John Lithgow 'Stories By Heart'

coming up on theater talk I've often thought if you wanted a completely sabotage a Broadway opening night go to an early preview of a Neil Simon play for example figure out every single essential punchline go on opening night and just go [Laughter] [Music] from New York City this is theater talk I'm Susan Haskins here with me is my co-host Donna Hanover from Arts in the city and it is such a special day that I have a second guest co-host Jesse Greene co-chief drama critic of the New York Times because we are joined by the splendid master actor John Lithgow recent Emmy winner I will add but who was a period now at the American Airlines theater in stories by heart his wonderful one-man show and here he has a theater talk welcome John with wonderful being you're gonna say such nice things about me well speaking of saying nice things about you Jesse Green wrote the review of your play I I withdraw it whatever I said I know I I I've often wanted to ask someone I've reviewed this kind of a question you the way I went about writing that review in part was to tell readers you might think it's going to be this but it turns out to be that and assuming you even read that do you get insulted by things like that not at all I I think one of the one of the challenges about this show from the very time it's very inception 10 years ago was explaining to people what it is because it's anomalous I would take it to one-night stands around the country and people would come to see it I would fill up houses but it was mainly to see the guy from third Rock from the Sun they didn't know what it was even in the course of the evening I'm explaining what it is so I was not surprised at all and I thought it was of great a great compliment to us that we had won you over in the course of the evening he wrote I didn't know what to expect and I wasn't exactly looking forward to it or words to that effect and I think it's a rhetorical device but it had I think a lot of people were wondering as you said what is this and why should I go yeah and I then proceeded I hope to tell them why one of the things that that I felt which you also wrote was that some of the treasures is how this came to be you're telling the story of your father being ill and really in a depression because of that and amazing the actor in the family is the one who's free to go take care of them and then you talk about trying to tell him stories as he told you when you were growing up you know it's been interesting developing it over the years because I I've learned almost because of what we're talking about right now that I absolutely had to tell people immediately what this is the first line is what the hell is this I'm like speaking the audience's thought they don't know what they've come to see and I say right up front the two leading players in this and most of these stories are my old man and that old book so immediately it comes not it becomes not just about me it's about the subject of stories and how I got it from my father say a little bit about your father and and who he was yes its contribution yes Arthur Lascaux he was very unusual man he was not from a theatre family at all he was from Oaks kind of middle-class family in Melrose Massachusetts lost his dad when he was four years old leaving his family destitute he became the man of the house somewhere along the line this fairly lonely shy man found Shakespeare and it was almost a lifeline for him he went away to Antioch College in the Midwest in Ohio returned there a few years after graduating and to join the faculty and developed Shakespeare Festival's produced all of Shakespeare's plays in the course of an eight year long Antioch Shakespeare Festival had a kind of crazy history of being of either quitting or being fired from several different sites but continuing to do these festivals to the point where he created the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival now the Great Lakes Theatre Festival in Cleveland which has outlived him by about 15 years it's been going on for 60 years now so he was he was referred to more than once as the Johnny Appleseed of Shakespeare he just took it to the Midwest and your family went along with everywhere else could we go and it was a family of four kids so it was a kind of knock knock about gypsy wagon childhood which figures in the play in the piece well I think to clarify a bit for a second what the actual content of the play is aside from telling some of the story of your father and how his storytelling to you eventually became your storytelling to him the lion's share of the evening is you telling two of the stories that you learned nearly by heart I suppose as a kid certainly by heart now and they are yes my co-writers were Ring Lardner and PG Woodhouse ring lardner's haircut and PG Woodhouse's Uncle Fred Flitz by one is in Act one one is an act to what they have in common is they are both in this book tellers of tales this big fat book of a hundred stories that my father used to read to me and my siblings and I used the actual book I carry it on stage like a totemic object but I call it the Lithgow family Bible and I used that book to I tricked people into thinking oh my gosh he's just gonna sit down and read stories to us all evening but no I turned them into kind of full bore bravura acting pieces you start out as the barber in haircut and I have to tell you you did this you this sort of annoying giggle I can't do it but that's you know and I'm like he is so charming John let's go why is