Who can say where or even whether we will find solace in a time of grief? I recall Robert Kennedy remarking how much sustenance he found in Aeschylus when his brother John and later Martin Luther King, Jr. were killed. Ed Schmidt, a playwright grieving over his father’s death several years ago, sought out his favorite play, Thornton Wilder’s Our Town. But unlike Aeschylus for Kennedy, Our Town failed to console Schmidt.
Schmidt was 46 when his father died. He had been writing plays since he was a teenager. Our Town’s failure to console, combined with his own frustrations with theatre, convinced him to give up on the stage. But hold on a minute, not quite yet. Not before he writes just one more play, curiously titled My Last Play, that deals with the loss of his father; and not before he performs it before paying audiences in his 12-seat living room in Brooklyn.
Every audience member receives a bonus of one book from Schmidt’s 2,000-volume library, mostly about the theatre. Schmidt’s claim that he’s abandoning theatre gains authority by the fact that his library slowly walks out the door each night.
I learned about Schmidt’s play from Bruce Weber’s story in the New York Times last month. A week later Jason Zinoman in the Times gave the play a good review. More good press followed. You can easily access all these reviews on the website – that’s right – mylastplay.net.
So a frustrated playwright – is there any other kind? – decides to write his final play and gets great press for it. Not only that, he’s selling out the house every night. (Okay, 12 seats and the house is residential, but still . . .) I was sufficiently intrigued to call up Schmidt and ask a few questions. Here’s part of our conversation.
Q: Does art have any power to heal?
Schmidt: Yes, I still believe it does. It just didn’t for me when my father died.
Q: Did you see David Cromer’s production of Our Town? What did you think?
Schmidt: Yeah, I saw it, and I thought it was good. Look, it’s not that I don’t think Our Town is a great play. It is. It’s almost foolproof; even a bad high school production will have some power. It just wasn’t any help to me when my father died.
Q: Do you think My Last Play can be consoling for audience members?
Schmidt: Maybe. Some have told me it is. But that certainly wasn’t my intention. If the play provides any solace, that’s an unintended consequence.
Q: What about for the artist? Can the process of creating art be healing?
Schmidt: That hasn’t been my experience. It wasn’t when I wrote this play. What has surprised me and, I guess, brought a sort of comfort is the performing. There’s an intimacy that develops with the audience and I’ve formed some deep and lasting friendships with audience members. I’ve enjoyed that.
Q: Your website says you’re sold out through April. Is the run open-ended?
Schmidt: No, the play will be over when the books are gone. So far I’ve given away 250 books. I figure if the play continues to sell out, it’ll close sometime this summer.
Q: Is giving away the books some kind of Zen action?
Schmidt: Most of these books have meaning for me, some quite a bit. They’re mnemonic devices: where I lived when I read it, what it meant to me, who I was with. Giving them away is a test to see what’s really important to me.
Q: How did you develop the play?
Schmidt: The play wasn’t very good at first. I did three invite-audiences of mostly friends. I kept working on the play in those early shows. It took 12 to 15 performances before the script was set. October 16 was the first official performance where people took books.
Q: Is anything happening with your other plays?
Schmidt: I just found out that Lookingglass Theatre in Chicago plans to produce my play Mr. Rickey Calls a Meeting. That was good news.
Q: Okay, I’ve got to ask, is My Last Play really your last play?
Schmidt: What I want to say is that you need to see the show. Part of the play’s tension is between what is real and what is not. So you need to see it.
I’m taking Ed’s advice and attending his play next month. (I managed to finagle one ticket. The price is $20, cash, at the front door.) After I go I’ll write a follow-up blog.
Regardless of who is pulling whose dramatic leg here, you have to admire a writer who at the stated end of his career transmutes grief and disappointment into art. And then finds that he has a sold-out hit on his perhaps subversive hands.
