Episode 1172 - Heidi Schreck
Marc:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fuck nicks what the fucking ears what's happening i'm mark maron this is my podcast obviously broadcasting from another location a room with a bit of bounce in it
Marc:i know you know that i get hung up on bounce i can hear the sound bouncing around a bit but i'm doing what i can i'm hunkered down away from reality a bit up in uh up north i'm in big sir and i've been up here for three days
Marc:There's no TV.
Marc:The Wi-Fi is spotty.
Marc:I made a choice.
Marc:I made a choice to come up here, as I told you guys before, that I was checking out for a few days because I felt like I'd done all I could and that I didn't want to get caught up.
Marc:I didn't want to be caught up in the frenetic unfolding of
Marc:of numbers and maps all day long and all night long i i just i couldn't handle it and i i believe i made the right choice i'm staying up here it's it's still one more day i'm recording this on wednesday afternoon just barely afternoon all i know right now is that ballots are still being counted uh there's no no reason to heed any declarations of victory by the monster and
Marc:And that every ballot will be counted.
Marc:And hopefully, in terms of that particular process, it will be honored when the outcome is declared properly.
Marc:I will say today on the show, we do have an interview with Heidi Schreck.
Marc:She's a playwright, and I found out about her by seeing her Broadway play, What the Constitution Means to Me.
Marc:She was also a kind of a friend of my late girlfriend, Lynn Shelton.
Marc:And I went with her to see the show.
Marc:She had seen it before.
Marc:I'd never seen it.
Marc:And we went and spoke to Heidi backstage a bit.
Marc:And I was really taken with her and her passion.
Marc:And also just the fact that it educated me.
Marc:I mean, this is a personal play about the Constitution, about the
Marc:the lack of representation for large swaths, large numbers of people.
Marc:And she made it very personal.
Marc:And I think it's also relevant to what's happening right now, to the sort of drop-off in younger people voting, younger people feeling like they're engaged in this process, younger people not even educated in civics or what government means or how it works or the basic structure or how our voices are to be honored.
Marc:I mean, this this play about the Constitution is really about women and people of color not really being represented at all in the evolution of even the minimal representation that that they experience to this day.
Marc:And looking at the Supreme Court as it stands now and the sort of shaking.
Marc:are the foundations of this republic, this democracy on a constitutional level.
Marc:It seems like the right show to air right now.
Marc:Now, again, I'm up here and I am detached.
Marc:I'm looking out at the ocean at night.
Marc:I'm looking at stars.
Marc:I'm feeling the sort of smallness of being a human in a beautiful world and wondering how that world is going to look eventually, given that we have...
Marc:ongoing ecological disasters that need to be addressed ongoing governmental disasters that need to be addressed and uh you know will they be addressed i don't know i don't know i mean i know there's a lot of people that want them addressed but what do we have to do what what is our personal responsibility it's odd because when i came up here i felt like hey i voted i've been talking to you guys
Marc:twice a week throughout this, being honest about what's happening without being a pundit or being another source of news, but just being a guy that's relating.
Marc:But it starts to kind of really feel like the calling is going to be a little deeper as we move into hopefully what will be a Biden presidency.
Marc:Obviously, Trump is going to be an American cult leader, the leader of
Marc:Trumpism in this country, even after this election.
Marc:So what is required of us as individuals to sort of guarantee constitutional representation, guarantee the rights of the underclass, guarantee that we'll move towards saving the planet?
Marc:I mean, how do you...
Marc:How do we do this?
Marc:It has to be more than just lip service, which I am guilty of.
Marc:We're all, I think, somewhat guilty of feeling like we've done something, and maybe we have, but is there more we can do?
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I mean, these are thoughts that I hope we're all entertaining.
Marc:But it's all terrifying, and the fact that this was even close is a terrible indicator for the country.
Marc:Look, I had a dark night of the soul, I guess, as many of you did.
Marc:I don't even know if it's a dark night of the soul as much as it is a sweaty night of terror.
Marc:So yeah, even up here where I've disconnected myself for reasons of my own sadness, I didn't want to sit there alone and panic in front of a TV set with my cat Buster.
Marc:I chose to sort of
Marc:Force myself into a situation where I wouldn't have access or easy access to the the ongoing shit show and, you know, maps and numbers, maps and numbers, districts and numbers, counties and numbers, names and numbers.
