Kenneth Lonergan
( Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP )
[music]
Helga Davis: You wake up in the morning, and then what happens? Oh, put your headphones on, Peter.
Female Speaker: uh-uh, oh yeah.
Female Speaker: Oh, yeah. Come on, and put your arms around me.
[laughter]
Male Speaker: The two [unintelligible 00:00:10] musician.
Peter: I want to hug you, and hug you, and hug you some more.
Male Speaker: Right through all these microphone cables?
[laughter]
Female Speaker: Go ahead.
Female Speaker: I know I'm in the right time, in the right space.
Helga Davis: Do you feel that?
[music]
Helga Davis: I'm Helga Davis. So here I was this kid from the South Bronx, well, Harlem in the South Bronx, and I end up in this private school on Manhattan's Upper West Side. And if you can imagine it, I felt completely at home. I felt like I had found my people, and I found a lot of my people in that drama department at the Walden School. And one of the people who was in that drama department was Kenneth Lonergan.
So you probably know him more as a filmmaker and as a playwright. But for me, he was Kenny. He was Mr. Peachum. [chuckles] He was my husband. He-- I was Mrs. Peachum, and he was Mr. Peachum in Threepenny Opera. And that experience, and my experience with him and, uh, Matthew Broderick was also in-in Kenny's class, that was the beginning of my understanding of who I was when I looked in the mirror. This is my conversation with Kenneth Lonergan.
[music]
Helga Davis: So there we were in this school, um, doing a lot of very incredible things-
Kenneth Lonergan: Yeah.
Helga Davis: -for people who were 14 and 15 and 16. But how long- how long were you in Walden?
Kenneth Lonergan: I was there from the time I was five, four or five, so all the way through high school.
Helga Davis: So you were one of those kids?
Kenneth Lonergan: Yeah, yeah. I went to some nursery school somewhere, I think on 86th Street, like a half-day school. And then I think I went to Walden either in the threes or the fours. I'm not sure.
Helga Davis: Wow.
Kenneth Lonergan: And then all the way, and then I graduated high school there.
Helga Davis: Wow.
Kenneth Lonergan: So I really grew up there.
Helga Davis: You sure did. So you had people with whom you were classmates from the time-
Kenneth Lonergan: Yeah.
Helga Davis: -you were three or four or five or whatever you got there?
Kenneth Lonergan: Yeah. I'm still friends with a-- I had a friend who you didn't know, who named Jane Ziegelman, who's a writer and a food-
Helga Davis: Person?
Kenneth Lonergan: -historian and expert and so-- and, uh, she and I are still friendly, and, uh, we are very good friends. She left Walden when, uh, in eighth grade. So I don't- I don't think there's anyone I'm still in touch with from when I was five. But every once in a while, I'll run into somebody in the street. Uh, and I'm still friends with Matthew Broderick, who we both were friends with in high school. I met him in 10th grade. And, uh, I haven't seen anyone but you from Walden for a while.
But David Tanzer was another one who was there from zero to at the end. And so Evan Lesuk, also, and, um, Mark Lieberman, and, oh, Susan Pinkwater. Uh, I think she came a little later. I don't think she was there in nursery school.
Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.
Kenneth Lonergan: Susan Klein was. Jane sent me a picture of my-- of our fours class. I'm pretty sure it was. And I could name everyone in the picture, which I can't do with any group-
Helga Davis: Since?
Kenneth Lonergan: -since. Uh, well, I can name most people. I can--
Helga Davis: You can name the people in your class, probably.
Kenneth Lonergan: Yeah, well, but you know, du-- [sighs] I don't know anyone's name if I met them after I was 25 or so.
[laughter]
Kenneth Lonergan: But any of them before 25, I usually know the first name and the last name. It's amazing.
Helga Davis: What do you think it was about that place? It's also a very special memory for me, too. I had been in public school up until then, although I was in these IGC classes, uh, the-the intellectually gifted children. And it was a little bit like being-- well, prison language isn't quite the right language for it-
Kenneth Lonergan: No.
Helga Davis: -but in a sense, it is because we were taken out of the general population-
Kenneth Lonergan: Yeah.
Helga Davis: -of the school and then we were put in these classes. And I was with the same kids all day for seventh and eighth grade.
Kenneth Lonergan: Yeah.
Helga Davis: And very--
Kenneth Lonergan: How big was the group?
Helga Davis: Hmm, 20 people-
Kenneth Lonergan: Yeah.
Helga Davis: -just like my class-
Kenneth Lonergan: Yeah.
Helga Davis: -at-at Walden-
Kenneth Lonergan: At Walden.
Helga Davis: -except that there were, however many thou-- there were 2,000 other kids-
Kenneth Lonergan: Yeah.
Helga Davis: -around that we never associated with.
Kenneth Lonergan: Right.
Helga Davis: And so we were together. We learned different things. We got taken on trips that other kids didn't get taken on. Uh, and then I went, and I took these exams and I was given a scholarship by, uh, an institution called A Better Chance.
Kenneth Lonergan: Mm-hmm.
Helga Davis: And I remember that Walden school interview. You know, you would go to all these schools, so I visited, uh, Choate-
Kenneth Lonergan: Mm-hmm.
Helga Davis: -and Hotchkiss, and they had to pick you-
Kenneth Lonergan: Yeah.
Helga Davis: -which is a whole other mind fuck because-
Kenneth Lonergan: Yeah.
Helga Davis: -that's what it is. Because you go and like, how do you- how do you-
Kenneth Lonergan: How do you present-
Helga Davis: -present yourself?
Kenneth Lonergan: Yeah, when you're--
Helga Davis: -right, so they-they want you.
Kenneth Lonergan: How old were you? 12, 13?
Helga Davis: Yeah.
Kenneth Lonergan: Yeah.
Helga Davis: And when I got to Walden, Sylvia Hall gave me a tour of the school. I shadowed her all day. And then, uh, Dan-- I was in Dan's office and we had the talk-
Kenneth Lonergan: Yeah.
Helga Davis: -and he was just kind of asking me about myself.
Kenneth Lonergan: Yeah.
Helga Davis: Right.
Kenneth Lonergan: Dan Hill.
Helga Davis: And then at the end, he asked me, "What's the hardest part of all of this going to places and talking to people?" And I said, "You never know why they want you or they don't want you or what you could have done better." And I just want to go to school.
Kenneth Lonergan: Yeah.
Helga Davis: And he looked at me and he said, "Helga Davis, welcome to the Walden school."
Kenneth Lonergan: Oh, it's such a nice story.
Helga Davis: That was the end of all that bullshit.
Kenneth Lonergan: Oh, gosh.
Helga Davis: And the next year, I came to Walden. And so I got to this school and I was saying to someone the other day that-- what-- the reason that I loved those years so much and that I cherish them is that I felt like I became Helga Davis in those years, right?
Kenneth Lonergan: Yeah.
Helga Davis: So my trip from the South Bronx to school every day was a long trip.
Kenneth Lonergan: Yeah.
Helga Davis: But once I got in those doors, I didn't feel any differently than anyone else. I felt that the same things were expected of me that were expected of you. Um, I felt that I was free to express myself in a way that I wasn't even allowed to express myself in my home.
