HAS Interview

The Hampstead Authors' Society

Turning Current Politics into Plays – Zsuzsanna Ardó in conversation with Joe Sutton about his play, Complicit, at the Old Vic, directed by the Old Vic’s artistic director, Kevin Spacey.

Zsuzsanna Ardó: What triggered the idea of Complicit?
Joe Sutton: Several incidents in the news were central to my thinking about Complicit. Most important was an op-ed published in Newsweek magazine in the first months after 9/11. The journalist, a self-proclaimed liberal, suggested that the US wage war differently than it had in the past. In particular, he urged his readers to consider the possibility that the United States might have to begin torturing its captives. Needless to say, I was aghast – and from that time on was primed to write about that journalist and his assertion.
In the next years, with the investigation of the Valerie Plame leak, the stories about black sites and torture (broken by the Washington Post), along with the ongoing sense that journalism as a whole had let America down, the group of ideas I wanted to explore in Complicit came more and more into focus.
ZA: How did the idea turn into the creative process itself?
JS: Well, to start with, I did a good deal of reading. I knew early on I wanted to set the play around a federal grand jury. There is something very provocative, interesting, and seemingly extra-legal about that aspect of our justice system, and I knew I needed to learn more about it.
I went about finding people who had experience with grand juries – two federal prosecutors in particular – and had them teach me about the process. One funny aspect of those exchanges had to do with the prosecutors’ unwillingness to help me brainstorm how such a proceeding might go awry.
I was interested in exploring the dystopian possibilities. What if a prosecutor, in normal times little constrained in a grand jury, felt absolutely no constraint whatsoever? What if he/she were willing to bend rule, custom, etiquette? How might that look? In short, what might truly fascist justice look like? Well, I couldn’t get my federal prosecutors to bite. They would tell me what they had experienced…but were forever at pains to reassure that the kind of unchecked abuse I was imagining could never occur.
ZA: How long did it take from the idea to the final product – the recent premier?
JS: Probably 24 months from the moment I began doing research. That research, in one form or another lasted 6-8 months, followed by months of writing, re-writing, and then months of waiting as the production took shape.
ZA: How did this particular collaboration come about with Kevin Spacey?
JS: Kevin had been in a play of mine many years ago, and he and I had stayed in contact since that time. After his arrival at the Old Vic, I began sending him my plays, and I felt pretty certain that this was one that might really interest him. I had actually just begun circulating the play, and he was one of the first people I sent it to. He called within days. He wanted to do it. I of course was thrilled – there was no theatre company I would have preferred. Starting the play in London, in no small part because the play is so political, seemed the right thing to do. So we agreed to go forward.
ZA: Could you describe the creative process while working on Complicit with Kevin Spacey?
JS: Kevin created a lovely atmosphere in rehearsal, so that all artists felt able to explore, question, experiment in a way that would allow for the most interesting discovery.
ZA: How much input did you have in the auditioning, rehearsal and production process?
JS: Not an enormous amount. What Kevin made sure to do, once rehearsals had begun, was to stay in regular communication.
ZA: Did you write the role of the Complicit protagonist, the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Ben Kritzer, with Richard Dreyfuss in mind? If so, why?
JS: No, I did not write the role with Dreyfuss in mind. Although, interestingly, his “voice” is one I have often carried in my head. There is something about the volubility, the intellect, the energy, that Richard has brought to so many of his film roles… that has always attracted me.
ZA: Why was the premier delayed? Was it due to re-writing, and if so, could you give an insight into the some of the creative choices you made in this phase of the process, and the reasons for them?
JS: The premier’s delay had nothing whatsoever to do with the writing. Though we did take advantage of those 10 days, and did make a few nips and tucks, that was not at all the purpose of the delay.
ZA: Could you tell us about the nitty-gritty details of your creative process in general? How do you structure your days? How does teaching fit in?
JS: I don’t write and teach at the same time. I’m lucky in that my teaching responsibilities happen in two discrete, ten-week terms, the fall and the spring. The other thirty weeks, as I like to say, are mine.
