The New Yorker Radio Hour - Alan Alda, Podcaster

Episode Date: June 24, 2022

Alan Alda spent his early years in the burlesque theatres where his father, the actor Robert Alda, would perform. Those early years opened his eyes in more ways than one: “I was very aware of the naked women,” he told The New Yorker’s Michael Schulman, “but I was also aware of the comics.” Watching from the wings, Alda grew an appreciation for being funny, being creative, and being present. He put those skills to use for eleven years on “M*A*S*H” and in dozens of other performances on stage and screen—recently, as a divorce lawyer for Adam Driver’s character in “Marriage Story.” But it was only later in life that Alda realized his skills might be useful in another arena: science. Alda made it his crusade to help scientists communicate their ideas to a broad audience. “What occurred to me,” Alda told Schulman, “was that if we trained scientists starting from actually improvising, they would be able to relate to the audience the way they were relating to me.” He hosted a series of science programs and founded the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University. He also started a podcast. On “Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda,” Alda interviews luminaries from the fields of science, politics, and entertainment, drawing on his training to make their specialist knowledge accessible to listeners. Interviewing, he thinks, isn’t unlike performing with a scene partner: “You have to relate to the other person,” says Alda. “You have to observe the other person. You have to be watching their face, their body and language” to determine what it is the guest “really means.” Plus, if you’re still looking for something for the kids to do this summer, have you considered Horse Camp? A comedy sketch by Emily Flake and Sarah Hutto.  New Yorker Radio Hour listeners, we want to hear from you.  We have a few questions about the show and how you listen to it. The survey takes about twenty minutes, and your feedback will help us make our podcast better.  Take the survey here.

This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. This is The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. So here's a little bit of TV trivia. What was the highest rated episode of any scripted TV series ever? And here's a clue. It aired almost 40 years ago. Pretty easy, right? The finale of MASH. Alan Alder directed that episode, and he starred as Hawkeye Pierce on the show during its 11. year run. Whenever I see a big pair of feet or a cheesy mustache, I'll think of you.

Whenever I smell mucked old socks, I'll think of you. And the next time somebody nails my shoe to the floor, somebody gives me a martini that tastes like lighter fluid. But let's put nostalgia aside. Alan Alda has been extremely busy as an actor over the decades since MASH. He was in everything from the West Wing to 30 Rock, and he was in the recent film, Marriage story, playing a divorce lawyer for Adam Driver's character.

He was also in a Tony Award-winning production of Glenn Gary Glenn Ross, the David Mammett play, and more. Staff writer Michael Schulman, who covers arts and entertainment for the New Yorker, has watched Alan Alda's career evolve over the years. The more I looked into his life story, there's so much breadth in what he's done. He was a major activist in the feminist movement in the 70s. He created an institute at Stony Brook for helping scientists communicate. And he has this podcast, clear and vivid now at 86, where he interviews scientists and politicians and artists and actors and all sorts of people. And he, you know, he really has this kind of ravenous, curious intellect as well as being the Alan Alda that we all know and love from TV and movies. Shulman sat down recently with Alda to talk about his life and his more recent role as an interview host on TV and on his podcast.

Do you have a kind of guiding philosophy for interviewing? Yeah, I do. And it comes out of the hundreds of interviews I did on Scientific American Frontiers, TV show on PBS. And that is to have as much as I can to have a genuine conversation, not ask them questions, that I prepared in advance. But it should come out of curiosity, genuine curiosity, because that opens the other person up. I realized when I was doing Scientific American Frontiers

that I was making use of things I had learned as an improviser and as an actor. Do you have an example of that, of how improvisation has helped you communicate with people who have nothing to do with acting? Improvising requires relating. I'm not talking about comedy improvisers. I'm talking about improvising based on the work of viola Spolen.

