RIPE FOR THE PICKING: An Interview With Bob Fisher
By Michael "Mick" Greco
I caught up with Bob Fisher recently, Artistic Director of The Mammals (a theatre company in Chicago) and playwright of Personal Apocalypse, which opens Thursday, October 15, 2009 as part of Tympanic Theatre Company’s forthcoming Bastards of Young, an evening of short plays. Bob is always in the midst of several active projects, so we pulled the figurative camera back to explore his background and imaginative currents.
When and how did you get involved theatre and playwriting?
I always wanted to be a storyteller. I acted in a play in 5th grade, and at the time just loved the attention. I acted in high school quite a bit, in drama club, doing mostly musical theatre.
What roles did you play in high school?
They ran the whole gamut: Barnaby Tucker in Hello Dolly, next year I was Big Bad Wolf in Into the Woods. I was a bigmouth and quite the ham, so I got to play a bunch of different characters.
When did you begin directing?
I did community theatre in Florida (I grew up in Satellite Beach, thirty minutes south of Cape Canaveral) – community theatre is quite big there.
I took general studies at Brevard Community College, and directed four shows while I was there – that was where I first got to direct. There was a company called the Brevard County Playwrights, which worked out of the community college; a drama teacher at the college had written an absurdist play. I didn’t know what absurdism was, didn’t know Pinter or Beckett, I was 18 years old and only knew musical theatre. Our high school had done the typical classics, Eugene O’Neill on one end, Arthur Miller’s The Crucible on the other, somewhere in the middle is Tennessee Williams, but there was no absurdism. This writer and drama teacher was quite the jerk, and the company was a bunch of septuagenarians who mostly wrote little dramas about local history. He gave a reading of the play, and none of them voted to direct it. I didn‘t know if it was right for me to direct this play, but I was willing — he raised his voice for me, said “Bob here, Bob wants to direct it.” So they had to produce it. This drama teacher did everything he could to let them know subtly that he thought they were a bunch of hicks. But I’d have to say he was a great teacher. If you were his student he’d challenge you, and if you weren’t he’d condescend to you.
Your play Personal Apocalypse reminds me of Beckett, I’m thinking of Ohio Impromptu with the two characters sitting across from each other at the table.
I adore Samuel Beckett, he has led me to other works. I don’t see the Ohio Impromptu connection, maybe Didi and Gogo [of Waiting for Godot].
In Beckett’s later works , including Ohio Impromptu, he creates these worlds, such landscapes of starkness, of despairing but struggling for hope. When Godot Comes; and “Endgame” – there’s always some hope for a bright horizon.
In Ohio Impromptu one of them is reading, the other never says a word, just knocks. They both have wide brimmed black hats, and shocks of white hair – I think it was an improvisational piece he created for the students at Ohio State University, which is why it’s called Ohio Impromptu. The characters are hoping to hold on to something, or to bring back some vitality
Pinter is more explicitly political – in Beckett you never know if you’re in our world or a created world, a created canvas. In Pinter I feel you’re on the same planet, we’re still on planet Earth but we’re just stretching the canvas. I feel like I could go to a pub in England or Ireland and find those people, just for getting on a plane, whereas with Beckett I don’t think I‘d find the two white-haired brothers of Ohio Impromptu – Beckett is a little more exceptional. As difficult as Pinter is, he’s definitely more approachable to your average person.
In what setting did you conceive Personal Apocalypse taking place?
I don’t know that I had a specific setting – when I first started writing I heard the inquisitional element first – one character asking the other “are you going through a personal apocalypse?”
All you need to get that play done is: a table, a bottle and a pair of scissors. Leave as much as possible to the audience’s imagination. I think it’s more fun to have the ambiguity. But I feel that the play gets very specific.
It’ll be interesting to see what Sean and the actors… what situations they come up with. I see a dimly lit room.
The audience may think it’s a spiritual or religious problem, or updated Spanish Inquisition; it could be the French Inquisitor in Joan of Arc. In Joan of Arc she withdrew her confession – maybe our guy could work up that courage too.
Some of your other work, Devils Don’t Forget which I’ve seen and Breed With Me which I’ve read, has that Raymond Chandler and Dashiel Hammett feel.
Chandler and Hammett: I like them both, I like Chandler’s creation of Philip Marlowe, quite appealling, the Private Investigator down on his luck but able to make his way in the world by his wits.
