WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 898 - David Mamet

Episode Date: March 14, 2018

David Mamet's love for Chicago shows up all the time in his works, including his new novel which is called, yup, Chicago. The prolific playwright-director-novelist-screenwriter talks with Marc about his Chicago roots and how he learned a lot about drama by watching the improv actors at Second City. They also talk about David's theories on acting (very few are good at it), William H. Macy (one of the very few), Eugene O'Neill (he wasn't that great), Shakespeare (he was),  and marriage (you can take a mulligan on the first one). Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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A city that's innovative, inclusive, and creative. And they're helping put Calgary and our innovation ecosystem on the map as a place where people come to solve some of the world's greatest challenges. Calgary's on the right path forward. Take a closer look out at calgaryeconomicdevelopment.com. all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fucking ears what the fucksters what's happening what the fucking ucks where's everybody at how you doing what's going on everything all right today you'll hear me talk to David Mamet. And there was some stuff going on with me that day. Before I forget, I also want to tell you that our friend Brian Jones has a new batch of cat mugs that you can get.

These are the hand-thrown ceramic mugs that I give to my guests. They've got the original cat logo artwork from our buddy Dima. Classics. guests they've got the original cat logo artwork from our buddy Dima uh classics you can go to brian r jones.com slash shop to get yours brian r jones.com slash shop uh for the new cat mugs he always does a little bit of a twist on them they're all unique every one of them and each batch seems to be unique I got a thing for ceramics. And I like ceramics. I like practical ceramics. I actually went to a place down on Eagle Rock Boulevard that never looked open. Some sort of ceramic studio.

And hoped that I could find some large bowls and things to put on tables and surfaces in my new house. But I did not find anything. Ceramics is tricky. It's hard to find the right ceramic art. I met someone after the show in Pasadena who is a ceramicist, a thrower of pots, a thrower of plates, a thrower of clay, a wheel worker. I got to get back to her and see if there's anything there that I want to get. Yeah, I've stalled out. I've stalled out, folks. Like the garage is starting to be moved piecemeal.

I'm going to leave some of it intact for when I show the house. And I'm still working in here. I'm still stalled. I've stalled over at the other place. There's things that need to be done I'm not doing. Yeah, I'm just not. I've got to reengage with the process of doing my house over there or else I'm just going to be living in a half-done house, sort of half-empty.

It'd be sad. It'd be a sad story. A sad story of a guy that made the big move and realized he's more like a cat in a box than a guy that relishes and excites in the space, more space situation. Spending a lot of time in the den, which is the only room that is really kind of thoroughly done over there at the new place. It's basically a scale replica of my living room at this house. And that's where I'm doing a lot.

There's the guitars, the records are in there, and the TV. Yeah, I got to get going. I got to do some stuff, it's gotta happen so david mamet is here i mean that was a that was a pretty big day for me yeah yeah i find him intimidating and you know politically he's a bit over the top in terms of uh and i try to stay away from that and keep it but also he's into me you know his opinions about theater and about acting are also kind of provocative and i was well i was a little ill so mammoth has a novel out that quite honestly i did not have time to read all of it because i figured i could talk to david mamet about other things like

writing plays writing screenplays directing uh acting there was plenty to talk to him about what i did not anticipate was that i would be ill the day that it happened it was in the middle of my sickness i didn't want to cop to it i didn't really want to get him sick i didn't know how sick i really was but i needed to go through with it i needed i needed i it's not right but he was coming all the way from here's the deal he was coming all the way from fucking like santa monica and i woke up that morning and i'm like i'm a little i'm a little not right i'm a a little feverish, I think, even. But I didn't really know how to get through to him because I think we did it on a weekend, even, if that's possible. I think it was a weekend.

Was it? I think it was. Maybe a Saturday. And there was no way. There was no way for me to get to him. He probably already left. Maybe it was a Friday. I don't know.

It was early. Whatever the case, I decided to soldier through and not let on. And I got in here and I was very woozy. And quite frankly, I started sweating profusely during the first 15 or 20 minutes where I had to dab my face with a Kleenex with a dishrag I brought in here. I brought a dishrag with me to dab my face because I was dripping sweat. I don't know if he noticed or he thought I was nervous or what, but I felt bad and I hope he didn't get sick. And also, I like Mamet's writing a lot. There's a couple of screenplays that he's written that I love.

I remember seeing American Buffalo with Al Pacino in Boston. And I just was blown away by it. And Glenn Ross, who doesn't love that play? And also I was sort of fascinated with him too because my first ex-wife was a student at the Atlantic Company. And I remember reading the handbook for actors and reading, writing in restaurants, which I was in Harvard Square.

I remember buying it when I was, this was before I was married actually when I read writing in restaurants, which, you know, I was in Harvard Square. I remember buying it when I was, this was before I was married, actually, when I read writing in restaurants that I liked his concise sort of way of writing. And I liked some of the thoughts he had philosophically, but I was sort of at odds with him about acting. And then when my wife was enrolled in the Atlantic, you know, just the way that it was very practical, everything's very practical. And I just realized that, you know, he's got this disposition.

He's sort of a a worker you know a sort of you know alpha jew kind of you know work you know you just kind of sit down you do it you just do it you know say the lines you write the sentence so i found him to be sort of impressive and very different than me i'm not making any excuses but but I was sweaty and a bit lethargic. But I was excited to talk to David Mamet, and I think we got along all right. I even reached out to his old friend Jonathan Katz, the comedian who you know as Dr. Katz, who I've had on this show here before just to sort of get a pulse, get a sense, get an insight. But ultimately, it is what it is, and I enjoy talking to David Mamet.

So, yeah, I just remember, man, going to see that production of Al Pacino in American Buffalo, and there's some things about plays, and I talked to Tracy Letts about it. It's like, where does it come from? Where does the language, what is the flow? How does does that happen does it all mean something does it not you know how does theater work how does a play work i you know i never written one i i i wrote one i wrote i wrote a one act many years ago but it was straight up shtick i wrote it with steve brill going down it was called it

was about to some aliens who come down to earth to find the new jesus you know it was what it was it was mostly jokes there are these fantasies i have that you know i'll write a play or i'll write a movie and it seems like why not do it do you know i'm at a level where maybe i could get it done maybe maybe not maybe i i'm too scared i'm too vulnerable or i'm too like you know you don't want to put it out there but i don't know if that's it i really just think it's about being daunted by following through with the task shouldn't there be joy in it i'm not sure man there's nothing but struggle in the creativity that i've experienced there's joy when things work or come to fruition or you know kind of start making sense or kind of come into the form starts to evolve.

Then you're like, Oh yeah, all those years of doing this shit. Look at that. Showing up, showing up in the output. Yeah, I'm going to do it.

I'm going to do something. You wait, I'm going to do something. But right now what I'm going to do is share my conversation with David Mamet with you. His new novel, Chicago, is available now wherever you get booked. You can get anything you need with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get an ice rink on Uber Eats.

But iced tea and ice cream? Yes. We can deliver that. Uber Eats. Get almost, almost anything. Order now. Product availability may vary by region. See app for details. Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization,

it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a Thank you. regulated category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. Thanks for watching. doing comedy in Boston, Harvard Square. I used to see you at the cigar store, working up top. What was the name of that place? I'm going to remember. It was two names. Leverton Pierce. Right. So I used to go in there and I'd see you working up there and I saw you walking around with these sunglasses on with those frames. And for 20 years I tried to find those fucking things because you were wearing them. Oh, thanks. And I ran into some guy at the Y here in LA that was wearing them.

I said, what the hell are those? And I don't know if they're the same, but these are the ones, but they're not quite the same, are they? No, but that's very much flattered. These guys were like my fifth iteration. I lost those guys, and I was devastated, and so I was at the synagogue, and I saw a guy who had these glasses on. Those ones. I can't find them the synagogue and I saw a guy who had these glasses on. Those ones.

I can't find him anymore. And he sent them to me. At synagogue. How often do you go to synagogue? Every week. Yeah? Yeah, sure. You know, it's interesting.

Where'd you grow up? You grew up in Chicago, right? Yeah. But how Jewish were you? We were kind of like Episcopal reform. I mean, it was extraordinary because my grandparents all came from Poland. Yeah. And my grandmother came from a little town called Hrubice.

And they were all Orthodox because the Eastern European Jews, that's all there was, was Orthodox. Right. The assimilationists, you know, they went to Germany. Right. And all of a sudden, they moved over here. you know they went to germany right and all of a sudden they moved over here and um my dad had us going to these it was called saint sinai by the lake yeah it was sinai temple yeah and uh the rabbi was called dr man yeah and i mean nobody wore a yarmulke let alone the talus anybody had shown up with a talus they would have burned them at the stake so that that was the reform, like the reform was already happening when you were a kid?

