"Plays are acts of rebellion meant to change people." Edward Albee
"All plays, if they’re any good, are constructed as correctives. That’s the job of the writer. Holding that mirror up to people. We’re not merely decorative, pleasant and safe." Edward Albee in a Guardian interview in 2004
As it happens, I studied with Mr. Albee and he had a deep influence on me. He is one of the reasons I became a theatre teacher, he believed in changing what you didn't like from the inside. It is he who I channel every time I defend a play choice, or an acting exercise. Yes, it's high school, not college. No, you cannot shelter high school kids, the world is ugly. But you can walk them through well written text, shepherd them through difficult and honest content, and make sure they, too, can defend the choices. As it happens, they also make personal connections to text that would otherwise vex them, and are able to apply the acting exercises to other parts of their lives. I realize this makes me sound defensive, and I am. Theatre is always under attack, Mr. Albee was right, nobody wants to look in the mirror. We can play it safe and entertain, or we can build strong, confident, literate, articulate and brave theatre kids who grow into strong, confident, literate, articulate and brave human beings.
I chose the later. I do not regret my choice.
For fourteen years, I built human beings. They didn't all like me, and that's OK. I believed in what I was doing, and I believe it means something to build decent human beings with a grasp on the difficulties of life, balanced with an understanding of the magnificence of theatre. I do not believe I have to be liked to make a student think. Mr. Albee taught me that. Sometimes, conflict and challenging personalities are necessary to break through. Mr. Albee taught me that, too. Our job is to communicate the story honestly to the audience, and if you are in your own way, you are interfering with that communication. Ego, self doubt, selfishness--these are what must be broken in order for the story to be clearly told. Guess who taught me those things, also? Frequently, you must explore outside of your comfort zone. That is not possible if we are forced to perform pieces chosen by those who wish everything to remain safe, trigger free and appropriate. As Mr. Albee once said (I'm paraphrasing) "Things are not hunky dory, and we have to stop pretending that they are." I hear him every day, I see his smile and I know, every time I step up to defend, to teach, to enlighten and rejoice, he is proud. I also know, when I misstep or get in my own way, that he is shaking his head and mumbling that I never did have any tact. (Neither did you, Mr. Albee, just saying.)
Stay strong, my colleagues. Write, direct, teach, Suzuki, Bogart, Stanislavski,(I just verbed proper names, it's a thing I do) stomp and rejoice every moment you are allowed to worship on a stage.
You change lives. No matter what they try to tell you.
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Originally posted as Fruit Salad
The story you are about to read is true. The names have not been changed to protect anything.
When I was going to school on Planet Houston, I was fortunate to have a few magnificent people in my life. One of them was Paul. Paul was kind, Paul was funny, Paul was a fellow playwright. Paul was a rare bird who had his own house. Paul paid my bail bond to keep me out of jail when I went to South Padre instead of court. Paul is still my friend, and is now a fellow educator, and he has no recollection of this tale, he is now old and has brain damage I guess. Which is a damned shame, because I tell this at parties and it kills. And for some reason I tell it in the present tense.
Paul invited Mr. Albee over for dinner. Mr. Albee accepted, and let Paul know that he drinks only Caffeine Free Diet Coke and eats skinless chicken breasts. So Paul did all the shopping and cooking, and invited me over, saying he was too nervous to be alone with Mr. Albee. I have no money to contribute to the meal, so he asks me to bring a six pack of Caffeine Free Diet Coke. That I can do. The six pack plus the gas to get to Paul's eat my budget for the week, but it's worth it. I am in Mr. Albee's class with Paul, but I would never have the balls to ask him to dinner! I did have lunch with him once at the school cafe, he wanted to chat more about my play. He told me when we arrived that it was his treat so "eat well, dear". To this day I pay for meals when I am out with former students, it's a habit he passed on to me.
When I arrive Paul greets me and looks grumpily at the six pack. "That's all you brought?"
"That's all you asked me to bring." I do feel bad, but I honestly am stone broke, I barely have gas to get home from dinner.
Flustered and annoyed that nobody on the planet is helping him, he returns to the kitchen. I hover and ask if I can do anything? He says something but I can't hear him, so I just fluff pillows and clean off the coffee table. He comes plowing out of the kitchen clutching a salad bowl. He shoves it into my face.