Philip Marlowe is the through character for Chandler, whereas Hammett only used Spade in one or two stories. Hammett embraced a world , Chandler embraced a man. Mickey Spillane wrote Mike Hammer; I also read Ross McDonald.
Devils Don’t Forget and Breed With Me also show your engagement with film noir.
Devils Don’t Forget and Breed With Me are part of a trilogy – The Noir Triptych — The Meat Locker is the third. Owes a debt to Sin City but it’s NOT Sin City. All three have a specific noir setting. Whenever the audience comes across them, I want them to think they are found films, owing a debt to noir, grabbed or stolen — I don’t like that word “stolen,” it implies I’ve done something wrong. They owe a huge debt to Requiem For A Heavyweight, Touch of Evil, Kiss Me Deadly and The Setup.
Personal Apocalypse could be in the same setting, William Holden and Richard Widmark could be sitting there in the same situation. But I want to see what Sean [Kelly, the director] would do, and Tympanic.
My writing for last couple years is informed by noir. When we were kids we lived by the Everglades, so wild creatures were all around. We did not grow up with a VCR; we had to rent a VCR, and when we did so we would watch all night long. UHF was very important, my sister and I wanted to watch SNL and Gumby next morning. We watched Charlie Chan Mystery Theatre — not noir, but to a nine or ten year old it might as well be. Mysterious hands coming out and throwing knives, private detective Charlie Chan living by his wits, and in the midst of danger and mystery. I was always drawn to that one guy smart talking guy who went into the city at night, righting wrongs; he was the chief of police or chief detective for Honolulu Police Department, but they were never in Honolulu. He was always in town elsewhere visiting a son or just visiting the town, so he got to operate as outsider crime fighter. Charlie Chan opened door to me to this chiarroscurro black and white world. I realized once I got cable and began watching old movies, I got to see actual noir. Bladerunner, Brazil, the world of David Lynch, all owe a debt to noir. It was when I saw Kiss Me Deadly that I realized that there was an entire black and white heritage that these films owed a debt to. Until I saw how that film unfolded I had no contextuality of the style. I hadn’t seen Double Indemnity and Sunset Boulevard — had seen The Maltese Falcon, but it seemed so philistine, like seeing Humphrey Bogart or John Wayne – before I realized what film noir was I had no desire to see my grandparents’ movie stars. Most of noir are ‘B’ films, whereas Double Indemnity and Sunset Boulevard are ‘A’ films.
What fits definition of noir for a lot of people is different; neo noir, roman noir (a novel in noir style) and film noir are very distinct. Paul Schrader, writer of Taxi Driver, pushes it to furthest extreme — he said Orson Welles killed noir with Touch of Evil. We put these dark stories on stage so we don’t have to deal with the events in life.
When we put something on stage that’s really dark and depraved…I can’t force people to watch it but when something really dark is on stage you see actors move toward the light.
The best, most incredibly conflicted plays are rehearsals for the audience for real life.
Talk about that more.
When you get to watch Hamlet, and even more so Macbeth , you see all the choices he makes, and all the terrible choices he makes. We as the audience get to watch these tactics, and get to rehearse these tactics, see whether they are viable. Whether you mean to or not you are rehearsing those decisions made by the characters in Mississippi Burning. We rehearse with Willem Dafoe, who won’t step on anyone’s civil liberties, and decide whether we should Never In Any Case violate another’s civil liberties. We know about Abu Ghraib and Blackwater because someone got into the darkness and exposed it. The right decision and the right path is not always obvious.
Personal Apocalypse starts off with the banter and repartee and gets us into greater ramifications of what the characters are saying.
Will you make films?
Now that we have the Zoo Studio [The Mammals newly acquired theatrical space in the 4001 N. Ravenswood building, Chicago], I am entertaining idea of putting some of what we do on video. Film itself, 24 frames / second, is a very intimidating thing. You can burn through money fast – you need a great director of photography to ensure that what you envisioned is what’s ‘in the can.’
Seeing Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds makes me realize there are great stories that can be told on film.
Theatre has its hooks in me. I have spent my life learning to tell stories on stage. Some will disagree with me, but I think that in a youtube world, video media is becoming cheaper by the day. There’s a part of me that thinks, as a medium, what’s out there that’s worth my time is minimal. There is so much we can learn in Chicago theatres – if you’ve got a great story and great actors, for instance, you can light a show with six instruments.
I don’t know if I can tell a story with limited sound, I love sound, but if you think you need ten lights to light a show – you can probably do it in five. Personal Apocalypse you can light with one – just light one overhead.
