Hey, everyone, Chris here (sorry, this feels very "Harry Knowles" to intro a column this way, but it's new and we're excited and wanted to get this out there even before the regular column/header is ready to go). Kevin Hylton is a NY-based writer who covers Broadway plays for PLAYBILL and other publications. He's going to do so regularly for us in '03, discussing Hollywood folk who cross back and forth between movies and the Great White Way. He'll offer up exclusive interviews and reviews. Up first, so we can give you a little taste before the holidays, is Kevin's exclusive chat with writer/director Neil LaBute. And if you think you don't recognize the name, read on -- you will. And as always, please let Kevin and myself know what you think of this new column. Happy to have him!
IN THE COMPANY OF NEIL LABUTE
December 18, 2002
By Kevin Hylton
Over the past few years Hollywood has begun to slowly creep back into theater. Actors, directors, screenwriters, and even Harvey Weinstein are spending their down time working on projects on the stage in New York, Boston, L.A., and London. Gwyneth Paltrow, Matt Damon, and Casey Affleck all spent some portion of the last year acting on London’s West End. Paul Newman, Sigourney Weaver, Julia Stiles and even Meryl Streep returned to New York’s Broadway and off-Broadway theaters. With so many film personages involving themselves in theater, it became apparent that Movie Poop Shoot should pay some attention to theater world. Our idea is to speak with some heavy hitters in the film industry about their experiences working on the stage. As well, we hope to provide you with some reviews of plays and musicals in the event that you want a night out on Broadway. Today we start with a bang.
Neil LaBute exploded into the film world in 1997 when his caustic film IN THE COMPANY OF MEN premiered and won the Filmmakers Trophy at the Sundance Film Festival. The author penned two other original films (YOUR FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS and the soon-to-be released SHAPE OF THINGS) since his first success in 1997. Recently, LaBute directed NURSE BETTY (2000) and POSSESSION (2002), an adaptation of A.S. Byatt’s novel starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Aaron Eckhart. Few contemporary filmmakers have repeatedly garnered such harsh criticism and accusations of being a misogynist and homophobe. While these claims seem to be unfounded, LaBute certainly is a controversial figure.
Many fans of LaBute might be surprised to learn that all three of his original films were first written for the stage. IN THE COMPANY OF MEN was first staged as a play at his alma mater, Brigham Young University in 1992. LaBute’s second film, YOUR FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS, was an adaptation of another play written by the author for the stage entitled LEPERS. And finally, SHAPE OF THINGS, which is to premiere at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, was first a play both off Broadway and in London’s West End. LaBute’s training came at BYU in the shape of a degree in theater. He followed this up with further theater study at NYU and the University of Kansas. He participated in Sundance’s Theater Lab where he met Aaron Eckhart (the actor who repeatedly appears in his films).
Today, Neil LaBute is in New York City. He left his home and his wife and two kids for a few months to put on a new play starring Leiv Schreiber and Sigourney Weaver Off Broadway. Few would be surprised to hear that LaBute’s new play is controversial. The plot of THE MERCY SEAT would surprise many. The play is running at the Acorn Theater in New York City. It tells the story of two lovers and one day when they consider whether to continue their adulterous relationship. Abby (Weaver) is a single woman in her 40s. Ben (Schreiber) is a younger, married man with two children. So what’s so controversial? It can’t be something so commonplace as adultery? Well, LaBute sets the play in the wake of 9/11. Specifically, Ben was supposed to be at the Trade Center that morning. Instead of going to his meeting at the WTC, he went to Abby’s apartment for a blowjob. When his wife calls looking for him, and calls again and again trying to contact him, he just listens to the cell phone ring. Should he answer and let them know he is alive or let the phone continue to ring and run off into the sunset with Abby?
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I spoke with LaBute at his hotel about the new play and his experiences with filmmaking and theater. After what seems to LaBute a “very long” preview period, THE MERCY SEAT opens on the 18th of December.
