very ancient. If you strip it away in a certain way it’s very American. It’s very much about murder and rape and pillage—it’s not a
pretty play—but it certainly speaks to the horror of contemporary life. And that’s what I was trying to get at, improvisationally.
Not so much jazz music, which I think has kind of seen its day.
Signature: There is music in the play, however. Can you talk a little bit about the music in the first production and the role it plays?
SS: Well, Stephen knew [composer] Neil [Martin] very well, and he’s a very accomplished cello musician, in the classic style. Neil’s
done a wonderful job of taking that classical substructure and turning it into very interesting segues. And I think we’re going to
use some slide guitar and other instrumentation along with it, so, you know, it should be a little rougher than it was.
Signature: The visual world in which the play takes place is abstract. Can you talk about what that world is?
SS: Well, it’s difficult because it’s internalized, you know? It’s sort of like the environment of a mind rather than necessarily taking
place in a place. It’s not taking place in a castle, it’s not taking place in a temple or a Greek setting of any kind. It’s taking place
in the mind of Oedipus, I suppose, is the best way of explaining that. However, I’m not trying to enforce that on the audience.
I’m not trying to present a cranium for them to—you know what I mean? It’s not taking place in the cerebellum [laughs].
Signature: Is there a relationship between the classical characters as
represented in the traditional Oedipus story and the contemporary characters?
SS: Yes, there is. I mean, with that, again, it’s something that the audience
has to find, I suppose. But the situations of the contemporary
characters are as horrific, if not more so, than the ancient ones.
You know, the situation, to me, is a murder play. Who created
this crime? And an incredible thing in the play is that the
murderer doesn’t know it’s him. The one who’s done the killing
(left page, top to bottom): Kirk Acevedo in The Tooth of Crime (Second Dance) at Signature
Theatre, 1997; Gretchen Cleevely and Joe Ciccolella in Curse of the Starving Class at
Signature Theatre, 1997; Lois Smith in Heartless at Signature Theatre, 2012.
(this page): Bruce MacVittie and John Diehl in Action at Signature Theatre, 1997.
16