SHEEN TALKS: JOHN PATRICK SHANLEY

thank you all for coming we're going to be alternating some questions along with John we'll be reading a little from his work will show a film clip and then about an hour in will be opening to questions from you there'll be microphones passed around the audience and I always suggest when I do these discussions that you think of your question ahead of time and ask a question rather than making an artistic statement and that way we can allow more more than one of you to ask John the questions that you're eager to ask him so I wanted to ask to start by asking you you're one of the the legendary burrow writers of New York City I think you represent the Bronx John Guare represents Queens I'm trying to think of others and you after some early adventures came to NYU and started like so many people in the theater so to begin I wanted to ask you when when you were at NYU and you were coming in leaving your life behind which will go back to when we get to doubt what was the theater like how did you enter it how did you hope to enter it what were you seeing what were you liking what were the companies the employ of the circle rep well you know when I when I when I was about 10 years old I started writing forgive me I'm getting over a cold and I wrote all sorts of stuff including sort of dark or old poetry and the like and I was kind of looking for this is what I loved was writing and I was kind of looking for so where do you put that and what then why you when I was 17 and I was very involved with poetry both the reading of poetry and the writing of poetry then and I did notice that when I was invited to a party and they introduced me to somebody at the party who was also a poet it was always the person I liked least that set me thinking so then I I left NYU after a year and I did a bunch of odd jobs I won in the Marine Corps and then I came back and when I came back I had been in the Marines and I was much more pragmatic and I entered my you and I asked people how do you succeed at college and they came up with sit in the front row stop them any time you don't understand what they're saying and join organizations and so I said about doing those three things and one of the things I did was to take over as the producing director of all of the theaters that existed at NYU at that time because I was a bit of a dynamo and I began producing plays by many people who were dead and musicals and foreign acts that were in town and whatever else I could get on those stages and at the same time I started to write because I realized like Shakespeare Michael Shakespeare was a poet but he had an audience and you know the roughest thing is like you say to somebody or a poet and then they're like oh I'd love to read you know what you're writing and maybe they're telling the truth but there's only two of them and you you you want to find some kind of forum to express in a way that really connects with a lot of people and so what did you do the theater I sort of had all of that going on you know when I wrote my first play for a class called beginning playwriting and he's supposed to write a one-act and I wrote a full life they put it on through they would put one into rehearsal three weeks later in a 300 seat house and immediately people started building scenery building costumes actors started rehearsing I had been in shell of loneliness as a player as a poet for years and no one was interested and now I like do this one thing and suddenly and this whole community of people comes out of the woodwork to help me so there was no turning back the theater scene in the city at large was I was only mildly cognizant of that what I did was I got NYU to put up money to subsidize buying theater tickets so I got you know they NY you would pay for half the price of the ticket and the student would pay for half the price and so I was able to get tickets to a lot of stuff it's like circle in the square uptown and Lincoln Center and and get them for ten bucks a ticket you know selling the students and in that way I got to see a lot of theater which still seemed to me to be sort of like I was looking through a glass like I was a fish looking at people in a living world yeah and then someday I didn't want to be a fish anymore I wanted to be jump in and it was also we're talking about the early 80s at this point right know earlier 78 seventies yeah I was I got out of the Marines in 72 and I went back then while you probably in 73 uh-huh 73 for right in there and that was that was an unusually rich time I think in in the theater uh it was a time this is how I could def define rich a time before agents I mean people had no agents people just wrote plays and they sent them around to different theaters and theaters had very different sensibilities Circle rep had a sort of circle rep and the Public Theater produced a certain kind of play and the American place produced a different kind of play and and the Negro Ensemble company produces different kind of playing everybody sort of knew each other we used to go to cheap restaurants on 8th Avenue and it was a much less established theater but a very lively one was very you know there was a lot of theatres there was over 90 off off-broadway theaters until equity put its foot down initially and then there were 33 it like overnight and and you were also at the O'Neill weren't you I was at the National playwrights conference at the O'Neill for four years in a row and this is something that's really special and on it's been documented but maybe you could just talk a little bit about that because it's it's something that I think had a profound influence on American playwriting its some an organization founded by George white with a number of artistic directors back in those days I think Boyd was running it yeah Lloyd Richards was running it and and many many plays that went on to be well known plays started at the O'Neill and a very very carefully crafted protected environment that was completely organized around the writers and I don't think we have that anymore no I do things in it I think that things are around whatever is really going on so if what's really going on is the writer it's around the rider this was really going on as the actor then it's around the actor if it's what's really going on is you know a director from Amsterdam then it's going on around the director and then you know there are theatres that are happening and then they're not happening and then some other theater is happening I mean I would say that theater now is just as taste oriented as it was then in the sense that you know Playwrights Horizons now or Lincoln Center or Manhattan Theatre Club or the Atlantic Theater they all have a kind of play that is how they define themselves to some degree and there may be outtakes from that but we tend to have playwrights come and go artistic directors are forever as far as I can see it's true so that sensibility keeps the theater going down the same track for longer and when you began and I'm sort of starting a slow segue maybe into our first excerpt did you did you have an ideal theatre that you that you wanted to have your play produced it I know you were at Theo Neil which is that was not a producing theatre that was on the incredibly beautiful grounds of O'Neil Eugene O'Neill's home oak trees 300 years