he laughing like that he could laugh better than that obviously you were doing the character cuz this character gets darker and darker unexpectedly the character doesn't change at all but the context becomes very dark yeah it works on the audience in a very unusual way because their perception of this man changes even though he doesn't well we should say the story that's that he's relating to an imaginary barbershop client is one that's at the beginning seems like a just good ol boys having fun in a small town but as you say gets darker and darker people are mistreated both as a matter of course and also in specific and special and cruel ways and there are dire consequences so the man who doesn't change by not changing is being seen differently in terms of his culpability in this story yeah which you expressed extremely well in your letter in the review than I did that's very good I mean the other major character in haircut is a man who's been killed you'll find out immediately he's been killed you've dad read this to you and you loved it when you were 8 years old that's a little that's a little heavy for an eight-year-old I know he young who's rather uncompromising I think he was probably reading stories he wanted to hear himself and we were along for the ride but you were seeing probably Macbeth and yeah you know at the same time yes we saw a gruesome stuff as a my sister describes a marvelous moment where when she defines her childhood she remembers opening the refrigerator door and seeing a severed head of my father it was the latex head for the last scene in Macbeth and they had put it in there for the rubber to set so when you started working on this show 10 years ago I believe you only did the the wood house yes and gradually you some point added the Lardner where did you ever consider any other stories I did actually I there was a period when I did a different store Oh what was then replaced haircut it was the monkey's paw which really was our favorite story this fantastic Spence story and I it was an interesting sequence early on I did two different shows a haircut show and an Uncle Fred show and I ran them in a kind of repertory and then welded them together one evening I made the big mistake of doing uncle fred first and haircut second which left the evening on a very dark and bitter note and it was troubling me I felt something's wrong here and instead of simply switching the order I switched the order and replaced haircut with the monkey's paw and I thought oh good horror and suspense in the first act blithe outlandish farce in the second half unfortunately they were both in the same general cultural wheelhouse to kind of fusty Edwardians households and I was speaking in an English accent all evening so I went back to haircut but left it in that first position and that's when the show suddenly made sense to me so it was an interesting evolution over time and the wood house was always part of it because that was in fact the story that kind of turned the key that was the inciting incident yeah in 2002 I was taking care of my mom and dad my dad was very ill and and we were afraid of losing him and he was very depressed and it was quite it was easy deduction you had to either cheer him up or lose him and I got the idea of reading those stories and the first story they picked out of this big fat book was Uncle Fred Flitz bye and it made him it literally brought him back to life so that was and I tell that story as part of the piece it's fabulous spoiler alert and I just talked about that story for a minute I had read it many years ago and some of the subsequent stories in the same sequence they don't seem naturally easy to read on stage or even bedside yeah to children and as I mentioned in the review I some of the sentences and just take for effort to find how they live together does it feel that way when you're performing it or you know that you've these are very difficult patterns of English to get out of your mouth yes indeed I mean it takes a lot of a lot of work to master it and a lot of constant to execute it it reminds me of playing Paganini or something it's so fast and it's so precise and it is hilariously funny unless you blow one syllable in an entire paragraph and have you done that oh yeah sure and happily tells the laughs the laughs wilts at the end you know even if it's if it's seven or eight seconds before you get to the keyword if you've made one little it's quite interesting that the psychology of a laugh from onstage are you picking up motions or phraseology that your dad used in telling you the story when you will I think unconsciously I mean people who knew him in the old days they I guess him up there that's genetics has a lot so what's the psychology of the laugh you were say it has to be so clean and so clear and precise if you if you stumble over a syllable if somebody coughs you know a moment which where you're accustomed is the audience laughing for five solid seconds just doesn't happen so you don't have that five seconds to get take a breath or to swallow and get all the saliva out of your mouth it's all it's extraordinary yeah and you're thinking about these things you hear a little laugh that you hear a little coffee early on in a what's one of the rip-roaring Woodhouse Ian lines well there's that whole eel jellying yes business right with you I picked one sentence that I could get quickly but there's a much better one he's much longer involved one I don't know if you could but yes I I think I can how does it begin yes he's to been