An Interview With
Stephen Kaliski

West Lethargy

 

You have only been in NYC a few years after having grown up and attended college in North Carolina.  Why did you decide to come to NYC, do you like it, and are you ready to call it home?

There's some great theater in North Carolina, but I really wanted to immerse myself in "mission control" in New York during the first part of my career. I occasionally flirt with the idea of returning to Charlotte to help revive its regional theater scene, but I'm not ready for that yet. New York is home for now. It's become a part of my chemistry. You know you've become a New Yorker when the phrase "drive to the store" triggers a wave of anxiety and uncertainty.

You are the co-founder and artistic director of the theatre company, Page 121 Productions.  Why did you decide to form a company, with whom, and how do you feel being part of the company will be part of what theatrical career you would like to have?

I moved up here to focus on auditioning, but when I realized that the quickest way to work is to do it yourself, I created Page 121 with Jeff Feola, who was a fellow intern with me at Classic Stage Company. Since then, I've come to understand the less selfish perks of having a company. Theater communities are so fleeting that it's important to maintain an ongoing sense of community with the artists you trust. It would be a terrible waste of relationships to say goodbye once and for all to your ensemble when the show closes. A company defends against that. I'm developing a core of people I want to keep coming back to, and I think this creative fidelity will ultimately lead to our best work.

You consider yourself to be a director, a playwright, and an actor.  Which would you like to concentrate on the most and which do you believe you are the best at?

I'm splitting my focus between directing and playwriting for now. I love to act, but my interest in sculpting the whole story is put to better use in the other two disciplines. I'm not sure which I'm the best at. I certainly have the most training in directing, but the study of directing is so all-encompassing that it ultimately helps you to develop all facets of your theater artistry. So...I guess time will tell!

You have mentioned that you learned a great deal about directing when you assisted Austin Pendleton on Classic Stage's Three Sisters.  Could you tell us a bit about that experience and what you learned?

Austin's work on Three Sisters truly transformed the way I think about the rehearsal process. He taught me the value of absolute trust in one's actors and designers, constantly conveying the paramount need for personal ownership in producing a play. I used to feel the selfish compulsion of micro-management in my directing work, thinking that I knew the way and others simply needed to listen to me. Austin taught me the necessity of admitting that I don't know the way. If and when the way is found, I should ensure that it is a result of the organic stewing of all of our ideas and not my own pre-conceived impositions. After working with Austin, I've begun to think of directing less as a primary art form and more as the craft of eliciting other people's art, of guiding them to their best work. When things are going well, very little of what's visible on the stage is purely "mine."

Where did the idea for West Lethargy come from and how did it proceed from an idea to the finished product we see?

When I write, I tend to think in terms of acting and directing. I ask myself, "Would this be a meaty scene for an actor? Does it have a compelling event that a director could latch onto?" The original impulse for West Lethargy was pretty simple and open-ended. I have a Hummel-esque figurine of a pioneer boy and girl praying by candlelight. I started thinking about their story, asking all of the typical actor questions. That's how Ellie and Turner were born. Then I put on my director's hat and asked what event would heighten the conflict in their lives. At that point, I thought of Nugget and Ringle, and then I began to experiment with what would happen in the test tube if all of these ingredients were combined. I had no firm story for West Lethargy at the outset. Instead, I created the characters and then did my best to listen to their stories.

You once noted that you "hope that contemporary theater can someday revitalize that ancient Greek ideal: a necessary and indispensable civic institution." What exactly do you mean by that and how do you see it happening?

I feel like all theater-makers want this—for their craft to be seen, understood, and processed as a challenging, provocative societal event. We kind of accept that theater is poor and perpetually on the fringe of our cultural consumption, and yet it has managed to survive for thousands of years. As we move forward, I think the question we must always ask is, "What does theater do better than anything else?" There are scores of answers to this question, but I believe what makes theater lasting is that it creates a living, communal story that's really only rivaled by sports. We're always going to want to gather and experience life together. Theater and sports do that pretty well.

West Lethargy was produced at FringeNYC. What was that experience like and why did you decide to produce at this festival?

FringeNYC was the third fringe festival in a row for Page 121, and in many ways, it was the most gratifying. We had much larger houses than those at Edinburgh and Hollywood, and we got an overall terrific response. Edinburgh's wonderful, but because it's so huge, it's difficult to wrangle the right audience. Even when you get people in the door, you can never be sure they're your target demographic. Because FringeNYC is more selective and designed to ignite positive word-of-mouth, you end up with a very satisfying experience.

Interview with Stephen Kaliski was conducted by NYTE Small Press April 2011

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