old leading down to the sea and it was a very protected environment where writers were completely in charge they would be able to you know try out work on the place without the actors being allowed to memorize lines they had to carry the scripts in hand and then it gradually became such a source of work I think that the final big writer who who came out of there was August Wilson that it that it became sort of shopped over and gradually it it lost its protective quality but did you see yourself aiming for a particular was it that was a labyrinth or did labyrinth even exist or was it MTC or was it yes the first professional theater that produced my work was vennett Carol's urban arts theater who was she did don't bother me I can't co-write arms too short to box with God and a lot of other stuff incredibly talented and it was a black theatre and I've written an interracial play about the Marine Corps and a a lot of people thought I was a black playwright because there's you know half black actors have white actors in a but you were yeah okay I actually I was in the Marine Corps with black guys with a mate like you'd swear to god them from Scotland with the names that they had you know Omar McKelvey was one of the guys anyway but it it doesn't you know I know there's always his sort of things used to be good kind of thing which I don't believe in I think things are kind of always interesting they're just interesting in different places and it's I mean we're living and unbelievably stimulating times I mean we roll we'd like to be less stimulated and you know the the need for a discourse and for wisdom and for youthful panache all of those things are the society craves right now there's gonna be a voice come someday very soon that's gonna wake everybody up to a new reality I mean that's a given I mean what I saw in the last election was too antiquated points of view to things that we're sort of the shell of times that were but are not the times that will be and artistically that's the same thing you know it's sort of like all the old playwrights of Marchen and they do their place and then somebody shows up and it's all different in one minute and that's that always happens you want to give us an example of that like in history no I know I mean King Charles Dickens in the child labor laws yeah Upton Sinclair with the jungle talking about meatpacking Floyd Norris with the octopus you know we've had a very low waiting for lefty or it could be an artistic breakthrough like The Glass Menagerie where suddenly it go like oh you can do that with Thorton Wilder many many people have showed up Sam Shepard August Wilson and are showing up and will show up so where did you where did you start and when you were in the city and how do I lead you to read your first exercise talk to us about it listen you know I've been sick like are we gonna have and I kept waiting for the day when I felt good to like say well what am I gonna do and that day never came but this day came so I like drugged different things and I well I was hoping you would read something from Sandwich and limbo but well I can read something from the occasion you know yeah or it's all one play you know from the very first thing you write to the last thing when your lifeless fingers slipped from the keys it's all one play and a way I think that probably true I certainly felt as a person from the Bronx that I was not born into the inteligencia but I was not born into the rooms where people are very sophisticated and knowledgeable and well-rounded and deeply cultured and that pissed me off and I was angry with God and I thought if I'd been born into a certain kind of English intelligentsia family you know what would happen to me what would it be and of course you know since then how I thank God every day that that's not what happened but because I'm sure I'd be like so verified that I wouldn't be able to speak but you know the thing that every artist has to do is have to look in the mirror and go this is what I got and I like it and I can take this to the moon and certainly around the that I wrote savage in limbo I was coming to grips with that I was 31 years old and I was had been impoverished all my adult life and I nothing was going on in my life and my marriage was falling apart and I didn't know how to tell the truth I just didn't know how to tell them to not simply in a plight I didn't have to tell the truth from the moment I got up in the morning to the moment I went to bed at night and I had this ever greater sense of a lump in my throat an obstacle literal physical obstacle that was preventing me from saying what I really wanted to say and I felt that when the day came that that obstacle was removed somehow that I would have a lot to say and when I wrote savage in limbo was when I found a way to break past that obstacle that had stood between me and me being myself and declaring who I was and I do it I did it by my life falling apart by like okay if I don't do something my life is over right now it's over because this is all I got I don't want to live and this is nothing and I'm not being me I'm not experiencing the joy of the vitality of life I'd somehow been cut off from been outwitted by the days of my life my fate my surroundings my circumstances they somehow they have dictated rather than I have dictated what will be so okay strategy Lulu and I had other little pair of glasses the problem that Savage has it's she's a virgin and she's now you know 32 years old and at first it was she didn't really set out to be a virgin oh we all start out as a virgin and then gradually one by one people fell around her and she was still standing and then gradually it became a thing where she said I must I guess I'm holding out for something and let's see and this girl this other girl in the bar Linda rotunda asked sir how am I supposed to think about you Denise Savage I don't care I don't care how you think about me what do you want you want me to act like somebody on TV this one got this one way and that's how they are I don't know how I am Who I am I don't know what I believe I don't know where to go to find out I don't know what to do to be the one person that somewhere inside I want to be I don't know nothing but the one thing I got a move and you to this whole world that means gotta break up and move MERP get out Savage I got a drink on in front of me I ain't finished we're on the cliff we were born here well do you want to die on the cliff do you want to die in bed do you think you're gonna live forever they told us if you jump up the cliff you die and you probably do but it it we don't know that you know no nothing you ain't done that nobody could tell you nothing you need to eat you're tired of living if this is all living is and you know it's not I may be an and I may not know what to do but you hear what I'm saying the Adamic you do and your heart you do this is not life this is not right this is not life ugly women right Tony something else I don't care what God give me something else cuz this is definitely not it new eyes new ears new hands give me back my soul from where you took it give me back my friends give me back my priest and my father and take this goddamn virginity from off my life hunga hunga hunga there's somebody to give me something I'm gonna die I want to play pool picks up a pool