Very much, very much so. Reform movement? Yeah. That was Jews trying to pass. Yeah, it was Jews trying to pass, exactly so. But I read this book years later by a guy called Arthur Hertzberg called Jews in America, really great book. And what happened was my dad's father deserted the family, just left them.

So here they are, it's 1923, a single mother, two kids, the depression, not the depression, but she didn't even speak English very well. And she raised them all by herself and nobody ever spoke about it, just never mentioned. The old man just left. Just left. Yeah. So, Hertzberg says the dark secret of the Ashkenazi immigration was more than a quarter of the men just left. Is that true? Yeah.

Yeah. So, I ask other people and they say it's a common story, but nobody ever talked about it. So, the other thing he says was it was the men who took the kids to the synagogue. It wasn't the women. It was the men. Right. So, the men left. The kids didn the kids to the synagogue. It wasn't the women. It was the men. So the men left. The kids didn't get to the synagogue.

So the kids had no, when they came to this country, had no religious upbringing. Why'd they leave? I mean. They couldn't stand it. I mean, here they were. You know, they're burdened with a wife and several kids. They can't make a living. Nobody speaks English.

Oh, because they're immigrants, right? Yeah. Okay. So they were embarrassed. Shame. Shame and cowardice. I mean, I don't want to indict. Who knows?

Yeah, yeah. In any case. Indict your grandfather? Yeah. Yeah. Like, I was at some amusement park, and there's a guy with a sweatshirt. He said, I'm not a stepfather. I'm a father who stepped up.

Uh-huh. And, you know, those of us who have kids, you know, sometimes it's tough. But when you were growing, like how many kids in your family? There was me and my sister. And then we had a couple of stepchildren from the various families that we were farmed out to. Oh, really? Oh, yeah. So you come from a broken home?

Oh, yeah. It was shattered. Yeah. It was shattered. Yeah. It was interesting. But the other thing, talking about the Ashkenazi dads who left, was my parents got divorced in 1958. That didn't seem to happen in 1958. No, it didn't. Nobody knew.

I mean, it must have happened, but nobody ever spoke about it. Right, right. It was a huge shame, perhaps even a scandal in the Jewish community. So there was that to grow. Yeah. But like when, like, I guess I'm curious because I was brought up, you know, Jewish, conservative Jew. And I know that you made, you know, you changed your, you became more committed at some point.

Yeah. What was the catharsis that leads to that? Well, this is a very good question. The catharsis, my wife, Rebecca Well, this is a very good question. The catharsis was my wife, Rebecca. I got married to Rebecca about 91, right? Second wife. Second wife, right. Yeah.

And she, I call her my birth wife, okay? Why is that? Well, because I'm crazy about her. Oh, good. I don't know what I was doing the first time, but I did it. I got a couple nice kids out of it. Yeah. time but i did it i got a couple nice kids out of it so anyway so we and she's so her parents on a family on one side had been jewish yeah a couple generations back but they grew up dad's

a physicist and mom's a yoga teacher they grew up kind of nothing in edinburgh scotland you know no no religious affiliation whatever sure so she started questioning me about we're going to get married we're going to have a religious ceremony. And so coming from a completely assimilationist background, you know, and being a red diaper baby, I said, oh, why? She said, well, why not? So we started talking to a wonderful rabbi

named Larry Kushner outside of Boston. And he said, okay, Rebecca, you're going to convert immediately. And she said, well, Rebecca, you're going to convert immediately. And she said, well, wait a second, isn't it the Jewish tradition, because she reads everything, that the rabbi's supposed to pull with one hand and push with the other hand? He said, it may be the Jewish tradition, it's not my tradition. Right.

So you're going to convert, you're going to have a Jewish wedding. Right. So she converted? Yeah. So there we went on a pre-wedding trip we're in israel yeah and we were both studying from the you know i didn't read any hebrew at that time and we're both studying to for so because she was converting you got involved yeah because she went to a whole bunch of classes called which is a wonderful movement called jews by choice or or judaism for

for people who'd like to convert yeah learn about judaism so i go i started going to these classes called Jews by Choice or Judaism for People Who Like to Convert, Learn About Judaism. So I started going to these classes with her. I realized I didn't know a thing. And so then we started, Larry Kushner, such a great rabbi, we started going every week. She had her bar mitzvah. She, bat mitzvah, she, and so Larry Kushner said, you know, you'd be a lot happier if you learned how to read Hebrew. So we said, oh my gosh, you know, it's so difficult.

He said, no, it's really simple. Yeah. So we learned how to read the Hebrew and we got really interested in Judaism and in the Torah and in the language. Then we moved out here to Los Angeles and we met a complete genius guy named Mordecai Finley, who's our rabbi now. So we're crazy about him. And did you, but as a young man, when you were coming up, did you have a belief in God?

I don't know. That's a very good question. I don't know. I think I must have, because I started scratching the surface, and I said, I've kind of always understood that God exists. I questioned my own existence. I knew God was there. I questioned whether I've kind of always understood that God exists. I questioned my own existence. You know, I knew God was there. I questioned whether I was here.

And if I was here, why? You know, so the next question would be, what kind of a God, you know, on an off day would create somebody like me? So that was kind of my entry to religion. A classic existential question. I think so, yeah. You know, it's well documented. Yeah. So anyway, so we moved out here, and one of the reasons we moved is Larry Kushner left

the community of Sudbury outside of Boston, and we went to Abu Hu, you know, we ain't got a rabbi, so we moved out here, and everybody said, well, okay, there's this shul, there's this shul show that synagogue and then there's this other guy who's an ex-marine and a uh uh grew up in compton in a in a black neighborhood yeah uh and he's uh he's not like anything you've ever met before yeah so he said well okay let's check that out out. And you're at his temple? Yeah, so it's his temple. And is it Orthodox? Conservative? He calls it kind of neo-reformodox. But he's a very interesting guy.

He's really a Talmud Chacham. He knows all the literature inside out. And a lot of Israelis are there. Yeah. And after the morning study and so forth on Saturday, a lot of times he'll take them aside and he'll just talk to them in Hebrew. But he's a Hassid. Yeah. He's trying to figure out.

I always say that there's only one question in life, right? Right. And the question was formulated by the greatest of all philosophers, Daffy Duck. And the question is, say what's going on here anyway? In fact, I came out here to visit you in Yehoveh today, and I said, well, I got some time afterward. What's near here that I wouldn't go to regularly? And what'd you find?

Forest Lawn Cemetery. I thought, well, I should go and visit Mel Blanc's grave and put a stone on Mel Blanc's grave. Are you going over there? I might. Sure. Why not go to the source? So you grow up in Chicago and what starts, where does theater start for you?

I mean, where do you- Well, that's a great question. The first thing was my uncle, Henry, my dad's's brother was one of the two kids came over from russia in fact he was born in poland so you're russian polish yeah me too yeah from uh my grandmother used to call it the russian poland yeah which is also known as volhynia and it was the ukraine you know so one year would be russia next year to be poland right so on her passport and on my mother's side, on their passports, it says Warsaw, Russia. And on theirs it says Kubitsch. Yeah, Kubitsch, Russia.

So my uncle came back. He was in the armies. He was in the Battle of the Bulge. And he came back and he was an actor and blah, blah, blah. So he started working for the Chicago Board of Rabbis as their director of entertainment. Imagine that. Yiddish theater? No, it was like what they used to call the God ghetto.

It was 6.30 a.m. on Sunday morning, radio shows and television shows. Oh, really? And so my sister and I didn't have any actors, so my sister and I at age like seven, eight, nine, 10, started doing these shows for him, portraying Jewish children. Typecasting. Exactly. So, okay, so that's where you start show business. Yeah, absolutely.

I was a kid actor. Yeah, but what about when, you know, as you got older, what compelled you to start expressing yourself like, you know, through plays and whatnot? What did you start to see how it would work? Well, I think the answer was best given and most conclusively given by Stanislavski, who said, that's where the pretty girls are. Yeah. So there was that.

