Guest Blog: 'Opposites Are A Theme I Keep Coming Back To': Writer Dan McCabe on Connection and Inspiration for THE PURISTS

When I was at the Juilliard Playwriting Program, my instructor Marsha Norman talked a lot about how every playwright has their “stuff” – essentially the themes and ideas that they keep coming back to in all their work.

Having acted since I was a kid, a lot of people ask why I’ve never written a part for myself.  Ever since I began writing- which also started as a kid- I have gravitated towards creating characters that are, on the surface, very different from me.  I’ll start with something small- a funny line I overhear, an unusual speech inflection- and then give my false interpretation of this person’s surrounding world.  I say “false” because I don’t try to copy someone’s life, but rather use little details as a springboard for my own imagination, creating an entirely made-up existence.   

The skills that I admire most in a playwright, ones that I am constantly striving to sharpen, are a keen sense of observation and imagination.  My friend and I joke that the best writers are actually “God’s Stenographers”, and can select the most interesting tidbits of life and transfuse them into art.  What’s interesting to some can be dull to others and it’s taken me a couple plays to discover what I find interesting and to notice the patterns in my work that clearly reflect the issues I face in my waking life.  

I have found that “opposites” are a theme that I keep coming back to; placing people on stage that you wouldn’t normally think would be together, where it’s because of social class, race, sexuality, or just personality wise. This is my “stuff”.

I grew up in Manhattan, in the Penn South Buildings, a limited income housing cooperative. Down the block from me were the Chelsea-Elliot Houses, a much worse-off housing project where a lot of my friends lived.  My father taught photography at an affluent private school in Englewood, New Jersey, which I attended from grades 7 to 12.  Because my dad was on the faculty, I didn’t have to pay the costly tuition, and soon realized that I was, as one kid put it, “the poorest kid in the school.” 

Being the only resident of New York City in a school-full of Jerseyans, I gladly accepted my newly appointed street cred.  “Have you ever been mugged?” was the most common question asked in 7th grade when someone learned where I lived.  At the time, I didn’t think too much about the disparate lives of my two sets of friends.  One night I would be sleeping over at a mansion in Alpine, the next I would be smoking a blunt in a piss-stained project staircase.  

This juxtaposition has infused itself into many of my plays. I never begin my process knowing I’m going to write about “an issue” (in fact, I usually begin my process not knowing anything).  I start with a character I find funny, one that is typically troubled with a mental or physical block in need of connection.  Halfway through writing I discover the characters deepest fear, and how it’s connected to my own anxieties.  

Playwriting is a way for me to connect with other people who share these fears.  I think the reason I don’t write roles for myself is because of an unquenchable yearning to find similarities to those who at first seem different.  

The Purists was spawned from this juxtaposition. The characters of Gerry and Lamont are so different on the surface, yet by the end of the play we see how much common ground they stand on.

The Purists plays at the Kiln Theatre until 21 December

Photo Credits: Marc Brenner

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