cue somebody play pool with me nobody moves I come in here a lot of nights a lot of nights and I I play pool by myself I like the game you hit the white ball and that ball hits another in it it goes somewhere when I first started I didn't mind playing alone but you get tired of it the balls don't do nothing unless you make them do it it's all you that just like stones it's like I'm some woman lives in a cave and plays with stones somebody played pool with me you be the cue ball hit me and I'll fly you don't want to jump yourself push me off you can't keep up your courage alone playing with stones so so maybe Pete is a little picture of the your personal feeling about the reception when you heard that come to life in a small theater with some pretty fantastic actors did you feel like you would found your voice I felt before that you know I did denny in the deep blue sea mm-hmm but right before this you know and when I did Danny in the deep blue sea I wrote a play and I went to the one'll a nappy O'Neil the first thing they do is they have all the play right back then they have all the playwrights come up with the directors and the designers and the artistic director and each playwright gets it a little table like this in a little schoolroom and the other playwrights and directors and they're all sitting there you know since maybe like 25 30 people that say and you read you play to them which is really important and nobody had ever asked me to read one of my place before and I went up and I sat down at the desk and I started to read the play and about two pages into the play Danny flips out and when I got to that part the whole front row picked up their chairs and moved them back fire and it was my you know declaration this is who I am this is who I am take it or leave it mm-hmm and I was embraced and it was one of the biggest moments of my life socially annexed I'm just looking at my watch and time is flying by should we jump ahead I know everybody knows doubt practically by heart in various incarnations I wanted to ask you before we get there you you were a theater person but then you sort of took a detour and went to Los Angeles and went to would we have a mutual friend who's been the leading man number of John's most important works Breanna Byrne who's a great friend of mine from our production at Lincoln Center of coast of utopia so I called Brian saying that I would be coming down here to chat with you and he said make sure that he tells you what it was like to win the Oscar for moonstruck so I'm going to ask you that question Oh on the stage okay you know I I just I'd worked very hard all my life and part of that is when you do what I do is no matter what is coming at you you keep doing what you're doing because I would do these plays it could be Danny or it could be savage or it could be welcome to the moon or whatever and afterwards people come up to you and they say terrible things they tried desperately to hurt you and I don't even know if they know it's some of them some of them do and so you have to you just have to be right there you know and protect yourself and still show up and I'd done that for a long time and then I won the Academy Award and when they announced my name I realized that I didn't think I was gonna win and I realized I had protected myself from disappointment and I'm like okay I'm not gonna win and then I won and so I was like it took me a second like they I I want and as I walked down the aisle I started thinking this is this is easy everything else I've ever had to do is hard this is easy and I went up on stage and Audrey Hepburn kissed me and handed me an Oscar and Gregory Peck embraced me and I turned around and I saw this whole audience full of you know all these people had seen in movies and everything and I thought let this in put down your sword and shield and let this good thing in and I will be grateful for the rest of my life that that thought came to me in time for me to do that and to just in the one safe moment that you know an artist has that I could receive it and feel it and enjoy it before I had to pick up all my gladiatorial equipment again and go back to work [Laughter] he Brehon also asked me to ask you to tell you the story about who went to that school in the Bronx that is the setting of doubt who would say that again who went who was that who were the students at that school tell us a little bit about the school I'm jumping to doubt now well I mean I went to with school and the Broncos st. Anthony's Church in school and I went there from that second half of first grade through eighth grade and I had the Sisters of Charity who were black bonneted they were in Victorian garb and taught me and they you know some of them was strict but I have to say you know and although severe nuns stories and nuns were okay to me it would pretty good and they gave me they gave me a decent education and the guys I mean I had I rescind Italian guys and the the we just had just fights all the time you beat each other up all the time and when I'm everyone in the Marine Corps I somebody asked me what's the Marine Corps like I said it's really nice it's really similar so that's kind of what it was like did you ever have that audience come to see down when was on Broadway do you have it oh yeah like oh I not just doubt people from my own neighborhood come and see almost every play I do and they threw me a party when I won the Oscar and one of my old buddies brought his bagpipes I put up with that and know they're the you know I'm the worst person from my neighborhood they were all that mean the people who survived because there were a lot of people that didn't survive but the people that I grew up with were really really solid people who had no artifice and it was funny when I did my first film and they were auditioning actors they called me in for summer but and they were getting all these people from neighborhoods and some of the home Warren actors at all and it was really interesting that if a guy from Brooklyn did a scene and you laughed whatever that thing he was doing he did it more if a guy from Queens came in and he felt he was succeeding he would try to borrow money from you and if a guy from the Bronx came in and he did it and you laughed he'd say what are you laughing about someone should write a book about this but the writers of the Burroughs work would you like to read a little from dad sure we're gonna have two segments one I never read from doubt if you know it as a play I did it as a film I did it as an opera yes indeed tell us about that before you read well that came about it was cool I mean they came to me they said they wanted to do down as an opera it's a good idea and I said I don't think this is a good idea you know why don't we do Basic Instinct I was serious because I thought now that's an opera you know it's just kind of over the top I think everybody's reading it black you know there's no sex nobody gets murdered you sure you want to do this and what we did it and this guy Douglas Cuomo very talented composer did the score and it was it was a word they were did in in Minneapolis st. Paul at the Minneapolis Opera and with the Minnesota Opera and looked very well when was that I don't feel like three four years ago it's a pretty recent yeah I'm gonna say this four years ago I mean half way