And so then I started off in what they called, at that point they called it community theater. In Chicago. In Chicago. You didn't get involved with the, because there's always a good tradition of improv and sketch and stuff there the second compass players second city well that was after that but i started getting involved with the community there's a guy called bob sickinger yeah who kind of worked at hull house and he created this magnificent theater you know instead of doing the house of bernardo alba and the women he was doing the brig and he was doing three penny opera it was fucking great alba and the women he was doing the brig and he was doing three penny

opera it was fucking great yeah yeah and then i became friendly with the family that owned second city in chicago and so i started as a kid like 15 16 working at second city as a bus boy so i'm working at second city and seeing you know three shows a night who was there then like at like who was there when you were a kid yeah so like i'll tell you who was there. It was Peter Boyle, David Steinberg, Fred Willard, Bob Klein, Mina Kolb, Judy Grobart, Bill Matthew played the piano, Fred Kass played the piano. And I'm going to forget a few, but they were great. That was Robert Klein? Yeah. He was there? I think it was his i

think it was his first gig wow yeah peter boyle so then it was the same it was improvisation comedic improvisation mostly yeah it was comedic improvisation so what they would do is you know they would they would uh a lot of the stuff they'd work up off stage and come up and so a lot of it was bait and switch they'd say to the audience give us an idea yeah and then the audience would say uh uh christ's burrow right and they'd remember they got a sketch that's something like that yeah but i so i was exposed to the whole idea of a seven minute scene with a payoff right which was extraordinarily uh um uh influential in me because that's what every scene's got to be yeah You know, if you look at what passes for

a lot of improv comedy now, some of it's pretty funny but it doesn't have a punchline. Right. So that- You mean like sketch comedy? Yeah.

Right. It just dwindles off. Yeah, like sketch comedy and like Saturday Night Live, they just dial it out. Yeah. But you can't write, but what Second City said,

they had to have an out. Yeah. That was the idea. You work in that, you got a beginning with the suggestion But you can't write what Second City said. They had to have an out. Yeah. That was the idea. You work in that. You got a beginning with the suggestion. Then you riff. And then you got to have an out.

Yeah, exactly. You got to get off stage. So that really taught me a lot about drama. Because if the scene doesn't have an ending, there's no reason to go on to the next scene. Right. The reason you go on to the next scene in a play is because the first scene didn't work. Yeah. Somebody found out something that made them go on to the next scene. Right.

You can't just have nothing happen. Yeah. Yeah. Then what's the point? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, before I forget, Jonathan Katz wanted me to ask you, how's your table game? Tell him it's none of his fucking business.

I don't know what that is, but I'll take it. Well, Jonathan Katz was in my first play I ever wrote. We were at college together, and I wrote a series of sketches influenced by Second City called Camel, and they featured Jonathan Katz. Really? So you knew Jonathan Katz in college? Oh, we knew him for 50 plus years. And you guys are still good? Oh, yeah.

Yeah, we talk every week. We text each other gags, jokes back and forth. Oh, that's been for 50 plus years. And you guys are still good? Oh yeah, we talk every week. We text each other gags, jokes back and forth. Oh, that's great. Yeah. Oh, so did Second City had that much of an impact on you that you structured some of your first theater stuff around that structure? Seven minute bits? Yeah, because I didn't know anything about a play, except the only thing I knew about

a play was most of the plays I saw at the Goodman Theater in Chicago were unwatchable bullshit. Like what? Like classic ones or just- Yeah, like classic ones, because they had, at that time in the 60s, there were two things happening, three things happening in Chicago. In the United States in theater, there was Broadway, and then there were the road companies of the Broadway shows. That was one.

The second was community theater, which is, you know, people getting together in amateur theatricals. And the third one was there were a couple of theaters that were cesspits of culture. Yeah. Which means what? Well, they did- Hippie shit? No, no.

Quite the contrary. Yeah. They did really accept- you know, it's like people go to the theater in Los Angeles, they go like they're going to the dentist. It's been six months, I really should go. Right, right. Like subscription people. Yeah. Old people. Yeah, so they're like 70-year-old gray old

Jews like myself, you know, who come and the guys are looking at their watch and the women are thinking about whatever, you know, they're thinking about. It's like a social responsibility. Exactly so. Yeah, yeah. Which is very much, I think, part of the Jewish tradition, because I don't think anybody but Jews goes to the theater,

very much in the Jewish tradition of reform. I'm going to do it, I hate it, but I'm going to do it because it's good for me. But there's something to be said for that. I don't think so, because it's my racket. Yeah. Right? That's my racket. I get it.

What I make a living from doing is keeping the asses in the seats. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Other people could do something else, like they could put on a play that say, do you like this play or do you hate black people? Do you like this play or do you hate gay people? You know?

That's a different racket. That's not what I do for a living. Right. I mean, I could do it, but it would be wrong. Well, I mean, the idea that people go, they force themselves to go to engage in culture because they think it's good for them is not a horrible thing. No, I disagree with you. I don't think it's a horrible thing.

I think it's not a happy thing. Oh, okay. Fine. I'll tell you, I used to love Robert Heinlein when I was a kid. I read all this science fiction. He wrote a book called Double Star about a guy. It's basically a prisoner of Zenda. It's about a guy who's pressed into service portraying the tyrant of a foreign galaxy to save the world.

He's got to be portrayed as a tyrant of a foreign galaxy. He's an actor. Right. In the year 3000. Yeah. And he says, my dad, he's talking about his dad is also an actor. He says, my dad could make the audience scream with laughter and weep in the space of 30 seconds. So, I read that. I'm 12 years old. I think, man, that's what I want to do.

And so, like, okay. So, that's what theater looked like in chicago at that time but there wasn't there also what year are we talking we're talking in the early 60s okay so things hadn't broken open yet like in terms of culturally there wasn't uh uh out there kind of experimental theater no but no they were doing eugene o'ill and nobody cared. I don't think anybody ever enjoyed looking at a Eugene O'Neill play. Did you ever? No. No? No.

I went to the Neighborhood Playhouse School of Theater in 1967, and Sanford Beister was running a theater. And he'd grown up in the group theater, so he grew up with the plays of Odette's. Odette's, yeah. Strasburg too? Group theater? No? Well, Strasburg had the theater across the town. Right.

It wasn't, it was just a studio. It's called the Actor's Studio. And both of them were kind of the dueling tubas of the group. Yeah. They were the babies of the group and they couldn't act. So like all people who can't act, they don't want to leave the theater, they became directors. Sure. And Strasburg became a teacher of the actor's studio.

Meisner became a teacher of the neighborhood playhouse. I would think you'd like Odette's. He's not bad. He's not bad. So what were you doing over there? You said you're in 67. Yeah, so I studied it. So we did all these scenes.

And we did the scenes from the plays that Meisner grew up with. You know, Odette's and Elmer Rice. And what else did we do? We did Paddy Chayefsky. You like him? Yeah, I like him very much. I knew him. I knew him pretty well.

Yeah? Yeah, in fact, Al Pacino called me a year ago, and he said he wanted to do a film version of The Middle of the Night, which is a play by Paddy Chayefsky, and it was made into a movie with Frederick March. Yeah. Kim Novick. So I read it.

I said, yeah, okay, I could do it, but actually, if you have the rights, I'm going to make it a little bit better. So I rewrote it. And so Al's supposed to do it now as a movie, I hope. Oh, really? It's going to happen?

I hope so, yeah. So basically, when you started getting into theater, you were pushing back against the tedium of what came before you. I don't know if I was pushing back against it. I'm sure you're the same. I could do anything in the world except be bored. I could not

fucking stand being bored. I never opened a school book in my life. You could have said the Nazis are going to kill your mom. I wouldn't have opened that fucking school book. I just could not stand being bored so when i found something that was exciting being in the theater yeah and having fun and making stuff up that was i think it's like honey i'm home i just think it's interesting that you came out of really out of comedic structure improv structure yeah that that it was about those beats and about, you know, the efficiency of it came from, you know, watching Second City in a way.

Exactly so. And so I've been doing a lot of thinking about it because, you know, when you... That's the reason that you shouldn't go to school to learn anything about drama because you're not going to. Because the only way you can learn about drama is from a paying audience.

Right. So you consider yourself... You need to make entertaining things yeah exactly so because if it's not entertaining i mean that's the only thing theater is good for is to entertain people doesn't change the world but but what but see but some people want to have that belief i mean some people there there's an idea that that theater has a place in culture that facilitates change and moves the dialogue further along, which I think you would agree with that part. No. No. I completely disagree. And those people who think that are lying.

Yeah. And here's how we know. Right? Here's how they know. When they get done and they come out of a theater and they've nodded along and they say, yes, it's really true, it changed my life. I guess people with cancer have rights too. Right. Then they go home. Yeah.

And what do they put on the television? I don't know. Kiss, kiss, bang, bang. Uh-huh. Right? They don't put on stories about moderately interesting things happening to moderately flawed people. They put on something which is exciting or funny.

People tell me about the poetry in The New Yorker. Yeah. They love the poetry in The New Yorker, some people. Yeah. So I say, oh, that's great. Quote me one line. Yeah. They can't do it.

Right. There's nothing there. They like saying they love the poetry of the New Yorker. Right. Well, they can like it and not remember it. No, absolutely not. You have to remember poetry if you like it. Yeah.

