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“Nobody is so weird others can't identify with them.”
―
―
“She's a mystery, a cipher, something nearly extinct these days: a person not controlled by ambition or greed or a crass need for attention, but by a desire to experience life completely and to make life a little easier for the people around her”
― The Private Lives of Pippa Lee
― The Private Lives of Pippa Lee
“Courtship is romantic. Marriage ... is an act of will," said Pippa, taking a sip of water. "I mean, I adore Herb. But the marriage functions because we will it to. If you leave love to hold everything together, you can forget it.”
― The Private Lives of Pippa Lee
― The Private Lives of Pippa Lee
“RM: …I think it was hurtful for him that in his own country he was dismissed. But he was also… had this kind of ebullience and belief in himself that just kept bubbling up y’know, that was his essential life force.
BM: 8 o’clock he was at his desk and you come down at noon. It was like punching a time clock… he had a working man’s schedule, like a blue collar ethic of his.
RM: You know, my father when he wasn’t working on his plays or when he wasn’t writing - in terms of our everyday life it was all oriented around work. His idea was that if you can make it yourself, you should make it yourself. He made the coffee table, he made the dining table, he made the bookshelves himself. I remember when I asked for a stereo when I was something like 14 years old, instead of getting the plastic stereo that I was hoping for - that everyone else had - my father made me a stereo out of wood.”
―
BM: 8 o’clock he was at his desk and you come down at noon. It was like punching a time clock… he had a working man’s schedule, like a blue collar ethic of his.
RM: You know, my father when he wasn’t working on his plays or when he wasn’t writing - in terms of our everyday life it was all oriented around work. His idea was that if you can make it yourself, you should make it yourself. He made the coffee table, he made the dining table, he made the bookshelves himself. I remember when I asked for a stereo when I was something like 14 years old, instead of getting the plastic stereo that I was hoping for - that everyone else had - my father made me a stereo out of wood.”
―
“AM: I enjoyed being a father. I enjoyed also escaping being a father… I was always in and out of my skin, because… I just couldn’t be a father 24 hours a day. And still do what I was thinking I had to do. I mean my mind would go off in whatever direction it was going and then you say: ‘Oh my God, I forgot to pick up my son who’s standing on a corner.”
―
―
“RM: You were prone to walk away from conflict naturally. But in your plays there’s a continual kind of return of conflict.
AM: I suppose its because there I could live it out, in the literature. In the writing. Whereas in life it was too painful. You see? So the pain went into the writing. Whereas it was hard to sustain it in real life. I think that’s part of what happened.
RM: Why do you think that is?
AM: I don’t know, I just couldn’t bear the idea of… people… trying to destroy each other. ‘Cause I sensed very early on that all real arguments are murderous. There was a killing instinct in there that I feared. So I put it into theatre.”
―
AM: I suppose its because there I could live it out, in the literature. In the writing. Whereas in life it was too painful. You see? So the pain went into the writing. Whereas it was hard to sustain it in real life. I think that’s part of what happened.
RM: Why do you think that is?
AM: I don’t know, I just couldn’t bear the idea of… people… trying to destroy each other. ‘Cause I sensed very early on that all real arguments are murderous. There was a killing instinct in there that I feared. So I put it into theatre.”
―
“RM: So who was Willy based on?
AM: He was based originally on an uncle of mine He was a salesman. He was completely crazy and he would sweep you away with these imaginary situations. He used to sit in his garage and hanging up right over his head was this… spade. And I said ‘Could I borrow the spade for an hour or two?’ He’d look up and say ‘I don’t have a spade.’ And I couldn’t dare say ‘Well, there’s one right over your head.’ But it was more than that, he had a tragic aspect to him always to me. In all his exaggerations there was a striving underneath to do something wonderful, something extraordinary. Like a bit of an artist in there.”
―
AM: He was based originally on an uncle of mine He was a salesman. He was completely crazy and he would sweep you away with these imaginary situations. He used to sit in his garage and hanging up right over his head was this… spade. And I said ‘Could I borrow the spade for an hour or two?’ He’d look up and say ‘I don’t have a spade.’ And I couldn’t dare say ‘Well, there’s one right over your head.’ But it was more than that, he had a tragic aspect to him always to me. In all his exaggerations there was a striving underneath to do something wonderful, something extraordinary. Like a bit of an artist in there.”
