Tom: Well, you know why I wrote The Workingman?
Q: Because there was a contest?
Tom: That’s right. I only had three days to write it. And then not too long to produce it. There was a theatre festival [the 1975 du Maurier Festival of Canadian Plays]. So that was the long and the short of it, you know, then Pulp Press decided to publish it.
Q: What about the casting of the actors?
Tom: At the New Play Center?
Q: What do you remember about that?
Tom: I remember the actors, but like with any play I seldom have anything to do with the actors. Not never, but it’s very rare.
Kate [Lynch], more than anyone, I think she has an eye for casting. So if Kate wants to cast something we’re doing, I would really have to have trouble with a particular actor for me to even say anything about it. It’s not just me. I mean, even people who haven’t worked with her have thought, why did she use so and so, who turned out to be so fabulous? I don’t know how she knows how to do that. I don’t. So as a result I don’t do it.
The only guy that I knew while we were in rehearsals for the show was a guy named Wayne Robson [who played Gene]. Wayne Robson is actually very well-known here in Canada.
One day while we were in rehearsal he got a phone call, long distance. He went to get it and it was Robert Altman calling him to see if we wanted to be in Popeye. And so he did it. After he was in my play he did Popeye, in wherever country they were in for that [Malta]. You’ve probably seen him in the odd film. He was a short guy though. So he never was the leading man.
The guy, Jerry Wasserman [who played The Man]. He’s got a severe look to him but in actual fact, he works at UBC as, I don’t know, an English professor or whatever, but something like that [Professor of English and Theatre at UBC]. I’ve seen him on Disney films and shit like that. He got a lot of work. I think the other people just got out of acting.
Q: It’s interesting that two of the actors were pros.
Q: Well they all were. But I don’t think the two of them lasted because it’s a dog-eat-dog kind of business.
Q: Do you remember Robb Smith [who played Michael]?
Tom: Yes, I was at a party here in town three or four years afterwards and Robb Smith showed up. All the guys there went wild because I knew Robb Smith, because he was just cute as hell. I don’t think he was gay. But he was so nice he could have been. And all the guys were, you know, he had a great body and a big mop of hair. But I don’t know why he was there. We had a nice chat, but I don’t think he was working as an actor… What’s her name? Is it Pia?
Q: Kayla Armstrong [who played Charlene].
Tom: Oh Kayla Armstrong. Which one is this then?
Q: The Workingman.
Tom: But which? Because Kayla Armstrong…
Q: Oh, which production?
Tom: Yeah. The first person who was in it, maybe it was just while we were in rehearsals, was a woman named Pia Shandel. And I thought she was in the play, but I guess she wasn’t
She’s was in Vancouver. I don’t know what she ended up doing. Maybe some kind of radio, or maybe she does the news. But Kayla, she was from that place in New York. You go to learn shit, about acting and dancing, that kind of thing. I wasn’t with everyone long enough for you to know them. And also, I didn’t know anything about getting together to know people.
Q: Do you remember how long the run was?
Tom: Not that long. I don’t think it was even a week. But something close to it. I guess. You know, I could be wrong about that too. I didn’t go back to see it.
Q:: What was the reception like?
Tom: Well all the plays run with two plays a night. So it was on with, I can’t think of his name now. It was for one act plays. And it was one of those really long one act type things, and it was all a guy meeting his psychiatrist.
It was a guy and his psychiatrist. You know something, there’s a picture, like where you make pictures out of like little pieces.
Q: A jigsaw puzzle .
Tom: There’s this big jigsaw of his face. The guy who’s seeing his shrink. So part of it is filled in, and they have a conversation the likes of which means absolutely fucking nothing to me. And it goes on forever. And when it’s finally over, somebody stands up and says, bravo. And they are applauding, you know that kind of pretension. The sense that you’ve got the same people there.
Then we have The Workingman. Well, that wasn’t so acceptable. There was one woman that got up, left, and then screamed when she was out in the lobby. Another woman was sitting next to me, and I looked at her and said, “it wasn’t too much was it?” And she said, “No, it wasn’t. I mean, do you know anything with this guy?” And I said, “Yeah, I’m him.” [laughs]
The thing is, looking at it now, I’ve realized that any play, mine has been there in Vancouver, and here in Toronto. I always get a better reception here. They’re just more open to it. What’s the word for just talking about the city? Guys that will make movies or films or whatever it is about city life.
Q: Urbane?