Yeah. Of course. If you can't quote me one line- From a poem in the New Yorker- Yeah, that you just read two days ago, what the fuck are we talking about? How did it have an impact on you then? It didn't. Right. Yeah. It just went in? Yeah, sure. Made you feel better- Yeah, that you just read two days ago. What the fuck are we talking about? How did it have an impact on you then? It didn't. Right.

Yeah. It just went in? Yeah, sure. Made you feel better? Yeah, that's right. What it is, it's a codependent relationship, right, of somebody who can't read with somebody who can't write. Yeah.

Yeah. So, when you started writing the plays that made you famous, you know, the early ones, like, what was your intention was solely to entertain? Absolutely. Because here's the thing. Yeah. Well, I had my own theater company, I think it was 21, 22 years old, me and Billy Macy

and Steve Schachter and Patty Cox. In Chicago? Well, first we started out in Vermont, we moved to Chicago. The Atlantic? No, that was before the Atlantic. It was called the St. Nicholas Theater Company. And when you're sitting in the back of the room, if the people aren't entertained, you're like a little feral creature. The one billionth of a second of lack of attention, you feel like a blow on the top of the head.

And if you wrote a funny line and they don't laugh, that line's not funny. Yeah. the head. And if you wrote a funny line and they don't laugh, that line's not funny. And if the people aren't entertained, you got to go back to driving a cab next week. So that'll teach you pretty quick, you know, because you can sync with your good ideas, but if you'd rather succeed, you better learn how to entertain people. When you started a theater company, were you aware of, you know of what was going on in other theater companies? Of course. I mean, this was back in the 70s.

I came back to Chicago, and the guy called Stuart Gordon had something called the Organic Theater that had in it Dennis Franz and Jack Wallace and John Hurd and Andre DeShus. It was a spectacular company, and they were doing brand new plays and they invented, Stewart was the director and invented this the Suey Generous. He got kicked out of the University of Chicago

because they were doing Peter Pan as a kids theater but all the actors were naked. So he was there and a guy named Jim Shifflett was over at the Body Politic and across the street they were doing a play called Grease that just opened in a garage. And I think what happened in Chicago was the fire laws had been extraordinarily strict because there was a terrible, terrible fire in Chicago. I think it was 1910 Iroquois Theater fire.

Everybody burned to death. And so finally, in the 70s, they relaxed the fire laws sufficiently that little, these little theaters just sprang up and we all worked with each other. So, you all knew each other and you're watching each other's work? Well, that, and was Steppenwolf wasn't around yet? Steppenwolf was just a little bit later. Laurie Metcalf was one of the, of course, one of the stars of Steppenwolf wasn't around yet? Steppenwolf was just a little bit later. Laurie Metcalf, who was, of course, one of the stars of Steppenwolf, actually started working for us in the office.

She's great. I talked to her in here. She's marvelous. What an actress. I just did this play with her a couple years ago called November. Oh, yeah? And Malkovich and Gary Sinise and those guys just came down. And when we left our theater space, me and Billy Macy,

Steppenwolf took over our space. Oh, yeah? Yeah, so they're just a couple years younger than we are. What is it about Chicago that, because if you really think, even mentioning Dennis Franz and John Hurd, and then you think about Steppenwolf,

and then you think about the type of work that you do, there's an aggressive, persistent, kind of, you know, not angry, but just sort of a vibe to those theaters. I think so. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What do you think that is?

What is it about Chicago? My dad always used to say, Chicago is a working man's town. Yeah. He said, New York is the biggest hick town in the world. Yeah. Which, compared to Chicago, it's true. The biggest hick town? Yeah.

In terms of what just people passing through no no the locals they'll fucking believe anything i mean jesus christ some guy gave five million dollars to cristo to wrap the trees in central park in red plastic yeah i mean give me a break that wouldn't happen in chicago i don't think so so it was just uh so you think that it just comes from the kind of no bullshit working class nature of Chicago. It might. I mean, also if you look at it, the literary tradition of the 20th century America is all

Chicagoan. Everybody came out of Chicago. I don't know why. I mean, to name but a few, Hemingway, Willa Cather, Dreiser, Richard Wright, Nella Larson. They all came out of Chicago. And then later on, Philip Roth and Malinwood and Saul Bellow. They were Chicago? Yeah.

Philip Roth was Chicago? I thought it was New Jersey. No. Later on, he was, but he wrote his first novel about the life in Hyde Park. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Called The Letting Go. He's a Chicagoan. You like him?

I do, yeah. He's funny, right? Did you read Sabbath Theater? I did, yeah. That's a good one. I actually knew that guy who he wrote it. I've forgotten his. I think his name was Bill Baird.

But he wrote The Puppet Guy. Oh, that was a real guy? Oh, yeah. So your new novel, Chicago, is called Chicago. And it seems like it's the first the first time you've been back to this era of Chicago since the Untouchables that's true yeah yeah what is it about why why this Chicago at this point in history for you I don't know I was just thinking about it you know I mean the thing about being a writer is you get to imagine yourself

yeah to all of these other lives yeah it's it's marvelous so since i'd always you know i i said somebody the other day you know they said what do you want to be and i said you know i wanted to be a a black piano player in a whorehouse in chicago in 1925 that's what i want to be yeah i don't think that's going to happen but you can do it you can write about it i can write about it i can dream i about it. I can dream. I can imagine myself back there. But in terms of like what is it that's fascinating about this? Obviously, this era of Chicago is amazing, right?

Oh, it's spectacular. But see, the book is all about myths. It takes a lot of the Chicago myths, which are all about crime and corruption. Those are myths. Well, it doesn't mean that they aren't true. Right. My rabbi would say a myth is a poetic telling of a basic truth. Huh. Poetic telling of a basic truth.

Okay. So it doesn't mean it's untrue. It just means it's a poetic version. Right. For example, the Old Testament is a myth. Yeah. Right? Yeah.

It's a poetic telling of some basic truths which are retold in the New Testament. It's not so much a myth, but it's kind of a cautionary tale. It's kind of a how-to.

Do this, don't do that. The New Testament is. Yeah. So, yeah, Jesus is God's patsy. Yeah, well, Jesus shows up and says, be like Jesus, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But if you look at the Yeah, well, Jesus shows up and says, be like Jesus, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But if you look at the Old Testament, there's nobody there you want to be like. No, they seem like all very, having a lot of kids. Oh, yeah, they're all screwed up. Yeah, yeah. And they're duplicitous and angry and wrongheaded and arrogant. It's just like you and me. Yeah, sure.

I mean, that's why the Bible is about people, right? Yeah. And so what do Jews do today? They argue about the Bible. I don't argue about the Bible too much. Oh, good. Well, a lot of people do, perhaps not even arguing internally about the Bible. They say, oh, the Bible's a bunch of bullshit, which is just another way of being connected

to the Bible, right? Yeah. Right? Yeah. Because people Which is just another way of being connected to the Bible. Right? Yeah. Right? Yeah. Because people don't say the critique of pure reason. Oh, that's a bunch of bullshit. Yeah.

Whoever got through that book, good for them. Yeah. Did you? No. No. But so you're taking on the myths of Chicago.

That's what this is. Well, I'm participating in it. Yeah, because you use real people in here. Yeah. You're moving through real people with your fictional characters. Some of the people are real people. Yeah, because you use real people in here. Yeah. You're moving through real people with your fictional characters. Some of the people are real people. Yeah, yeah.

Some of the people are the people. And, of course, like any creation of any artist, they're all the people I'd like to be or like to know. Yeah. And you had a good time writing it? Oh, I had a great time. Do you just not stop writing? Is that how you work?

I mean, it doesn't matter. You don't know exactly what you're going to write or you decide to write a novel or what? Did this start as a novel? Yeah, it started as a novel. I mean, the whole thing's a mystery to me. It's like, you know, I go to work and

I sit around taking a nap and read a couple books and curse myself for being a lazy swine and at some point you still do that say what you still do that oh yeah that's all i do so at some point this a work of some description description shows up and i say how did that get there yeah well like can we talk about the atlantic a bit the atlantic yeah my uh my ex-, my first wife took classes there. And I remember like, it's weird because like the way you talk about theater and now the, and I think the way you talk about acting is that like, do you, so Shakespeare doesn't

mean anything to you? No, I'm crazy about Shakespeare. You like Shakespeare? I love Shakespeare. I mean, Shakespeare is the greatest artist of all time. Shakespeare and the Bible. Those are good stories. I like the and the Bible. Those are good stories. I like the Bible, yeah.