She made a real contribution to theater in the country and acting. And you have to relate to the other person. You have to observe the other person. You have to be watching their face, their body language, because from that, you find out what they're saying really means. And if you're paying that kind of attention, you're not worried about how you're doing so much. And when I would be talking to the scientists on the science show,

took them out of lecture mode and put them in conversational mode. Well, I do want to ask you about helping scientists communicate because it's obviously a real passion of yours. Were you seeing a problem with scientists that you wanted to help solve? It didn't occur to me that there was a problem to be solved. What occurred to me was if we trained scientists starting from actually improvising, if they would be able to do, if they would be able to relate, if they would be able to relate to the audience the way they were relating to me.

Can you give me an example of an improv exercise that you did with scientists and where to help teach them? One of the most basic things for me is the mirror exercise. It's you and I do it. You'll be my mirror. Does it work on Zoom? Yeah, well, there's a little bit of a lag on Zoom, so it's not that easy. Okay. you're my mirror, it's just like the Harpo Marx mirror, no matter what I do, you have to

instantaneously do the same thing. There's no echo. Now, did you see what just happened there? What happened? Why weren't you able to keep up with me? Was I not concentrating? No, because I went too fast. And what you learn when you do this is it's your responsibility to help the other person be the mirror. You're helped to learn how to pay it to. attention to the other person and to recognize that it's your job to help them follow you. I was reading your first book, Never Have Your Dog Stuffed, and there was a line that I really liked. You write, I was curious from the first moments, not as a pastime, but as a way to survive. Can you explain kind of what you meant by that?

I don't know the whole context, but it probably has something to do with the fact that my mother unfortunately was schizophrenic and paranoid. And I had to decode her reality to figure out what actual reality was. She would see things that weren't there. She'd assume people she was being spied on. And I remember from a very early age, noticing her depression and wondering what it was all about. I mean, like four or five. And I was curious, but I think, I think I was maybe a little extra curious because I had to figure out what was happening. What did people mean when they said things, especially her? You know, your childhood is so different than what I think people might assume.

You know, you've always had this kind of decency and goodness that you radiate as an actor. But in your book, you describe your father working in these seedy burlesque nightclubs and he and his friends shooting craps. And I just think that's so different than what, how people are. might imagine Alan Alda as a child. Well, it's not the polar opposite of being decent. There was no indecency that I was aware of, just a lot of nakedity. Nakedity?

And a lot of laughing and a lot of choking. As you know, from reading that book, I was in the wings watching burlesque shows from the time I was two or two and a half. And I was very aware of the naked women. but I was also aware of the comics, and I watched their sketches, and sometimes as a joke, they put me in the sketch, this little kid. I think that's how I learned about the theater. That's how I learned acting is from watching on the side.

Well, I learned from reading the book that your father was the original Skymasterson in Guys and Dolls on Broadway, which is incredible. Luck be a lady tonight. Yeah, stood in the wings and watched that every Saturday in two shows. So how old were you? I was about 15, 16. How nice a dame you can be. I mean, guys and dolls, I have to tell you, I was in guys and dolls in high school.

I was Harry the Horse. So I would love to hear about that original production. What do you, what do you learn watching from the wings? What did you observe? First of all, I knew my father so well. I could see how he used himself in his playing that character. The difference between him and the character was instructional to me. And even better than that was watching Sam Levine,

who was a very spontaneous actor. And I really value spontaneity. Say the exact same words every night standing in the same place but it would come out of him differently every night to such an extent that he would sometimes get a laugh in a different place tonight from where it came last night. That's really unusual. He was Nathan Detroit? Yeah. That's the part I wanted, but didn't get. That's a great part. Did you want to be the kind of actor that your father was? No, I didn't want to. Interestingly, I was always more competitive with my father than he was with me. He was very gentle with me and thoughtful and almost never tough on me.

Did you ever completely slip up and forget a line on stage? Well, everybody does once in a while. But I loved improvising so much as a young actor. I would just love it if somebody forgot to make an entrance, which has happened. And you're on stage all by yourself. Now the play belongs to you. Whatever you say or don't say or whatever you do, that's the play. So one of your breakout roles in the 60s was in The Owl and the Pussycat on Broadway,

this comedy about an aspiring novelist and his neighbor who's a prostitute played by Diana Sands. I'd love to hear about that experience. Was it fun? It was fun. It was an interesting experience rehearsing that. We rehearsed only for three weeks. and the director who was Arthur Storch had us reading at the table for more than two weeks. We never got up.

