Interview: Pulitzer Prize-Winning Playwright Donald Margulies Remodels THE MODEL APARTMENT at the Geffen

The Pulitzer Prize winner and much lauded playwright Donald Margulies is currently back in Los Angeles for his revival of his 1988 Obie Award-winning THE MODEL APARTMENT. His foray into writing for film The End of the Tour made him a festival darling with nominations for Film Independent Spirit and UCLA Scripter Awards.

We had the opportunity to chat with the prolific Donald as he sits in on THE MODEL APARTMENT preview performances at the Geffen Playhouse.

Thank you for taking the time to talk to BroadwayWorld and myself.

You have been writing for over 40 years now. Your plays have been performed hundreds of thousands of times in an innumerable number of theatres. What draws you to participate in this production at the Geffen?

This production of THE MODEL APARTMENT has particular significance for me. I've always characterized this play as my problem child. It seems to be star-crossed in many ways. A play that had a torturous past. I'm involved with this production because this play has not been seen in Los Angeles since it premiered in 1988. I really did want to help my lovely director (Marya Mazor) shepherd the play, this new production in Los Angeles. When my plays are done all over the country and even all over the world, I have generally very little to do with those productions. But I view this one as a particularly important one because it's Los Angeles, which I think is an important audience for the play. I feel a commitment getting things right that hadn't really in evidence nearly 30 years ago when the play was first done.

THE MODEL APARTMENT is your seventh production at the Geffen Playhouse. You must like something about the Geffen.

To echo Donald Trump, 'Well, they like me, so I like them.' I've had a very long, happy association with the folks at the Geffen. It began with, of course, the late Gil Cates who became a dear friend. Gil is still greatly missed at the Geffen. He created an atmosphere of a wonderful theatrical family. I think that most of the people who work there feel his paternal presence still. I think it permeates every aspect of getting a play produced there. Every office still has a tremendous spirit of Gil's love and devotion to this theatre.

What was your inspiration for writing THE MODEL APARTMENT?

I wrote this play about 30 years ago when I was just a pretty young playwright. The inspiration for it came out of my long relationship with my childhood friend, who is the child of holocaust survivors. We were at the point of our lives where his parents were thinking of retirement. I was struck by the juxtaposition of lives that they had lived in Eastern Europe and - they're retiring to Florida. I thought that that juxtaposition was such a stunning distillation of 20th century America, there was room there for dramatic exploration. That's really where it came from. It came from this long friendship and my attachment to my friend's family.

In the premieres of your new works, how involved are you in choosing the director and/or cast?

With a premiere, I'm very involved in choosing director and in casting. Casting this production, I was in the loop really from the beginning. I was sent videotaped auditions because I live in Connecticut and couldn't be here for auditions. So, yes, I'm very much a presence in premieres and important revivals.

As the playwright, once your play has had its premiere; do you have any say in any of the creative elements of future productions?

I do. To a certain extent, you can convey that in some of the acting directions of a play. But you really do have to depend on the acumen of your director, who is bringing the play to new audiences. You can't hover over every production and give notes. Again, I view this production at the Geffen as an important one because it is a kind of rebirth for this play. Which is not to say that I've done any work on the play. I haven't. I do have particular notions about how certain moments should play and certain things should appear. That's where I can offer my expertise to my director.

As a renown and respected playwright, do you ever allow updating or tweaking of your scripts?

I don't encourage it, certainly. I don't know what happens when people do a play of mine in Dubuque or something. I have no idea what it looks like. I just saw a production of my play THE COUNTRY HOUSE in German in Berlin. There were certainly things in it that weren't in the script which I wasn't delighted about. I also didn't shut down the production and make an Edward Albee-like stink about it. You have to let go at a certain point and really hope for the best. Hope that your intention is coming through. It's not really possible to control interpretation. It's very difficult to do that. You want the play to have a life. But you also can't hover. It's like having a child. You want that child to have a life. You've hoped you've laid out the essence of who this person can be and how to navigate through life. But you can't really control it beyond that, beyond that hope.