―
“RM: Did you get the feeling that Dad had a weak spot for being adored?
BM: Yeah, and I think [Mary Slattery] was not somebody who did that gratuitously… She wasn’t very demonstrative in her affection.
RM: You can see in the letters to Mary that he’s quite puppyish with her, he really wants her approval and he wants to please her.”
―
BM: Yeah, and I think [Mary Slattery] was not somebody who did that gratuitously… She wasn’t very demonstrative in her affection.
RM: You can see in the letters to Mary that he’s quite puppyish with her, he really wants her approval and he wants to please her.”
―
“RM: When I was growing up he continued to write but his life had become much less public much more private. I think he might have been sheltering himself with his family… He would confide in me, he would talk to me about his worries about being able to write. I don’t even know if I answered a lot of the time. I think it was if I was just part of him. But the father that I knew for the most part was a very funny, cuddly, jokey - we would laugh so much.”
―
―
“RM: I’ve been thinking about fatherhood and what you think makes a good father.
AM: …oh, well. I think we create - especially the children create - these definitions. ‘Cause they have to, ‘cause they’re helpless. So they create the definition of… this Great Force… which can sweep them away or comfort them. And its got sometimes very little to do with what the Great Force is feeling.
I enjoyed being a father. I enjoyed also escaping being a father.”
―
AM: …oh, well. I think we create - especially the children create - these definitions. ‘Cause they have to, ‘cause they’re helpless. So they create the definition of… this Great Force… which can sweep them away or comfort them. And its got sometimes very little to do with what the Great Force is feeling.
I enjoyed being a father. I enjoyed also escaping being a father.”
―
“RM: So who was Willy based on?
AM: He was based originally on an uncle of mine. He was a salesman. He was completely crazy and he would sweep you away with these imaginary situations. He used to sit in his garage and hanging up right over his head was this… spade. And I said ‘Could I borrow the spade for an hour or two?’ He’d look up and say ‘I don’t have a spade.’ And I couldn’t dare say ‘Well, there’s one right over your head.’ But it was more than that, he had a tragic aspect to him always to me. In all his exaggerations there was a striving underneath to do something wonderful, something extraordinary. Like a bit of an artist in there.”
―
AM: He was based originally on an uncle of mine. He was a salesman. He was completely crazy and he would sweep you away with these imaginary situations. He used to sit in his garage and hanging up right over his head was this… spade. And I said ‘Could I borrow the spade for an hour or two?’ He’d look up and say ‘I don’t have a spade.’ And I couldn’t dare say ‘Well, there’s one right over your head.’ But it was more than that, he had a tragic aspect to him always to me. In all his exaggerations there was a striving underneath to do something wonderful, something extraordinary. Like a bit of an artist in there.”
―
“AM: My father had arrived in New York all alone, from the middle of Poland, before his seventh birthday… He arrived in New York, his parents were too busy to pick him up at Castle Garden and sent his next eldest brother Abe, going on 10, to find him, get him through immigration and bring him home to Stanton Street and the tenement where in two rooms the eight of them lived and worked, sewing the great long, many-buttoned cloaks that were the fashion then.
They sent him to school for about six months, figuring he had enough. He never learned how to spell, he never learned how to figure. Then he went right back into the shop. By the time he was 12 he was employing two other boys to sew sleeves on coats alongside him in some basement workshop.
KM: He went on the road when he was about 16 I think… selling clothes at a wholesale level.
AM: He ended up being the support of the entire family because he started the business in 1921 or something. The Miltex Coat Company, which turned out to be one of the largest manufacturers in this country.
See we lived in Manhattan then, on 110th Street facing the Park. It was beautiful apartment up on the sixth floor.
KM: We had a chauffeur driven car. The family was wealthy.
AM: It was the twenties and I remember our mother and father going to a show every weekend. And coming back Sunday morning and she would be playing the sheet music of the musicals.
JM: It was an arranged marriage. But a woman of her ability to be married off to a man who couldn’t read or write… I think Gussie taught him how to read and to sign his name.
