A Delicate Balance - interview with Edward Albee (Katharine Hepburn, Paul Scofield)

you what are they doing here don't they have a house anymore the markets on this bus without my knowing it I'm out of touch just many feet why are they here they're frightened haven't you heard of it what yeah right now will you let it be I wasn't going around waiting for somebody to make a film out of a delicate balance not the most action-packed film imaginable but when the land ilambda organization approached me telling me that I would have script approval cast approval and director approval and they were trying to do a film that would be a movie I know a filmed version of the play rather than filming the play that's a subtle distinction there I was very happy of course I believe that dinner is served if any of you have the stomach for it well I always liked the film version with a delicate balance I've always had a few problems with the film version of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf I wrote it in color for example as a play why they decided to shoot it in black and white I have absolutely no idea though they shot a color stock of course even though it's going to be in black and white why they did that maybe because in those days in the middle sixties a serious play or a serious movie had to be in black and white if it was in color it was a musical or frivolous maybe that was the absurdity then though I think Elizabeth Taylor did her finest acting in that film and really tried and did a very very good job nonetheless she was 20 years too young for the rule and Burton who was meant to be younger than she in the film was clearly a lot older than she and that through that balance of and that was my basic basic problem with that I had a camera of it last night thought on you that which we see in the bottom of the glass is most often drinks really truly so if you will have a play in New York the theater collection of the New York Public Library asks if they can film it as a record and we all tried to accommodate that unfortunately it's something something that nobody should ever seeks it except for scholarly purposes because they they put one camera at the top of the balcony was in front of the balcony and and shoot the play that way it is merely a clinical record if you're making a film of a play of course you know the audience has to be in many places the audience has got to be able to be up close as well as far away and and look at the people it wants to look at or rather that's the only disadvantage of film you can't look where you want to you look only where the camera permits you to look and so the cameras choices have got to be terribly intelligent but if you're going to make a serious field of a serious play you should concentrate on the essence of the piece finding the differences between the audience response which is a community response to a play and the individual response which is a response to a film only one person ever sees a film a thousand people here play from that belief of mind which never ceases to surprise me by the very fact of its surprising lack of unpleasantness the belief but I might very easily as they fail lose my mind one day now that I suspect I'm about to or am even nearby there is no sane woman oh thank you sir I'm not bad so I merely that it is not beyond happening some gentle loosening of the mornings sending the balloon adrift I was asked who I wanted to direct and just fell out of my mouth I want I think my Bergman too directed back about you just to speak English you know didn't speak much English didn't seem to bother me very much but he wasn't available and I said well if Bergman can't direct it because he had directed Virginia Woolf in in Stockholm on stage and done a very good job I said I want Tony Richardson because I knew Tony and have admired his work and so I don't think it's bad being the second choice in my bedroom Tony and I got along very very well of course and we'd known each other a long time and we were good friends and I looked at rushes every day but I see no need or reason for a play to be altered adapted cut reshaped just because it's being made into a film the the corruption of the film industry should not be allowed to impose on serious work when it when it is translated to film I don't like the term adapted because that's a distortion but the translation of a play to film is basically a matter of Directors choice of camerawork and editing it shouldn't have anything to do with with a change of text and of the land our organization promised me and lived up to it indeed and to all of us I guess who had the films made that our work would be done to our pleasure intact if when you try to say good evening and work the autumn colors nothing today you're nothing but bowels if one smells the vodka from across the room and don't tell me again either of the other but believes nothing on the bread if you are expecting it if you are sadly and we're expecting it it does if these conditions exist but then the reaction of one who is burned by a love is not brutality though it would be excused believe me not tell it a at all but the sour things side of love if I scold it is because I wish I mean if I am sure it is because I deny that less no more than human and if I have to be accused once again making too much of things let me remind you that it is my manner enough to matter I apologize for the opinion it struck me knowing Hepburn's work she's good film actress and I noticed that she's always very good in roles that resemble her and she doesn't have to do move too far away from her own personality and I thought there was enough in the character of Agnes that resembled her I'd gotten to know her a little bit but I thought it'd be just fine she worked very very hard the basic back and forth the heparin and I had was the following exchange she to me get your hair cut Edward knee to her learn your lines Kate I shall sit very quietly as always yes and I shall will you to apologize to your sister for what I was doing please tell me why Claire I've spent my adult life apologizing for her I will not double the humiliation by apologizing to one does not apologize to those for whom one must haha Nico succinct but one of the rules of an aphorism an epigram I thought an epigram is usually satiric and you and I am grimly serious yes I fear so specifically from the player to her effect what would you know where I to spill my marbles put you in a bin somewhere sell the house then moved to Tucson pine in the hot Sun and live forever hurry though what possible field I've always thought is one of the great actors and I couldn't have been happier I was absolutely delighted and I was happy with him all the other casting - I thought it was just splendid the opportunity to work with Schofield who to my mind cannot say a line