Director's Notes From Jeff Daniels
The Writing of Panhandle Slim & The Oklahoma Kid
March 26, 2008
February 25th was my deadline. That was the last possible day I could turn in the Summer Play. Good, bad, or ugly, something with my name on it had to hit Guy Sanville's desk. Decisions had to be made, not the least of which was whether I had written something worthy of hitting our stage. Believe it or not, I don't dictate what plays of mine get produced. Thankfully, some haven't.
As for this particular effort, I have probably written no less than six versions over the past ten years. For all of those valiant efforts, not a thing was gained. Every single one of them was a train wreck. The idea was there, but something was missing. Sometimes, a lot of things were missing. This past November, the last failed attempt was even read aloud. After the final page was turned, the best thing Guy could say was, "It needs a lot of work".
Before I could commit hari-kari on my playwrighting career, I went off to LA to shoot a film. Thought about the play. Came home and performed the Unplugged Shows. Thought about it some more. Went on a three week music tour for most of January. Lotta miles and a lot more thinking. In February, I returned to Michigan.
Lanford Wilson talks about coming to a place where your play writes itself. Until now, I never knew what that meant. I think it's this: when it works, when it really works, when you finally realize you've tapped into that elusive private paradise where only your Art resides, you will have arrived there only by doing the hardest thing any playwright with a deadline can do: listening to your characters.
In this play, my characters led the way. They spoke to each other, fed me information, held things back, stopped me when I veered off, and every time I was stuck in yet another corner full of dramatic conflict, they quietly helped me write my way out. They took me to my ending and before I knew it, had showed me what it was I had been trying to write for the past ten years.
On February 25th, I turned in Panhandle Slim & The Oklahoma Kid. Guy made some wonderful suggestions that made the play better, more theatrical. A couple days later, we held another reading and when that final page turned, everyone knew we had a Summer Play. Before he left my office, I remember saying to Guy, "I don't know who wrote this." That's not true. I know damn well who wrote it.
And it wasn't me.
Back in Rehearsals
January 27, 2007
On February 20th, I start rehearsals in New York for BLACKBIRD. This is the first play I've done since performing on Broadway in Lanford Wilson's REDWOOD CURTAIN in 1993. Back then, I remember wondering - all right, worrying - that perhaps having done so many movies that doing the same show every night would prove difficult. How would I be able to make it look like it's happening for the first time? In film, you shoot a scene in a day and move on, never to repeat it again. In the theatre, however, the threat of redundancy reigns.
I needn't have been concerned. Part of what I was taught at the Circle Repertory Company in New York and what we preach and practice at the Purple Rose is how to make it happen for the first time. For an actor, one of the easiest traps in which to fall is to accept the fact that the words the person across the stage is saying are from a script. You already know what they're going to say, how they're going to say it, not to mention how the play ends. For an actor, that's death. The trick is to not know any of that. So how do you do that?
You learn the script until it's second nature. Then forget it. All of it. Except for the first line of the play. You're going to need that to get yourself onstage. Once you're out there, listen. Listening will cause you to react - not act - and that's what separates the good from the great. To do that, you cannot know what happens next. Even though you do.
And now if you'll excuse me, I have lines to learn.
Return to Escanaba
July 28, 2006
Writing the prequel was like putting on a pair of your old, favorite shoes. For years, I wasn't interested. Never even thought about it. Once I started writing it, though, it flew.
I think having already established the tone with the original play, it was just a matter of going back into that world, hearing their voices. I never intended to write a companion piece to Escanaba In Da Moonlight. It was written with the intention it would stand alone. It wasn't until about three years ago that I got the idea to write a prequel. It's been eleven years since I wrote the original. Over the years, I'd jotted down some ideas, but had other things I wanted to write and never really thought seriously about it.
Then, a little over a year ago, though, I pulled out a half finished outline for Escanaba In Love, read through it and, in a burst of creativity playwrights live for, I outlined the rest of the story and was writing it by the next morning. It was like, "Write this. Now." It was the first time in ten plays where I simply tried to keep up with their voices.
Even though this play takes place over fifty years earlier with completely different characters, it was as if they were already established, waiting for me. What's big with me, too, is wanting to spend time with the characters I'm writing. I need to stay interested in them, otherwise, forget it. I mean, if you're going to be in my head for many, many months, I have to want to be with you. The thing is, with the Soadys, I never wanted to leave.
Welcome
What do you do if you're a young actor in a small Midwestern town and the artistic director of one of the most prestigious theatres in New York City asks you to join their company? If you're like me, you hop on the first bus to Manhattan.
The chance to become a member of Marshall W. Mason's Circle Repertory Company was a classic case of being in the right place at the right time. Looking back on it, I can honestly say that had I not had Marshall and Lanford Wilson and their wonderful theatre, I would not have had a career. Or The Purple Rose.
Years later, after moving back home to Michigan, I bought an old bus garage in the small town of Chelsea with the dream of creating a Midwestern answer to Circle Rep. I wanted a professional theatre company, featuring Midwestern actors, directors, designers and playwrights, situated in the middle of America, producing plays about the middle of America. People, of course, thought I was an idiot. From the local critics who wanted the latest shows from New York starring my "movie star friends" to the townspeople who thought Art was someone who lived out by the highway, no one could understand what I was trying to do. It made no sense. Except to all those local actors, directors, designers, and especially playwrights, who call the Midwest their home.
In case you haven't noticed, the New American Play can't get a cup of coffee in New York. It seems to me that if the American Theatre is to remain vital it must produce American plays, and it can only do that by supporting, nurturing, and developing American playwrights. Period. Just like Circle Rep did.
That's what we do here at The Purple Rose and we love it. So click onward. Check us out. And if you happen to be in our corner of the country, stop by and see us. You might just see something original.