AM: She knew she was being wasted, I think. But she respected him a lot. And that made up for a little. Until he really crashed, economically. And then she got angry with him.
First the chauffeur was let go, then the summer bungalow was discarded, the last of her jewellery had to be pawned or sold. And then another step down - the move to Brooklyn.
Not just in the case of my father but every boy I knew. I used to pal around with half a dozen guys and all their fathers were simply blown out of the water.
I could not avoid awareness of my mother’s anger at this waning of his powers. A certain sneering contempt for him that filtered through her voice.
RM: So how did the way you saw your father change when he lost his money?
AM: Terrible… pity for him. Because so much of his authority sprang from the fact that he was a very successful businessman. And he always knew what he as doing. And suddenly: nothin’. He didn’t know where he was. It was absolutely not his fault, it was the Great Crash of the ‘29, ‘30, ‘31 period. So from that I always, I think, contracted the idea that we’re very deeply immersed in political and economic life of the country, of the world. And that these forces end up in the bedroom and they end up in the father and son and father and daughter arrangements.
In Death of a Salesman what I was interested in there was what his world and what his life had left him with. What that had done to him?
Y’know a guy can’t make a living, he loses his dignity. He loses his male force. And so you tend to make up for it by telling him he's OK anyway. Or else you turn your back on him and leave. All of which helps create integrated plays, incidentally. Where you begin to look: well, its a personality here but what part is being played by impersonal forces?”
―
They sent him to school for about six months, figuring he had enough. He never learned how to spell, he never learned how to figure. Then he went right back into the shop. By the time he was 12 he was employing two other boys to sew sleeves on coats alongside him in some basement workshop.
KM: He went on the road when he was about 16 I think… selling clothes at a wholesale level.
AM: He ended up being the support of the entire family because he started the business in 1921 or something. The Miltex Coat Company, which turned out to be one of the largest manufacturers in this country.
See we lived in Manhattan then, on 110th Street facing the Park. It was beautiful apartment up on the sixth floor.
KM: We had a chauffeur driven car. The family was wealthy.
AM: It was the twenties and I remember our mother and father going to a show every weekend. And coming back Sunday morning and she would be playing the sheet music of the musicals.
JM: It was an arranged marriage. But a woman of her ability to be married off to a man who couldn’t read or write… I think Gussie taught him how to read and to sign his name.
AM: She knew she was being wasted, I think. But she respected him a lot. And that made up for a little. Until he really crashed, economically. And then she got angry with him.
First the chauffeur was let go, then the summer bungalow was discarded, the last of her jewellery had to be pawned or sold. And then another step down - the move to Brooklyn.
Not just in the case of my father but every boy I knew. I used to pal around with half a dozen guys and all their fathers were simply blown out of the water.
I could not avoid awareness of my mother’s anger at this waning of his powers. A certain sneering contempt for him that filtered through her voice.
RM: So how did the way you saw your father change when he lost his money?
AM: Terrible… pity for him. Because so much of his authority sprang from the fact that he was a very successful businessman. And he always knew what he as doing. And suddenly: nothin’. He didn’t know where he was. It was absolutely not his fault, it was the Great Crash of the ‘29, ‘30, ‘31 period. So from that I always, I think, contracted the idea that we’re very deeply immersed in political and economic life of the country, of the world. And that these forces end up in the bedroom and they end up in the father and son and father and daughter arrangements.
In Death of a Salesman what I was interested in there was what his world and what his life had left him with. What that had done to him?
Y’know a guy can’t make a living, he loses his dignity. He loses his male force. And so you tend to make up for it by telling him he's OK anyway. Or else you turn your back on him and leave. All of which helps create integrated plays, incidentally. Where you begin to look: well, its a personality here but what part is being played by impersonal forces?”
―
“RM: My perception is - I grew up, which was basically the seventies - was that you had a lot of disappointments in the theatre at that time.
AM: Mostly, I would say, yeah. I would agree with you.
Look, you write long enough… if you quit, its one thing. If you’re gonna go on writing… the art is to turn your back on what hasn’t worked and go forward to what you think might well work. ‘Cause a human being is many faceted, there are all kinds of different emotions and attitudes that we’re all capable of. And you’ve gotta find those that communicate something. I never blame other people, you can’t do that. ‘Cause its not true. One day they’ll catch up with something, or they wont. But the voice is the important thing, that you don’t go silent.”