Marc:And I did avoid it.
Marc:And I know it's still happening.
Marc:But nonetheless, I was exhausted yesterday just with the panic and with the fear, and I went to bed at like eight at night up here in the country on the edge of a cliff.
Marc:I didn't sleep on the edge of a cliff, but I kind of did metaphorically in my mind, just sweating through a night of tossing and turning, existential terror, and food dreams, oddly, some food dreams.
Marc:I ate some overly rich food, and I think it fucked with me.
Marc:I'd like to blame it all on the food, but I think it's a it's the fall of America that was the cause of most of it in my and my personalizing of it.
Marc:I mean, this is also the thing is that I tend to fear for myself.
Marc:And I have to sort of expand that because so we're all in the same fucking boat here.
Marc:We're all under the onslaught of plague and potential fascism.
Marc:We're all in that.
Marc:And I have to remember that because I think that is the core of what differentiates a progressive or a monster, really.
Marc:I mean, there's this weird sort of identity politics business that goes on that these Republicans have convinced people that there's a huge white, white voting bloc that always shows up to vote Republican.
Marc:They've been taught to fear that what they've got will be taken from them.
Marc:That somehow they will be robbed of their birthright.
Marc:That somehow their property, their money, their way of life will be taken from them.
Marc:And that is the most important thing.
Marc:I want what's mine.
Marc:I want to keep what's mine.
Marc:Fuck you.
Marc:And this particular president is one of the great fuck you artists of all times because he's taken that idea of independence, of it's...
Marc:Some sort of malignant, mutated monster of an idea of of working hard to get what you got and holding on to it because it's different because he steals what he has.
Marc:He griffs.
Marc:He does it without paying attention to laws or right or wrong.
Marc:There's no moral compass.
Marc:There's no truth compass.
Marc:It's just that by any means necessary, take it.
Marc:And somehow or another, that's become easily rationalized by so many people in their minds.
Marc:They were already selfish, but now it's like, fuck them all and fuck laws and fuck them if they're not smart enough to get it.
Marc:That's why he's surrounded by fucking grifters.
Marc:And what about fascism?
Marc:What about this team sports notion of how government works, the red and the blue teams?
Marc:Because it turns out that nothing really made a difference in this election.
Marc:There were bigger numbers, but it wasn't the economy.
Marc:It wasn't COVID.
Marc:It wasn't the debates.
Marc:It wasn't fucking anything.
Marc:More people voted, but percentage-wise, people voted the way they did in 2016 as they did today.
Marc:And then I always get concerned about, is it that these Americans crave a strong man?
Marc:Do they crave...
Marc:Actual fascism.
Marc:Do they want a daddy that will just kind of keep a myopic sort of narrow minded view of what life should be?
Marc:And they were willing to sort of kill or vote for that.
Marc:Is that what it is?
Marc:Or is it more shallow than that?
Marc:I just wonder, you know, there's this assumption that conscience is part of the human brain.
Marc:The conscience has evolved in our species from some sort of primitive idea or biological notion that animals, as we as animals, we care for others in our species, that conscience evolved.
Marc:I'm not a philosopher.
Marc:But it just seems that conscience is something that requires vigilance and that many people who are monsters think they have conscience and that it's completely relative to the moral construction of your values and that it's easily fucked with.
Marc:And that, you know, if you watch, depending on what information you take in and your inability or lack of desire to mind your mind so they don't mind your mind, that compromises your conscience.
Marc:I think we underestimate that.
Marc:the epistemic crisis in this country, this lack of seeing or accepting or believing what is true, if there is repetition involved and there is a sort of hypnotic non-truth posited in your fucking brain recording machine,
Marc:And that's what you believe in.
Marc:And I don't I know it gets a little crazy, but this all goes back to for me to the idea of, you know, people need to believe in something.
Marc:And I think that at this juncture, we are in sort of the United States.
Marc:of cognitive dissonance of different kinds.
Marc:I don't know if we ever come out of it.
Marc:But I do know one thing, that there's something very shallow.
Marc:It's tribalism, I guess, but it's also just, it feels like just team sports.
Marc:Have you ever noticed on Twitter how many trolls, if you go to their page, it's just sports?
Marc:It's just that there's no real civic engagement other than fuck you.
Marc:Fuck you.
