Award.
In spite of its success, The Typists received mixed
reviews from the press. Harold Clurman noted in his

Nation review that Schisgal has a gift for humor and "has

 

f<313nd a way of saying things, bitter or painful in other
dramatists, which in The Tiger and The Typists are
Plreesented with quizzical playfulness that is wholly
enS3aging"(Clurman 166 ). He noted however, that the
‘rrViting "lacks distinction." In Edith Oliver's review for
trlee New Yorker, Schisgal's gift for humor was commended
a11<3 she noted his "ear for the inane drolleries of New
Yc>rkspeech"(Oliver 114). She went on to say that "with
alel their theatrical inventiveness and bits of irony and
ncInsense, they are essentially demonstrations of fairly
standard ideas about people and their behavior"(Oliver

1'14 ) Howard Taubman, who wrote a review for the New York

:Pimes , also approved of Schisgal's comedic touch, but

103
added that his inventiveness "is not sustained and tends
to dawdle"(Taubman 5 ). Nevertheless, he concluded,
"Just when you are ready to give up on him as being
complacently glib, he comes up with an unexpected twist
or explodes a hilarious line."

What makes The Typists such an interesting piece of

 

drama is Schisgal's device of moving the two characters
freely through time as they age from their twenties to
‘their sixties in the course of the one day depicted on
sstage. Schisgal acknowledes that the basis for this idea
cierives from:

. . . my own fear, my own apprehensions. I
had many jobs before. When I wrote that, I was
teaching. But before that, I had many jobs and
I think it's a common apprehension that we all
share that we're doing chores, mechanical
chores, routine chores, and we're growing old
and we're not living our lives. So we take a
condensation of that personal and I hope
universal apprehension, fear, of not wasting
our lives, doing things that do not have any
meaning for us. (Followup Interview IV 240 )

As the play progresses, there are momentary flashes
<3f hope and dynamic action in which Paul and Sylvia
attempt to break out of the ruts which they have created

for themselves. Sadly, the fear and pain associated with

104
the possibility of change proves more powerful than their
need and desire to bring about that change. In the end,
they are reconciled to their unhappy and tedious lot in
life, and seem to find some sort of solace in the simple
stability of their jobs as typists and in each other's

comraderie.

In The Typists, Schisgal encourages the audience to

 

(zonsider some very serious questions about the nature of
nuadern man: Why does he allow himself to get trapped in
lgife? Why does he sow the sees of his own unhappiness?
IJCIW'can he succeed in spite of his fears? They are
disturbing questions that have no easy answers, yet
Sczluisgal raises them in his uniquely original and
dramatic style. What keeps the play upbeat, is his gift
fC>1r comic dialogue and inventive business. These
Cllearacters are defined by their actions and the choices
t}leey make. The play succeeds because audiences can

‘31 early identify with these characters and their

urli‘versal human frailties.

C. Luv

Murray Schisgal didn't become a successful
playwright until he reached the age of thirty—seven, and
then he scored grandly with the 1964 Broadway production
of Lug. It was probably one of the funniest plays of the
nineteen-sixties, with the title itself setting up the
(zomic basis for everything that follows.

The fantastically ridiculous love triangle in Lug
:ilivolves Milt and Ellen Manville, a miserably unhappy
c:c>uple, and Milt's old high school buddy, Harry Berlin,

‘VIIO languishes in self—pity and despair. Not unlike the
satzructure of Waiting for Godot, Act I and Act II are
Cii.storted images of each other. In Act I, anxious to help
I'IEirry and, more importantly, unburden himself of Ellen at
iifle same time, Milt initiates an introduction between the
two in the hope that they will "hit it off," marry and
S lee everyone ' 3 problem.

Early in Act I, Harry asks Milt, "What do you
believe in?" and Milt responds, "I believe in love,
Harry"(§y_ 19). The problem is that each character's
definition of love is so personal and so distorted that
rho one else could ever possibly share it with them,
Eilthough these three characters certainly must get credit

105

106
for trying. As Act I comes to a close, the characters are
upbeat and hopeful. Harry and Ellen head off together,
hand-in-hand, to visit the Empire State Building, leaving
Milt "salivating" in ecstasy over his freedom to pursue a
romance with his girlfriend, Linda.

Act II takes place months later and supposedly, much
has happened to change things for the better. Milt and
Ellen accidently meet on the bridge only to find out that
they are more miserable than ever. Both of their new
marriages are failures. This time, with a minor variation
of the action in Act I, Milt wants to get out of his
second marriage and begs Ellen to get rid of Harry so that
they can get back together again. In the end, Harry winds
up just as miserable as when we first met him, the odd man
out as Ellen and Milt walk off into the night arguing
over which of them loves the other more.

The simplicity of guy's plot sets the stage for
these three characters to follow through with Schisgal's
funny business in what amounts to a series of comic
sketches and skits. While these moments in the play seem
reminiscent of vaudeville routines, the predominant style
of the piece remains realistic, and the characters never
directly address the audience. Aside from their mental
states, we learn very little about these people, nor do we
need to know more. Schisgal's tendency towards

existential characters is firmly established here.

107

Everything of significance that happens, happens on the
bridge before us. Thus, Milt and Harry find out the hard
way that they have become victims of their own inflated
dreams and expectations. Expecting too much from love and
life has set them up for disappointment and made them
look and feel ridiculous. Walter Kerr put it this way:

Mr. Schisgal doesn't necessarily deny that

things are tough all over; he just sees how

preposterous it is that we should take such

pleasure in painting the clouds black. (L21 5)

Over the course of the two acts, Schisgal unleashes

a barrage of comic elements that run the gamut from
intellectual satire and comedy of character, to farce and
crude sight gags. One idea that Schisgal particularly
enjoys playing with is "the contest of miseries" between
his characters. The game of "If you think that's bad,
wait till you hear this!" provides some particularly
effective comic moments, especially when combined with
Schisgal's flair for verbal wit and incongruous exchanges.

Harry. Did your mother ever kiss you?

Milt. Once. When I stuck my head between her

lips and a picture of Clark Gable.

Harry. Well, that's better than I did.
Schisgal repeats a variation of the same device a few
moments later in a scene between Ellen and Harry.

Ellen. I said, 'Did anyone ever try to rape

108
you?‘ When I was fifteen, Harry, only fifteen.
Two boys . . . . If I hadn't kicked and
screamed . . .
Harry. Where was it?
Ellen. Where was what?
Harry. That the two boys grabbed you.
Ellen. In Queens. 0n Parsons Boulevard. When I
was walking home from the bus stop.
Harry. (vehemently) I've never been to Parsons
Boulevard. Never, I don't even know where the
hell Parsons Boulevard is!

Schisgal also created comic effects by using verbal
wit to twist normal logic, as in this exchange between
Harry and Milt:

Milt . . . . Do you know I'm more in love today
than on the day I married?
Harry. You don't mean . . . ?
Milt. That's right. But my wife won't give me a
divorce.
There is an equally funny moment late in Act II between
Ellen and Harry:
Ellen. I'll never love you again, Harry. Now
that I've lived with you I find you an utterly
obnoxious person.
Harry. All right, that's a beginning; that's a

start.

109

Sight gags and crude humor are also part of
Schisgal's arsenal. There is a moment when Milt explains
to Harry that his financial success derives from his
determination to work hard fifty weeks a year. As he is
saying this, he proceeds to empty the contents of a trash
basket. First he pulls out a naked doll, waves it in the
air and inserts it into his overcoat-turned-receptac1e. A
moment later, he removes a baby's chamber pot from the
trash basket and turns it over in his hand before
dropping it into his overcoat saying, "And let me tell
you, Harry, nothing, nothing succeeds like success"(Lgy
17 ). Another running gag involves Harry's retelling the
humiliating experiences of having a dog urinate on his
gabardine pants leg, an incident which precipitated his
emotional breakdown. Appreciating the comic effect of
repetition, Schisgal later closes the play with the dog
chasing a terrified Harry around the stage.

L21 opened November 12,1964 at the Booth Theatre and
continued to sell out for over two years. It was an
artistic and financial triumph due in no small measure to
the collaborative efforts of director Mike Nichols and
actors Alan Arkin, Eli Wallach and Anne Jackson, a factor
not overlooked by the playwright. In a November 22,1964
New York Times interview, Schisgal stated, "I don't think
I will ever tire of saying that the contribution of the

director and the actors equaled my own." He also thanked

110

his loyal producer, Clair Nichtern "because her desire to
see the play done as I envisioned it was as strong as
anyone elses"(Peck 1). Ironically, the original 1963
production of L2! in London proved quite unsuccessful.
Schisgal attributed the inability of the English actors to
convincingly portray American characters and the
reluctance of British audiences at that time to embrace
American playwrights as the main reasons for this
failure. Fortunately, for the New York premiere
production, the right combination of circumstances all
seemed to come together(Telephone Interview March 25,
1991). A grateful Schisgal later noted:

I got lucky with this one. Lucky with the

casting; lucky in the directing; and lucky in

the day and month and year of its New York

opening. . . And actors, director and writer

were of one mind: we were all doing the same

play. So it worked out well. (Luv and Other

Plays 297 )

Schisgal stated that the stimulus for Lu! derived

from its characters.

Out of characters evolve the ideas.The three

characters in Lug had been sitting in my head

for a good number of years and for no apparent

reason, one day they just stood up and started

shouting at me.They're composites of people

111
I've known but no one is any one person."(Peck
1)

With the stunning success of Lug, Schisgal was
embraced by critics and the theatre-going public as a
major American playwright and this country's answer to
the "theatre of the absurd." In an article written for
the Sunday Herald Tribune and reprinted as an
introduction for the acting version of Lug, New York
critic Walter Kerr proclaimed:

I like Murray Schisgal because he is one step
ahead of the avant-garde . . . .

If the avant-garde, up to now, has
successfully exploded the bright balloons of
cheap optimism, Mr. Schisgal is ready to put a
pin to the soapy bubbles of cheap pessimism."
<L_uy, 5)

In keeping with Schisgal's purpose as a playwright,
Lg! provides no answers to the questions it raises. The
playwright's intention aims at providing the audience
with a meaningful and enjoyable experience. In a 1964
interview with Ira Peck, Schisgal compared the experience
of going to a theatrical event with viewing a modern
painting, and viewers should ask themselves, "What am I
experiencing? What is delighting me? What are my own
feelings in relationship to it? .. . (Peck 1 ).

In fact, it would have been uncharacteristic of

112

Schisgal to try to come up with the answers to the far
reaching questions that guy raises. As his three
anti-heroes emote, frolic, dance, sing, laugh and cry
around the stage, all aspects of contemporary society are
ridiculed: "alienation, loss of identity, inability to
communicate, homosexuality, existentialism, Freudianism,
self-expression" and cliche. In this particular instance,
love functions as the greatest cliche of all(11§§ 81 ).
As Schisgal pointed out, L-u-v is the perversion of
l-o-v-e, which in modern society has become:

a repository for insincerity, for physical

desire and perhaps primarily for money . . . .

Love has become a commodity rather than an

emotion. By commodity, I mean relationships. By

pretending in personal relationships that what

we say is what we mean. (Peck 3)

To try to explain this play however is to do it an
injustice. Although Luz contained elements of serious
social satire, it played as a riotous comedy. In his
review in Nation, Harold Clurman wrote:

. . . the play is a clean hit, a continuously
engaging event. The peculiarly American style
employed is related to clowning in the manner
of a sophisticated Sid Caesar. The comment

is neither deep, nor cutting, but it is

hilarious. The objects of ridicule are neither

113
confronted nor transcended; they are negated by
a hop, skip and jump of irreverent tomfoolery."
(Clurman 415 )

Much of the comedy in L2! involves physical action
and business, and Oliver Smith's set design encompassing
a bridge in "a single melodic curve scooping skyward over
twinkling lights" provided a veritable playground for the
actors to romp around on(Kerr 18 ). Howard Taubman, in
his review for the New York Times apparently enjoyed the
comic offerings:

Farce constantly rises to the surface and
takes over. Comedy of manners in a raffish
bizarre way is invoked. So are the techniques of
vaudeville and low comedy.

Mr. Schisgal has mastered the trick of using
stereotyped gag lines in freshly, humerous
contexts . . . . (Taubman 43 )

In one of the few negative reviews written, Newsweek
criticized L2! as a "seriously flawed" piece of work.
"Inherently a one-acter, it stretches artificially to
two; unsure of its genre, it passes awkwardly from parody
of Absurd Theatre to imitation of it. With no full comic
vision, it makes do with bits and pieces." In spite of
these statements, Newsweek still had to make this
concession: "Yet as it is staged and performed, L21 is

the funniest play in several seasons."(Newsweek 102 )

114
Not to anyone's surprise, LE! received prestigious
nominations for the Critics Circle and Tony Awards for
1964.
One final observation regarding Lu! may prove
worthwhile in terms of Schisgal's fascination with the
idea of change and his characters' obsession with the

need for it. In The Typists, the characters desperately

 

wanted to change their lives and almost succeed in doing
so, faltering however, at the crucial moments and at the
end, silently accepting their lot in life with mild

regret and resignation. In L21, all three characters

desperately want to change their lives and then succeed
in doing so. The enacted changes, however, do not bring
about their hoped-for results. In effect, Schisgal seems
to be answering his question, "How do we live?" with the

dubious response, "With frustration!"

D. Jimmy Shine

 

When Schisgal struggled as a young writer, he
undoubtedly suffered both physical and mental anguish
wondering if he would ever succeed as a writer, and if
so, when? Essentially, that scenario also fits the plot
of Jimmy Shine, which opened on Broadway on December 5,
1968 at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre.

From the opening scene of the play, it is apparent
that Jimmy Shine has a definite problem with women.
Aside from the somewhat endearing local "hooker" Rosie
Pitkin, Jimmy has failed to establish fulfilling
relationships with women, including Millie, the
nymphomaniac. He fantasizes continuously about Elizabeth,
the lovely childhood sweetheart of his dreams, who
eventually marries Jimmy's best boyhood friend, Michael.
In fact, Jimmy was so enthralled by Elizabeth that
everytime she ever got close to him, he became
overwrought and developed a bad case of diarrhea.
Nevertheless, the catalyst for his daydreams and
fantasies was usually the appearance of Elizabeth or some
recollection associated with her.

Jimmy doesn't have much success with friendships
either. All through high school, Jimmy fantasized about

115

116
his plans to share a Greenwich Village apartment with
Michael, as they both pursued careers as abstract
artists. Not surprisingly, Michael changed his plans at
the last minute, leaving Jimmy to fend entirely for
himself. In time, Michael even abandoned his plans to
become an artist and went onto the lucrative field of
residential real estate after marrying Elizabeth.
Hurt, but still undaunted by the loss, Jimmy continued
to hold tightly to his hopes of success as an artist.

Jimmy frequently daydreams about the past, recalling
childhood and adolescent events and feelings shared with
Michael, Constance and of course, Elizabeth. As the class
"cut-up" and clown, he risked expulsion by lying to his
teacher, Miss Green, in order to get a few laughs from the
rest of the class. Jimmy also daydreams about crowds of
art enthusiasts bidding outrageous prices for his
paintings.

One of the particularly funny scenes from the play
involves Jimmy's first experience with a prostitute,
Sally Weber. Unfortunately, he has been set up—-her
muscle-bound husband jumps out of the closet just as they
are about to climb into bed, leaving Jimmy scrambling out
into the street for his life, minus his pants and all of
his money.

In spite of the abuse that life heaps upon him,

Jimmy "shines" on. He doesn't get too discouraged by life

117
and yet he doesn't have any direction either. He travels
to San Francisco to visit his friend Lee Haines, a
country singer—type. In an attempt to cheer him up, Lee
introduces Jimmy to Millie, the Nymphomaniac, a member of
the local "acid" colony and tells him "I'm gonna get you
somebody who's gonna make you want to live forever"(Jimmy
Shine 37 ). In another hilarious scene, Jimmy tries to
alleviate Millie's depression over her nymphomania by
explaining to her that she could overcome the problem if
she would exercise self-control and discipline. She
resolves to follow his advice and reforms immediately.
Once again, Jimmy finds himself alone.

Jimmy returns to New York and takes a part-time job
working at a fish store for Mr. Lepke. He quits his job
on the very first day because he can't stand the thought
of having to chop off the heads of the fish. This scene
between Jimmy and Lepke includes every conceivable kind
of funny business; a nonsensical song about the challenge
of the fish business, sight gags using a machete as a
tuning fork for their song, silly word games, verbal wit
and exaggeration, hypocrisy and satire.

In the final scenes, Schisgal attempts to tie up all
the loose ends within the limits of his usually vague
approach to plot lines. His school friend, Connie, comes
over to Jimmy's flat and starts hinting about the

possibility of marriage. Jimmy wants to make love to her

118
immediately, but Connie refuses and Jimmy sends her
away. Michael pays Jimmy a visit, tries to get him to
give up painting, and offers him a job. Jimmy refuses and
Michael taunts him about the incomprehensibility of his
paintings. Evidently, these two have grown so far apart
over the years that they no longer retain any common
bonds or understanding for each other. Michael can now
only serve as a destructive influence. A hallucination
scene follows, indicative of Schisgal's creative use of
nightmares. The result of Michael's gibing sends Jimmy
into a state of torment that ultimately builds to a
crescendo, unleashing ghosts from his past which suddenly
converge upon him. They include Michael; Sally Webber, the
prostitute; Miss Green, the public school teacher; and
an array of doubters: voices and characters who question
the very meaning of his life.

Suddenly, Jimmy gets an unexpected visit from
Elizabeth. She is leaving Michael and heading to Denver
to start a new life. She invites Jimmy to come with
her. He is pleasantly surprised, but suspicious of her
motives. He asks her to come to bed with him, but she
tries to change the subject. Jimmy dances her to the
front door and kisses her on the cheek as a final
farewell. She looks at him dumbfoundedly.

The final scene ends as the play began, with Rosie,

the friendly "hooker," badgering Jimmy for the ten

119
dollars he owes her for previous services rendered. He
gets her to sit down, pulls off her tacky wig and starts
to sketch her picture as she warns him, "Don't make my
nose too big"(Jimmy Shine 57 ).

More than any of his plays that preceded it,
Schisgal utilized a collage of theatrical styles and
techniques in the writing of Jimmy Shine. The play
consists essentially of a series of short scenes or skits
which transcend time and space to unfold in a
stream-of—consciousness chronology. The dramatic action
seems to represent Jimmy Shine's highly subjective
recollections. Schisgal has incorporated vaudeville style
songs, dances, comedic routines, impersonations, sight
gags and monologues to tell his story. Unlike his other
plays, a great deal of Jimmy's previous life story is
revealed. In spite of his name, Jimmy seems to be one of
life's losers; an aspiring artist with no great gift or
talent for anything, who survives at a subsistence level
amidst meager surroundings and with only dismal prospects
for future success.

Schisgal's intensive process of writing and revising
his plays can be fully appreciated through an analysis of
the original manuscripts of Jimmy Shine. The complete
collection, entitled "The Murray Schisgal Papers,"
consists of the twenty-nine drafts of Jimmy Shine and is

housed in the archives of the Wisconsin Center for Film

120

and Theatre Research at the University of
Wisconsin/Wisconsin Historical Society in Madison.
Donated by the playwright on December 31,1969, these
scripts document the play's evolution from the first
draft of April,1964 to the final production text of
December 5,1968.

The play that Schisgal first started writing in no
way resembles the final script of the Broadway

production. In the early drafts of Jimmy Shine , the

 

dramatic action concentrates on the protagonist's
strained relationship with his mother and father, and his
parents' hostility towards each other. Interestingly,
Schisgal's attempt to portray these family conflicts
preceded by more than twenty-five years his attempt

to deal with material of a similar vein in The Songs of

 

Egg. The serious dramatic content found in the original
drafts of Jimmy Shine alternates with the highly comedic
scenes that deal with Jimmy's interactions with his
friends, and his struggle to prove his manhood and
succeed as an artist.The comedy becomes further enhanced
by the inclusion of several vaudeville-style songs that
Schisgal has written.

Of interest in terms of dramatic structure is his
use of the chorus element, which chants rhythmic pieces
of verse several times during the course of the play.The

chorus consists of all the major characters aside from

121
Jimmy Shine and comments forebodingly on his death. This
theatrical/formalistc device enhances Schisgal's ability
to connect the realistic scenes of the play with the
frequent intrusion of Jimmy Shine's memories, daydreams
and nightmares. The mystical nature of this ritual-like
chanting seems to prepare an audience for the
dramatization of these altered states of mind.
Unfortunately, by employing elements of comedy and
tragedy, as well as aspects of realism, formalism and
surrealism all in one play, Schisgal's draft proved
uneven and inconsistent.

As the process of rewriting evolved, it became
apparent that the playwright's comedic vision would
predominate in the later drafts and this trend held true
throughout the text of the play. Using Act I Scene I as a
representative example, the following discussion deals
with the nature and direction of the revisions that led
to the final form of Jimmy Shine.

In the stage directions of the first draft, Schisgal
describes a functional, nonrealistic set in which several
performance areas exist. He has placed Jimmy's cluttered
one-room New York apartment downstage center-to-right.
The remainder of the set consists of a maze of smaller
sets on a number of levels; steps and planks connect some
of these sets"(Jimmy Shine draft #1 1). As the dramatic

action unfolds from the present to the past, and into the

122
realm of his dreams and nightmares, minimal set pieces
such as a stool, a bench, a lectern and a swing are used
to suggest the wide range of locales.

The play begins with whispered voices chanting the
following dialogue:

We live in a time

We live in a time

We live in a time

When the knowledge of death

When the knowledge of death

When the knowledge of death

When the awareness of death, to be more precise

More precise

Is an ever—present ontological reality . .
..(1)

We die.

We die.

Like every other organism it should be pointed
out . . . . (1,2)

The voices of the chanting chorus give way to the
sound of a ringing telephone which jolts Jimmy out of
this apparent nightmare. Following the brief telephone
conversation with his former school mate Elizabeth, Jimmy
lies back bed and the chorus of voices again begins to
haunt him.This free-flowing transition between a

dream-like state and reality, establishes the pattern

123
that Schisgal uses throughout the play. This time the
chanting seems more agitated and ominous.
Voices:
Did you hear?
(Sound of gathering crowd)
Jimmy Shine killed himself.
Is that so?
Jimmy Shine?
He killed himself.
He's dead.
Who?
Who?
Who?
(all in chorus)
Jimmy Shine. Jimmy Shine.
Jimmy Shine is dead. Jimmy Shine is dead.
Jimmy Shine is dead.
(to crescendo)
Jimmy Shine! Jimmy Shine! Jimmy Shine! Jimmy
Shine! (4)

The setting now shifts to Jimmy's childhood, where
his; parents are arguing about him over the dinner table.
Their recriminations become increasingly hurtful and
bititer. As Jimmy enters, he immediately becomes embroiled
1‘1 'their argument. Each parent uses him as a sounding

board in order to direct their insults against one

124
another. The ease with which they conduct the battle
suggests that this scenario has occurred many times
before, with Jimmy, as usual, trapped in the middle. At
one point he scrambles into the room, gets down " . . .
on all fours, like a dog . . ." and pleads with his
parents to stop. They completely ignore him. He "falls
back on his haunches panting . . ." and stares at each of
them helplessly(6) . The spiraling intensity of their
fighting finally becomes intertwined with the sound of a
school bell, as Jimmy retreats to the safety of his
subconscious. His mind takes him back to elementary
school as he enters the classroom "on all fours, pulling
aijbag of books." Although Schisgal is obviously
suggesting canine—like behavior by Jimmy in these scenes,
his dramatic purpose seems unclear and he removed these
references from later drafts. Expressionlessly, Jimmy
bagiilns to sing a lamentation song for himself:
Gone are the days
When my heart was young and gay.
Gone are the days
From these cotton fields away,
Gone from the earth,
To a better place I know.
I hear those gentle voices singing,
Old Black Joe. (8-9 )

As the scene comes to a close, the lights go out

125

on Jimmy as the music continues to play softly in the
background.

The above scene remained almost identical in form and
substance through the following five rewrites between
April 7, 1964 and November 30,1964. In the sixth revised
script of December 7, 1964, some subtle changes appeared.
A few of the repeated lines in the choral chants were
eliminated and Schisgal inserted the character Lee
Haines, Jimmy's country singer friend, into the opening
chorus with the line, "Where are you going man?"(Jimmy
Shine draft#6 4). This line provided an early reference
in the text to the fact that Jimmy leaves San Francisco
amid heads back to New York soon after arriving there

because he doesn't feel that he fits in.

More meaningful revisions occurred in manuscript

#11 . dated September 30,1965. In the opening stage
directions, Schisgal ascribed, for the first time, a
ch1:‘<>nological period to the play of "A decade or so after
the: Second World War"( 1 ). Setting the scene during the
Hui! nineteen-fifties represents a significant difference
frcxna the later scripts which clearly attempt to capture
the: Spirit of youthful rebellion and social unrest of the
nineteen-sixties.

As the play begins, Jimmy "is on his hands and

knees, scrubbing the floor almost in darkness"(l). The

opehing choral chant of "Simultaneous taped voices,

126
whispering liturgically"(1) now appears significantly
shortened from the previous manuscripts. Suddenly, some-
one begins to knock on the door. At first, Jimmy doesn't
seem to hear it and the chanting continues. As the
knocking persists however, it forces Jimmy back to
reality. Elizabeth has come to visit him and appears at
his apartment with luggage in hand and dressed for
travel. Elizabeth informs Jimmy that she has left her
husband, Michael, and will relocate to Denver to begin a
new life for herself. She invites him to join her, and
gives him an hour to think it over. As Elizabeth exits,
.Iimmy begins to pace, looks out the window, and then
rmasumes scrubbing the floor. The taped voices return,
Chianting the pronouncement that "Jimmy Shine is dead"(7).
The? scene continues as it does in previous manuscripts,
Wit:}1 Jimmy's parents shouting at each other. When Jimmy
aPE>eears, his father and mother, as if performing some
kirlci of strange ritual, pull him down on the floor, roll
him“ up in a rug so that "only his head is uncovered,
Prc>13ruding like a turtle's head from the rim . . ."(8).
Thr(Dugh all of this, his parents don't miss a single beat
of iiheir argument. Several moments later, Ed and Betty's
fiSJIIt finally gets interrupted by Jimmy, as he shouts, "I
have to go. I'm going to be late for school. Don't you
Want me to get an education!"(9). The lights fade as

s
Qehe one comes to a close.

In manuscript #14,

dated February 25,

127

1966, Schisgal

significantly changed the opening of the play with a

visual tableau of street people and a much longer choral

chant. The discussion centers on Jimmy Shine's physical

maladies and his apparent obsession with death:

Elderly Gentleman:
Man:

Woman:

Boy:

Vendor:

Girl:

Man:

Elderly Gentleman:
Woman:

Girl:

Boy:

Vendor:

Woman:

Elderly Gentleman:
Man:

Girl:

Boy:

Elderly Gentleman:
Woman:

Man:

Jimmy Shine

Jimmy Shine.
Jimmy Shine.
What's wrong?
What's wrong?
What's wrong?

He can't sleep.
Can't work.

Can't eat.

Can't function.
Constipation

Shut up!