―
AM: Mostly, I would say, yeah. I would agree with you.
Look, you write long enough… if you quit, its one thing. If you’re gonna go on writing… the art is to turn your back on what hasn’t worked and go forward to what you think might well work. ‘Cause a human being is many faceted, there are all kinds of different emotions and attitudes that we’re all capable of. And you’ve gotta find those that communicate something. I never blame other people, you can’t do that. ‘Cause its not true. One day they’ll catch up with something, or they wont. But the voice is the important thing, that you don’t go silent.”
―
“RM: When you start a play do you start it with a character… usually?
AM: A person. A human being… is what I start with.
RM: … not a story? Not a scene?
AM: It’s a mixture. It’s a mix up… It’s usually a character because I can’t think in abstract terms too much. I like to get people on stage.”
―
AM: A person. A human being… is what I start with.
RM: … not a story? Not a scene?
AM: It’s a mixture. It’s a mix up… It’s usually a character because I can’t think in abstract terms too much. I like to get people on stage.”
―
“RM: Do you know what kind of role [Mary Slattery] had in the development of the writing?
BM: Yeah, she had a big part in it. I mean she’d read his stuff, I know that he’d show her all his stuff. And I know she was tough. I mean I know that she’d… speak her mind. And speak up about it. And I think it probably served him well.”
―
BM: Yeah, she had a big part in it. I mean she’d read his stuff, I know that he’d show her all his stuff. And I know she was tough. I mean I know that she’d… speak her mind. And speak up about it. And I think it probably served him well.”
―
“RM: Dad do you think there are any similarities between building furniture and writing plays?
AM: The way I look at it, its… there are forces that wanna break out and forces that want to contract. And if you’ve got a sense of form you can make that projectile on stage move, like a living thing. And move people with it. If it just lies there, motionless, it means that some of the forces in it haven’t been captured. Or you haven’t evoked them.”
―
AM: The way I look at it, its… there are forces that wanna break out and forces that want to contract. And if you’ve got a sense of form you can make that projectile on stage move, like a living thing. And move people with it. If it just lies there, motionless, it means that some of the forces in it haven’t been captured. Or you haven’t evoked them.”
―
“RM: You said that you thought tragedy was more optimistic than comedy.
AM: It means an ultimate confrontation with reality. When its really done right. And that means that the indivdual in the audience gets a firmer grip on whats really going on in their society at any one time. And that should strengthen them to confront their lives.”
―
AM: It means an ultimate confrontation with reality. When its really done right. And that means that the indivdual in the audience gets a firmer grip on whats really going on in their society at any one time. And that should strengthen them to confront their lives.”
―
“RM: You were prone to walk away from conflict naturally. But in your plays there’s a continual kind of return of conflict.
AM: I suppose its because there I could live it out, in the literature. In the writing. Whereas in life it was too painful. You see? So the pain went into the writing. Whereas it was hard to sustain it in real life. I think that’s part of what happened.
RM: Why do you think that is?
AM: I don’t know, I just couldn’t bear the idea of… people… trying to destroy each other. ‘Cause I sensed very early on that all real arguments are murderous. There was a killing instinct in there that I feared. So I put it into theatre.”
―
AM: I suppose its because there I could live it out, in the literature. In the writing. Whereas in life it was too painful. You see? So the pain went into the writing. Whereas it was hard to sustain it in real life. I think that’s part of what happened.
RM: Why do you think that is?
AM: I don’t know, I just couldn’t bear the idea of… people… trying to destroy each other. ‘Cause I sensed very early on that all real arguments are murderous. There was a killing instinct in there that I feared. So I put it into theatre.”
―
“AM: You know [my mother] could read a novel in an afternoon. She was the fastest reader I’ve ever met in my life. Not only that she’d remember it for the rest of her life.
JM: She was a very complicated woman. Very complex…
AM: She had the energy of a dynamo.
KM: she could sing, she could play the piano…
JC: She could be quite flamboyant.
AM: She used to dance on the table on New Year’s Eve.
