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photographs by Nadia Cohen
Roundabout Artistic Director Todd Haimes and playwright Charles Randolph-Wright discuss the broad appeal of Blue.
Front & Center: How did Roundabout decide to produce Blue this season?
Haimes: We were looking for a final play for the season at the Gramercy Theatre, which we use primarily for new plays by established playwrights and occasionally for revivals that we think would better fit in that space, like Juno and the Paycock. I got a call from Stephen Richard, the managing director at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., and he said "we did this incredible play called Blue, it got rave reviews, it was a huge hit for us, and personally I would really like to see this play have a future life, particularly in New York, because I think it’s a great play." I wasn’t familiar with the play, although I knew Charles had directed an incredibly successful production of Guys and Dolls, also at Arena.
So they sent me the play, and I read it and loved it. Fundamentally, that’s what it comes down to with all the selections here. First of all, somebody has to make a decision, for better or for worse, and that job falls to me. And, while there are various factors involved, the first criterion is whether or not I like the play. Does it speak to me, and do I think it will speak to our audience? That’s as simple and as complicated as the decision-making process is. When I read Blue, I loved it, so we met and we decided to go for it.
Randolph-Wright: This is the story I always tell: I get this phone call. I come and meet Todd, I sit down, Todd says "I love your play, I want to do it, I’ll call you in two weeks and let you know if it’s June or September." Two weeks later, the phone rings and he says, "It’s June. Goodbye." That was it. (Laughter) It was refreshing to have someone just make a decision because usually you have to go through so many people and readings. And it was ironic, too, because Roundabout is where I most wanted to do the play. It was also refreshing, as an artist of color, to have someone just like the work for its own sake. This is definitely a play about the black experience, in a sense, because the characters are black
people — but so many people of different ethnicities come up to me and say, "that’s my mother, that’s my family." So it’s not only about the black experience.
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Haimes: Although this honestly didn’t occur to me until after I met Charles and decided to do the play, I have to say that it is really nice to be doing a play about a black family that is upper middle-class. For a variety of reasons, most of them good, so many of the plays that have been written from a black perspective — at least those that end up being produced in New York — tend to be about the horrible struggles black people have gone through and continue to go through. That’s certainly valid and important, but it’s refreshing to see a play written about a different kind of struggle: a struggle all of us can relate to, regardless of our ethnicity, of how to grow up in a family and how to deal with issues of success and failure.
Randolph-Wright: With Blue, I just wrote something that I believed in. I wrote about my family and it turned out to be an image of "Black America" that is far more pervasive than people think.
F & C: Charles, like some of these characters, you grew up in the South and you’ve had a music career. How autobiographical is this play?
Randolph-Wright: My father didn’t have a funeral home, but my family did, so I grew up in a funeral home family. I’m an only child, so the siblings in this family are based on other relatives of mine, and various things in this play did happen to me. I have a cousin (now a doctor) who came to see the show, and I heard him screaming in the theatre when the older brother gives the younger brother this little talk about how he seduces girls in the hearse. I remember very specifically my cousin explaining to me "the power of the hearse."
There was actually a series of books written many years ago about my hometown. Three sociologists stayed with black families, poor white families, and rich white families in the 1940s and 50s. The black sociologist stayed with my family at the funeral home. When I was growing up and they would show me the book and say "this is us, this is our town"—except that the sociologists had renamed it "Kent." When I was writing Blue, I was trying to come up with a name for the fictitious town and my cousin said, "why don’t you call it Kent?" I had already named the family the Clarks, and one day it dawned on me: "oh my god, the Clarks of Kent!" (laughter) It was perfect, because this is a super-family—or at least they think they are. When we were first working on it in Washington, I kept saying the play is an amalgam of all the people in my family.
My mother gave me the greatest gift a parent can give a child, which is the gift of possibility.
F & C: How did your mother feel about the character of Peggy Clark, who is a fiercely tenacious parent?
Randolph-Wright: At first I was afraid my mother would see it as a scathing portrayal. But it isn’t, because the play is ultimately redemptive. My mother gave me the greatest gift a parent can give a child, which is the gift of possibility. She expected me to do and be everything, and that’s a kind of freedom many kids don’t have. That gift comes with a lot of responsibility and difficulty, and that’s the experience of having a very strong, complicated mother. My mother read Macbeth to me when I was two years old. She demanded certain things and would not settle for less. Years later you appreciate it and realize what it’s given you.
She was thrilled when she found out Phylicia Rashad was going to play this character. What could be better for any mother in this country—black, white, or whatever ethnicity—than to have Phylicia Rashad play you? Phylicia is a brilliant actress and an extraordinary person. She can imbue characters with so many different qualities on so many levels at once.
F & C: Many of the great American playwrights produced by Roundabout wrestle with questions about the nature of the American family. Do you see Blue in line with some of those other plays?
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Haimes: Yes, in a sense, because I have always been attracted to plays that tell a story I can relate to. Not just because it’s interesting or good work, but because I can relate to it on a more personal level. I love plays about families and I love plays about coming of age. I think Blue speaks so beautifully about those issues. Arthur Miller is a perfect example of someone who tells a story everybody can relate to; a play like The Crucible ultimately has nothing to do with witches. It’s about justice and honor—something that everybody has had to deal with at some point in their lives. In the same way, King Lear is a great play not because it has to do anything with kings and queens, but because it’s about a father and his daughters. I think Blue fits well in that genre of plays which are dramatic and theatrical but also tell a story with universal values. I think our audiences will enjoy it for many of the same reasons they enjoy any of the classic dramas we have produced.
F & C: This play integrates music into the story. Does music add to its universal qualities?
Randolph-Wright: Maybe, because the music is part of the story. It gives you clues, the way a film soundtrack helps you place things together. I kept thinking of Frank Sinatra when I wrote it: every album the character Blue records has a different theme and texture, so they’re all different types of songs. Nona Hendryx, who wrote the music and co-wrote the lyrics with me, literally created ten different albums for this because each of the ten songs has a different sound. We had no idea the music would be as powerful as it is, and I think that’s a tribute to Nona’s extraordinary writing and versatility. She and I have worked together for a long time. And we’re developing a new song now — for which I’m going to make Todd sing back-up vocals! (laughter)
Haimes: What’s unusual about this play is the way it interweaves the music and the drama. Blue is not a musical, but it is a play with a significant use of music—not just as background but as part of the story. That is something unique in the play’s structure, which I think will make it particularly beautiful for an audience, and entertaining on an entirely new level.
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