Your play, Another Brief Encounter, is inspired in part by Noel Coward's Brief Encounter. Tell us more about the appeal of Coward's play, and how it served as a springboard for you.
It was an inherited obsession from my friend the film critic Dan Callahan. Brief Encounter, directed by David Lean and written by Noel Coward (an adaptation of his own short stage play, Still Life), is a mesmerizing account of an emotional infidelity. What fascinates me about the film is that it affects me as would a devastating tragedy, and yet I’m also aware that the problem faced by this couple — each potentially betraying a spouse — is a rather luxurious one, given that it’s England, 1945, just in the beginnings of the aftermath of WWII, etc. I wanted to see what it would be like to transpose the story to the gay Mecca/haven of contemporary Chelsea, which also seemed to be relatively insulated from the outside world. I set most of the scenes in a gay coffee shop (much of Brief Encounter is set in a train station, as is the entirety of Still Life), and instead of spanning several weeks, I reduced the time to several days (Chelsea boys being comparatively less Victorian in their romantic/sexual restraint).
Another Brief Encounter was one of several one-acts by you that made up a program of short plays called And/Or. Was there an overall theme connecting the different pieces? And what was the significance of the title And/Or?
Another Brief Encounter was the centerpiece of And/Or and the overriding question of the evening seemed to be “Is heartbreak — though universally-experienced — worthy of tragic status or is it a luxurious problem that is not considered ‘important’ enough to discuss?” The theme of these plays was inextricably-bound with the presentation of the plays themselves. The pursuit of love — and to a slightly lesser extent, the maintenance of love — is a primary obsession of Americans(? Westerners?) and yet the darker, more painful, more interesting elements of this phenomenal addiction are mostly glossed over in popular entertainments.
I chose And/Or as the title of the evening, because the phrase indicates (with alarming optimism) that there are no mutually-exclusive choices here, yet on closer examination, the phrase borders on total meaninglessness. It is a verbal amulet that we clutch as we step into the unknown.
Let's talk a bit about your background. How and why did you first become interested in doing theatre?
Aside from ruining clothes in my explorations of the creeks and forests that once surrounded my Midwestern neighborhood (now thoughtfully-supplanted by a strip mall), I had few interests as a kid: not sports or academics, certainly. So my mother was (temporarily) relieved after putting me in a Young People’s Theatre evening program; the chauffeuring did get to her after awhile. I read plays indiscriminately and obsessively in junior high and high school — stacks of them from the local library — because I could not believe some of the crap they were having us perform. I realized early on that the world was in desperate need of playwrights who were capable of sophisticated thought and genuinely-earned emotion.
I understand that you've studied playwriting with Edward Albee. How did that happen, and what was that experience like?
I met Edward in a bathroom at the City College just before a program that was honoring his contributions to the Theatre. He gave me his address and invited me to send him a play, which I did immediately. A few months later, I was certain he’d recycled all fifty pages of it when the phone rang and spoke a gruff voice: “The word ‘pus’ has one ‘s’ and not two.” Then he told me that the play made him laugh out loud twice (which I quickly learned was no small feat), and invited me to study with him the following Spring in Houston, which I did.
I would be hard-pressed to enumerate the lessons I’ve learned from Edward, but he’s one of the few people I’ve met who make playwriting seem a noble profession. However, this nobility does not portend sanctimony, but, rather, calculated and passionate subversion.
I assume Albee has also been an inspiration for you. Who are some of the other writers you like, or who influence your work?
The playwrights I find myself frequently discussing with (sometimes boundless) enthusiasm are (in no particular order): Edward, Caryl Churchill, Craig Lucas, Wallace Shawn, Joe Orton, Eugene Ionesco, Samuel Beckett, and Tennessee Williams. Among the other writers who interest me deeply are Adam Phillips, Terry Southern, Jane Hamilton, Henry Greene, Ivan Turgenev, Soren Kierkegaard, and Ann Rule.
You are also a reviewer for this very website. How did you first meet editor Martin Denton?
A few years ago, I received an email about becoming a reviewer on the Fringe Squad. I enjoyed reviewing very much, but I stuck with this website because Martin and Rochelle have truly changed the way I see Theatre (literally and figuratively): preferring compassionate curiosity to cutthroat criticism, they continually challenge me to see myself as a part of the theatre-experience as opposed to an objective observer of it. They are, to say the least, humble, generous, eloquent and wise.
What can audiences expect to see next from you?
In late April, there will be a workshop production of a play I’m writing in collaboration with director Tony Speciale (who directed the most recent production of The Children at NYMF) about Harvard’s Secret Court of 1920 that attempted to purge the venerable institution of homosexuality. Then in August, Dwayne Mann (who co-produced And/Or) will be taking Another Brief Encounter to Edinburgh. And in the midst of all of this, I’m working on a new musical with composer Hal Goldberg (with whom I wrote The Children, and composer of the musical Nerds). In the meantime, I would advise audiences to keep reading Page Six.
Interview with Stan Richardson was conducted by Michael Criscuolo February 2007.