Kenneth Lonergan: Mm-hmm.
Helga Davis: Um, I was around kids, some of whom were religious, but not necessarily. And I was exposed to literature and to art and to a way of thinking that that really formed me as a human.
Kenneth Lonergan: Yeah. I think a lot of us felt that way about the school. Not everybody, but a lot of us did. I certainly did. Uh, how different was it from the other schools that you had been to, apart from like what you're describing about being like in an isolated group, apart from the rest of the school population? How--
Helga Davis: It's kind of hard to discern-
Kenneth Lonergan: Yeah, 'cause there's-- that's such a profound==
Helga Davis: -because there was another population. right?
Kenneth Lonergan: Yeah. That's such a profound difference. How would you--
Helga Davis: We weren't a part of.
Kenneth Lonergan: Yeah.
Helga Davis: Um, and-and even-even racially, that's- that's probably the place that's- that's the biggest puzzle to me about that experience. Um, and I-I think that one will hear a lot of African-American people who had private school experiences talking about going home and having one reality and going to school and having another reality.
Kenneth Lonergan: Yeah.
Helga Davis: I mean my best friend for the entire time I was at Walden was Randy Grossman-
Kenneth Lonergan: Yeah.
Helga Davis: -whose life couldn't have been more different-
Kenneth Lonergan: Right.
Helga Davis: -than mine, but that was my best friend-
Kenneth Lonergan: Yeah.
Helga Davis: -hands down. Um, and the person-- I think we had one fight in all that time. I don't remember who we were reading. We were talking about or we were talking about South Africa with George.
Kenneth Lonergan: Mm-hmm.
Helga Davis: And she felt that-- Well, at the time, she felt that apartheid was-was a bad system, but that it would take time. And I felt that she-she should be willing to give her life for my freedom.
Kenneth Lonergan: Right.
Helga Davis: [laughs]
Kenneth Lonergan: Yeah.
Helga Davis: And there you have it.
Kenneth Lonergan: Yeah.
[laughter]
Kenneth Lonergan: I don't know how many of us at Walden or anywhere else were willing to give our lives for anybody's freedom.
Helga Davis: Uh, nope.
[laughter]
Helga Davis: And that was a hard lesson to learn.
Kenneth Lonergan: Yeah.
Helga Davis: Uh. [laughs]
Kenneth Lonergan: We thought we were, maybe.
Helga Davis: Yeah, there's that. I think- I think a lot of us thought we were.
Kenneth Lonergan: That's so interesting 'cause when you grow up going to the school the way I did, you don't think about anything like that. Kids come and go and then some kids stay, and then everyone becomes, you know, sort of-- you don't exactly think about other people's experiences in that way.
Helga Davis: And so there's a question there. So there we were, Mr. and Mrs. Peachum, right?
Kenneth Lonergan: Yeah.
Helga Davis: In Threepenny Opera. And in 311, what was-- 311 East 54th Street, that was the other-- that was the thing we did when I-I was in nineth grade. Oh, that was Mrs. Scully's all-theatrical east-side boarding house.
Kenneth Lonergan: Boarding house, that's right, when you sang Gimme a Pigfoot.
Helga Davis: When I sing Gimme a Pigfoot.
Kenneth Lonergan: Blew the roof off the auditorium. That was amazing. I remember that. I tell-- I told my daughter all about you 'cause we went-- we go down to the New Orleans Jazz Festival all the time, and we have this singer that we love. Her name is Sheila, like who sings a lot of Bessie Smith songs, and I always tell Nelly about Helga Davis singing that song when she was in 11th grade, when I was like, listen, we were all doing a good job. This was different.
We were all like, that was a good song. You know, he's in 12th grade. She's a pretty good-- Mr. Peachum, he's fine, as Mack the Knife, and then-- or whatever. This was a different-- this was different.
Helga Davis: But did it mean anything to you that I was Black?
Kenneth Lonergan: Well, yeah, I mean, you're in high school and there's like-- it's not supposed to mean anything at all.
Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.
Kenneth Lonergan: If you're in the '70s and you're a white liberal kid from the Upper West Side with a, you know, liberal progressive, somewhat milk toasty liberal background and everyone's really taught everyone's the same. So in a way, it's sort of, you're not supposed to notice that there's any difference. So when you find yourself noticing or thinking about there being any difference at all, visually or in any physically or in any other way, you feel like you're ashamed, and you shouldn't be noticing anything like that.
Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.
Kenneth Lonergan: So it's not even a discussion you allow that you're even supposed to be having. And now, I think it's possible that it's-- that-- I don't know, having a kid and watching them grow up with no race consciousness whatsoever, like zero for many, many, many, many years, and then watching it kind of seep in and more from their schools they're going to than from almost anywhere else, uh, and through well-meaning, and she goes to a very liberal progressive Walden-like school, but I'm not so sure I'm that comfortable with the- with the agenda that's being--
It's a very-- you know, it's a strict far to the left politically correct identity, conscious identity, identity political agenda, and I don't know that I like it so much because-- and I guess it's impossible to maintain that initial state of not noticing particularly who's who or, you know. I think it's-- I don't know.
Anyway, all I know is at Walden it was not so much. I-I always, um, put in mind about this something from the Autobiography of Malcolm X, where he goes to Africa and he is having discussion. I think it's with a- with a-a Black African minister or someone in a- in a-a-- or a journalist possibly. And he uses the phrase, uh, race, uh, everyone in America is very racially self-conscious. This is when he's sort of-- he's been to his Mecca pilgrimage, and he's-
Helga Davis: And he's seen.
Kenneth Lonergan: -seen white Muslims and his-his entire world--
Helga Davis: Recognizes them as his brothers.
Kenneth Lonergan: Yeah, and his entire worldview has changed in that amazing capacity. He had to change his entire worldview, not just once, but four times, in which most of us have the capacity to change it. Never. And, um, uh, and, uh, and I always remember that phrase that-that Americans are so racially self-conscious. And I-I think I must have grown up in that way too.
And I don't think I'm free of it to this day, but I think in a way all the white kids at Walden were going on the assumption that we weren't to discuss or notice anything 'cause everyone was supposed to be the same, which isn't the worst approach.
Helga Davis: But it's not true.
Kenneth Lonergan: It's not true and it's not-- it doesn't really take into account the enormous variety of experiences that different people have coming from different backgrounds, different ethnicities, and different demographics. But it's- it's a leg up from where people were thinking about things 50 years earlier-
Helga Davis: True that.
Kenneth Lonergan: -I would say, and I hope we're further along now even. But, uh--
Helga Davis: What is it that you're noticing about your own-- your-your daughter?
Kenneth Lonergan: Well, for instance, this idea of cultural appropriation. I personally-- I suspect it's, uh, not a great concept. I-I-I mean my instinct ,and I'm willing to be proved wrong if-if-if-if-if I'm-- if I find that I'm wrong, is that it's, uh, crazy. Uh, she had a friend who wore a-a t-shirt with a Chinese characters on it, and, uh, an Asian friend accused this kid who was white of appropriating Chinese culture by wearing a t-shirt with Chinese characters on it. Now, to me, that degree of fine-tuning and political correctness is absurd and ultimately self-destructive and crazy.
Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.
Kenneth Lonergan: And all it is to me is this, see, what I see- what I see happening, and I-- these are not fully-formed thoughts even though I've been thinking about them all year really and beyond that, but like-- um, but especially this last year, I feel there's this-this kind of very alarming upswing on-on the right end of the spectrum that we all don't like.
And what concerns me is that the reaction on the left end of the spectrum is-is actually directed against itself in some ways. And I'm not the first person to have this concern, but-- so I think without cultural appropriation, there's no culture, especially in this country. I know what it means, but I-I know that it's misapplied when it's taken to that degree and it becomes meaningless.
That you can't name an artist of any kind or a writer or any kind of-- that puts anything out in any kind of creative capacity who doesn't appropriate left and right from all kinds of cultures that are influenced, and appropriation is a very particular thing. You know, obviously, an immediate example is all the music companies who got rich off of Black music and all the way up to, you know, recent times.
But that's a particular business assault. Uh, that is not-- that you just can't-- you could accuse Rolling Stones and the Beatles of being culturally appropriating Black American music, but it's insane because they're heavily influenced by it. They became rich and successful adopting it, appropriating it, and making it their own, and playing it back to people. And it doesn't-- that's what a culture is supposed to do. Everyone's supposed to-
Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.
Kenneth Lonergan: -take it in and put it back out in their own way. And I think, ultimately, it's a beautiful and great thing. So for someone to not be able-- supposed to wear a t-shirt with Chinese-
Helga Davis: Right.
Kenneth Lonergan: -characters on it, to me is insane. And-and that type of over-refinement of political correctness, I would call it-- I-I see happening, uh, across the board on all issues at her school and, uh, not just at her school, but also, you know, in my community which is the showbiz community. And-- but it's hard because the issues are real. The problems are real.
The problems are grotesque and monumental and historic and gargantuan. And so, you don't always wanna jump in and say this particular solution is terrible, and focus your energies on that. On the other hand, I do sometimes feel like there's this tremendous energy available to actually make a profound and positive difference. And I hate to see it funneled into these-- this increasingly minute-
Helga Davis: And narrow.
Kenneth Lonergan: -perfectionism and narrow, uh, demands on the language that left-wing people use when speaking to other left-wing people about left-wing issues. It seems very insular and-and crazy to me-
Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.
Kenneth Lonergan: -and wasteful. And I don't know if it's anything worse than silly. Ultimately, like after 10 years, I think people will look back and say, I can't believe people were talking like this to each other.
Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.
Kenneth Lonergan: The same way people look back now and at like Mod Squad and make fun of them for saying "groovy" and "digit man" and like that kind of stuff or the same way you look back at like, uh, popular Freudianism in the '30s and '40s, which sounds like gobbledygook now even though, personally, I think Freud had a lot of profound and meaningful lasting ideas, but that when it became a popular idiom and a popular dogma, it lost a lot of its heft.
Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.
Kenneth Lonergan: So I don't know that this is any worse than that, but on the other hand, we're at a dangerous-- we're in very perilous times, and one wants one's team to be doing its best and not eating itself alive.
Helga Davis: Yeah. How-how does this thing come up in what you do in your films, in your-- how-how are you navigating?
Kenneth Lonergan: I don't know the answer to that because I try to think about it in the broadest most humanistic terms like-- 'cause I can only do good work if I'm thinking in terms of the individuals that I'm inventing. And so, if I think in terms of big issues, I'm lost no matter what those big issues may be. But if I think in terms of human beings and try to include as much of the threads--
Helga Davis: The human experience.
Kenneth Lonergan: Yeah, and as-- if I try to include as many of the threads that connect these imaginary people to the real world that my imagination has put them in, then a lot of these issues I hope come along with-with the material. Uh, and in what form, depends completely on what, uh, what I'm writing. I don't often write directly, I wouldn't say about social issues, but you hope that by having your antenna out as much as possible, your-- the work will exist on a lot of different levels.
Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.
Kenneth Lonergan: I'm certainly not-- I would not consider myself an overtly political writer. Uh, I have a- I have a sort of a dread of declarative sentences. I don't know what I think about a lot of things, and I don't see my job as to instruct people as so much as to explore-
Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.
Kenneth Lonergan: -and pick out patterns in life that I may happen to notice. Uh, but you do feel like a-a sense of obligation. Like you should be talking about certain things. But most of the time, I say that feeling of obligation that what you should be writing about is not a positive influence on the work. Usually, you're better off following your instincts about what interests you because what interests you is gonna be what you're most-- been paying the most attention to and-and are smartest about. And hopefully, that'll include some of the bigger issues as well as some of the personal ones.
Helga Davis: One of the things that I remember so well also was, um-- and again, when I was watching this with Jared, I was just-- I was so blown away, uh, by our-- so I'll just say what the thing is, and then maybe I can understand what it is I'm trying to say. There's the scene in-in Mrs. Scully's where there's the blackface.
Kenneth Lonergan: Yeah.
Helga Davis: What the hell were we doing? And it's an interesting thing be-- for two reasons. One, you know, I wasn't born at a time when-when African-American actors had to wear-- had to cork up-
Kenneth Lonergan: Yeah.
Helga Davis: -in-in order to-to work. Right?
Kenneth Lonergan: Yeah.
Helga Davis: So here I am in this school with my friends-
Kenneth Lonergan: Yeah.
Helga Davis: -and I'm 14 years old.
Kenneth Lonergan: Yeah.
Helga Davis: And two people whom I consider to be friends-
Kenneth Lonergan: Yeah.
Helga Davis: -come round a corner in black face.
Kenneth Lonergan: Yeah.
Helga Davis: And the shock, the shame, the anger, the-- I just couldn't wrap my head around why-why that thing that I had no historical-
Kenneth Lonergan: Yeah.
Helga Davis: -reference for-
Kenneth Lonergan: Yeah.
Helga Davis: -or personal historical reference for was so profoundly upsetting. And I remember Matthew kept talking to me, and he kept saying, "Helga Davis, it's-it's us. It's me."
Kenneth Lonergan: Yeah.
Helga Davis: And my feeling was, no, it's not. And that we-we did this thing. And when I look back at it, I-I feel how tremendous the opportunity to really, to have another kind of experience with-with my history, with your history with us as teenagers trying to work things out, unfortunately, there wasn't any real conversation-
Kenneth Lonergan: Yeah.
Helga Davis: -around it. I mean, what I was told was that I needed to sort of pull myself together and-and keep moving.
Kenneth Lonergan: Right.
Helga Davis: -which I-I think is unfortunate.
Kenneth Lonergan: Yeah.
Helga Davis: But--
Kenneth Lonergan: That's so-- well, I'm glad you brought that up 'cause I've been thinking about that a lot 'cause I knew I was coming to do the podcast that you're being very discreet. I was the other person in blackface besides Matthew. We were playing a blackface comedy duo called Mack and Moran. And you see us a few times rehearsing and then there's the Vaudeville show, the performance all do their act.
And our act is in blackface. And it was taken from an actual 1880s, 1890s act. And then also David Johnson, who's a African American, uh, kid who-who-- 'cause white and, uh, black performers put on blackface-
Helga Davis: Right.