Marc:And I know it goes on both sides a bit, but I think the basic premise is
Marc:in terms of the difference between what is thought to be democratic or thought to be progressive, is that that team wants to make sure that everyone is taken care of, that we spread the resources out, that we all have health care, that we all have these basic things that could make life comfortable, that everybody has a shot.
Marc:has an equal opportunity to make a go of it.
Marc:That is the idea of the collective.
Marc:And that is the idea of the progressives.
Marc:And that is sort of ingrained in the democratic idea.
Marc:That's one team.
Marc:That I guess you would call the blue team.
Marc:And then the other team is really all about wanting to see the blue team cry.
Marc:That's it.
Marc:We just want to see them cry.
Marc:That's the depth of it.
Marc:Fuck you.
Marc:I got mine and cry, baby.
Marc:Are you going to cry?
Marc:Cry.
Marc:That's the other team.
Marc:And that's the team that is sort of brought to a fervor.
Marc:A fury by this lawless fucking king that we have in place right now.
Marc:Now, this is a nice conversation.
Marc:It's specific.
Marc:It's about the American government, about the system, about the Constitution.
Marc:The filmed version of Heidi Schreck's What the Constitution Means to Me is now streaming on Amazon Prime.
Marc:And you'll hear Heidi talk about living in Russia in her 20s and her impressions of the land and the people.
Marc:But after our talk, she wanted to add some thoughts about her time there.
Marc:And I thought it was important to make sure you had this context when you're listening to our conversation.
Marc:She wrote me an email and this is what she wrote.
Marc:Quote, I was working as a journalist in St.
Marc:Petersburg in the 1990s, and I watched as our country fucked Russia over by withholding aid and promoting disaster capitalism at the exact moment they were trying to build a democracy.
Marc:And now we are paying for that dearly.
Marc:I saw the divide between rich and poor become so huge.
Marc:It was absurd.
Marc:Just like it is here.
Marc:Now I saw social systems fall.
Marc:I saw nationalism and racism and antisemitism become loud and violent.
Marc:I saw my Russian journalist colleagues get harassed.
Marc:I also interviewed Putin, which is a less interesting story than it seems, but I thought he was an asshole even back then.
Marc:Even if we win this week, I fear how bad things could get.
Marc:I often think of Masha Gessen quoting the Russian phrase, we thought we had hit rock bottom and then someone knocked from below, unquote.
Marc:She also, Heidi, also wanted to give some context to the part where we talk about her family.
Marc:So this is something to keep in mind when you hear that section.
Marc:Quoting Heidi now, there were no abusive men in my nuclear family, but there was a mother who sometimes couldn't function as a mother because of the horrific abuse she endured growing up.
Marc:So my childhood was quote unquote good, except for the rare but awful days my mother locked herself in her room and cried and wouldn't come out.
Marc:I've spent my adult life trying to reconcile my two mothers, the brilliant loving one and the one who couldn't function.
Marc:And I guess I wrote this play about generational trauma because the abuse inflicted by shithead men and the lawmakers and culture that enables those men really does last for generations.
Marc:And it affects all of us.
Marc:And I think it's part of what's going on right now in this country, unquote.
Marc:I hope that adds something as you listen to me and Heidi Schreck talk about her show, What the Constitution Means to Me.
Marc:Hi, Heidi.
Marc:Hi, Mark.
Marc:How are you?
Guest:You know, I'm doing okay.
Guest:I have new babies.
Guest:I just gave birth in April, so I have twin girls.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Guest:And it's fantastic, but I don't sleep a lot.
Marc:Twin girls, newly fresh borns.
Guest:Fresh born.
Marc:Now, was this the plan?
Guest:Well, yes.
Guest:I mean, I'm in my late 40s, so it was quite planned.
Marc:And you had them yourself.
Guest:I had them myself.
Marc:That's bold.
Marc:You just said, we're going to do it.
Marc:We're going to roll the dice.
Guest:Well, it required a lot of science.
Guest:We did IVF last August, actually, while I was performing this play I'm doing on Amazon.
Guest:And we did IVF.
Guest:I got pregnant.
Guest:I was very excited.
Guest:And then we went to the doctor and well, first, first of all, they asked us how many embryos we want to put in.
Guest:And you said nine, I said one.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And the doctor said, that's good because at your age, it could be very dangerous to carry more than one.