through doing it I figured out how you do it and but it's like it's like a big ship that it the composer has to work so far ahead that if you come to him like changing the concept you've lost several months so we had a deadline so I can only do I went to the met and I looked at this opera and I the Bob it was the Barber of Seville and I uh they say the same thing over and over again because then you can vary the music but if they were always saying something different you're just running to catch up with what they're saying and so the music never achieve resonance from repetition and exploration of the theme and that nobody told me that and I had just happen to occur to me finally one night when I was watching an opera and then from that point on I stood - yeah you're absolutely right I did I worked on a new opera at the Met an adaptation of The Great Gatsby and I had never worked in an opera before I mean I've just went to operas but and it is an extremely different process than the theatre in the theatre you're always asking the author to be part of it to be there to take a look to evaluate to do changes whatever they want to do and an opera it's the opposite don't do anything everything's set years ahead you know and even the directors are told well you can't change that blocking because we lit it two years ago and in the agony a singer will be out of the light and it's a very it's a very amusing terrible idea for not Basic Instinct alright what they usually do up with some sort of dime-store novels you know they were it was not you know the the finest literature a lot of the dodge it was just sort of I get a good juicy story with some really good scenes and sing your brains out alright here's a little something from doubt this is a scene where sister aloysious is the principal has called in mrs. Muller because she suspects that something may have happened between this priest and mrs. mother's son and mrs. Miller Muller is black and he and her son is the only black student in this school sister aloysious mrs. Muller we may have a problem this is MA well I thought you must have a reason for asking me to come in principal is a big job if you stop your day to talk to me must be something I just want to say though it's Justin Jew sister aloysious excuse me mrs. mala whatever the problem is Donald just has to make it here till June then he's he's off in a high school Aloysius right mother if Donald could graduate from here he has a better chance of getting into a good high school and that would mean an opportunity of college I believe he has the intelligence and he wants it to Aloysius I don't I don't see anything at this time standing in the way of his graduating with this class Mulla well that's all I care about anything else is all right with me Aloysius I doubt that mullet try me Aloysius I'm concerned about the relationship between father Flynn and your son mrs. Molly you don't say concern what do you mean concern sister aloysious that it may not be right mrs. mala uh-huh well there's something wrong with everybody isn't that so got to be forgiven sister Allah which is some concern to be frank that Father Flynn may have made advances on your son mrs. mala may have made sister aloysious I can't be certain mrs. mala no evidence sister aloysious no mrs. MA then maybe there's nothing to it sister aloysious I think there is something to it mrs. Muller well I would prefer not to see it that way if you don't mind sister aloysha I can understand that this is hard to hear I think father Flynn gave Donald that all to one mrs. Mullin why would he do that sister aloysious has Donald been acting strangely mrs. Mullin no sister aloysious nothing out of the ordinary mrs. mother he's been himself sister Ella so sorry mrs. mala look sister I don't want any trouble and I feel like you're on the March somehow Sister Aloysius I'm not sure you completely understand mrs. Muller I think I understand the kind of thing you're talking about but I don't want to get into it sister aloysious what what's that mrs. Miller not to be disagreeing with you but if we're talking about something floating around between this priest of my son that ain't my son's fault sister Alice I'm not suggesting it is mrs. Molly he's just a boy sister aloysious I know mrs. mother 12 years old if somebody should be taking blame for anything can't you beat the man not the boy sister aloysious I agree would you completely misses mother you agree with me but I'm sitting in the principal's office talking about my son why isn't the priest in the principal's office if you know what I'm saying and you'll excuse my bringing it up sister aloysious you here because I'm concerned about Donald's welfare mrs. Mullin you think I'm not mr. Oliver sir of course you are mrs. mother let me ask you something you honestly think that priest gave Donald wine to drink mr. Ahlers yes I do mrs. mother then how come my son got kicked off the altar boys if it was the man that gave it to him sister aloysious the boy got caught the man didn't mrs. mother how come the priest didn't get kicked off the priesthood sister Alice he's a grown man educated and he knows what's at stake he's it's not so easy to pin somebody like that down mrs. mother so you give my son the whole blame no problem my son getting blamed and punished that's easy you know why that is sister aloysious perhaps you should let me talk I think you're getting upset mrs. Mullin that's because that's the way it is you'll just find out about it but that's the way it is and the way it's been sister you're not going against no man and a robe and win sister he's got the position sister aloysious and he's got your son mrs. Muller let him have him then sister aloysious what mrs. Moniz just--all Jim sister aloysious do you know what you're saying mrs. Loren know more about it than you sister Alison I believe this man is creating an or has already brought about and then proper relationship with your son mrs. Muller I don't know sister Eloise I know I'm right mrs. Muller why you need to know something like that for sure when you don't please sister you got some kind of righteous cause going with this priest and now you want to drag my boy my boy my son doesn't need my additional difficulties let him take the good and leave the rest when he leaves this place in June he knows how to do that I taught him how to do that sister aloysious what kind of mother are you mrs. mother excuse me but you don't know enough about life to say a thing like that sister sister aloysious I know enough mrs. mother you know the rules maybe but that don't cover it sister Alice I know what I won't accept mrs. Mullin you accept what you got to accept and you work with that that's the truth I know sorry to be so sharp but you're you're you're here in this room sister aloysious that man's in my school mrs. Mullen well he's got to be somewhere maybe he's doing some good too you ever think of that sister aloysious he's after the boys mrs. Mullin well maybe some of them boys want to get caught maybe that's what you don't know maybe as my son is that way that's why my father his father beat him up not the wine he beat Donald up for being what he is sister aloysious what are you telling me mrs. Muller I'm his mother I'm talking about its nature now not anything he's done but you can't hold a child responsible