Kenneth Lonergan: -uh, frequently to-- for minstrel performances, et cetera.
Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.
Kenneth Lonergan: Um, I-I'll- I'll tell you what I thought about at the time and then what I think about it now, 'cause it's very interesting how-- 'cause at the time, what I know the-the teacher who wrote the show was doing was trying to show Vaudeville in every facet, including the horrible racist facet, which is minstrel shows. And my feeling at the time when-- in 11th grade was that it was so far away from our experience.
And I remember you got very upset, and Matthew and I both noticed you were horribly upset. But this is because you hadn't been prepared for this at all. But I-I believe that what happened was, our feeling was this is so foreign to our experience today. We are so divorced from this now that you're being oversensitive by bursting into tears when you see your two buddies dressed up in blackface.
And we didn't even-- I don't even know that I ever even saw what I looked like 'cause I probably was embarrassed to even look. They put on the makeup and I got on. I'm not sure that I even recall--
Helga Davis: You didn't do it yourself?
Kenneth Lonergan: No, I don't think so. Or if I did, I blocked it out. But I think-- I don't think-- I don't really remember. I remember-- and now that I think of it, I have no visual memory of myself in that outfit. And that may be strictly from vanity 'cause it's not a very-- it doesn't make you look han-- [unintelligible 00:25:29] it does not make you look handsome no matter who's wearing it, you know.
Helga Davis: [laughs]
Kenneth Lonergan: I was okay looking. Matthew was very handsome, and he didn't look so good. Um, but it's funny, I don't remember that at all. But anyway, what I think is interesting among a lot of it is that-- and I also remember that Bruce, the teacher who had co-written the show with a music teacher, Carol, I got very angry and Matthew did too. And a bunch of us did because-because of the blackface component of the show-- and just by the way, the show was not promoting blackface.
Helga Davis: At all.
Kenneth Lonergan: It was a historical show with a lot of funny and good things in it and a lot of terrible things in it, et cetera. So if it was saying anything, it was saying this is what was happening a hundred years ago.
Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.
Kenneth Lonergan: Um, but the administration of the school came to a dress rehearsal, probably the dress rehearsal where you got so upset, and saw the show and-- or the first performance of four or three. Anyway, they-they asked Bruce, they-they made Bruce read a statement before the show saying that we're gonna be seeing a historical show.
And I don't remember the exact nature, but to kind of warn the audience that they were gonna be seeing some racist, horrible things, not in so many words. But I think the phrase-- and I remember this 'cause his voice really cracked when he said it. He said-- I mean it really cracked like a whip when he said- he said, "We were showing these things not because it's pretty, but because that's the way it was."
Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.
Kenneth Lonergan: And we all thought-- I remember being very 11th-grade indignant, like, we shouldn't have to say this. It should be self-evident. This is crazy. This is just cowardice. This is just-- there were-
Helga Davis: Wow.
Kenneth Lonergan: The phrase didn't exist then, but I thought this is just politically correct car-- like chicken shit. Like we're just apo-- we're just covering our bases and apologizing for the show before the show even comes on, so no one gets offended. All of which is true. But now looking back on it, I think, well, of course, Helga Davis was horrified and mortified and upset and heartbroken to see this grotesque living caricature in front of her 2 feet away from her backstage.
And also-- and for you to say that you were then just encouraged to get on with it, that's because-- which is another component which I don't think people take into account very often is this was- this was the show we'd all been working on for a month. It was opening night or it was gonna be opening night.
Helga Davis: Right.
Kenneth Lonergan: And yeah, whatever's upsetting people, you have to-- like the little mundane daily pressure of life is enormous, and people should never forget that. Uh, so I couldn't agree with you more that there should have been some real discussion about it and said, look, we wanna do a show about American popular culture 100 years ago and show how absolutely horrible it was in some respects and how fun it was in other respects.
And that's the point of view of the show. And these two guys are gonna be dressed up in blackface, and it's really shocking. But I want you to know we're doing it for what we hope is a good reason. It's an educational project for the most part.
Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.
Kenneth Lonergan: And it's also and, uh, so forth and so on and had an actual discussion about it. I can't imagine a show like that happening now. But I also can't imagine a show happening now-- like that happening now even with a discussion about it and even with everybody involved thinking it was okay. Which is why I feel in a way-- and I don't know if that's because our hearts are pure now or because they're more cowed, and I suspect it's the latter.
Um, I-- actually, looking back on it now, it's hard to believe there was no discussion about that. And that particularly the African American kids were thrown into that show without like being talked through this at the same time in a way that's both unforgivably innocent and naive and a way that I also somewhat is-- in some way to me the way it's supposed to be. We literally thought this just doesn't connect to the life we are leading today.
Helga Davis: Right.
Kenneth Lonergan: And therefore, there's no reason anybody should get upset about it, which is not true. It's an ideal that hadn't even remotely been achieved and hasn't yet. But that was where we were sitting in-in our point of view about it. You know, we understood, but we were also faintly annoyed 'cause we were trying-- we had to go out and do our show-
Helga Davis: Right.
Kenneth Lonergan: -which to us was important. So we didn't want some girl backstage weeping onto the floor. And we were, I think, kind of callous about it because we were all kids and we were like, why is that kid crying when I have to go out and do my act on that- on that real basic level?
Helga Davis: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it-it also reminds me of how emotional it was, the scene with David Johnson, who's the African American student, at the end of the performance when I wipe the cork from his face.
Kenneth Lonergan: Yeah.
Helga Davis: And we would cry every time.
Kenneth Lonergan: Yeah. It's- it's- it's interesting to think of all-- I mean, how-- I'm thinking, you know, the-the kind of lack of empathy that you can have for other people, even when you're in an environment that's telling you to have all the empathy you can muster, is kind of amazing.
Helga Davis: Yeah.
Kenneth Lonergan: And it's not-- And I-- And it's- it's also, I think, a part of it is the function of the-- of-of a situation that should be seen on a very human level, being raised or lowered to the level of a dogma or an orthodoxy. And I'm thinking of this because I'm thinking about my daughter's school and I'm thinking about a-- just a lot of the-- these really human issues becoming dehumanized so quickly.
It's like, they're almost like they're being oxidized, like there's some kind of metal that's been buried. And-and the minute they're brought out into the open and the- and the metal is there, like here's [unintelligible 00:31:32], and then suddenly, it's oxidized and it changes color. And it's like something that's m-more brittle and less human and more-- And I'm- I'm- I'm- I'm wrecking my own-- not-great metaphor, but-but you know what I mean? It's like--
Helga Davis: I do.
Kenneth Lonergan: Uh, it's so-- It-it happens so fast.
Helga Davis: Yeah.
Kenneth Lonergan: And I think I would say that we were-- our lack of empathy was probably partly in response to the f-- to our attributing your emotion to a sort of political orthodoxy that we thought was a little silly, as opposed to the fact that it was a real person having a real reaction-
Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.
Kenneth Lonergan: -which is what the political orthodoxy should be serving. And it's supposed to be, and what we're all supposed to be paying attention to, I think.
Helga Davis: Yeah.
Kenneth Lonergan: That make sense?
Helga Davis: Of course. Of course.