Those are good human stories. I think so. Yeah. But Shakespeare's not boring to you? No, not at all. Oh. Because the guy could write. Curiously, a lot of people don't know.

Some people know, but they refuse to admit it. His real name was Billy Saperstein, but they wouldn't take the works by a Jew in the 16th century, so he changed his name to William Shakespeare. That is not true. It is true, and here's the test. No Christian can write that good. Well, I mean, I'd heard that maybe he didn't write them at all. I've heard that, too, yeah.

But I also heard that if John Kennedy had not smoked, he'd be alive today. Yeah. So, okay, so Shakespeare,, he'd be alive today. Yeah. So, okay. So, Shakespeare, you're on board with Shakespeare. Yeah. Now, the Atlantic, what were you setting? There seems to be this sort of a practical approach that you have. Like, you demystify a lot of things.

You know, you're talking about Meisner, right? Yeah. Now, what do you think? I would imagine that his process and his approach to acting was something that you decided was no good. Yeah, I decided it was no good because it didn't work. No? Why?

Because both, everybody who loves acting and loves the theater and can't act becomes a theoretician because what they're trying to do, what I'm trying to do, I've written a lot of books on this subject, is understand a mysterious process. Try to get closer to a mysterious process. Acting? Yeah. Yeah.

Because finally, it's a mysterious process. Some people can act and some people can't. That's it, right? At the core of it, that might be all it is. I think that is all it is. And the things which people might learn to make them a better actor are stand up, stand still, speak up, and speak clearly. Yeah. But those are the things that the kids don't learn because those are, they aren't mysterious. They're just hard to do. So, again, that's practical information.

You're not sitting there doing, you know, repetitions and colors. It's a bunch of bullshit. Because finally, nobody can do, Stanislavski said, he said, no actor can do anything more intricate than go over there and open the window. Because no human can do anything more intricate. You say to a human, become more in touch with yourself. Yeah. The fuck does that mean?

Yeah, I don't know. Nobody knows. And men of my generation were driven nuts by women saying, respect my feelings. It doesn't mean anything. You know, you can make a – one can respond to a legitimate request if the legitimate request is capable of being fulfilled. For example- Like be specific? Well, you have to be specific.

You know, say, I don't understand what you mean when you say respect my feelings. You say, well, I don't like it when you don't do the dishes. Well, then the request would be, would you please do the dishes? Yeah. Right? Rather than respect my feelings, because it puts us at the level of one remove. So, when you say to the actor, think about what happened in your childhood,

how can you think about what happened in your childhood and play the scene with the other guy? So I got all that nonsense beaten out of me by Second City. Yeah. Oh, really? Yeah, because they didn't go through all this process. They say, okay, here's what we're going to do. You're a cabbage, right?

And I'm a cleaver. Okay, on stage. So, the whole idea of preparation is nonsense. You don't have to prepare. And I said that at one point that the rehearsal process is all a process of a waste of time. The actors spend four weeks pretending they don't understand the play. And the director spends five weeks pretending he does. When in effect, as all know who've done summer stock you got one week to put the play on from a dead stop you learn the lines you put the fucking play on yeah is the play going to be better for rehearsing it for an additional three weeks no it's gonna be worse because what you're rehearsing in

the rehearsal process is an approach to the material. So why is it going to be worse? Because what you're rehearsing is indecision. Oh, I see. So you're trying, but can't that process be an act of deciding? No, there's nothing to decide. The decisions have all been taken by the author. So that's it.

So it's there. The lines are there. The story is there. What didn't you understand? I mean, you know, you read the play. You understood the play when you's it. So it's there. The lines are there. The story is there. What didn't you understand? I mean, you know, you read the play, you understood the play when you read it.

Right. But isn't there a different, aren't there many approaches to a scene or a line? I don't think so. I think the approach to the scene or line is say the fucking thing.

Yeah. You know, I've worked with all the greatest actors in the world. You have? Yeah. And that's what they do.

Yeah. You don't have to interpret. People say, who would you like to interpret your work? I say yeah you don't have to interpret people say who would you like to interpret your work i said i don't want anyone to interpret my work i'd like them to perform it so but but when i read uh writing in restaurants when i uh you know when i read her she brought her book the atlantic books home yeah you know that it seemed to be that that you know this is just you know just say the fucking line.

Right? Right. So, on some level, though, not everybody can be an actor. That's true. So, the school is the school, and this is the process, but either you can do it or you can't, really. Like, your process, the Atlantic process of, you know, where are you standing, say the line, that's it. It doesn't mean that anyone can act. No.

No, no. Very few people can act. Okay. Absolutely so. Yeah. Like some people can just say the line, that sounds like me playing Chopin. Some people can just say the line, it sounds like Glenn Gould playing Chopin. Right.

Because that's Glenn Gould. Right. Because that's Glenn Gould. Right. So, basically, acting is either you have a natural talent or you don't. Well, you have to have a natural talent, and the talent can be developed or discovered through doing it. But it can't be developed or discovered if you're not actually doing it, which means performing for an audience. Because the lessons that you learn in school are lessons of subservience. You say, let me please the teacher, right?

I have to understand the teacher's way of doing things. And if I, my test of success or failure will be if the teacher says, good boy or good girl, right? But the test of an audience is not mitigated through philosophy. It's immediate. They laughed. They didn't laugh. They were paying attention.

They didn't pay attention. Yeah. I lost their attention because I moved on that line. Oh, you learned that? I missed the gag because I moved on my laugh line? Right. I'm never going to do that again. Right.

When you write, is part of your process, do you, will you run it in front of a crowd and then change it? No, God, no. So once the thing is written, it's written? Well, that's a good question. What I do is I write the best I can. I say, this is perfect. Then I put it in front of an audience and say, no, it's a piece of shit. And I rewrite it.

So you do workshop it to some degree or you make changes? Well, no, no, I don't workshop. I just put the play on right you know but you'll change it oh yeah if it doesn't work i'll change it yeah i mean because as i said before i'm kind of harping on this i actually do it for a living i know you know it does it's just like it's it's it's saying it's just like saying someone has a wonderful idea of retail and they've studied the retail placement and how difficult it is to learn how to place things in the store so that you're creating an experience and da da da.

But if you own the store and the people aren't buying the t-shirt, you're not going to sync with that theory. You're going to take the fucking t-shirts and put them in the back and try something else. Yeah. But so when you do those kind of plays, you don't, you just, how do you run them? I mean, how do you, you put them up as, you can't put just uh how do you run them i mean how do you you you uh you put them up uh as you can't put them up on broadway you can't put you just put them up in a small theater

no i put them up on broadway what the hell in for a penny in for why not and have some fun and and then rewrite it sure if you have to of course i mean the rewrites are a problem most cases are not going to be major right times they are yeah but most cases are not going to be major. Right. Sometimes they are. Yeah. But most cases, they're going to be minor. I saw Pacino do American Buffalo in Boston. Oh, yeah. A long time ago, yeah.

Right? Yeah. That was crazy. Yeah, he's great. So, in terms of the school, it's still going, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah? And you go way back with William Macy.

Yeah, go back to 1971. How did you guys, so what was the process of putting the Atlantic system together? That's a very good question. I met Macy, I was actually his teacher. I'm about three years older than he is. We were at the school called Goddard College in Vermont, this hippy-dippy-sippy school. And he was my student. I got hired as an instructor. were you a hippy dippy guy kind of i was on you know i just i couldn't smoke dope because it made me crazy yeah i hadn't yet

developed a fondness for alcohol and uh so i hang out with johnny cats and played a lot of ping pong yeah played a lot of poker yeah and put on plays you still smoke cigars? No, I gave that up because of boxing. But I guess now you can get Cuban cigars, huh? I don't know if you can. Yeah, you can always get them. It just depends where. You've got to have a guy. Exactly.

So Macy was my student. And then we went to Chicago. What did we do? We were in New York. We were working in... Then we went to Chicago. Macy and I went to Chicago. What did we do? We were in New York. We were working in, then we went to Chicago. Macy and I went to Chicago. From Vermont?

From Vermont. We founded the St. Nicholas Company. And we kind of went our separate ways, ended up in New York. And all the acting schools, probably all schools, are for the benefit of the teachers, the administrators, you know.

And if they can fool the students long enough, then the teachers and administrators can buy a summer house. So that's what they do. So anyway, Macy and I were in New York. We're broke. So we say, well, okay, what can we do? Let's, I know, we'll teach acting. So we went to this woman who was...

But was the idea as a racket? Or you actually had a concept? Well, I mean, as George Bernard Shaw said, every profession is conspiracy against the laity. So what are you going to call a racket? Is psychiatry a racket? You bet it is. Yeah. Right?