Tom: Urbane. Yeah, that kind of thing. In Vancouver I think you could write about working as a farmer or some shit you know, and they’d like it better than they liked me, I’ll tell you that. In my case for some reason it just seems like they don’t get it, or it’s kind of like, oh my god.
Sheldon Rosen, that was the name of the other writer [Rosen’s play was called Like Father, Like Son]. After the plays were over he came to me and said “Well, how do you feel about your play?” And I said, “I’m good.” And he’s saying, “Well, I mean, it’s like television.” Well, that’s all I knew. So I said, “Well, yeah, like, it’s supposed to work, which he didn’t tell me. (??)
But now I understand. There’s a reason that it actually looks like television. There’s something that doesn’t look like television. And that’s whatever you want to do in theater that isn’t like TV. Whereas, I’m thinking, there’s the door, guy comes in, goes out, there’s the other person comes in, goes out. Like, to me it was all, oh, there’s a name for it. A type of Canadian naturalism, which obviously some guy where there was a picture of himself in the thing. It’s not that, you know, he’s not really supposed to be replaced with this picture. And he talked about Doris Lessing, who I’d never heard of at the time. So I did pick up some stuff. Now I almost feel like doing it, but on the other hand, why would you have Doris Lessing in a fucking play?
Q: Doris Lessing? Why her?
Tom: I don’t know. But you know, have you read anything lately? Yes, a new book by Doris Lessing. Ah, do you feel like it’s so and so and so and so? You know, I’ve seen a shrink more than once, and none of them ever bring up Doris Lessing to me.
Q: Oh, Doris Lessing’s in the play?
Tom: Yeah, that’s what I meant.
Q: Okay. Yeah, it was mentioned in that play, that level of hoity toity.
Tom: Yeah. Yes, that’s right. I mean, everybody there except me, you, and Tom Osborne [Vancouver friend] knew who Doris Lessing was.
Q: When he says that, he means this is like TV?
Tom: Well, it looks like something you could find on television, whereas there’s nothing flighty about it, or nothing surreal, or there’s nothing theatrical as far as they’re concerned.
Q: It’s tremendously theatrical.
Tom: Pam Hawthorne [the director of the play would agree with you. But it’s TV theatrics, I guess.
Q: Is it because there’s bang and boom?
Tom: I don’t know. I mean, that’s something we have to figure out because it was some guy saying it to me, you know, so who cares? And you know, I went on writing things anyway.
Q: Do remember any reviews being published?
Tom: Yes, because it marked me. There was a guy that went on being successful as a writer. When I saw him he was at UBC and he wrote reviews.
Q: On the side?
Tom: Yeah. And he shows up and there was him and the guy that took pictures. And after they left, the guy that took the pictures shoved something under the door. What it was, was like, he liked my play. He didn’t even know this other guy. So I knew then that I was going to get a bad review from him. Because this guy is writing me a thing saying, ignore the guy who you got the review from, I’m okay.
But one of the things that happened when he came to see me. I only saw him because Pam Hawthorne told me “Listen, this guy keeps on bugging me, he wants to meet you, he’s seen the play and obviously really liked it a lot and wants to talk to you about it.” So. Okay, fine.
He just liked me a lot. But all the questions he asked me were like, let’s say that the play was a metaphor. OK, so it was a metaphor. What is it a metaphor for? And what am I actually saying about the human condition, blah blah blah. It was just bullshit. And he’s asking me questions when in fact, it isn’t a fucking metaphor. It’s just about these guys stealing some money. And I think he was crestfallen to be dealing with the author and finding out, just like the woman who saw it, or the person that I talked to Stuart about, that I write like a truck driver. This guy was like that.
He was a gay man that you knew was a gay man. There is a type of gay man I find that really can bug you. They’re very delicate, and everything’s got to be about this and that. It’s fun to hear them talk, but it’s nothing you ever want to read or anything. And even the stuff he talked about. “It’s wonderful!” It’s just shit. So he finds that with all the questions he’s asking me. I don’t have an answer to the questions because I didn’t write it to mean that, to do this, or to show something about this. It’s just this simple little thing with a twist in it.
So one of the things he wrote was “this is a play that tries little, and achieves just that.” That’s his review.
There was another one from some magazine I’ve never heard of where this guy was quite clever, because in his case, he thinks that I’m writing a play, but I don’t have any other place to think all these things about. I’m writing a play that’s about writing the play. This is The Workingman. And then he kind of proves it, why it is like theater. It’s a good review. And I’m thinking there’s nothing that’s true about it. But I was aghast. You thought that’s what I meant? You think I’m that smart? Anyway, there weren’t many reviews. It came and went.