Poor respiration.
Thinks of death.
Obsessed with death.
Thinks of dying.
Wants to die.
Dying flesh.
Bleached bones.

Fragile flesh.

128

Vendor: All he sees.
Boy: All he feels.
Man: Oppressed so hard he could

not stand.
All: Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
Man: Let our people gooooooo. (2)
The interaction between Elizabeth and Jimmy no longer
occurs in scene one. Jimmy's parents, Ed and Betty, break
away from the chanting on the line, "Is Jimmy home yet?"
and fall right back into their heated argument, with
Jimmy caught in the middle as before. No other important
(:hanges in this scene are noted.
Over the next year or so, Schisgal significantly
rewvrote Jimmy Shine, and these changes are clearly
9V1 dent in manuscript #16, dated April 15,1967. In the
QPEEIIing stage directions, the reference to time has been
0mi;t:ted and in his first appearance on stage, Jimmy is
SEElt:ed in bed and naked. Schisgal has removed all of the
forTinnalistic choral chanting with its ominous references
to Cieath. Jimmy's quarrelsome parents have also been cut
entirely. Schisgal opens Act I with a comedic scene
betWeen Jimmy and his friendly call-girl named Mae.
A1‘311ough some of their discussion deals with Jimmy's
fears and nightmares about death, they quickly shift to
the topic of his inability to pay for services rendered

by Mae. Elizabeth calls on the telephone and tells Jimmy

129
that she is coming over. He tries to get rid of Mae, but
she refuses to budge, that is, until she remembers that
she has a previous engagement. Just before Mae leaves,
children's voices are heard singing in the background as
a school bell starts to sound and Jimmy becomes jubilant
over the impending visit by Elizabeth. Overall, this
manuscript is the first one that approaches the
predominantly realistic and comedic style of the final
Jimmy Shine script. By removing the parents from the
play, the dramatic action now focuses on Jimmy's
relationship with his former school mates and his
struggle to become an artist.
Schisgal changed the name of Jimmy's call-girl from
IWaea to Stella and made her Spanish in manuscript #17,
dai:ed October 19,1967. Their opening conversation does
"(ft: deal with death at all, but rather concerns the fact
that his boss just fired him from "the platform"(loading
d‘3C21<) and he has also given up on his dream of becoming
an, ;artist. In this revision, Schisgal introduces the
Cheizracter Harrison, a union shop—steward from Jimmy's
f0I‘lruer place of work. He tells him that the guys from the
Shop are willing to fight for his reinstatement. Jimmy
just wants him to leave and he finally does. Stella
begins to press Jimmy to pay her the money he owes her,
ass Elizabeth calls and tells Jimmy that she is coming

over to visit. He gets rid of Stella, jumps back into bed

130

and begins to hear the sound of school bells in the
background.

Schisgal enlarged upon the comic moments in
Jimmy Shine as the revisions continued. In manuscript
#19, February 7, 1968, Jimmy peeks through the bathroom
door keyhole to see why Stella is taking so long, and
then he inquires, "Why are you shaving the hair under
your arms?(No answer) That's my only blade I have,

Stella, so do me a favor and don't . . ."(Jimmy Shine

 

draft #19 3). He doesn't get to finish the sentence
because stella squirts shaving cream through the keyhole
into his eye.
Between manuscript #19 and #23, which is dated July
1, 1968, the revisions basically involved minor line
Changes. The only change worth noting occurs at the end
of? scene one, after Elizabeth has called Jimmy to tell
hi.nn she wants to visit him. As Jimmy tries to hustle
St3E211a out of his apartment, he tells her about the
background of his relationships with his three childhood
fr’Siends: Mike, Connie and Elizabeth. This dialogue
ful'lctions as an obvious bit of exposition that Schisgal
insBerted into the script, although he removed it in
sulDsequent drafts. Nevertheless, the telephone call
St3jdnulates Jimmy's imagination. The scene comes to a
clOse as the voices of Jimmy and his friends are heard

no‘W‘as children in elementary school, playing games and

r:

I).

n;

131
joining together to sing a song, thus providing a
motivation for the verse—song transition into the next
scene.

Another note of interest regarding manuscript #23
concerns the playwright's actual technique of working on
his revisions. Although Schisgal usually accomplished
script changes on the typewriter, he also made markings
and changes by hand. Page seven of this draft indicates a
variety of examples and a copy of it follows on the next
page.

The manuscript of November,1968, designated
"rehearsal copy" for the Broadway production, had copious
luandwritten corrections, many of which Schisgal did

during the actual rehearsal. On page nine of this

‘marluscript, which appears on page (131-2) Schisgal has
Wrfiitzten in a few lines of dialogue, indicating the name
"RCDEBie" as the call-girl character, instead of "Stella."
rThis; name change had to do with the last minute firing of
an Eictress and the hiring of Rose Gregario to take over
thee role, necessitating the designation of an appropriate
namnea. In another change, Schisgal deleted the character
"Harrison" from the play and eliminated all the business
abQIJI‘t. Jimmy's former co-workers and the attempt to help
hit“ get back his job.

In the final script of December 5,1968, Schisgal had

a'pparently achieved the effective opening scene between

131-1

Jimmy Shine manuscript # 23, page seven 1 7
illustrates Schisgal's corrections made by hand.

HARRISON

I hope I'm not disturbin' ya, Jimmy, but I tol' the guys
I'd drop over before I went in.

(Slyly BB jerks his thumb at STELLA,

trying to get JIMMY to tell him who

883 is: STELLA turns to him and BB

smiles sheepishly at her, burying

his hands in his pockets)
First a' all, Jimmy, the guys on the platform want ya t'know
how sorry they are that Hanna bounced ya yesterday.

JIHH!
(holding up can for him)
Seer?

BARRISON

No, no, I don't drink this early in the morning. Bad for
my stomach.

(BE glances at STELLA)
Anyway, Jimmy, the guys tol' me t'tell ya that they're
willin' t'make an issue a this, a kind a test-case. Now
the guys know that you ain't been workin' long enough on
the platform t'be a member a the union, but they're willin'
t'recommend, number one,

(Throws out one finger)
your immediate membership, an' number two,

(Throws out a second finger)
your reinstatement on the platform on the ground that Nanna
was pre ... pre ... precipi-tatelin discharging you from
the job.

JIMMY
I appreciate that, Harrison, but
I don't want anybody to get
into any trouble ...

HARRISON

Now don't be too quick about it, Jimmy. Nobody's gonna

get into any trouble. You don't have t'worry about that.
(82 glances at STELLA)

The guys are willin' t'push this issue right up t'the

front office. All you have to do is give the word ...

We'll get some action. I mean, we been through this

before wit' Hanna an' he's gettin' jus' a little bit tog_

big for his pants, if you know what I mean. LT: 11’04—4) ¢$0"‘é V’N
( ' STEM-AM»? Elfdcuud’ wavy.
turns to him, HE grins sheepishly{

F MET mm ‘
Let's ‘s it's-IHM‘NW"

HARRISON
Okay, Jimmy. If that's how you wan' it ... I'll tell the
guys. They wanna know jus' what your feelin's are. They're

131-2

Page nine from Jimmy Shine "rehearsal manuscript."
Multiple revisions are evident including last minute

name change of "Stella" to "Rosie."

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You really want the money.

STELLA
Yes.
JIMMY
You went to bed with me for the money, is that it?
STELLA
That's it.
JIMMY
No other reason.
STELLA

No other reason.

(JIMMY nods, displaying great
indignation; HE turns over on his
side, pulls shoot up to his chin
and feigns sleep.

Shaking his shoulder)
Jimmy. Jimmy.

   
   

(Shouts)
Jimmy!
JIMMY
(Without moving; murmuring) 3 '
Go away. Leave me alone. " L‘KI"
n '
swam . \' ,4
I want my money, Jimmy. ”‘1’.” ' (1" p'll
JIMMY '1') b" It
I said leave me alone. /)f (’fl'it‘ "0“
i \
- swam 1" UV
(Shaking his shoulder) [Y !
Jimmy ...

   

JIMMY
(Sits up in bed; shouts)

What's wrong with you? I'm sick! Can't you see I'm sick?
Now can you keep on nagging me about money!

 

132
Jimmy and Rosie toward which he had been striving. It
functions to introduce the title character, prepares the
audience for the comedic style of the play and sets up
the basis for the final scene.

Underlying the business-like arrangement between
Jimmy Shine and Rosie, there exists a true bond of
friendship. Ironically, by the end of the play it remains
the only meaningful relationship that Jimmy has to
another person.

The New York production of Jimmy Shine cemented the

 

personal and professional relationship between Schisgal
and actor Dustin Hoffman, who performed the title role in
his Broadway debut. Supporting Mr. Hoffman was a large
cast including Rose Gregario, Susan Sullivan, Cleavon
Little, Rue McClanahan and a veteran of New York's Yiddish
Theatre, Eli Mintz. As producer, Schisgal again had the
services of his faithful supporter, Claire Nichtern.

According to Schisgal, Jimmy Shine "has

 

autobiographical stuff in it. That's always the starting
point, it's more me than anyone else I know." Aside from
that creative aspect, Schisgal had become "very much
interested in doing something in an open stage. The
visual stage is often an inducement for writing a play,
for filling a stage." (Followup Interview I 215).

Due to the particular physical demands of this play,

he needed a set that could change and become a variety of

133
physical environments. The final set, designed by Edward
Burbage, established Jimmy's "painting studio" as the
primary acting area, with many accessory spaces such as
staircases, platforms and closets available as "make
shift p1aces"(Followup Interview I 215).

Unlike the praise that Schisgal generally received
for his earlier productions, Jimmy Shine received some
hostile criticism, although not exclusively. Almost
universally praised was the "tour de force" performance
of Dustin Hoffman. Clive Barnes of the New York Times
even wondered, "Perhaps Dustin Hoffman IS Jimmy Shine(NY
Theatre Critics Review 1968 154 ). John Chapman of the
New York Daily News noted, "Nothing daunts Hoffman, who
is an amiable comedian and a singer and nimble dancer as
well"(NY Theatre Critics Review 1968 154 ). Richard
Watts Jr. of the New York Post highly commended
Hoffmans's performance and Schisgal's writing but raised
an issue that was echoed in several other reviews:

Mr. Schisgal is a brilliant writer of comedy

and his play is filled with delightful things.
And Dustin Hoffman, an oncoming actor of notable
skill and ingenuity,is a constant gas in the
title role. I enjoyed almost every moment of
'Jimmy Shine' and yet I can't get away from the
fact that for all its incidental excellence, it

never seemed to get anywhere. (NY Theatre

Critics Review 1968 155 )

134

Writing for the Wall Street Journal, Richard P.

Cooke noted:

Mr.Schisgal knows how to create the wild,

off-line circumstance, the unexpected bit of
business, the flash of insight that takes a
direction we're not anticipating, but in

'Jimmy Shine' he has to work too hard for his
effects. It doesn't seem to be Mr. Hoffman's

fault that a mood is never really formed that
might sustain the play. There are flashes of

the author's peculiar vision, a few well-separated
bursts of humor, and that's about it. (NY

Theatre Critics Review 1968 155 )

Walter Kerr, who wrote very supportive critiques

of Schisgal's earlier plays, seriously questioned the

artistic merit of Jimmy Shine in his New York Times

review:

 

The fact is that Mr. Schisgal is either forcing
or fumbling about with stereotypes that better
men have done better and lesser men done as
well. It's as though he hadn't become Murray
Schisgal yet, hadn't discovered the antic angle
of eye that suited him best. Which may well be
the case. I'm told that the play is an early
one, revamped somewhat. But revamping won't
help if what you're doctoring doesn't yet have

an identity. (NY Theatre Critics Review 152 )

135

This aspect of not "appearing to go anywhere,"
actually became the focus of praise in Martin Gottfried's
review for Women's Wear Daily:

His [Jimmy Shine] vulnerability, his
insecurity, his vague decency, his impatience
with formal convictions, his uninterest in the
straight world and its values--these are the
hallmarks of today's young [1968] and they are
incorporated into this one character of
especial reality. When the play ends, he is
still nowhere--still painting though now
relieved of taking himself seriously--and so at
last capable of doing something. For
Schisgal(and for me) the only thing that counts
is what you do. Properly, the ending is neither
sweet—-though it may seem that way--nor sour.
It is merely right and the play of course is
the story of an artist. (NY Theatre Critigg
Review 1968 156 )

In spite of the decidedly mixed reviews that it
received, JimmyShine ran for almost nine months and
"ended when Dustin Hoffman left to do a picture"(Followup
Interview I 215).

An interesting side note on this production was that
its director, Donald Driver, was replaced by Tyler Stone

a few weeks prior to the opening. Schisgal's comment

136
about this, "It shows a play's in trouble. It's very bad
tu>.replace a director at the last minute"(Followup
Interview'li 215). The midstream substitution of its
director certainly may have affected the cohesiveness of
Schisgal's overall artistic vision for this play.

Another interesting aspect to the production was the
extensive musical score written by John Sebastian of the
rock group "The Lovin' Spoonful." Praised unanimously by
the critics, the songs commented on the dramatic action
and also enhanced the sense of the sixties, an important
ingredient of Schisgal's play.

To those familiar with Schisgal's style of writing,
Jimmy Shine shoulinot have represented a major departure
from the work which preceded it, notwithstanding some of
the critical commentary. As has already been pointed out,
all of the major components of his creative process are
present in this play.

In many ways, Jimmy Shine is not as dark a comedy as
231 or The Typists. Rather than becoming obsessed with
the negative aspects of his life, Jimmy Shine plods on,
hopeful that something worthwhile will come of his
efforts. All the questioning of materialistic values and
middle class work ethics were characteristic of the youth
of the sixties and it was out of this social landscape
that Jimmy Shine arose. Surely, it was not a throwback to

a period prior to the 1960's, as Walter Kerr's comments

137
suggest. Again, for critics who maintain that a play must
provide definitive answers or conclusions, Schisgal's
work will leave them dissatisfied. In terms of his
dramatic purpose, which is consistently to investigate an

issue or examine how we live, Jimmy Shine succeeds. Not

 

surprisingly, the underlying thematic ideas of this play
are no longer avant-garde, and have been long since
absorbed into the mainstream of contemporary thinking.
For example, in a free society, individuals are entitled
and encouraged to pursue vocations that are
self-fulfilling. To be happy, Jimmy had to paint. Mike,
Constance and Elizabeth wouldn't love or accept him on
his own terms and he couldn't live with himself on
theirs. For Jimmy Shine, the act of pursuing his dream
was enough. Success and happiness are subjective states
that cannot be imposed upon one person by another.

In terms of its dramatic structure, Jimmy Shine has
certain characteristics which are atypical of Schisgal's
work. The play presents a fairly complete psychological
portrait of the main character. The plot's depiction of
Jimmy's memories, dreams, nightmares and present
circumstances is presented out of chronological order in
a kind of filmic flashback technique. As a result, we
begin to understand the motives behind his actions.
Furthermore, unlike previous plays, Jimmy Shine ends in

an upbeat fashion.The protagonist seems to have

dis
en

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138
discovered for himself what he must do with his life,
even if it leads to failure. Not to have ever tried to
succeed as an artist remains a totally unacceptable
alternative to him.

In all other respects, Schisgal imbued Jimmy Shine

 

with strong elements of theatricalism. The text includes
monologues and several songs. Established playing areas
represent many different locales depending upon the
dramatic circumstances. There are surrealistic dream
sequences in which very stylized dialogue is utilized to
establish different rhythms and dramatic tension. The most
powerful theatrical moments are those in which Jimmy
completely falls out of character and assumes various
impersonations of former vaudevillian stars doing their
well-known bits of comic business, including

Jimmy Durante, W.C. Fields and Groucho Marx.

Utilizing this melange of standard Freudian
psychological motivation, the philosophical
rebelliousness of the nineteen-sixties and the
presentational stand-up comedy techniques of
vaudeville, Schisgal has ambitiously explored a range of
dramatic elements with which to tell his story and
entertain his audience. He has, after all, contended that
"the theatre is an experience . . . . To have that
experience is to participate in a theatrical event." In

Jimmy Shine, the audience can do just that.

CONCLUSION

To appreciate Murray Schisgal's method of writing
plays, this study has attempted to isolate and analyze the
basic components or "seeds" of his creativity and then
illustrate how the dramatic structure develops by means of
his use of comedy, as well as his "absurdist" perspectives.
Schisgal's stated purpose as an artist encompasses a need
for self-discovery with a desire to examine how other
people cope with the circumstances of their lives. These
interests, as discussed, have resulted in plays that
possess innovative themes and structural diversity. His
ability to get his work produced has also been investigated
and the views expressed seem particularly valid in light
of Schisgal's thirty-year career in the theatre. The
culmination of all these skills rests with the success of
the productions of the plays, three of which have been
assessed in this study.

In a most candid and illuminating fashion, Schisgal
has expressed his distaste for categorizing and classifying
his work. His point of view certainly seems reasonable in
view of the fact that each one of his plays is quite
different and his method of writing, as articulated by
him in this study, arises from a spontaneous and haphazard

139

140
process. This author's references to the "absurdist" traits do
not derive from a need to "pigeon-hole" or label, but to
enhance an appreciation and understanding of the plays. The
comparisons between his plays and those of the "absurdists"
are compelling and provide a valid approach to a discussion
of his work.

From the beginning of his career in the early
nineteen-sixties, Schisgal's "absurdist" tendencies were
recognized by critics who had witnessed early productions
of his plays in the "fringe" theatres of London and later
in Edinburgh. They frequently compared his work to that of
Ionesco, Beckett(The Stage October 20,1960)(Syna 5C) and
Jean Genet(Litte 25). In fact, Schisgal displayed an
impressive understanding of the "theatre of the absurd" in

a public address that he delivered to the Herald Tribune

 

Book and Author Luncheon at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in
New York on January 19,1965. He closed his remarks on a
hopeful note:
. . . Once the theatre—going public becomes
aware of what the playwright is about, he will be
more anxious to share in the discovery of new
plays, plays which are impatient with a logical
progression of events that bear no relationship
to our own experiences and a naive use of
language, dead language, hackneyed language,

language that conceals rather than reveals what

141
is for the most part unspoken. ("The Revolution of
the Absurd" 25)

Schisgal's idealistic prophecy of an American public
eager to sample experimental forms of drama has yet to
become a reality. Mainstream American tastes still desire
realism in dramatic presentations and those artists,
including Schisgal, who persist in running against the
popular currents must satisfy themselves with limited
audiences and critical skepticism.

Since 1965, Schisgal has recognized the reality of his
situation and acknowledged the problems facing avant-garde
playwrights. In a 1982 interview he noted:

Whoever decides to follow his own star, so-to-
speak, finds himself with a very small audience.
Here and there we have little fireflies of
adventuresomeness by the playwright. But there's
nothing motivating us to continue along these
lines. On the contrary, we are discouraged.
(Syna 5C)
In asserting Schisgal's "absurdist" tendencies however, it
is important to again qualify the conclusion by noting the
differences between his plays and their European
counterparts. Schisgal's strong use of the elements of
comedy softened the intensity of his examination into

modern man's existence and opened up his plays to much

142
wider audiences. His brand of American "absurdism" raised
the important probing questions, but swathed them in
hilarious comic elements which won widespread approval on
the commercial stages of Broadway, an ironic situation in
and of itself.

After interest in the European "absurdist" movement
faded, Schisgal continued to write plays that challenged
the ability of American audiences to accept alternative
approaches to drama. In effect, his writing over the years
has moved further away from the theatrical mainstream as he
continues to experiment with a variety of theatrical
staging conventions and unusual themes, defying anyone to
attempt to make generalizations about his work. The only
sure thing about a Schisgal play is the uncertainty of the
nature of the next one. In this way, he still embodies the
essence of the avant-garde/absurdist dramatist--always
searching, always experimenting, always probing into man's
relationship with himself, another person or the world.
Unfortunately, the opportunities to perform new plays
continue to diminish as the financial plight of theatres
becomes increasingly precarious. The more this trend
intensifies, the fewer opportunities there will be with
adequate financial resources. Fortunately for him,
Schisgal has reached the point in his life where he writes
primarily to please himself, regardless of a play's

commercial viability.

143

In view of the haphazard and unpredictable direction
of his writing to date, one can only speculate on his
future areas of interest. I asked Schisgal recently whether
in his view, there are any limits to the nature of the
material appropriate to the creation of a play, keeping in
mind his comedic approach and the sensibilities of an
audience. His response was quite clear:

I think that there are no subjects that cannot be
handled comically, absolutely! Human experience
can embrace all of it so long as the viewpoint is
coherent and it maintains some level of
verisimilitude. Now, if you find no truth in it,
then the whole thing is merely a burlesque.
(Followup Interview I1223)

In his ongoing search for truth, Schisgal has headed
into some very interesting areas of investigation.
Undoubtedly, he and other artists like him will continue to
explore the precarious condition of modern man, providing
audiences not only with something to think about, but
probably with a couple of good laughs along the way.

As this still quite active playwright continues to
create, future areas of research may lie in a comparison of
his earlier plays to more recent ones, especially now that
commercial viability is only a secondary consideration for
him. Another topic worthy of further exploration

involves the substantial interest that Schisgal's work

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144
enjoys with foreign audiences. On a more personal note,
Schisgal's theatre-going tastes and preferences may provide
interesting insights into his own creativity. Finally, a
particularly challenging area of study would entail an
assessment of Schisgal as part of the collaborative process
of theatre by long—time associates such as actors Dustin
Hoffman, Eli Wallach, Anne Jackson; and directors Mike
Nichols and Arthur Storch. This investigation would
undoubtedly introduce new perspectives into this

playwright's personality and creative contributions.

APPENDICES

APPENDIX A

Transcripts of Tape Recordings

Conversations With Playwright Murray SChisgal

December 12,1989

KB—— Let me just start off by saying what I saw as some of the main
influences or themes or trends in your plays and I'd like to see what

you have to say about some of them. For example, I see two big issues
addressed in your plays,and this is a very gross generalization, but you
talk about different kinds of love. YOu seem to examine every facet and
every angle of love relationships between people: romantic love,platonic
love, imnediate-gratification—hurry-up and lay-down-in-bed love;and also
the other thing that I see addressed in so many of your plays is the
absurdity of life and how meaningless and purposeless so many people seem
to find their lives have become. Is that based on any particular kind of
philosophy that you have?

MS-— Yes, but a personal philosophy, no doubt,not any philosophy that has
derived from reading or study or anything like that. I believe that I
write from a need to explore certain issues that I feel warrant
exploration, and I don't choose my way in any methodical fashion. I just
always go into what I am taken with at the time; I'm not interested in
necessarily following any particular train of thought. If I had to say
what I am about it would be first of all, writing for me is a form of
self—analysis, a form of discovery, self-discovery. It's a way of
examining one's own life, one's own emotions, etc., etc. That may very
well be primary because I do, more often than not, write from a very
personal point of view about things that concern me as I am.So I am very
subjective in the main, although there are exceptions because I write for
money also. And those things may take me into areas that have nothing to
do with my own personality. But given the choice and given the time

145

146

and given the opportunity, I will always go back to examining my own
life. That's the bottom line of it, I guess. Two is, I am interested in
one question and that question is, "How does one live given the
circumstances of the hands we are dealt?" So I would go to those two as
being primary. In so far as examining love or any of that, those are
merely off-shoots, they are not primary, they are merely going along
with an examination of social habits, etc.,in order to find out what's
real and what isn't real; what's true and what isn't true. So I would
call that secondary, not primary.

KB-- Do you think that our lives are absurd, Do you think that there is
a purpose, a reason . . .

MS—- I think that part of my problem as a writer always has been the
disinclination to summarize anything or to generalize to the extent
whereby one can say that life is this, or reality is that, and if you
did this, that wouldn't happen and if you didn't do that, then the
following could happen, or any of that. So I don't answer those
questions. I'm not concerned with answering questions.

KB—- You mean you're not concerned with the generalities of any given
situation?

MS-- well, any way you want to put it.If you ask me a question as you
just did,I wouldn't attempt to answer it because I'm not interested in
the answer, because answers aren't,in my opinion,capable of being
defined into cute little aphorisms,one or two lines that would sum up
what the experience is.So I avoid them like the plague.What people do
like, however,is to have these little handles to hold on to so that
they can say that this play is about a man who has the wrong set of
values in a society that is,that has inculcated him with fraudulent
notions of how one should spend one's life or however you want to talk
about Death of a Salesman.But we have these cute little test answers
that one can learn by rote and I find all of that just nonsense. In

fact,as soon as a play can be defined in those terms . . .

147

KB—- YOu start to get bothered by it.

MS-- No,I*m not talking about the cryptic or the obscure for the sake
of obscurity.I'm.talking about the nature of the material and what it
represents.

KB-- When you start out to write a play, do you have a particular
process that seems to have repeated itself?You've writtena lot of
plays.Is there anything,you just draw from your own personal life and
then fantasy takes over,or do you start out with the thing finished
before you sit down to write it? Is it different for eaCh time?

MS-- One always lives with the apprehension that one won't have an idea
to work on and there are periods where you don't have ideas,so it's a
mixed bag. You never lose that apprehension that you may not have,I
envy people that say,"I have ten projects waiting to be done." I've
never had ten projects waiting to be done.If I have one to do,I'm quite
pleased because the act of writing is a rewarding one, and gives one
pleasure and torment and anxiety and a host of other things, but it's
an act that one wants to, yearns to, tries to always be involved with,
whether it's a love of language, whether it's a love of structure,
fora» whether it's going into a fantasy life.Nonetheless, one
entertains the notion that the writer looks to writing as what he would
like to be doing, how he would like to spend his time. So whatever the
idea is,there are bad ideas,there are good ideas,whatever.Usually I
will,out of desperation,take the best idea that occurs to me and work
on it.If it works out,fine.If it doesn't, throw it away.Sometimes I
have the ending in mind when I begin, sometimes I don't. I like to have
a little outline,ideally.It's wonderful to do something that you've
outlined and the outline holds up. But then again, if you don't have
anything to work on and you just, say a little skit comes to mind,
you'll be working on the skit so I don't, I am loathe to develop some
kind of methodology that holds true at every instance, or that one can
learn and say, "Oh, this is how you go about writing." YOu scramble and
you scrounge, is pretty mudh my way of doing it. Mostly scrounging

148

for ideas, things that would interest me to sustain spending a period
of time on a single project.

KB—- Basically you start out with something that's close to you?

MS—- If I have it. If I don't have it, I'll start out with something
that's close to someone next door to me.If I don't have that I'll, you
know what I mean.It depends on what my mind has brought to the fore and
What I've been able to dig out.Ideally, yes,I'd like very much to be
able to write about things that are very close to me.If I don't have
ideas about that. I may write about a friend,try to use his life in
some fashion and connect my own life to his so that it will have a
genuine engine,or I can project into it.So to answer your question,
yes,I look always to be very subjective and write from uh,very
personally.If I don't have an idea that lends itself to a play I will
look at my friends,I will look at my relatives, I'll look at what's
around me to see if I can pull out something from their lives that
might serve as a point of departure.The Typists was very subjective and
personal.It was an experience I had.IthTigg£_wasn't.That was a
character I used in that I identified very strongly with that character
and felt a real thing happening to me,nonetheless that character was
not me, as I envisioned it.Clearly part of it was, but I had a friend
in.ndnd.I didn't when I wrote The Typist where I really envisioned
myself caught in that trap.