And when we did get up, he said, put the script down and play the script as much as you can remember it and move wherever you feel like it. It was almost an improvisation. What was interesting about that was we weren't learning the words so much as we were learning the intentions.

We were learning what was happening. We were learning the emotions and the exact words to put that in the author had chosen could come later. But first, you had the impulse. And so there was a lot of energy in the show that you get when you arrive at something through improvisation. So I really enjoyed that very much. Dan and I were a little competitive with each other. It was only a two-character play, and each one of us was trying to take the stage away from the other. And the result of that was we were watching each other like Hawks. And we got a lot of praise for ensemble acting.

when what we were doing was the opposite of unsopped lightning. And then you were in the Broadway musical The Apple Tree, directed by Mike Nichols. What about his direction stuck in your mind? You know, it's funny. It comes right on the heels of what we just were talking about. Barbara Harris and I were rehearsing a scene. And Mike said, you know, you're not relating to each other much at all. He said, you kids think relating is the icing on the cake.

It's the cake. And that put into words what I was learning and that has sort of become foundational for me. Not just in my work as an actor, but in all this other stuff we've been talking about, the podcast, communicating all kinds of things. Yeah, you know, it sounds easy to be spontaneous, but it's probably the hardest thing in the world. I think you can see when you watch acting. into which not a lot of time has been able to be put, and people are pretty much getting their lines out. Whereas in life and in exciting theater,

people don't talk, don't behave, rather. People don't behave in a certain way without being made to behave that way by the other people or by the drive that's in them that's forcing them to do certain things. usually it's you're ignited by the other person not because it's in the script. You see it a lot in the procedural police television shows

where you know they've got to get 12 closeups of 12 people in a room and they're saying things like maybe he did it at 4 o'clock. No, the freeway was closed at 4 o'clock. Maybe he did it at 3 o'clock. And they're not really talking to one another. They're not saying, it because it's on the page. Well, you, of course, played the same character, Hawkeye on MASH for 11 years.

I'm curious, was it difficult over that incredible span of time to maintain the level of freshness and spontaneity that you're talking about? I think there were probably dips. One of the ways, the process we developed off-camera while we were waiting to do the shots. You know, you have to wait while they light. the set, sometimes an hour or two hours. And instead of going back to our dressing rooms, most of the time we sat around in a circle of chairs and made fun of each other.

And that laughing together, stories, just relating to one another. Having a little party, a little get-together gave us a connection that when they called us to the set, we still had, and we just continued it. into the scene, but using the dialogue of the scene. While you're writing, make note of the fact that thanks to the failure of the world's various elected heads, not to mention just plain dictators, to keep a cold war from turning hot, I am forced to operate alongside a surgeon who can't trim his toenails without committing malpractice.

I reset that. How do you know he meant you? Sometimes we would keep talking while they were calling for quiet on the set. to the clapper board, and just before the first line of dialogue, we get quiet. I remember one or two times where that actually happened, and it sounds undisciplined, but it was a discipline of a different kind. We were keeping the connection going. What you're describing sounds a lot like the camaraderie of the characters in the show. These are doctors working in a really dangerous, uncertain environment,

and all they really have is each other's company. Yeah, and there were nothing. was I'm sure that none of us ever experienced anything like what the people in real mass units had to go through. But we had long days that were exhausting. 12-hour days was common, sometimes 14-hour days. Alan Alda, the actor and interview host on television and podcasting. He's speaking with the New Yorkers Michael Shulman and will continue with him in a moment. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. Welcome back.

I'm David Remnick. Recently, our staff writer Michael Shulman spoke with Alan Alda. Alda became a household name as a star of MASH, a hugely popular show about an American hospital operating near the front lines

during the Korean War. But the show premiered during the fighting in Vietnam, and it struck a broadly pacifist tone that affected how a lot of Americans were seeing that war. Here's the New Yorker's Michael Shulman with Alan Alda.