KM: … she could draw, she could… she was a helluva bridge player.
JC: She was funny.
JM: … very bitchy.
KM: She had an attitude about most things.
AM: Oh well, yeah [we kept kosher]… until she started making bacon. Loved bacon.
JM: I think she tried to rule and divide the kids.
JC: Yeah, you see I always consider myself the favourite.
AM: Yeah, I think I was [the favourite].
…
AM: See I would, for example if I didn’t want to go to school, I would start limping around. My mother immediately caught on and she said ‘You don’t want to have to go to school today, you’re limping.’ And we’d both go to some place and have oysters.
RM: You said that she saw portents in a lot of things, she saw signs.
AM: She saw… mysterious things in the air from time to time. She’d have feelings from people. She once sat up in bed in the middle of the night, she suddenly said ‘My mother died’. And indeed at that moment her mother had died.
RM: How d’you think that translated into you though?
AM: Well, I used to think that the way… that a play was not about what was spoken but what was between the spoken lines. That the world is essentially is not what we call real. And these arts are attempting to approach that world. And it all comes from my mother. Y’know, its always coming from somewhere. She was that way.
She idiolised artists, pianists, writers and so on. My father had no knowledge of any of that.”
―
JM: She was a very complicated woman. Very complex…
AM: She had the energy of a dynamo.
KM: she could sing, she could play the piano…
JC: She could be quite flamboyant.
AM: She used to dance on the table on New Year’s Eve.
KM: … she could draw, she could… she was a helluva bridge player.
JC: She was funny.
JM: … very bitchy.
KM: She had an attitude about most things.
AM: Oh well, yeah [we kept kosher]… until she started making bacon. Loved bacon.
JM: I think she tried to rule and divide the kids.
JC: Yeah, you see I always consider myself the favourite.
AM: Yeah, I think I was [the favourite].
…
AM: See I would, for example if I didn’t want to go to school, I would start limping around. My mother immediately caught on and she said ‘You don’t want to have to go to school today, you’re limping.’ And we’d both go to some place and have oysters.
RM: You said that she saw portents in a lot of things, she saw signs.
AM: She saw… mysterious things in the air from time to time. She’d have feelings from people. She once sat up in bed in the middle of the night, she suddenly said ‘My mother died’. And indeed at that moment her mother had died.
RM: How d’you think that translated into you though?
AM: Well, I used to think that the way… that a play was not about what was spoken but what was between the spoken lines. That the world is essentially is not what we call real. And these arts are attempting to approach that world. And it all comes from my mother. Y’know, its always coming from somewhere. She was that way.
She idiolised artists, pianists, writers and so on. My father had no knowledge of any of that.”
―
“RM: When I was growing up he continued to write but his life had become much less public much more private. I think he might have been sheltering himself with his family… He would confide in me, he would talk to me about his worries about being able to write. I don’t even know if I answered a lot of the time. I think it was as if I was just part of him. But the father that I knew for the most part was a very funny, cuddly, jokey - we would laugh so much.”
―
―
“RM: I’ve been thinking about fatherhood and about what you think makes a good father.
AM: …oh, well. I think we create - especially the children create - these definitions. ‘Cause they have to, ‘cause they’re helpless. So they create the definition of… this Great Force… which can sweep them away or comfort them. And its got sometimes very little to do with what the Great Force is feeling.”
―
AM: …oh, well. I think we create - especially the children create - these definitions. ‘Cause they have to, ‘cause they’re helpless. So they create the definition of… this Great Force… which can sweep them away or comfort them. And its got sometimes very little to do with what the Great Force is feeling.”
―
“M: Do you know what kind of role [Mary Slattery] had in the development of the writing?
BM: Yeah, she had a big part in it. I mean she’d read his stuff, I know that he’d show her all his stuff. And I know she was tough. I mean I know that she’d… speak her mind. And speak up about it. And I think it probably served him well.”
―
BM: Yeah, she had a big part in it. I mean she’d read his stuff, I know that he’d show her all his stuff. And I know she was tough. I mean I know that she’d… speak her mind. And speak up about it. And I think it probably served him well.”
―
“RM: Did your father like to eat as much as you do?”
―
―