KB—- In one of your books,I read that you wrote that you had actually
been a typist.

MS-— Yes.I had never been a postman,as in The Tiger, but I had been a
typist and I have had that experience of feeling, working at the
typewriter, feeling trapped and at five o'clock I walk out of here an
old man, and that's my life.

KB-- HOW about the rest of it? I mean,that's just the starting point

for it.

149

KB—- There's so mudh in that(The Typists) play.How about the ideas of
well,just the decision,where does style for a writer come from?

MS- Uh-

KB-—You're works are very witty, they're very New York—-

MS—-You see, that's why they say,"Who influenced me?" I am more
influenced by the vision I have and the sounds I hear when I am working
than I am by any particular playwright.I don't think of Pirandello,or
Ghelderold,or Ionesco or any of those guys when I am writing or when
I'm even thinking about writing. And I'm not truly interested in that,
or what they wrote.I'm not. What I'm interested in is seeing before my
mind's eye the people come to life that I'm writing about and hearing
their voices.NOt only their voices but with The Typists, hearing those
typewriters.And it's structured musically so that the sound of those
typewriters were as vivid to me as any sounds that I or any of the
characters ever uttered.And the punctuation of the typewriters were
crucial to giving that thing a structure.So that's what I look for.I
look for the vision and the sound and to structure it so that it has an
energy.But I don't ever feel,and I suffer for this I'm sure in my work,
because everything I do,I stumble into, or fall over or make
mistakes.But I don't feel I have, I have never felt I had a mentor,a
sense that I identified strongly with other writers;great respect and
admiration for many writers, but I have never felt that I'd be
interested in any way doing something as either an offshoot of,as a
consequence of--

KB—-Oh sure,you're an individual,that's for other people to worry
about.

MS--But there's a great advantage in doing that.I've never been
cerebral about writing. It's always been visceral and I pay a price for
this.I've written alot of crap.I nadea lot of mistakes in writing.But
that's alright.I feel at this stage of the game that maybe some of it
has seeped through and I've learned a few tricks here and there. But
that's been my method. In other words, to jump in and flail about and
try to grab hold of the rein.

150

KB-— But your style, not in any way trying to compare it to anybody
elses, but like a situation like in Egg. You've got two guys that are
desperate, they are on the verge of suicide, they're very unhappy, and
yet the play is filled with wit and irony. I mean, that's your style,
as Opposed to somebody like Miller who makes it a serious-

MS-- I could not write like that anymore. See, that's why you can't
freeze it, you can't put it in the refrigerator like ice cubes that are
all in the cube tray. I could never write L 2 today. I probably
couldn't write it a year after I wrote it, or write like it.

KB-- YOu feel differently?

MS-- Net only I feel differently, I'm not interested in it anymore. I'm
not interested in maintaining a stylistic integrity, so that my works
are all cut out of the same piece of ice. I'm not interested in that.
Maybe I should be. Clearly, one looks at Beckett's plays and they all
bear a strong resemblance to one another and they all are cut out
pretty muCh in a very similar style. His early plays, his late plays,
they all are "Beckettish." I've never sought that. He has a coherent
philosophy no doubt, feelings about reality, I don't. I don't have any,
I define nothing and therefore it's pretty hard to hold to any style or
perspective for any period of time. As I say, I'm always examining and
looking into, but I can't say I've ever resolved or answered anything
so that the next thing I do will reaffirm that knowledge or put it to
the test. I don't know why that is, it is a very peculiar thing no
doubt, where we have so many writers and critics who seem to view
reality in the way that has definition for them but nonetheless,
that's--

KB-- Well how about your view of reality. I mean you uh, knowing you
just for the short period of time that I do, you seem to have a very
good sense of humor. YOu're a wit and this comes through in most of
your plays. And even people in the depths, the edge of despair, they
always somehow maintain some semblance of wit.

MS-- It may not be wit. It may be hysteria.

151

KB—— Okay, whatever it is, it comes through. Is it from your own
outlook on life?

MB—- When you asked me what's my view of reality, I go back to what I
said originally in that insofar as my view of reality is one that asks
the question,"HOw do we live?" That's my View of reality. How do we
live! Haw do we experience joy!

KB—- So, you feel that when you go back and you look at all the plays
that you wrote, is it almost as if they were written by somebody else.
Is it that different?

MS-— No, no, not that they were written by somebody else, but that I'm
really not interested in going back to them in any way. I don't reread
them. If there's a production, I won't see it unless there's a special
reason. As a rule, I usually see the play once it opens rarely. we work
on it before it opens, but once it opens, I don't like seeing it, my
own plays again. I don't enjoy it and I'm preoccupied with what I'm
doing now. I'm really not interested in what I've written before. So
that I never reread them and I rarely see themiwhen they're produced.
KB-- Is it painful to write a play Murray? I mean is the process of
sitting down and writing every day, is it painful?

MS-- th for me. What is painful is the frustration of not adhieving
what you're going after. working on a play every day is precisely what
I want to do. It's not painful. It's frustrating and it can become
painful if it turns out not to be as good as one's expectations. It
does hurt to do bad work, yes.

KB-- Who's the final judge of whether it's good or bad?

MS-- Yburself. I am, of my own work, because I primarily, you see, I
primarily am concerned with putting on paper the play I want to see. I
may never see that play, but it has to be on paper, so that when I read
it, I get a sense of it visually. And the process of writing must, in
view of the difficulty of theatre today of getting plays on etc.,must
give me a sense of gratification. I think it was possible, and still

152

is possible no doubt, for a playwright to derive his primary joyful
experience from watching a play in production. Today, that is suCh a
helter—skelter kind of effort that I have put upon myself the burden of
realizing the play on paper. HOpefully of course, I'd love to have it
produced and I'd love to have it look well and go well. But if it
doesn't, that doesn't deter me in any way. very few playwrights are
connected with companies so that they can work on their plays with
actors on stage. So it becomes a very private, cloistered kind of
thing. And I think it's necessary to make that adjustment. I can have
actors come up here to read my plays, I can read them in theatres, I
can probably get a play done every year one way or the other; but it is
not a daily theatrical life that I'm living. I mean, the truth of the
matter is, the playwright has pretty much divorced himself, because of
circumstances, from the theatre. So anyway, to get back to the point
I'm trying to make, I try to put it on paper so vividly and so
accurately that looking at it, reading it, visualizing it gives me a
sense of accomplishment, even if I never see the damn thing produced.
Otherwise, I couldn't keep writing. So that's the challenge.

KBP— Can you name two or three of the one's (plays) you've written that
you've been particularly satisfied with?

MS—- well, I have five plays that I have written over the past couple
of years, I've had readings of them or whatever. One of them was
produced of the five, one produced and . . . the others haven't been
produced, hopefully they will, but those are my last plays. You know,
IIHn doing this play in Paris that I wrote twenty years ago. It's being
premiered for the first time, Popkins, even though it was published
here.

KB—— That one, you like that one?

'MS—— I wiSh I could see it and work on it while it is being done. I may

'be able to, but it's up to the director because I don't want to burden

153

her with my presence if she doesn't want it, so it's her Choice. But my
point is, it is still a twenty year old play and I'm not that mudh
involved with it emotionally any more.

KB-- I asked you which of the plays that you've written have been
satisfying to you. YOu said that the final judge has to be yourself and
and that's the reason that you write-

MS-- Yes,yes. NOne of them. I'll answer that right away.

KB—-Truly, none of your plays has been satisfying?

MS—- Truly none of them.

KB-- So you're still waiting to write your perfect play.

MS-- Yes, there's no suCh thing as a perfect play. You see, the funny
thing with plays is that they are productions, not plays. What we're
interested in seeing is a production of a play, not to read a play.
That's a very tricky thing. It's betwixt and between. But I'll tell you
what I think the best thing I've written is. well, there are a couple
of things. They're not very good. They have flaws. They're probably the
best things I wrote in my opinion. One of them would be Ihg
Flatulist.Did you read The Flatulist?

KB—- YES I did.

MS—- well, now I think that that's a play that should be done in every
high school and college in the country, to wake up the students. I do
have thoughts on it, but I don't care to express it because I don't
know if I'm right, for one. Two, I don't think it's very important what
I think.

KB—- Oh I think it's—- I'm certainly interested.

MS—- well I kind of like The Flatulist because I think it's outrageous
and I think it says something. And it's very autobiographical, and it's
very short whiCh I like also. Of the plays I've written recently, the
one that I'm most interested in and the one that I will probably never
see done because it's offbeat, is Theatrical Release.0f the things I've
done recently, that's the one I would most like to have produced. And it's
already been turned down by about twelve rep companies so the odds are
against it. That's about all I would say about that.

154

KB-- The thing that puzzled me about what you said a minute ago that I
asked you,"If you enjoy writing?" you said, "No, it's not painful. You
have to be the judge of the final product, as it's written. Some of
them are satisfying, some of them aren't." But do you get the complete
picture until there is a production? Is a play a piece of literature or
is a play, you know, a collaborative process which has to have its
ultimate realization in a production on the stage?

MS-- No, no. The ultimate test of a play is its production.
NOnetheless, it is literature. It can be enjoyed on the page, not as
much, not as satisfyingly, not as fully as a production, but
nonetheless one can sit down and read Genet and get a charge out of him
andJenjoy him. So, you know, it's not one or the other, it's a mixed
bag but ultimately, the test is its playability. Clearly, that's what
its function is, but that‘s not the whole story since we all read plays
and derive great pleasure from that experience.

KB—— Are there certain ways that you like to work with a, I mean, I
would think a play that you have written is very personal, uh, a labor
of love, and when you turn it over to a director, you would like to
have some input. Have you had experiences where some productions are
more fulfilling because of that than others? Or do you just release it
and hope for the best?

MS-- No, no, because I involve myself in rehearsals I would not give out
a play, as a rule, that I did not have input in, in terms of casting
it, in terms of possible rewrites, in terms of staging, in terms of
everything. That's why ideally, I love to work with friends, with
people who are on the same wavelength with me. That doesn't always
'happen. You end up firing directors, fighting with them. It's a mixed
bag. What I seek is to work with friends, peOple I've worked with
before, who share something in common and we have a place where we can
discuss and argue and fight and everything else, but do it towards the
work and improve the work. it happens sometimes, it doesn't always

happen. I worked with some people a number of times. I felt the last

155

play I did this summer, I did with my friend Jerry Gardeno, a director.
This is the third play I did with him, and I enjoyed it. HOwever,
nonetheless, it is a rather difficult play and we had three weeks to
rehearse and we had two—three previews and we opened. So enjoying it we
did, but nonetheless, the circumstances are so harried and to squeeze
it in and do all the work with a new play had its problems.

KB~— What role do you actually play as this thing begins?

MS—- well, I send the play to my friend Jerry, he knew a theatre that
was interested in doing it. I went out there and picked the actors with
Jerry and the producer and then I was there. I left them alone for the
first week of rehearsal, so that Jerry could work with his cast and not
have my presence there which is intimidating frequently. The second
week of rehearsal, I was there. The third week of rehearsal I was
there. Through the previews I was there. The third week of rehearsal I
was there. Through the previews I was there and I listened and I
suggest cuts, I suggest staging, I suggest everything. I mean, I talk
to my friend about the production. I have input and he may disagree
with me, we may argue, he may agree with me, but we work it out so it's
something we want. I may lose one or two and he may lose one or two, I
don't know, but this is collaborative and it's good to be collaborative
with friends who will be objective about the work and not get into a
whole personality thing with you, whidh frequently happens when you work
with people you haven't worked with before. You're suddenly worried
about his ego, your ego, hurting, not hurting eaCh other, all the rest
of that stuff.

KB—— What about the concept of the play in terms of all the production
elements: the set, the costumes?

MS-- well, the director will usually spend a good deal of time on the
phone or in person going over that with you. I have a list of questions
to ask them and will have some thoughts about the style, about the
sense of it. If he has any answers, actors have questions, we address

them. Yes, it's a very time consuming effort to do, but you need the

156

time. unfortunately, you know, except for very rare circumstances, you
just don't have the time and you don't have the money either. So it's
always an uphill battle. When you think of how many regional theatres,
but how many of them become known to a general audience. When a play is
done in New York or Los Angeles or Chicago, they stand a good Chance of
being known. But short of that, it's pretty hard.

KB-- In the plays, the published ones that I've read, it seems to me
that in the last dozen or so, there are some very strong issues that
you seem to be concerned with. I was wondering if these issues, these
situations that you've set up come from concerns that you have or how
you felt about them personally.

MS-— What are they?

KB-- well, for example, you seem to examine situations that deal with
women's rights, women's liberation in society, and uh, you don't take a
strong stand, I mean there's no overWhelming trend that says you're in
favor of it or against it. You just seem to show the situation that
occurs as a result of these things in society.

MS-- Yeah, but you haven't read the four plays, the last four plays
I've done.

KB—- YOu mean these here.

MS-- Yeah, so I don't know if what you've read is "lately." Uh, I go
back to the original thing. I think in terms of "how do we live?" The
attitudes we have about our relative positions to each other sexually
is a very important one. So I give it some, I look at it. I'm also
interested in change, personality Change, how muCh can you change, is
the change lasting? Are we doomed to be the same? Is it impossible to
Change? And the word "change" is one that concerns me greatly also. You
have to draw the conclusion whether looking at women's efforts to gain
complete equality in relationships with men is the primary exploration
of that particular play. It may not be. I would say it prObably isn't.
It's a part of something else that's interesting to me because I would
never write a play merely about that point. My plays may have that
point in it.

157

KB—- Right.

MS-- Like, I added to Oatmeal and Kisses recently, where I had him make
a speeCh about how strongly he feels for women's rights. I mean, it's
comic but nonetheless, Dr. wellington says, "I get very excited when I
talk about women's rights." She doesn't even want to talk about it,
he's carrying on! Now, I have that, but that isn't the point of the
play. The point of the play is something else. And that something else
has to do with how the hero of the play, what conclusions he draws in
terms of (the) life he's going to live once he has had this minor heart
attack. How has it changed his life? HOw is he going to live? That's
what the play is about. Can he live with the woman? Can he have a life?
Is he, now that mortality has touched him, is he so out of it that he
has to become something of a recluse or--it's all done comically and
light. It's a fluff, but nonetheless--so that's the primary thing. Even
though I may be talking about women's rights etc., it's not the main
point of the play.

KB—- But I mean, it's a dynamic that affects male/female relationships.
MS-- Yes, of course. we're gonna talk about male/female relationships
today, we'd have to be pretty dense not to get into a concern for
sexual identity and for sexual equality. In every relationship) now, I
really think women are very conscious of the fact that they will not be
treated like second rate citizens and a bright woman will make that
very clear and will not take any Shit on that account, where that may
not be true twenty years ago.

KB-- What about the situation of the Impasse on Nuclear Energy. The
notion of this man coming home from a trip abroad, he's the nuclear
regulatory commissioner and his wife has grown a beard, and she's
expressing her secondary sex characteristics. That's certainly the
notion of women's rights taken to almost an absurd-

MS-- Yeah, that's probably primarily is absurd. Yeah, I don't know
where the idea came from. I've done a few plays with bearded ladies,

158

but I don't know where it came from. Yes, that is absurdist and it is
primarily about the relationships between modern woman and modern man.
Yes, so that is, you're right. But it's a short play so they won't do
it. I don't think that play's ever been done, although it's been
published for a couple of years now.

KB—- What about something like Brussel Sprouts and A Need For Less
Expgrtise

MS-- Yeah, well those two I wrote for Eli wallach and Anne Jackson. I
wrote it to make money.

KB-— Did they?

MS-- Yes. They went on Broadway and they did well and I sold the stock
rights for a good piece of change. But those are the only things that I
could think of at the moment that I actually wrote for two actors and
actually made some money. There are obviously some things I wanted to
say, etc., etc., and I tried to be somewhat artful about it all.

KBP— When you write for a couple, Anne Jackson/Eli wallaCh, do you see
them in your mind as you are writing? Do they then replace you, and
friends and family?

MS—- th totally, not totally. But I take into consideration the fact
that I'm writing for a man and a woman of a certain age group, or a
certain location, in other words, New York people. So although I'm not
writing their lives or out of their experiences, I am writing it out of
my own. Nonetheless, certain characteristics of these actors become
part of the play.

KB-— How W911 did you know them when you wrote the play?

MS—- very well. They're lifelong friends, they did The Tiger and Egg
Typists. And they did Lgy

KB-- But you didn't write those (plays) for them.

MS—-No.

KB-- Okay. HOW does it come about that a playwright is asked to write

for a particular actor. Are you actually commissioned?

159

MS-- well, the producer . . . I did a one-act play, Brussel Sprouts.we
did it out in East Hampton. It worked very well. The producer came up,
he said,"write another one and I'd like to do it on Broadway." And I
did. I didn't get any money to write it, but we took it out of town,
washington, D.C. we played it at the Kennedy Center and we played
Wilmington,Delaware. Then we brought it to Broadway. It wasn't a big
hit, but it ran and it's being done all over. I do get checks on it so
I'm very pleased about it, although I don't have any great affection
for either play.

KB-- So the first one, you just wrote your normal way of writing?

MS-- Yes.

KB—— Then it was the second piece of that--

MS—— Now I may have written the first one for them too because there
was a theatre out in East Hampton, they may have asked me to write it,
I don't remember. But I do know I wrote it for, I would think I wrote
it for them out there, that theatre out there, then I wrote a second. I
think so. I suspect I did write it for them, both plays for them. The
first one we did as one act in East Hampton, then a producer asked me
to write a second.

KB-- In Dr. Fish, again we have a situation, we have great tension
between a couple, they go to a "shrink", he under protest, and in the
outcome, she loses him. He walks out with the mother—in—law who knows
how to feed him well. Is that some kind of a statement about-

MS—— I don't like that play very muCh.

KB-- Really? I think that was hysterically funny. Is there something
there-

MS—- I don't even remember the play.

KB- Is there something there that you're trying to say about
"Shrinks"?

MS—- I hate "shrinks." That's a-— I hate "shrinks" a lot.

KB-- That's a good reason.

MS-- I don't have any particular affection for them as a profession and
I will frequently "whack" them when I have the opportunity. I use them

160

in The Need For Less Expertise. That voice of the phoney therapist or
something, I use it in Oatmeal and Kisses, where I have this Dr.
wellington. These experts, so-called, every time I take a "whack" at
them I enjoy doing so.

KB-- Of course All Over Town. That guy's a real "bimbo." Have you ever
gotten flack from a psychiatrist in the form of a letter or a comment?
MS-- NC.

KB-- HOw about the concept of the older man Chasing after the younger
woman. That's a theme that's been around since Shakespeare and Mbliere
and you certainly played with it in Old Wine In a New Bottle, among
other things.

MS-- That's never been done I think, because of herpes. Isn't it funny
how these things--

KB-- Yeah, yeah, it's a back seat issue now, isn't it?

MS—— well, no, what happens when I wrote it, herpes was not this
dreaded disease it became. When I wrote that, herpes was like
gonorrhea.

KBP-Right, you could laugh at it.

MS-- Yeah, now you can't laugh at it. It's pretty serious business.
KB~- You can't laugh at herpes?

MS—- I can because you know, but I mean that's why I feel why it
doesn't get done, because I rather like that play. So I did Oatmeal
and Kisses frankly, as a play that was coming out of Old Wine, but
which avoided herpes, and had pretty muCh the same kind of Characters,
except I have the girlfriend in this, I don't have the wife in it. But
if you see both plays, you'll see what I've done, and that is, when I
realized they weren't going to do Old Wine because of the herpes thing
and they didn't (I could never get it done) I wrote Oatmeal and Kisses
hoping I could get that done. Mind you, these are my commercial
performance plays, and I tried the same theme again pretty muCh of the
older man and the younger woman. This time I went into nutrition and
all of that. You must remember that a good part of what one is doing is

an effort to make money. New, as you know, that I am employed as a

161

consultant of film, I pretty muCh write what I want. I don't have those
concerns anymore. So that, Oatmeal (and Kisses) is five years old. I
wrote that before I had this deal. I've been doing this for about four

 

years. But the last four plays of ndne, if you read them, you'll see a
marked difference. Where they make no effort to write stuff that I
think is going to be comercial, like Theatrical Release and Sggg 9f
@-

KB—- These plays you were writing, which you say were not written to be
corrmercial, still and all, you could have written about anything, but
you seem to address issues—-

MS—- Yes, but my personality is perverse. The perverity of it is that
my sense of what's commercial is far off the wall, I mean
unfortunately. I thought I'm being commercial. Then everybody tells me
it's off the wall and it's this, that and the other thing because the
truth of the matter is that I can't change the way I see reality.
Whether I'm commercial or not commercial, whether I think I'm
commercial or I think I'm not, it doesn't matter. I see things the way
I write them and so it's a game I play with myself because when I try
to be commercial, when I deliberately try to write something to make
money, it doesn't come out as a commercial vehicle for most producers.
It's too off-beat one way or the other. It's "herpes," it's a "bearded
lady," it's "gorillas," a whole menagerie. And so, everything has to be
taken in context in so far as ultimately I pretty much see things the
way I see them and I can't suddenly become a "sit-com" writer for
television, which I've tried. I've tried to write "sit-com" for
television and I've never been able to do it. I've tried to write film.
The reason I was lucky with Tootsie was because I worked closely with
my friend Dustin, but I've written about half a dozen screenplays
which have never got done. Two, I did Tiger Makes Out and I did

 

Tootsie. But I've done a half a dozen more and I've never been able to
get them done because they're too, they're just not right. They're not
"Sally meets Irving or Harry." I just don't know how to do that. I
can't sustain it. Not only don't I know how to do it, but it's that I

 

162

don't know how to maintain an interest in it. I'll say to myself, "I'm
gonna sit down, I'm going to write a screenplay, and it's going to be
for Columbia Pictures." It comes out that I'm writing about a guy who
plays eight different parts. I wrote one whiCh I called Popkins. I took
it from the play Popkins. They look at it and they don't know what the
hell you—- that has to do with the reality of movie making, and I'm
very good at being able to analyze a film, know what a film means, you
know, but to do it myself, forget it. I mean, I just can't sustain
interest. That's the real problem. I get bored writing dialogue comdng
out of these mundane, realistic situations that general audiences
respond to. You saw My Left Foot, whiCh I think is the best play I've
seen this year. You see where it's playing, I'm sure-- was it crowded?
KB-- No.

MS-- It's the best play, I mean movie, this year.

KB-— It's a beautiful movie, brought me to tears several times.

MS-- Right. And wonderfully acted,on all their parts.

KB—- When you examine the plays of lets's say, the absurdists, that
were "hot" in the (nineteen) fifties, well they were never really "hot"
but when they were writing and there were a group of them: Beckett,
Ionesco, Genet, Pinter--who has really gone to the mainstream since
then-- I mean, the dilemma that you're talking about sounds like the
kind of thing that they were faced with.

MS-- well, uh, not as much. You see, I've had this rather good
experience of working in Paris. I've done three plays there already, I
do the fourth in March, all goes well. Net quite the same. I really
think that there is more tolerance for theatre, there's greater
diversity of theatre in European countries. In London you've got
fifteen or twenty critics, you've got a good Chance of knocking off
four, five, six good reviews whiCh can sustain you. I spoke to Peter
Hall about this recently, and he told me it's just death here. It's not
the same, it's not. This is a "tough cookie" country for theatre. It is
tough! And for things that truly aim at something, that try for
something, I'm telling you we do not have today, in my opinion, one

163

single prominent playwright, one single prominent playwright of the
generation let's say of Sam Shepard,David Mamet, who can make a living
at playwriting. Neither one of them do, they are both into films every
chance they get, and who has any,in my opinion, any impact upon not
only theatre audiences, but on society in whiCh we live. I could not
tell you any of the characters in their plays that is a "Willy Loman"
or a "Blanche DuBois," anything like that in the national
consciousness. And even for the generation before, say I came up in the
early (nineteen-)sixties with Albee, Arthur Kopit, Frank Gilroy, Jack
Gelber, Jack RiChardson, those guys coming up out of off-Broadway in
the early sixties, late fifties, early sixties, etc. All those guys,
including myself, have been pretty muCh wiped out in terms of having a
life in the theatre. They hang in there, they do something, as I do,
but there's no real productivity, there's no real vitali y, there's no
real yearning for anybody. I guess of all us guys, Albee had the
biggest reputation and the most success. He won two Pulitzer prizes. It
doesn't mean baloney. He can't bring a play into this town if he stood
on his head. The money isn't there. So, my point is; my point is, how
important is theatre to the American public? HOw muCh do they want to
support it and what are they interested in, in terms of theatre? I
think a cynical reaction or response to that would be, "not very," and
theatre is going the way of ballet and opera. It's going to be
subsidized.

KB-- An elitist art form, with only very small appeal.

MS- Sure, I think that's in the cards. Hewever, does that stop Don
Quixote or prevent him form going after his Dulcinea? No, it doesn't
because there will always be a theatre and it could always turn around,
who the hell knows. Broadway is not dead and I don't think it's going
to die and there's off-Broadway and regional theatre and stock theatre.
And none of us are in it really to become national heroes. we're in it
because that's what we want to do.

iG$_»Right. If you look at some of the clippings and I've done this you

164

know as far back as the (nineteen-)twenties there were, there were dire
predictions back then. I think Broadway had the biggest number of plays
ever in 1923 or 1924. And then after that, there were dire predictions
that Broadway was on its way out. But you've already said that you
write plays for yourself first and foremost.

MS—- Yes.

KB—- But I guess there has to be that sense that it's then going to be
experienced——

MS-- One tries very hard-—

KB—-for other people or it becomes a—-

MS-- I've only been doing it for four years this way, so I don't know.
KB-- You mean, where you had no stress, no pressure to make

anything-- ( commercial )

MS—— That's right, that's right.

KB- Has your process Changed at all, I mean, are you still writing the
way you've always bee --

MS—- No, no, the same. I have to find something that interests me. Once
I find it, I try my best to write it as well as I know how, that's it.
KB-- In Popkins, there was a section where he goes to jail and he
starts to, he has that evangelical gospel meeting speeCh to all the
prisoners that he's trying to stimulate them in their writing. And you
listed four rules of writing and I wanted to ask you about that. Why
did you put that in there. What were you trying to say? were you
literally trying to give rules for writers?

MS—- NC, I was satirizing all these writing sChools and these
professors and all those who believe there are rules for writing. No, I
was being facetious.

KB--It's all tongue-in—cheek.

MS—-Yes. In fact, I use a song there. I've been looking at it recently
because I did some rewrites for the Paris production, so like "use your
erasers to a beer-barrel polka; let's write a novel today." Yeah, I

meant to be facetious.

165

KB—— Because well, some of them are funny, but some of them are
not.Like you have here, "A writer can't write unless he has piece of
mind."

MS-- Yeah, well that's bullshit. I don't believe that for one moment.
No, I was being facetious.

KB-— Okay, of course "Neatness counts in the writing. Don't hesitate to
consult your dictionary, your thesaurus, your reference materials."
MS—- That's all bullshit.

