Photographs by Melanie Grizzel
Roundabout regular David Warren reflects on the director’s role before tackling Richard Greenberg’s offbeat comedy.
F&C: Did you set out to become a director, or did you come to it from acting or another discipline?
Warren: When I was an undergraduate at Sarah Lawrence College, I initially wanted to be an actor. The first time I presented a scene, in an acting course my freshman year, the teacher said, "well, you’re not really an actor, are you? You’re a director." At the time I was devastated, but in retrospect I know exactly what he meant. I really did direct it: I gave the scene a concept and changed the setting and period, not really understanding that that is not what you focus on in an acting class! When I subsequently took a directing course, something just clicked immediately.
I had also taken a lot of drawing classes, so when I got out of school I assisted set designers as my day job. I did that for a year and a half, and it turned out to be a good way to get my foot in the door. I had been working at the La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego, and Des McAnuff, the artistic director, invited me to work there as an assistant director. I did that for about two years, and from there I began doing my own productions in New York.
My first Roundabout production was Tennessee Williams’s Summer and Smoke in the 1995-96 season, and since then I’ve also done Shaw’s Misalliance (1997-98), and Richard Greenberg’s Hurrah at Last (1998-99). I love working at Roundabout. They produce beautifully, and you actually get to do what you want to do. So often in directing you have to make a series of creative compromises — and of course I understand the need for fiscal responsibility and so on. But Roundabout lets you work on a scale I find profoundly satisfying. You also get great audiences at Roundabout. Having done a very serious play and two comedies, I found them intelligent and receptive to a moving drama like Summer and Smoke, but equally ready to come and have a really good time, which is certainly what we tried to do with Hurrah at Last. It was really a lot of fun to be in the theater night after night and hear so much laughing and such a strong response.
 
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F&C: You have done both contemporary plays and classics at Roundabout. What kind of material excites you most?
Warren: I like to keep changing. After I do a new play, I find it interesting and creatively satisfying to do a revival, and vice versa. It’s kind of like crop rotation: you don’t want to wear out the soil. With a revival, the director’s production really shapes the event. No one questions the artistic value of Shaw’s Misalliance or Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, for instance, so the question becomes, "what has this director done to the play, and how well has he done it?" That’s exciting and terrifying, and I like that.
On the other hand, I started out much better known as a director of new plays, where you have a tremendous responsibility to the playwright. The premiere of a new play is not the right moment to draw attention to the director’s production: something else is being formed, and the director’s take on the writing shouldn’t be the center of attention. But I think I’m useful to writers in rehearsal; once I understand what they’re trying to do, I’m good at asking clarifying questions and I think I have a good ear. It’s very satisfying, but in a different way.
I usually do about four productions each season. This season I’m doing five, which is a little tight. So far I’ve done a revival of The Philadelphia Story by Philip Barry at Hartford Stage Company, followed by the premiere of a play by William Luce called Baptiste: The Life of Molière. Then I returned to New York to rehearse Hobson’s Choice by Harold Brighouse (a play that is popular in England but rarely done in America). Next comes The Dazzle at Roundabout, followed by Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night at Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven. After that I’ll retreat to an island in the Caribbean! This is a busy year for me, but they’re all such interesting projects that I’m not complaining. I’ve thought about taking on film and television projects, but ultimately nothing in the world makes me happier than being in a rehearsal hall with a bunch of actors working on a play.
"What interests me is how these two brothers essentially turned inward and away from the world. What becomes the universe when you only have this one other person in a house?"
F&C: How do you think you’ve changed as a director over time?
Warren: I think a director gets better at speaking every collaborator’s individual language. You have to collaborate with writers, actors, and designers, and they all think differently and speak different languages. As your vocabulary in each of those languages becomes increasingly sophisticated, your work with those artists gets better and better.
Directors also grow as they start to embrace their ignorance and mistakes. When you start out, you feel like you have to have all the answers and know exactly how everything on stage is going to happen. But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve found myself much more able to trust the gaps in my understanding. I’ve learned to say, "maybe there’s a reason I don’t understand this part of the play at this point in the process." As long as I understand the big picture, I don’t have to understand everything about the play. And as I’ve developed sustained relationships with various collaborators over time, I feel more comfortable saying, "I have no earthly idea how this section works, let’s try every possible idea and I’ll know what’s right when I see it." Obviously you can’t do that all the time — that’s bad directing — but you learn not to be afraid of that approach when you need it. And actors are more open to being guided if they see that the director keeps an open mind.
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F&C: What draws you to Richard Greenberg’s work generally, and to The Dazzle in particular?
Warren: I think Richard Greenberg has a voice that is distinct and original and funny and profound. He writes the funniest plays I’ve ever read, and he writes the most heartbreaking dramas — and often they’re the same script. The Dazzle is based on the true story of the Collyer brothers, but the play is really his personal meditation on the essential facts of their lives. He did a certain amount of research to get a basic trajectory for the play, and then he put the research aside and just started to imagine why the Collyers did what they did, and what went on for all those years in that mansion on upper Fifth Avenue.
What interests me is how these two brothers essentially turned inward and away from the world. What becomes the universe when you only have this one other person in a house? The two characters create enormously complex universes to fill up the mansion; they create a world and speak a language of their own. One wants to find the universe in every object, and the other wants so badly to be in a story of his own. They’re inextricably linked — they can’t live without each other — but they’re also at cross-purposes. They are opposite and alike, like book-ends. And there is a third character, Milly, who was invented by Richard, who becomes the catalyst for a rather unconventional love triangle.
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Of course, everyone who knows about the Collyer brothers has an expectation about their mansion: a house full of detritus and 5 billion newspapers. Allen Moyer is the set designer, and the set will be amazing. I don’t want to give too much away, but I think people will be satisfied and also surprised about how we do that.
F&C: Is your own apartment cluttered? Are you directing from personal experience?
Warren: No! I’m absolutely the opposite. I’m the most orderly person in the world: my apartment is completely ordered. There is not a trace of the Collyer brothers in my soul. It’s interesting, though: as I began working on the play and tracing the characters’ logic, their decisions began to make more and more sense to me. It’s very exciting — and instructive — when that happens.
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