talking about yeah I was only occurred to say that I have it your own way calling I was only going to say that while the jury were probably compelled by the evidence submitted to them to give cousin al frogman's a benefit the doubt when charged with smuggling dope everybody knew he'd been doing it for years not that I'm blaming him mind you if a man can smuggle cocaine and electric hidden say I the only point I'm trying to make is that we are hardly a family that can afford to put on dog and sneer at honest suitors to our daughter's hands speaking for myself I consider that we are very lucky to have the chance of marrying even into eel jelly egg circles if you miss one sentence in all that you don't get the eel jellying circles laugh one syllable I swear to god it's true it really is a lose faith they lose faith in your in your self-confidence up there on step and you it but you have it you're up there all by yourself and you you just move on okay we haven't got that let's move on to the next and you hope they don't accumulate I've often thought if you wanted a completely sabotage a Broadway opening night go to an early preview of a Neil Simon play for example figure out every single essential punch line go on opening night and just go every time there's a punch line that little line you know that little sound could completely destroy the evening that's pretty well good idea that you just gave somebody happens they can blame me so I'm now I'm interested in in the way you have been taking this around the the country 30-some cities yeah what kinds of venues are you playing and are they large theaters are they community auditoriums what are they they have been anywhere from about 300 seats to 2,000 seats does it play totally differently depending on the similar than different you'd be amazed it what's the most key thing is terrific sound they have to get it they have to get everything they're both extremely literary pieces and brilliant literary pieces one in an American vernacular and one in several different English accents and then there's me just chatting conversationally and doing amazing sound effects well yeah that's right in the haircut the haircut you noted it that was my lead I'm trying to figure out how to spell of the sounds you were making I tried like ten different spellings of every every cut of the hair evidence it's not in the script I do all of it I'm a haircut is a such a masterpiece there's no stage directions at all it's nothing but the words but it could have been written to perform with stage directions with sound effects everything I just I mean that has been my own bright idea turning it into so your father didn't read him no no no not at all but had you done it without the sound effects yeah the sound effects have crept in over the last several performances people have gradually said oh that was so cool when you went when you made that little sound I'll give me an inch now I want to bring up here your book drama yes your your autobiography it and you talk at more length about your father and and he is sort of hardscrabble theater life yeah that led to your being in the theater all your life and then it climaxes with him sort of telling you I want you to tell this story that he kind of expresses to you that he's been nothing that you're the success yeah and you come back to him in it yeah it was very near the end of the book there was in during that month when I was helping them out taking care of them and he was quite infirm he was 86 years old and he was depressed the way I think a lot of people who act for a living get depressed you end up at that age and you assume that everybody's forgotten everything you do because in fact they have what we do is very exciting it's a big deal right now and bit by bit it's gone forever and there's nothing wrong with that as long as you accept it don't kid yourself they even forget the movie roles you've done well he reached the end of his life we were talking conversationally about my what I'd done and he said you know you've had a career of great achievement I myself did not I I did not really achieve anything in my and I just stopped him my mother was in the kitchen he and I were talking I said dad I'm not going to let you say that I you know you you had an amazing life an amazing career you gave about a thousand actors their first job you made hundreds of thousands of people experience Shakespeare for the first time you know it is it's you know everything I am and everything I've done is you you're my hero I'm not let you say that it was very emotional and he just listened and listened and he finally turned and said did you hear that Sarah it's so touching it's interesting though with this show which is whether literally or not dedicated to him I mean it's sort of instigated by him and it's a tribute to what he gave you but now taking it as you have on the road you're sort of recreating his own peripatetic life in the theater or and restoring a part of American theater that's mostly gone this sort of barnstorming one-man yeah show sort of thing well he was quits was quite unwitting I was kind of following the template of my friend Mandy Patinkin who's been doing music that way I even worked with his same tour booking operation it sort of dawned on me as I was doing it yeah this is what people used to do main to me cuz I was in many of the venues where people used to play old opera houses in in lexington kentucky pittsfield Galveston where the stagehands would brag about Harry Houdini performing there or I'm sorry