British Playwright David Hare.

Show: FRESH AIR
Date: APRIL 26, 1999
Time: 12:00
Tran: 042601np.217
Type: FEATURE
Head: David Hare
Sect: Entertainment
Time: 12:06

KEN TUCKER, HOST: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Ken Tucker, Critic at Large for "Entertainment Weekly," sitting in for Terry Gross.

My guest David Hare is right now the most prominent British playwright of his generation. He's had no fewer than four works on Broadway over the past 12 months. These include, "The Judas Kiss," starring Liam Neeson as Oscar Wilde; and "The Blue Room," which caused a kuffufle (ph) over star Nicole Kidman's bit of onstage nudity.

Right now on Broadway is "Amy's View," starring the recent Oscar winner Judy Dench; and"Via Dolorosa," a monologue in which Hare makes his own Broadway debut as a performer. He tells of visits he made to Israel talking to Israelis and Palestinians about their profound quarrel.

Here's an excerpt from a recording of his performance. He's exploring the religious sites of Jerusalem and has just emerged from the Christian church of the Holy Sevulcar (ph).

DAVID HARE, PLAYWRIGHT, "THE JUDAS KISS," "THE BLUE ROOM," "AMY'S VIEW," "VIA DOLOROSA": "It's a relief. I'd say a relief to come out of the dark and stroll down to the big open plaza where you find the Wailing Wall; strangely impressive, tall, uncrowded. The bit where the Jews are allowed.

For towering above them at the very top of the arrangement is the most coveted spot in the universe of faith. What the Jews call Temple Mount, but what to the Arabs who occupy it is known as the Haram Al Sharif (ph). And at it's center the sapharine yellow golden dome of the rock.

I have felt, since I arrived, that Jerusalem doesn't need my admiration. Enough people are obsessed with it already. The truth is, I look at it and think how beautiful it must have been when it was a small town. Myself, I would like Jerusalem more if it were less important.

But even I, inside the Arab sanctuary taking in the cleanest most oxygenated sun dazzled air you ever breathed looking across to the mount of olives, yield to the splendor of the place and realize, oh, I see. How provoking it is to own beauty. To own the most breathtaking space of them all."

TUCKER: David Hare had at first been commissioned to write a play about the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict, but once he got there he found the present day situation much more compelling. And that his preconceptions about this part of the world were altered.

HARE: Well, I think that, you know, I come from a country where nobody is very sure what they believe. And in the materialistic West, it is very startling to go from a place where nobody has to work out what they believe; to go to countries, both Arab and Jewish where people have to work out exactly what they believe in order to decide how they are to behave.

So it was a contrast between countries where, if you like, we skim along the surface not necessarily needing to work out what we truly think with a country where you really do have to work out what you think. But more than that, like most Westerners, I had imagined that the argument was between Israelis and Arabs.

TUCKER: Mmm-hmm.

HARE: Far from it, I found that the divisions within Israelis and the divisions within Arab society were in a way more profound and of more universal interest than the divisions between Israelis and Arabs. And its that division, both between the secular and the religious views in Israel; and the idealistic and the corrupt sides of the Palestinian character that I wanted to bring out and say this argument is more complicated than it looks.

TUCKER: How long after you arrived there did you realize that this was the case and that you were not going to write a kind of more conventional play, that you were going to act more as -- almost as a reporter?

HARE: I think within a few days it became plain to me that the life in the Middle East is so vivid that the idea of recreating it on a London stage with the inadequate resources you would have were completely ridiculous. Whatever you ended up with would not be authentic.

As soon as you thought, oh, we're going to have to play out scenes, you thought well, we'll have to get some Jewish -- some Jewish actors from North London. And then to play the Palestinians we'll have to get in, if we're lucky, one Egyptian, one Lebanese, one light-skinned Pakistani. People who in no way resemble Palestinians.

And then we'll have to make the basic act of pretense, which is the theater, and it will smell of falsity before you even begin.

TUCKER: Here in America so much creative work in all media is obsessed with the idea of balance and fairness and the need to give both sides of any argument equal weight. And I wondered if during the writing of "Via Dolorosa" how much did its structure depend on your wanting to present that kind of both sides of the argument?

HARE: Well, I didn't white to write a play (unintelligible), you know, a friend of mine who is an American-Jewish playwright is currently writing a play in which he will be arguing, and indeed it's also a monologue -- not for himself, but for an actress -- in which he'll be arguing that Israel is historical mistake.

