SJ: What is theatre to you? Why are you drawn to it?
CM: Oh Gosh, I don’t know. I think, you know, when I was five years old coming home from the playground, I
thought ‘Oh, when he said that I should have said this, and then he would have said that, and then so I would have
said this. So I think I started writing plays in my head when I was about 5. And then when I was a teenager, my
mother took me to see, I grew up outside of Chicago, she took me down to Chicago to see South Pacific. And in the
middle of South Pacific there’s a guy who has a ship, sailing ship, tattooed on his stomach. And he did a belly dance
that made the ship rock on the waves. And I thought, ‘I want to do that.’
SJ: That fantastic!
CM: So I’m afraid that’s as profound as my motivation ever became.
SJ: That’s wonderful, I love it! So, your plays don’t necessarily use conventional format or structure, but they result
in really incredibly theatrical events. So, my question is, why plays? Why not short fiction or poetry or film or any
of the other media that we have in our world today?
CM: Well, I don’t know, I just love the theatre. I’m just crazy about it. Years ago I got out of college writing for the
theatre. And then, this is back in the sixties, I got caught up in anti-Vietnam War politics, and wrote political
polemics for about 20 or 25 years. And then critics kept saying ‘His history books read like novels.’ So, I thought
‘I’ll write a novel.’ And so I lived off credit cards for a year and I wrote a novel. And then the doorbell rang, and I
was given a piece of pink paper 8 and ½ by 14 inches that said the sheriff would come the following week to auction
off my furniture for the non-payment of taxes. And I thought, ‘This is the low point in my life.’ And so I went back
and read the novel, and I thought it was horrible. So, I took it out to the garbage can on the street and I threw it
away. And then the next morning I woke up and I thought ‘Oh that was stupid because there was stuff in there I
wanted to remember just for my own life. So while I still remember some of it I’ll make some notes’ And the notes
took the form of a trilogy of one act plays. And then I thought ‘I see, if I just write what I love for myself, this is the
form it takes. So, that’s what I’m going to do now.’
SJ: Fantastic. So, one of my favorite quotes of yours is “There is no such thing as an original script.” It’s so
liberating and exciting. So, I guess my question is what does authorship mean to you and how do you approach
composing a play?
CM: Well, I do think that everything is simultaneously a product of the culture and of an individual’s psyche. So
that everything is both stolen and original at the same time in a way. And so, authorship is the culture going through
a single psyche and coming out a little bit differently. But that doesn’t quite constitute total ownership or total
originality.
SJ: Very interesting, that’s great. It seems that your relationship with Laurie Williams greatly influence your writing
of Big Love, True Love and First Love. Do you think it’s possible to distinguish between our personal life and our art
or do you think these things are conflated?
CM: Well, I do think it’s possible to distinguish between the two, but obviously they invade each other all the time,
SJ: I have a few questions now from parts of our creative team. Our director specifically wanted me to ask you for
three of your favorite things. What is your favorite cocktail, your favorite Italian dish and your favorite sex position?
CM: laughing Hmm.
SJ: laughing This is from our director Paul Kalina.
CM: Uh huh. Well. My favorite cocktail is a cup of tea.
What was the second one?
SJ: Italian dish.
CM: Italian dish. Oh gosh, this is too difficult.
SJ: laughing I’m putting you on the spot, I’m sorry!
CM: Yeah. Well, I would say it would have to be at least two or three different dishes. So, it would be ravioli,
penne, and more ravioli, I guess.
SJ: Okay.
CM: and favorite sexual position, I can’t think of one that isn’t my favorite.
SJ: laughing I think that can be an answer. Wonderful. So, our Professor in Voice is helping some of the actors with
vocal technique and Bella with her accent, her lovely Italian accent. She was wondering about the format of the play
on the page. She was interested in the idea that it looks as if it’s written in verse. She wonders if an actor could use
this format in a specific way when delivering the text, if you had any ideas about writing it in a verse-like style or if
it’s more open to interpretation.
CM: Well, it open to interpretation, but it’s not supposed to be verse really it’s just
It’s just the way I
Think and feel
As you hear me talking on the phone
I get to the end of a phrase and
Sometimes in the idle of it
I stop
To think
And that’s a new line
And so
If every time you stop to
Take a breath or
Think about what your next word will be or
Change your mind about something
Or have
A secondary thought or a contradictory thought
That’s another line
So I think of those lines of text as being just the way we think and speak.
Or the way that particular character thinks and speaks.
SJ: The actor playing Gulliano had an interesting question. He was interested in the way things materialize in this
play. They seem to materialize out of nowhere. The 50 sisters suddenly arrive. The Grooms die suddenly and Bella
becomes the judge suddenly. They all materialize in this very exciting way. Do you have any thoughts on these
quick shifts in the play?
CM: Well I think that’s like life. Things just happen in life sometimes. When we talk about it we think we can
understand cause effect, cause effect, cause effect. And we think we can impose that logic on life or reconstitute a
description of life that is rational and can be explained in that way. But sometimes Mt Vesuvius erupts and that’s
just what happens.
SJ: I have one last question for you that is the combination of a couple of actors ideas. What do you think the end of
the play tells us? Is there hope for love? Can it really be achieved? Maybe you don’t need to answer that question
but it is something we are all really interested in. What is love and can it be achieved? We were wondering your own
personal opinion.
CM: My opinion is yes. I think that the play… I’m kind of a big believer as a playwright in not handing the answers
to an audience, but handing things to think about. And so I think at the end, it’s up to the audience to think, is real
love possible? Maybe the odds are pretty bad, and lots of us are going to get killed, but maybe one couple comes out
of this. Or, are they going to stay together? So I think that’s up to the audience, it’s not up to me.