Of course it was done in Toronto as well. It was done here with The Jones Boy.
Q: Two in one night?
Tom: Yeah. Kate Lynch, who I barely knew then, after it was over, she said, “why would you do the two plays at once — they’re so different. One is this just crummy little Workingman, and the other is this other strange thing. So I don’t remember reviews about Workingman. Most of the reviews were about The Jones Boy. The Workingman only runs half an hour. The Jones Boy runs just past an hour. That’s why they need both of them, because it was too short.
Q: In retrospect do you think it was wrong to put them on together.
Tom: No.
Q: It makes perfect sense to me to put them on together.
Tom: Yeah, and I don’t know why, how they would do otherwise. How do they put on…
Q: A half-hour play.
Tom: It’s the only thing I could do with The Jones Boy. The only time it’s ever been on since then, is when they have some kind of festival. Because then you’ve got a bunch of plays all about an hour or whatever. I don’t know what the reviews were like for The Jones Boy. I remember, what’s her name, the woman whose mouth I didn’t in piss in.
Q: Gina Mallet.
Tom: Gina Mallet. She criticized it because the women get smacked around and all kinds of shit like that. Which is fine, fair enough. But there was nothing else about it that she liked either. The thing is that all the other people that went to see it were actors. I got a lot of feedback from that. People liked it. Not so much to reviewers, but it was what the actors said. Yeah. Well, it made me as little famous as I became, well, except for Something Red. But you know, I got laid because of it. It was like that.
Q: The Jones Boy, had it also premiered in Vancouver before you did it in Toronto?
Tom: No, that was brand new. I wrote it in Banff. They told me while I was in Banff that they’d do it in Toronto. And then they came up with this idea of having two at once.
Carol: You know I love you, Lee.
Lee: Christ, I can’t tell you anything. You already think I don’t have enough guts as it is. You know, you don’t have to be a certain way, to be tough. I know guys that are fruits that are pretty good in a beef. It doesn’t matter what you’re like.
Carol: What do you want?
Lee: Fuck that shit. Women always go for a soft guy. You know, as soon as I am a little bit nice to you, you try and take advantage. Do you think all the soft things are the real me — well, it’s all me. This is me. Now, why don’t you get your ass back on the fucking street?
Carol: Christ.
Lee: Give me any lip, Carol, and I’ll belt you. You really will do anything, won’t you? That’s why I asked you all that, I wanted to see how far you really go. That’s why you like tricks, they’re soft guys. Soft, soft like marshmallows.
—From The Jones Boy © 1977
Q: Is that the last time The Workingman has been produced?
Tom: No, by my standards it was done quite a lot. In fact in one version that was done here, I played the trick. Is that The Workingman? No. That’s not The Workingman. That’s Jones Boy. Okay, I tell a lie. The Workingman was done by the same people though. No, it’s been in small festivals. Yeah, it’s been done a few times.
Q: Five? Six?
Tom: Geez, I wouldn’t know. I mean, don’t forget this goes back right to when it was first done up till now. And one thing about that, and I’m sure every writer goes through this, is that you find out plays of yours have been done that you weren’t told about. You know, The Jones Boy was done in Detroit. I never got a nickel. And I found out by accident. So there’s been things like that, or else I met somebody and said, “Oh, my friend did your play in Winnipeg.” And I wasn’t aware of that. So it’s performed more often than you think. It’s hard to keep track of. Unless you’re really successful.
Like Michael Healey. The Drawer Boy was the most-produced play in North America that year [1999]. That’s a lot. A lot of people. Not everybody, but for people even moderately interested in the theater knew about that play, and went to see it. Anyway, so that has never happened to me.
Q: I’d like to talk a little bit more about The Workingman. Did you write it in three days?
Tom: No, but that was because I didn’t have a typewriter. And by the time I heard about the contest from Joe, and I was still using junk, right. So that was the only time I had left. I didn’t have time enough to go somewhere and do it, plus, I was taking a lot of drugs so I could sleep and shit like that. I didn’t use heroin while I was writing it. But I was using all, oh man—like stuff now you don’t even hear about. Or maybe you do somewhere. But god I can’t even think of the name of it, barbiturates. Do they still make barbiturates?
Q: Not as much.