That in other words the Jews should never have gone there, that they should have stayed assimilated. That the (unintelligible), in other words, was a good thing. And that Israel should now be written off as a historical failure.

And I said to him, you, as a Jew, are entitled to make sweeping historical judgments like that. But as a visitor to the country, and as a visitor to Palestine -- and as someone who, if you like, has nothing invested in the area its valueless for me to make those kind of sweeping judgments. What I can do is bring the perspective of non-faith to a place of faith.

And what I can also do is act as honest reporter. I was very moved by a letter I got from somebody who told me that they were about to give a talk -- a lecture -- and they were very very nervous. And they were reassured by the American architect, Phillip Johnson who happened to be standing next to them, and Johnson said, "there's no need to be nervous before a talk because the audience will not be listening to what you're saying. They will be deciding whether you're an honest man or not."

And I think that is true. I think that's the basic transaction that goes on when one human being listens to another. And so, I wanted to purify that to a 95 minute monologue where the audience could decide whether they trusted me or not as I told the story of how it seemed to me.

TUCKER: Mmm-hmm. I guess one thing that occurs to me in watching it is that you are quoting someone like, for instance, Keith Lawrence and describing him as a British citizen who finds Tel Aviv sexy. And you're kind of imposing your own interpretation of Keith Lawrence and what he is doing for the Israelis in Israel. You know, how do you come to those kinds of decisions on how you characterize someone in the piece?

HARE: Well, it's a moral question. There's an ethical dimension to this. It seems to me that you can't meet people and then go and represent them on the stage without being sure about what they're doing. And so my responsibility is, if you like, a journalistic responsibility.

For that reason, I ran people's scenes by them. In other words, I sent them the pages that would represent their point of view...

TUCKER: ... could you give me an example of someone that you had sent the pages to?

HARE: There are very few people I didn't send the pages to.

TUCKER: Really?

HARE: Of course, because if you are going to represent somebody on the stage then you cannot rely on your shorthand and your scribbled notes and the way you fashion their dialogue. And say, now here is, as it were, Iran Banyell (ph) and then not send the pages to Iran Banyell and say this is how you're going to be.

A lot of the people in the show have seen the show. Iran Banyell, for instance, has seen the show and he's thrilled with the way he is represented.

TUCKER: And who is that? Please tell us, our audience, who that is.

HARE: Iran Banyell is an Israeli theater director who early on is quoted from an extreme secular position as saying that he doesn't understand what this fuss about the land is about, because he thinks it is un-Jewish to want to expand into places that don't belong to you.

He's of that school in Israel that believes that the beginning of Israel's trouble was in 1967 during the Six Day War when it seized land that does not properly belong to it. Now he has, you know, not only has he authenticated his pages which were sent to him, he came to see the show and was entirely happy with the way he was represented.

And there is no question, I absolutely agree with you, that it is a moral business. You can't put people on the stage and travesty them.

TUCKER: I read that one night in the London production of "Via Dolorosa" there was a kind of organized protest that some Jewish members of the audience tried to disrupt your performance by coughing loudly. And that the playwright Harold Pinter (ph), who was also in the audience, hissed "shut up, shut up" to them.

What was your impression onstage of what was going at that point?

HARE: Well, it can be -- it can get quite lively up there. Here in New York individual lines are being booed, clapped, hissed. Some people keep up a relentless running commentary until they are told to shut up by other members of the audience.

This is very very controversial material, and I would regard it as a strange state of affairs if this wasn't going on. I'm happy to say that nobody has organized to disrupt the show, which I think would be a disastrously silly thing to do and an unnecessary thing to do.

TUCKER: Mmm-hmm.

HARE: But the right of people to express where they dissent from what a character is saying or what I am saying, or indeed to approve. Often we get a little war, you know, we get people who are pro-settlers and anti-settlers. And they're really fighting not me, but each other by the way that they respond to individual lines.

TUCKER: Are there passages in the monologue that in particular consistently get a reaction from the audience?

HARE: Oh, sure. When a militant settler says that the Six Day War was the greatest victory in Jewish history then some people will applaud at that point. When a secular Jew says that the religious Orthodox smile and smile and rob the country blind, again, that can get an extreme reaction from either side.

TUCKER: Mmm-hmm.

