Etiquette and Vitriol Read Free Page A

commercial production. How could I be?
THE FOOD CHAIN
    After Pterodactyls , I started work on Raised in Captivity . I was just beginning really, when I put it aside. I needed to take abreak from the somewhat painful issues I was exploring. After all, let’s face it, funny or not, there’s a lot of death and dying in Pterodactyls . And Raised in Captivity explores equally painful turf (alienation, punishment, redemption). I needed to cleanse my palate, as it were. And so, having no lime sherbet on hand, I wrote The Food Chain .
    I learned a valuable lesson working on the premiere production. I gave the play to the Woolly Mammoth, feeling they certainly deserved it, having produced me when no one else would. I felt very close to that theatre and very protected. I’d had a wonderful time working on Free Will the previous year and I was happy to be back. I briefly toyed with the idea of playing Otto, but chickened out and opted instead to direct.
    What a miserable experience! It wasn’t the cast. They were sweet and very talented. I loved the designers, particularly the set designer, James Kronzer. But for reasons that were none of my business there was a big “shakedown” among the staff at Woolly . . . a WEEK BEFORE WE OPENED! It may or may not have been good for the theatre. I wouldn’t know. I only know it was terrible for me. A day before the first preview everything was falling apart. The set wasn’t finished. The lights weren’t hung. The props weren’t even assembled! I’m sure I was very difficult as I stormed about the theatre alternately weeping and shouting. (I paint a very high-strung picture of myself. In reality I possess a calm bordering on the serene and am often mistaken for a religious figure.) On the night of the first preview, I asked the cast if they wanted to cancel. They’d NEVER worked on the set in its completed state! They said no, that they were dying for an audience. And they got one. There was a full house. I made a curtain speech wherein I warned the audience that the set may careen off the stage and kill someone. Then the play began and the audience had, I think, a great time. Audiences, as a rule, love a technical disaster. They love being there the night a light falls down or a turntable breaks. It’s an event. If the disaster is huge enough it takes on a mythic quality: “I was at Sunset the night the set collapsed, killing sixty and injuringtwelve.” (I actually was there the night Barbara Cook got caught in the set of Carrie ! I was in London and the damn thing nearly decapitated her! But that’s another story.) The lesson: It’s nice if it’s always fun, but ultimately something exciting can come, even out of misery.
    The following season it opened in New York. This time, I wasn’t directing. And this time it was fun. I had Bob Falls, who’d directed subUrbia (you see I learned to know a director’s credits). Bob is a terrific director and, my God, what fun to be with. He never lets his sense of personal dignity prevent him from having a good time. Such a healthy attitude! We laughed and ate all day long. Again (am I lucky or what?) I had a great cast. I was a little intimidated by Phyllis Newman the first day and called her Miss Newman. She put a quick stop to that! (Her credentials and talent certainly entitle to her to some diva-esque behavior. But, quite the contrary, Phyllis is a riot.) And I had my beloved Hope Davis, who’d done such wonderful work in Pterodactyls . The New York Times’ Ben Brantley said of Hope, “There is no one quite like her on the stage these days.” He’s mostly right—he could’ve left off “on the stage these days.”
    Cripes, I sound like a terribly sweet, cloying mess. So full of love and gratitude. If you met me in real life you’d see none of that. I’d be much more likely to spew venomous gossip about people I hate—and trust me