Street sat down with Bruce Graham, the writer of Dex and Julie Sittin' in a Tree, which recently opened to its world premiere at the Arden Theater.
Street: Your current play, Dex and Julie Sittin' in a Tree, features just two actors. Did this create any issues in production?
Bruce Graham: The burden's on me. I can't distract the audience by bringing in a third character. Every emotional beat has to hopefully be real -- two people talking, or yelling, or laughing, or drinking, or eating popcorn or whatever. I mean especially when you're dealing with emotions and it's theater, it's got to be more emotional than in real life. My director - this is our tenth collaboration. I've worked with the designers before - all of them: sounds, lighting, costumes. I've had situations where, rarely, someone comes along with a magnificent ego, and they're going to rewrite your play for you, and you find you're wasting energy fighting, when in reality you're all supposed to be working on the play. These guys were great. My dramaturge and I had gone through a very difficult production several years ago, and the third day of rehearsal he just looked over and said, "Isn't this great? No assholes!"
Street: So you've worked with your director, Jim Christy, for a long time. Do you trust each other completely?
BC: Yeah, especially if you've known each other for as long as we have. It's funny, during production I go away. We do four or five days around the table. We have that luxury to go through the pages, make changes. [Jim Christy] is going to block it, so he knows what he's doing. He tells me that working with me is the closest thing to working with a dead playwright. I generally leave and come back about four or five days later. I give them the freedom to experiment, to try to make crazy choices, to make good choices, bad choices. But if I'm in the room, they're a little afraid and I don't blame them for feeling more inhibited. People think great art has to be created in a turmoil situation, but I don't think so. You know you can put together something good and people can still be friendly and not want to kill each other.
Street: Tells us more the ideas and themes behind Dex and Julie.
BC: I started the play back in 2000 and didn't finish it. Finally, I got thinking about why I wanted to write it. There were a couple reasons. One reason is memory, and how it gets distorted with time or point of view. For instance, you and I, twenty years ago, had something happen to us. It's traumatic to you, not that traumatic to me. You're going to think of it one way; I'm going to think of another direction totally. And also, the difference in age - take an eighteen-year-old girl and a twenty-two-year-old guy - there's a world of difference there: four years. Twenty-five years later, the gulf is not that big. The second reason I wanted to write the play is to explore the choices you make. I'm turning 50 soon. You look at all your friends in their 40s starting to get divorced, and this play's asking if you had another chance to make a different choice ... would you? So that's what the play is really about.
Street: In addition to extensive playwriting experience, you've also done Hollywood screenwriting, most notably Dunston Checks In. Can you tell us what that's like?
BC: It's what pays the bills. It puts the kid in private school, gives me the benefits. And it is fun. I am a movie freak. Dunston Checks In - I'm actually very proud of. It's a great kid's movie. But in screenwriting, you have no power and I'm spoiled in the theater. They can't change a word without my permission, and that's in my contract. In the movies, I've gone to the premiere and seen something and gone, "Where did that come from? I didn't write that," meaning someone else on the set did it. So unless you're writing, producing and directing, you have very little power. I'm interested in the little movies. Blockbusters - they bore me.
Street: What experiences in your life have helped you grow as a playwright?
BC: I was always interested in how people spoke. I was always interested in dialogue. My training was as an actor, and I was a stand-up comedian for a couple of years. It was great training- as an actor, as a writer and as a substitute teacher eventually. But I was also creating the material. We'd be doing a gig in Pittsburgh and put in a bit at the nine o'clock show that didn't work, so I'd be at the corner of Forbes Avenue rewriting it. And they can't teach you that in any grad school. Comedy's the most objective thing in the world. You see if it works with an audience, and if it doesnt't work, why that is. That's why I've never been a great audience for comedy. I either see it coming, or it catches me by surprise and I'm analyzing it to see why it caught me by surprise.
Street: How has the Philadelphia theater scene evolved since you started?
BC: My first play professionally was actually staged at Penn's Annenberg Center. It's where I started out. And it's so funny, I've had people that saw my first play and that have seen all my stuff - they've watched me grow up in the theater. Back then we were constantly having to go to New York for eight-hour days to cast the plays. We just didn't have the talent pool here unfortunately. Now we do. John [Lumia (Dex)] and Jen [Childs (Julie)] are locals, which a lot of my plays have been able to cast . Because the local talent pool in the last 20 years has grown so much, we can do more homegrown theater. And it's great. Local actors are booked for the year. They've got security. We've got security knowing, that there's a talent pool. When I started there was no Arden. The Wilma Theater was a little closet somewhere, and you just didn't have many venues. Now we've got thriving regional theaters.
Street: Do you ever try to deliver a message or moral through your work?
BC: God, no. My job is to entertain, first and foremost. You come in for two hours, or an hour and a half, and it's my responsibility to put something on stage that keeps your interest. I just want you to get wrapped up in the characters and the stories for one night. Of course, it means something to me. But I don't want the lights to come up and for me to say, "Here's the message." A.) entertain them, and B.), if they take something home with them and think about it the next day, it's icing on the cake. No extra charge.
Street: Are you working on anything else currently?
BC: I've got this new play running next door called Full Figured, Loves to Dance at the Theater Exile, which is part of a nightclub, Hearts and Souls. But now it's time to put on my Willy Loman suit and go out and find the next job, which is the part about this I hate. You schlep around pitching stories. Gotta eat.
Street: Do you have any advice for those who want to pursue playwriting as a career?
BC: Go into something else. I've got enough competition. The real advice is in my textbook. Write. Writers write. You've got to try. The more people tell you your stuff sucks, the more you've got to go, "Oh yeah?" You've got to show them. The more I get knocked down, the faster I get back up. It's a Graham thing - my father's the same way. But if you don't talk about writing, don't get immersed in writing, then go out and study life. Eavesdrop on people. And listen. I know so many writers who just love the sound of their own voice. They just talk and talk and never listen. That's the best way to get where you want to be.