for what God gave him to be [Applause] we're all thinking of cherry Jones and Ageing lexan Viola Davis and Meryl when we hear that you read that I came to see doubt by accident on a day when there was a post show announcement for Broadway cares/equity fights aids you've probably all been on theaters when they after the curtain calls the actors come forward and ask the audience to donate for this cause all the theaters do it and the cast OS has to do a little banter before they passed the the hats and at that performance everyone was looking around everybody just seemed completely confident that they had known what happened and and and again Breanna quote him endlessly tonight and his banter said let me begin by asking the audience could you raise your hands how many of you think that that he's guilty and to my astonishment a third of the audience immediately put their hand up and and then he said how many of you think that he's isn't and a third immediately put their hand up with equal fervor and how many just really have no idea that you doubt you don't know and that the last third put their hand up which stunned me because each third was convinced totally that they were right and I asked him about that later and he said well that's be kind of I'm secretly sending Clues out to each section of the audience to the two to really reassure to them that they're right Regan was a handful but I mean that's that's so cleverly done to allow everybody to invest in that story with their own assumptions with their own through-line and to have so many of those going and I'm wondering did you set out to do that it's not cleverness I it's actually how I see things you never know the whole story and people who think they know the whole story they don't know the whole story but to be a viable a viable member of society to be an effective person you have to make decisions you have to decide that you know certain things and you take steps based on those decisions when I was a kid I found a pair of binoculars one time and I they were very good and I would sit in my window and watch the people walking up and down the street and going into the buildings and I had a notebook and I write down at what time they were in and what time they came out and my mother said what's that and I said I'm writing down when she goes never do that again [Music] and you know I could cook up a thousand stories about what was going on between the time they went in at the time they came out but I'll never know and I'm sure every single person here has a lot of behavior that they've experienced from other people that they may have settled on what it meant but they don't know they don't know even people who do things don't know they've done them so how the hell would you know what they've done I'm the mob and you know like you're in Julius Caesar and Mark Antony makes his speech and the mobs like kelo kelo mini sense a few great things and they go like make up King instead I'm that guy and I think a lot of us are where you know you get information and then you get more information and you keep shifting you know and I mean the bad thing is what's happening a lot right now is people who have main decisions and they feel they must stand by them even as the information continues to shift somebody I was talking with somebody about tragedy a few days ago because I never felt like I really was capable of writing a tragedy and very strange form really but I thought of one and I thought you know I thought you know and Donald Trump said that Obama had tapped his phone if after long inquiry it turned out that he had how crushed so many people would be that the dream inside of them died and that's a tragedy that would make people groan outloud and weep because that's a person who's fallen from a height Donald Trump's not capable of tragedy but he's capable of bringing about a tragedy we all have our aptitudes it's funny I was just teaching tragedy that last Friday I was teaching me or a styie and that that exactly what you said that's a Greek word called prep Atia which means you go from the height to the absolute depth that's when Oedipus Rex thinks he's wondered all he has a beautiful wife at least the king of Thebes and then he finds out it really is his wife is something else in addition and yeah he falls into we're dipping through this time maybe we should show the clip from doubt no should we do that is that possible and then go to your final reading which is the work-in-progress that we'll all get to see in the fall so is it possible technically to show the clip now someone's gonna tell me who are you we call out the name Maria Maria yes [Applause] well when I was a kid the priest gave that sermon and it stayed with me and then that priest had arrived the chequered he left the priesthood after that got married and he was a bit of an ass you know but I was always hearing sermons where they would tell a story and then from the Bible usually and then they tell you what it meant and I always liked the story and violently objected to their interpretation of what it meant and actually wanted to go up there and explain how that guy was wrong this story is actually from ancient Judaica and then was resuscitated by the curiae of ours in the Middle Ages and then which all of which I didn't know and then was told as a sermon by father Grogan when I was a boy with no mentioned that he was filching it and that it was a thousand years old at least but I liked this story and I like to think about the feathers and you know when you do a movie I mean I got to we went up on a roof cut open a pillow and actually caught up on a lot of pillows and wind machines and every other goddamn thing in the Bronx on the street that I grew up on and hurled tons of feathers which were there for weeks afterwards proving this are meant to be true so we're just about to the question departs so I guess I have to ask for the final selection although this seems like it's ripped by very quickly but could you tell us what you're currently working on and what you hope to be doing in the fall and maybe reduce a little bit how well put because I could be killed before they do the whole idea of what you could be if you know you clearly have spent your life in show business god knows what I'll do I think I know what I'm doing in the fall that I'm a fool I am doing a new play called the Portuguese kid that Manhattan Theatre Club and those are performances in September late September and I'm doing a movie with Tom Hanks called factoring that I'm writing the screenplay for now which is about a furniture dynasty in Virginia and the trade war with China and it's a sort of family saga kind of thing which should be kind of cool and I think that's what I'm doing do you have anything you'd like to give us a preview of I'm a regional imagery of the opening of the Portuguese kid if it's actually in this envelope because that's an act of faith as well lights up on the lawyer's office behind the desk is very dragon that he 55 he's talking Atalanta 50 who sits on a crisp couch wearing sunglasses she has a shopping bag berries just finished paging through a thick document he throws it down very okay I gotta ask Atalanta I'm the best lawyer in Providence you've known me since you were 10 when you and Vincent were planning your estate why didn't you come to