If you’re drawn to hold the camera and point the camera, film is your thing. If you’re focused on where the actors are placed and where the sight lines are, it’s theatre.
When and how did you get involved theatre and playwriting?
I always wanted to be a storyteller. I acted in a play in 5th grade, and at the time just loved the attention. I acted in high school quite a bit, in drama club, doing mostly musical theatre.
What roles did you play in high school?
They ran the whole gamut: Barnaby Tucker in Hello Dolly, next year I was Big Bad Wolf in Into the Woods. I was a bigmouth and quite the ham, so I got to play a bunch of different characters.
When did you begin directing?
I did community theatre in Florida (I grew up in Satellite Beach, thirty minutes south of Cape Canaveral) – community theatre is quite big there. I took general studies at Brevard Community College, and directed four shows while I was there – that was where I first got to direct. There was a company called the Brevard County Playwrights, which worked out of the community college; a drama teacher at the college had written an absurdist play. I didn’t know what absurdism was, didn’t know Pinter or Beckett, I was 18 years old and only knew musical theatre. Our high school had done the typical classics, Eugene O’Neill on one end, Arthur Miller’s The Crucible on the other, somewhere in the middle is Tennessee Williams, but there was no absurdism. This writer and drama teacher was quite the jerk, and the company was a bunch of septuagenarians who mostly wrote little dramas about local history. He gave a reading of the play, and none of them voted to direct it. I didn‘t know if it was right for me to direct this play, but I was willing — he raised his voice for me, said “Bob here, Bob wants to direct it.” So they had to produce it. This drama teacher did everything he could to let them know subtly that he thought they were a bunch of hicks. But I’d have to say he was a great teacher. If you were his student he’d challenge you, and if you weren’t he’d condescend to you.
Your play Personal Apocalypse reminds me of Beckett, I’m thinking of Ohio Impromptu with the two characters sitting across from each other at the table.
I adore Samuel Beckett, he has led me to other works. I don’t see the Ohio Impromptu connection, maybe Didi and Gogo [of Waiting for Godot].
In Beckett’s later works , including Ohio Impromptu, he creates these worlds, such landscapes of starkness, of despairing but struggling for hope. When Godot Comes; and “Endgame” – there’s always some hope for a bright horizon.
In Ohio Impromptu one of them is reading, the other never says a word, just knocks. They both have wide brimmed black hats, and shocks of white hair – I think it was an improvisational piece he created for the students at Ohio State University, which is why it’s called Ohio Impromptu. The characters are hoping to hold on to something, or to bring back some vitality
Pinter is more explicitly political – in Beckett you never know if you’re in our world or a created world, a created canvas. In Pinter I feel you’re on the same planet, we’re still on planet Earth but we’re just stretching the canvas. I feel like I could go to a pub in England or Ireland and find those people, just for getting on a plane, whereas with Beckett I don’t think I‘d find the two white-haired brothers of Ohio Impromptu – Beckett is a little more exceptional. As difficult as Pinter is, he’s definitely more approachable to your average person.
In what setting did you conceive Personal Apocalypse taking place?
I don’t know that I had a specific setting – when I first started writing I heard the inquisitional element first – one character asking the other “are you going through a personal apocalypse?”
All you need to get that play done is: a table, a bottle and a pair of scissors. Leave as much as possible to the audience’s imagination. I think it’s more fun to have the ambiguity. But I feel that the play gets very specific.
It’ll be interesting to see what Sean and the actors… what situations they come up with. I see a dimly lit room.
The audience may think it’s a spiritual or religious problem, or updated Spanish Inquisition; it could be the French Inquisitor in Joan of Arc. In Joan of Arc she withdrew her confession – maybe our guy could work up that courage too.
Some of your other work, Devils Don’t Forget which I’ve seen and Breed With Me which I’ve read, has that Raymond Chandler and Dashiel Hammett feel.
Chandler and Hammett: I like them both, I like Chandler’s creation of Philip Marlowe, quite appealling, the Private Investigator down on his luck but able to make his way in the world by his wits.
Philip Marlowe is the through character for Chandler, whereas Hammett only used Spade in one or two stories. Hammett embraced a world , Chandler embraced a man. Mickey Spillane wrote Mike Hammer; I also read Ross McDonald.
Devils Don’t Forget and Breed With Me also show your engagement with film noir.