Movie Poop Shoot: I guess it’s good and bad having such a long preview period?
LABUTE: Well, it’s great to get in front of an audience, ‘cause you never know what they’re going to like and what you might want to change. And it’s not a musical where you think, “I’m going to be shifting numbers” and all of that, but time-wise, we’re good. But…(Pause) I would be curious to get this thing in front of an audience anyway, especially a New York audience.
Movie Poop Shoot: Since you’ve been directing this piece as well as writing it, are you reworking the script throughout rehearsals?
LABUTE: Yeah I’ve cut probably 17 pages out of there and that’s not from being over time or anything. It’s just we’ve had no work stopping or anything. They read it and they wanted to do it and I shifted my other play out of the way and we did it. So it was sort of trial by fire. And I could have gone through and sort of made a path myself, but I wanted to wait and see what the actors were kind of warm to. That way I felt like they had more of a sense of being involved. They were very tentative at first because I think they were used to well, “This is the text.” You know, it’s either a dead author or it’s been done before or it’s been worked out so this is what we want to do for better or worse. So I think they were somewhat unused to someone who just strips as they go and says “Nope, that doesn’t work does it? No, that line stinks. Okay, move it. What else can we say?” Cutting and filling as we go.
Movie Poop Shoot: Do you take the same approach with your filmmaking?
LABUTE: Yeah, I tend to work right down to the last take…like… “Umm you know what? Let’s try one without that word.” And my compromise usually is “Let’s shoot it both ways.”
Movie Poop Shoot: When directing film, you may have the flexibility to re-shoot scenes and to edit out dialog that doesn’t work. Does this longer preview period, where you have the ability to cut dialog and rework staging, make the directing experience more cinematic?
LABUTE: Yeah, we have talked about it. We have two people who are very well-versed in the world of film. So we were talking about one passage near the end of the play yesterday and we were like, “Why don’t we just do it both ways… preview it both ways.” We’ll try it one day this way and one day the other way and see what we like. And we all went, “Yeah, why are we worried about it right now?” And I’ve also felt more like a film preview where I go, “Maybe I should stand up in the beginning and say something like you know that bit where we don’t have all of our special effects yet and we’re still working as we go.” And then you think well, I don’t know if I want to do that. But it’s um… it is a real work in progress as you go and you just hope that you’re there. I mean it feels like it. Yesterday I finally went “Yeah, I think we’re going to be there.” But it’s been hard. It’s just a lot for two people to learn and to be out there [on stage] the whole time.
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I spoke with LaBute about the controversy surrounding the play and why he decided to set the show on 9/11. “It falls under the umbrella of 9/11 but it’s mentioned very little. It’s not meant to be a statement about anything other than two people.” One of the characters (Abby) “follows the company line” displaying the pain, fear, and sadness that many of us felt. The other character (Ben) realizes the horror of the event but is still more concerned with the possibility of taking advantage of the situation. LaBute said “It’s kinda an interesting vantage point to be at a year later to say, ‘I don’t want to know that someone was thinking this twenty hours [after the disaster] but I know there were people going, ‘I want to take care of myself.’” And it was “a great time of selflessness” but at the same time, LaBute imagines there could have been people out there saying “There is a small window of opportunity here that I’m going to take and whether you like it or not, I have to watch out for myself.” LaBute furthered this argument speaking of the recently published book, AMERICAN GROUND by William Langewiesche, which LaBute says “states for a fact, there was at least one Fire Engine Company who was looting The Gap [clothing store] while this was taking place. [The Firefighters] didn’t know those buildings were coming down. And then when they uncovered their fire engine there were neatly folded stacks of Gap jeans inside there.” Labute considered writing an insert for the program recounting the story from AMERICAN GROUND “just to give [the play] a context to say, ‘this is a what if.’”