Kenneth Lonergan: Um, and-and now, it feels incredibly callous that-that there wasn't some discussion about it, although I f-- I don't like the-the fact that such a show would be impossible now. Because I don't think it was such a bad idea to put on that show.
Helga Davis: I-I agree with you completely. And-and I feel that, in part, what makes me sad in this moment is this lack of nuance that we're so not able to have complex-- to hold complex feelings, to articulate complex thoughts that, in the end, would lead us someplace very, very different than-than just on two sides, as if only two sides exist. This-- There are as many sides as there are people in a discussion.
Kenneth Lonergan: I know, and it's funny because you read-- When you-- I mean, I've been reading a lot of articles about, you know, Me Too and Time's Up up in the sexual harassment, sexual misconduct, sexual abuse issues that have been going-- cascading through Hollywood and all over the country. And in fact, there is a lot of nuance in people's thinking.
You know, you read many articles with no nuance and no thought, but many, many people have a lot to say about it that's very thoughtful and haven't-- their views haven't calcified or coagulated yet. It seems like it's one short step to people being able to, uh-- I hope my daughter doesn't hear this podcast because she'll kill me, but-but sh-- I-- she's having-- There's a workshop today about pretty m--
Helga Davis: In her school?
Kenneth Lonergan: In her school.
Helga Davis: And how old is she?
Kenneth Lonergan: She's 15.
Helga Davis: Okay.
Kenneth Lonergan: Pretty much covering any kind of hot button left-wing, liberal progressive topic you could think of. You know, all day long, they're doing workshops. And I-- And her feeling about it was, "I can't speak up because, if you don't say the right thing, they eat you alive." Now to me, that is not--
Helga Davis: It's all wrong.
Kenneth Lonergan: That is very wrong. Because even if she said something that was acc-- that was-- you know, she's 15. How racist is she gonna be? You know. Maybe very, I hope not. I don't think so. I don't think so at all. She's a liberal left wing Greenwich Village Soho progressive school kid.
Helga Davis: [laughs]
Kenneth Lonergan: I mean, just not-- That's just not who she is nor how she was brought up. Um, but, you know, I don't have a politically correct Orthodox view about any of these issues, and she's my daughter so she--
Helga Davis: Nor do I.
Kenneth Lonergan: I know. But for her to not feel comfortable-- But I know exactly what she's talking about because I-I-- I'm not on Twitter, but I read Twitter. I know what happens to people who don't say the exact right thing, and it just makes you not wanna participate.
Helga Davis: Already, as if there were an exact right thing.
Kenneth Lonergan: Yeah.
Helga Davis: Which is--
Kenneth Lonergan: And then I read other people who-- other article-- other writers and thinkers and ordinary people who are expressing their views, and they're very nuanced and complicated. And-and let's kind of feel our way through this. And I, you know-- And so I-- it doesn't seem like it would be that far of a stretch for people to start allowing other people to disagree with them. That seems to be all that it would take.
Helga Davis: [chuckles] And-and the ability to-to be uncomfortable. Like this is- this is also a thing that we're just-- we're not trying to be uncomfortable ever.
Kenneth Lonergan: Yeah. I-I-I always feel uncomfortable though.
[laughter]
Kenneth Lonergan: So I'm- I'm trying. I'm trying to be more comfortable. [laughs]
Helga Davis: [laughs] Okay. All right. I take that back. [laughs]
Helga Davis: But I-I-I mean, I definitely feel that, you know, we just don't want to be uncomfortable. And the-- and there's an idea that, uh, if you have this thing or that thing and this phone or that, that there's- there's a level of comfort. So I remember when Philando Castile was killed. I was so sad. And I-I don't know why his murder affected me in the way that it-it did, but okay, it did.
And I was having one of those moments when I was like, "What is happening to our country, and where am I safe, and where are my nephews safe? Where are my neighbors safe?" Having a whole thing. And I go into, um-- I think it was a Dean & DeLuca. And I hear these two women in front of me having a conversation about a party they'd been to that weekend and how horrible the party was and how the guys weren't that cute. And there's this whole thing happening.
And I felt in that moment that as citizens, everyone should have been as upset as I was. And in fact, what is true and what is always true, like you said, the show must go on. And no, it did not matter, one, I owed it to these two women that this thing, this incredibly violent thing had happened and resulted in the death of this African American man. And it made-- I don't even know that they knew that it happened.
And so, in that moment, I feel that part of my work is to have my feelings of horror and rage and sadness, and to also hold space for the people for whom this makes absolutely no difference whatsoever, and to find in that a place where I don't have to be rude to them, I don't have to- I don't have to act out my disappointment and my sadness and my rage on them.
Kenneth Lonergan: Well, I think- I think, though, that you could-- I think that's--
Helga Davis: Maybe that's an awful [unintelligible 00:38:32] [crosstalk] [chuckles]
Kenneth Lonergan: A lot of-- no, it's a lot-- no, I-I don't think there's-- Obviously, there's nothing wrong with that. But I think that there's nothing wrong with bringing people's attention to things that they're not aware of and not being too hard on them for not necessarily being aware of the things that-that you're aware of. You-you get to the point where people who don't seem to think there's anything wrong with the world really seem like you wanna shake them and wake them up. Nobody thinks that. But people who think-- I-I think that there's-- I don't know.
I also-- You hope that, when you can bring people's attention to things they don't know about, that they'll notice them and pay attention that they will care about them, and they don't always. So I-I-I know what you're saying, but it's-- Yeah, it's a- that's a funny phenomenon when you're very worked up about something rightly so, and then nobody else in the room is--
Helga Davis: Like no one. [chuckles]
Kenneth Lonergan: I can't believe they're not talking about it.
Helga Davis: But even the fact that I'm standing in a Dean & DeLuca about to have my $10 coffee and muffin is already--
Kenneth Lonergan: Yeah, I--
Helga Davis: It's already something.
Kenneth Lonergan: Yeah, but that's where I got-- Uh, you've gotta--
Helga Davis: Okay.
Kenneth Lonergan: I mean, people can go-
Helga Davis: Tell me.
Kenneth Lonergan: -to Dean & DeLuca if they want to.
Helga Davis: Yeah, I was there.
Kenneth Lonergan: I mean, you were there.
Helga Davis: [chuckles]
Kenneth Lonergan: I've been there.
[laughter]
Kenneth Lonergan: I don't-- I just think- I think people are so hard on each other sometimes, you know. They're so hard on each other.
Helga Davis: Okay.
Kenneth Lonergan: They're so-
Helga Davis: Say it.
Kenneth Lonergan: -unforgiving of-- And mostly, [unintelligible 00:39:55] that they're guilty of themselves, as long as you're pointed in the right direction, which is-- you know, it's why, like, self-righteousness like you don't have always sound so unpleasant.
Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.
Kenneth Lonergan: Because, you know, somewhere they're doing the same thing somewhere else. I went to a-a debate once during the Iraqi War with Christopher Hitchens, and I couldn't remember, it was a radio host of a station in WBAI, and, uh, it was--
Helga Davis: Was it Amy Goodman?
Kenneth Lonergan: No, it was a-- it was a man who was a, uh, African-American guy who was in his 50s, I'd say. He was a big guy. I don't know the name of the--
Helga Davis: Okay.
