A Critic Takes Off to Become a ‘Real’ Writer

Journalists are sometimes asked: “Do you ever do any real writing?” The question makes us bristle--what we do feels real enough to us--but we understand its subtext, and perhaps even agree with it. Journalists write columns. Real writers write books.

So I am taking a year off from The Times to tackle one. It will be a biography of American playwright William Inge. Inge had four hit plays in a row in the 1950s, including “Picnic” and “Bus Stop,” and was in such despair by 1973 that he killed himself. There ought to be a story in that.

To write it, I am going back to Inge’s Midwest. That means no Los Angeles theater for a year. Separation anxiety is immediately felt: What’s a journalist without his beat. Especially when the beat is to be covered by a critic as disturbingly qualified as Sylvie Drake.

But the die is cast: the boxes have been shipped, the office is bare. All that’s left are a few yellow Post-It notes on the bulletin board--stuff to put in the column one day. This would seem to be the day:

* “Piano.” This refers to August Wilson’s “The Piano Lesson,” which I am not going to get to see at the Doolittle Theatre. This is a big frustration, for it struck, a year ago at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre, as Wilson’s richest and funniest play yet. I guess I’ll just have to read about it. (See review on F1.)

* “Branagh.” Another frustration is having to miss Kenneth Branagh’s Renaissance Theatre Company stagings of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and “King Lear” at the Mark Taper Forum. Again--certain readers seem to refuse to take the point--the argument isn’t that American actors can’t perform Shakespeare. It’s that Los Angeles needs to see an acting company with an agreed-upon approach to Shakespeare and the ability to bring his language alive in the theater. Branagh’s British actors are there to remind us that we can have our own classical repertory company at the Music Center if we really want it.

* “Ahmanson.” Hooray; there is serious talk about reconfiguring the Ahmanson Theatre for spoken drama. Some say that this can be done without losing its capacity for handling big-budget musicals when they come along. Maybe so, but there aren’t many examples of theaters that can successfully serve two masters. The simplest and bravest solution (not necessarily the cheapest one) would be to scale down the house to seat 1,200 people, all within the immediate range of the actor’s unassisted voice. Chamber music needs a certain ambience. So does drama.

* “AIDS.” I was remiss in not mentioning the Taper’s recent “Because We Care” benefit, featuring members of “The Phantom of the Opera” cast, excluding Michael Crawford. Besides raising $20,000 and dozens of baskets of food for two local AIDS projects (Hollywood Helps and Necessities of Life), the evening offered the quintessential rendition of Leonard Bernstein’s “Glitter and Be Gay,” transformed into a battle between two air-head sopranos, neither of whom knew that the other had been invited. Bravo, Dale Kristien, Leigh Munro and director David Galligan.

* “Tru.” A recent disparaging remark about “clone theater” in this space wasn’t meant to apply to Robert Morse’s uncanny evocation of Truman Capote at Broadway’s Booth Theatre. This wasn’t a rip-off of Capote, but a reminder that there was a vulnerable person beneath his fuss and feathers--that it took a considerable amount of courage to be Truman Capote. Morse now owns Capote, the way Hal Holbrook owns Mark Twain. It’s the kind of annuity every good actor deserves, and it won’t keep Morse from playing other roles. Bravo again.

* “Year-End.” For all the think-pieces written on the 1980s, nobody wrote one on the words, phrases and even sounds that first surfaced during that decade. It was about ‘83, for example, that I noticed that theater audiences, especially younger ones, weren’t merely applauding: they were now squealing, like the proverbial stuck pig.

The ‘80s also introduced Wo! as a term of surprised admiration. News analysts started using the word perception to mean impression . People started wearing power ties and going to power lunches and even power breakfasts. And on leaving work at the end of the day, colleagues would say, “Have a good one.”

It was the decade when “get off my back” became “get off my case”--or even “get out of my face.” Zero in football scores became zip . Nerds became wanna-bes. What did it all mean?

I don’t know. I’m outta here. Have a good one.