HARE: And so there are places where regularly in the evening where I know I may be in for a bit of bumpy ride. But that doesn't seem to me -- it seems to me a good day. And in fact, in New York the first couple of performances I seem -- people seem to be looking at it as if it were just a play.

And then on Saturday night -- the first Saturday night -- somebody looked out of the stage door and they said, "it's half an hour since the play ended and people are still arguing in the street." And I thought, great. That is exactly what I came to Broadway to do.

TUCKER: My guest is the playwright David Hare. He's also performing his monologue "Via Dolorosa" on Broadway. We'll talk more after a short break.

This is FRESH AIR.

BREAK

TUCKER: My guest is David Hare, whose latest play to be presented on Broadway is "Amy's View."

I'd like to back up a little bit chronologically and go to "The Blue Room," which recently closed on Broadway. There was a big media to-do here in America in a way that New York straight plays almost never are.

I sometimes think that almost all of the hub-bub can be ascribed to exactly one quote from one British reviewer of the play who came away after seeing Nicole Kidman's performance and described it as "a jolt of pure theatrical Viagra."

This is not exactly theater criticism worthy of George Bernard Shaw, but I wonder if you were appalled by that because it would obscure your serious intentions, or perhaps secretly pleased because it was such good publicity.

HARE: Well, the hilarious thing is that the critic who used that phrase, Charles Spencer, has just been made British Critic of the Year.

LAUGHTER

I saw him in New York the other day, and he said to me, "it is entirely because I wrote that phrase." And somehow that phrase went around the world.

TUCKER: It certainly did.

HARE: Yeah, he said I have "The Blue Room" to thank for the fact that I've got a part, you know. So -- I mean, I think something went on in London which was that people became incredibly excited, sexually, by the material. And so -- to put it unkindly a lot of white middle-aged theater critics became extremely excited by the presence of Nicole Kidman.

To put it kindly, they did find the play extremely erotic. It's all very well -- I deeply resent the word "hype" when it's used about "The Blue Room." Hype is something which is basically used to sell something which is worthless. Whereas "The Blue Room" became a phenomenon of word-of-mouth.

In New York, the hoopla appeared more to be about fame than about sex. In other words, people seemed over excited at the prospect that not only would Nicole Kidman be on the stage, but they might catch a glimpse of Tom Cruise running in and out of the theater. And so you could crudely as a racial stereotype say that if it's sex that still excites the English, it's fame which excites the Americans.

TUCKER: Is there ever a point when having a big star mars your work to the extent that it can't be heard clearly?

HARE: I didn't think so. I thought she gave a completely wonderful performance. I mean, Nicole Kidman came to the project -- it was her -- it was Sam Mendi's (ph) idea not my idea to update Laurent (ph) and to set it in the present day. And I was delighted to do it because I wanted to write something for Nicole, who I think is a wonderful actress and an underestimated actress.

When she arrived she had very very little theater experience. She hadn't done a play for 12 years. I have never ever watched anybody learn so much so quickly. You could say "The Blue Room" was Nicole Kidman's theatrical drama school. And there wasn't a challenge that was put before her that she didn't rise to.

And so I have nothing but admiration for her, and I didn't think she did anything but decorate the role. The hoopla was not her fault.

TUCKER: Yeah. On the other hand, by contrast, Judy Dench is a very experienced stage actress. In "Amy's View" she is the central presence -- an aging actress who's finding it harder to get good roles. Who also has long-standing issues, as they say in the current pop psychology cant, with her daughter Amy.

Amy has married a young man whose -- Dench's character despises. He's first a film critic and then as the years go by in the play he becomes a very successful TV host and film director. A kind of cross between -- I don't know -- Quentin Tarantino and Melvin Bragg or something, I suppose.

LAUGHTER

When I saw the play some of the biggest...

HARE: ... perish the thought.

TUCKER: Yeah, exactly. What a mutant. When I saw the play some of the biggest audience reaction came from Dench's speeches about the pointlessness of critics and the vapidness of TV. I wonder how much of those feelings do you share with her character.

HARE: Well, I was very interested to see the play -- I saw it for the first time, you know, at a preview in New York for the first time in some time. And of course I was interested to see whether the argument about the media would have the same bitterness in America that it has in England.