me dad olanta I don't know Barry you went to this bum down in New York City Atalanta he wasn't a bum Barry he was a bum was he Portuguese by any chance Atalanta just a little cracked aren't you Barry I'll ignore that Vincent passed away and now looking at your paperwork and frankly it's in disarray Ida led to what I'm broke Barry you're 15 million dollars away from a bro Atalanta so what's the problem very well it could be Richard to put it bluntly you don't own your house Ida Lanza no Barry your names on the properties in Cambridge but not on the house and Provident said the prowess of Providence is only in Vince's name Atalanta that's how he wanted it Barry didn't this New York genius estate planner explained that if your name wasn't on the deed you'd have to pay a lot of tax at Alette I don't remember I was exhausted I was driving five hours Barry Vincent didn't drive idolater he never drove he never did anything I'm lucky I noticed he was dead that nice what's with the sunglasses it's a rainy day how to land a hangover Barry why'd you go so far you live in Rhode Island at alleged why should the people of Providence Rhode Island know my business Barry I don't get it I've never seen you lose track of a nickel much less a million dollars idle anta would you get that number Barry that's how much you have to pay to stay in that house I don't like to that I'll move Oh first decision done are you dying what's left the air Barry no that's the tint in your glasses look you can unload two condos in Cambridge and cover this island I'm not remember I'm drawing a new map here I'm starting over clean slate a widow berry again Adelaide yeah again so what you say that like I've been killing my husband's berry I didn't mean that Atalanta but that's what I heard am i stupid berry nobody would take you for stupid out of it I would I certainly would bury the case could be made that you're a financial Einstein Atalanta whatever we were comfortable because Vinson made a good living let's leave it at that Barry what about Jerome you made him rich to Idol and it I don't want to talk about your own Barry you made two fortunes for two men and you made each in real estate which brings me back to how could you let that house only be in Vince's name Adil it do yourself a favor leave it alone Barry I don't get it she takes her for sunglasses at Alette all right you want to get into it the truth why not he didn't trust you Barry Barry are you serious I handled that from everything from fencing we were practically blood we came up on the streets together out of that he didn't trust you with me back with you Atalanta he thought you wanted to jump me he thought you wanted to get in my pants Barry your pants we're to help you get that idea Atalanta I'd rather not say that you gotta say not a Linda I called out your name Barry what do you mean I delayed in bed now and you sleep Atalanta No battery you kidding me adilyn no Barry when Adelaide all the time that you called out my name Adelaide you could imagine how this affected Vincent's viewer Barry right did you bring a coat Atalanta what yeah Barry had see it to come Barry ma get out of lent this coat I don't know what are you doing Barry stands off it's his hand Barry thanks for coming in Atalanta I don't get it Barry look given what you're saying get another lawyer I don't land - why Barry our relationship is tainted it could be perceived as improper I'm recusing myself this consultation was on the house the door opens mrs. dragon that he limps in she holds a trench coat an umbrella she's a battle-axe Reese in Europe mrs. dragon Eddie here's a coach he could have gotten it herself what is she a movie star you here take that oh I don't let it hang it back up this is dragon Eddie mrs. Jacob talk to me I don't work for you idolater - fine tell her I hang the coat back up Barry Barry what for it's a wrap we're done Natalie ah I'll say when we're done mrs. dragon Eddie come on my feet are killing me Natalie I don't need to hear about your feet you Mugwump mrs. dragon Eddie you want me to throw the coat on the floor I could do that I don't know if it's a trench coat mrs. dragon anyways about an ounce mr. dragon Eddie what a mouth on top Barry never mind mom hang the coat back got mrs. dragon a she tells you what to do now Barry hang it up mrs. dragon Lily okay she exits muttering a trench coat what is he anyway a spy idolater shut up Crone Barry come on tone it down Atalanta sit down before my head falls off it's worse when I look up Barry what's with the hangover you don't drink Adelaide I drink now Barry it doesn't suit you Atalanta nothing suits me I'm a stranger to myself Barry a piece of perjury a contradiction my husbands are dead and I don't know who I am Barry don't stress nobody knows who they are I don't what are you talking about I need to know Barry why look at me you think I understand myself I'm an unfathomable enigma so what there's nothing earth-shaking going on we both know I'm not tinkering with a masterpiece here neither are you we live we die it means nothing Atalanta you know what your problem is you're complacent I can't live like that nihilistic I'm a doer berry the do yourself a favor and enjoy the little things Atalanta we mean like fireflies you may be satisfied to squander which lefty or ten minutes of flame but I need a third act berry it's ten minutes of fame a delayed either way it's ten minutes I don't want bitterness to eat me up a little eat me alive like a did your mother remorse I can hear you Atalanta who cares your lobster trap berry don't you want to go out right side up berry I don't even know what that means I delayed them don't you look at the Stars and wonder why daddy not really Adelaide I don't want to go with the flow till there's no more flow to go with you understand I need a plan a future a next step I'm all resolved unfinished if I die now I swear to god I'm coming back I know it I want people dying you're not coming back out of that even if you're right your world we both know there's more to like them what we've been doing berry do me a favor leave me out of this Adelaide the wood that I could bury why'd you call my name anyway Atalanta who knows berry that you would call now berry as ecstasy approached a deliverer are you getting off on this berry of course not I donated that yeah you are look at you you breathing through your mouth aren't you worried your mother's listening remember little how big ears Barret rein it in would your peace in the kingdom bury cracks the door takes a peek shuts it Barry it's okay she's fine Atalanta what's she doing Barry staring at the phone Madeleine she's like I spider with that fog I know I'm young snakebit today's my 50th birthday I'm 50 [Music] no this is a great way to end and let's segue to our Q&A s and I'll try and perceive maybe we can have a few house lights up just a little bit so I can see if anybody has a question thank you a lot of questions okay why don't I start right in the middle here I think I can hear some of the best work from actors that they can put out that's just the nature of the writing I think but I guess I want to ask you to work with some of the greatest actors ever what's the most desirable quality yet you see in them what what do you see in an actor that says they can bring justice to something that requires so much