KB—- "The subject of writing is personal experience." I guess that's
self-evident.

MS-- Yes, that's a cliche. No, it's not personal experience, it's wet
dreams.

KB-— Could you talk a little bit about use of your own, I mean, a lot
of your plays deal very strongly with family, your relationship with
your, and also your book, the influence of your father, your mother,
and the domestic situation at home and that sort of thing. I mean, how
muCh of that do you draw upon, how factual are you being?

MS—- I'm not interested in the factual at all. What I'm interested

in is exploring the past to help shed light on the present and address
the question, "HOw do we live?" So I would be as subjective as I could
to come up with some insight into my own life. I mean, if you remember
I said two things. The first is self-analysis, so very consciously, I'm
very interested in knowing myself and this is one of the ways to get to
know myself. So that's what primarily--factually, I can be factually or
I can't be. I'm not concerned with the facts. I may be bashful, I may
not be bashful. Clearly, my father did not have a sex Change operation
as in the novel. anetheless, it bears some resemblance to an
exaggeration that perhaps is personality. 80, but I'm not interested in
the facts. I may be interested in facts if that's how I'm attacking. I
don't know. In Songs of war, I did it pretty close to the

nitty—gritty.

166

KB-- What about something like The Flatualist? That's another sort of
"stepped upon father."

MS—- Yes, yes of course.

Kb—- USed and abused.

MS-— Yes, yes of course.

KB—— Then there's Seventy-Four Georgia Avenue. Even there, the father,
when you go into the realm of the black man's reincarnation. we come
across again a weak father.

MS-- Yes.

KB—— I guess there's something that you're feeling that seems
consistent in some of the plays.

MS-- I would, it would be interesting, I hope I haven't finished with
it, but I may have because Songsiof war for me, pretty muCh as I say,

 

looked at it in a way that I came to feel I learned all I can from
that experience, growing up. I somehow suspect I won't do plays about
my parents again. At least I feel in Songs of war I reaChed some kind of
resolution in a rather realistic way.

KB-- So it's like a catharsis kind of thing? Do you feel better about
it? Looking back on your part?

MS-- NC, I don't feel better about it.

KB-— It's just an area that you've explored and done enough already.
MS-- Exactly. In other words, I reached certain conclusions about it
and I don't think I have anywhere to look anymore. That's my opinion at
the moment. Sameday, something may pop into my head, I may feel "wait a
secon ." But at the moment I feel I've exhausted looking at my own
Childhood and my relationShip with my parents. At a certain age, I
think we come to terms with it one way or another. At least, I feel I
have for the moment right now. And that can change also, but I have no
desire to go, to do more in that direction.

KB—- Do you think of Childhood as a happy time?

MS-- well, read Songs of war because that raises a question that is a
study of-- the protagonist says at the top, there is only one question

167

that interests me. And that is, whiCh one of my parents is responsible
for my miserable childhood? And that's what the play is about.

KB- And does it really reaCh, at least, I only saw Act I, but it
doesn't seem to reaCh a definitive conclusion.

MS-- It does.

KB—- Oh, it does?

MS—- Yes.

KB- Okay, I'm going to have to read that one.

MB-- Definitive in my terms, maybe not in yours, because it reaches a
conclusion so far as things are resolved.

KB~- HCw important is Judaism in your plays? You touch on it in a very
peripheral manner in several plays. It just seems to be a factor that
very-—

MS-- I go into it more in Songs of war and I go into it-— It may have
some answers for you in there because I do have a grandfather in there
who's a cantor. ‘

KB- And in Seventy-Four Georgia Avenue, that play has a lot of Jewish
feeling in it.

MS-— Yes, anyway, I feel lucky in the sense that I have been able to
reaCh the point where I have been able to deal with certain material
and things in my life, that I've had the opportunity to wait this long a
period of time to look at because I clearly was incapable of doing so
previously. When I first started off, I couldn't handle this stuff. So
I do have the opportunity to deal with these things. Where it will lead
I don't know. Did you read Summer Romance?

KB- Yes.

MS-- I'm back to writing about gorillas.

KB- Really? What thread are you following?

MB- I don't know; That's the thing. I don't have a thread. It's just
what interests me. You see, I wrote a line, I don't believe in, I don't
believe it's possible to incapsulate experience in any neat little
aphorism. ReaChing conslusions or trying to sum up things is a form of
laziness. I wrote this line and it's in terms of what we're saying,

16E!

what brought me to writing what I'm writing now. And the line I wrote
was; it violates everything I say but I feel attracted to it, but I
.wrote, "Play, all the rest is a nightmare." So writing for me is a form
of play, as well as the other things I said, self examination, trying
to explore certain questions. The idea of play, why do I Choose to
write this thing which is so fucking off-the-wall, and where did it
come from? It's a form of play for me and I love to play. It took me a
long time to admit it. I love to play with my imagination and with
characters and with language and with play. That's where it comes from.
KB—- If you write a play or if you start to write plays that seem
beyond the grasp of audiences, well it's really not beyond the grasp of
audiences, but I guess you're not getting producers to grab on to these
ideas because why, they think it's too profound, too avant-garde, too
silly?

MS—- All those things. But you see,no one is getting producers.

KB-- So maybe they're not being done for--

MS- Right. So on the one hand I'm nOt getting produced for the stuff
I've been writing lately which I'm sending out because my stuff is, for

want of a a better word, "perverse." And I could say, "Gees, this is
terrible. I got to get my work produced because it's half alive and
half dead until it's done." I don't know how it's actually going to
work out until it's- I can't truly hear those lines and watdh those
actors moving about spatially. On the other hand, I always comfort
myself, I think or my peers. I mean,I don't find anybody on easy street
who I admire or I respect. So I don't hit myself over the head too hard
if I can't get my stuff done. That may all be a rationalization, but
that doesn't stop me from.going to the typewriter every day, which I
do. And that's the most important thing, that I don't permit the
reality of how difficult it is to get a play done to prevent me from
working. And that's what I'm truly interested in, working. And since
I'm a writer, the bulk of my work is writing. I would love to be
involved in a theatrical situation . . . but I can't, I can't. So I
probably could you see, but I choose not to because I don't want to,
because at this stage I really haven't, I'm writing what I want to
write. So to get involved theatrically, just to playaround and work, I
just-

169

KB—- It's too distracting.

MS- It's too distracting and also I can do it when I want to,1ike

you were at the reading I had. I have readings, I go to the theatre,
the Apple Core Theatre, I have friends there, it's available to me. I
go to-- the Circle in the Square is available. I mean there are theatres
available to me. But so long as I'm writing what I want to write, I
obviously forego that. I'd love to be able to go to Paris and get
involved in that production as I did this past sunmer in Garden Grove.
I was there for three-four weeks.

KB-- How about if we talk about- I'm curious. YOu've written probably
many more one-act plays than two-act plays. Is that a reflection of any
particular philosophy about your writing?

MS-- Yes, yes. Frequently I'd be trying to do a film or something for
TV and what I was going to answer was that consequently, I didn't have
time to write a full length thing, but that isn't the truth. The truth
of the matter is that most ideas are proper for short plays and not
full length plays and too many full length plays would be infinitely
better if they were short plays. But because of the commercial
considerations, everybody runs for the long play. I do one-act plays
because the idea that occurs to me suits itself to a one-act.

KB—- Do you think more in terms of situation than of character? very
often in your plays you don't give a heck of a lot of character
embelliShment or exposition. You just want to see what happens to these
people in a given situation. '

MS-- Yeah, I fight boredom all the time. In other words, no doubt I pay
a price for it because I don't have those fully drawn, probing,
profound Characters who answers in the course of a play all the big
questions about his or her life. And so you're absolutely right. In
other words, I avoid at all costs or I try to avoid at all costs the
familiar because I deal a lot with cliche in so far as it reflects
people in their own time. I do use cliche because I fight always
naturalismu I fight always exposition, I fight always the familiar. And
so I do a little dance to get around it. I really think that the play
of "character" as it is historically known will,let me say, it's of
little interest to me. You see, it's of little interest to me. I know,
when you read reviews of plays and they talk about the richness of the

character, well that's pretty hard to do without being tedious.

170

KB—- So what about a situation like what we see in waiting for Godot?
NOw there, there is very little Character and yet it doesn't seem to go
anywhere.

MS-- That's right.

KB—- You could use that style and still avoid getting into exposition.
But you chose not to.

MS—- I try to find a way of doing the same thing in a way that's
germane to my own way of seeing things. But if there's anything to the
notion of a modern theatre, it is a theatre that does not concern
itself with psychological character. It doesn't concern itself with
Character; it doesn't concern itself with psyChological Character; it
doesn't concern itself with sociological character. It concerns itself
with existential Character, and as suCh,you do not need in order to
fully probe your character, narration on the Chronological events of a
man or woman's life. So I am not interested in psyChological,
sociological character. I am interested in Character that lives in a
state of constant apprehension, and I do it different ways, at
different times without the consistency or the obviousness of most
existential theatre, but the truth is, my interests are quite similar.
You see, it's very hard to, oddly when you think about it, we don't get
to see all that Ionesco does, just as we didn't get to see all that
Genet did. we do, I guess, eventually become familiar with all that
Beckett's about. But if one is going to spend a life writing and does
so as a form of play, self—examination and in search of some knowledge
of what we're about, my own temperament, whiCh is feverish, I guess I
just hop about, dabble and this and that and the other thing. Try one
thing and another.

KB-- were these people that you just mentioned, people that you had
read prior to your becoming a playwright?

MS-- NC.

KB—- Because the very things that you're describing, the quality, the
existentialistic quality, seems to be right there from the very
beginning.

MS—- I never read them.

KB—— So this was something you came to on you own.

MS-- well, I wanted to be a novelist. I wrote it somewhere down.

KB—- Sure.

171

MS-- I wrote short stories and I wrote novels. I couldn't do it. I
couldn't get anything publiShed. I started writing plays. When I
started writing plays and among my first plays were The Typists and
The Tiger, I had no intimate knowledge of theatre and I never studied
or was trained in theatre. I was just-

KB-- But had you read these peoples's works?

MS-- No.

KBP- Net even read them?

MB—- No, because if you will remember the first thing here that came
over of Beckett's was done in Florida. Alan Schneider directed it and I
believe that was in the early sixties and I had already written my
plays by the time I had heard of Beckett and I saw BeCkett. I had
already written at least Lgy_and The Tiger and The Typist, Fragments
and Windows. .

KB-- So it was a general response to influences which were imprinting
on your life: werld war II, Atomic era, the madness of modern life, the
zaniness of city life, all these things.It didn't have anything to do
with any other writer influencing you in the art.

MB—- Net that I know of, because the truth of the matter is, the-— and

I don't know why it is, I have great affection for those writers as I
do for many others. I've always drawn on my own sense of things and
I've never sought literary kinship with any school, style or mentor.
Perverse, because I pay a price for it by making so many mistakes, but
what the hell, why not!

KB~- Have you met any of those people? Ionesco or Beckett or Pinter?
MS-- Yes, I once met Pinter. I have no relationship with any
playwright. I count among my friends Joseph Heller, Frank Gilroy—-

KB—— Subject was Roses?

MS—- Yes, but I don't have any close friends who are writers, who I
hang out with, who I exChange ideas with, do scripts with. At one point

I did have a relationShip that was meaningful to me with HOward
Zacklin, the writer of The Great White Hope. That was quite a few years
ago and that was a very important relationship to me and I've written

172

things out of it. But I never hung out with writers.

KB—- Are dreams an important creative stimulus for your plays? Some of
them, the more abstract ones, the more avant garde ones, the ones that
are more way out, almost, like the one that you're talking about,
Summer Romance or the bearded lady, I can almost see that as the

 

realization in play form of some kind of a dream or a nightmare or
whatver.

MS—- Nightmares.

KB~- we're getting into surrealism.

MS-- Nightmares. I'm conscious of that. You see, I go through periods.
I went through a period where I would try to put a cat in plays I wrote
or I'd put a knife in plays; all images that come out of my nightmares:
the cat, the knife or whatever. I will consciously look for the
opportunity to insert. Even if I do a humorous thing, even I would say
as I would when I'm just writing, what is now, I said uh, "Meowing like
a cat in a garbage can." I will put that in and it may even be a joke
line, I don't know; but I would put it in because it is out of my
nightmares and I mean it's very vivid to me. I remember writing three
plays in a row where I put a knife, a naked knife or a knife blade.
Yes, I take out of nightmares because those images are so vivid,
convey suCh.magic that I'd go after them. Yeah, that was done once,
from.Summer Romance. I got a check for fifteen dollars. Somebody-- it
was amazing, who the hell would do that?(play) And how would they do
it. I never saw it, and I would like to see it, to see if it works. I
don't know. You know what I thought of one night when I did that? I
could think of one play, although in a very amusing way and that was
The Hairy Ape.

KB—- Yes, O'Neill, sure.

MS-- Yes, I did think of The Hairy Ape when I was doing this.

KB~- well, your plays are very poetic--

MS-- Yes.

KB-- Big on imagery and difficult to do a literal representation.

MS-- well, I see it, oddly enough. And I don't always see it on stage.
very frequently I'm not on the stage when I'm visualizing what I'm

writing about, hearing it. But with Summer Romance , I was in Central

173

Park. I had no sense of-Sometimes I'm on the stage and I can actually
see the stage boards and I can see the sides, my mind puts me on that
stage.Sometimes the stage disappears and I'm in reality, in a

different way. So it shifts on me. I prefer being on stage because then
I can count the steps it takes to get from here to there. Accurate or
not, but that's very important for me. See, I'm overwhelmed by the
spatial aspect of theatre. Bodies on the stage fascinate me. The
dimensionality of characters on the stage is of greater interest to me
frequently than any other aspect of theatre, including language. The
body on stage,how it sits, how it stands, where those arms are; I can
never put down all those directions that I see because I hate stage
directions.

KB—- YOu don't write a lot of stage directions.

MS-- I know. You'll notice in Songs of war there's a lot of stage
directions because the stage manager wrote the directions. I'm trying
to wheedle them out there but this idea-- the theatre that I can't
stand, besides naturalistic theatre is verbal theatre. I cannot stand
going to the theatre and seeing people sitting in the living room
talking. Whether they're wisecracking or not or joking, I'm not
interested immediately. And I can't help it because the stage is a
magical place and placing the body on stage becomes a magical being and
therefore it is not ordinary. It is not natural. It doesn't mean it has
to be rhetorical and doesn't mean it doesn't have to be true, but it is
something else. And to watch that body on stage to me is one of the
main reasons to go to the theatre.

KB—- The visual becomes more important to you than the spoken?

MB-— I'm exaggerating it because clearly if you have to Choose,
language is the primary aspect of theatre that attracts us all to it,
but I'm just saying, I personally give great weight to the physicality
of the actors on stage and I cannot stand theatre whiCh is in the main
or purely or wholly verbal. The lack of imagination of turning that set
into a special place disturbs me and I frequently leave theatre after
the first act. I don't stay to see it because I just cannot sit and
listen to people talk.Very few writers have that magical gift of
language where they truly can entice you by what's being said. I think

174

Tom Stoppard is an exception to that, where he is terribly verbal but
his talent is up to it to a large degree, although I wiSh he'd shut up
too.

KB—- Haw about Neil Simon? I guess he must talk too muCh for you, for
your taste.

MS- Yeah.

KB-- YOu've played with a couple of farces. Farces, I would think, are
very difficult. I mean, there have not been many great farces

written.

MS- YOu mean American farces?

KB-— American farces, and now that when you talk about how movement on
stage intrigues you, did that have something to do with the fact that
you wrote American Millionaire and All Over Town? Right? Are farces?
MS—- Yes, sure it did, but there are two things. It's not only the
fact, and that is true that-, I'll tell you the real connection. The
truth is that farces are interesting to me because of movement and
they're choreographed. But too, equally important is that farces are at
heart, existential. They don't deal with Character, they deal with the
frenzy of social relationships and I think that Feydeau was a very
important existential writer. One can enjoy his work on more than one
level. So, yes, I have no desire to do any more farces. I did at one
time.

KB-- were you satisfied with either one of those productions?

MS-- Net American Millionaire, whiCh I think is terrible, terrible
play. But All Over Town was wonderful because Dusty directed it and I
had a wonderful cast. I had Cleavon Little, I had Barnard Hughes, I had
Payton wright, I had Polly HOlliday, I had Zane Lasky, I had a
wonderful cast, and that was a good experience . . . . It's not a bad
play.

KB—- No, I thought it was, I liked it very muCh. In many ways your
plays remind me of the kinds of plays that the Greeks wrote. The Old
Comedy Greeks, Aristophanes, the "happy idea." I mean, they're comedies
about ideas, they're not domestic, necessarily domestic-

MS- That's the curse of my life.

KB-- situations.

175

MS-- I don't know why. I'd much rather do domestic comedies. I'd make
so much money .

KB-- They would do so muCh better, wouldn't they? But I can't help get
away from this. I mean, you examine all these terrific issues and
situations that people do find themselves in and could it be perhaps
that for example, if you look at somebody like Marshall Mason and
Langford Wilson, you know, a situation like that for you could make the
whole difference.

MS- I don't think so because I don't think that Langford Wilson at
present is in a very enviable position. I mean--

KB-- It could be that his work would be seen a lot less if he didn't
have a company that was taking all his plays and putting them on the
stage.

MS-- Yes.

KB~- Just from that viewpoint.

MS-- Right, right.What was the last thing he did? I know he did
something out in East Hampton. What did he do last?

KB-- Isn't there one playing right now?

MS-- YOu mean off-off Broadway? Yes. It must be an old play.

End of conversation.

APPENDIX B

Transcripts of Tape Recordings

Conversations With Playwright MUrray Schisgal

December 13,1989

KB-- I never realized in looking through your books (scrapbooks) how
beseiged you must have been when L 2 hit. It must have been—- I mean
you're a pretty down-to-earth guy, but I'm sure going through all that
stuff has to do something to you, doesn't it?

MS-- Yeah, I guess. I don't know.

KB-- Instant fame and--

MS-- Don't forget, I was thirty-seven at the time so I was hardly a
new, wild kid.

KB-- Does that affect your writing do you think, MDrray?

MS-- Yes, I think it does to a degree in so far as it's very hard to
be private about your writing. YOu have access to so many theatres and
producers that it does affect it. To what degree and how substantially
I don't know, but there must be some influence exerted as a result.
KB-— Could we talk a bit about the process that you have to go through
today to get a play,hopefully, produced? For example, taking this one.

Is this one of you most recent ones? Isn't it,Theatrical Release?

 

MS-- About three, four years old, yes.
KB-- Could you perhaps just talk about, starting from your first
attempt to put it down on paper, and then all the steps that go from
that?
MB-- I don't follow you.
KB-- What I'm interersted in is the creative process and then the
production process involved-— a knowledgeable playwright trying to get
something produced in New York today.
MS-- I have no thoughts at all to express about the creative
process.The word itself--
KB-- What I mean is specifically in this play, you had an idea and you
started to type it. Did you have this play finished in your head before
you took to the machine?
MS-- NC, I didn't. I had some parts of it, I sketchily outlined it in
half a page and I knew how it would end.
KB—- Is this autobiographical in any way?

176

177

MS- Everything I write is autobiographical. No, some are more explicit
than others, but it doesn't make any difference at heart. So, I did
have a half-page outline. I did know how it was going to end, I did
have a sense of it and I wrote it.

KB—— What happens next?

MS-— Then I sent it out and so far its been rejected by about twelve
regional theatres.

KB—- Have you heard it read yet? .

MS—- No, I've not heard it read yet, no. The Apple Core heatre wants
to have a public reading of it and they're sending it out to actors.
That may happen or not, but I keep sending it out. I just sent it to
the Old Globe Theatre and to Jack O'Brien there. It's been turned down
by Lincoln Center, by Mark Taper Theatre, Davidson out there, and as I
say, about a dozen theatres have turned it down so far. That's par for
the course I guess.

KB—— Is there an alternative route that you can use?

MS-— Net for this material because it's too off—beat to try to get it
done commercially. I think it is.

KBP- Are you finding this with the recent ones?

MS- I don't know.

KB-- Songs of war, how about with a case like that? That would have
less resistance.

MB-- I sent it to a director who had a relationShip with a theatre and
they did it. There's no hard and true rules. You scramble and you
hustle and try the best you can to get people to read it. If I did
Songs of war in July, and I'm going to do Popkins in MarCh, I guess if
I can do one play a year, that's not too bad. I don't feel deprived or
panicked or anything. That's not where I'm at. What I'm interested

in now primarily is what I'm writing now. Hepefully, I can get
something done. I would like the plays to be done but if not, they're
written and they're there and I just keep moving.

KBn- Is the playwright's job today to not only write his plays, but
hustle with them?

MB—- Absolutely. It always has been.

KB-- Don't you have agents? And what do they do?

MS-- I have an agent. No, as a rule, not. YOu have to understand that

that many plays don't get done. A lot of these repertory theatres whiCh

178

now is where it's at, certainly not on Broadway, off-Broadway you can't
do all kinds of plays. You can do small plays, you can do plays that
have four, five Characters who sit and talk the whole evening. YOu
really can't, there are limitations there. So the real life of the
theatre today is in repertory theatres and LORT theatres throughout the
country. And they do not do that many new plays. The do a lot of
classics, 3 lot of tried and true plays. They'll do four plays and one
will be a new one and three will be remakes. So--but what's the
difference. One doesn't write to buck the system or Change the system
or fight with the system. That's not where it's at. I mean, I'm just
interested in the problems I'm having now. These plays that I finished,
I keep sending out. HOpefully, something will get done, something will
happen. If it doesn't, so it doesn't. What is one to do about that?
Tough titty.

KB-— Is the response to a play like Theatrical Release different. I
mean, do you see the difference between this and the response you had
to the ones that were successfully produced like Egg? Did you have to
send Egy_out to twelve different theatres?

MS-- No,you can't compare the theatre today and go back twenty-five
years to 1963-64. I mean, they're not the same theatres, so why compare
this to Lug?

KB-- Just the receptivity.

MS- But the environment was different. No, of course not, what are you
talking about. No, it was a different ball game. There was different

' action. I mean, Broadway in the early nineteen-sixties was doing a lot
of new plays. A lot. That's not true today at all.‘

KB—- So there really is no one doing a lot of new plays today.

MS-- That's right. And it's all so institutionalized. Off-Broadway
there used to be quite a number of off-Broadway producers as well as a
lot of Broadway producers.Well, will you do me a favor and name me
three off-Broadway producers or three Broadway producers who are not
institutions, and who are producing plays on a regular basis? Will you
name those names for me and tell me where our producers are? There are
none. 80-—

KB—- pr about trying to get your work done in London again. Is that a
possibility?

179

MS-— No. It's not a practical possibility because when I did it, I did
it in very small theatres and under very limited, uh, I don't choose to
have it done there now unless it was done well. If the National Theatre
wanted to do a play of mine, fine. If they wanted to do a play of mine
in the west End, fine. I don't think I write that kind of play that
they'd be interested in. That's my educated guess.

KB—- What about some of the experimental theatre groups? How about
educational theatre?

MS- Those experimental theatre groups that I know about or I have
heard about do not do good work. They do not have the money, they do
not have the resources, they do not have the acting and directing
talent. They are really fly-by-night outfits that get by as best they
can. But there isn't one "EXPERIMENTAL," in capital letters, group that
has any credibility in terms of the theatre audience that I am aware
of. The best theatre I've seen has been at La Mama. And what did I see
at La Mama? I saw the direction, the work of one director who I believe
is an extraordinary man with an extraordinary talent and I think he is
the most exciting playmaker today, and yet if I mention his name to you
you won't know him and certainly very few people do know him. He is a
Polish director named Thaduce Cantor, with his own theatre, and they
come over in Polish and they do his work and they are phenomenal. But
what does it mean? I mean, so he does it at La Mama and gets an
audience at La Mama and it hasn't gotten anything near the kind of
audience it deserves. What are we talking about- experimental groups?
No, I don't know any experimental groups where work can be done and be
done well! Now, what do you mean by it being done well? That means you
need time, that means you need talent, those ingredients are wholly
missing from most, all of off-off-Broadway or experimental groups that
I know of. They have neither the time, money nor the consistent talent
that's needed to do a good piece of work.What's the advantage of doing
it there? I got a letter, would I like to do a one-act play, whiCh I
did before, in the Ensemble Theatre. They sent me a letter. They're
doing their marathon of one-act plays, would I like to contribute
something? I did one there before called The Pushcart Peddlers which

180

I enjoyed and got killed by the critic on the TimggfiN.Y. Times).By the
way, that play is being done all over, it's been published in a number
of school books and I think it's pretty good personally. But
nonetheless, Mel Gussow, the critic of the Tim§§_didn't agree with me
and so I did it at this theatre for no money, under terrible
circumstances because the actors are always running away from you to
take on other jobs or one thing and the other and there's no money,etc.
So I did it there, I was very glad I did because I was able to work a
little on the play. NOw, I get a request, would I like to do another
play there? I say, "Why? What for? What have I got to gain for it? well
is there time to do it correctly, is there money to do it correctly?
Can I find actors who are willing to work under those circumstances for
no money?" And the answer is "No" to all of them. So this time around I
say, although half of me wants to be working on the play and doing it,
I'd say,"Forget it." I have nothing to gain by showing a play publicly
of mine that has to be done so piecemeal.

KB-- What about educational theatre?

MS- What does that mean?

KB-- Companies supported by universities.

MS- Who?

KB—- NYU, you've got companies associated with Syracuse university,
Cornell University. They all have theatre groups that might be very
interested in taking on one of your projects. But I guess it's
something you have not considered.

MS- No. because the truth of the matter is-

KB~- I mean, they have the time, they have the money, they have the
facilities. They may not have professional actors.

MS-- You.believe that, but that's not true.

KB—- It's not?

MS-- It's not true at all, and the last thing you said is the most
important thing. They do not have professional actors. well doesn't
that factor-

KB-- well of course it's a factor, but they've got actors that--

181

MS-- well, I'm not familiar with educational theatre. No one has ever
written me asking me for a play to do there. Experience has taught me
that unless you have a foot in the door, you're going to be short
Shrifted. Some reader's going to read you're play, some student in
graduate school or whatever, and turn it down,or I don't know what,pass
it on maybe. I don't know. I sent to Harvard, I sent to Yale.
Theatrical Release was turned down by Harvard and Yale, by Brustein and
by that guy that runs Yale's drama school(Lloyd Richards), who does,
you know, he's the director for the black playwright(August Wilson),
who's doing something up here, Piano Lesson,he did Ma Rainey's Black
Bottom. Anyway, they turned it down, both of them. So I do send it
there. I'm sending something now to Arthur StorCh at Syracuse. I've

 

worked there. I've done a play there. So yes, if I know someone there I
will do it, like Brustein or uh—-

KB-- It all sounds very bleak.

MS—- No it doesn't.Why does it sound bleak? You're working from.the
motivation that what I'm doin --

KB-- I can't in my mind dissociate the fact that if you're writing the
plays, you're hope is to see them performed.

MS-- Sure.Absolutely.

KB-- But you're painting a picture of an environment that is not in any
way allowing these plays to be aired.

