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This Issue 01/25/2007

Also in this issue

• Music Reviews
• 2007 Restaurant week primer
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Street sat down with Bruce Graham, the writer of Dex and Julie Sittin' in a Tree, which recently opened to its world premiere at the Arden Theater.

Street: Your current play, Dex and Julie Sittin' in a Tree, features just two actors. Did this create any issues in production?

Bruce Graham: The burden's on me. I can't distract the audience by bringing in a third character. Every emotional beat has to hopefully be real -- two people talking, or yelling, or laughing, or drinking, or eating popcorn or whatever. I mean especially when you're dealing with emotions and it's theater, it's got to be more emotional than in real life. My director - this is our tenth collaboration. I've worked with the designers before - all of them: sounds, lighting, costumes. I've had situations where, rarely, someone comes along with a magnificent ego, and they're going to rewrite your play for you, and you find you're wasting energy fighting, when in reality you're all supposed to be working on the play. These guys were great. My dramaturge and I had gone through a very difficult production several years ago, and the third day of rehearsal he just looked over and said, "Isn't this great? No assholes!"

Street: So you've worked with your director, Jim Christy, for a long time. Do you trust each other completely?

BC: Yeah, especially if you've known each other for as long as we have. It's funny, during production I go away. We do four or five days around the table. We have that luxury to go through the pages, make changes. [Jim Christy] is going to block it, so he knows what he's doing. He tells me that working with me is the closest thing to working with a dead playwright. I generally leave and come back about four or five days later. I give them the freedom to experiment, to try to make crazy choices, to make good choices, bad choices. But if I'm in the room, they're a little afraid and I don't blame them for feeling more inhibited. People think great art has to be created in a turmoil situation, but I don't think so. You know you can put together something good and people can still be friendly and not want to kill each other.

Street: Tells us more the ideas and themes behind Dex and Julie.