During those weeks, I tend to my writing like a job – starting my workday at 9 and working through till 6 or so. It’s not every day. I certainly do other things as well. But more often than not, my day goes like that. And I normally work Monday-Friday, reserving the weekend days for family. But of course, all is subject to change; and a lot has to do with what stage of the creative process I find myself in. When I’ve really got the taste in my mouth, I can be writing at 2am on a Saturday morning.
ZA: How do you go about making your characters in your plays come alive?
JS:I hear them. My plays are extremely rhythmic…and the experience of writing them is auditory. I have to listen for when the character, particular that fellow in the corner who hasn’t spoken for a while, needs to talk.
Each draft of the play will deepen my understanding of character – particularly prejudices and predispositions – and the next time through, I may hear something I didn’t hear before.
One of the interesting things about my process has to do with a terrifying artistic moment I had about 15 years ago.
I had already been writing for some years, and I had to decide if I would be willing to change my “method” by using a computer. Up to that point, my method had involved typing and re-typing all of the pages each time I went through the script. Only in that way could I be sure to pick up the rhythms, nuances, and even the hidden voices that might be waiting to emerge. When I imagined what might happen if I should “cut and paste” on a computer, I feared I would lose touch with the inner, auditory world of the play. I would cease to be “inside”…because I would no longer have to re-enter (through re-typing.)
Well, needless to say, it was a great relief to discover that I could still re-enter the imaginary world – lips moving as I read through – and that “listening” aspect is still central to my process.
ZA: Some of the references in the play appear to suggest that both Ben, the journalist and his lawyer are Jewish. What is the significance of this choice?
JS: It’s a good question. I also am Jewish. And I think there is something about the changing politics of American Jewry…particularly after 9/11 (though in a larger sense over the last 30 years or so)…that is buried in this play.
Perhaps it’s to do with the fact that many of these same controversies (and shame) concerning torture, coercion, and interrogation – have concerned Israel and Israeli society as well.
By the way, Roger is not Jewish. His “mazel tov” at the end is an on off-hand (perhaps bitter, perhaps anti-Semitic) gesture to Ben.
ZA: There are two men and a woman on stage, and thus the debate is triangulated. Is it fair to say that the female voice is limited to that of the wife, arguing for giving in (betraying sources) to protect the family on the one hand, and worrying and listening to the men on the other. Did you consider at any stage making the lawyer or the journalist a female character?
JS: The gender/sexual dynamics of the world of this play never played a great role for me. And frankly I’m not sure I see Judy’s role as holding up one end of a “debate.”
Rather, I see her role as representative of the non-public figure, and the fear and resentment those people have when their spouses (or the world at large) drag their family into greater prominence than they’d anticipated.
I think of Ben as a destructive narcissist. I see Judy, his wife, as his primary victim. He needs her love (“do you love me”), but he couldn’t describe, if asked, what that love is. She, due to convenience, the fact that he’s the father of her children, and/or because she is frightened by the alternatives to her marriage she thinks available to her, is captive to his decisions. She has no independent ability to create a new reality.
In a way, I suspect her passivity, her acceptance, her “reaction”, is as much an indictment of her as it is of him. But he could not be the way he is if she were not the way she is.
ZA: Ben’s wife looks much younger then Ben, indeed she looks like she is his daughter – is that a creative choice of the script, and if so, what motivates this choice?
JS: The script indicates that she is “somewhat” younger than Ben. It was purely a function of casting that the disparity became as great as it was. And it may have ended up being too great. But at least to start with, I thought it might work.
My sense of the characters has to do with them being in an unequal, implicitly abusive relationship. And it’s a relationship that may have changed over time. Perhaps 25 years ago, when she was barely out of college and he was already in the middle of his career, the reading lists he provided her, the instruction and guidance he gave her, the degree to which he could monopolize the culture of their marriage were all acceptable (even exciting) to her. They may have become less so by the time of the play.
And yet the pattern of their marriage dictates that he have a free hand to make whatever decisions (ethical, moral, marital) he wants. I like the power imbalance – particularly in a play where the central character feels himself (and is) victimized.