Tom: No? Well, I took a lot of them then. In fact, I remember once when I woke up in the middle of the night. And while I’d been asleep, I figured out how to end the play. So when the man he comes back, I wrote down this terrible scrawl “the man comes back,” and I left it on the table. So when I woke up in the morning, I knew how the play would end. It was like that.
Q: Did you make notes about it before you went to type it up?
Tom: Usually I make notes to the point of like, when you this and this, so I don’t forget the thing about the horse, you know. It’s not anything I can hand to somebody else and they’d know what I was doing. Like when you’re gonna write something that’s about it. You know, you write it out first. And then you write the actual thing, right?
Q: A draft?
Tom: It’s not a draft. A draft is like the whole thing written out. But it’s rough. No, I write things that would all fit on one hand. Yeah, just little notes to say, you know, the guy comes back. The man kills the so and so.
Charlene: Please don’t hurt me.
Man: Oh, I’m not going to hurt you. You’re too beautiful to hurt. As long as your friend here does as I say.
Michael: Please. Mister. Tell me what you want me to do.
Man: I’m not from around here you know. Originally I mean. No, I was born a good deal south of here. Not south—just south of here. My parents weren’t very well off and we lived in a place smaller than this one. Or so I’m told. On the sixth floor. (Pause.) One day in the dead of winter, three men that neither my mother nor my father had ever seen before walked into the apartment. Two of them carried automatic pistols and the third one had a large hunting knife. I was only six months old at the time, sleeping in my crib. As you can imagine, my mother became hysterical when the man with the knife leaned over the crib as if he were about to stab me. At the same time I woke up and began to cry. (Pause.) The men gave my father this choice: he could obey their instructions and my mother would be unharmed. If he chose to disobey them, I would be disemboweled. My father wasn’t a very big man. He had light blue eyes. It was all my mother seemed to remember, afterwards. His blue eyes. But all the same, he wasn’t a big man. The men —strangers—still warned him that if he had any ideas of attacking them, they would immediately carry out my execution. (Pause.) And my mother’s. They would shoot him only to wound. They claimed to be expert marksmen. He had no reason to doubt them. (Pause.) Now wouldn’t you say that was an interesting situation?
Michael: It sounds… a…
Man: Don’t you know what they wanted my father to do? Don’t you want to know?
Michael: What? What did they want?
Man: My father was to walk to the window, open it, and jump. Just that. Jump from the sixth floor window to the stone courtyard below. If he did this, the men would leave. There was even a good chance he would survive the fall— people have fallen from greater heights and lived. (Pause.) Yes, he very well might have lived. But he didn’t. Oh, he jumped. From what I know of him, my father was the kind of man to say he had no choice. Other men might say otherwise, I suppose. But my father jumped. And died. My mother used to say it was the one time his blue eyes didn’t help him.
There is a lengthy pause as he and Michael stare each other.
Man: I think you got a pretty good idea of what you gotta do, kid.
—From The Workingman © 1975
Q: You just started writing?
Tom: No. What happened was, I had a dream about it. I had a dream where I was trying to write something and I thought, the obvious thing to me would be to write something about heroin. Because I was right in the middle of it. But everything I thought about was kind of corny, because I go to the same thing again, which is not like me writing what I know about heroin.
Instead it’s like me trying to write what I think people want to know about heroin. And I’m not gonna hand it to anybody. But I fall asleep at night and I have this dream that there’s two men attacking a house, coming in and telling the guy that if he doesn’t jump out of the window they’re going to kill his wife and his child.
And, you know, it’s an uncomfortable situation. The guy does it. And the dream rather that I’m having, then it’s the woman telling it, and she says “he had light blue eyes. That was the one thing I can remember about him was his blue eyes.” So back then when I used to have more interesting dreams than I do now, actually that’s not true, but I used to keep a pen stuck to the wall with some string tied up and some paper there, so I could wake up at night and write it down, which I did. So when I woke up in the morning, I decided to make that the basis of The Workingman.
Q: The dream was just about the blue eyes? Not about the jumping out the window?
Tom: Yeah, it was about jumping out the window. I was just saying that was the one line I remembered from the dream. No, it was about that. So I thought I’d do that.
Then a friend of mine and I talked about going to Winnipeg and having a threesome. I wasn’t really conversant with threesomes at that time, but I became so, and I had a girlfriend that me and him got involved with. We had a lot of sex over this, but we were coming up with ideas like “Wouldn’t it be great to do this to.” It was to fuck things up you know? Like this is when I wasn’t a Christian but was thinking about stuff like what if you use a crucifix while you’re having sex. That kind of idea. Well we never did it, but we had the ideas. So I ended up putting it into the play.