incorrectly is marvelous it's interesting and they in the toward the end of the film there is a scene between the character of the Schofield plays on the and the character that Joseph Cotten plays which on stage concentrates a good deal more on the character of Tobias but in film shooting back and forth to get action and reaction it's no longer a solo performance even though it's called an aria in the text and I find its effectiveness as film done this way shooting back and forth is much more effective than how to be concentrated even even more on Schofield and it's interesting that the concentration on Schofield was half the time while he was listening rather than while he was speaking and I thought that was very clever of Tony do I want do I want you here you come in here you come in here with your wife and with your terror and you ask me do I want you here yes of course I want you here I've built this house I want you in it I want your play you will sell Tara with you bringing in bring it in you got the arm for everybody you don't need a key you got the arm tray buddy 40 years you don't need to ask me Harry or ask when you come for dinner don't you come for cocktails see you at the club on Saturdays and talk and lie and laugh with us and cuddled Agnes on land and you say don't know what old Toba do without her and we've known each other all these years and we love each other don't wait don't wait now Kim Stanley is a very different kind of actress than Katharine Hepburn Katharine Hepburn learns her lines expects everybody to have their lines doesn't want any improvisation and wants everybody to know all of their lines exactly the same time she knows all of her lines and that was not happening Kim Stanley being actress studio and lots of improvisation and a slow learner I was driving Hepburn crazy and I am told I wasn't in London at the time I didn't get there until after she'd been replaced I was informed that the edict had come down from a separate that either Kim Stanley was to go or she was going to leave and I guess again the economics of the project I suggested that we should keep a separate and fortunately a wonderful Canadian actress and dear friend of mine Kate Reed was available she got on a plane the day after she was hired I think and this was only four or five days before we started shooting got to London and practically memorized the script on the plane I guess because most of her scenes her major scenes and we were shooting the film in sequence her major scenes are in the first act of the play and she was extraordinary absolutely amazing I have no idea whether Stanley would have been as good or not but that's moot Kate Reed was was splintered and apparently miss Hepburn was having no problem with it pretend you're very sick Tobias like you were with that stomach business but pretend your insides feel all green and stink and mixed up and your eyes hurt and you're half deaf and your brain keeps turning off and you have peripherals your new itis and you can hardly walk and you hate you hate with the same stinking green sickness you think your bowels have turned into itself and everybody hate but oh god you want mouth l.o.v.e so badly Comfort it's like snuggling is what you really mean of course but you hate and you notice with a sort of detachment that amuses you you think that you're more of an animal every day you smile you grab for things hide them can't remember we have hid them like not very bright dogs where appears less than act 2 and even less than act 3 because it occurred to me that she was trying to take over the play she want the play to be about her and well a perfectly good play could have been written about Claire that's not what I was writing and so we authors have something terribly clever we can do if we don't want a character to intrude we say we just write Claire exits and until we write Claire re-enters she can do whatever she wants offstage we won't hear her gambler's bags the lectures of this world yes you can have the illusion cuz they're after something jackpot somehow break the bank find a boy climb the babe something you do pick them do I hmm do I pick him she always did she always surprised one I don't know why everybody was so surprised that Lee would be good but uh quite a splendid actress I'm sorry we lost her so early well you may have been pushed on Charlie yeah poor old Charlie right sake if you miss him so much I do not miss him what if I do but not that way because he seems so like what Teddy would have been your brother would not have grown up to be a who was to say hi we do we shot a delicate balance in a big brick Victorian house in South London quite near a very good Museum the name of which I can't remember there I probably will maybe not um and I suppose it may have looked a trifle British but I I think it was I got the very bright idea look these people are intelligent they collect art let's make sure they collect American abstract expressionist art so he got somebody to do a fake Franz Kline and I'm not a big fake Franz crying there you know you have a Franz Kline nobody in Britain is it had ever heard of Franz Kline by the mid by the middle sixties or if they did they were throwing up so that made it more American and there are a few other art pieces so there was some good African pieces around and it looked to me perfectly American in that never never land of America called a upper-middle-class wasp I think I hear the men will just take these down to the car now Thank You Agnes you've been well just thank you we'll be seeing you oh yes well don't be strangers how could I be weird our lives are the same when I started writing plays when I was 28 I was younger and almost all the characters that I wrote now forty some years later I am older than most of the characters that I write but I try not to let me impose on the nature of the characters they are three-dimensional individuals of their own lives their own ages and I I don't impose or rethink the characters they exist three dimensionally and in the same way that I would not like I would not let anybody else come in and rewrite a play of mine I won't do it myself I don't think the characters have changed when when Tobias and Agnes were in their late 60s when I wrote the play they're still in their late 60s the fact that I was younger now I'm older than that makes absolutely no difference the piece has its own existence it's their own three dimensionality and I didn't impose my views on it when I was writing it aside from my creativity I didn't impose my views and I would be foolish of me to try to do that now you

Channel: thedivinemisshepburn

Views: 6,821

Rating: 4.6842103 out of 5

Keywords: katharine hepburn, edward albee, a delicate balance

Id: KI1bGNexdZw

Length: 19min 42sec (1182 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 14 2016