So is education a racket? Oh, yeah. It makes psychiatry look clean. So there we are, Windy Gawker, so let's teach these students bimdy bode boo yeah so then we figured we did something which was really kind of brilliant yeah we said because how are we going to pick the students yeah because a lot of people said they wanted to sign up with us we said well we're going to audition them so you know i as myself as director macy's x and I said, no, auditions are bullshit. It brings out the worst in everybody.

And after you've auditioned three people, you can't, you go to the fourth, you can't remember the first. It just doesn't happen. So we said, okay, what do we want people to do? We want them to be hard workers, and we want them to really mean it. I know. We'll test them. So what we did is

we gave a series of questions is that anybody who wants to come we're going to be interviewing you we aren't going to ask you to act if you answer these questions you get in if you don't answer these questions you don't get in uh-huh and you must be on time so a lot of people weren't on time so I say well fuck it if you can't show up on time I guess you didn't mean it oh please please please, please, please. No, get lost. And if you answered the questions, you got in. And if you didn't answer the question, you didn't get in. So we got people who actually said, okay, I got it. This is a stupid test, but it's the test to get in. So then we're teaching, teaching, teaching. And we said, okay, let's go back up to Vermont. So we got, uh, rented some

space at Vermont college in Montpelier, and we took a bunch of kids up there for the summer, and we worked them like 20 hours a day. We started off, we had dance, we had yoga, we had modern dance, we did plays, we did problems. We'd do plays in the evening and then go to Montpelier radio and do 12 o'clock midnight. We'd do

a live radio drama. We just worked the fuck out of each other for all summer. It was great. And a lot of those people, many of them are still in the theater and very successful. And so, did we teach them something? I don't think we taught them something so much as we selected for seriousness. Similarly, Strasberg gets all the credit for the actors of the actor's studio. But this bullshit, he didn't know what the fuck he was talking about, but what he did is he auditioned every actor in the world. Yeah.

So people who could actually act got into the actor's studio, and then as they went on to great careers, Strasberg took credit for teaching them. And they were already made guys. Well, they were people with great, great talent. Yeah. And your approach was to, like, let's take serious people and work the hell out of them and let them find their talent.

Exactly so. Yeah. And get them into the habit of, because we wanted, not to get too icky about it, we wanted people who were really serious about the theater. Well, there's a process of getting in touch with yourself. Maybe. I don't know. Maybe it's, or it might be a process of beating the fool out of you.

Right. But that seems to be like some recurring theme in your arc, personally. Is it not? I think so. You know, because, you know, like in terms of if i think of you now who i'm talking to you know doing uh you're moving a group of students through yoga modern dance uh and and all that stuff and movement would you ever do it that way again absolutely yeah what i would say is if i had an act, like my wife went to RADA, Royal Academy of Dramatic

Art, and she got a full scholarship there. Uh-huh. And I asked her once, what are the acting classes like? And she said, oh, no, we didn't have acting classes. Yeah. I said, what, the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art didn't have acting classes? She said, no. She said, they taught us dance, they taught us speech, they taught us movement, and then

they would bring in directors, the best directors on the English stage, and the director would stage scenes with us. So that's pretty good. Well, that's what, like, Juilliard, I think, does the movement thing, and, you know, and the... Well, Juilliard, I mean, if you look at the beginning, a lot of those people of the first classes went on to magnificent careers, because John Hausman took over when he restructured Juilliard, and he said said we're going to be serious. The acting part was very, very small.

Speech was the most important thing. Speech and diction and all of those people who came out of Juilliard in those early years speak magnificently. Then the other thing he did is he took them and he threw them on the road after three years of Juilliard, the acting company and he said okay, get the fuck out of here. Here's a bus. You're going to sleep on the bus and you're going to do one year

from a different small town every night. Doing plays. Yeah. So let's talk about directing then too and also writing adaptations. The verdict is, I've watched that movie once a year, twice a year. It's a great movie.

Thank you. Did you like the way that movie once a year, twice a year. It's a great movie. Thank you. Did you like the way that came out? Yes, very much. And what, you wrote, that was an adaptation? It was a book. Yeah. A guy called Barry Reed. Yeah.

And I only met Barry Reed once. It was at a screening of The Verdict. Sid Lumet was screening it in New York. And I watched the movie and I'm peeing at the urinal the guy next to me says did you like that film i said yeah i liked it a lot he said oh i wrote it i said whoa great work so that was when i barely read yeah i i didn't and when you to write like how what what how do you approach a piece like if if you got a book how do you approach that to make a screenplay out of it? What are the things you look for?

Do you just isolate the story? Well, you've got to say what's it about. Right. Because a novel's a very, very different form. A novel's basically an epic form. Right. You can get away with a novel with a lot of scenes on more or less the same theme. Yeah.

Perfectly good novel. But a movie's all about plot. Right. It's all about what happens but a movie's all about plot. Right. It's all about what happens next. That's all it is. So when you make a movie, what you have to do is throw in everything that's not.

You have to determine what the plot is, who wants what, who's the hero, what happens if he doesn't get it. And I said to people, I used to write a lot of movies, I said,

here's my deal. You're going to pay me a fortune. I'm going to do the best work I know how, and you're going to hate it. And that proved to be true. It did? Oh, yeah.

Generally, yeah. They hated it? Oh, they always hate it, yeah. Usually they hate it because they say, where's the scene where he talks about his love for the kitten? Why did I buy this novel? You know, with the look in his eyes. Right, right, right. Yeah, yeah. Where's that? The guy sent me a script the other day. He said, I think this novel? Yeah. You know, with the look in his eyes. Right, right, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Where's that? The guy sent me a script the other day. He said, I think it needs some work. The scenes, it paid a lot of money for it. So he said, are you interested perhaps

in rewriting the script? I think it needs some work. I said, yes, I know what the fuck. He says, well, no, no, no. He says, we're very security conscious. Yeah. I'll send it to you on a, can no. He says, we're very security conscious. Yeah.

I'll send it to you. Can you go to someplace that has a secure link? Yeah. I say, fuck no, I'm not going to do that. I said, I tell you what, if you don't trust me, send it to my house. Have the messenger wait outside for 45 minutes. Yeah. I'll read it.

I promise no one will see it. I'll give it back to the messenger. Think, think, think. He says, no, no, we'll send it to you and just send it back tomorrow. back to the messenger. Think, think, think. He says, no, we'll send it to you and just send it back tomorrow. Yeah.

So they send me the script and it's on red paper with light green printing. I guess because you can't copy it, right? And my name is on watermark, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay, so I start reading. The phone rings. It's my son. So we start telling jokes on the phone, bibbidi-bobbidi-boo. I look down an hour later. The dogs have eaten the fucking script.

Is that true? Yes. My dogs have eaten the fucking script. And it's all in red shreds. And I got to put it in a garbage bag. And I packed it up. And I have to call this guy and say, there's no good way to say this. The dogs ate the script, but at least they got through it.

And the reason I say at least they got through it is the script for which they paid a lot of money, I don't know how much, starts off a light, but not the light you're thinking of, a black light, and it's growing deeper and deeper. And you're getting closer and closer. And what's that? A sound, but no sound you've ever heard before.

Could it be a baby scratching at his crib? A dog scratching at the screen? Could it be the beating of drums rain? And this fucking thing goes on forever. I'm thinking what? You paid for that shit? So most scripts read like that. My great great

buddy Barbara Tulliver is my closest friend. She cut all my movies and know each other forever. We trade scriptisms with each other. The scripts we get. And one of them that she sent me was outside the window it looked like what had just happened. Film it. Yeah.

You know? It's like an old joke, but it's true is words cannot describe the scene which then ensued. Yeah. Well, you know, getting back to like this idea, like I know you write entertaining things and that you're an entertainer. But it does seem that you like to, you're a provocateur as well, right? I mean, you do like to push buttons. I like to amuse myself. I really don't get such a kick out of pushing people's buttons because it all, but it happens sometimes.

So, as Hemingway said, you you know write them like you see them in the hell with it yeah but i don't do it on on uh on purpose but like with something like oleana you knew that that was gonna drive people crazy i had no idea really absolutely no idea i i had a friend we were in vermont or something like that and the friend was a teacher in vermont and he came over for dinner one night and i said what's you see what's on your mind he said well he said this woman in my class yeah had a counselor a woman counselor and the woman in the class said something to the counselor and the counselor brought me up on charges of sexual something or other, who knows, impropriety. He said the woman went to the counselor and said, knock it off.