MS-- Right, but the environment may Change.

KB—- Okay. So do you see any glimmer of that, I mean is there any
specific reason to think that it is Changing?

MS—— I'm really not interested in addressing that question. I don't
have time to be uh-—

KB--Concerned--

MS-- Net only be concerned. Obviously, to a degree, I'm affected by it
and I don't pretend I'm not. I'm disappointed when I'm rejected, but
that is something I've grown a bit thick-skinned about over the years.
And I am affected by the fact that it is so hard to get a play uh-

182

but I refuse to permit it to be important to me. You see, I don't have
time to make it important to me; I don't have time to make a study of
all the theatres in the Uhited States and find out who's running what
and how muCh money they have to do what and how their traCk record is
and who they attract and who they don't attract. I can't, you know,
I'll send it out to Mark Taper(Theatre), or to the Old Globe Theatre,
or Harvard or Yale or something I've heard of or read about. If I saw
Sweeney Todd recently at the Circle in the Square and I liked the work

of the director named Susan Schulman, I send her a play. I say, "I

 

enjoyed your work. Here's something I've written. Are you interested?"
I haven't heard from her yet, but as I say, I keep in there, I go to
the theatre a lot and I send out my stuff. This week I sent something
to my agent in Paris, I'm sending something to Arthur StorCh; last
week, who did I send to-— I mean, I would say I send out a script a
week.

KB—— Oh really?

MB-- Yes, I'm sending them out.

KB~- So that's how a playwright works.

iMS—— Yes. I send it out. They don't send it back. They send me»a note
because I don't enclose a stamped envelOpe. It's too muCh of a hassle
getting a script back that I find a little uh—- I don't need them. Let
thenlthrow it away and send me a post card.But uh-- mind you, all this
is possible because I am no longer financially dependent upon making
a living writing plays.

KB—- Thank God.

MS—- Yes, thank God and that's the name of the game. I would never have
Chosen to write some of the plays I've written now if I had to make a
living at it. I tried, I try to be commercial. I would try, even though
it turns out I can't cut it; my instincts would always be to try--
KB—- When you say you would try to be commercial-—

MS—- I would try to write sit-com comedies,I would try to write
screenplays that are ". . . when Sally met Irene . . ." or whatever. I
mean, you know,I would try. That's what I did, I did it for twenty
years. I wrote for twenty years. I wrote sit coms, I wrote screenplays,
I wrote the stuff that I tried very hard to get into the commercial end
of it. It so happened I don't have it, because if I had, I would have

183

hit. And I haven't hit at all, certainly not worth Speaking about so
what, that's it.

KB—- You said yesterday that you made a lot of mistakes in terms of
writing.

MS-- Yes, a lot of mistakes, because my method is trial and error. In
other words,I was trying to read an article in the Dramatists Guild
anrter y. I pick up this article and I'm trying to read it. It's on
Baker(George Pierce Baker), the very well known uh-—

KB—- First teaCher at Yale?

MS-- Yes. O'Neill was in his class. Thomas welfe.

KB-- Playwriting.

MB-- Philip Barry, Sidney HOward, S.N. Behrman.They were all in Baker's
class and he had a book that he wrote that encompassed his idea about
dramatic writing. And in this,I start reading. And it says things like,
"A cluttered play is always a bad play. Selection with one's purpose
clearly in mind is the remedy for suCh clutter. How may we know whether
our motivation is good or not? First of all, it must be clear.First
comes structure, ordering for clearness and correct emphasis in the
storytelling." My God, I couldn't read more than a page of this, I find
it so boring and tedious and suCh academic bullshit. YOu-—if I had to
sit down and write a play and answer questions as to its motivation and
clarity and to define it in terms Mr. Baker evidently thinks is
necessary before sitting down to write the play, I could never write.
I'd rather write the play, as I do, using what experiences I've
acquired, certainly trying to learn from what mistakes I've made, but
doing it with as muCh spontaneity and as muCh visceral feelings as I
can muster, as muCh life and energy as I can muster. So the mistakes I
have made have been, in a way, a learning process for me. I don't think
I make as many now, although maybe I do.

KB-- Well, are they mistakes then?

MS—- I don't know. They are mistakes in the sense that say
approximately two years ago, I did a show called Roadshow, very offbeat
kind of thing.

KB—- Right, I liked it.

MS-- NOw, the mistake there was the production, because of the theatre

184

and the set-up and because my director and I weren't on the same
wavelength, I couldn't present the play, I couldn't have the play
produced as I had envisioned it, so that when it came out, it fell
short of the mark, to say the least. So that's a mistake too. The
ndstake need not be only in the writing, it can be in the production. I
feel I've made a number of mistakes in getting my play on: by
miscasting it, by having the wrong director, by being in the wrong
theatre, by not having solved the third act. I mean, there are a
ndllion ways to make mistakes and I imagine I've made pretty muCh a
million mistakes. So I consider that a mistake too because the
obligation of the playwright really is to see that the thing produced
in some way resembles what he had in mind when he wrote the play. And
you have to fight for that, you don't get it. NObody gives it to you.
You have to fight-- I'm talking about the initial production, whiCh is
the one that really counts, in terms of giving a life to the play.
KB-— Does that come back to what you said yesterday about working with
people that you know, people that you trust and would have a vision
similar to yours, or at least take the time to find out what your
vision is?

MS-- Yes sir, yes sir. But I am convinced that we will always have a
theatre so long as human beings are human beings as we perceive them
today and there will always be the presentations of drama in front of
an audience because it's irreplaceable. So believing that--

KB-- It's almost instinctive, isn't it, as a human activity?

MS-- Yes, so if I don't get something done this year, maybe it will
happen next year, and if not next year, maybe the year after. My job
primarily is to keep working and to keep working is to keep working
writing plays, not to keep working running around town trying to kiss
ass and get someone to give me a free lunch and a lecture on how
difficult it is to raise money in the theatre today.

KB-- In Theatrical Release and I saw it also in Roadshows-

MB-- YOu didn't finish it.

KB-- No I didn't, but already in the first half of it, you have
characters doing monologues that go out almost Shakespearean; they

185

are directing their comments to their mind's eye and to the audience
and so forth.

MS-- I did it in Songs of War.

KB-- And Song of War.

MS-— I did it in my first play, one of my first plays, The Mists. The
two typists come forward downstage and talk to the audience. Light hits
them and they tell their personal experiences because they don't want
the other person to hear their inner monologue.

KB-- Is that a presentational device?

MS-- Well, it's a way to break up the naturalistic format of the play,
to break through the wall, the fourth wall, which I think is essential
to do when you can do it, when it works. As I told you, I loathe
naturalism. I loathe the conceit that the actors have to pretend to be
unaware of the audience like the audience isn't out there watching
them every minute and listening to them; the actors are going about
their business as if ,"Wow. Nothing's out there, nothing's happening. I
am home here in my little apartment in the Bronx."

KB—-— Is that anything that comes from any understanding of Brecht or
any appreciation of his style or are these characters always these
characters when they address the audience, whereas in Brecht, he wanted
to break the whole format of the play?

MS-- I don't give a shit what he wanted. Most of the Brecht I've seen
has bored the shit out of me. I've seen a couple of good things. I
truly respect him as a playwright and as a poet and think Three Penny
m, to say the obvious, is by far, the best modern musical ever
written. It's wonderful and I love it. And I love many parts of many of
his plays. But frankly, I have no real identification with him; his
temperament, his milieu, his interests. So I, you know, really I don't,
you know.

KB-- But when you have a character in a play address the audience
directly, is that because that's the best thing, that's the only
alternative that that character can do at that point?

DS-- In my opinion, yes.

186

KB—- Okay.

MS—- It's the most dramatic thing I can do at that point with the
material I want to write. And I wish I can use it, I mean, I would use
it more because it's a good device, it's one that I haven't used and
now I'm using it a lot. What I'm working on now I'm not using it. It
depends on the material and its style. And.my style is not consistent.
I don't write all my plays with the actors talking to the audience. I
went through a couple where I did: Roadshow,Theatrical Release, and
$999§,0f war, they do in those three. Yellow Cat, whiCh is a very
light, frothy thing, that I wrote to amuse myself, they don't. Just two
characters.

KB—- Does it have anything to do with the effect that vaudeville used
to have on theatre?

MB- Yes, I anlvery enamored of vaudeville. I think vaudeville is a
great theatrical way of presenting an event. I really feel a closeness
to vaudeville and would love to find ways-- that's why frequently I'll
use song and dance and break it up with jokes like skits or whatever. I
think there's something to the vaudeville rhythms in a theatre, the
authenticity of it is what attracts me, the upfrontness of it, that is,
the performer downstage talking to the audience and who can forget the
way Olivier did The Entertainer, both in theatre and film. HOw
wonderful that is.

KB-- So you just can't get away from the fact that you're an actor on
the stage with an audience there and why pretend they're not there. How
about music? You were a musician, correct?

MS-- Yes.

KB-- Could you talk a little bit about that? Maybe, how you used music
in your plays, because you do use it a lot.

MS-- Yes.

KB- You suggest specific pieces.

187
MS-- well, I do something else. I always try for rhythms. In other

words, I consciously try to write to a beat and that includes dialogue
as well as introducing the chattering of typewriters, the slamming of
doors, the ringing of bells. I will deliberately look for a rhythmic
pattern to what I do. If I can find it, it pleases me. The Typists, the

whole thing was written, almost was orchestrated as was say All Over

 

.2932. And it's not only introducing music. It's the rhythm of dialogue
and the rhythm of the Choreography. And I try to get all those elements
together. And my failures mostly come about-—in my mind- is when I
can't sustain those ideas so that the whole is imbued with a rhythmic
base.

KB—— New are you talking in terms of something like verse, like the way
Shakespeare wrote?

MS—- NC, I'm.talking in terms of music.

KB—— Meter.

MS—- I'm talking in terms of meter, music.

KB—- Is this something the audience is to be aware of or is it a
subconscious thing?

MS-- No, it's not subconscious. I consciously pursue it. But I don't
do--

KB—- But does it effect them in a subconscious way or are they to be
aware of it?

MS—- NC, consciusly. No, I'm not interested in—- if I were, I would
write it in verse. No, I'm not interested in whether they're aware of
it or not. I do it to create tension primarily. In other words, it
gives me a grid on whiCh I could proceed. '

KB—- HOw about your selection of background music?

MS—- . . . has always been a favorite of mine. I had great admiration
for his rendition of that number. It's a jazz classic and I used it
there when they danced to it. So I use music that usually, that I have
some feeling for or that evokes certain emotions in me personally and I

try to communicate that through the piece to the audience.

188

KB- Now,if you've written a play and you haven't had it produced, then all
you can do is envision this background music right? Or do you play
these pieces as you're working on the play, as you're sitting there
typing away and you've suggested certain pieces of music, do you put
them on and listen to them as you type?

MS-- Oddly enough, sometimes I do, yes. I sometimes do. I'd like to
take Songs of war, whiCh has about a dozen songs in the First Wbrld war
and the Second WOrld war,I had those recorded and I listened to them as
I was working on it. Net too muCh, because it's too distracting. I'd
just do it off the cuff. I'd do it, but not too much. It's too
distracting.

KB- When you were a musician, was that a period of time when you knew
that you still wanted to be a writer or was this something you thought
you wanted to do with your life at that time?

MS-- If I could have been a good musician, I probablqrwould have stuck
with it. I was, I tried to be a musician. I've always had the desire to
write. I always had the desire to listen to stories, to tell stories
and to read stories. But when I was a teenager, it seemed, because I
was suCh a bad student and I was suCh an emotional mess I guess, I
concentrated on trying to be a musician. So I went through that period.
I was not a very good; I was bad, I was embarassingly bad as a
musician. -

KB-- was it anything like your description in Days and Nights of a
FrenCh Hern Player?

MS-- Is it in there? well, I was bad. I don't remember what I wrote
there, but I was bad, embarrassingly so, so it took me a while to just
get rid of it and recognize that. What I did was sold my saxaphone and
clarinet and I went to Florida to work there and travel around the
south awhile. When I came back fromlthat trip, I must have been
twenty-one, twenty-two, I--even though I went to college then and I
went to law sChool, the idea of being a writer grew bigger and bigger
in my mind.

KB- was it some romantic notion of what a writer does?

MS-- Well, I was always influenced by visualizing myself in certain

situations or professions. In other words, truly the reason I chose

189

to join the Navy is because of the Navy uniform and the lifestyle of
sailors. The freedom they seemed to enjoy, the debauChery that they
seemed to have available to them, all of that. When I thought of being
a writer, the first thing I thought about was being a journalist, like
Clark Gable was in It Happened One Nigh_, with a cigarette dangling
from my mouth, with a nice suit, tie and shirt, with the tough-talking
manner about me, with whiskey at the bar where you meet the other
journalists and shoot the breeze. These romantic images have influenced
me a great deal. Certainly that of a writer, certainly that of the
musician. I saw myself as a black musician living out of my case,
working till four/five in the morning, hanging out with guys and
boozing, doing things of that sort. Yes, those images were important to
me.Those "windmill" images.

KB—- You wrote in your introduction to Luv and Other Plays that "I
spent a couple of years at sea reading everything I could lay my hands
on, writing words and their meanings and committing them to memory.What
was the purpose of that?

MB-— It was to have a, to build a vocabulary so that I could write and
express myself more clearly and better.

KB—- Do you remember now what it was you were reading? Nevels?

Standard classics?

MS- Every ship had a library. I read a lot of Russian novels, English
novels, American novels; I read everything. In the main, fiction. I was
never interested muCh in the sciences. I was never interested muCh in
non—fiction.

KB-- And your earliest writings were novels and Short stories, right?
MS—- Yes.

KB- Almost sounds "ala Chekhov."

MS- Oh, there was a big difference. The thing is that when I started
writing, I could, I didn't have a background that warranted my even
trying to write. In other words,once again I just sat down and wrote. I
wrote, if memory serves, three novels and sixty—five short stories, none
of whiCh were publiShed. I just write, I mean, without truly being
equipped to write. In other words,I never took courses on it. At the
time when I started writing, I hadn't even gone to college yet.

190

When I came back from the Navy, I went back to high school to finiSh
sChool and then I went to college and I went to night school. My
education in college and in night school, it all was pretty muCh
self—education. I didn't have a solid background, education, I didn't.
I just did what I wanted to do and got by on everything else. Although
I was going to night school in college, I was a pretty good student,
only in comparison to the other students. This was Long Island
university at night. There were a couple of floors in the Con Edison
building, so, I don't know. I have this great impatience that has
consistently and relentlessly puShed me forward to do what I feel I
'have to do without taking time to either prepare myself or ground in
any way or researCh in any way. It's just an overwhelming impetuosity
that keeps me today in the same breathless state as I was when I first
started writing. My big concern is to finish what I'm doing now and to
try to do it well, not to be impatient, to rewrite it when it needs
rewriting, to work on it every day and all other concerns and
considerations just take a baCk seat. That's why when you say about
getting the other stuff done, yes I try.

KB—— So it's very secondary to you.

MB—- I'm not there.

KB-- Because you're an artist, you're not a businessman.

MS-- well, I don't know about -- I've always been the same. And it
fills me you see. It fills me emotionally, this impetuosity, this
heedlessness, this stupidity. I wrote a book called Days and Nights of
a French Hern Player. I took about, maybe a dozen lessons on the FrenCh horn,
from a FrenCh horn teacher from Juilliard, read a few books, listened
to records, a great many records of FrenCh horn concerti and that was
it. I mean, while writing. I mean, I know about as muCh about the
FrenCh horn as the man in the moon. With a minimum.because I wasn't- I
couldnit wait to write what I wanted to write. And it truly wasn't that
important to me. I wasn't interested in the meChanics of the FrenCh
horn, but yet truly the work must suffer because if you're going to do

191
something decent, you should know, have a good knowledge of what the
hell you're writing about. But my main concern in writing is not that.
My main concern in writing is always, for want of a better expression,
"giving birth." I am.truly filled with it. I must get it out. And the
compulsion is to get-it-out because it is forcing itself on me and so
all other things are thrown to the side. Like my friend Dusty will rant
at me for hours and I jump in and I do something and I'm out of it. I'm
in and out of it before he's even begun because he does take his time
as an actor, he will spend six months or a year if he has to on
something. He is meticulous and fastidious and he is an artist
certainly and he will frequently upbraid me for being impatient . .
.(phone call interruption) she was doing that play after so many years
and I couldn't get it done here in one place. It's off—- well you read
Popkins.
KB—- Yes.
MS- I made some Changes because it's so dated, because of AIDS, it
becomes such a problem, so I, fortunately she agreed with me. I put in
"1984" it says in the program. That's one way to deal with it and two,
I've made some line changes here and there to try to make it work today
or 1984. So there's always a problem with plays that they can date.
KB-- You had in the copyright of that book, it says that originally it
was called "A Doll's HOuse II." I guess from everything you've told me
about your hate of realism that Ibsen is not one of your favorite--
MS-- well, you know he is suCh a master at structure.
KB—- writers.
MS- He wrote with suCh social consciousness that one must be
responsive and feel affection about him. But I love Peer Gynt and
'gggng, they were written as verse plays, but I love the freedom and
expansiveness of it. I have great respect for him, one can't help have

it for a master artist, but I'm muCh more responsive to Strindberg

192

if one has to make choices, and what Strindberg was trying to do in the
theatre, than I am of Ibsen.

KB-- Dream plays .

MS-- Yes.

KB~~ All that sort of thing.was it just that you felt that a take off
on A Doll's House would be a gag kind of thing, is that how it started
out?

MS-— Why a gag? As I told you I'm interested in Change.

KB—- But I mean, just using that as a spin off, a starting point.

MS—- well, because of the lines that Ibsen wrote. He said very clearly
and it's in the play. He has NOra say that " . . . before I come back
to live with you, the most wonderful thing would have to happen and
that is that we would change, we would be different people." Now I take
that as the key to the play because I have them Change and they are
different, but they're quite messed up. I mean what happens to them. 80
Change, in and of itself, is not necessarily a desirable goal.There is
a naivete to that notion that if we change we're better, and it's that
that's the crux to the play. So I truly-- because Change is what
America's about. we all want to change. we want to be smarter, we want
to be thinner, we want to be healthier, we want to be fit, we want
cosmetic surgery, we want toupees, we want this, that and the other
thing, as if it's going to make our life necessarily better. well, it
may very well not, so that's what that play is about. That's why I use
Doll's Heuse as a point of departure, only to talk about Change.

KBP- At the end of that play you really don't know whether they're
better off or not, whether they're going to make it or not.

 

MS-- well, how can they be better off, they're two messes. I mean,
they're emotionally-- I don't think they're better off.

KB~- NOt better off, but how about just more compatible.

MS- I don't know.

KB—- we don't know that?

MS-— HOw could we?

193

KB-— It doesn't take you far enough along.

MS-- One guy says he's a bisexual ex—criudnal and the other one says
she's a workaholic, so who knows!

KB—- Also having had a lesbian situation. So, who's to say? You have to
reaCh your own conclusion on that one, right?

MS- well, if I had to say, I hope it gets across in production that,
one, that to say we want to Change and be different from what we are
does not necessarily mean we're going to be better off than we are or
better than we are. And that's something we don't consciously think of
when we think of Changing ourselves. Change is a powerful notion;
personality Change, behavior change, people changing fascinates me
because like everyone else, I guess, a part of me always seeks to
change and I just question whether that, in and of itself, is a goal, a
desirable goal. Of course, you have to look at what Changes we're
talking about, whether those Changes are realizable.

KB-- Well, isn't it understood that when somebody says that, they're
assuming it is a Change for the better?

MS-— Absolutely, that's the assumption, yes.

KB-- Like when you said to me yesterday when you wrote that, you said
you wouldn't write that way today. I asked you about Lgyy whiCh was a
tremendous hit.

MS-- Right.

KBP- And you said you can't even imagine how you felt then. If you were
to write it today, it would be a different play, obviously because you
feel differently and you've Changed.

MB—- Absolutely. I mean--

KB—
from the experience of writing other plays?
MS—- No, not at all.

KB—- You struggle just as muCh?

MS-

Is eaCh time you write a play, does it get easier? Do you learn

In fact the usual story is that a young playwright has one or

194

more hit plays and then falls into the pit of oblivion. Experience and
age and knowledge and learning and all the rest adds up to a big
zilch. What usually happens is he becomes too self—conscious—-
(telephone call interruption).

KB- well, you were in the midst, you were talking about Change and
you said that, I asked you if you had written some of these same plays
that you wrote before and had to write them now, they would be
different plays. You said we change, sometimes it's for better and
sometimes it's for worse.

MS—- Right.

KB-- But I can't help think, I'm not a writer, I mean I'm not a
creative writer. I do a lot of writing.When I do the kind of writing I
do, whiCh is researCh, papers, criticisms, analysis,comparing dramatic
literature, I mean the more you write, the better you get at it. When I
do my publicity writing, but this is obviously not the case in
playwriting.

MS-- Right, exactly. It's not. It's true of novel writers too. I mean,
I don't think that one would argue that James Jones' best book was uh,
what was it again, his first book, the war book?

KB-- Here To Eternity.

MS- From Here To Eternity. I don't think he wrote anything to compare
to that. I don't think Joe Heller wrote anything to compare to ggggg,
gg_and he's a dear friend of mine. I don't think he'd mind my saying
that. Catch 22-- I don't think that most writers as a rule-—I mean that,
by the way, is a definition of genius probably, the ability to get
better, clearly the great writers have.

KB- Hemingway.

MS-- well, I don't know about Hemingway. Net for my money.

KB—- Nb?

MS- No sir, not at all. I would think The Sun Also Rises is the best
novel he wrote. That's my opinion. I'm not so sure about him. The same
is true about Faulkner.I would say his early works are his best works.
It's not true however, of writers like Dickens,Dostoyevsky or Tolstoy.
But most writers,I would think, their early works are the best work and

they never reaCh that height again.True genius, I guess, is able to

195

improve upon itself and get richer and more profound, etc., etc.
Anyway, what was the, Oh yes. That experience and knowledge and
learning does not necessarily help produce works of art. Other factors
are equally important and come into it and so that generalization
doesn't hold up in my opinion.

KBP- well that's whose opinion we're interested in today.When, at one
time you wrote that you had a correspondence with a friend and
mentor,George Balin, and you wrote to eaCh other nightly, although you
only lived only a few bloCks apart,you said," In our lengthy letters,
we detailed our plans,our ambitions, our opinions and our observations
and then ultimately you got into an argument about religion." What was
that all about? What kind of-- that sounds like a very special
friendship that you had.Can you talk about that a little bit?
Obviously it had something to do with writing, it was during an
important part of your life.

MS—— Yes, he helped me very muCh become a writer, because he was a
brilliant young man. In fact, at a very early age he started teaChing
high school. Uh, he just was very influential in making me aware of
language,of books and poetry, of a whole world that was not easily
accessible to me, and he kind of opened up a lot of doors for me.

KB—- Literally or just intellectual doors?

MS-- Yes, intellectually, yes, not literally. There's not more to say
than that really. The rest is a whole story about our relationShip and
I don't Choose to get into that.

KB-- No, I'm not interested in the personalitites. I just meant, what
kind of ideas were exChanged? ’

MS-- well, as I said, he introduced me to literature, poetry, to
language in a very important way and as I said, opened up doors for me
as neighborhood friends, before I uh-

KB-- Did he, was he one of the people that made you think about
theatre?

196

MS—- NC, I never thought about working in the theatre until I wrote
several one-act plays because I couldn't get my other stuff publiShed
and I did it as an act of desperation.

KB- Had you seen plays when-—

MS-- Yes, of course I'd seen plays, but not so that I would call myself
knowledgeable about it. I never studied theatre and I never saw plays
beyond going to the theatre once every couple of months. I went to the
movies a lot, I always went to the movies, but not plays. Plays I'd go
to, but rather infrequently. And I Chose to-

KB-- What did you see though, in those infrequent times you went?

MS-- I remember seeing uh-

KB-- Did you see vaudeville?

MS- No, no, no. I saw Iceman Cometh when it was first done at the
Circle in the Square, I remember I went there a couple of times. I saw
Summer and Smoke with Geraldine Page, I saw off-Broadway. I don't
recall going to Broadway very much. When I was muCh younger, I used tov
go to the theatre with relatives in Brooklyn. It was a JewiSh theatre
and I would see plays there, the Hopkinson Theatre.

KB-In YiddiSh language?

MS- Yes, in YiddiSh, even though my knowledge of YiddiSh is not that
good really. ‘

KB—- YOu got the gist of it.

MS- Yes, I got the gist of it. And also, they had other plays besides
Yiddish plays at this theatre.They had conpanies going into Brooklyn

from Broadway and doing theatre. I may very well have seen a few of
those. But I was never interested in writing plays or seeing plays or
the theatre per say. I wasn't particularly interested and I read a lot
of plays, butI wrote it because I couldn't get my other stuff done, I
couldn't get any response, any positive response. And then I had an
idea to try a play. I don't know where it came from.and I sat down and
I wrote five one-act plays, among them The Typists and The Tiger
(formerly The Postman), and damn if those first plays I didn't write
got done, so there you go.

KB—— It was almost by accident.There's one playin particular of the
early ones that really intrigued me. And it's, I think it's beautifully
written and I would be interested-It's Windows.Could you talk about

197

that a little bit?

MS—- Yes.

KB—- I'nlintrigued by that play. Where did that idea come from?

MS-- It was done in California once, I went out there.In fact,Gordon
Davidson did it before he took over the Mark Taper. It was done in the
early nineteen-sixties and it was done with Mike Kellion and with Nina
FuCh. I'd be damned if I remember where it came from. All I know is
it's autobiographical, it's personal, it was a nightmare of mine. Not a
literal nightmare, but an emotional nightmare. I don't remember where
the images came from, but I knew the central situation was something I
was very apprehensive about. So it's very personal. It's odd that it
doesn't get done at all.

KB- It's a very strange play. It has almost elements,it reminds me a
little bit of, although it was written before he ever got anywhere in
his career, but it has almost that sense of menace that Pinter has.
These people looking out the window, there is a definite feeling of
menace in there. And also, the thingwith the baby. This woman is
carrying a, what? A dead--

MS—- I don't remember, what is it, she's pregnant?

KB- She's pregnant and she's carrying a dead fetus.

I think it's in the lines of the play.

MS- I don't remember the play that well. Yes, really? WOw, that sounds
interesting.

KB-—"Francis is carrying a pregnancy of eight months, but the baby is
apparently dead."

MS-God, I must have read that somewhere.

KB~- The situation was--

MS- unless, my wife was pregnant at the time. I don't remember.

KB—- Okay.And then we have those three college kids come in.

MS-- Yes.

KB- And it seems to me then, to be a thing about hypocrisy. Here he
starts telling these kids about how the generation of the sixties has
no values and they have no sense of respect, of establiShment. And

198

then, two minutes later, when two of the kids leave the room, he makes
a pass. It shows the great moral level that he has arisen to.It's a
fabulous play.

MS- It's never done anywhere as a matter of fact.

KB-- People out there are missing their bet. If I ever get to the helm
of a theatre conpany,I know one of the things I'm going to work on.
MS-— Those kinds of plays they don't do in this country. I mean, they
really don't. It's so hard to find stuff whiCh isn't down-the—middle
being done.