"Does this salad look fruity?"
I look into the bowl. There is no fruit.
"No."
"No, look. You didn't look. Does it look fruity?"
I look into the bowl again. I look up at him and declare "tomatoes." Tomatoes are technically a fruit, right, they have seeds? Is that the game? I don't understand the game, and poor Paul is almost hysterical.
"Dammit, kryssi. Look at it. Does it look FRUITY?"
I am so confused and hurt that I seem to be making Paul's night much worse than it needs to be. So I really look deeply into the salad he is holding out to me.
"Cucumbers."
"KRYSSI!"
"PAUL! There is no fruit in this salad. What are you asking me?"
"Can you tell a faggot made this salad?"
There is no other option but to laugh. To gufaw. To snort. As I begin to do all of these things, I look into my friend's frenzied eyes. He is hosting a dinner in his tiny house for a man he worships. A man who has three Pulitzers, Tony Awards and a Kennedy center, as well as a string of other awards. He is a Big Deal. And Paul is making him dinner.
I put my hand on Paul's wrist and hold his eyes."Honey. It's a salad. All he requested is no dressing. He is not going to judge your sexuality on your salad making skills." I allow a smile "Also, honey, he's gay too. Remember?"
We maintain eye contact for a moment, and I see a moment of peace click in Paul's blue eyes. Then he huffs and clutches the salad to his chest. "Shit, it's faggy, it's a fruity salad." He stomps back into the kitchen and slams the bowl down, turning his attention to the skinless chicken breasts and mumbling. "Skinless chicken is pretty gay, isn't it? "
I can't.
EPILOGUE The dinner for Mr. Albee was successful. We ate on the couch with our plates on our laps, as Paul's tiny little table could hold only the food. Paul made Mr. Albee watch A Fish Called Wanda because....I don't know why. Mr. Albee had never seen it and Paul insisted it was the greatest movie ever made, and Mr. Albee is a kind man. He had to leave "early" as he was meeting his manager for drinks, but he was phenomenally kind and gracious. Best quote of the evening:
Paul had a computer game called "Sim City" where you built a city, and then a giant dinosaur creature destroys it. Paul walked Mr.Albee through the game, and Mr. Albee growled "What's the point?" He was not unfriendly, Mr. Albee just growls, that's his voice.
Paul, shocked, did not hesitate. "To build a city and have it destroyed."
Mr. Albee "Why bother with the city? Just release the beast."
Paul "But then what does it destroy?"
Mr. Albee "Why does it need to destroy anything?"
Paul "That's the game."
Mr. Albee "Again I ask, what's the point?"
I sat on the couch watching this exchange. Watching the gleam in Mr. Albee's eye and admiring his ornery questioning. Paul twitched and sputtered and I felt badly for him, but not for long. We were used to being grilled by this man about our plays. He would sit you in front of the class and fire questions at you, demanding answers for "why" you made the choices you did. And if you couldn't take it, well then, maybe you should get out of playwriting. Paul handled defending his play beautifully in class, but in his own home he sputtered when asked "why" about a computer game. A game he did not even create.
Poor Paul. I asked him if I could write about this and blog it. He said he has no memory of the evening, so it's fine. It was likely too traumatic to commit to memory. I'm glad I was there to record it for him, now he has a record of making dinner for a Great Man.
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An Interlude to demonstrate how Albee impacted all of us in every aspect, and taught patience.
When my play Legalize Wisdom was produced by Mr. Albee, my director was Victor. Victor had directed me in his play Avocado Ice Cream the previous season and we got along well, I'm not a crappy actor and he's not a crappy director. He had a thick accent that made him sound like Count Chocula, which is weird because he was Jewish and from Mexico City. One rehearsal in particular, we were both exhausted and raw. The beauty and beast of the Albees was that the playwrights rewrite during the process, and the directors try to block and work with actors. Tensions run high, even in the best working relationships. One rehearsal, Victor changed my stage directions. I had specifically written a tableau that was echoed throughout the play, and the final scene was to end on that tableau. Victor changed it, and then asked me what I thought. Which was a reasonable approach, to be honest. But I hated the change, to me it ruined the whole play.
So I told him.