And I ended up writing it in there to think, okay, that’s why they’re like this. So they’ve all gone to Winnipeg so they can’t be seen by friends and stuff, gonna do all this grotty stuff, and then they get fucked up by it. So you could say, although there wasn’t an outline I sat and wrote, there were things I knew were going to go into it. One of the things was the dream. I came up with the idea that we were going to go to Winnipeg and have sex. And then the man coming back to the room I thought up while I was on drugs, sleeping.
Q: So as it’s opening up, they’re arriving in Winnipeg, and there’s Gene and Michael, and Charlene, right. They’ve all arrived on the same train. But didn’t Gene meet Michael on the train?
Tom: No.
Q: They all went out together?
Tom: Yeah.
Q: But how did Gene and Charlene decide that they were going to take Michael?
Tom: While they were back in Vancouver,
Q: They were gonna go to this much trouble?
Tom: Because he’s already been involved with him. He wants to go there to do the… wait a minute. Actually, this is irrelevant. I didn’t put any of this in there. And it doesn’t matter how it worked out. I mean, that’s what is going on. It’s already been decided,
Q: I’ll ask some questions, maybe dumb questions.
Tom: But what is it you’re trying to discover though?
Q: A few different things in the play and wondering where they came from or what they mean.
Tom: Okay, fair enough,
Q: So again at the beginning, it’s like okay, good, these guys and a girl get into the room.
Tom: Exposition. That’s what you call it. Like when you’re in a play and you start to tell like, well so now that we’ve met each other, blah blah, it’s exposition, right? And people don’t like it. And certainly I don’t, and so I found that out first thing.
Q: Because there’s not a hell of lot of exposition, but there’s probably more than in your later work.
Tom: Yes, it would be the most in that play, more than anywhere else. No, I kind of cut that out.
Q: They’re talking about making, like, a porno film?
Tom: Yeah.
Q: It was unclear to me whether someone else was doing it. What are we to think about that? I mean, it’s only hinted at and then dropped. It would be quite a big deal if the script had gone down the road where there’s suddenly three of them and they’re having sex and filming it. But it comes in and comes out of the story quickly.
Tom: Okay, well, what’s your problem with that?
Q: Why did you put it in there in the first place?
Tom: Okay, if they’re going to Winnipeg to do this, now we know, we know why they went to Winnipeg. We know that they don’t know anybody there. They’re doing something. They all are doing it. They know they’re naughty people. If they were at home, they’d have more feet on the ground. Instead, they’re in this strange place where a guy is going to come in and accost them and they’re feeling guilty about what they’re about to do. It’s really just about them being in an uptight situation.
Q: So was there any need to introduce that into the plot?
Tom: Well, why were they there?
Q: Oh, okay. I guess what you were describing, were you talking about what actually happened to you?
Tom: No, no, I’m talking about this right now as it’s written, and if I left the sex out of it.
Q: It’s not the sex. It’s the movie.
Tom: But why have you gone to Winnipeg at all?
Q: Why did you go?
Tom: I didn’t. It’s made up.
Q: [laughs] I know, but I thought you said that the genesis of that was…
Tom: But I told you I’ve said one of the reasons why they’re alone, they don’t know people there, blah blah blah. Like let’s say I didn’t put that in, then what are they doing in Winnipeg?
Q: It was my first sense that they’re just drifters. They’ve arrived in a town.
Tom: Yeah. But they have to have some reason to have gone to town and to be there. And so that’s what it is. They’re going to take pictures, but they don’t want to stay in their own town to do it.
Q: And then, I can’t remember the line, but there’s this thing that Michael and Gene are a little bit nervous because it’s gonna be a threesome.
Tom: Yeah, that’s right.
Q: And I thought, great, all this stuff is developing nicely in the plot, and there’s the hint of the porn thing. That’s interesting: someone’s gonna show up who’s the cameraman or whatever. There’s gonna be a fourth part. And are we going to learn more about Gene and Michael and their discomfort over the possibility that they might end up having to get naked in bed together.
Tom: Yeah, so the audience has a reason, an expectation. And something interesting is about to happen even though it doesn’t.
Q: And then, now that The Man is about to show up. And this part too was just to clarify in my own mind. When did Gene and Charlene set up with the man? How was that? On the train?