KB—- And then, how about your exploration into- and you haven't done
it in that many plays, but your exploration of homosexuality. were you
pleased with the results of Closet Madness? It's a lot of people's very
favorite play.

MB-- Well, unfortunately, the AIDS destroyed the play(telephone
interruption).

KB-- I had asked you, just before the phone rang, when you started
talking about how Closet Madness doesn't work anymore today.

MS-- well, it's a real problem because of AIDS.When I wrote it, one
could genuinely envy the lifestyle of gay people because there's
something very attractive about it in terms of looking at it from the
outside, the community, the sense of warmth, the fun that gay people
seem to have together, the energy that they exude,their appearance
whiCh is usually fastidious and they take care of themselves. And that,
that was the background when I wrote it, but then AIDS came along and
it's suCh a frightening prospect that one can't legitimately feel
envious of the life style or the sexuality.So that, to me, hurts the
play greatly.

KB-— It kind of stole your thunder.

MS- What?

KB- It kind of stole the thunder of the play, didn't it?

MAs-Well I think so.

KB-- It's a hysterical piece.

ms- What I would do, what Should be done is they Should put a date on
it, "1984." If they had "'84" or "pre-AID's," then it would work. It
really has to be then, otherwise it doesn't work for me.

KB- That was that play, The Boys In the Band, I guess it's the same‘

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kind of a thing, isn't it? That play was being done quite a bit. You
can hardly laugh at it anymore.

MS- Go see that wonderful first act, Terence MoNally's Lisbon Traviata
at the Promenade. wonderful. It's about gays. wenderful first act.
Mason Williams is a brilliant actor.

KB—- What happens after that. Falls apart?

MS—— The second act has nothing to do with the first act.

KB—- It seems as if there's a lot of things that you really can't laugh
about anymore that used to be very funny material.

MS-- That's right.That is very true and that's something comedy writers
are always aware of.

KB-— It starts to box you in, doesn't it?

MS-- Yeah. That's very true, especially if you write about things
today. Today Changes tomarrow, and it may not hold up in terms of its
comedy.

KB- Comedy is very topical.

MS- Popkins I think was hurt by the AIDS thing. Closet Madness was
hurt by it. Those are the only two I can think of.

KB—- Old Wine In A New Bottle-

MS- Yes, that was certainly hurt by herpes. God almighty, I'm really
being killed by history.

KB—- Three good plays. What are the big areas of topical humor now?
What do you see as source material?

MS- Well, two plays that I did, one last year, and- both of them have
to do with sexual identity. It's a rather old hat idea, but whiCh I'm
nevertheless writing.

KB—- And I guess lifestyles and this absolute obsession that some
people have with being fit and health food. That seems to be a big
deal.

MS- Oatmeal and Kisses.

KB-- Oatmeal and Kisses.

200

MS-— That's why I sent Oatmeal and Kisses to——they rejected it about a
dozen times also—-to the Jewish Repertory Theatre. And the guy writes
me back that they don't like doing plays that has anything in it about
somebody being sick or having a heart attack because their audiences
are so old that they don't laugh. Must be.
KBP- Yeah, would think situations about senior citizens and all that
and the grace or the lack of grace of growing old in America to be a
good, riCh source of material. You play with it a little bit in 13
Georgia Avenue.
MS-- Play with what?
KB—- This idea of getting older(Interview interrupted by telephone
call).
KBP— I thought this quote might be significant because I see elements
of it in a lot of the plays of the "Absurd" and also I think it's
something that you'd be interested in. I was just interested to hear
your reaction. It was from Martin Esslin and his book The Theatre of
the Absurd, and when he talks about Pinter he says:
Pinter's clinically accurate ear for the absurdity of
ordinary speeCh enables him to transcribe everyday
conversation in all its repetitiveness, incoherence and lack
of logic and grammar. Yet Pinter denies that he is trying to
present a case of man's inability to communicate with his
fellows. 'I feel,‘ he once said, 'that instead of any
inability to communicate, there is a deliberate evasion of
communication. Communication itself between people is so
frightening that rather than do that, there is continual
cross talk, a continual talking about other things, rather
than what is at the root of their relationship.
Is there anything that you would like to comment about that? Do you
agree with that.
MS- Yes. That's the kind of nonsense and generalization that means
absolutely nothing to me. When they say, "They are evasive, they make
an effort to talk at cross purposes and not communicate, they--" Who
the hell is "they"? I don't know what that means. Who? I mean, there's
something offensive about it to categorize people in this great big

block, not "me," not "I," not "us," but "they" are the one's who are

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deceitful , who play games with their lives, while "we" don't do that.
"We" communicate and "we" get to the rock bottom of what we feel and
exChange-—that's all bullshit. It's all words, it doesn't mean
anything. The only thing that does mean something is "I." "I don't do
this." "I don't do that." "I try not to communicate," "I try to
communicate." "I am deceitful, I am honest." That means something to
me, but "they"? "They" means nothing to me.

KB-- Generalities have no meaning.

MS- Net for me. It's just bullShit. It's the kind of talk you do on
reflection and it's a lie and it's hypocritical, but "they" enjoy that
kind of banter because "they" can talk about "they."

KB-— I suppose if you put a general label on it like that, you can go
ahead and say anything, right?

MS-- Like they talk about the "Theatre of the Absurd." And I have never
yet met a playwright who was a member of the "Theatre of the Absurd"
who says he's an absurdist. I never heard- Beckett denies it, Pinter
denies it. No doubt Genet and IonesCo deny it. I'm sure Ionesco denies
it. I don't know what it all means. It's all academic bullshit.

KB- well, it's an attempt of observers, of critics, to pigeonhole
people.

MS- Fine.

KB- New if you want to deal with people in a group rather than
individuals——

MS- The word "absurd" means literally nothing when thinking
subjectively. No one loOks at the world or reality "absurdly." One
looks at it hopelessly, painfully, full of awe, full of despair, full
of apprehension; you could go on and on with-

KB-— Adjectives.

MS—- With adjectives, with descriptions of what it is, but "absurdly"?
How do you look at the world "absurdly"? The word itself is so
academic, so dry, so divorced from human thought and feelings.

KB- And to the person who's viewing it it's a lot more than that,
isn't it.

MS- I would hope so. Especially if he's writing about it, I assume
he's not writing because he's amused by the ironic absurdity of life
and death.

202

KB—- But you do relate to the genre don't you? I mean, you've given
talks on it, you had a very interesting piece that I read in your
scrapbook there that you wrote for the Herald Tribune about the
"Theatre of the Absurd," the Characteristics that seem to be inherent
in that type of writing. You compared it to abstract painting in art and
so on and so forth.

MS- were you referring to something over twenty years ago?

KB-- Yeah. well people really aren't talking about "Theatre of the
Absurd" unless they talk about twenty years ago today, right?

MS—- What do they talk about? Musicals?

KB—- deay they talk about musicals. At least they were talking about
it then. But I mean, the term does seem to connote certain specific
types of drama.

MS-— The word is dead. The school of the "Absurd" is dead. You can't
have a movement that started in the fifties and sixties and has not
been fed or has not flourished, has not been nurtured. It's all arChaic
bones in the dust. It doesn't mean anything. There is no-—

KB—- Society is very different now than it was, different factors, it's
a different world.

MS- Fine, so what are we, uh—- if you're talking historically, who
gives a shit! Who gives a shit about the "Theatre of the Absurd." It's
not feeling theatre, it's not exciting to audiences. It's history. Yes,
there were a group of writers that critics,for whatever reason, put
together under the title and they were, they wrote plays that expressed
a certain attitude or whatever. That's no longer true. Who cares!

KB-- New we seem to have mainstream theatre and that's about it.

MS-- That's right. And I would call to your attention that there were
no Americans included in "Theatre of the Absurd" with any respect or
lasting or permanent place.There were none. If they want to say-

KB—- The only one that seems to get included occasionally is Albee.
MS-— Yes, but that's nonsense too. I mean, he's not an absurdist. I

mean, he has no real relationship with Beckett or Ionesco or Pinter in

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my opinion. There's, you know, he's a very subjective writer and I
think he wrote from'his own experience, but I don't think he Shared
that view of things with them, whatever.

KB- HOw would you describe in your own words then, the kind of plays
you are most recently writing? Net in terms of categorizing, but I mean
just from your-

MS- well, why do I have to describe them? I don't understand. What do
you mean "describe them"? You mean give them a label? I don't
understand why you even want that. I mean it may be nice to have a
phrase to use, but who cares?

KB—- So every piece has to be just read and --

MS- I don't know. Maybe my answer should be, "Go ahead and do it." Do
I have to do it?

KB—— No you don't.

MS- YOu want to do it, do it. Find a common thread or whatever and do
it. I don't care.

KB- So it has no meaning.

MS—- Net for me. I'm not interested in giving labels. It doesn't mean
anything to me. You know what the trouble was with communism? As a
political, economic and social institution is that a couple of men sat
down and they said," The world is going to the dogs. What we need is a
new deal. What we need to do is recognize the exploitation of the
masses, of the working class, by the capitalists." And if we did this,
that and the other thing, if we had a socialistic system and if we had
temporary tyranny until things could become democratic and we did this
and we had the means of production in the hands of the workers and we
had a limit on private property, then they had Das Kapital and, and
this and they wrote it down and this is how we Should live, this is how
we should form our government, this will solve our problems and if we
do this, the working people of the world will have a better standard of
living, they will have more freedom, they will have more happiness,
they will be a truly-an overhaul of the present unfairness and
inequality of all political systems in the western world. And so

they proposed this book of rules and regulations and attitudes and
systems and methodologies on government. This is what you have to do
and if you do this, everything-- none of this came out of the roots of

the particular society that it was addressing, none of it came out of

204

the real exigencies of the people in concrete terms that would make it
possible for them to fulfill all their emotional life whiCh it would
seem would be religion for one, whiCh for two, would be art,
culture,whiCh for three would be private enterprise so that if they had
the stuff they could really grow and really, uh, become a capitalist,
become an entrepreneur. All those things were buried in the sand for
the other things. So that today, almost of its own accord, the whole
system goes "kaput." In plays, the thing to always concentrate on is
the source from which the play derives, the impulse from whiCh it
derives and that, in my opinion, must always be the subjective self.
Whether it be light, fluffy comedy, whether it be heavy, serious
tragedy, but it must all be germane to the subjective self. What it
comes out to be finally it will be.But the problem so frequently is
that one proceeds to write epic theatre according to the rules of
BreCht, who wrote epic theatre that defied all his rules, contradicted
all his rules and when he was successful, ignored all his rules. I
mean, rules and regulations, how to do a thing isn't to me very
important. What is important is the authenticity—-to use an
overfamiliar tenm—- the authenticity of the experiential subjective
self. That's it. I don't know what I answered, but you must have asked
something that it was an answer to, If I didn't--

KB-- That was very interesting. well no, I think it was a response to
attempts to categorize works and so on and so forth. And yet,I mean
other people will say simply, "What is art? If I enjoy it,if I like it,
then it's art." I mean, it's a subjective piece of writing.

MS- I'm not interested in what is art either.

KB—- It's subjective and-

MS-- Yeah, I don't. I'm reading this criticism of Hilton Kramer in the
Observer, whiCh is a "freebie," a newspaper, a weekly newspaper, on
Juliet Schnobel's Show, whiCh is at the Base Gallery. It's very
vitriolic and he says it epitomizes the plight of art in the eighties,
the hype, the complete disregard for aesthetic values, the madness to
sell paintings for incredible prices, the auction house paintings. And

205

he goes about it with great gusto. The truth is the word "art" itself,
should be treated with great disrespect. It really doesn't matter. What
does matter is the ability of any given form of something to grab you
by the lapels and force you to pay attention to it, whiCh becomes
harder and harder as we become more and more jejune, more and more
impervious because of so many-

KB~- What was that word you used, "jejune"?

MS—— Yes.

KB~— What does that mean?

MS—- I don't know. It's just something I like to say.

KB~- "Jeune" in FrenCh means "young," but-

MS-- I just throw out words sometimes, I'll look them up later to see
if—-

KB- I don't even know what the connotation of that is.

MS-— Uh—-so, you know, it's too late in the day to talk about art and
artists. It's too late in the day-—A

KB-- But you need a hook, don't you? Doesn't every person who has
something to sell, need a hook? YOu've got to get their interest,
you've got to get people to come and see your piece, whatever it is,
your play, before you can hit them with this subjective experience that
you want to deliver to them.

MS-— Yes, of course. But ideally, they go hand in hand. But ideally
they go hand in band. Yes, you do need a hook, of course. To get
someone's attention you do need a hook.

KB-- You've got to get them in there. Okay. I think the only other
question I have is, and I don't know where this will lead us, but it
seems to me that you seem to have a very happy marriage and you've had
only one marriage in your life, is that right?

MS-— Yes.

KBP- And in so many of your plays you have marriages Shown that are
breaking down or reaching crises. And I was wondering why you, uh?-

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coming from since what you write is so autobiographical so often and so
subjective, how are you relating to that experience, since it isn't
your own?

MS-- A lot of what you're talking about, writing from nightmares,
apprehensions, anxieties. But you make a mistake I think,uh, I think I
have a good marriage. In other words, I want no other and I don't look
for any but don't, don't once again categorize marriage as a happy or
unhappy marriage. I mean, see that's in stasis, that's in concrete. I
don't think the term's applicable, I don't think you can use the term
"happy marriage." Just like I don't think you can use the tenm "happy
life." I don't think you can say someone had a happy life. That means
nothing.

KB- It's what's happening at this moment.

MS-- Yes, I mean, it's so volatile. Who's so arrogant to think he has a
happy life? My God, that phone can ring right now and the world can
come to an end for me or for you or for all of us.Who lives happily?
we've had happy days, happy weeks, happy moments. To have a happy day
is pretty good, to have twenty-four hours without something hitting you
in the head, or some fear taking hold of you by the throat and saying,
"Good God! I better do something quickly or I'm going to be living in
the gutter!" So I, you know, I define my marriage only today in the
sense that I am fully committed to my wife, heart and soul, and have
been for a long while, but not necessarily during our thirty-one years
of marriage. I'm sure that there were occasions when we've experienced
all the ups and downs that all marriages must of necessity. I would not
describe my marriage as a happy marriage. I would describe it today,
today, today in retrospect, etc., as one we both want with all our
heart and soul, we want it and we fight for it and we don't want it to
Change.And it's still not necessarily a happy marriage. It's that kind
of thing. I think the word "want," "wanting," to me is a very
meaningful, significant word. "To want" to me is incredibly important
because wanting is in large measure the lives we lead, what we want,

and to want the wrong things is always a possibility.

207

KB-- So you can even draw upon moments when you've had an argument ten
years ago and then you have a nightmare about it or you think about it
or it bugs you or it's in your subconscious. You can draw even upon
that as an experience and develop it into a play.

MB- well, uhe-

KB—- Like I'm thinking Old Wine In a New Bottle. There's a guy that
seems to have every reason to want to be with his wife, yet he has a
"Chippie" on the side and that turns into a nightmare for him, what he
winds up doing.

MS—- Right. Once again, it has to do with wanting. The real Challenge
of most marriages is that you don't really want it anymore. It doesn't
give you pleasure anymore. YOu really want something else, you really
want out. You really don't, I mean, you know because there's no
marriage in the world that isn't filled with Challenges and obstacles
and pain and all the other sides of human relationship, but you go
through periods when you just don't want it. See, wanting- so anyway,
the guy in that play, it wouldn't make any difference what his wife
did. In truth, he's in love with that younger woman. I mean he just, he
wants her. wanting is so important. It's, I mean it's so weighty, so
filling. It's like, my son doesn't know what he wants to do in terms of
a career. He's graduating from college. How important it is to try to
find out what he wants and you yourself have had some horrendous
experience in terms of career, in trying to define "What do I want" and
then reaching a conclusion and committing yourself to it isn't easy
either because what you want may be, you know, beyond the pail or
whatever. It may be a death wiSh, like entering the theatre.

KB~- I may want to be a diving Champion, but I'm not going to make
it,or a ballet star.

MS-- well oddly enough, the things we want I do feel there is a safety
catCh on it in some way. I do feel that the things we want--

KB-— Are within reason?

MS-- Yeah, I think they're expressions of our personality. I don't

208

think that they're necessarily that unreasonable or that far-fetched.
Anyway-—

KB—- well, I've never heard that before. "wants" are very different
than needs, aren't they?

MS-- Absolutely. well, I'll never forget my friend Heward Sackler,I'll
never forget it. He said, we were in London together and he said to me,
"YOu know they have this large shaving bruSh. This was in the early
nineteen—sixties and they have these enormous, like Alfred Dunhill, an
enormous Shaving brush with a lot of hairs, bristles on it. They were
beautiful. They were enormous, with an ivory handle or whatever. He
said, "I saw this Shaving brush in a window of a Shop and God,I don't
know whether to buy it or not." And I said to him, "well, do you need
it?" and he said to me, "If I want it, I need it." And that always
stuck in my mind. And that's the kind of guy he was. "If I want it, I
need it." And I-- emotionally it took me a long time to understand what
he was talking about. He was a very self-centered sort of fellow. He
knew how to take care of himself. But anyway, yes, want is--

KB—- It has an impulsive quality.

MS-- That helps give a, that is for me one of the real motors of plays.
wanting, I want something, "I want to be king," says Macbeth, you know.
To want something badly so that it forces the action and doesn't let
the action sit still. That you can puSh that right through. You can
push that right through for your whole story, because that "want" is so
ferocious. And to want things, to want things, and it can be spiritual
things, I'm not talking about material (things), is the motor that
keeps most of us pushing through life. It's to get something, to get
some recognition, spiritual .

KB-- If we get to be too practical or too realistic, we no longer have
the meat for a play, do we?

MS—- Well uh-

KB—- It starts to become hum drum, rational thinking.

MS-— Sure, sure. If you want to be a high sChool teacher and it's
pretty hard to imagine that you will be required to act ferociously or

obsessively and those are the terms and attitudes that are needed in

209

terms. YOu can't come in small, you shouldn't anyway. You should be
terribly, terribly hungry for something if you're forced into a
play.That's why, I just reread Pirandello's Six Characters(1n_§gargh_gfi
An Author). It's suCh a wonderful play. Why? Because these people want
so muCh to live their lives on stage, have it written out. They want
it, they need it, they're lost. What a wonderful idea.What a wonderful
idea and it's, it is an appetite on the part of every character,the six
Characters. Their appetite is so desperate, so enormous,and they don't
have to shout about it. It's persistent. It's persistent. Ah, it's
wonderful.

KB—- Do you need to be neurotic about something, do you think?

MS—- That term is meaningless. Neurotic is a label again. Is there
anyone who isn't neurotic? What does it mean? I do. No one isn't
neurotic. Not everyone is obsessed. What you need is obsession to be a
Character in a play.

KB-- YOu do? It needs to be that strong?

MS—- For me it does and it clearly,you know, I tend to exaggerate and
play it and go to extremes. For me it does,for other writers, no. Like
Driving Miss Daisy. I guess I didn't see it, but I imagine it's a kind
of drawing room comedy in essence.But for me it has to be that strong.
I love to hear the Characters shout. Net that they have to shout, but I
mean that-—

KB-— They want to shout?

MS-— I mean that in their emotional selves,in their emotional selves.
Everybody's jumping about like cats on a hot tin roof. And it may not
be anything like that, but underneath, somewhere buried deep between
the lines or behind the lines there is that great energy. Energy. What
else we got. Is that a rap?

KB—— Yeah.

MS-- Okay, terrific.

End of conversation.

APPENDIX C

Transcripts of Tape Recordings

Conversations With Playwright Murray SChisgal

December 15,1989

KB—- well, I just finished reading Theatrical Release and I wanted to
find out from you where the title of the play comes from.

MS- It came, well-—

KB—- What does it mean?

MS- It includes film in the play,it includes photographs, songs and
music and it is a theatrical release also subjectively in so far as in
the play,I seek a catharsis, a personal catharsis and a theatrical
release in film terms is a movie that's made as a feature film to be
released in major movie houses. So all those various ingredients led me
to the title of Theatrical Release. But perhaps the two most important
have to do with the fact that it utilizes film and that it is
metaphorically a personal expression of a subjective need.

KB-— Is this a take-off on a friendship that you actually had, because
it seems like a very real friendship. Is this an adaptation of an
acquaintance or a retelling of a friendShip that you had in your own
life?

MS-— Obviously yes and no. Obviously IPm drawing from my own
experiences so to an extent that it resembles a relationship, yes. And
obviously no, in so far as I've never worked as a wall Street
broker,nor did I have a friend who was guilty of stock.manipulations in
the manner of Boesky and Millikan.

KB- I thought perhaps this might have had something to do with that
very close friend you had years earlier, that you used to write to.
MS-— As a matter of fact, no.

KB—- It didn't draw from that—-

MS-- th consciously or specifically, but maybe it waShes over.

KB-- HOw about the legal background that you have.

MS-- What about it?

KB—- Did that have anything to do with the writing of this?
210

211

MS-- All these people are stock brokers.

KB—- I know. Has the law background in any way-- do you think the fact
that you practiced law for two to three years, two years, and of course
you had to go to sChool for it, did that have any impact on any
particular play, because I don't see it in any of them, but I can't see
how you could necessarily divorce that kind of training totally from
your writing.

MS-- Have I ever consciously used my legal experience in a play?

KB—- That you're aware of.

MS—- No, not to my knowledge.

KB-- Having known many lawyers, their minds work in a certain faShion.
MS—- One of the things, if you truly enjoy language, I think you get to
dislike the law because so muCh of it is words by rote and so muCh of
it is unoriginal and phrases and the style of legal briefs and
documents, etc, are truly very boring, and rarely, although with
someone like Supreme Court Justice Cardoza and Marshall and others,
they truly are extraordinary with language, but they're the rare
exceptions. Mbst of the legal reading is drugery and a bore. And if one
wants to write, I think it is a bad way to get into it.

KB-- Too logical. Is it too logical an approaCh?

MS-- well, I think it treats language shabbily and I think it forces
you to become very stylistic in use of language and written language in
a way that's detrimental to truly being able to express yourself in the
way in which you write. So it works against thata little.

KB-- YOu spend what, two and a half to three hours every day sort of
cloistered in your office writing?

MS-- Three to four.

KB- Do you manage to get something written every day?

MS-- NC, I may not-

KB—- I was asking you about your discipline as a writer, the fact that
every day you lock yourself into your room and spend two and a half to
three hours—-

MS-- Four hours.

KB-— Is this something you have always been doing?

MS- MO, I used to do it a lot more. I used to work mornings and

212

afternoons. Now I pretty much only work mornings. Sometimes I'll work
afternoons. I average four hours a day and I work everyday, except when
I'm traveling or out of town.

KB-- Do you always work on one play at a time?

MS- No, no.

KB—- Sometimes concurrently, different projects?

MS-- Yes, yes.

KB- And are there days that you don't work on anything and you just
pace or-

MS- Yes, sure, but I'm in the room, but I'mlin the room,

KB—- You listen to the radio, you're in there and if things come-—
MS- Yes, yes.

KB-- I notice you're like me in this regard, you use this old
typewriter.

MS-- Yes, portable.

KB-- Why don't you get yourself one of these fancy computers or word
processor things?

MS-- I know it can be done in a couple of days or weeks. I don't have
the patience to mess around with it. And also, there's something I find
satisfying about the sound of a typewriter. In fact,it's not
electric.There's something, it's like having a wristwatCh that you
wind yourself every morning and it becomes the rhythm, becomes part of
your rhythm or whatever. There's an interChange, there's a kinship,
relationship, something happens between you and that maChine. I've
always, when I try to work with an electric typewriter that, and I
never worked with a computer or like that,I find all of that different
and strange and uncomfortable. So I don't have to, I mean, I don't. You
know, if you write a page a day that you're satisfied with, you're
doing terrifically. There isn't that muCh typing involved in
playwriting, you know. YOu retype it and there's nothing wrong with
retyping it because as you do, you Change things and you hear it
differently maybe, so that the meChanical act of doing and redoing and
erasing and inserting, there's an advantage to it. At least that's what
I tell myself. ‘

KB—- It was interesting to read in the reviews, the clips, I didn't
know this, when you had Dustin Heffman direct All Over Town, that was

213

his first directing job.

MS-- On Broadway. He's directed before.

KB—- Oh, he has directed?

MS-- Oh yes, he did direct, sure, sure. NOt in New York.

KB- HOw did it come about, I mean, that you would want to use him as a
director as opposed to having him in it, not that there was any role
there that was really-

MS- When he read it, that was the response. He said, I gave it to him,
He read it. He said, "I'd love to direct it," so I said,"I'd love you to
direct it," cause I had worked with him.enough as an actor to know that
he genuinely had a talent for directing. Frequently he'd have ideas
whiCh he'd throw at the director, and he'd make contributions and what
isn't generally known is that on his films generally he has great input
as to the screenplay and the roles and he will-he's a very creative
guy. And he comes up with a lot of good stuff. So I was aware of that,
so his wanting to direct it is not a surprise and I continue to
encourage him to direct films, whiCh I think he'd be terrific at.

KB—- But he hasn't so far?

MS-- No, but he will soon, he will. I'm sure of it.

KB—- The other directors that you seem to like to work with, this Mr.
Arthur StorCh-

MS-— Yes.

KB- YOu worked with him quite a bit.

MS-- Yes, he's up in Syracuse now. He runs the Syracuse Theatre and is
the head of the drama department up there. In fact, I just sent him
Oatmeal and Kisses yesterday, to see if he's interested.

KB—- Is there a particular quality about his work as a director-

MS-- well, we both come from similar backgrounds. we both talk similar
language, we both Shared similar experiences, his being a contemporary
of mine, so there are a lot of common attitudes, behavior, the way of
looking at things whiCh is always nice.

KB—- What happened to Claire Nichtern, the woman who produced your
earliest plays?

MS- She stopped producing. I mean there are so few producers left in
the theatre that She doesn't produce anymore.

214

KB—— She was just getting on in years and bowing out gracefully?

MS- She's in town, but She pretty muCh stopped producing, as have most
producers. I mean, how many producers are there? You can name me——

KB-- Merrick is out. Prince? Harold Prince?

MS-- Yes, Harold Prince is one. I don't know if you'd call him producer
or director, I mean, a producer who produces plays or musicals. Prince
certainly isn't doing that anymore. He started out as one, it would be
hard to tell me the last thing he just produced. I don't know, I can't
remember now.

KB-- I don't know either. I know he directed Phantom, but I don't know
what he's produced lately. And the three novels that you wrote and the
sixty Short stories , you traShed those? YOu mean they're lost? There
are no copies of them?

MS—- Right, they were terrible. I was embarrassed by them. I did turn a
couple of short stories into early plays, none of whiCh I have ever had
done, or, I have about ten plays that I wrote, one act plays that I
wrote at the beginning, at the start and some of those plays were taken
from Short stories. I've never had those plays published and no one has
ever seen them as a matter of fact. Oh yes, someone must have seen them
originally, I don't know. I do have copies of them, but that's all I
have left. I do not feel good about that work and I think it was quite
poor and I threw it away. 3

KB- Okay, that's pretty muCh it, Murray.

