and yet the underpinning of it is a really uncertain time.
ARG: Growing up, as a child, in the war, my sister knitted
for the British, and I knew the gun capacity of every
airplane, and so we all knew the details of the battles
going on around us, but we never knew the ultimate truth.
I don’t get into that.
S: It seems like there’s a lot of firsts for these teenagers in
the play. First time on a roller coaster, first kiss. Do you think
the ethos of the time made it so this was the summer of
change for them?
JS: Weirdly, I don’t even know if it’s all about 1945. I look at
the play, and I remember when I was fourteen, I swore at my
mother in the car, and she pulled over and kicked me out of
JS: Though, Grace talks about it...I love that monologue,
the car. I remembered that was right about the time that I was
where she says, “Look, I’m doing my best to hold this
able to go call a girl and say, “Do you wanna meet me down
together while my husband...” So it’s still there under the
at the bottom of the hill? We’re gonna go see a movie, and...”
surface of this whole thing.
So there are a lot of similarities to that beginning of indepen-
S: It’s very tangible, I think.
dence and romantic life.
JS: For our world, it is actually.
ARG: There are scenes between the hero, Charlie, and his
mother, in which she has to play the role of the father, and
advise him on certain very embarrassing things, and normally
that wouldn’t occur, and it was fun to write a scene like that,
because she’s as embarrassed as he is. But in general, it’s
pretty much what adolescence still is. And of course, that
makes Anna Trumball’s role more important, because she
really senses that she’s got some good clay to mold, right?
S: Why do you think this is the right time for Anna
to enter Charlie’s life?
JS: Well, he’s at war - he has to destroy his mother, even
though that may be too Freudian. He has to knock her off
her pedestal and eliminate her control over him, and in that
vacuum Anna is saying some fairly revolutionary ideas that
begin to inflame him. This new perspective is tied into where
(above left): A.R. Gurney with his brother.
(above right): John Lithgow, A.R. Gurney,
Danny Burstein, and Sigourney Weaver
backstage at Mrs. Farnsworth, The Flea, 2004.
he’s at - fourteen and wanting to rebel - and Anna is pouring gasoline on the fire. She becomes this important
figure for him. And look, many years later, Pete, you’re writing about her! If we’re lucky we meet these people,
these significant mentors who put what our parents are giving us in relief and enhance our lives.
S: Jim, does this play tell you anything you didn’t know about Pete?
JS: I think, for me, one of the delights of the play is this really wonderful American artist, sitting next to me.
ARG: Ack. [Makes a playful noise of dismissal].
JS: It’s true. I think this play gives an insight into part of the birth of his artistry. There is someone challenging him,
saying, “Get out there, and fully live life - one that is not only examined, but is also searching.” I think M