You received a BFA in Visual Arts at Purchase College in New York.

That's right!

When and what was your 'Wow!' moment when you realized you wanted to be a writer?

Oh, boy! I grew in Brooklyn. I grew up actually in Trump's village, Coney Island. Donald Trump's father Fred was the mastermind of this housing project that I grew up in. My parents were not college-educated. They were children of the depression. Neither was an intellectual. They were hard-working, lower middle-classed, depression-era Jews who loved theatre. They loved Broadway even though we had limited funds. At that time in the 60s, it was still conceivable that a family of four from Brooklyn could afford to go to a Broadway show. Now, it's so prohibitive. It seems like such an arcane notion that a family could sit in the balcony of a Broadway theatre for not much more than it would have cost to see movies. Now that doesn't hold. It's probably $100 to sit in the balcony somewhere and it's still like $12 at most to see a movie. In the old days, movies were maybe $1.50 or $2. To see a Broadway show in the balcony would cost about $3.5 or $5. I was exposed to theatre as a kid; musicals and comedies on Broadway. I was very exhilarated by it. It didn't turn me into a theatre geek, but it did awaken an interest in live theatre. As you pointed out, I have a degree in visual arts. My early talent was in drawing and I was encouraged greatly to be an artist and become a graphic artist; which is what I was doing when I decided to try my hand seriously at playwriting. I was fortunate enough to have a mentor who recognized that I had some talent and was very encouraging. That made an effect on me.

I don't get the opportunity to ask this of a lot of people. Let's talk Pulitzer, OK?

OK!

What were your initial feelings when you found out your SIGHT UNSEEN was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1992?

Well, 1992 was a really wonderful year for me. SIGHT UNSEEN became my breakthrough hit. It was the first time I had a play that lasted more than just a few weeks. It also earned me the approval of The New York Times critic Frank Rich, which a very, very important milestone. It was also the year that my son was born. It was a very special, a very charmed time. So when the announcement of the Pulitzer finalists came out - about a week after my son was born - it felt like a momentous reckoning in my life. I was in my late thirties at that point and I had never aspired to anything like a Pulitzer Prize. I never thought I wrote the kinds of plays that would earn that kind of accolade. I just never did. But suddenly, by me being named a finalist, I thought, 'Well, gee! Maybe I could win one of this things!' Honestly, I never thought about it. It was such a thrill and a delight to even be on anybody's radar who might be connected to bestowing that kind of honor. I thought, 'Wow! What a discovery!' Then, a few years later, I was a finalist again for COLLECTED STORIES (1997).

Same feelings? More anxious?

Again, I was delighted to be a finalist. It was sort of a good news/bad news thing because that was one of the few years that they decided not to give an award in drama. It was a double-edged kind of distinction. DINNER WITH FRIENDS happened a few years after that. It felt like I was on some form of trajectory. Not that that was my goal, but it just seemed that the plays were beginning to attract a national attention. Something I had not experienced before SIGHT UNSEEN in 1992.

So the moment you found out DINNER WITH FRIENDS won the Pulitzer for Drama, what did you do?

It was an amazing moment to be given that kind of recognition, it's fantastic. You don't know beforehand that you're been nominated. It's only after the award is announced, they name the finalists. In those days, I was off in Seattle premiering my adaptation of GOD OF VENGEANCE at A Contemporary Theatre in Seattle. The publicist for DINNER WITH FRIENDS Michael Hartman called me in Seattle once the press conference was given at Columbia University announcing the Pulitzer Prizes. He called me to tell me the news, 'I got AP on line.' I said, 'Let me call my wife.' I called my wife and then I spent a couple of days doing interviews, which was kind of amazing. A tremendous, tremendous thrill. As my dear, late colleague Wendy Wasserstein pointed out when she won, 'Now the first line of your obituary is that.' Such a defining moment that you are bestowed not only a prize, but a prefix to your name.

Here's a Sophie's Choice question: what's your favorite play?