The woman's parents went to the counselor and said, knock it off. But I went to the school and said, and he said, I'm going to lose my job. So I started thinking about this. I said, well, I said, can that be true? What did I know? So I made up this play. So the first performance of the play was at the Hasty Pudding Club at Harvard,

Harvard Square. And we had some young people up from Brown. I think my brother was at school then at Brown. And this theater class. And afterward, I thought, wow, this is great. It was Billy Macy and Rebecca Pigeon. I thought, this is fucking great. And so this first thing I ever heard about the play

was this young woman from the theater class says, don't you think it's politically irresponsible to do this play? And I was stunned because it never occurred to me that a play, any play could be, quote, politically irresponsible, that it was the point, the purpose of drama to be politically responsible.

And P.S., who the fuck was in charge of what was politically responsible? Responsible to what? So I was stunned. And then we did it in New York, and people would scream. Literally every night, people screamed back at the stage. And every night, there were fights after the play in the audience, on the verge of the physical, generally men and women taking one side or the other, but the sides differed every night. And then one night, Mary McCann, who replaced Rebecca, was coming offstage out of the artist entrance, and she got punched by an audience,

because it drove people crazy. Yeah. Just drove people crazy. Right, and you had no idea it would do that. No idea. How could you know, I guess? Well, because, you know, my good friend Billy Saperstein, you know, wrote under the name of Shakespeare. Yeah.

And Hamlet says to Horatio, he says, I have heard that guilty creatures sitting at a play may be so moved to blah, blah, blah that they lose their fucking mind. So I read that, you know, and I thought, yeah, okay, but not really. But I saw it. I saw it every night. Was that the first time you saw that? Yeah. It was great. Yeah.

What happened with the, did that kind of stuff happen with race as well? Interesting. No. Race was, I mean, it was just, it was all in the press about race. Uh-huh. Because I loved doing race, man. I loved it. It was the biggest percentage of African Americans at the Broadway theater of all time.

Yeah, because people say, you know, we need to have a dialogue about race, but what that means is shut the fuck up. Right. How so? Well, because nobody wants to have a dialogue about race, because it's too much of a, we're having a dialogue about race. It's too much of a, we're having a dialogue about race. It's called America. Yeah.

Right? So, to me, the dialogue about race is the commercials at the Olympics. Uh-huh. Because if you look at them, it's stunning. Every commercial, everyone, if there's a black person, there's a white person. If there's a white person, there's a black person. The large percentage of the couples in the commercials are mixed race. Yeah, I've noticed that lately.

Yeah, because that's the country. California has more than 20% of marriages are mixed race. So the dialogue about race is not that people learn, because being people, we know that people don't learn, but that people die. Yeah. And a new generation has a different view of race. How are you feeling about where the country's going now? but that people die. Yeah. And a new generation has a different view of race. How are you feeling about where the country's going now?

Well, the country's always going down the tubes. Yeah. I mean, that's what it is. That's the great experiment? That's the definition of, you know, you've got to read Gibbon, you know, the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. That's what a country does is it falls apart. So the question is not why is it falling apart but what is

residually keeping it together? And the answer is the constitution and the culture. Yeah. And the culture evolves. Yeah. And there you have it.

Are you, do you feel, what's exciting right now? Well, the exciting thing to me is the Ford commercial. Yeah. Because there was,

the Ford is doing a series of commercials and the first time there are commercials featuring a guy in a yarmulke. Yeah. It's stunning. I mean, especially, you know, I was born two years after the Holocaust, you know?

Yeah. And my grandparents all came over from the old country. Everybody who stayed there was either killed by Hitler or Stalin. And here's a guy in a yarmulke, but he's a young father. He's not a tidy, tidy schmuck Jew, you know, which is what we grew up with. And anybody in a yarmulke is a fucking fool. He's an actual serious Jew. In the Ford commercial.

In the Ford commercials. And when I was a kid, Jews did not buy Fords. No Jew ever bought a Ford because Ford was the world's greatest anti-Semite. Right. A committed anti-Semite. Right. And so now Ford is coming around and there's a guy in a yarmulke and nobody says anything about it, which is to me the real telltale of a cultural change is that it's unremarkable that's good yeah so let me ask

you another thing about what what do you i was trying to think about how to how to how to frame it in terms of story and stuff but like what is it about conspiracy minded uh you know, the sort of appeal of pseudo-history and conspiracy thinking at this point in time, and any point in time, because these stories that, you know, sort of manifest on the far right and sort of, you know, grab hold. I mean, this is something,

this is a human condition thing, right? The sort of locking on to those stories that almost in a religious way to explain things, even though they seem to be clearly crazy. Well, it's not just the right, it's the left too. Sure, sure. It's the human condition. Right.

It's like people say, oh, how can you believe in religion when so many bad things have been done in the name of religion? Yeah. Well, the bad things done in the name of religion were done by bad people. It's not that religion is bad. It's that people are fucking bad. And it's not that the right or the left is bad. It's that people are bad.

We're all crazy. And we love to have something to hate. Yeah. But doesn't it strike you, do you have any sense of this nebulousness of established truth? Like, maybe that's not, maybe I'm not saying it right. That there seems to be some sort of shifting to where everything's untethered and we're not getting a sense of what that truth is culturally? truth is culturally? Well, yes. I mean, but, you know, they say that the great democracies don't, they aren't overcome,

they commit suicide. You know, because at some point, because the idea of freedom and the idea of responsibility are always warring on the right and the left over time and in each of us at every moment. So the question is, what's true? I was listening to my good friend Dennis Prager today on the radio, and he was having a time of his life because he just came across this study by some guy for the American Academy of Pediatrics about how to treat children on the beach. They should not walk on sand.

They should not dig in the stand. They should wear shoes that are ventilated and have hard toes to forgive them get them blah blah blah and they should not go in the water with and blah blah and so he's saying it occurred to him years ago that anything which says studies show is either obvious or bullshit so he said how he said how does this stack up to our experience? So when we put ourselves in the frame of mind of being philosophical, taking an overview, things look complex. And because they're complex, they create anxiety. And because they're anxiety, they create resentment and anger. But on the other hand, if we're simply walking down to the supermarket, we get along pretty well with each other.

Right. I mean, it's a magnificent country. It's the best country in the history of the world. Well, you seem to be able to compartmentalize your political and religious and creative lives. Yeah. Well, you know what? Here's what I think.

It's like you go to the dentist, right? The dentist gives you laughing gas and they give you blah, blah, blah. You're in a different state. You're in an altered state. Your resistance is down. You wouldn't think it correct of the dentist to start at that point talking to you about politics. Say, listen, since I have you in my chair and since I have this instrument I just gave you laughing gas, I'm going to tell you some stuff that I think you may, dentist, you may

know that, but this is not the place. Yeah. So that's how I feel about the theater. Yeah. I may have very, very strong political beliefs, but the theater is not, you didn't come to the theater to hear my political beliefs. You came to the theater, whether you know it or not. I know it to have a good time. And that's my job.

Ricky Jay. Yeah. He's in a lot of your movies, particularly. How do you know him? How far back do you go with that guy? We met a million years ago. He'd been working with the great lighting designer and designer Jules Fisher in New York.

And it was my, maybe my 40th birthday. And I said, Jules said, what can I get you for your. And I said, Jules said, what can I get you for your birthday? He said, well, I'd love Ricky Jay to come to perform

at the birthday party. So Jules said, no, of course, Ricky doesn't do that. No, no, no. So ding dong, Jules shows up and he brings Ricky

and Ricky performed at my birthday party. God bless him. You like magic? I'm crazy about magic, yeah. Why? Because, you know, well, because Jews love magic, you know. I mean, all the great magicians of all time were Jewish and are Jewish

because we love the idea of, I guess we love the idea of miracles and also we love the minutia of it, you know. And also we love the idea that what you're seeing, what the audience is seeing is very important to a dramatist, is not what you're doing. You're doing something very, very different that what you're seeing, what the audience is seeing, is very important to a dramatist, is not what you're doing. You're doing something very, very different than what they're seeing. In fact, a lot of magic books will say

how the trick appears, how the trick is done. So Ricky and I became, and still are, very, very close, and I directed a couple of his shows. In fact, we're doing a talk at New Road School about my book. We're flogging my book. Yeah. And he's going to be,

he graciously consented to be the interlocutor. Oh yeah, he's going to moderate? Yeah. What is this I read this morning about a Harvey Weinstein play? You believe that? No. It just seemed like,

could you have written that that quickly? Yeah, I could. Yeah? So I was talking to my friend Jeff Richards in New York, who produced all of my plays on Broadway. Yeah. Wonderful guy. And he said, oh my God, why don't you write a play about Harvey?

So I said, no, no, I don't want to fuck a play about Harvey. I don't want to fuck Harvey. But then it was something I had to do, right? Something I was contracted to do. So the best way to get a writer to write something new is to give him something he has to do because he'll never do that. So wait, so he made you a deal? No, not at all.