End of conversation.

APPENDIX D

Transcripts of Tape Recordings

Conversations With Playwright Murray SChisgal

Followup Interview One--October 15,1990

MS-- Jimmy Shine: " . . . it has autobiographical stuff in it. That's
always the starting point, it's more me than anyone I know. Also the
idea of a friend, a painter, in the main . . ." SChisgal used "myself
primarily as the source of that . . . very muCh interested in doing
something in an open stage. The visual stage is often an inducement

for writing a play, for filling a stage."

He didn't write Jimmy Shine with any particular actor in mind. The main
set was a "painting studio." Other areas were "make-shift places."

The play ran about nine months and ended when Dustin Huffman"left to do
a picture."

Out of town tryouts prior to New York: Philadelphia and washington,
D.C.

Director Donald Driver was replaced at the last minute by Tyler Stone.
It shows "a play's in trouble . . . very bad to replace a director at

the last minute . "

215

APPENDIX E

Transcripts of Tape Recordings
Conversations With Playwright Murray SChisgal
Followup Interview Two——N0vember 7,1990

KB—- It's just odds and ends of questions. YOu mentioned to me that
they're doing a production in Italy right now, or they will be doing.
WhiCh show?

MS—— Closet Madness.

KB-- The article that you gave me, Murray, the one about"To Israel With
Luv." Do you remember that one?

MS-- No, what about it?

KB—- Well, it's the one I'm using different parts of it, references to
it. It's the one where you talk about your trip to Israel with that
group, including Tovah FeldShuh.

MS—- Manny Azenberg.
KB-- New, there's no date on the thing. It says the weekend edition of
the Jerusalem Post.
MS-- YOu want to know when I was in Israel?
KB—- I'd love to know the date of this article.
MS- The article? well, I'll tell you when I was in Israel, you add a
month and you make that the date. You want me to get the date for
Israel?
KB-- YOu have it accessible?
MS—- well, I have to go in the other room and get it.
KB-- Okay sure, I'll hold on.
MS- I was in Israel, here we go, I came back from Israel the thirtieth
of May, 1990 and I went to Israel on--
KB-- 1990, Murray?
MS-- Yes, this year. This year I went.
KB—- Because in this article it says, let me see-~"I just finished a
play about a man who falls in love with a gorilla," Summer Romance.NOw
that was written quite awhile ago, wasn't it?

216

217

MS-- No, it's another play I wrote.

KB-— Oh, okay. So that threw me. I thought it was an older article.
Okay, so it's 1990.

MS- Yes, it's 1990, May 20, I went to Israel. Came back the 30th, and
that play is called Snowball, and I'm still doing another draft.

KB~- So what would you think the date of this article was?

MS- I would say that article, I'm pretty sure was about--it came out
on a Friday, I believe, the first week of July, whatever that Friday
was.

KB- Friday. The first week of July, so let me see, I have a
calendar.That would be the sixth?

MS- Yes, that's my recollection.

KB-— It's close enough. I don't think anybody's going to Check it. July
the sixth, that would have been two days after July fourth,you know,
Independence Day, so you'd probably remember that. Okay, great.So
that's a brand new article. Alright. You mentioned to me about Reene;
you said She was a film producer?

MS—- Yes.

KB-- Could you tell me something about that?

MS—- She produced the movie called nggg, directed by Sidney Lumet,
starring RiChard Gere,Julie Christie and Gene Hackman; prior to that
she worked for many years as east coast story editor for warner
Brothers. And then she worked for Dustin Hoffman's company as an
executive vice-president of development.

KB-— YOu do something like that now, right?

MS-- NC, mine's a little different. I do develop film things, but I'm
muCh more actively involved in meeting with directors and actors and
writers and putting together packages or properties that Dusty is
interested in doing. So it's not too dissimilar frankly.

KB—- HOw did she get into that field?

MS- She got into it by starting to work as a reader of screenplays. I
believe her first one was with Dusty. She worked with Dusty as a reader
first, then went over to warner Brothers, then went back to Dusty and
then became an independent producer.

KBP— YOu both met when you were teaChing. were you both teaChing at
Cooper together?

MS—- No, no. I met her while she was a teacher, an elementary school

218

teacher. I was out of work. I didn't become a teaCher until several
years later.

KB- Oh, because one of the articles said you met while both of you
were teaching.

MS- No, not true. I was unemployed when we met.

KBP- Okay. The guy that you have--we talked about a little bit, this
George Bailin fellow. When you, again, I'm just trying to put this in
chronology. It seems like in your introduction to your book Luv and
Other Plays, you say that you met him about the time that you were
starting law school. NOw is that about right?

MS- I knew him when I was discharged from, he was a neighborhood guy.
I knew him, but I became close to him.after my disCharge from the Navy
and during the years that I went through law school, so that was a
period from when I was about twenty to twenty-five, say. For those five
years I was very close to him.

KB-—So he was like, just an acquaintance? was he an older fellow?

MS-- He was a good friend. No,he was maybe a couple of years younger,
but he was extraordinarily bright and his knowledge of literature and
poetry, he was a poet and a teacher. He taught in the public sChool
system in high school, but he was also a poet and he was very
influential during that period of time when I was trying to write.
KB—- But you knew him as a kid?

MS—- I knew him as a kid, but I was never close to him until I got out
of the service. He was a couple of years younger, not many, maybe two
years younger.

KBP- YOu made it sound in your written introduction that it was mostly
a friendship of correspondence. Did you guys actually get together and
rap about things?

MS-- He only lived a few blocks. What was unique was that we saw each
other frequently as a way of writing. we enjoyed writing letters and
exChanging ideas and putting it on paper. It kind of enriched the
relationShip. I talked to him frequently, I mean we hung out together.
KB-- Okay. The play, one thing they wanted me to write about was to
write a thing about your comedic theories and I'm using, I'm not going
to bother you about that because you'll read it when I'm all done with
it. But, I was very interested-- two of the plays that I picked of your
later works to talk about were The Flatulist and Impasse on Nuclear

219

Energy. The Flatulist was performed at Rip Torn's Sanctuary Theatre.
Could you give me some idea of what the audience response was to that?
MS-- Unfortunately, we had no money or we would have opened the play
officially, but we didn't have the money to do so and it ran primarily,
we did about four to five performances over the weekend and we passed
the hat on that. It was, uh, yeah, there may have been a slight
admission Charge. There was an admission Charge, yes,maybe five, ten
bucks. I don't remember how muCh, but it was just wonderful. When that
thing clicked, I mean, I am sorry that our theatre is constituted so
that we are not adventuresome enough to try all sorts of things. But
when that thing had the audience that wasn't open-mouthed and agasp by
what they were witnessing. It was some of the biggest laughs I've ever
gotten in the theatre. It was just wonderful.

KB-— were any people appalled by it?

MS—- Yes, of course, of course. In fact, one man,I tell the story of a
man who walked out, a middle aged man, and I was pacing him back and I
followed him out and I said, "Sir, I can understand your being offended
by this play and I'd like to give you your money back.He said,"no, no,I
don't want money back, I don't want it." I said, "No, really,I wrote
the play, I'm the playwright and I can understand that you're sensitive
and you took offense and please let me give you the money." He said,
"No, I don't want the money." He said, "I loved that play. I think that
play was terrific. And then that guy started farting on the stage and I
couldn't take it anymore."

KB-- Oh, that's great.

MS-- I wiSh I had three more ideas like that.

KB-- Too bad you didn't have it taped. How did they handle the sound
effects of this thing?

MS- It was wonderful.‘My son did it on tape. He did it with his hands,
rubbing his two hands together simulated the sound. In fact,if you look
at the book,I gave him credit for flatulence.

KB—- Oh, that's terrific. NOw, how come it died?

MS- Because it had no money.

KB- Did it get reviewed?

MS- Harold Clurman came to the theatre with Vincent Canby. They were

friends of David Margolies, an actor in it. He invited them and Harold

 

220

Clurman of blessed memory, asked peomission to review it. He didn't
take to it but as the man who directed Clifford Odetts, I can well
understand that.

KB—— New, Rip Torn's name is on it. was he the artistic director of the
theatre?

MS—- He ran the theatre. He had a theatre in the Village called the
Sanctuary Theatre. He eventually toOk over direction of the thing from
the fellow who was given credit for it, Tony Petito. It's in the book,
but he owned the theatre and he was wonderful,he was very helpful.

He's a gutsy guy. He wanted to do it. In fact, the other play, walter,
was done with it and they just had a reading of it in New York at the
Ensemble Studio Theatre here in New York. I understand it went well. I
didn't go to it, so I don't know.

KB—— New, the part at the end, where be literally kills the agent, how
did the audience respond to that?

MS-— It was wonderful, I mean, JOe Leon, who played that part is really
a pro, very good actor. He was in Jimmy Shine and he was in All Over
‘Iggn.So I knew him.and they enjoyed it and it was done as real as we
could make it, but, by its very nature, absurd so that everything had a
subtext that allowed us to enjoy it.

KB-- Did they laugh at the ending, or were they sort of shocked?

MS-- No, it didn't take on the dimensions of that reality that would
shock them at that point-—

KB- The comedy controlled it.

MS- If they were in the theatre, they were with it. They understood
it, the level of it. Ultimately you have to take it on a fantasy level,
although it's a fantasy that I imagine many writers have about their
agents. Oddly enough, I wasn't writing about my agent, who at that time
was Audrey weeds. I was writing of another agent.

KBP- What was the set like? was it realistic?

MS—- Yes, absolutely.

KB—- It was a realistic set.

MS- we had the fan, the fireplace, the candles, everything. It was
really well done. I felt very good about that production and I went to
every Show there and I truly enjoyed it.

221

KB—- I wiSh I could have seen it.

MS-- well there's some people around who've seen it, who, if you ever
want to talk to them, I can put you in touCh with them.

KB- New, Impasse on Nuclear Energy, I think you told me it was never
performed.

MS-- To my knowledge it has not been performed.

KB-- But they had what, a reading of it?

MS—- I had a public reading at the Apple Core Theatre. It went
wonderfully. Mike Tolan was in it with—- I forget actress' name. It was
semi-staged and the theatre, they wanted to take an option on and do
it.They found out it would take sixty thousand dollars to do it. They
couldn't raise the money, so the whole thing fell through. The night we
did it, we had a full theatre of about four hundred seats and I had Bob
Dishy do another play and I enjoyed that evening too.

KB-- HCw did people respond to that play?

MS-- It worked wonderfully well, and the other play that worked even
better was Consequences of Goosing. Those two worked marvelously. The
third play was overly long and I cut it in the printed edition from
what was done that evening. So those two worked very well.

KB-- Did people find, I mean, just at the very opening, this guy comes
hare from his overseas trip and his wife is standing there with a
beard. I mean, did they laugh or were they puzzled? Could you give some
inkling of how people reacted to that?

MS- When, you know, first of all, they had just seen a comedy called
The Consequences of Goosing, and this thing starts and it has the tone
and they know my work generally, in the sense that I usually do come
from a,if not a comic, certainly an absurd point of view. I don't think
they're surprised by my stuff, and the audience is made up of invited
people, people I knew, the actors knew. It was an audience of some
intelligence so they knew right off what we were doing and I don't
think there's any shock. I think they enjoyed it. No problem.

KB-- The part where he starts to, where she starts to make him.up,you
know, she puts lipstick on him, she puts the wig and all of that, I
:mean to me, up until then, that would be,I mean, up until then it's
funny and yet it's serious and it keeps clicking back and forth. But

222

once he starts to put that wig on and she makes him up in drag, I

mean it's just like a burlesque,it's a hysterical-—

MS-- well, you know, I really think the problem sets in, if I do that
play and I have an audience, I know that the audience may not like what
I'm doing, but what I'm doing is what I want to do. In other words,
that's what I want to present. And the audience is usually responsive
and respectful. The problem comes when they read reviews and the
critics come in and they're not happy with what I am trying to do. They
are not very happy with what I am trying to do and therefore, they are
going to convince the audience, whiCh they do unfailingly, that what
they're watching is whatever they want to get across. The problem
doesn't exist between an audience and a writer as a rule. The problem
exists once the critics come in and the audience is no longer as capable
of exercising their own minds.

KB- But what I'm interested in, I'm intrigued by the fact that you've
got this guy, you've got the woman with the beard, the guy made up in
drag, and they're having this very serious conversation about nuclear
power. I mean, how, what, I mean, you're hitting an audience with a
serious message and an absolute, you know, burlesque, and I'm trying

to figure out how people would respond to that.

MS- Well, I think, you know, I never thought it would be possible to
have a comedy on the holocaust and concentratrion camps. Yet, when I
saw Lena wurtmeileer's Seven Beauties and he's in a concentration

camp and he's eyeing that fat Nazi woman and trying to make it so they
can get some extra food or whatever, I must say, I couldn't stop myself
from laughing and being amused by it and I never thought the two would
meet. unfortunately, or fortunately, I don't think there are categories
of serious or Comic- human experience can embrace all of it so long as
the viewpoint is coherent and it maintains some level of verisimilitude.
NOw, if you find no truth in it, then the whole thing is truly, merely a
burlesque. But the point of that particular piece has to do with the
macho-ness of nuclear armaments. In other words, to take away the bombs
from the little boys, the fear of them to be "the man" by restriction,
limitation,sanity,are rather underlying subtextual themes in that piece.

223

So what I want to say, and if it doesn't come across clearly I'll say
it, that this man would rather deal with the end of the world than with
being deprived of his male perogatives, that is, to make war and to carry
around a six Shooter.

KB- So you see no limits in terms of, you feel a subject of this
seriousness can be very effectively handled with the most comic, any
comic means you care to utilize. Is that right, pretty muCh?

MS-- Yes I do. I think there are no subjects that cannot be handled
comically, absolutely! I believe that. I just want to say, it was never
done, so you know, I don't remember Consequences of Goosing_being done.
I don't remember that being done. I don't remember, yes, Summer
Romance, the gorilla play was done once. I did get one check on that
one. Anyway, no matter, The reward is in the doing it, as they say.
KB—- well, I'm interested in just the writing aspect of it now. In the
four new ones that I have: Yellow Cat, Theatrical Release, Songs of
EEE?’

MS- Yellow Cat. They now want to do at the very small theatre here

 

called "Theatre for a New City" on First Avenue. What others do you
have besides Yellow Cat?

KB-- I have Yellow Cat,Theatrical Release, Songs of war and Oatmeal and
Kisses.

MS-- Oatmeal and Kisses is being published by Dramatists Play Service.
It should be out any week. I could never get a production of that done,
but maybe once it's publiShed I will. Theatrical Release and Songs of
.EEE have been optioned for FrenCh productions. My FrenCh director is
coming in next week. I will be meeting with her.

KB- Oh, super. What I wanted to ask you about those four, as compared
to these plays that you were writing in the mid-eighties, like the ones
we were just talking about, you seem to be heading more towards, Ch I
would just say, what, more conservative comedy? Does that represent
anything of significance from your point of view?

MS- NC. Take something like--

KB- They're not as crazy.

MS- Take something like Oatmeal and Kisses and Yellow Cat. I wrote

them with the hope of making money. It's not being conservative or

 

224

anything else. Certainly, Theatrical Release and Songs of war are not
conservative plays by any means. I don't know how you puSh the style of
Theatrical Release, whiCh is primarily expressionistic, into the
commercial mold. I assure you, most theatres find it too either
depressing because of the ending-

KB-— Really?

MS- well, I have not been able to get it done in this country yet.I
don't find Songs of War or Theatrical Release more commercial or more
conservative. The other two I do. It's not more because throughout the
years I've written stuff that I've been trying to just make money.

KB—- But I mean, lets put it this way. Some people would find them less
offensive.

MS-- Well, I don't know.

KB- So there's nothing conscious there on your part.

MS-- No, not in that sense. In the sense of my Snowball, I hope it's
offensive enough. I hope it satisfies most people's sense of it, but, I
don't know. My thrust is not to be offensive. My thrust is to turn
myself on. In other words, I have to get interested in something to
write it and what I'm interested in, there is something there for one
reason or another that gets me going. And it isn't to offend the
audience. It is however, it's more to turn myself on than it is to
offend an audience. I do like however, the notion of doing something
that is outrageous. That word I have an affinity for. Anyway, that's
neither here nor there. So what else you got?

KB—- That's basically it.

MS-- Okay, if there's anything else, please let me know.

KB-— Thank you so much.

APPENDIX F

Transcripts of Tape Recordings

Conversations With Playwright Murray Schisgal

Followup Interview Three-NOvember 30,1990

KB—- Could you tell me what the years were, if you can recall, that you
were in the Navy, at sea?

MS-- At sea, I would say from, uh, I went in '44, in December, I would
say from December,1944, until I was disCharged, whiCh was June of '46.
I was always stationed on ships once I was Shipped out in December of
'44 and I never was stationed at base for any length of time.

KB—- How come you were sent to both oceans?

MS- Because when I returned, whiCh was after the war, I was on a ship
that was making a good will tour of various countries in the Far East:
in Ceylon, in Singapore,in Egypt. So it was part of a program of a good
'will tour and we got home in South Carolina, Charleston.The war had
been over when I went back across the Atlantic.

KBP- YOu sort of went in at the worst time didn't you?

MS—- The only battle I was involved in was Okinowa, although there were
various kinds of encounters, that was the only major area of action I
was involved in.

KB—- When you were teaChing at James Fenimore Cooper Junior High
SChool, something I've never asked you about, we've talked about almost
everything else, how did you like teaChing, what did you feel about it?
MS-- Oddly enough, I named some of the Characters in The Typists from
my students at James Fenimore Cooper 'cause I was writing also at the
time. I must say, I tried very hard to do what my job was but in truth
that was half my day, the other half was spent writing and I just
walked the line. In other words, I would not--it was always a means to
an end. I never had it in mind to be a career teaCher or anything like
that. So that I just tried to do my job as well as I could, but I
didn't make a total career commitment to teaching or anything like
that. I don't like teaChing, I don't like the position of a teaCher in

225

226

a classroom. And although I did it afterwards at the New SChool of
Social ResearCh, and at City College for semesters, I really loathe the
notion of teaChing people anything.

KB—- Really? HCw long when you were teaChing at the junior high school,
how long were you there?

MS-- I believe I was there two years. That's my memory of it.

KB- Okay. You spent two years as a lawyer, two years as an English
teaCher, my God, you put suCh effort into all these things. I don't
have to feel so badly about my twelve years as a dentist now.

MS-- Right. What I really started out wanting to be was a musician, I
mean, I put a bit of time in that, studying and practicing and that was
a total waste in so far as I didn't have the ability.

KB—- YOu know that friend of yours, this George Bailin, when you
mentioned in your book that you had a philosophical disagreement over
religion or something like that and you stopped writing, was that the
very end of your contact with him?

MS-- In effect, yes. He was going through a phase of great religious
study and yearning. Eventually he joined an ashram of sorts and I
believe he's at one right now up in upstate New York. He's devoted to a
certain sect, Buddist or Hindu sect, I'm not sure. I've lost touCh with
him completely, although a couple of years ago his daughter got in
touCh with me and I did have several lovely evenings with her,talking
about him, although I have not seen him in a score of years.

KB—- How interesting, thank you. The British Drama League, would you
call that- the one that helped you produce your first few plays in
England, would you call that a theatre company or was it a dramatic
organization?

MS—- The Drama League was set up by Harley Granville Barker as an
institution to further the work and careers of playwrights and it was
truly wonderful of them to give me the opportunity to work there. But
it is an organization, I believe it's still in existence, that furthers
works that they think have some merit, but doing productions of the
works, by having libraries and facilities available to writers,
directors, etc., etc.

KB—- After they produced SChrecks, the first three short plays, did

227

they also produce Ducks and Lovers?

MS-- No, that was done at the Arts Theatre.

KB-— So that they ' re what , a commercial venture?

MS-- Yes.The Arts Theatre is a memberShip theatre, but it is
commercial.

KB—— So they just really got you started, the British Drama League?
MS-- Ecactly.

KB-— And they're still in existence?

MS- To my knowledge, I just read something interesting about them. I'm
reading a book on Granville Barker, and they mentioned his involvement
in that organization and it gave a slight, pleasant sensation to
remember it all.

KB-- Yeah, very interesting. The vernon Rice Award that you won, what
is that?

MS-— It was an off-Broadway award for promising playwrights. I don't
know if it's still in existence.

KB- Who votes on that?

MS-- I have no idea.

KB-- But you did receive one, right?

MS-- Yes.

KB—- Did Reene produce any other films besides Egy§£,or was that just
her first one?

MS—- No, but She had worked as a story editor for warner Brothers and
as a film development vice president for (Filmore) productions.

KB- Is She going to do any more?

MS—- She is now a director on "women in Film" and is very active in
that. And I think she has pulled back pretty muCh from it, but she
continues to have meetings and read and I think if She fell in love
with the project, she might want to do it.

KB-— What is the "women in Film"? Part of N.Y.U.?

MS-- "WOmen in Film" is an organization that serves the purposes of
creating an atmosphere of women to work in film, have opportunities in
film» to further their interests.

KB—- Is it an independent organization?

MS-- Yes, "women in Film." It's a great organization. They do a lot

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of good work.

KB- walter Kerr, in his review on Jimmy Shine, he made a reference to
something that I wanted to know if this was correct because I didn't
get this sense. He said that he thought that Jimmy Shine must have been
an older play whiCh you resurrected to fulfill certain needs. NOw, did
you write that play before TheyTypists and Lgy?

MS-- No, but it was--I had written it right after uh, it was not a new
play. It was, I don't know how many years old it was. What year was it
done, '68, 69?

KB-— Yes, '68.

MS- I must have written it at least five years before,or something
like that.

KB- Okay, but he felt there were certain elements in there that were-
he said that they were done before Murray SChisgal was Murray SChisgal.
MS- well, you know, I have great admiration for walter Kerr and
gratitude to him. But the truth of the matter is that the reasons why
playwrights write plays aren't the reasons why critics criticize. In
other words, he's looking for a pattern or a development and that kind
of orderliness is something a critic would be enamored of, but whiCh is
absolutely not in the head of a playwright.

KB-- So, this play wasn't something from one of your, like from before
the (nineteen-)sixties?

MS-— No, no.

KB- Because that's the way he tried to make it sound.

MS-- They're looking for a pattern of development, they're looking for
things to write about.

KB- In the reviews that I have, I have some xeroxed clippings from
your very early productions. After they did some of your very first
Shows in London, you had some done in Edinburgh. That's Scotland,
right?

MS-- Yes sir.

KB—— HOw did that come about Murray?

MS-- well, they have an Edinburgh Theatre Festival every year and it's
an international, in fact Eli wallaCh and Anne Jackson did Twice Around
the Park there several-after they did it on Broadway. They went over

 

229

there to do that. And they invite companies, plays, directors to do
things and one of the actors who had done The Typists and The Tiger at
the BritiSh Drama League was asked if he'd come up there and do it and
I said sure. And they went up and did it. I never saw it up there,I'd
never been there myself.

KB-— Oh, okay.

MS-- As I say, they run a couple of performances whiCh is something
similar, I guess, to the Spoleto Festival whiCh they have here.

KB—- Yes, I've heard of that, right.There's a reference that we have
in the transcripts of the conversations. we once talked about agents,
but I never heard from you actually what does a literary agent do

for a playwright? Does your agent do anything for you to help get

your plays produced?

MS—- Yes. Of course for many years I had Audrey WOods as my agent and
she was the best. She would call up about once a month and say, "HOw
are you doing? What's happening?" whiCh is unheard of from agents. She
took an interest in her clients and she truly loved the theatre. I have
an agent now named Brigette AShenberg who's very knowledgeable about
foreign rights and foreign theatres. etc., etc. So she's very helpful
in placing my plays in London or in Paris, or in Berlin, wherever. She
also will carry on in certain instances with Samuel FrenCh and
Dramatists Play Service, forward material to them. She may hear of a
theatre, a repertory theatre looking for material and send something of
mine. So yes. Also, to get your stuff read in many repertory theatres
and even commercial producers, you can't do it if you just send in.
Fortunately, I have a reputation so I usually do get my stuff read, but
frequently the purpose of an agent is they have access to theatres and
producers that are denied to the playwright. And I have places who
write "Submission of agents only!"

KB-- I see.

MS-- So they do serve all those functions. It's a sign of
professionalism. It doesn't mean muCh and yet it means something, and
it's better to have one than not. It's even better to have someone
who's on your side than not. very frequently, agents will sign you up

and forget you're alive.

230

KB-— I think I know the feeling. Okay, but basically, if you were
sitting and just waiting for her to get your stuff produced, it would
never happen, right?

MS- No, I don't do it anymore. I'm past that. In other words, I try to
keep abreast of the theatres in the country, repertory theatres, the
producers, and if I am so taken with some outfit, I will send it myself.
But she's good, she's on my side. I'm just impatient and I have access
to a degree, so I use it.

KB-— Are there any particular—-of some of the younger guys that are
writing now, Mamet or Sheperd or Guare, are any of those playwrights
that you're particularly fond of their plays?

MS-- There's only one person in the theatre that I know of whose work I
genuinely love and who I think is dynamite, and that's Tadusz Kantor.
He's coming to La Mama in June and I will be at his door then.

KB- He's a playwright or a director?

MS-- He's a director and he creates his own plays. They're plays
created with a company. I'm sure, I'm sure most of them are—-I've seen
three of theme-most of them, I'm sure, are put together by himself with
their cooperation and assistance and they're just wonderful theatre
pieces.

KB~- Really!

MS-- They're absolutely the best things I've ever seen.

KB—- You mentioned him to me when I saw you last year. Are any of them
in print?

MS-- No, not yet. Polish, they're done in PoliSh. But as for the other
playwrights, I have a degree of respect for the names you mentioned,
but no one that turns me on to the extent whereby I feel I Share any
deep commitment to their work.

KB—- Okay. Alright, that's fine.

APPENDIX G

Transcripts of Tape Recordings

Conversations With Playwright Murray SChisgal

Followup Interview Fo —- December 15,1990

KB—- What I wanted to ask you about was the original manuscripts on
some of your plays. I'm concentrating in one area of the paper, I just
picked three plays that had very good runs. The Typists was one of
these.I was wondering what you do with the original manuscripts?

MS-- I think those I donated to the University of Wisconsin in Madison.
At one point in our national history, if you donated material of
creative work, you got a tax donation. And I donated it-I believe it
was to the university of Wisconsin.

KB—- Really? How come that particular SChool?

MS—- I don't know how I got in touCh with them, but somebody told me
about them and the price was right in terms of the deductions and so I
gave it to them. I've lost track with them and that's why I'm vague
about it. The early plays I wrote I did send to some university and I
believe that those are the people.

KB—- HOW about Lg! and Jimmy Shine? Same thing?

MS-- Yes.

KB—- Really? All of them? I see. So they get the originals?

MS—- Yes. I send them whatever original material I had on it.

KB—- So basically you just have your published versions?

MS-- Yeah, for those plays that's pretty muCh it, I believe, although
if I looked about maybe something would turn up, but I'm pretty sure I
sent them the original stuff.

KB-- HOw many rewrites would you say you did on The Typists from the
time you first wrote it to the time you had it published?