Guest:And I said, great.
Guest:So we put in one and then went six weeks later and they said, yeah,
Guest:you apparently have two in there.
Guest:And I said, well, what about that thing where it's really dangerous for me to have two?
Guest:And he was like, it's going to be fine.
Guest:And it was.
Marc:It's good that he switched up his tone.
Marc:That would not have been the time for him to go like, oh, fuck.
Marc:Well...
Marc:Exactly.
Guest:I burst into hysterical laughter and then, yeah, that's pretty much how I felt this whole, I guess, 14 months now.
Marc:Yeah, well, I mean, congratulations.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:It's really, thank you.
Guest:They're incredible.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, it's a it's got to be a challenging and scary time to realize that, you know, you're bringing kids into this situation.
Marc:But but you seem to be a fairly I don't know if I get optimism, but you believe in the power for people to change.
Guest:I do.
Guest:I do believe in that.
Marc:So like maybe you're not I have to assume that when you have children at this juncture in history, you don't say like, oh, what did I just do?
Marc:You know, right.
Guest:I mean, there have been a few.
Guest:moments when i've said what did i just do uh and i am scared for them right i you know so much feels precarious right now right um i do sometimes have a i i wonder
Guest:Whatever.
Guest:It's wonderful to be alive.
Guest:So I do believe that.
Guest:But I do hope there's a future waiting for them.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:We wonder what the world's going to be.
Marc:Well, I mean, that's what I mean, I guess, you know, I saw the show with Lynn.
Guest:Yeah, I remember.
Guest:You came backstage, the two of you.
Guest:That was wonderful.
Marc:Yeah, and I can't quite remember what your history with her was, because you both come from Seattle, right?
Marc:But you work together?
Guest:Yes, I met Lynn in 2001.
Guest:She was editing.
Guest:I was in a movie version of Hedda Gabler that was based on a... We had done the play in Seattle with my theater company, and she was the editor on that movie.
Guest:And I remember going to the editing room with my director to meet her and talk with her and thinking, she's the smartest person in this room.
Guest:And this was before she decided to become a director.
Guest:But I immediately thought, this person is extraordinary.
Guest:I loved working with her.
Guest:I'm so sorry.
Guest:I'm so sorry she's gone and I'm so sorry for you.
Guest:She was a really remarkable person.
Guest:And then to watch her, I left Seattle right after that and moved to New York and to watch her just kind of break out as this
Guest:brilliant filmmaker was, I have to say, I remember being not surprised based on my work with her.
Guest:I thought, of course, like that person was so giant, like there, of course she became that.
Guest:And then I remember kind of learning, I think I read an article about her later
Guest:When my sister's sister came out talking about how she, at I think age 37, had decided to become a filmmaker because she'd seen that talk back with Claire Denis, I think, who had not made her first movie until she was 40 years old.
Marc:Right.
Guest:And she realized, oh, I have three years left to do this.
Guest:And I remember actually being really inspired by that.
Guest:I didn't start...
Guest:writing for film or television until I was in my 40s.
Guest:And I kind of looked to Lynn.
Guest:So I think there was like a kind of chain effect there where she looked to Claire and I looked to Lynn and thought, oh, it's never actually too late.
Guest:You always think it's too late to do the things you really want.
Guest:And she definitely made me realize it wasn't too late to do the things I wanted.
Marc:And you just had twins.
Guest:and and she was right yes another thing i decided apparently it wasn't too late to do in my late 40s as i run around with this like horrible these horrible back problems and a giant scar
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Lynn was amazing.
Marc:And it's been really hard to to sort of, you know, you know, you live with loss.
Marc:I think everybody does.
Marc:But you just don't.
Marc:There's no reason.
Marc:You know, your brain is sort of like, why?
Marc:Why does you know?
Marc:And there's no answer to these things, you know.
Marc:But I always like hearing about her because, like, you know, my experience with her is so limited to the small amount of time we spent with each other.
Marc:So, like, there's all these other lives that she had that I don't know about.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, and she, you know, she also had I didn't learn until later that she she and I had very similar beginnings in downtown theater in New York as well.
Guest:Like I she started as an actor.
Guest:I was very excited to learn that about her.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:She was.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:She and she could do it.