In England high culture -- traditional cultural forms, namely poetry, classical music and the theater -- have been under really a persistent ideological attack mostly from Murdoch newspapers. In other words, there's been a feeling in the Murdoch press that culture itself is part of an establishment conspiracy to foist on to people what they don't want.

In other words, that high culture is something essentially antidemocratic. And, well, what I love here in America is that the people who value high culture really value it. And, you know, if you meet American poets then in a way the question of whether they have an audience or not is not terribly important to them.

TUCKER: Mmm-hmm.

HARE: Because they accept that very few people are going to listen to them. When John Ashbury (ph) gives a poetry reading in New York 70 or 80 people come. It doesn't bother John Ashbury, because poetry is something which he accepts will be a minority interest.

TUCKER: Mmm-hmm.

HARE: What he wants to do is add to something called poetry. So that he doesn't have the sense of guilt which we have in the theater. Those of us who work in the serious theater all the time are haunted by the fact that we're not attracting as big an audience as we feel we ought to. Composers who work in serious music, because they work in a form where there is such a thing as popular music.

If you go to a performance of modern music it's rather sad. There's a feeling of this ought to excite and interest a lot more people, but it doesn't. But in America, what I love is that because high culture is so marginalized then the people who love it feel free to love it, and it's a wonderful thing.

TUCKER: I think it's only comparatively recently that most Americans have become aware of Judy Dench's work. I read that you said she always claims that she doesn't know what your plays are about even as she's doing them night after night. Is that true?

HARE: She not only doesn't know what they're about, she generally doesn't read them. She generally accepts a role not on the script, but she usually asks you to tell her the story. And she foolishly got herself into the play "Mother Courage" because she said it sounded like such a wonderful story.

When she played "Mother Courage" she found she didn't like it, and at the end of the read through she said, "I don't like this play as much, perhaps, as when I did when it was described to me."

TUCKER: I read that three weeks into the production of your play, "Amy's View," she asked to quit. Is that true?

HARE: She did. Absolutely. But that was because she couldn't learn the lines. And the reason she couldn't learn the lines is because she's never had to learn lines.

She is, what we in England call, a very quick study. She can look at the page of dialogue and know it -- until recently. In the last few years she's had to work to learn lines. And so when she was having trouble learning the lines I said to her, Judy, what you are experiencing is no more than what most actors have experienced for the whole of their lives.

But because you were -- had the best memory of any actor I ever met you think you've got Alzheimer's. You haven't got Alzheimer's, you're just experiencing what all other human beings have experienced for the last 60 years. And she was satisfied with that explanation.

TUCKER: Do you go to the theater regularly when you're at home to keep up with things?

HARE: I certainly do.

TUCKER: You do. And have seen anything you like lately? Is there a new generation of playwrights that you -- whose work you look forward to?

HARE: I certainly look forward to the work of Patrick Marber, and you know, I was lucky enough to see "Closer" and (unintelligible) when it first opened. And Patrick Marber is a fabulously talented young playwright.

He is part of a whole generation who are rediscovering the theater. As you said earlier, maybe people in their 30s and 40s now are, if you like, the missing generation. The people who were brought up with the television set in the corner and knew no alternative. They're the people who fell in love with video.

The love affair with video is, I think, maybe coming to an end. And because of that you are suddenly getting -- at the Royal Court Theater you're getting producible plays sent through the post to the artistic director there who can put them straight on. This is something that hasn't happened for 30 years.

And it doesn't really matter whether I, or writers of my age, like or dislike these plays. What's happening again, which is the most important thing that can happen in the theater, is the young are speaking to the young again.

And whenever you have a young John Osborne (ph) who speaks to a young audience or young a Harold Pinter who speaks to a young audience; that's when the theater is vital.

The theater is dead when it's only voices of my age.

TUCKER: Well, thank you very much. I really appreciate you speaking with us.

HARE: Not at all, thank you.

TUCKER: David Hare, who currently has two hit shows on Broadway.

I'm Ken Tucker and this is FRESH AIR.

This is a rush transcript. This copy may not
be in its final form and may be updated.