MS-- I do a lot of rewrites before I submit it. In other words, I
believe that writing is rewriting and that the good part of the work

comes from rewriting it and to me, retyping something over a number of

231

232

times so that I get a sense of the rhythm of the piece and that I get a
sense that the whole thing is holding together.So, I rewrite a great
many times before I send it in and usually, unless the thing's in
trouble, and those plays weren't in trouble, they remain pretty.muCh
the same once they went into rehearsal. In other words, the production
of The Typists that was done in London in terms of the play, the
written play, hadn't Changed at all, very manor. The same is true of
Jimmy Shine and Lgy.‘Lgy, the New York production, the ending was

 

changed and there were some additional lines, but nothing of any
dramatic nature.

KB-- I see. When you rewrite Murray,do you physically sit there with
the most recent script and just start retyping?

MS-- Exactly.

KB—- Or do you take pen to paper?

MS-— No. I do both. I may make notes with the pen and then--but the act
of typing a script is very important to me because the physical act of
typing and rehearing the lines and revisualizing the people on the set
in my mind are important to me because that's the strongest evidence I
have whether the thing will work or not, at least in my opinion.

KB- And then after you finiSh let's say a revised edition, a version
of it, then what do you do? Read it to yourself or is there anyone--do
you use Reene as a sounding board or is there anybody that yo --

MS-- No.

KB—
MS-- Yes.

KB- And then go back to it?

MS—- I will-see, it has Changed greatly. In the old days, I would send

YOu just kind of sit and let it gel in your mind for a while?

it to people and get a fairly quick response. And as a rule, as a rule,
I did not do any work on it until I met with a director and was
involved in a production. So that I would only be working with the
director who directed it since everybody has an opinion about
everything.

KB—- Right.

MS-- Many comments I find destructive, so what I try to do generally is
not work—-once I feel good about it, not to do anything until I
actually can get a production going and have a director, and then I

233

would certainly look horns with him and do whatever we mutually agreed
upon.

KB—— So this preproduction work, I mean, before the thing--once you
know you're going to go into a theatre and do it, but before you would
even worry about casting, doesn't this have to take place very far in
advance?

MS-- How do you mean? Before casting?

KB—- well, I would just think--you say--so what you're saying is, you
write the script and basically you leave it the way it is until you
have a director to work with?

MS-- That's right.

KB-- How far in advance of this play opening would you start to change

MS—- With the director?

KB—- Yes, because it sounds like a very time consuming process.

MS- No. As a rule, not, because I usually wouldn't get a director if
he wasn't in accord with a good part of the script to begin with. In
other words, I would say it would be ridiculous for any director to
undertake working on a play unless he felt the script was seventy to
eighty per cent there.

KB-- I see.

MS-— He's not going to take on a script that he doesn't hopefully, and,
I'll use a euphemism, is in love with.

KB-— Yeah.

MS-- It doesn't take that long as a rule. It's not massive rewriting
because a director won't undertake it if he didn't truly respond
emotionally to the bulk of it. So as a rule, if there are going to be
rewrites, the majority of them will not come working with the director
in a vacuum, but will come when the play is on stage and you see it and
the problems start presenting themselves and then further exacerbated
when you're in front of an audience. And you realize that there are
things that have to be done with. So the majority of rewrites usually
happen during previews and rehearsals rather than prior to going into
rehearsals.

KB~- I see. NOw, The Typists was one of the first ones you wrote, and

 

234

that's when you were still teaching, right?

MS—- Yes.

KB—- So I imagine that one, you wrote it and that was one of the one's
you submitted when you went to London, so you probably didn't, that one
didn't have major rewriting,did it?

MS-- No, it did not.

KB-— NOw‘ggy, you wrote, if I get this right, every-- because every
article I have of you tells a slightly different version. You went to
England the first time and you were going to head off to Spain to
write. Right?

MS-- Yes.

KB-- But then, they optioned the plays, you went into production and
you didn't go to Spain.

MS-- At that time, no.

KBP- And you made several trips back and forth to England as various
projects came up, right?

MS-— Yes.

KB—— And then you finally went to Spain in '63 just for two months?
MS- A couple of months, two, three months, yes.

KBP- And that's when you wrote Lgy.

MS—- Yes. I mean,I may have started it earlier, I don't know, but when I
left Ibiza, I had the play pretty muCh written.

KB~- So you were only in Spain for that Short period of time.

MS-- Yes, for about three months.

KB-- And that was your intention, or was it to be there for a year
originally?

MS—- NC. At that point our money was rather skimpy and also I was in
communication with--I had an agent in London and there was interest in
other plays of mane. I don't remember the specifics for leaving Ibiza
when we did because when I was in Ibiza, I remember getting a telegram
saying that my agent had sold the film.rights to Ducks and Lovers for
$3000.00. So we had money, but I may have wanted to go there to work on
the screenplay for Ducks and Lovers, whiCh I did, or for some other
meetings, I don't remember.

KB-- Okay. NOw, in the case of Jimmy Shine, you said that it was a play

 

 

235

you had written a little earlier, like '65.

m-- yes 0
KB- And then, now did that involve major Changes?
MS—- Yes.

KB- Maybe in view of the fact, because of Dustin Hoffman being in it?
MS- well, not only that. It did require major rewrites and they were
done out of town during previews, out of town. we played Philadelphia
and we played washington, D.C. and they were major rewrites. NOt
because Dusty was doing, but because the play didn't stand up in front
of an audience and we tried to make it better by rewriting it.

KBP- I see.

MS—- I don't know if it ultimately was better or not. I mean, once
you're in the heat of battle, you just do the best you can and try to
keep some perspective, but I must say, that was a rather hard spot.
KB—- HOw would the rewrites be instigated. I mean, would you be sitting
in the audience listening and say, "Gee, that doesn't sound right?"
MS- The director will be taking notes and you'll be taking notes.
Certainly, Dusty always makes creative contributions, he has ideas. And
then you meet and you say, "This isn't working. we lose the audience.
We're just laying there like an egg," or whatever the comments are. So
then you address them or you know, a character comes on and doesn't
establiSh a persona in the way that you thought or the thing is not
being staged right, or the costumes are wrong and the lights are wrong
or there Should be more music.

KB- It could be a million things.

MS-- Yes. And of course, there is an attempt to be professional about
it, but underlying it all is a good dose of hysteria.

KB—- I can imagine. were you running back at night in between
rehearsals to rewrite a script and so forth?

MS-— Yes, yes.

KB-- Okay, sort of like Act One with Moss Hart, that kind of thing?
MS- Yeah.

KB- He goes into that quite a bit.

MS-- There are a—- the important ones are structural prdblems, those

are the ones that are most painful. It's not a question of lines.

236

Usually, it's a question of clarity, it's a question of intention, a
question of design.

KB-- So these would be things that perhaps would never become apparent
unless you see that thing up on its feet, right?

MS-— Yes, absolutely, because if it did, you would have caught it. So
that's it exactly really. You don't know until it's there and then, my
God, you see what's wrong.

KB—- So earlier on though, when you're just sitting by yourself writing
these plays you-sounds like from.the first time you type it, work on
it till, again before anybody else gets to look at it, thinking in
terms of putting it on in production, it doesn't sound like you have
major revisions going on. I got the impression from when we spoke last
year that you follow through on a very extensive rewriting process of
your own. that's what I thought.

MS- Yes, but I do. As a general rule with me, it has been just that.
In other words, I have tried to see it clearly and do it clearly when
writing it and when I've tripped up, it's because when it's been put
on its feet, certain things become apparent. But I, you know, oddly
enough, you can pick from every conceivable angle whether, you know,
there are problems that are created once you start casting. There are
problems with the director, there are problems with actors, problems
with the people you work with once you start a thing that can be as
destructive as the play itself. YOu have the wrong lead actor, no
amount of good writing or good directing is going to be——

KB—- Ybu've been very fortunate. You've had wonderful collaborators.
MS-- Oh no, I've had the misfortune of having to Change actors in
mddstream.and in rehearsal, Change directors in mid rehearsal, Change
directors during previews. I can't think of--I know it will happen the
next time I do something-~but I can't think of something not happening.
KB—- Oh, really?

MS—- It's a cliChe to say, you don't know where you're going to get
hit, but you're going to get hit.

KB-- When you start out with the first script, let's say, let's go back

to The Typists, let's say, or Luv. YOu write it the first time and you

237

start to work on it again. In that particular case, that's suCh a short,
very short play. Do you find that you tend to overwrite and then you
have to cut back or do you underwrite and you have to add material. Did
you write yourself into any corners on that play?

MS-- No. First of all, I write very economically as a rule. I don't
enjoy words in the theatre. I don't enjoy dialogue. I don't enjoy
conversation. I have certain prejudices whiCh no doubt are harmful as
well as helpful. I usually don't overwrite. I underwrite. There's very
little I could do about that although, say with Egg, Mike NiChols had a
suggestion of starting the second act whereby they both don't merely
come together and admit their faults initially, but they have a
pretense of having happy remarriages, whatever. NOw that came out of
Mike's suggestions. So I added something, but it comes to a page and a
half, two pages the whole thing so, that's the only rewrite I could
think of in Lgy, except for the end. Re-introducing the dog at the end
was a new beat. I don't know who came up with that idea. Those two are
the only two that I would say were rewrites.

KB—- The London version of that play and the New York version, in terms
of just the script, were basically the same?

MS—- Except for the two things that I've told you. That's all I can
remember. That was the big difference.

KB-- But then, the reason that I guess the Lg! production was so muCh
more successful in New YOrk had to do then with your actors, your
director and all that.

MS- Absolutely. One can't appreciate the difference that makes. In
other words, New York you got not only more of these very talented
people doing it, but it was treated by the producer as a Broadway
production and therefore money was invested, time was invested and we
did it in a memberShip club theatre in London, the Arts Theatre, whiCh
is a very small off-Broadway house. It's not even Open, it is open to
the public, but it's primarily a subscription theatre. No time was
expended and I certainly wouldn't put down any of the people who worked
on it. They were very talented too, but the whole milieu was quite
radically different.

KB-- So basically when you write a play and when you decide it's

238

finished after, whatever it is, two, three rewrites, whatever. That's
it, you don't sit down and read it.

MS—- NOt two, three. I would say ten, fifteen.

KB-- Oh, okay. So that's quite-

MS-- I would say every play I do is at least ten rewrites and sometimes
it gets sick. I do it so many times. And I do it from the top because I
have certain prejudices and one of them is I cannot do rewrites
piecemeal. If I'm working on a play, I will do it afterwards piecemeal,
but when I'm working on it alone, before anyone sees it, I have to
start at the top and run through the whole thing. But since plays
aren't very long, I mean, I've never written a play more than one
hundred pages long, it's no big threat.

KB-- Then you're the sole judge of the rewrite.

MS-— At that point, yes.

KB—- YOu just read it to yourself.

MS—- Yes.

KB-— Mull it over.

MS-- Yes, yes.

KB-- But nobody else gets to see it or listen to it.

MS-- th until I send it out.

KB-- And you don't have a reading in your apartment at that point? That
comes later? Like maybe after the third rewrite?

MS-- Lately I have done that only because it's so muCh more difficult
to get something on. As a rule, I don't have, unless there's a
specific purpose for it, I don't have it in order to hear the play. I
may have it for someone else to hear it. I may have it because, like I
had something at the Manhattan Theatre Club and they wanted to hear it
read by actors so there has to be a specific--I don't do it for myself
to hear it. But because I think at that point I've heard it more than
enough and I've heard it the way I think it should be said and
consequently having actors read it, for me personally, doesn't serve
any real purpose. Lately, I've had more readings than ever because
lately getting a play done becomes increasingly difficult and it's
another way of enjoying your work. It becomes a social thing and more
and more groups are asking for readings. I did my one act plays,

239

Man Dangling, I did at the Apple Corps Theatre and we invited a couple

 

of hundred people for the reading. It was kind of fun but I couldn't
say I learned anything from it. Oh yes, I did. I did make some cuts as
a result of that in one play. The two I left alone, the third I made
some cuts.

KB-- YOu must have a very good, you know, either ear or eye, or
whatever. I mean, could that also have to do with the fact that by the
time--you said that you--it struck me as an unusual statement-you
said, once the play is finished, that's it. It's history as far as
you're concerned. Is it because you're sick of it already, you've given
it suCh intense scrutiny up until that point?

MS-— Yeah, I'm sick of it.

KB-- I can't imagine. God, if you rewrite something that many times.
MS-- Yeah, I'm siCk of it. I can't stand it anymore. I mean, not that I
dislike it, I'm just not interested and I don't want any part of it.
It's history. Rarely, rarely, would I see it after a few times on stage
or reread it. I don't do that at all. I never reread stuff. Sometimes,
I'll remember something I wanted to do with a play and it will stick in
my'mdnd. Like recently, I wrote a play called Memorial Day, whiCh I
wrote in the early (nineteen-) sixties, and only three years ago, I
asked them to please Change the ending of it, whiCh they did,
Dramatists Play Service, because I had remembered in the previous
version I had a different ending whiCh I muCh preferred and I had it
changed like, twentysfive years or more after I wrote it. That's the
one exception I could think of at the moment. Pogkins I rewrote after
seeing the FrenCh production, I made Changes and Dramatists Play
Service was kind enough to put out a revised copy of Popkins. But
that's forever.

KB—- What was the name of the first play, the "Lawyer Play?"

MS-- Memorial Day.

KB-- Oh, Memorial Day. Oh, okay, I know that one. I thought that was
one I never heard of.

MS-- --from the Dramatists Play Service ending to one I had written
previously that was published by, I forget the publishing company, uh,
Crown Publishing Company. But it's very, I am convinced pretty much

240

that there's too muCh of an effort to make plays into other plays that
have had success. So that the people around you in a production are
trying to, not so muCh make a play work, but make it work like other
plays that have enjoyed hit status. It's a very complicated thing, but
if one goes to the theatre a lot, one is taken with the thought that
there's a similarity to contemporary plays, that's quite distressing.
But that similarity is born from an erroneous belief that there's a
formula for being a hit: get the jokes in, get the laughs in, have a
little current sentiment in there, disease—of-the-week kind of thing
and there are certain little hints. The real trouble with a lot that we
see is that they're not outrageous enough, nor perverse enough, they're
not different enough. Did you get that thing I sent you?

KB-- Yes I did. Thank you very muCh. It was interesting. I could see
that in the intro of a book, in one of your next collections or
something. YOu know the idea that you use in The Typists, of these
peOple aging within this one hour, within this Short period of time, or
supposedly within one day of their working life. I've never seen
anything like that in any other play I've ever read. Where did you get
the inspiration for that?

MS-- My own fear, my own apprehensions. I had many jobs before, when I
wrote that I was teaching, but before that, I had many jobs and I think
it's a common apprehension that we all Share that we're doing Chores,
mechanical Chores, routine chores and we're growing old and we're not
living our lives. So we take a condensation of that personal and I hope
universal apprehension, fear of not wasting our lives, doing things that
do not have any meaning for us.

KB-- As you wrote that play, and of course at that point your
experience with plays was quite limited, right?

MS-- NOn-existent.

KB~- Okay, non-existent. Did it ever occur to you that this device that
I'm using, of these two actors Changing from their twenties to sixties
within less than an hour, can this be dramatically effective? Can it
work? Will an audience buy into it?

MS-- NC.

KB-- YOu didn't even think about it?

 

241

MS-- YOu know what the most interesting thing about that play was to me
when I was writing it was listening to the sound of typewriters, of
these two people typing, was almost like orChestrating it. That, the
aging thing came, it was just what I wanted to do, but that wasn't what
was my main interest. My main interest oddly enough in that play was
the sound of the typewriters and orchestrating that sound. And that was
what most fascinated me. Having worked as a typist previously and
imagining how that would sound on a stage, I was taken with that more
than any other aspect of the play. I knew where I was going with it
with the aging, but I repeat, I had no practical experience in the
theatre whatever at that point.

KB~- YOu weren't concerned with the fact of whether this device, this
thing whiCh is really an integral part of the structure of the play,
you know, each time they'd make an exit, they come back in a different
age range, you never worried about that?

MS-— No, I didn't.

KB—- Okay, that's interesting. YOu made a statement, just a little bit
earlier,just now, you said something about when you select your
directors and everything for these plays, again, these three we're
talking about: Typists, Luv, Jimmy Shine. Is it the producer who puts

 

the package together?

MS-- NC.

KB~— How does that work?

MS- under the Dramatists Guild whiCh every playwright belongs to as a
matter of course, although some do drop out and some don't join , but
that's a small minority, every Dramatists Guild contract, the
playwright has absolute approval over actors, over director and over
the script. In other words, nothing can be Changed without his
approval, no actor can be hired without his approval and the producer
cannot hire a director without his approval. That is always therefore,
a decision made between the producer and playwright.

KB—- I see. So you have conferences with them and you decide?

MS-- Yes.

KB—- I see. was there a reason that you didn't write the screenplay for
Luv?

242

MS-- Yes. I thought it would not make a movie, that material would not
lend itself to a movie. I was very happy to take the money they gave me
for buying it for a screenplay, but I didn't know how to make it into a
movie. I didn't even know, I didn't see it as a movie. It's suCh a
theatrical piece. That's the real problem, that's why that picture was
a stinker.

KB-- would you feel differently today?

MS-- Today I would definitely write it. I wouldn't let somebody else
mess with--

KB~ Mess with your stuff.

MS- If it's going to be a bomb, I could do it myself. Yeah, that was a

mistake.

KBP— I was looking through your resume and I didn't see the screenplay
of Egg on there and I thought maybe you just left it off. Then I went
to the library and I looked through, you know, we have these books of
films and I looked through and I saw your name wasn't on the screenplay
and I was surprised. ’

MS-- That was a mistake. Of course you know--

KB-- I couldn't imagine that knowing you, as I think I do now, I
couldn't imagine you relinquiShing your "baby" into somebody else's
hands.

MS-- I Should never have done that and besides whiCh I could have made
more money, whiCh is nothing to sneeze at, but I just didn't have
experience.

KB~- YOu're very familiar now with the film medium, whiCh you weren't
then, right?

MS-- Absolutely.

KB—- So that's a factor too.

MS-- Yes. One doesn't realize the amount of time you have to spend

in either theatre or film before you know what the hell's happening.
You got--it's not—~you can't go in there and wing it. YOu gotta know
something.

KB—— Yeah,it's a time factor,it's a function of time.

MS- And you've got to pay your dues and you're stupid until you do.
And you're stupid afterwards, but you're stupid in the right way. In

243

other words, I Should have done Lgy_as a screenplay, because if anybody
loused it up, I should. But the truth is, I still believe it would
never make a good movie.

KB—- Okay, that's very interesting. One more question. Short one. When
did you get your bachelor's degree at the New School of Social
ResearCh? Do you remember? YOu got a baChelor's degree in EngliSh,
right?

MS-- Yes, I have it. I graduated from law SChool in '56, so I must have
gotten, and I taught in the late sixties, early sixties. It was before
I went to Europe, whiCh was '60. I believe it was-- I have it written
somewhere. I'd have to look it up. I would put down--

KB—- You finished law sChool and then you practiced as a lawyer for two
years, right?

MS-- '53. I practiced law to '56. I would put '59, I got my bachelor's at
the New SChool.

KB—- '59. New, that was your second baChelor's, right? You already had
graduated college. '

MS-- I had a law degree before.

KB~- Did you not need a bachelor's for that?

MS—— No, you only needed two years of college.

KB-- I see. So really, you only had to go back to school like for two

years?
MS-- That's right.
KB—- I see.

MS-- I went to night school. I mean, I didn't go during the day.
KB-- So after that, that's when you got the job teaching?

MS—- Right.

KB-— At James Fenimore Cooper and all that.

‘qfl'e ,. '_.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BOOKS

Anderson, Michael, Jacques Guicharnaud, Kristin Morrison,
Jack D. Zipes, and others Crowell's Handbook of
Contemporapy Drama. New York: Thomas Crowell Co.,
1971.

Downer, Alan S. The American Theatre Today. New York: Basic
Books Inc., 1967.

Esslin, Martin. The Theatre of the Absurd. Woodstock: The
Overlook Press, 1969.

Hartnoll, Phyllis, ed. Oxford Companion to the Theatre.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983.

Kerr, Walter. Foreward. Luv by Murray Schisgal. New York:
Dramatists Play Service, 1966.

Mabley, Edward. Dramatic Construction--An Outline of Basic
Principles. Philadelphia: Chilton Book Co., 1972.

Marlowe, Joan, Betty Black, eds. New York Theatre Critics'
Reviews 1964. New York: Critics' Theatre Reviews Inc.,
1964.

 

. New York Theatre Critics'
Reviews 1968. New York: Critics' Theatre Reviews Inc.,
1968.

 

Pickering, Jerry V. Theatre a History of the Art. St. Paul:
West Publishing Co., 1978.

Schisgal, Murray. All Over Town. New York:Dramatists Play
Service, 1975.

. An American Millionaire. New
York: Dramatists Play Service, 1974.

 

. The Chinese and Dr. Fish. New York:
Dramatists Play Service, 1970.

 

. Closet Madness & Other Plays. New
York:Samuel French, 1983.

 

244

245

. Days and Nights of a French Horn Player.
Boston: Little,Brown and Company, 1980.

. Ducks and Lovers. New York:Dramatists

 

Play Service, 1972.

. Five One Act Plays. New York: Dramatists

 

Play Service, 1968.

. Jealousy & There Are No Sacher Tortes In

 

Our Society! New York: Dramatists Play Service, 1985.

 

. Jimmy Shine. New York: Dramatists Play

 

Service, 1969.

. Luv. New York: Dramatists Play Service,

 

1966.

. Luv And Other Plays. New York: Dodd, Mead

 

and Company, 1983.

. Man Dangling. New York: Dramatists Play

 

 

Service, 1988.

. Old Wine In A New Bottle. New York:

 

Dramatists Play Service, 1987.

. Popkins. New York: Dramatists Play

 

Service, 1984.

. The Pushcart Peddlers, The Flatulist and
Other Plays. New York: Dramatists Play Service, 1980.

. Roadshow. New York: Dramatists Play

 

Service, 1987.

. Twice Around The Park. New York: Samuel

 

French, 1983.

. The Typists and The Tiger. New York:

 

Dramatists Play Service, 1963.

Simon, John. Uneasy Stages--A Chronicle of the New York

Theatre 1963-1973. New York:Randon House,l975.

Thompson, Alan Reynolds. The Anatomy of Drama. Berkeley and

Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1946.

Weales, Gerald. The Jumping Off Place;American Drama in the

1960's. New York: MacMillan, 1969.

Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary. Springfield: G&C

Merriam-Webster, 1973.

246

UNPUBLISHED MANUSCRIPTS

Schisgal, Murray. "Oatmeal and Kisses." 1989.

. "The Songs of War."

 

. "Theatrical Release." 1989.

 

. "Yellow Cat." 1988.

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

ARTICLES FROM MASS MEDIA

Bernstein, Richard. "Why the Cutting Edge Has Lost Its

 

 

Bite." New York Times 30 Sept. 1990, sec.2:1.

Bugbee, Emma. "Book Luncheon Rare: Avant-Garde Theatre,
Mysticism, Peace Corps." New York Herald Tribune 19
Jan.1965.

Clurman, Harold. "Typists and Tiger." Nation 23
Feb.1963:166-167.

Dudar, Helen. "In Murray Schisgal's World Zaniness Is
Everything." New York Times 31 Oct.1982, sec.H:1+.

Gascoigne, Bamber. "Schisgal Kebab." Spectator(London) 27
Oct.1961.

Gellert, Roger. "Unilateral Disgruntlement." Edinburgh
New Statesman 15 Sept.1961.

"Has Beard, Pens Plays; Waits Cry for Author." Kings
Section(London) 20 Aug.1961:K4.

Kaye, Helen. "To Israel With Luv." Jerusalem Post Magazine
6 July,1990:14.

Kerr, Walter. "Walter Kerr's 'Luv' Review." New York
Herald Tribune 12 Nov. 1964.

Little, Stuart W. "Brooklyn to London." New York Herald
Tribune 8 Nov. 1964:25.

"LEX-" Newsweek 23 Nov.1964:102.

 

Oliver, Edith. "Typists." New Yorker 16 Feb.1963:114.

Peck, Ira. "The Man and His Luv Problem." New York Times
22 Nov.1964, sec.2:1-2.

Schisgal, Murray. "The Revolution Of the Absurd." New York
Herald Tribune 21 Feb.1965:25.

Stage(Edinburgh) 31 Aug.l96l.

247

 

248

Stage(London) 20 Oct.1960.

Syna, Sy. "Success 'Shell Shocks' Playwright." Washington
Times 19 Aug.1982, sec.5:C.

 

Taubman, Howard. "The Tiger/The Typists." New York Times 6
Feb.1963:5.

 

Taubman, Howard. "Love That 'Luv.'" New York Times 22
Nov.1964,sec.2:1.

"Three for the Seesaw." Time 20 Nov.1964:81.

Toynbee, Philip. Observer(London) 20 Aug.1961.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

ORIGINAL TYPESCRIPTS

Schisgal, Murray. Jimmy Shine. Draft #1,ts. Box 1,Folder 1.
1964,Ap 7. Wisconsin Center For Film and Theatre
Research, Madison.

. Jimmy Shine. Draft #6,ts. Box 1,Folder 6.
1964,Dec 7. Wisconsin Denter For Film and Theatre
Research, Madison.

. Jimmy Shine. Draft #11,ts. Box 2,Folder 2.
1965, Sept 30. Wisconsin Center For Film and Theatre
Research, Madison.

. Jimmy Shine.Draft #14,ts. Box 2,Folder 5.
1966, Feb 25. Wisconsin Center For Film and Theatre
Research, Madison.

 

. Jimmy Shine. Draft #16,ts. Box 2,
Folder 7. 1967, Ap 15. Wisconsin Center For Film and
Theatre Research, Madison.

. Jimmy Shine. Draft #17,ts. Box 2,Folder 8.
1967, Oct 19. Wisconsin Center For Film and Theatre
Research, Madison.

 

. Jimmy Shine. Draft #19,ts. Box 2,Folder
10.1968, Feb 7. Wisconsin Center For Film and Theatre
Research, Madison.

. Jimmy Shine. Draft #23,ts. Box 3,Folder 3.
1968, July 1. Wisconsin Center For Film and Theatre
Research, ,Madison.

. Jimmy Shine. Draft # 26--"Rehearsal Copy",
ts.2. Box 3,Folder 6. 1968, Nov. Wisconsin Center For
Film and Theatre Research, Madison.

. Jimmy Shine. Draft # 29--"Final Script",ts.
Box 4,Folder 2. 1968, Dec 5. Wisconsin Center For Film
and Theatre Research, Madison.

249

Schisgal, Murray.

 

 

 

1990.

 

1990.

 

1990.

 

1990.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INTERVIEWS

Interview. New York, 12 Dec,1989.
Interview. New York, 13 Dec,1989.
Interview. New York, 15 Dec,1989.

Followup Interview I. New York, 15 Oct,

Followup Interview II. New York, 7 Nov,

Followup Interview III. New York, 30 Nov,

Followup Interview IV. New York, 15 Dec,

250