Interview with George F. Walker

by Ian Walker, BACKSTAGE WEST

July 13, 2000

WALKER TO WALKER

Act One, Scene One.  As far as I know, no playwright ever starts with those words—not when they pick up the pen.  They start in a much hazier, intuitive place.  The playwriting process is somewhat of a mystery, even for the playwright.  So when Second Wind Productions asked me to conduct a “playwright to playwright” interview with Canadian George F. Walker, I was intrigued.  Second Wind is producing two one acts, one by each of us, under the title Walkers on the Wild Side.  Our plays were an interesting match:  his play, Criminal Genius, a dark farce about petty criminals; my play, Erin’s Hope, a dark comedy about Irish gun-running and love.  I was a nervous, too.  The other Mr. Walker is one of the most respected and produced playwrights in Canada.  His plays (26 of them) have been performed by some of the biggest companies in the world.  I was a local scribe still struggling to get my work produced.  What eased my fears was the fact that we shared a common love:  the Marx Brothers.

Chasing the Muse

I started the interview by asking about rituals, the little behaviors that allow one to submerge into the fragile world of the characters.  For me, the writing process starts in the shower.  Fragments of the characters drift hazily about, luring me into their world.   Once dry, I pursue them with a good cup of coffee, often in a café.  I require a new pad of paper for each play, and headphones.  Music creates a kind of emotional grease for my thoughts, a way to connect the dots when the vision falters.  My muse usually hands me the end of the play first, accompanied by a big fat question:  “Who on earth would do something like that?”  I asked George about his process:

Do you have any rituals for writing?

I like to write fast, and I like to walk.  I’ve done some plays on the move, walking, or sitting in doorways, taking pads and scratching down stuff.  I like to be outside in the summer and write as much as I can.  It’s an active thing.

I never know what I’m going to write.  I have a feeling, a couple of characters in my head.  And then they say something, and maybe I hear a vague response.  I just try to stay in touch the emotions, and basically they do the work.  I call it “Method” writing.

There are many forms of writing.  Why plays?

Up here, all the publishing houses were like a club.  Theaters, on the other hand, were actually looking for new work in the early 70s.  I wrote a play and The Factory Theater in Toronto produced it.  I wrote another and they did it.  After that, it was kind of like a job.  They said they would do everything I wrote, and they basically did.

You weren’t already in love with the theater?

The second play I ever saw was my own.  I’d read plays, in school and on my own, but I’d never actually seen any.  Ignorance was a great motivator.  You don’t know all the mistakes you make.  They were pointed out to me by critics, of course.  I listened to them at first, but then I thought that’s one of the problems with theater.  There are all these traditions, these rules that you’re supposed to adhere to, when all the theater really is is an empty space that you can fill up with whatever you want… as long as you keep the audience’s attention.

Do you see more plays now, or appreciate them more?

No.  It’s where I go to work.  I don’t go to hang out.  I think it is much more important to be a person who lives in the world.  People in the theater often talk about theater endlessly.  It can be a very small world.  I’m not trying to write the perfect play.  I would rather just connect with an audience, and the way to do that is to stay connected to the real world.  I encourage my friends not to see my plays, really.  If they see one, they want to talk about it.  I really don’t like to talk about my plays.  I say, “let’s make it brief.  Did you like it?  Did it mean anything to you?”  And then let’s move on.

Truths the hand can touch

South African playwright Athol Fugard once wrote that he was trying to create truths that the hand could touch.  I’ve always been drawn to that phrase.  It has a kind of magical aura to it—the creation of something concrete from the ethereal, the abstract.  In Fugard’s world, the truth had strong social and political implications.  He approached writing, as I do, with an eye towards its social reverberations.  Art shouldn’t merely reflect life; its reflection should cause a disturbance.  I asked George Walker what he thought about social responsibility and theater.

Does theater have a social role or responsibility in your opinion?

It should contain some sense of what’s going on in the world.  The best thing you can do in theater is to speak out loud for people in the audience.  To say things they’re not allowed to say.  In some of my plays I feel as if I’m struggling toward the truth, to make sense of the world.  People actually feel at ease by that.  Here’s some guy (in the play) who’s in worse shape than they are.  Saying things that are on their minds, too.  We’re on the same planet.

CRIMINAL GENIUS is one of six plays in the Suburban Motel series that takes place in the same hotel room.  Did you ever say, “Oh, criminy, can’t I get out of this room?”

I loved being there.  I liked the confined space.  When you’re not searching for that environment, you remove one of the barriers between intuition and creation.  The Suburban Motel series, because I wrote six plays all at once, was very liberating.  The other plays in the series, because they’re heavier, gave me permission to write Criminal Genius.  I could never have written it by itself, because it would be considered frivolous.  It’s neo-vaudeville.

On the surface, Criminal Genius may be a farce, but there are still serious issues underneath.

That’s the balance.  There’s a certain sadness to it that gives it some kind of weight, that keeps it from just floating away.  I was really enamored with the vaudevillian sadness, the way they relentlessly went to their doom.  These people (Rollie, Stevie, and Shirlie) were doomed—so was Phillie, everyone who came in touch with these guys.

I ended my interview with a question that had been on my mind all week:  What’s your favorite Marx Brothers movie?

He answered me in two words:  Animal Crackers.  After nearly an hour, we ended the interview.  I thanked him for his time; he wished everyone good luck and to “have fun”.  He made a point to send his best wishes to everyone involved in the project.  I was touched by his warmth and openness… but only for five dollars.  And that came later.