ZA: The set-up in your drama avoids the dramatic suspense inherent in a court case such as the Grand Jury in this play. Why cut out the potential in debating and thrashing out the main ideas of the play directly in the court? Or, in the court as well as outside of it? Why did you decide to make the court debate an indirect experience, which is only reported on? As the play is relatively short, it would seem that the extra layer of debate within the court could have been included in terms of time.
JS: Well, there were many reasons for this. To start with, I liked the idea of points of view. I liked the idea that there was a mystery about what had actually occurred in the room. Just how “fascist” an environment has really been created? By showing the actual hearing room, I was concerned that the oppressiveness of the exchange would seem less rather than more – that Ben’s complaint would seem trivial. Allowing Ben to exaggerate, to color his description of events, to alter, misremember, avoid, forget – seemed like it would create an interesting mystery – and that mystery would involve an audience’s critical capacity more deeply than the other.
In short, I liked the filter. Consciousness, guilt, drunkenness.
There was also a practical concern. I liked the idea of keeping the play extremely compact – and did not want to involve other characters.
I wonder if this choice is not made more complicated for a British audience because you don’t have grand juries and therefore encounter an offstage process that is more difficult to visualize.?Even though the process in America is secret (testimony is secret, identities are secret), I wonder if the American audience wouldn’t have an easier time “visualizing” what had occurred – and consequently have the reporting about it be more alive for them.
But going back to an earlier part of the answer, I think my greatest ambition was to make the audience “work”. In hearing the reporting, and piecing together events, I hoped the audience would have to construct the reality in their own minds – and as new, contradictory information came in, would have to recast that thinking.
ZA: You have been teaching playwriting at university level – what are some of the most important ideas and strategies you try to teach your students?
JS: I center my teaching on the idea of action. I love that book “Actions” in fact. I try to convey the sense that characters in conflict are forever “doing” to each another. I think once students get hold of that idea, connecting the tactical (the doing) with the strategic (the desire), the play begins to come alive (and often writes itself.)
ZA: What have been the most influential creative inspirations in your work?
JS: The relationship between the personal and the political, the public and the private, has always been central to my work. Because of that, in the late 70s/early 80s, I found myself drawn to the writing of several British playwrights, among them Howard Brenton. Later, as I really began my own work, I had the pleasure of collaborating with Tony Kushner (he was dramaturge of my first play in New York) and I found working with him to be very exciting.Before that, and this could well be the profound inspiration of all _-- I spent weeks at the Berliner Ensemble studying the work and practice of Brecht.I was still in college at the time.It was a transformative experience.
ZA: How do you approach a new project?
JS:There is no one way. It seems as if each project takes shape in its own time, following its own path. Often, however, I’ll begin the process with aperiod of research.A month in a laboratory. A month at a courthouse. Reading books. Conducting interviews. What is an “Abraham Lincoln impersonator” like? Best way to find out is to go out and meet one. That sort of thing. And then once I feel like I know enough, that I’m actually bursting with information, when I absolutely NEED to start writing, I will.
On the other hand, sometimes I just start. A noise in a kitchen. A woman comes downstairs. What does she find?
ZA: What are you currently working on?
JS: I’m currently working on a play about George Orwell. It started as a one-man-show, but I’ve now opened it up, introduced a second character, and find the piece turning into much more of a “play”.
The story involves a fictional book tour of North America in the first years after the publication of “Animal Farm”. Of course these were also the years of the Hollywood Ten, and other manifestations of anti-Communist hysteria, and my fictional Orwell has been gripped by a panic that his book is being mis-used. Yes, he wants to warn about Stalin. But he does not want to smear the entire Left in the process. Quite the contrary. He wants to tell America that he’s a Socialist – a fact he thinks may surprise them -- and to make sure that they read his book with that thought in mind.
Of course, what he encounters when he gets to the US is entirely different than he anticipated. And he comes to realize that his book no longer belongs to him. It belongs to his readership, and they will read it as they wish.
ZA: And what would you like to be working on?
JS: Whatever comes next.