{"id":5119,"date":"2016-04-10T12:00:03","date_gmt":"2016-04-10T19:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cohoproductions.org\/old\/?p=5119"},"modified":"2016-04-19T11:38:52","modified_gmt":"2016-04-19T18:38:52","slug":"a-conversation-with-samuel-d-hunter-and-brandon-woolley-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cohoproductions.org\/old\/blog\/a-conversation-with-samuel-d-hunter-and-brandon-woolley-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Talking Theatre with Samuel D. Hunter and Brandon Woolley Part IV"},"content":{"rendered":"

Co-producer Brandon Woolley chatted with The Few<\/em> playwright Samuel D. Hunter about inspiration, process, interstates and Idaho as rehearsals for CoHo\u2019s upcoming production were just underway. \u00a0Read the first and second parts of their conversation here <\/a>and here and check back for more next week!<\/h3>\n
\"Brandon<\/a>
Brandon Woolley<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Samuel<\/a>
Samuel D. Hunter – Photo Credit: John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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BRANDON:<\/p>\n

I wanted to follow up with one final question. We just had our first \u201cstumble-through\u201d last night, which went really well – and, you know, Val is in the show, she did the workshop here at JAW, she\u2019s playing QZ, and then, a local actor named Mike O\u2019Connell who has worked here at PCS a lot and is a company member at Third Rail – they did A Bright New Boise <\/em>a few years back here in Portland – \u00a0is playing Bryan, and then we have this fantastic actual nineteen year old who is playing Matthew and he came through our Visions and Voices program, Promising Playwrights, which I think was around when you were here as well, the high schoolers who were writing plays and then had them performed before the big weekend plays, so he came through that program a couple of years ago, but is also a fantastic actor and just has some of the most amazing instincts that I\u2019ve seen from someone who\u2019s just come out of high school and hasn\u2019t been to college at all to study acting or anything like that. \u00a0It\u2019s been fun to watch these three people work on this play together; we\u2019re having a really good time. \u00a0But I was just wondering, based on the other productions, if there\u2019s any advice you would give or anything that you would want to say – to me, to the actors.<\/p>\n

SAM:<\/p>\n

I feel like the only thing, and you can probably say this about almost every play I\u2019ve ever written, is that there\u2019s this darkness to them, and to the characters. And I think in The Few <\/em>in particular, there\u2019s a lot of vitriol in the play. \u00a0And I think what\u2019s really important to always remember – and this is going to be a very obvious thing to say – is that vitriol is always a cover, it\u2019s always masking vulnerability and empathy. \u00a0It\u2019s always like, if it weren\u2019t for the vitriol between Bryan and QZ in the first scene, the play would pretty much be done after that first scene in the play. \u00a0But that vitriol and anger is constantly sort of covering up this desperate need for the two characters to connect. \u00a0Which finally happens in the penultimate scene in the play. \u00a0I think that we what we found in rehearsing was that the anger is fun. \u00a0And it\u2019s active, and it\u2019s fun to watch and there\u2019s a lot of conflict in it, but it can also weigh down the play. \u00a0Like in The Whale, <\/em>if the actor playing was just depressed the entire play, then it\u2019s almost like the play isn\u2019t about anything. But the actors who\u2019ve really made that part sing are the actors who are constantly reaching for the light through the pain. \u00a0And I think the same with Bryan and QZ. \u00a0They have a constant need to reach out to one another. \u00a0And the two actors who did it in the New York production had this brilliant ability; they could make it seem as if their eyes were constantly saying \u201cI love you\u201d even though their mouths were saying \u201cFuck you.\u201d<\/p>\n

BRANDON:<\/p>\n

That\u2019s something that I\u2019ve been thinking about as we\u2019ve been working through it: there is a lot of weight to it, and I think the tendency would be to just be bogged down in some of that depression sand to just stew in that. \u00a0Because that can sometimes be really fun for an actor to do as well. \u00a0But in terms of the rhythm and the movement of the play, remembering – not to keep it<\/em> light – but remembering that there is love and there is a need for connection, and that they had good times and that they had humor. \u00a0\u00a0I think that\u2019s one of the things that I keep coming back to: your play is very funny at times! Particularly, there\u2019s humor in the sadness that has been really fun to explore. \u00a0And we\u2019re continuing to do that while staying true to the circumstances – that Bryan does feel quite depressed as well.<\/p>\n

SAM:<\/p>\n

Interestingly enough, it\u2019s the thing that I think stalled me while I was writing the first draft of the play in 2009 or 2010. \u00a0I think I wrote the play through the big blow-up scene where Bryan rips up all the papers, and then I think I stalled after that. \u00a0As a writer, I think, I was leaning so hard into the depressive anger stuff that it was really hard to find the forward movement. \u00a0But then when I went back and realized that the play was fundamentally about a guy who was trying to say, \u201cI love you,\u201d or \u201cmarry me,\u201d or whatever it is, that gave me the scaffolding to write a play that was active.<\/p>\n

BRANDON:<\/p>\n

Awesome. \u00a0Well this has been fantastic, and thank you so much for taking the time and chatting about this play that I\u2019m sure you haven\u2019t thought about it awhile, necessarily, with everything else going on, but we\u2019re having a great time, and I\u2019m super excited that it\u2019s getting to come back to Portland after at least four to five hundred people experiencing it at JAW a few years ago. And I know that a lot of people in the theatre community are really excited, we\u2019re tapping into the trucking community a little bit with some outreach, and just trying to do our best to get not just the theatre community out to this play, because I think it deals with so much more than that.<\/p>\n

SAM:<\/p>\n

When we did the New York production I actually did an interview on a trucker radio station. \u00a0It was really interesting. \u00a0Sirius XM radio has some channel for truckers, and I came in and I did their show and it was very cool. \u00a0I don\u2019t know if a lot of people were parking their big rigs in the West Village to go see the play . . . \u00a0(laughs) but, that community is really vibrant, and alive, and big!<\/p>\n

BRANDON:<\/p>\n

I just read an article recently about how there are 3.5 million people who are truckers in the United States, and they\u2019re still short on truckers. \u00a0They need more people to be doing this. \u00a0There was actually, funnily enough, a Buzzfeed article that I read four days ago about a female truck driver. \u00a0The interviewer went on a six day trip with this truck driver, a 3,500 mile run, or something like that, just showing how it all actually happens. \u00a0The showering, etc. \u00a0. . . \u00a0and all of that. \u00a0It\u2019s fascinating, and I keep seeing things pop up about how truck drivers are the backbone keeping this country alive in terms of getting goods and services to places. \u00a0It\u2019s been fascinating to dive into that – to really pay attention to it – because it\u2019s not something that I normally would.<\/p>\n

SAM:<\/p>\n

Exactly. \u00a0Are you in rehearsals right now?<\/p>\n

BRANDON:<\/p>\n

We just started our third week yesterday. \u00a0We open on March 25th and we run through April 16th. \u00a0Four week run, four shows a week.<\/p>\n

SAM:<\/p>\n

I wish I could see it! \u00a0I really wish I could.<\/p>\n

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