So are we meant to see Ben and Abby as hateful people or are they people just caught up in the stress of the event? “A little of both. I tend to be that kind of person. I like to set it up and not really have the answers” LaBute said. “You can look at this guy and say, ‘What a shit bag’ for coming up with that idea. But you may say the same thing about him just for what he’s been doing over the last three years. This guy’s in so deep so this is just another [day].” The author hopes “people will look, not beyond the 9/11 elements but certainly not say this is meant to be a universal statement on the day.” According to LaBute, it wasn’t supposed to be a commentary on that day at all. “I wasn’t in New York. I’m not from New York. I’ve lived here, but not then. So I use it as the catalyst for drama. Here’s a wild idea, yet, I don’t think it’s in the realm of the impossible. It’s not in the realm of probable so much as in the realm of possible. And that’s all you ever need to operate on when you’re doing a play.”
Critics were surprised by the softer, more “Hollywood” nature of his last two films, NURSE BETTY and POSSESSION. Some critics theorized that this was a response to the criticism LaBute received from his Mormon Church and apparently even his own wife’s displeasure with his hard-edged writing.
LABUTE: [People have been asking me] “Are you changing the way you write?” No, not the way I write or the way I personally do stuff. But those [two films] are not from my head. Often when people see something of mine that I’ve written, because that tends to be a little more like-minded, they always qualify “You know I liked it. Well, not, ‘liked it.’” Like it’s a disclaimer. “I don’t want this reflecting on me, because I might have you know, snickered in the dark a little bit.” That always seems strange to me. You either like it or you don’t. There’s a very confining idea of what entertainment is in the States I think. That entertainment equals fun and not mindless but just not challenging at all. They would not look at something like RAGING BULL and say that was really entertaining. Whereas, I would. To me, entertaining just means good. It doesn’t matter if it’s sad or happy. I just think of it as entertaining. But entertainment seems to have been reserved now for something that only makes you smile and sit back and go “Ahh, that’s fun.”
Movie Poop Shoot: How long does it typically take you to write a play? Are you someone who needs rewrite after rewrite?
LABUTE: I’m a bit of a tinkerer. So I’m rarely forced to so much as I like to keep doing it. I like rehearsal. I like listening to it and see if it holds up. So, I tend to write pretty quickly. I write it in a few days or a week. But then I’ll keep playing with it. I didn’t do it this time without them. I wanted to [tinker] it with them. I’ve been mostly cutting. It wasn’t like, “I needed a whole new this” or “The second act doesn’t work.” Luckily, we didn’t do a second act so I only had to deal with the first act.
Movie Poop Shoot: Do you have a couple of readers to whom you typically send your work?
LABUTE: Yeah, there are a few people I bounce stuff off of. Often they’re actors because I write parts that I hope actors like. I send them out and say what do you think of this and I’ll get a lot better response if it’s something they can play. If it’s something out of their age range they’ll be like, “Ehh, it’s good.”
Movie Poop Shoot: As a writer, I know your background was in drama. And I noticed with your original pieces, typically they are written for theater and then they get scripted for films. Do you write for the theater or stage?
LABUTE: My stuff tends to come out as people talking and I don’t think in those terms unless I’m doing something for someone [such as] adapting a book or whatever. But I tend to… sometimes I’ll put something into the context of… I’ll challenge myself to do something… like “Bash” was I knew going to be pretty theatrical to keep people in a chair and make it work. So then I knew it was not really movie potential. And yet something like this, if they’re staying in the same room for a long time you think, ok, this is going to be a play. Or you write fifteen more scenes and you’re outdoors and then suddenly, “Maybe this is a movie.” But, when I did “The Shape of Things” and made a film out of it I made sure the arrangement was that I don’t have to adapt this in any way. We’re not going to try and add a few more scenes of them riding in cars so it feels more like a movie to people. We’re going to film it exactly the same way I made it although it won’t be on stage, it’ll be just ten scenes, and just those people talking and yet there will be a backdrop of a college. But the scene will run on for ten minutes. And then you go on to the next scene.