heart I guess you know one of the things that and the best I do is not about them you know and then and it's not about me it's about whatever you're doing it's about the story that you're telling and if you have your eyes they're like I'm directing Meryl Streep right okay that's intimidating so but it's not intimidating if we're both talking about what we're doing it's not about Meryl it's not about me it's about what we're doing so an actor can't change who they are and part of what makes a great actor is who they are and another part is that they have learned to put their ego very much away and that they concentrate on what they're doing and not about personalities in the room or anything else although that could be amusing and you know Richard Burton used to say that he he had no respect for himself because he said I'm just talking but in fact the guy was an incredible vessel and heard beautiful music like the music of Shakespeare and he could bring that to whatever he was doing and he undervalued himself in that respect good acting is courage and humility and go ahead and have a life to draw you know a lot of in the beginning like hey look at these gangster movies cowboy movies all that stuff from the 20s 30s 40s these guys did stuff they weren't just actors they you know like Jason Robards was in every major battle in the Pacific in World War two he's in Guadalcanal he's at Iwo Jima you know he what he needed to draw on something it was there and I think that that's very helpful as well to become a full rounded person okay question sir the white hair and I'll call in a lady next I'd like to ask you about outside Mullingar which I loved thank you and it seems like it's from a lot of the play it's very naturalistic and it's a story between these two people I mean as much as Irish lyricism is naturalistic but then it takes a real turn in the plot a really risky turn that I think some people either loved or they hated and I wonder as writing that did you get resistance to the turn did you ever question it did you ever feel as though it was the wrong way to go because I just think it was such a risk to take what you did in that play yeah you know I mean he's talking about and said in an outside Mullingar is a guy who his secret of Secrets is that he thinks he's a B thinks he's a honey beech and whereas this may seem completely absurd in Mullingar there was a man who thought he was a B and he had himself buried in a crypt 20 feet tall in the shape of a beehive and they named the discotheque in Mullingar the Beehive after that guy everybody everybody there knows you know about people thinking that they're bees but we all we all think that was something we're not we all do and when you hear something that somebody else thinks that they are that they're not do you think it's bizarre but you think that you have got it together we all do and we're all wrong we are deluded about who we are it's a very strange thing being alive it's much stranger you know when my father died he came back to me in a dream dressed all in rich brown corduroys with mahogany hair and he was very gleeful and he said to me life is much weirder than you think and he seemed really amused by that and I let that be my guide you're always gonna have people that go like oh you know you went too far you did too this yeah I'm a dramatist I'm supposed to go too far that's my job you know you have these murmuring conversations with a penny a patina of dissension that's not what I'm gonna do I'm gonna do something that's the larger forces so that you can see it you know a good strong vigorous clash between people ideas philosophies and you know views of life it really helps people to experience things inside that are in subtler colors you need people like me extremists it's a good question okay yes if it was one night only maybe my favorite thing to do is one night only maybe I done a number of benefits for the labyrinth theater over the years and I put on 90 minute long shows with with scenes and songs and a band and the whole thing and I have performed in one or two of those and that's the only time except for tonight except except that this guy but this is not scripted and I'll never have to say these exact things against if you ask me to come in here tomorrow I didn't do this I don't yes ma'am well when when when I went to NYU pardon me when I went to Cardinal Spellman high school in the Bronx I was 12 years old and my brother had been there before me just as I followed him into the Marine Corps I followed him into Cardinal Spellman and he had been on stage crew and he said you you should join stage crew it's fun and so when I went I joined the stage crew and I built scenery and the first play that they did turned out to be a legendary production of Cyrano de Bergerac and I and they had the greatest cereno I think he's the greatest I've ever seen and I've seen a few pardon me you know his name I rest my case this was up and then he left you'd understand you traveled the world yeah he was a seeker and I let every night I would listen to that play and it's really a play about a playwright in the sense that of surrogacy you know that Sarah note tells this guy Christian what he should say to Roxanne and then he does so Christians the actors are knows the playwright and he's in the wings and I was in the wings listening to this you know helping an actor and change their clothes or whatever going on pulling pulleys sad scenery go up and down and and the thing about backstage is that it's a whole different Twilight world where everybody whispers which I really liked and then there's these people onstage and bright lights and they're doing these incredible things and we're in the wings going that was good and I think I discovered that I liked that role I like to be just off the stage yes at the end in the late 80s I lived in Brooklyn a few blocks from camera brothers and I loved that movie and I just wonder what inspired someone from the Bronx to write a movie like that well you know it's funny because I was naturalistic writer and then suddenly this thing took a turn I'm not I'm not a naturalistic writer I remember being on the a-train one time when I lived in Washington Heights and two old women were talking and I heard the way they were taught I just written moonstruck and I heard they were talking I was like they could be in my script they are speaking in the exact speech pattern which I took from the Old Testament the King James Version it's not you know people if you go back and look at Woods chart it's incredibly stylized the dialogue is all formal and they they speak in a very particular way that people sometimes speak and that's you know what artists do you pick out that one moment and say that's a world and that's the world I want to write about and you left the rest of it go by what was your question well I was living in an apartment in Washington Heights and it was a very funky neighborhood at that time I was on 177th in Fort Washington and there was a lot of murders and break-ins and drug running out of a park nearby and stuff and I had a fire escape on one of my windows and no gate on it and so at night when I would hear something how it walks through the apartment of baseball bat see that there was nobody there go back to bed I did this several times a night for a while until I