Marc:You know, she could do the acting.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:But when you guys were when you were in Seattle, like the thing about this show, you know, what the Constitution means to me is like I had.
Marc:You know, when Lynn wanted me to go see it, and then she really sort of sold it, you know, kind of pushed me to it.
Marc:I was sort of like, I don't want to learn.
Marc:Is it learning?
Marc:You know, like there was a, it's like, how could this be a good show?
Marc:I mean, look at the title, you know?
Guest:Yeah, the title's, everybody hates the title.
Marc:I mean, it just sounds like, I don't want to go to class today.
Yeah.
Marc:But like even like watching it again, which I did last night, you know, it's an incredibly moving, engaged performance, but it's an engaged, emotionally engaged, you know, story about how, you know, this thing affects us personally.
Yeah.
Marc:The Constitution and what it because we all take a lot for granted.
Marc:And I think that, you know, when you sort of started to see your own life through the through the context of the Constitution, then see the sort of the life of women through it and the life of people who are underrepresented, you know, becomes this sort of beautiful tapestry of emotions and facts.
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Marc:And and it was very, you know, not only do you learn, but you sort of learn there's a sort of empathy that comes through, you know, in if you are paying attention.
Marc:You can't really watch your show and be like, what the fuck is this lady talking about?
Guest:I mean, you can.
Guest:I think some people do watch it that way.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I hope not.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, really, to me, I think.
Guest:I didn't really know what the thing was when I started to make it, but it became clear pretty quickly that it was a story about my mom and about my grandma and really trying to understand.
Guest:I mean, also, I guess actually try to figure out
Guest:the mystery of my grandma, which was how did this woman who was really the smartest, strongest woman I knew who loved us all so much and took such great care of her grandchildren, how did she live in this abusive relationship all these years and fail to protect her children?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, I am without, you know, without spoiling for people too much.
Marc:I mean, I think that what was fascinating is at some point, like we can go back, but at some point you realize that, you know, that experience that you had, you know, touring the country debating the Constitution, you know, there must have been some kind of aha moment where you're like, oh, this is the portal to run my memoir, to run my life through.
Right.
Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Like, I don't.
Marc:Yeah, I don't know how you workshop that, because there is there's sort of a tradition of this isn't a one person show, but it's a small show and it is an autobiographical show.
Marc:So it does sort of have a vibe of a one person show.
Marc:And so many of those are kind of straight up kind of this is what happened to me.
Marc:And there's a self-importance to them.
Marc:That can be tedious.
Marc:But with this, because of this beautiful device you have, which is debating the Constitution, you can integrate your story, the story of your family, the story of women, the story of domestic abuse and rights for people, you know, into this broader context of why this country works.
Marc:That must have been a big day to realize that you could do that.
Guest:That was amazing.
Guest:That was actually a big day.
Guest:It was a big, scary day.
Guest:Yeah, I don't know which kind of came first.
Guest:I think at first I just thought it would be fun to write about being a teenage girl doing this contest.
Guest:Like the contest itself had a lot of fun stuff about it.
Guest:I was usually the only girl.
Guest:It was the 80s.
Marc:And what was it?
Marc:A debate?
Marc:Was it a debate thing?
Yeah.
Guest:It was a speech contest.
Guest:So you would show up and you had to give an eight minute speech about the Constitution.
Guest:And then my favorite part, as I say in the show, was drawing.
Guest:You had to draw an amendment from a hat and speak about it extemporaneously.
Guest:I just found that just so fucking thrilling for some reason.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I think that's maybe when I was 15, I learned that my that I had an interesting brain.
Guest:You know, I really liked thinking on my feet like that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And when I started making the piece, I just thought, that seems like a fun time to write about.
Guest:It's the 80s.
Guest:I had really big permed hair.
Guest:There was a lot.
Guest:You know, Reagan was president.
Guest:There was a lot there.
Guest:It seemed interesting.
Guest:And then pretty quickly, I started...
Guest:I mean, I gave myself the task of of taking the prompt of the contest seriously, which is, you know, draw a personal connection between your own life and the Constitution, which is just like a social studies assignment, basically.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But I thought, what would happen if I did that?
Guest:Now that I'm at the time in my 30s, I've lived a lot.
Guest:I've traveled the world.
Guest:I've had an abortion.
Guest:I've had a really interesting relationship with my own family history.