Movie Poop Shoot: So, you didn’t make THE SHAPE OF THINGS into a film like Paul Schrader’s MISHIMA where he wanted the film to look like a stage play? And at the same time you didn’t go the opposite route and do a lot of fills to make it more cinematic?
LABUTE: No, I think people can smell that coming a lot quicker than something that feels like it was meant to be this way. When you try and bluff them and say, “Why don’t we set this scene at the football game so there’s a crowd of like 10,000 people there” and they can have this conversation and then you cut back to the football game every now and then. Will that make them think that “Ohh” it’s some kind of big movie? They’ll go see this if they want to. They’re not going to love it because there’s a crowd of one thousand people.
Movie Poop Shoot: As far as directing film vs. plays. How is it to cross over? Do you find one similar to the other?
LABUTE: Similar because I make them similar. I use a lot of my own theatrical conceits when doing a film. I think…
Movie Poop Shoot: Because film is so visual…
LABUTE: It is…
Movie Poop Shoot: And theater can be, too… but it seems to be more about managing spaces then filling a frame.
LABUTE: Yeah, but I tend to like a very still frame and to move people within it rather than move the camera a lot. So I kinda have that same theatrical bent in cinema that I do on the stage. And I like working with the actors. So that’s what I like about film and about the stage. I think there’s a lot less pressure in theater than in film. I mean, you’re always working toward a product in theater but the process and the product are very divided. Even though when we hit previews, we have to provide a product. You can still tinker. When you start making a film, what you’re filming, you’re not going to throw away the first few weeks. They want it be as good as the last few weeks. So you have to constantly have product and process intertwined. I mean you hear about people saying, “I had to throw out the first three days, it sucked.” But [the studios] don’t want you to. They want every day to be good. It’s a lot of money and time. There’s just an inherent pressure in films. There’s just so much more to manage. I find it more not time consuming, so much as just a lot of slow steady pressure that you don’t necessarily feel in a rehearsal hall with a show.
Movie Poop Shoot: I have a quote for you. It’s by Thornton Wilder, who I imagine you like, based on the SHAPE OF THINGS and the PYGMALION aspects to the story. In the preface to the printed play THE SKIN OF OUR TEETH, he wrote, “Literature has always resembled more of a torch race than a furious dispute amongst heirs.” Whose torch would you say you’ve picked up? It’s My Barbara Walters question for today.
LABUTE: It’s your James Lipton question.
Movie Poop Shoot: (Joking) Let’s close with, what is your favorite curse word?
LABUTE: (Laughing) I did an interview with Jason Patrick. It’s in “Interview” [magazine] this month and I said here’s my James Lipton question. I said “If God Exists…” and he [interrupted the question and said], “If God Exists, you wouldn’t, James.”(Laughing) Whose torch? You know… there are so many people I like. I mean people have certainly made easy comparisons with Mamet. I mean anytime you write about white guys with white shirts and they curse, there’s that connection.
Movie Poop Shoot: White guys with white shirts who are really angry.
LABUTE: Yeah. The guys who need to go to anger management classes but choose to write instead. I would hope there’s a thread to Albee. I’m a big admirer of him. And apparently it’s fashionable to be that way again. Wallace Shawn is someone I admire a lot. I think his writing is really fine. And I like a lot of British writers like Edward Barnes and David Hare. David Hare was who I dedicated the play to. [I like] plays like “Skylight” and I think he’s great at like two people pitted in an argument. And neither one of them are people I particularly admire. Yet, I’m compelled to watch them because he understands interesting people are better than likeable people. And that’s something I admire. I love someone like Howard Barker but I both fear him and I’m not sure I understand him. But he’s an amazing writer. But I think someone like David Hare. He’s prolific as hell and he’s just a quintessential playwright.
For those interested in checking out “The Mercy Seat” the show will run till January 12th at the Acorn Theater. Tickets can be purchased through Ticket Central at 212-279-4200 for $50.00.
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