Kenneth Lonergan: -of-of the-the programmer. It was an interesting experience because I was-- it was in the East Village. And without agreeing with everything, Christopher Hitchens always said I was a great admirer of his, and you have to admire his intellect and his-- what he knows about everything that he talked about. And whatever else happened at this debate, he clearly was way better informed, way more articulate, way more, uh, coaching in his arguments, et cetera.
Then his opponent, who was not respecting the rules of the debate, was repeating himself. He invited Hitchens, said, "Come on my program and I'll debate you five times," and then kept saying he's afraid to come on the program. At some point, Hitchens said, "I have said yes five times." And the audience couldn't have cared less who was making good points or bad points-
Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.
Kenneth Lonergan: -and was vitriolic and rabid in its hatred for Hitchens-
Helga Davis: Ah.
Kenneth Lonergan: -just because he was supporting the- the war for any reason and didn't care what he had to say whatsoever. And it was really interesting 'cause I felt like- I felt like I was at a creationist rally in reverse because there-- no point could be made in opposition to the, uh, a priori conviction of the audience that would make the slightest impact. And it was fright-- it was kind of alarming.
Helga Davis: Yeah.
Kenneth Lonergan: Um, and at some point there were two women sitting next to me, and at some point, one-- Hitchens said something about-- something, mentioned the word army and the woman said, "Yeah, we should all join the army." And I'm from the Upper West. I'm-I'm-I'm--
Helga Davis: There we go.
Kenneth Lonergan: I'm West 92nd Street.
Helga Davis: Uh-huh.
Kenneth Lonergan: Central Park West with psychoanalyst parents. And I turned to them and I said, "Do you wish we didn't have an army?"
Helga Davis: Right?
Kenneth Lonergan: I said, "I don't like what our army does all the time. I'm actually glad we have an army because other countries have armies too. Do you wish we didn't have an army?" I said.
Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.
Kenneth Lonergan: I don't remember what she said, cause I was only admiring myself.
Helga Davis: She said, "Fuck you." That's what she said. [laughter]
Kenneth Lonergan: Probably. Uh--
Helga Davis: I know exactly what she said. [laughs]
Kenneth Lonergan: So-- but I was-- I was really-- I really-- Again, I wanted my team to put on a better show.
Helga Davis: Yeah.
Kenneth Lonergan: You know, I wanted there to be more reason, more listening, more, uh, more argument, more- more facts, more everything, and not-- and less, uh, less ideologic dogma and- and just willful deafness. Uh, so I don't think that I-I-I think anybody who gets mad at someone for going to Dean & DeLuca is crazy.
Helga Davis: Yeah. How about that?
Kenneth Lonergan: There's a lot more to get-- There are many other things to get angry about.
Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.
Kenneth Lonergan: And better things and more productive things. And I think it's just a-- it's just not a useful target for anyone's ire.
Helga Davis: Both your parents were psychoanalysts?
Kenneth Lonergan: My- My father was not a psychoanalyst. He was a, uh, regular physician and a- and a hospital administrator and a medical researcher. My stepfather and mother-- My stepfather's still a psychoanalyst. My mother's retired-
Helga Davis: Jesus.
Kenneth Lonergan: -from being a psychoanalyst.
Helga Davis: Kenny. [laughter]
Kenneth Lonergan: It's an- it's an honorable profession.
Helga Davis: What's that? I mean, can you- can you-- do you- do you get to just be a regular person-
Kenneth Lonergan: Sure. Sure.
Helga Davis: -with psychoanalyst parents?
Kenneth Lonergan: Yeah.
Helga Davis: Yeah?
Kenneth Lonergan: They don't practice at home.
Helga Davis: Yeah, they do.
Kenneth Lonergan: Not more than anybody else does. No, they don't. Not really. I mean, I asked-- you know, at some point when I was younger, I don't know high school or later, I-I finally asked my stepfather the question many people had already asked me, which is, I said, "Do you ever-- Do you ever, like, psychoanalyze us?" And he said, "No-"
Helga Davis: Hmm.
Kenneth Lonergan: "-you don't talk to me the way my patients do." I mean, I-I knew that he noticed things about us and we noticed things about each other, you know, as any intuitive person with insights about human behavior would notice about her loved ones. But he said, "You know, my patients talk to me nonstop for 40 minutes twice a week, once a week, four times a week. You guys don't do that. I know my patients much better than I know anybody else."
Helga Davis: Huh.
Kenneth Lonergan: "No one else sits down for that much time and talks." But, uh, so it's just not the same thing. It's a more-- It's more technical. It's a-- It's-It's treatment. He's not treating us, you know. He doesn't know enough about our inner lives. If I tell my shrink a dream that I had after several years, my shrink's gonna know enough about me to maybe make some-
Helga Davis: Right, yeah.
Kenneth Lonergan: -associations from the dream that have some relevance to the specificity of my life, but my stepfather doesn't know anything about our inner lives beyond what any parent would know.
Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.
Kenneth Lonergan: So he can have insights that may be a little more, you know, a little sharper than-than somebody else's. But he'd be foolish to do that with your children, I think-
Helga Davis: For sure.
Kenneth Lonergan: -and he's not foolish.
Helga Davis: Okay. I wanna read you something, but you have to close your eyes.
Kenneth Lonergan: [chuckles]
Helga Davis: Because I don't-- I don't want you to see.
Kenneth Lonergan: Okay.
Helga Davis: And don't peek.
Kenneth Lonergan: I won't peek. Can I avert my eyes?
Helga Davis: Does it-- Is-- Does it bother you to close your eyes?
Kenneth Lonergan: I've--
Helga Davis: All right. You can--
Kenneth Lonergan: It can feel infantile for some strange reason.
Helga Davis: Okay. Well, I'm-- I wasn't-
Kenneth Lonergan: [crosstalk] discuss with my psychiatrist.
Helga Davis: -trying to make-- I definitely don't want--
Kenneth Lonergan: No, no. You-You're not making-- let me be clear. You're not making me feel infantile.
Helga Davis: Okay. All right. I just have to pull it up. Act I, Scene 1. Time - the present. Place - at the moment, the Filbert home for the mentally unbalanced, specifically the rooms and hall at the right side of the stage, the lights rise only on this area. In the nurse's station at the downstage end of the hall, Nurse Tyler sits at her desk filling up syringes from a bottle of nasty looking fluid. Tyler is very simply an enormous woman in a nurse's uniform.
In the ward room at the upstage end of the hallway, Paul Rennings sits on one of the cots examining a deck of cards. Rennings is 22 or so, a troubled young man with longish hair. He is dressed in an inmate's uniform, green pajamas, and black slippers.
Making his way down the hall, heading towards the nurse's station with a determination of a heat-seeking thermonuclear device is Francis Parkinson. Parkinson is 40 at most. He might be younger, but he doesn't look it. He is a wild man. He is extremely skinny. His hair is brown and wild, flying off in several different directions. He wears a ragged browned beard and as unkempt and untamed as his hair, like Rennings, he wears inmate greens. His feet are unshod. He pads down the hall to the office. He stands in the doorway. Tyler continues filling the syringes.