Tom: I don’t know, could have been, it could have been more likely that one of them knew, maybe somebody who lived there before, and knew him from then. That kind of thing.
Q: You weren’t worried?
Tom: I was not concerned. Let me ask you this. If you’re going to be repeating, writing this down, why would you want to do it, go through and explain why I do certain things in the play.
Q: Only that someone who enjoys the play might say, oh, wow, that’s really nifty. That’s where that came from. Well, that’s what he was trying to do.
Tom: That’s not gonna happen with this. With this play. I don’t think. It’s not deep. So I was wondering why, how did this character know that character? That’s the kind of thing they ask you when they’re doing the play? You know, because then they have to know something.
Q: There, what you just said, it’s not deep, right? I mean, you’re telling me something about your attitude toward it, which is illuminating. Because maybe back then when you were young, and this is your first play, you were thinking, this is kind of deep.
Tom: Oh, no, I would know. I would know the difference. I didn’t think these things were deep then and not now, or whatever.
Q: But it’s the first play you wrote.
Tom: So what do you think, that if it’s the first anything it has to be deep in your mind?
Q: No, it has to be something though, I mean, you’re not a playwright.
Tom: No, it has to be something. But the closest I’d seen, anything like it, would be the film Sleuth [1972]. That’d be the closest to it. Now it’s not Sleuth, obviously. But Sleuth isn’t very deep. But it’s clever. Well, that’s all I’m doing here with this.
Q: You’re a poet at the time. Your poetry has been accepted for publication. You’re in the creative phase of becoming a poet. And are you thinking about this as just a toss-away? No. You’re thinking more than that.
Tom: No, you’re wrong. Don’t forget, I had the idea that I was going to write one of everything. My friend comes and says, here’s the chance to write that one. We’ll accept these things in writing a play. And they also say, even though they didn’t actually do this, that they’d talk to about it.
Q: Like workshop it?
Q: Yeah, not a workshop.
Q: Like they’ll sit down with you.
Tom: That’s it and I thought this probably, like this is how vain I was, well, you know, there’s a chance there might be something waiting for me that I don’t know about. You know. I’d only seen one play.
Q: Which one?
Tom: The Hot l Baltimore [Lanford Wilson’s 1973 play].
I’d read Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, famous things like that. I wouldn’t have bought a play for this because I wanted to see how you’d write. You know, like, Mary, when she speaks, and how you put in directions and stuff like that. I didn’t think that I was ever going to write the second play. To me, I was going to write this.
Q: It was like the three-day novel writing contest.
Q: Yeah, except for the fact I wanted to become a novelist at some point. And that was the biggest idea I had, that I wanted to be a novelist.
Q: You had much greater ambition to be a novelist than to be a playwright?
Tom: I had no ambition to be a playwright. I was a poet. And god willing I hoped a novelist. And then I did this. And like I say, even using the example of, like I liked Sleuth, and I liked Wait Until Dark [1967 film]. Those were both my ideas of what a play would be. What would I like to go and see. I’d like to see Wait Until Dark. And I’d like to see Sleuth. So that was more or less what I was looking at when I wrote. I mean, obviously it’s not like either one of them. But that was my direction.
Q: To me, it’s actually fantastic. The whole setup is fine. It’s your first play and it’s incredibly powerful and tightly constructed. And then in the end staccato, you’re able to get so much action into such a short…
Tom: It’s funny you know, because I’m flattered, but I never think about this play, or anything like that. And yeah, I never think of it having…. All I can think about is the stuff where I think it’s wrong.
Q: That you would change?
Tom: For instance, when the man comes back and stabs Michael, and he walks into the other room and looks and then comes back out again. There’s a lot of people in the audience that don’t understand. Why aren’t those people in the other room? See, in my mind, I just don’t bother writing it. I’m thinking I’ve got a place in mind for me, not a place that was in the play but in my own mind to write, is that they go out the window and go down the fire escape.
I should have said something. If I was going to rewrite it for some reason, I would change that, you know, because he would say something about that. A couple of things like that. But at the time, I thought it was pretty good, when I wrote it. And there was a guy who lived in Joan’s building, who is basically, you see him all the time because he was in he was an actor, who is in fact, I’d gone to see him in this play I mentioned. I knew he was experienced too and I gave him the copy of it to read. And he was quite good about it, you know, so I didn’t change anything in it. But maybe I felt like, this could win actually, you know, so, yeah, I felt good about it. But like I said, once it was done, I couldn’t see any future for myself. You know.
TOM WALMSLEY 