Signature Stories Vol 8 | Page 18

...I learned a lot about how to be gentle and how to be a good sport and all sorts of things from a dog... DOGS Signature: Dogs appear often in your plays. WE: I have always loved dogs, and in some real ways I think I learned a lot about how to be gentle and how to be a good sport and all sorts of things from a dog named Maggie and then one named Emily. And so there is a dog at least adverted to in The Open House. But in some ways, there’s nothing more complicated to it than that I do love dogs and they stand for a lot to me. OPTIMISM Georgia Engel, James McMenamin, and Michael Park in Middletown at the Vineyard Theatre, 2010. Signature: Your characters often deal with the bleaker side of existence, but you don’t seem to approach these ideas with pessimism. Are you an optimist? WE: I think I completely am. I don’t want to seem simple or naïve, but– so the world is this set of preconceptions we have, and fears and anxieties and all these things. But then you’ll bump into somebody on the subway, and someone says something funny or surprising or helpful, someone says something sweet. Or you just see something. I was walking to Grand Central, and there were two people sitting on the ledge of a bank eating from a box of cereal, and it happened to be Life cereal. I don’t want to turn that in any clever way, it just was two people on a cold evening reaching into this box of Life... cereal. By Quaker Oats. And that’s the world. I could have been in some grumpy mood or turning some unresolvable thing over in my head, and if I had been lucky enough to see that in that moment and lucky enough to feel at least open to that moment, then that becomes a very different world for a little while. So I guess I’m hopeful and optimistic that if we can just be open to things around us, a lot of good things would come in as well as the normal terrifying things and scary things. It’s a tough job being a human being, I think. I am constantly amazed so many people do it with such style. n It’s a tough job being a human being, I think. I am constantly amazed so many people do it 17