Much like the woman in Chicago who must stab her husband ten times....I told him ten times.
The actors cleared the stage as we shouted at one another, Victor with his thick accent trying to convince me that he was right, and me with my anger issues and mohawk trying to form words. One of us, finally, called it off and we walked away.
The next rehearsal, Victor walked up to me. He said "rehearsal" like "reeehoirsal" and you had to know that "kneeerowsis" was "neurosis". He said "You are not allowed to bring your neurosis to the same rehearsal that I bring my neurosis."
Albee taught him that. Direct. Firm. Not unkind.
Best Director Award.
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Sept 17, 2016: Dutifully, I record these random thoughts for those who may not know: In 1989, I Assistant Stage Managed the Albee Worskhop shows at the University of Houston (where I was a student, I didn't just wander in the door. ) I was entranced by Mr. Albee and envious of the playwrights chosen to be produced by him. He was aloof but always engaged, seemingly soft spoken, but it was a growl, actually, and everything ceased when his voice was heard.
In 1990 I was chosen to take a playwriting class with Mr. Albee. I submitted a pretentious and sweaty excerpt from my "novel" to him, and he graciously saw something there. That same semester I was cast in one of the workshop shows and had the great honor of seeing Albee as both teacher to me and mentor to the show director (who was also the writer which confuses me to this day as Albee said loudly "NEVER DIRECT YOUR OWN WORK THE FIRST TIME OUT").
The following year, I had (with his great guidance) turned the sweaty excerpt into a decent, but still pretentious, play. He selected it for production. My director was the same writer/director I had acted under, Victor, and that in and of itself is another story, more than the brief moment above.
In 1990 I was chosen to take a playwriting class with Mr. Albee. I submitted a pretentious and sweaty excerpt from my "novel" to him, and he graciously saw something there. That same semester I was cast in one of the workshop shows and had the great honor of seeing Albee as both teacher to me and mentor to the show director (who was also the writer which confuses me to this day as Albee said loudly "NEVER DIRECT YOUR OWN WORK THE FIRST TIME OUT").
The following year, I had (with his great guidance) turned the sweaty excerpt into a decent, but still pretentious, play. He selected it for production. My director was the same writer/director I had acted under, Victor, and that in and of itself is another story, more than the brief moment above.
I hesitantly asked Mr. Albee for a letter of rec while at UH, I was applying for a scholarship. He handed me a folded piece of paper a few days later, then stood awkwardly with that smirk on his face. "Read it now," he said. I opened the folds to find he had handwritten-if "handwriting" is what you can call his scratch--only a few words. It began:
"Dear Scholarship Committee,
kryssi wyckoff martin is obnoxious, pig headed and cries a lot."
I looked up to see his wolfie teeth in full growl, chuckling to himself. He handed me another envelope and said "That's the real one. You can read it if you like."
My husband attended the cast party with me for Avocado Ice Cream,the show in which I was an actor. Mr. Albee attended, like he was a regular person, grabbed a caffeine free Diet Coke and wandered out to the hot tub. Jim was out there alone, as he will attend cast parties but then is uncomfortable participating in them. Mr. Albee climbed into the hot tub with Jim, extended his hand and said "Hello, I'm Edward." They spent a good deal of the evening discussing the Broncos while the rest of us stayed inside and marveled at how cool we were to have worked with Mr. Albee.
In all the time I knew him, I never could bring myself to call him "Edward", even though he would tell me to. He always introduced himself to people as Edward, never Edward Albee, which is contrary to his pretension only on the surface. When you expect everyone to know who you are, there is no cause to use your last name. I suspect he also never invoked "Do you know who I am?" because he just figured you did. I always imagined, when he was arrested for nudity on a Florida beach, that he just quietly went along with the police and let them figure out who he was. Silent and smirking, I see him sitting calmly awaiting his phone call, possibly grumbling intellectual jokes to himself that nobody else would get---he was quite used to chuckling to himself, his jokes were always intellectually over my head. If they asked his name, because I assume that being arrested naked on a beach means you have no ID, he simply said "Edward" and flashed his canines at them, daring them to take one step closer.
In 2008, I wrote him a letter explaining that I would be in NYC with 18 of my students, and we would be attending The American Dream and The Sandbox, directed by him, at the Cherry Lane Theatre in Greenwich Village. I asked sheepishly if A) He even remembered who I was and B) Would he be near the theatre that night, I would enjoy seeing him.