Kenneth Lonergan: Wow. Where did you get that?
Helga Davis: Uh-huh. Take a look at it.
Kenneth Lonergan: That's wild.
Helga Davis: [laughs]
Kenneth Lonergan: Wow. Oh, this-- Okay. I forgot about this. [chuckles] Wow. I mi-- I think I probably have a copy of this somewhere.
Helga Davis: If you don't, let me know-
Kenneth Lonergan: I will.
Helga Davis: -and I'll make sure you get one.
Kenneth Lonergan: Oh God. Well, I'd better get one just in case cause I'll have to look pretty hard.
Helga Davis: Okay.
Kenneth Lonergan: This is a--
Helga Davis: I'll make sure you get it. I have to return that one.
Kenneth Lonergan: Where did you get this from? Craig Dreyer?
Helga Davis: So I went to Liam Side's wedding.
Kenneth Lonergan: Holy shit.
Helga Davis: At Liam Side's wedding was Nicky Reiner.
Kenneth Lonergan: Nicky Reiner? Yeah. Okay.
Helga Davis: Teddy Reiner was in my class.
Kenneth Lonergan: Yeah, yeah.
Helga Davis: And-And Nicky Reiner is Teddy's brother, so Nicky knew that I had a podcast, and I told him that you were one of the people I would love to speak with. And he said, "I have something that I think might interest you."
Kenneth Lonergan: Wow.
Helga Davis: And so I met him and he gave me that.
Kenneth Lonergan: Wow.
Helga Davis: So this is a play that you wrote called Parkinson Unbound - A Play in Two Acts. And what's so beautiful about it, first of all, who typed this?
Kenneth Lonergan: Me.
Helga Davis: You typed this?
Kenneth Lonergan: Oh yeah. I loved- I loved typing. I miss my typewriter. I loved typing from when I was in sixth grade. Yeah, I typed that. [chuckles] Why are you so shocked?
Helga Davis: I-- because-because, well, because it's long. [chuckles]
Kenneth Lonergan: Oh, I typed a lot more than that.
Helga Davis: Because-- So is this- is this the way--
Kenneth Lonergan: If that's not a Xerox, that's from my typewriter.
Helga Davis: It's not a Xerox.
Kenneth Lonergan: That's from my-- I don't know why he has an original-- the original copy, but that's from my type-- that's mine.
Helga Davis: Look at-- That doesn't look like a Xerox, right?
Kenneth Lonergan: Uh, well, you can tell from the back.
Helga Davis: Unless--
Kenneth Lonergan: It is a Xerox.
Helga Davis: It is a Xerox?
Kenneth Lonergan: Yeah, 'cause there's no-- there's no, uh, indentation on the other side.
Helga Davis: How about that you could tell that?
Kenneth Lonergan: Yeah.
Helga Davis: I wouldn't have even guessed that bit.
Kenneth Lonergan: Maybe you should tell your younger listeners what a Xerox is. [laughter]
Helga Davis: Oh my God. [laughter] This play, it's-it's really good.
Kenneth Lonergan: Is it?
Helga Davis: Yeah.
Kenneth Lonergan: I don't remember it being so great.
Helga Davis: It's-- And it's funny. Um, so you were-- you were writing these things. What-what did you think you were gonna do with them?
Kenneth Lonergan: I wanted to be a playwright.
Helga Davis: You did? Okay.
Kenneth Lonergan: The interesting thing about that play is that I wrote that after I graduated from Walden High School. I had written a play in Walden. I was confused for a minute because I didn't remember who Nurse Tyler was. I vaguely remembered the Filbert-- the name Filbert, the Filbert Mental Institution. And once you said Paul Rennings, I knew what it was, but I wrote a one-act in 10th or 11th grade called The Rennings Children, which had a character in it named Parkinson, who I really liked, and then I wrote two more one-acts starring Parkinson. One was called Parkinson Unbound and one was called Parkinson the Conqueror. And then after I graduated from high school, I was still friends with a lot of the kids there, including Craig Dreyer, who had sort of become the star mover in the- in the theater program after my class and-and your class. Were you- ere you there when they did this play or you had graduated?
Helga Davis: This play?
Kenneth Lonergan: Yeah.
Helga Davis: No.
Kenneth Lonergan: Because you had graduated. So this is a couple years after 'cause you were two years be--
Helga Davis: Two, yeah.
Kenneth Lonergan: Two years behind me in high school and Craig was one year behind you. And anyway, but I was still friends with Craig and Claude Siemen, who was in-- uh, very close friends with him. And, um, some or other, I wrote a play for them to do at the school. Craig directed, I think, and starred in it, and I think I consulted a little bit but I made that play out of a bunch of other plays. I don't know if I wrote it for him, but anyway, it was an unusual thing. I did two plays with the school after I graduated.
Helga Davis: Okay.
Kenneth Lonergan: And no, that was one of them. I never thought it worked that well as a full-length play, but you're very nice to say you liked it.
Helga Davis: Well, first of all, it's completely fun to read something that you wrote such a long time ago.
Kenneth Lonergan: Yeah.
Helga Davis: And then the New Yorkness of reading it on the subway.
Kenneth Lonergan: Yeah. [laughter] Your xeroxed copy.
Helga Davis: A xeroxed copy on the subway and-and just kind of having seen, uh, your films to-to see your brain at work-
Kenneth Lonergan: Yeah.
Helga Davis: -at however old you were when you- when you did this. Um--
Kenneth Lonergan: Probably 20, 19 or 20, I guess. Maybe 21. That's so funny. The stage directions sound really good.
Helga Davis: Don't they?
Kenneth Lonergan: Yeah.
[laughter]
Helga Davis: You know, when I was reading it I was like, "Oh, I'm gonna find some monologue and I'm gonna read this monologue." It was like, "No, the stage directions are dope."
Kenneth Lonergan: Yeah.
Helga Davis: Start right there. [laughs]
Kenneth Lonergan: Yeah. The quality may drop off very sharply when the dialogue starts.
Helga Davis: However-However, we were off to a really good start.
Kenneth Lonergan: Yeah.
Helga Davis: Do you- Do you have a-- What's your writing thing? Do you wake up and you make time to do it? Do you-you schedule out-- Do you plan it the way you plan-- you would plan everything in your day? And part of why I'm asking you this is that one of the-the-the question that I ask everyone to talk about something that they do every day, that-- um, so there are actually two questions. So first I'm asking you about your writing practice if you have one, and then I'll ask you the other question.
Kenneth Lonergan: Well, right now I can't say I have a writing practice 'cause I'm-I'm trying to figure out what to do next. I have a number of things that I want to do and I'm not sure which ones really gonna take off.
Helga Davis: Okay.
Kenneth Lonergan: So I would say I'm in a ruminative stage at the moment. So I'm reading a lot and I'm thinking a lot and I'm taking notes, but I'm not actually writing anything. When I am writing something, it's usually not necessary to create a schedule because it's-it's what I mostly want to do.
Helga Davis: Uh-huh.
Kenneth Lonergan: So I'll get up and I'll have some coffee and maybe a little breakfast and then I'll start working. When I get stuck, it then goes into where I am now which is doing everything but writing. So I've never had a routine.