My favorite play is always the one that I'm working on, 'cause it better be my favorite play. Otherwise, it's very difficult to approach it, to get up in the morning. I have very fond associations with most of my plays. I know I'm being flip about THE MODEL APARTMENT, but it did require a certain kind of attention and nurturing because it had such a fitful life. It has not been produced a lot. Some of the productions that it has had, has been troubled in one way or another. The revival in New York at Primary Stages that Evan Cabnet directed in 2013 earned me probably the best reviews of my career for any of my plays, which is certainly gratifying, but it doesn't suddenly re-cast my affection for the other works. It's a sweet kind of validation to see that a play that I wrote 30 years ago awaken a whole new audience. After doing this for so long, it's a really exciting notion. So I'm really pleased about that.

You are currently an adjunct professor of English and Theater Studies at Yale University?

Yes. I have been for many years.

How did that appointment come to pass?

They approached me. About 26 years ago, I taught a couple of college seminars at Yale as freelance faculty. After that, I became visiting lecturer at Yale School of Drama. I did that for a few years. Then I was invited to join the English and Theatre Studies department. So, it's probably been about almost 20 years that I've been in the English and Theater Studies department. I teach one course a semester, plus advising independent studies and senior projects. I love it. I've been doing it every semester since 1990. There were a couple of times I took some time off. When my son was born. I just wanted to bask in new parenthood. My wife and I took some time last year and spent a month in Berlin. Aside from that, my life is writing and teaching. If I'm good, I get to go off to productions of my plays.

What was the enlightening moment or incident when you said to yourself, "This is why I teach!"?

Last year, the film The End of the Tour with Jason Segel as David Foster Wallace; it was directed by a former Yale student of mine (James Ponsoldt). Which is wonderful. For me, that was such a acumination of these different strands of my life, of teaching and screenwriting and to have a former student direct a script I wrote and do such an exquisite and loving job with it was tremendously gratifying. It made all those years of teaching particularly sweet and meaningful.

You are an alumnus of New Dramatists and serve on the council of The Dramatists Guild of America. Which group would you advise a budding playwright to attempt to join or participate in?

Both. New Dramatists is a terrific organization that's based in New York although now they have more of a national identity. I honestly don't know that much about it because I was a member many years ago before. The internet changed a lot about the way we conduct our lives and certainly the way theatre is networked. I always urge my students to try to find a group of other writers and actors. Be a part of a community. Your work isn't complete as a playwright if you're simply sitting in a room writing yourself. Writing plays is different than writing fiction or even poetry because it requires the participation of actors in life. I always urge students to find situations in which they can present work, hear other people's work, learn from other people's mistakes, learn from hearing your own work read out loud. That's invaluable for writers.

The Dramatist Guild is an excellent organization that protects and helps educate young writers, and even writers who are more established. It doesn't function as union, but it's a moral gatekeeper of the writers' bill of rights of protecting writers. Also very good at introducing writers to other opportunities of grants and fellowships and organizations. It makes the lonely job of being a playwright that much more social. I think that's really an important thing for young writers and all writers to pursue.

Back to THE MODEL APARTMENT, what reactions do you want your audiences to have leaving the Geffen?

I want them to be moved. I went to a preview last night. A young woman greeted me afterwards and asked me if I was the playwright. She told me that she was Syrian and how this play about elderly holocaust survivor Jews in Florida resonated for her, as speaking to her about the migrant crisis. What I want people to leave with is really a sense of the timelessness of the refugee experience and the power of legacies and history on everyday life. I know that sounds awfully pretentious, but I'm trying to articulate why I think the play is moving to people. I don't think that it's just a portrait of holocaust survivors. I think it's really more about family and everyday lives in the shadow of enormous historical occurrences. That's what I want people to leave with. To contemplate that.

Thank you, Donald!

To check out THE MODEL APARTMENT that Donald Margulies helped remodel, go to the Audrey Skirball Kenis Theater at the Geffen Playhouse.

For schedule and available tickets for THE MODEL APARTMENT (through November 20, 2016); log onto www.geffenplayhouse.org

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