I received a handwritten letter in return that boiled down to: "Of course I remember you, I'm not that old. I can arrange to be at Cherry Lane on that date, would your students like a talk back?"
That is who he was. I did not become a playwright. I became a teacher, someone whose life was changed by a man with more talent than I could fathom and his intense mentorship is what I strive to emulate. He was brutally honest. He suffered no fools. He had no time for none of your bullshit. He bought me lunch and took time to discuss my writing with me when he had other Pulitzer Prize winner things to do. He offered his time and intellect to 18 goofy theatre kids from Littleton, Colorado, that he had never met before. He never spoke above a low growl, because he figured if you wanted to hear him, you'd shut up. He said "Playwrights write because they have to." He said "Writing for yourself is masturbation, writing for an audience is theatre." He said "Theatre is too fucking expensive." He wrote the words"Goat Fucker".
That is who he was. I did not become a playwright. I became a teacher, someone whose life was changed by a man with more talent than I could fathom and his intense mentorship is what I strive to emulate. He was brutally honest. He suffered no fools. He had no time for none of your bullshit. He bought me lunch and took time to discuss my writing with me when he had other Pulitzer Prize winner things to do. He offered his time and intellect to 18 goofy theatre kids from Littleton, Colorado, that he had never met before. He never spoke above a low growl, because he figured if you wanted to hear him, you'd shut up. He said "Playwrights write because they have to." He said "Writing for yourself is masturbation, writing for an audience is theatre." He said "Theatre is too fucking expensive." He wrote the words"Goat Fucker".
I have met people over the years who truly hated Mr. Albee, believed he was an entitled, fractious, mean spirited man. I believe he inspired either love or hate. If you were neutral, you didn't know him.I get it, I watch interviews and he will turn an interviewer inside out with his double entendres and the simple, aggravating fact that he is smarter than you are and he has no qualms about letting you know. But at the same time, he takes playwrights under his wing and teaches them the ropes. He was no nicer to us than he is to interviewers, he'd still let us know he's smarter, but the difference seems to be that we were there to voluntarily learn from him, not ask him the same questions about his work that he has been asked for 50 years. I saw the pretension and exhausted intellect as endearing.
I love watching his face in interviews, that smirk never leaves. That obnoxious, pretentious grimace that is just waiting to laugh at your stupid question, or to turn it back on you and make you look like the buffoon that you are. He was pretentious and entitled, and he didn't try to hide it, he owned it. Yet he never, ever tried to over power or control anyone, or keep them down. It was not important to him to prove he was smarter, or to openly mock you because you weren't. He just was. What made him great was that judgmental demeanor which masked a generous spirit. That's what made him great.
My favorite interview is with Kathleen Turner. She was "Martha" in a revival of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. Albee's eyes always dance with glee, but primarily because he's enjoying making a fool of the mortal stumbling to interview him. However, this interview is different, I can feel his respect and ...I like to imagine,..love for her in the interview. His face is softer, his eyes twinkle differently and he is not the same man most interviewers know. I realized when I went back and watched it after his death, that I love that interview because that is the Albee that I knew. Not that he loved me, but I was part of what he did love: teaching. I knew a different Albee than most, because he was teaching me and he liked doing it. Even if I was a drooling village idiot compared to his intellectual nobility, even if I was neurotic and obnoxious and pig headed and cried a lot.
He said a lot of things, you could fill a book with his amazing wisdom. The world has lost a great man, a brilliant man, a mentor, a groundbreaking artist. And I need windshield wipers on my eyes, I can't stop the tears.
Today I realized I still have his assistant Jakob's phone number. I have no intention of deleting it.
I am also aware I wrote the bulk of this in the present tense. Oh well.So be it.
March 2008 Littleton HIgh School on stage at the Cherry Lane Theatre with Edward Albee.
Proof. He changed their lives. They brought him flowers. He invited them on stage, opened the curtain and hugged every single one of them.
I am also aware I wrote the bulk of this in the present tense. Oh well.So be it.
Proof. He changed their lives. They brought him flowers. He invited them on stage, opened the curtain and hugged every single one of them.
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