Helga Davis: Okay.
Kenneth Lonergan: I used-- When I was younger, I used to write in-in the daytime and in-in the night, I stopped writing at night probably around the time our daughter was born, um, or somewhere later in life, anyway, and I very rarely would write at night and I very rarely write at night now, so I don't have a routine, unfortunately. I think if I did, I might be better off. Um, but I never want-- needed one 'cause I was, like, doing it so much.
Helga Davis: Yeah.
Kenneth Lonergan: Now I feel like I might need one to get me back in the saddle, so to speak.
Helga Davis: And what's a thing, if there is a thing, that you do every day that every person could do that leads you and that could lead another person towards their creative self, which I think is-is so necessary and important for-for us humans.
Kenneth Lonergan: Um, well, I guess I-- it's more that I-- what-what I try to do. I guess I could say I try to read something every day.
Helga Davis: Mm.
Kenneth Lonergan: Uh, if I'm not reading something I-I'm looking for something to read, and it could be anything because I'm not actually writing a lot at the moment. I'm reading a lot. Um--
Helga Davis: Do Twitter feeds and Facebook and those things count as reading?
Kenneth Lonergan: No, I've-- I-I-- Well, no, I don't-- I'm not on Twitter and-- or Face--
Helga Davis: Okay.
Kenneth Lonergan: I'm not on any social media except for e-emails and me-- text messages, and I-I actually find that to be more akin to watching television, which is not always bad, but-but is more often than not a distraction and, uh, I don't feel great about myself when I've spent an hour playing with my phone, no matter what it-- what I think I'm doing with it.
Uh, and I find it-- I have a kind of a compulsive-- I-I share with a lot of people kind of compulsive feeling of, gotta check my phone, what's happening, send a message you don't really need to send, check your email when you could check it in an hour just as well. So I actually don't count that. Uh, I mean reading a book or a magazine or something, and I-- but I will count reading something online. It doesn't matter if it's on paper-
Helga Davis: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Kenneth Lonergan: -or electronic, but, uh, I try to do that every day. I try to do a lot of things every day I-- that-that I actually manage to do every day.
Helga Davis: What's one other thing that you would like to do other-- every day that you don't necessarily get to-
Kenneth Lonergan: Well, uh--
Helga Davis: -but that you think is still a-a good thing?
Kenneth Lonergan: Well, two things are-- that I would- I would listen to music, which I've been doing more. I used to listen to a lot of music. I'm-I'm-- I've been left behind in some ways by the technological advances of the last few years, so I'm not really up to snuff on my music listening the way I was when it was records and CDs, but I've started to catch up again and I've been listening to music a lot, which I've missed quite a bit.
And then I-- Getting outdoors is really important. I-I find the city to be more and more oppressive, so ideally like to get outdoors in the country and see some nature every day that actually I-I find to be enormously stimulating and-and relaxing at the same time.
Helga Davis: Anything you wanna ask me?
Kenneth Lonergan: Well, what's next for you?
Helga Davis: Mm. There's a question.
[laughter]
Kenneth Lonergan: Well, are you performing? Are you singing?
Helga Davis: I am, a whole lot.
Kenneth Lonergan: That's so great.
Helga Davis: A whole, whole, whole, whole lot.
Kenneth Lonergan: Well, what's your next singing gig?
Helga Davis: And, um, I'm going to head to Fairfield, Connecticut. I'm in this production of Toshi Reagon's, that is the-- a stage adaptation of Octavia E. Butler's The Parable Of The Sower.
Kenneth Lonergan: That's great. I don't know either the adaptation or the original.
Helga Davis: Ooh. Ooh. There could be a gift coming.
Kenneth Lonergan: Yeah. Yeah.
[laughter]
Helga Davis: And it's-it's beautiful to, you know, to say, "I'm a singer." I didn't say that in high school mostly because my mother said that she was not going to pay for me to go to college to learn to sing and dance for white people, and that was the end of that conversation. And so that whole part of myself, uh, got really smashed and-and neglected.
Kenneth Lonergan: Yeah. That's such a shame.
Helga Davis: Well, if you think about it from her position, right-
Kenneth Lonergan: Of course.
Helga Davis: -so here's a woman who's born in 1928, who was married and had her first child at 16, who came to this country with five children, whose husband left her and who just didn't have a high school diploma, who put herself through school, who became a nurse, who worked on her feet in an emergency room for 25 years, hell no. [laughs]
Kenneth Lonergan: Yeah.
Helga Davis: "My child is not singing and dancing." And I think also that, like, that was for other people. I don't know who those people were, but it wasn't a thing that had value to her.
Kenneth Lonergan: Right.
Helga Davis: It wasn't a thing, one, that-that you could make a living at, but I-I think there is some kind of shame in it also that-- because it, she did say it exactly that way.
Kenneth Lonergan: Just like that, yeah.
Helga Davis: Um--
Kenneth Lonergan: But that's so- but that's so interesting, [unintelligible 00:59:05] what we were talking about before, 'cause it's-- you can- you can see so completely what that point of view is and how it's very hard to argue with, and on the other hand how it's completely wrong when it's applied to an individual such as yourself and how crushing and sapping of joy that could be for you.
Helga Davis: But that's okay. I'm here now.
Kenneth Lonergan: No, I know. No, no, I mean, here you are, but I mean--
Helga Davis: But yes.
Kenneth Lonergan: But it's- but it's-it's-it's really inter-- I mean, it's--
Helga Davis: And don't think I don't feel that way sometimes-
Kenneth Lonergan: But it's--
Helga Davis: -because I do.
Kenneth Lonergan: I know, but no, I don't mean forever.
Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.
Kenneth Lonergan: I mean at the time. I mean, clearly, here you are, and you have-- and you understand where she's coming from, which I'm sure is a big help. But it's so-- It's just, uh, I-I was never put in that position. My parents were always-- not even-- they were always totally supportive and there was no racial issue of course in my-- and 'cause I'm a white kid from the Upper West Side, but there was no-- that kind of support is really-- is nice to have, but they didn't have that context, of course. Um, that's wonderful, though, 'cause you're such an inordinately talented singer.
[laughter]
Helga Davis: I-I-- It's really nice to see you now and I hope that every time I see you, we can hug like that, and whatever it is rooted in, it's a really, really good thing, and I'm-I'm so glad to have it, and thank you for coming.
Kenneth Lonergan: Me too, Helga Davis. Thank you. This was really great.
Helga Davis: Thank you so much.
Kenneth Lonergan: Really wonderful.
Helga Davis: It's great to see you.
Kenneth Lonergan: Thank you.
[music]
Helga Davis: It's great when life gives you an opportunity to revisit something and just come full circle with it. That was my conversation with Kenneth Lonergan here on Helga Davis. You can always email me at helgadavis@newsounds.org. You can find, uh, episodes from season one on iTunes or at newsounds.org, or you can connect with me on Facebook. This is Helga Davis.
Announcer: This episode of Helga Davis was edited by Jessica Griggs with support from Aaron Dalton and original music by Alex Overington. New Sounds' senior producer is Alex Ambrose. To learn more about New Sounds and to discover handpicked genre-free music 24/7, visit our new website at newsounds.org.
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