He just gave me an idea. So rather than doing this thing that I was contracted to do, which was late, I said, oh, well, I don't know. I'll write a play. I'll write this other play. But it's not really about Harvey. Is it a full three-act play? Yeah. It was late. Right. I said, oh, well, I don't know. I'll write a play. I'll write this other play. But it's not really about Harvey. Is it a full three-act play?

Yeah. Yeah. It's about another guy of that name. Okay. How are you reacting to this wave of this turmoil around harassment and inappropriateness. It's like, how do you feel about what's happening? Everything goes back to the 1960s. Everything. I mean, everything goes back to the Vietnam War

and the birth control pill. So if you take the genie of sex that people have been trying, every society tries to keep the genie of sex in the bottle. And no society does very, very well at it. And so a society with a strong and universal culture not only has ways of dealing with yes or no, but has ways of dealing with transgressions. Here's what you do when you transgress. Right.

But the introduction of the pill and the introduction of antibiotics uncapped 10,000 years of, and changed 10,000 years of dealing with human sexuality. Sure. For the first time in the world. No consequence. There's no consequences, except, of course, what do you have greater consequences than those things with no consequences?

The consequences were unforeseeable. So the consequences are playing themselves out. And one of the things that I think about is that one of the tenets of Western culture, which is basically Judeo, it is Judeo Christian culture, is that women need to be taken care of. That's the responsibility of the society and the responsibility of men to protect women. Yeah. Because why? They have to have children, right? They take them out of the workforce. They walk around pregnant.

And something that always impressed me is watching a pregnant woman, especially a young pregnant woman, walk around with an with there is an aura of unassailability around her which she understands and what she understands that the people's does not to mean that god forbid she wouldn't be molested but she is protected by the deepest cultural understanding of her necessity for protection. We know that to be true. So do you see this as a cultural contraction? I don't know. Yeah.

The question is, as is always, hypocrisy, which, you know, as Voltaire said, is the amend that pays the virtue. But the women do need to be protected. Well, they shouldn't have to see a dick at work. Well, exactly so. I mean, exactly so. I mean, on the other hand, so we're going through a period

that's somewhat of the terror because the other greatest change since the 60s is the computer age where there's there's instant communication which in certain ways puts everybody on the same page in other ways destroys the individual cultures like i wrote a lot in my book with it takes place a lot of takes place in a black whorehouse in chicago where the madam is explaining to this guy why the Irish need their daughter to marry an Irishman. Yeah. And so the guy says, oh, of course,

so that she'll carry on the traditions of the Irish family. And the horse says, no, it's so she won't come home. Right? So the Irish share this tradition of, in this culture, here's the amount of times you, my son-in-law, are capable of cheating on your wife, past which we're going to beat you up. Here's the amount of times you're capable of hitting me up for a loan, blah, blah, blah, bibbidi-bobbidi-boo.

You married her, you keep her. So there's a certain amount of that which has gone away. I mean, who knows? When I was a kid, we used to have these marriage ceremonies saying, I vow to respect your space. What the fuck does that mean? What was that? Oh, that was when kids started writing their own marriage ceremonies.

Right. Right. I vow to respect your space. You have a, is that, is that, that seems, that means nothing to you. It doesn't mean, it means nothing to anybody.

What does it mean? How do you know when you're respecting somebody's space or not? You say, I vow not to cheat on you. Okay, I can tell. I vow to have sex

with you whenever you want. Okay, I can tell. I vow to pay the bills. I can tell. I vow to respect your space. Doesn't mean, you can't, you can't.

It's like shitty poetry it's dreadful i was talking to my sister when she was married to somebody to say what's the problem your marriage falling apart she says yeah he doesn't respect my needs what needs are the the needs to be respected respected about what respected about my my vision vision for what fucking what, you know? Yeah. Did you get down to it? I think, no. No. But, you know, as they used to say in the prisons, give it a name. Yeah. You know, give it a name.

Yeah. My rabbi's just come out with a new book, and one of the things is the 10 contrarian rules for marriage. One of them is, don't share your feelings. Yeah. I thought that's genius. Because if we say, is don't share your feelings. Yeah. I thought that's genius. Yeah. Because if we say

we need to share our feelings. Well, you don't say we need to share our feelings of love for each other because you do anyway. So what feelings is it that you say that I need to share?

My feelings of resentment or disappointment? Yeah. It was an idea from the 60s. I can't keep those things in. But that's what he says and he's correct that's one of the secrets of a good marriage keep it in yeah shut up yeah you know you know just uh suck it up well yeah absolutely so yeah i mean after a certain amount of time

i think as a as you get older you realize that anyways right some people do some people go wire to wire you know yeah what does that mean they just think wire to wire they're just fucking stupid you know and so what i'm trying to do myself is not to be one of them yeah so i mean one of the nice things about getting older is you say well that was dumb yeah right right oh okay and also like and then one of the nice things about getting older is uh certain things don't mean as much as they used to. Yeah. Right? Absolutely so.

Yeah. Yeah. How do you feel about show business these days? Well, you know, it's a shithole, as always. I said to somebody the other day, I'm thinking of moving to D.C. from California. What for? So I can be betrayed by a better class of people. Are they? Jesus Christ. Are they a better class of people. Are they?

Jesus Christ. Are they a better class of people? Well, no. It's kind of a joke. No, that's the other thing, realizing about politics, is that one can have political opinions which are separate from opinions of our representatives who are always and ever a bunch of fucking thieves and whores. Every one of them.

Craving bunch. Yeah. It's just like unbelievable. Every day I just sort of like, where do these people come from? How do you decide that for a life? I know, yeah. Right?

Yeah. It's just like, what is wrong with these fucking guys? These are liars. Yeah. Yeah. Well, if you think about it, I sold carpet for a living

over the telephone for a while and I sold land for a living over the telephone for a while. I was very bad at it because in order to be a good salesman, you have to have no conscience. Right. Well, you have to,

it's all about the hustle, right? Well, yeah, because you have to make someone do something that you know is against their best interest. Right. That's how you're a great car salesman. So the two things that you either have to have no conscience or you have to develop a protective contempt. Uh-huh. A protective contempt.

Yeah. Yeah. All these stupid people. Right. So if you think of politicians, I mean, everything they say is a lie, but every once in a while they have to come back and lie to the people. And then they see half the people say, oh, fuck you, go to hell. And the other half are waving balloons and shouting, yay, yay, yay.

Yeah. So of course they have contempt for the, you know, it's like they're playing poker. We're the chips. That's it. It seems, hucksterism seems to be at a certain level uniquely american well i think we yeah we we've taken it to an art form haven't we yeah like i was going back and i was reading some of the speeches of kennedy and he says we must move forward i'm thinking what the fuck does that mean yeah i don't know what it was oh i was reading a new biography of nixon

this is quoting the speeches of Kennedy. We must move forward. You were a Democrat at some point. Everybody was a Democrat at some point. Jesus Christ. But when you read about Kennedy, you don't like Kennedy now? No. And my dad, who was an immigrant kid and a staunch Democrat, a labor lawyer he didn't like Kennedy

and it was the first time and I mean you know Kennedy was God bless him they're a bad lot yeah you know and you know

I mean see here's a guy and he's got the Pulitzer Prize for a book he didn't write and he's fucking a Russian spy and then when he got done

with that he's fucking the girlfriend of the head of the mafia. And Marilyn Monroe. And Marilyn Monroe. Well, okay. And then doing business with it. You know, he's a pretty dirty guy.

Right. He came from that other thing that, you know, as corrupt as we Jews may or may not be, I mean, it's got nothing on those Boston Irish. Yeah. Yeah. Right? How long do you spend time? How long in Boston were you? I think maybe 20 years. Boston's a pretty intense place, yeah. Right? How long did you spend time, how long in Boston were you? I think maybe 20 years.

Boston's a pretty intense place, man. Yeah, I liked it. Yeah, I was there for a while, too. Well, look, man, it was good talking to you. Great talking to you, too. You feel good about it? Yeah. Good.

When do we start the interview? I'm going to turn it on right now. Okay, real good. Okay, well, that was me sweating through an interview with David Mamet. I hope you enjoyed that. You can pick up David's new novel, Chicago, wherever you get books. And speaking of books, if you want a signed copy of Waiting for the Punch, Words to Live By from the WTF podcast, you can get one at podswag.com slash punch.

That's P-O-D-S-W-A-G dot com slash punch. Okay? I'll play some cymbal guitar. I'm not going to fucking, you know, I'm not going to make myself crazy with it. Thank you. Boomer lives. Boomer lives. You can get anything you need with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get an ice rink on Uber Eats.

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