Recently, I had a chance to talk to David Rush, an award-winning playwright who has had his plays produced by Stage Left Theatre and Chicago Dramatists. Rush—a Chicago native—is associate professor of theater and head of the playwriting program at Southern Illinois University. Notable past plays include Prairie Lights, Leander Stillwell, Dapples & Grays, and Police Deaf Near Far. His latest work, Cuttings, is slated to open Oct. 7 at Stage Left Theatre, 3408 N. Sheffield. It's set in part in Chicago's Boys Town and has—at its center—a homosexual relationship between a man and a teenage runaway. It explores the man's (a former psychologist) attempts to rescue the boy so that he can redeem a lifetime of wrongdoing, but ultimately spins a web of betrayal and destruction. Tickets are available at (773) 883-8830.
Here are Rush's thoughts on the genesis for his latest play, what he thinks about its possibly controversial subject matter, and what he has in store for the future.
RR: Tell us a little bit about your professional background and what draws you to the theater and playwrighting in particular.
DR: I consider myself a Chicago-based playwright, which means not only that I grew up and lived in Chicago for most of my life, but also that my center is Chicago. I love the spirit of adventure combined with community that permeates the theater here. I have a Ph.D. in Theater from the University of Illinois. I straddled the two worlds of academia and professional theater for years when I got out of school, and still do. I don't know what drew me to the theater; I would imagine the same things that draw most of us: an outlet for our creative energies, a focus for our need and love for a community of like-minded dreamers and collaborators, and the chance to make our marks upon the world.
RR: Cuttings deals with some pretty heavy stuff, pedophilia, fetishistic cutting, and bloodletting. What led you down such a merry road?
DR: The impulse for Cuttings came from many sources, the first being a story in our local newspaper about the police on a manhunt for a registered sex offender who was on the run with an underage teenager. I wondered what their bond was. Another is a memory I have from one of my 12-step group meetings. One of our group told us about his experiences with self-mutilation, and the memory of his pain and courage stayed with me. I had no intention really of making the play about cutting, until somewhere in the first scene, Paul said 'it's time for prayers' and it took me about three minutes to figure out what he meant, and then the whole business of self-mutilation came into my head. When I had a sense that the play was about cutting, I was then able to discover what that meant: how relationships are severed, how we are severed from ourselves, how we often deliberately cut ourselves off from our most necessary source of redemption. A third influence on the play is an experience of mine when I was teaching at a small college in Texas and fell hopelessly in love with an undergraduate. To some extent, bits and pieces of that young man fed into Greg, and some of the dynamics of their dancing around each other come from those memories. So, my original impulse was not to write a play about cutting, but to explore the dynamics between these two men. As is often the case, I began the play not knowing where it was going, and let myself be surprised by its twists and turns.
RR: We live in sensitive times. Do you anticipate any backlash from your presentation of the relationship between a teenage boy and a man old enough to be his father?
DR: I imagine many people will find this relationship disturbing or uncomfortable, at least until they examine what's underneath. These are two men who willingly bond; each seeks in the other something important to make their lives better. Remember, Greg is missing a father; he sees in Paul a caretaker. Paul is missing a healthy outlet for his need to give love and sees in Greg somebody he can take care of. People may be uncomfortable with the way the two men express these needs, but anybody who doesn't understand the needs themselves is probably a little bit frozen. Do I expect people to dislike the play and find it offensive? I imagine they will and I can't do anything about that.
RR: You've set a good part of Cuttings in Boy's Town and the relationship between its characters is male on male. What would you say to someone who might accuse you of portraying gay stereotypes (older gay men preying on the young), or portraying gay life in a negative light?
DR: I never had any intention of perpetrating gay stereotypes, and in today's society, I don't know what that means any more. To me, Will Truman and Jack Whatshisname, the guys on Will & Grace and the Fab Five on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy are truly offensive: their shallowness, preoccupation with externals, obsession with the search for the right guy or the need for the right appearance. These are horrible stereotypes, and they go out to millions across the country, giving the fundamentalist right-wingers plenty of ammunition. If people respond to the age difference, I can respond by reminding them that the vast majority of predators are older men and younger women, clergy included. I live in Southern Illinois, which, except for the university community, is not gay friendly, partly because they are not gay-informed. Where do these people learn about our culture? From the culture guru on Bravo, I'm afraid.
I imagine many people will not be able to get past the fact that Paul and Greg are gay, although there is some question about Greg. To them, I would respond that their being gay is not their primary concern: being whole and loved and connected is. And don't forget, the most horrendous perpetrator of domestic abuse in the play is not Paul at all, but somebody a lot closer to Greg. What price heterosexuality? Whither thou goest, Mommy?
RR: I found Cuttings to have classical overtones, particularly Plato's Republic and just the whole Greek thing of older men educating boys. Am I off base or was there some intention to get that kind of theme across? If so, why?
DR: I'm aware of this part of classical culture, of course, but it was not my intention to explore it in a conscious manner. And, if I remember my classic history well enough, part of the whole tradition was that when the young boy was old enough, he would leave the older man and take himself a wife. There certainly is something quite healthy and admirable in all of that, don't you think? Does Paul educate Greg? I don't know. It depends on how you read the ending.
RR: Tell us a little bit about your history with Chicago's Stage Left. How did you get involved with this particular venue? Why them? What artistic vision do you share?
DR: I became involved with Stage Left through Drew Martin and Russ Tutterow. Many years ago, Russ hired Drew to direct a reading of a one-act of mine at Chicago Dramatists. We discovered a common interest in the civil war, and when Drew became a member of the company, he brought the play to them. It fit their mission, they produced it, and it won them several Jeff Awards. They seemed to like other plays of mine that also fit their mission, and did good work producing them. Together we've all won several awards. Not all the plays I write fit their mission, however; I don't consider myself primarily a 'political' writer; I'm more concerned with traversing the geography of the human heart than the body politic, but when we do click, it's a hell of a lot of fun.
RR: What is it about the fetish of cutting and drawing blood that interests you? How do you feel this work fits into your oeuvre? Does it continue to illuminate themes that have interested you in the past or is this a whole new direction?
DR: As I said above, what interests me as a writer is the mystery of human connections. How/why/in what form/ we relate to other people, what holds us together, what bonds us. The fetish about self-mutilation should be looked at primarily as a metaphor for that search, rather than as a clinical study.
How this fits into my oeuvre is an interesting question. I have found, looking over my work, that I tend to write in cycles. There may be two or more plays that are written together that share some common bond, and then, when I've written that out of my system, I'll go on to something else. I suppose the real answer to that question won't be available until I've stopped writing.
RR: What do you hope people learn as they come away from this production? When they're on their way home in their cars, el trains, or buses, what do you hope stands out in their minds?
DR: Compassion. Chance Wade has a speech at the end of Sweet Bird of Youth in which he talks about the audience seeing themselves in him. I want them to debate the extent to which Paul is a failed caregiver, not the extent to which he is a predator or whatever. I want them to examine in their own lives the way in which they seek and give love.
RR: What's next for David Rush?
DR: A couple of things. I'm on my sabbatical from SIUC and using the time for writing. I've nearly finished the first draft of a new play that explores a whole other part of my life and culture, partly due to the influence of working on Prairie Lights. I can't say more about that yet. At the same time, I'm also starting to collaborate on a new musical called Whirlybirds, which examines the effect of war on our American culture, as seen through the eyes of one family. Stage Left is remounting Prairie Lights, and I'm also working on two other musicals, for which I've written book and lyrics. Finally, I'm finishing up a textbook that will be out in 2005, called A Student Guide to Play Analysis.
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