were you in a time warp because these were old what they stay are all well they they were several generations past but they were still bragging because that time has passed Houdini was good giving people that opportunity to see to see an actor of your caliber life one of these playhouses they're hard up fur material because nobody does this yeah yeah al Holbrook for many many years did his Mark Twain and his poster would be up absolutely everywhere so it was an unusual thing and I don't know how much more of it I've got in me it's not is it particularly taxing it's just Monsieur life I mean it was definitely a sideline in a given year I would only do it five or six times it wasn't like I was spending a year on the road the way they used to do ya know they used to perform not to mention vaudeville where were they would poor perform five times a day in some of these same houses now here you are on Broadway we're almost out of time but I do want to bring up one of your roles that it's not going to be quickly forgotten at all you played Winston Churchill in in the crown you won the Emmy Award and of course we have Gary Churchill and awful movie that Brian Cox made about Churchill but why do you think that Churchill's back with us now so powerfully do you think that there's a reason why he's so much in the zeitgeist right I'm not sure there is a specific reason oh I mean every year is well it certainly leadership is a gigantic issue right now but a lot of these things were well underway before we had a leadership crisis which indeed we are having right now I do think that's one reason why these things are so stunning you see courage and clarity and intelligent and intent intelligence and intent they are in short supply right now and Churchill almost Churchill and FDR I think they embody that we haven't well probably next year it'll be all FDR what do you think Jesse John said it it's leadership and it it has five letters and ends in rump I find myself consoled in times of upheaval by his focus and beating off the bad guy saying that's a bad guy and we have to stand up to him well the other thing is he he was astounding character and in his way he was I remember making this comparison in London and everybody blanched but there was something very impulsive and bold and almost crazy about Churchill which in a nutty sense reminds you of Trump it's just it's just it when one of them England needed it so badly and it was so clear and there was such intention there well the flipside of sensibility so yeah it was although although I love the fact that Winston Churchill never drew his own bath ever there are little things like that so Jessie what we have one minute left Jessie and Donna third Rock from the Sun I guess I just that's best episode of third Rock for my son my favorite yes I loved it when he wanted to know what they were talking about in a woman's consciousness group though he dressed up a dragon and embedded himself that was my favorite and that makes me think about the world according to GARP the drag actually I've been I've performed in drag five or six times now played Margaret Thatcher on Saturday Night Live Roberta Muldoon and butterfly I drag I have this curious trifecta I have played in drag five four six times performed nude about five times and I have played my own identical twin five times now now how many actors can make that claim damn few dancers you know when I first became aware of you you were on staff at WBAL that's right doing radio were you there I was at the other end of the radio listening to you two cold reading yes yes what was that it was a sort of part-time job when I couldn't get any acting work doing drama and satire programming for WI WBAI we did political satire and serve goon show Monty Python kind of stuff but we also read entire plays completely gold I would just assemble all these actors when we would do as you like it or late Windermere's Fan or man and superman call we would do anything and we just sort of assumed well nobody's listening to this who cares we were there in your love of the it was it was really fun but it was a mess I mean we did women beware women a jacket on tragedy and it was a myth and when we did Lady Windermere's Fan you know we ran out of time they had to put the news on so we didn't do the last act we thought well what the heck nobody's noticing people went crazy they had been listening to us stumble our way through Oscar Wilde and they had no idea that the end had been written well speaking of running out of time tragically we have fun to talk to this thank you so much John Lithgow thank you so much Jesse green best time I've ever had with a critic on a low bar but they of the New York Times and thank you so much Donna Hanover of Arts in the city always happy to be here today a pleasure a pleasure thank you thank you everyone thank you our thanks to the Friends of theater talk for their significant contribution to this production theater talk is made possible in part by the Frederick Bois foundation the Corey and Bob dinelli charitable fund the Noel Coward foundation Kerri J freeze the Dorothy straussman Foundation and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs we welcome your questions or comments for theater talk thank you

Channel: Theater Talk Archive

Views: 1,182

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: john lithgow, broadway, theater talk, jesse green, susan haskins, donna hanover

Id: o62Wy7KbwEA

Length: 26min 46sec (1606 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 25 2018