got used to it I could begin to have faith they're not coming for me and I I it was a special time in my life there were holes in the walls and I had two windows that were broken and I had a superintendent that had a very close relationship with named Ralph and Ralph would come up and say let me fix the wall and I'd be like I loved that hole in the wall I never want that to go and let me let me change somebody fix the window and like I'll never replicate that crack again hi this is my time this is my LA bohème and I felt the garret romance of it all and wrote moonstruck and it was a pleasure to write I grew up in an Irish and Italian neighborhood and spent a lot of my time in Italian American households and I was very drawn to the way that they ate to the way that they talk so openly about sex and feelings in a way that the Irish simply don't and they ate better than us they had better clothes than us they had better hair than us so what was not to get inspired by and I remember somebody asking me that the old guy in the movie Feodor Chaliapin who was the son of the great Chara an opera singer and they asked me did it bother me that a Russian was playing an Italian man and I said at that age everybody's attack ok yes in the back yes sir we have to give you the microphone it's coming right to you in a lot of your works moonstruck welcome to the moon and Danny in the deep blue sea the red coat a lot of those have a lot to do with the moon I'm very obviously moonstruck those kind of things what does the moon symbolize or represent to you what what is it that that means to you within the context of your place well I mean first of all I don't know I was born with my moon in Scorpio which I've been told in a mournful tone by astrologers is the reason that certain things in my life have been difficult but above and beyond that you know I was in the Bronx be nighttime and I'd look up and there would be this foreign amazing science-fiction magical orb pulsating in the sky with a visible texture and it would go through phases and sometimes I could see it in the daytime and sometimes I couldn't and it was like me it was changing all the time and but there was some kind of cyclical thing going on and there's some you know incredible cyclical thing going on with all of us and this you know great single revolution which is the birth of the planet Earth as a thing that sustains life and its death which will come and that all of this is you know one day of that and things that you see in the outer world that echo concepts that we experience as human beings alive on earth have great resonance you know that they say the difference between a sign and a symbol is you could read a sign but a symbol has a meaning beyond your understanding beyond your full grasp but the swastika of the Cross these things have a meaning beyond the physicality of them they evoke something at us and it's beautiful and then you know when I look at the moon and somebody in China can look at the moon with look how connected that way we're all connected through that it's kind of great yes I'm wondering if you have any thoughts on the similarities or differences between story and a sermon between story and a sermon like a well you know I mean I do it's funny you know good playwriting is and I know by any means always do this good playwriting is telling the story and not given the sermon just tell the story and let them do with it what they want it's very difficult I was Stanley Kubrick's had a story that works as a miracle and that had he was from the Bronx by the way and that has only become more true over the years for me that that you know a story like doubt you know I wrote all these plays and people like ignored them or didn't like them or they made a fuss over and then it rode out and everybody went crazy and I'm like I don't know what it's good is the story the story does something that the other stories didn't and that's beyond my grasp or jurisdiction yes in the front row sir I'm six to get I'm writing my first play what advice do you have for me thank you it's always the hardest questions that go right on the end if you you know I you know the a play just closed that I would have recommended but which is jitney but August Wilson is kind of the giant that has just left us he said these plays are beautiful big compelling beautiful language incredible characters stuff that you can relate to and understand and it really it goes somewhere you walk out in a different place than you were when you walked in so they're pretty cool Martin McDonagh Connor McPherson and August Wilson I would say any of those guys yeah yes yeah and then in the back we have like three minutes yes sir yeah yeah I was those people I was those people you know I experienced great violence growing up you know it was physically attacked many times I've attacked back many times I was hung off a roof five-story building by my feet and threatened to be let go I'm you know multiple times was robbed for the knife stuff like that almost all of it except the roof hanging not that bad roofing stayed with me more but I died and I understood them you know they they they might not be able they might not be able to express themselves as well as I but I could see where they were at and I was I was at the same place you know that there's something you want and you can't have it you don't have the skills you don't have the the way to do it you know sometimes like two people get married and they love each other and then it goes wrong and it's terrible it's awful it's like the worst thing and they don't have the skills to get it where it needs to be and there actually are skills that can help you know but they don't have them and in life the bigger canvas so many times stuff comes up and we just we don't have the skills that we need to get through the next moment it it beats us and we fall down and the you know there was a guy that Hercules fought whose father was Poseidon and Hercules I saw it like some cheesy Italian dubbed English dub movie when I was a kid about this and it's always stayed with me that he fought this guy and he'd the guy you know came at him and Hercules picked him up and threw him down and it was no big deal he was much stronger than him but the guy got up and he was stronger and there's Hercules got him again and they toned down again and the guy got up and he got up and he was stronger yet because it turned out that his father was of the earth and that he drew his strength from there and that every time he threw him down on the ground he was creating a greater adversary so he threw him in the sea and that's how he ended the fight and I thought about that many times that if you the way that you think about things could really really change the experience for you and it's really important to retrain your mind in certain things and one of the things that I did was I was like okay every time you throw me down I'm gonna get stronger that's money in the bank to me that's wood on the fire to me please with me again and that that helped it helps being Irish - thank you for coming [Applause]

Channel: Sheen Talks

Views: 762

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: john patrick shanley, doubt, moonstruck

Id: r-2ai44jZMg

Length: 76min 5sec (4565 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 05 2019