TO PURCHASE AN AUDIOTAPE OF THIS PIECE, PLEASE CALL 877-21FRESH
Dateline: Ken Tucker, Washington, DC
Guest: David Hare
High: British playwright David Hare. He's had four works on Broadway in the past year: "The Judas Kiss" starring Liam Neeson, "The Blue Room" starring Nicole Kidman, "Amy's View" starring Judy Dench, and "Via Dolorosa" a one-man show in which Hare stars.
Spec: Entertainment; Lifestyle; Culture; David Hare

Please note, this is not the final feed of record
Copy: Content and programming copyright 1999 WHYY, Inc. All rights reserved. Transcribed by FDCH, Inc. under license from WHYY, Inc. Formatting copyright 1999 FDCH, Inc. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to WHYY, Inc. This transcript may not be reproduced in whole or in part without prior written permission.
End-Story: David Hare

Show: FRESH AIR
Date: APRIL 26, 1999
Time: 12:00
Tran: 042602NP.217
Type: FEATURE
Head: Michael Cerveris and Stephen Trask
Sect: Entertainment
Time: 12:30

KEN TUCKER, HOST: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Ken Tucker.

"Hedwig and the Angry Inch" is a long running off-Broadway musical about a failed rock singer who happens to be a German transsexual who has spent a good deal of his or her life in a Kansas trailer park. The show is a concert given by Hedwig and his band, the Angry Inch. It has a lot of good loud glam rock style songs, and a lot of bitterly hilarious between song patter from Hedwig.

Unlike other rock musicals, the songs are performed onstage by a real-life rock band, Cheater. John Cameron Mitchell wrote the book for the show and was its original star.

My guests are Michael Cerveris who currently plays Hedwig, and composer-lyricist Stephen Trask who wrote the music. Let's listen to a bit of the song that opens the show from the Hedwig cast album on RCA records featuring John Cameron Mitchell.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP -- MUSIC FROM THE OFF-BROADWAY PLAY "HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH")

TUCKER: It seems to me when I went and saw the show that everything about Hedwig is divided. He's from East Berlin and some of the songs talk about the fall of the Berlin wall. He comes to America as the boyfriend of an American GI.

(AUDIO GAP)

He lives in this depressing trailer camp where he takes care of this young boy he falls in love with, Tommy, who goes on to be a big huge rock star. And so Hedwig is very divided over any happiness he might have over Tommy's success. Yet Hedwig tells us this in this hilarious stream of consciousness patter between songs.

And I wonder, Michael, do you feel that you have to sell that kind of material almost like a standup comic one-minute and then make sure that the audience appreciates the pain and poignance in this character the next minute?

MICHAEL CERVERIS, ACTOR-SINGER, "HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH": It's not really a sort of on and off, back and forth thing like that so much. It's sort of both elements are present all the time and that sometimes, you know, the more tragic elements are kind of rise up and at other times you do feel like you're doing a standup routine. But at that moment that's what Hedwig is doing.

So -- and I had always thought that standup was probably one of the most terrifying things you could possibly be asked to do, but I discovered that if you wear an outrageous dress and wig and a lot of glitter that you can actually get away with just about anything.

TUCKER: Let's play here a segment from the show, the cut called "Angry Inch."

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP -- "ANGRY INCH" FROM THE OFF-BROADWAY PLAY "HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH")

TUCKER: Stephen, it seems like the trick to pull off in a show like this is to write very good songs about a very bad rock singer, you know. I mean, he's -- you know, Hedwig I think describes himself -- in my notes I wrote down that he says he's a "slip of a girly boy who becomes an internationally ignored song stylist."

I mean, is it difficult to write good songs about a bad rock performer?

STEPHEN TRASK, COMPOSER-LYRICIST, "HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH": Well, I, you know, I always thought Hedwig was a good performer who was ignored -- like myself. And I guess what was, you know, it was hard for me developing this huge ranger of songs.

Actually it was more the band is really supposed to be kind of bad and developing this huge range of difficult songs, and trying to convince people that this band of sort of, you know, Eastern European renegades with no money could somehow pull off this huge variety of pieces.

TUCKER: Mmm-hmm. Did you ever write a song and say, no, that's too good. Hedwig and his band couldn't come up with something like that?

TRASK: No, I never...

TUCKER: ... to me the show stopper in this score is "Wicked Little Town." Why don't we hear a little bit of that and then I'd like to ask you something about that.

Let's hear "Wicked Little Town."

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP -- "WICKED LITTLE TOWN" FROM THE OFF-BROADWAY PLAY "HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH")

TUCKER: That's "Wicked Little Town" from the soundtrack album to "Hedwig and the Angry Inch."