I was curious thinking about MASH, you know, we've seen so many images over the last year of war, of really horrible atrocity, whether in Afghanistan or Ukraine. And I was curious if you feel like your experience doing MASH has affected how you think about those images and think about war in general. I don't think so. I think I started out having really negative opinions about war. You know, I was a little boy during World War II, watching war movies. I had a piece of cardboard with the silhouettes of American planes and Japanese planes, and I would always watch the skies to see if we were being invaded by Japanese pilots.

And we played war games in the backyards. And as I got older and I got to think about what it would be like to kill somebody. or get shot at myself, I developed a real distaste for it. Yeah, I mean, MASH was so brilliant at combining the terror of war and comedy, and it makes me think a bit about Vladimir Selensky, who, of course, was a sitcom actor and is now the president of a country at war and has been praised as an incredible communicator.

What if you observed about him? I watched his show and I was really interested to see what an amazing experience it was to watch the show where a high school teacher becomes a president, the president of a country. And then the guy who plays that part becomes the president of the country, almost mirroring the story of the theatrical play. But the other experience was looking at modern, beautiful cities that now are in rubble and wondering how many of the cast are either afraid for their lives or maybe already dead. I never had an experience watching an entertainment like that. On a completely different note, I wanted to ask you about your involvement in Free to Be You and Me in the 70s, which was, of course, this children's album, and TV special created by Marlowe Thomas. And it's such an incredible project

because children are still bombarded with so much gender stereotyping, and it told people that they really don't have to follow those conventions. But why was that important to you at the time? Well, I was a very vocal feminist, mainly in the effort to get the Equal Rights Amendment passed. And I spent about 10 years really, devoting most of my time to that one.

I wasn't shooting or writing. Yeah, weren't you called an honorary woman? I kind of regret that because menopause was horrible. But you'll live longer. That's true. I never thought of it that way. I mean, I can't think of very many other major public figures who are men who went out of their way to identify themselves as feminists. I mean, what kind of reaction did you get at the time?

I think at first, Phil Donahue, by the way, was very active. I think at first nobody minded it. It was sort of a curiosity that a man was speaking out about feminism. But to me, it seemed like fairness to both sexes, beneficial to both sexes. Why take half the population for any reason and tell them they're not entitled to participate in the culture? Then there was a reaction against it that it didn't. It didn't seem manly enough or it was wimpy or something like that. And stuff like that goes away.

Yeah, I mean, it's interesting. There's so much talk now about how to be a good ally, whether to women or people of color. And I think people are still really trying to grapple with how to be a good ally. But it seems like you saw the value in that really early. Yeah, and it was welcomed. And I was glad. I was glad to be able. to help in whatever way I could.

I think accepting the help of allies is a good idea, as long as the allies are sincere and get the point, which is not always that easy to do. And the people on the ground tend to understand what's needed more than the people in the tower. So you really have to be willing to listen if you want to be an ally. Yeah, the feminist movement of the 70s was so foundational.

And with this whole Supreme Court opinion on Roe v. Wade, it just feels like that era has been betrayed in some huge way. And that 50 years later, it's slipping backwards so much. How do you feel about what's been happening right now? I think it's awful. And it's not clear that it's going to stop here. What do you think that the role of men should be now in this fight for reproductive rights? Personal outrage and encouragement of the outrage of the women around them.

Can I also ask you about a few years ago you revealed that you have Parkinson's disease? How are you doing? Surprisingly well. It was seven years ago that I was diagnosed. and I have a tremor, which means that I can play any character as long as it has a tremor. So that's okay. So, I mean, given your interest in science, has the science of Parkinson's disease interested you at all? I mean, do you look at it that way? Like, what's happening with my nervous system?

What's happening with my body? Does that give you any sort of comfort, or is that an area of interest? for you as you deal with it personally? One of the things that I wish people knew more about was when you first get diagnosed, it's really important to do a Parkinson's-based therapy, physical therapy, right away as soon as possible. It's interesting.

I really wanted to know if I had it. I read an article by Jane Brody in The Times that talked about people who acted out their dreams often turned out to have Parkinson's, and I had had a couple of experiences like that. In one case, they're usually violent dreams. I was being attacked by somebody, and I threw a sack of potatoes at them to fend them off.