Devils Don’t Forget and Breed With Me are part of a trilogy – The Noir Triptych — The Meat Locker is the third. Owes a debt to Sin City but it’s NOT Sin City. All three have a specific noir setting. Whenever the audience comes across them, I want them to think they are found films, owing a debt to noir, grabbed or stolen — I don’t like that word “stolen,” it implies I’ve done something wrong. They owe a huge debt to Requiem For A Heavyweight, Touch of Evil, Kiss Me Deadly and The Setup.
Personal Apocalypse could be in the same setting, William Holden and Richard Widmark could be sitting there in the same situation. But I want to see what Sean [Kelly, the director] would do, and Tympanic.
My writing for last couple years is informed by noir. When we were kids we lived by the Everglades, so wild creatures were all around. We did not grow up with a VCR; we had to rent a VCR, and when we did so we would watch all night long. UHF was very important, my sister and I wanted to watch SNL and Gumby next morning. We watched Charlie Chan Mystery Theatre — not noir, but to a nine or ten year old it might as well be. Mysterious hands coming out and throwing knives, private detective Charlie Chan living by his wits, and in the midst of danger and mystery. I was always drawn to that one guy smart talking guy who went into the city at night, righting wrongs; he was the chief of police or chief detective for Honolulu Police Department, but they were never in Honolulu. He was always in town elsewhere visiting a son or just visiting the town, so he got to operate as outsider crime fighter. Charlie Chan opened door to me to this chiarroscurro black and white world. I realized once I got cable and began watching old movies, I got to see actual noir. Bladerunner, Brazil, the world of David Lynch, all owe a debt to noir. It was when I saw Kiss Me Deadly that I realized that there was an entire black and white heritage that these films owed a debt to. Until I saw how that film unfolded I had no contextuality of the style. I hadn’t seen Double Indemnity and Sunset Boulevard — had seen The Maltese Falcon, but it seemed so philistine, like seeing Humphrey Bogart or John Wayne – before I realized what film noir was I had no desire to see my grandparents’ movie stars. Most of noir are ‘B’ films, whereas Double Indemnity and Sunset Boulevard are ‘A’ films.
What fits definition of noir for a lot of people is different; neo noir, roman noir (a novel in noir style) and film noir are very distinct.
Paul Schrader, writer of Taxi Driver, pushes it to furthest extreme — he said Orson Welles killed noir with Touch of Evil. We put these dark stories on stage so we don’t have to deal with the events in life. When we put something on stage that’s really dark and depraved…I can’t force people to watch it but when something really dark is on stage you see actors move toward the light. The best, most incredibly conflicted plays are rehearsals for the audience for real life.
Talk about that more.
When you get to watch Hamlet, and even more so Macbeth , you see all the choices he makes, and all the terrible choices he makes. We as the audience get to watch these tactics, and get to rehearse these tactics, see whether they are viable. Whether you mean to or not you are rehearsing those decisions made by the characters in Mississippi Burning. We rehearse with Willem Dafoe, who won’t step on anyone’s civil liberties, and decide whether we should Never In Any Case violate another’s civil liberties. We know about Abu Ghraib and Blackwater because someone got into the darkness and exposed it. The right decision and the right path is not always obvious.
Personal Apocalypse starts off with the banter and repartee and gets us into greater ramifications of what the characters are saying.
Will you make films?
Now that we have the Zoo Studio [The Mammals newly acquired theatrical space in the 4001 N. Ravenswood building, Chicago], I am entertaining idea of putting some of what we do on video. Film itself, 24 frames / second, is a very intimidating thing. You can burn through money fast – you need a great director of photography to ensure that what you envisioned is what’s ‘in the can.’ Seeing Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds makes me realize there are great stories that can be told on film. Theatre has its hooks in me. I have spent my life learning to tell stories on stage. Some will disagree with me, but I think that in a youtube world, video media is becoming cheaper by the day. There’s a part of me that thinks, as a medium, what’s out there that’s worth my time is minimal.
There is so much we can learn in Chicago theatres – if you’ve got a great story and great actors, for instance, you can light a show with six instruments. I don’t know if I can tell a story with limited sound, I love sound, but if you think you need ten lights to light a show – you can probably do it in five. Personal Apocalypse you can light with one – just light one overhead.
If you’re drawn to hold the camera and point the camera, film is your thing. If you’re focused on where the actors are placed and where the sight lines are, it’s theatre.
By Michael "Mick" Greco