Stephen, can you tell me something about writing that song? It seems to come at a point in the show when you really need to build to a climax. Was it conceived as that kind of a show stopper?

TRASK: This version of "Wicked Little Town" is a reprise of an earlier -- of an earlier version which had existed for pretty much the whole time that we were doing "Hedwig." Peter Askin (ph), the director of the play who did a lot of dramatergy (ph) on the project, suggested that at the end of the play as part of the closer Hedwig would sort of transform into Tommy Nosis (ph), her alter ego, the successful rock star.

And that he would have to sing to her some song that would bring together all her story lines and draw them to a conclusion. And we decided that it would be a reprise of "Wicked Little Town." And it took me really about 11 months to come up with those lyrics.

Not the whole time, but really trying to think what does Hedwig need to have said to her at this moment? What are all the things that Hedwig needs to have said?

And no one really told me what they were. So I kind of, for those 11 months, had Hedwig on a sort of couch in my mind talking about her issues. And tried to think of what I would say to Hedwig to resolve these issues.

And so the main thing is that this search for the other half is a red herring, you know, that there's no sort of magical mystical other half who's out there waiting for you that you can somehow find who will make you into a whole person and bring you happiness ever after. That you need to be whole within and of yourself.

And that within Hedwig there were actually these beautiful things that she wasn't recognizing, like her ability to take an ugly situation as if it were like a found object and turn it into art the same way that a lot of artists in the '60s and a lot of folk artists were doing.

And I actually read -- I spent a lot of time reading art books. So I was sort of combining a lot of the philosophies of the surrealists who were dealing with, you know, surrealism was kind of a response to World War I and what seemed to be a sort of the death of rationalism -- and artistic response to a world that had seemed to be built upon logic, and yet fell apart entirely.

And that somehow Hedwig had reached this point too, where she was following this philosophy that she was sure worked, you know, and it just led to her utter destruction.

TUCKER: Mmm-hmm.

TRASK: And so in the two songs, "Exquisite Corpse" and the reprise of "Wicked Little Town" I try to -- I tried to utilize the philosophies of surrealism and move Hedwig onto the next stage where she can reject the philosophies that had failed her, and find some way of creating beauty and recreating her life.

TUCKER: My guests are Stephen Trask, who wrote the songs for the musical "Hedwig and the Angry Inch;" and the show's current Hedwig, Michael Cerveris. Back in a flash.

This is FRESH AIR.

BREAK

TUCKER: I'm talking with two of the people behind the off-Broadway hit "Hedwig and the Angry Inch;" composer Stephen Trask and current star Michael Cerveris.

Michael, what are the audiences like for this show? Do they get the sense of what they're in for, for the degree of drama that's also mixed in with the comedy?

CERVERIS: I don't think so. I think it's really hard to prepare people for what they're going to see before they come. One of the things that I love about the show is the way it begins as just a really exciting, funny, glam drag rock show. And you think it's going to be just, you know, this really campy fun evening.

But pretty early on, pretty much once you get to "Origin of Love" which is the second song of the show you suddenly realize that there is going to be a lot more to this. But by that point your defenses are sort of down. You've sort of wandered innocently into this world and now you're there.

And the way that it manages to just kind of entice you in and then sort of hit you with the deeper questions of the story.

TUCKER: You pretty much batter down the defenses. I mean, you're out there in the audience by the song "Sugar Daddy." You're out there right among the people in this very small theater.

CERVERIS: Climbing, in fact, on top of them.

TUCKER: Well, the night I attended I must admit to you I was your sugar daddy the night -- sitting alone the theater and all of a sudden I heard a voice say, "ah, I see my sugar daddy for tonight." The next thing I knew you were on top of the chair.

Thanks.

CERVERIS: Well, thank you for the dance.

TUCKER: Any time.

CERVERIS: But, yeah -- and it's interesting watching the audiences. I mean, we get all kinds of people now. I mean, we have -- we still have the club kids, downtown people coming, which are sort of the core audience from the beginning.

But we've now started to branch out and reach out to the more traditional theater going audiences, which is a terrific thing. And it's nice to not just be preaching to the converted all the time but to, you know, be bringing people in who might not, had they totally known what it was, might not have decided to come down.

But when they get themselves there and are experiencing it they find that they love it. And that they never would have imagined loving a musical about a transsexual German rock singer, but they find that it actually has a lot to say to them about their lives and the lives of people that they know.