And in reality, what I was doing was throwing a pillow at my wife, Arlene. That kind of acting out of your dream can be an early symptom. Not so well known. So was that one of the first things that you noticed? Yeah. Wow. I went to a neurologist and said, I'd like to take a scan to see if I have Parkinson's. And he said, he gave me a routine physical examination and said, you can have the scan if you want, but I'm telling you, you don't show any signs of Parkinson's. Took the scan, and he called me up and he said, boy, you really got it.

Oh, my gosh. But that's good. That gave me a chance to start doing something about it. Has having Parkinson's changed your sense of what you want to do with your work? I don't think so. I think it limits what I can do to some extent. So my job is to find out how I can get the most done within the limits that are set for me. But I'm just pragmatic about it. I think of it as a part-time job. Well, thank you so much for talking with me, Alan. I've really enjoyed it. Well, thank you. And thank you.

a fun conversation. I appreciate it. The New Yorkers Michael Schulman spoke with Alan Aldo. There's more from their conversation at New Yorker.com. Thanks for joining us this week. And just one last thing. It's the end of June. And if you're still desperately looking for something for your kids to do, here's a helpful tip, courtesy of Emily Flake and Sarah Huddo.

Are you sick of going to camp without horses? Are you tired of experiencing a horse-free summer? doing horseless activities? What if we told you that your days could be horse-filled? I love horses! Well, then come to horse camp! Here at horse camp, you'll start off every day in our communal horse tent, where we open our morning with a meditation next to horses.

That sounds kind of cool. And then we go horseback riding? After our horse-side meditation, we enjoy a fun-filled morning of arts and horse crafts. Oh, so we like make crafts having to do with horses? No, we set up craft tables for campers adjacent to a craft table for the horses. Are you saying the horses actually do the crafts? Not at all. Mostly they just eat the paste and knock the table over. Oh, so then do we ride the horses?

After that, we go on a nature walk in the woods. On the horses? We ride the horses in the woods, right? We lure the horses into the woods with peanut butter. and then we just sort of let them roam around and trample the foliage. When do we ride them, though? Once one of our staffers did try to ride a horse, but they got kicked in the skull, so now we just hang out near the horses without mounting them. Wait, what?

What kind of horses are these? Well, these are non-riding horses, feral horses that are hostile to human touch, but they are mostly tolerant of us being 20 feet or so away from them. No one has been fatally injured so far. How did you even get these horses? Ooh, the horses do not belong to us. Our camp is located nearby to, but definitely legally not on, the county's only dedicated wild horse preserve.

But I really want to ride and groom the horses? Uh-huh. Next up, archery. Witness the majesty of the kind of stampede that only the use of flaming arrows can spark. That sounds like animal abuse. Then it's time for a music hour. You've heard that music soothes the savage beast. Turns out it doesn't work on horses.

But our stunning rendition of wildfire does. seem to lift human spirits. Doesn't the horse in that song die? Then a pony ride. Wait, what? We've contracted with a local riding stable for the use of one of their domesticated ponies. And by contracted with, we mean their staff goes home at the end of the day and the ponies are left unattended. But won't the ponies be sleeping? They're surprisingly easy to waken. That seems like it would put them in a pretty bad mood. What better time to bond with a horse than under the cloak of night? Horses aren't nocturnal. But they do sleep standing up. Plus, These are Shetlands. Easy to mount.

You can't ride a Shetland. Not for long, no. Horse Camp. Camp, but for doing stuff near horses. The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Merrill Garbus of Tune Arts, with additional music by Alexis Quadrado. And we had original music this week by Alex Barron. Horse Camp was written by Emily Flake and Sarah Huddo,

and performed by Dylan Dawson and Ava. Briglia. This episode was produced by Alex Barron, Emily Boutin, Ave Carillo, Breda Green, Calilea, David Krasnow, Louis Mitchell, and Gophane and Putabwele, with help from Allison McAdam, David Gable, Harrison Keithline, Alex Barish, Victor Gwan, and Monfei Chen. We had additional help this week from Michael May. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Cherina Endowment Fund.