Frank Pugliese

NB I know you like poetry because we’re always talking about poetry. What about rap?

FP It’s probably cliché by now to say rap is poetry. It must come out of that tradition. Still, it’s a beautiful way to communicate. I’m satisfied to a certain extent that you can use anything and take power out of it. You can take rap and use it.

NB It’s like theater to me. Rap always feels alive.

FP That’s why I like theater. I don’t pretend to be writing reality. A lot of things I write seem realistic. The only thing you can do to capture the essence of someone or somewhere or someplace, is to create artifice. If you and I stood on this corner and watched people for a couple of hours, we would see something real. The reality of the theater, which I love as well, is the event of going to the theater. I think that’s fantastic. That in itself is the whole rising; walking in, buying a ticket, sitting there watching the show, seeing the actors afterward . . .

NB What do you want to give an audience when you write a play?

FP I want to share a story. To me, this is when it’s the most fun. When I watch an audience watch my show I end up watching what they give to the show. Collectively, they make moments that you never expected to be important and you learn something about the play, and then it goes back and forth. When it’s going well, there’s a dialogue with the audience. I rewrote 30 percent of Aven-U-Boys during previews. The audience was giving me something and I wanted to give something back to the next audience. I’m not a tyrant about my work. I never think anything is finished. Even now. I don’t have a play that really seems finished. I mean, I’ll put it down and that will be it and it’s at where it’s at, but it’s never really done. Nothing’s perfect. Even Cézanne in his seventies would go back to people’s houses and steal back his paintings and work on them for a while. It’s all about the process, the on-going forever process.

NB I just saw your episode, I should say, your award winning episode of Homicide, and I just couldn’t get over the language, I see it in your plays as well—it’s very visceral, almost visual. When your characters talk you can see things, you can see smells, you can see inner emotion—through the language, in that way it’s almost cinematic . . .

FP I’m really tired of movie references in life. I’m so tired of the movies. I’m tired of living at the movies. You go to a beautiful place and people say, “This would be great in a movie.” And you have a conversation—this would be really good in a movie. What I say to you is: films are like dreams, when they’re really good they’re like good dreams. And my writing is like dreams but I don’t think my writing’s like films.

NB What made you tired of the movies and their references?

FP It’s a big concern of mine. Because I think we’re living in a time of pretense. People aren’t experiencing, they’re watching experiences. Kids play baseball, but out of a video machine. It’s really disconcerting. I preferred it when people used to go out and do incredible things, and then talk about them. Now they go out and see incredible things and come back and talk about them. It’s all once removed.

NB (sigh) Doesn’t it seem that the only sane thing to do is direct your own plays?

FP I’m dying to meet a new director where my soul and his or hers would be completely in sync. But that hasn’t happened yet. So until that happens, I’d rather direct my own stuff.

NB Why do you think it’s so hard to find a theater director? Where are they hiding?

FP The whole idea of directing only started at the turn of the century. Before that the lead actor or writer or stage manager would do it. So this formal idea of having a director is fairly new, and it might actually be dying. A lot of times, I get a director who has a vision and I have a vision and those visions are in conflict. No one gets anything out of it. Then it is no longer about services to the art—you know, it used to be that the actors would change the endings, if the audience wanted to have them changed. Shakespeare’s plays were rewritten. Romeo and Juliet didn’t always die at the end. That was the popular ending at one time.

NB I believe that language is set apart by the writer, and that’s how you tell a story.

FP The best theater is a celebration of the story. The best productions happen when the directors and actors come in and celebrate the writer’s words. So, you’re right. You do get into trouble when one, the words aren’t really doing their job and two, actors and directors fight the words.

NB What kind of actor do you like to direct?

FP I don’t want someone who’s going to say to me: me, me, me. So everyone I’ve ever worked with has to understand that on the first day of rehearsal, you give it all up. I don’t give a shit about your baggage or your agenda, it’s gone. The more you give to the text, the text will give back to you. And so will I. If you build that kind of atmosphere, it can become a very powerful piece.

NB Action becomes reaction in a positive way. It’s not like a sport, it’s more like force of nature, a storm. It’s not offense/defense.

FP It’s more about how an actor reacts. The best actors I know, acting is the easy part. The great stuff happens after they’ve just said their lines, that’s what I look for.

NB How does writing for you translate into directing?

FP Obviously the desire to direct is the desire to put all the elements together in a beautiful way—clarifying the text. I get very detail-oriented when I get into directing because with specifics, you get better story telling. All the movements get choreographed and it all mixes with the language and the lighting, and all the elements get layered in very specifically. And so you tell the story.

NB You seem much less story and plot obsessed than most people. I agree that movement and language make the story . . .

FP It’s the difference between writing a play and writing a symphony. A lot of playwrights don’t write symphonies, they write ditties. You know? In this day and age, with everything becoming two-dimensional, generalized, with a lack of intimacy, things get categorized. It’s your responsibility, if you chose to become a writer, to say no, it’s more complicated and nothing is stereotypical. Nothing is a given. That pretense about understanding the world easily—it does not exist. It’s a more complicated place and that’s what you want to explore.

NB Did you have any heroes as a kid?

FP Yeah. Starting from age seven on, it was Da Vinci. He painted, he wrote . . .

NB He was a scientist!

FP Yeah. He was a scientist. All those guys in the Renaissance were talking reason and politics during the day, and at night they would try magic in their basements. (laughter) We need alchemy.

NB This is a psychological question: if you came back as an inanimate object, what would you be?

FP If I came back as an inanimate object what would I be?

NB Yeah, you can’t think.

FP A nectarine.