So that's a really exciting thing to look out at this bizarre cross-section of New York and America, and present this, you know, fractured sort of vision and have everybody, almost without fail, walk away really having been moved and totally entertained and loving it.

And we still have enough people walk out on occasion that we know we're doing something right.

TUCKER: Have you had walk outs?

CERVERIS: Yeah. Yeah. You know, from time to time people either find it offensive for whatever reason, and God knows there are plenty of reasons, or just don't feel that it's their cup of tea. But surprisingly few, given the subject matter.

TUCKER: Yeah, because I was wondering what the reaction is when you've taken "Hedwig" out into the mainstream world. I mean, I know that you performed on the "Rosie O'Donnell Show" and David Letterman. What kind of reaction do you get what when Hedwig is taken out of that theater element?

CERVERIS: That's more Stephen's.

TRASK: There was a lot of heat generated on the Rosie O'Donnell -- in her chat room. Some people were very offended because her show is supposed to be rated G and they wrote in, "how dare you put that thing on my television." You know, "that monstrosity. That drag queen. That prostitute. She looked like a hooker. My daughter was home from school that day."

TUCKER: Who was saying things like this?

TRASK: You know, the sort of people that have enough time on their hands to watch Rosie O'Donnell and write an e-mail. And then people responded to them, and so there was is ongoing debate -- well, I think it's culturally enlightening. And then someone would write in and say my daughter was from school and we were so offended we had to turn to the game show network.

And David Letterman was great. He didn't quite know how to respond. But the audience loved it. We actually -- the funniest experience we had outside of a nightclub or a theater was very early on when John and I were developing this. We performed on a patio on Fire Ireland as a fundraiser for -- and it was a very high-priced fundraiser.

So Sandy Gowan (ph) and David Geffen and all these, you know, the "Velvet Mafia" I think they call them, were all around. And they did not know what to make of us. It was broad daylight on the beach. And John was going around asking people to sign his body with these magic markers.

TUCKER: And did they do it?

TRASK: Yeah, but...

TUCKER: ... was David Geffen's autograph on his abdomen?

TRASK: David Geffen, Terrence McNally, a lot of, you know, the whole gang.

CERVERIS: Yeah. The Radio City gig was pretty funny too, actually. Opening for -- on New Year's Eve this past year we opened for Boy George and Culture Club at Radio City Music Hall for an audience of people who -- some of whom had seen the show or at least knew what we were about. But I think most of whom really were just coming to have an '80s flashback sort of evening.

So we kind of shook them up a little bit.

TUCKER: Boy George certainly seems as if he could be a possible under study for Hedwig at certain points.

CERVERIS: He was -- he told that he was the one who did the wigs around there. But otherwise he was really friendly -- very gracious.

TUCKER: Stephen Trask and Michael Cerveris, from "Hedwig and the Angry Inch." The show's co-creator John Cameron Mitchell is currently adapting it for the movies.

This is FRESH AIR.

This is a rush transcript. This copy may not
be in its final form and may be updated.

TO PURCHASE AN AUDIOTAPE OF THIS PIECE, PLEASE CALL 877-21FRESH
Dateline: Ken Tucker, Washington, DC
Guest: Michael Cerveris and Stephen Trask
High: From the off-Broadway musical "Hedwig and the Angry Inch," composer-lyricist Stephen Trask and actor-singer Michael Cerveris. The musical is about a failed rock singer who happens to be a German transsexual.
Spec: Entertainment; Lifestyle; Culture; Michael Cerveris; Stephen Trask

Please note, this is not the final feed of record
Copy: Content and programming copyright 1999 WHYY, Inc. All rights reserved. Transcribed by FDCH, Inc. under license from WHYY, Inc. Formatting copyright 1999 FDCH, Inc. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to WHYY, Inc. This transcript may not be reproduced in whole or in part without prior written permission.
End-Story: Michael Cerveris and Stephen Trask

Show: FRESH AIR
Date: APRIL 26, 1999
Time: 12:00
Tran: 042603NP.217
Type: FEATURE
Head: Kevin Whitehead
Sect: Entertainment
Time: 12:50

KEN TUCKER, HOST: Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead says jazz has its own version of Y2K. He calls it the century bug and says its symptoms are a request to briefly summarize the significance of a hundred years of Gershwin or jazz or, in this case, Duke Ellington -- born April 29, 1899 in Washington, D.C.

