Also this issue: Spontaneous Combustion Dance, drums and tabla combine to light up the Painted Bride. -Deni Kasrel Out of this World -Susan Hagen He Talks Pretty -David Anthony Fox Family Affair -Debra Auspitz Quilting Bucks -Helen i-lin Hwang From Chippendale to Talavera -Lori Hill Moving to the Desert -Deni Kasrel Stage Flight -Debra Auspitz

October 17-23, 2002

theater

Lee Blessing

by Interview by David Anthony Fox

Playwright Lee Blessing was nominated for the Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize for A Walk in the Woods (1987). Since then, his work has been produced frequently in regional theaters. Now based in Manhattan, Blessing is in town to oversee the East Coast premiere of his Going to St. Ives at Interact. City Paper recently spoke with Blessing about the play, his career and the state of the American theater.

City Paper: How difficult is it at this point in time for a contemporary playwright to have his work produced in America?

Lee Blessing: I've been doing this for 20 years and have had great success -- in relative terms -- at being produced. Theaters in the last few decades have become much more conservative in the way they program, especially new plays. And when they do produce them, they want material that won't offend, and that's often not as politically ambitious or content-driven as might have been the case in the 1980s.

CP: Why the change?

LB: Part of that is simply cyclical, but part has to do with the way people are conditioned more and more to look at any entertainment for its surface values, not at the potential for making people question their values. We're far less content-driven than we used to be. I hope that will come back. We need to use forms of entertainment, particularly theater, as a means to look at ourselves.

CP: Are commercial pressures partially responsible?

LB: I'll have a play in a good regional production, and people will come up and ask, "When will we see this on Broadway?" And I don't go into it at the time, but I think, well... never. Because plays don't go to Broadway. Long ago, it got turned into a real estate scam and a theme park. That's simply what it is now. But it's a problem, because Americans can go see an exquisite piece of art, but unless they can be assured that it's commercially successful, they aren't confident that it's good.

CP: Does commercial pressure affect the way you work?

LB: In the last two or three years, I've been writing some of what I think is my most interesting and challenging work -- at precisely the time I should probably have been writing my most commercial work, because that would get produced more often. At some point you realize that even if you perceive that problem, there's not much you can do about it. As a writer, you're going to write what you're going to write. If you try to do it any other way, nothing very good will come out. The only way I've survived -- that most playwrights survive -- has been to try to get a career going on as many levels as possible. I've probably made more money through the years from amateur productions. That's the steadiest money I make.

CP: What can you tell us about Going to St. Ives?

LB: There's not a lot I can say, because there are a few surprises. There's a British woman in her late 30s, an eminent eye surgeon. She meets an African woman, the mother of an Idi Amin kind of figure, who needs surgery on her eyes. The two would never have met without the medical issue, but that brings them together in St. Ives, England, where the doctor lives. Each woman has a secret, [and] the mother is in desperate shape, both physically and because of her life at home. It places the two in an intense situation, where they negotiate large questions, life and death. The play is about politics and about motherhood. It's also about the clash of two perspectives, and how the post-colonial era affects someone in Africa.

Going to St. Ives, Oct. 18 - Nov. 17, InterAct Theatre Company, 2030 Sansom St., 215-568-8077.