Kevin says most everyone knows something about Ellington, but some of the things they know aren't necessarily true. He'll try to set us straight on a few of them.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP -- "COCO," COMPOSED BY DUKE ELLINGTON)

KEVIN WHITEHEAD, JAZZ CRITIC: "Coco," 1940 -- like a lot of Ellington, the blues all dressed up and ready to go. Duke Ellington was a lot of people: pianist, composer, songwriter, bandleader, motivator, diplomat, ladies man, emblem of the race. Trying to sum up who was in a few minutes is like trying to explain the appeal of baseball or chocolate.

You can't really separate Ellington the artist from the public figure. His elegant work and dignified bearing each speak to his confidence and the depths and riches of an African-American heritage. Because he's been subject to so much scrutiny his career is pretty well understood, but there are some common misconceptions you should be aware of, if only to contradict talky jazz buffs at parties.

First off, the man's name is Duke not "The Duke." Think about it, whose name has "The" in it? "Hey, The Duke pass the salt." John Wayne, same deal by the way, Duke.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP -- MUSIC COMPOSED BY DUKE ELLINGTON)

WHITEHEAD: Johnny Hodges.

In 1932, Duke Ellington wrote a song called "It Don't Mean A Thing If It Ain't Got That Swing." A catchy tune whose catchy title helped make "swing" the familiar term for buoyant jazz rhythm. But for Duke that title was never an 11th Commandment, exclusionary rule or restrictive covenant.

Ellington himself sometimes made music where swing was obviously not the point, at which time a critic or two would advise him to stick to dance music. For Ellington, swing rhythm is like garlic: terrific stuff, but you don't have to put it in absolutely everything.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP -- "COME SUNDAY," COMPOSED BY DUKE ELLINGTON; SUNG BY MAHALIA JACKSON)

WHITEHEAD: "Come Sunday," Ellington's most enduring piece of religious music, sung by Mahalia Jackson with Duke's orchestra in 1958. That hymn comes from "Black Brown and Beige" the first, and in many ways, best of Ellington's long suites for his orchestra.

When it debuted in 1943 some writers said jazz musicians shouldn't write concert music. Duke's position, basically, was then please don't call me a jazz musician. For sure, a lot of singers Ellington hired scored low on the swing meter despite worthy exceptions like Ivy Anderson (ph) and Betty Roche.

But even fans overlook one of the best, a relaxed swinger who spent 23 years with the band. But then singing was just a sideline for trumpeter and violinist Ray Nance.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP -- MUSIC COMPOSED BY DUKE ELLINGTON; SUNG BY RAY NANCE)

WHITEHEAD: Some folks may tell you, maybe because they read it an Ellington biography, that the man wasn't much of a piano player. Nu-huh. We'll let Dukes fingers do the talking on this issue in a minute. The one big cliche we didn't tackle today is Ellington always wrote for the individuals in his band.

That's sort of true, but it calls for some explanation as it gets to the heart of what makes his music extraordinary. So we'll devote our next segment to that issue. Meanwhile, the proper way to celebrate Duke's big birthday is to spin your Ellington records, and if you're running low most anything from the early 1940s is a safe bet.

Remember, listening to his music is way more fun than hearing somebody talk about it.

TUCKER: King Kevin Whitehead, not "The King," is the author of "New Dutch Swing." We'll hear part two of his Ellington review tomorrow.

For Terry Gross, I'm Ken Tucker.

This is a rush transcript. This copy may not
be in its final form and may be updated.

TO PURCHASE AN AUDIOTAPE OF THIS PIECE, PLEASE CALL 877-21FRESH
Dateline: Ken Tucker, Washington, DC
Guest: Kevin Whitehead
High: Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead corrects some common misconceptions about Duke Ellington.
Spec: Entertainment; Music Industry; Lifestyle; Culture; Duke Ellington; Kevin Whitehead
Please note, this is not the final feed of record.
Copy: Content and programming copyright 1999 WHYY, Inc. All rights reserved. Transcribed by FDCH, Inc. under license from WHYY, Inc. Formatting copyright 1999 FDCH, Inc. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to WHYY, Inc. This transcript may not be reproduced in whole or in part without prior written permission.
End-Story: Kevin Whitehead
Transcripts are created on a rush deadline, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of Fresh Air interviews and reviews are the audio recordings of each segment.