Guest:I've seen a lot of things.
Guest:And so as soon as I started trying to do that, I realized what the show was going to be, that it was going to be about these four generations of women in my family.
Marc:So that's interesting.
Marc:So you're really kind of like going back and writing about the experience of doing that when you were a teenager.
Marc:And then the actual question of the actual, you know, contest.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Was provocative.
Guest:Good question.
Guest:It turned out.
Marc:Very good.
Guest:I didn't realize that 15, you know, I was just trying to fake it at 15 and win the money.
Guest:I was just like, well, what sounds personal?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:And really, that prompt led me much further than I wanted to go.
Guest:I'm actually a pretty private person, which seems absurd to say now, considering how much of my life is out now for the world to view.
Guest:But I...
Guest:I felt okay talking about having an abortion.
Guest:I felt that was important to talk about.
Guest:We know there are these statistics, one in three, one in four.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Depending on what you look at, women have had an abortion.
Guest:People, I should say, not just women have abortions, but-
Guest:And so I knew it was an important thing that I shouldn't be afraid to talk about that.
Guest:It was important.
Guest:But I didn't want to talk about the history of violence in my family.
Guest:That felt taboo.
Guest:It's heavy, man.
Marc:You know, it's heavy because, well, I mean, I think that the way you kind of structure it in and also, again, you know, to set up the history of violence in your family, you know, you set up, you know, Washington becoming a state, you know, plowing under the rights of indigenous people, indigenous women, and then, you know, moving sort of basically hostage people.
Marc:white women from the East Coast into this strange, dark logger town with just a bunch of like kind of like monsters who are chopping down trees and drinking.
Marc:You know, and so like, like, I think that you're painting a really good picture of it.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:Oddly, but oddly that tempers the story of the personal story of, of domestic abuse.
Marc:Like, you know, if you were just to come out and just say like, you know, you know, you're very good at balancing, you know, the weighty with the comedic, but also like there, there's something that affords you a little less, you know,
Marc:potential risk when you sort of contextualize the beginning of the known domestic abusing your family with this horrendous kind of national undertaking to.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Guest:Well, and all the violence is related, of course.
Guest:But I will say the discovery about what happened in Washington state, that was a shocking day for me.
Guest:I was in my little office looking through old newspapers on that.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I got a subscription to a bunch of those sites and I was reading the old newspapers and I found, you know, the the the newspaper from my great great grandmother's town.
Guest:And I saw this.
Guest:these headlines and I was like, there are women being murdered and beat up
Guest:every day in this newspaper.
Guest:Like I don't, it was a really, truly shocking thing.
Guest:I had no idea.
Guest:And then when I read the story of Asa Mercer, who brought all the white women from the East to Washington state back in 1865, I, that was a shocking story to me.
Guest:And then I found out they'd made a television show about it, a comedy called here come the brides really was on TV in the seventies.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's a really like,
Guest:Isn't isn't this hilarious?
Marc:Like a little house on the prairie period.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Kind of.
Guest:I mean, wait, to their credit, they it's a tragic, tragic comedy.
Guest:It's like a dramedy.
Marc:Sure, sure, sure.
Marc:But it's that era.
Guest:But it's that era.
Guest:And they yeah, it's all about Washington state.
Guest:It's all about bringing these women to this town.
Guest:The sort of inciting incident in the pilot is that this man.
Guest:tries to rape this woman.
Guest:And so then everybody's like, but it's somehow comic and everybody's like, I guess we better get more women because this guy tried to rape the ugly school teacher.
Guest:And so we must not have enough women.
Guest:And then, and then the
Guest:That's how the whole series starts.
Marc:Let's feed the monsters.
Marc:That's the pilot.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, that's basically the pilot.
Marc:It's really intense.
Marc:The monsters are going to hurt people if we don't give them, you know, fresh women.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So but like I've always felt like I've spent time in Seattle and in Washington.
Marc:And I'm very I find it that part of the world compelling and that the climate and everything else and the feel of it.
Marc:I lived in Alaska when I was very young.
Marc:And my second wife was from Seattle.
Marc:So I have had I've had experience with the but I always felt that there was a darkness there that seems to be.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:You know, very deep.
Marc:It's like I'd like to think it runs prehistory.
Marc:But but it does seem that that that the type of industry that came up in that area was rough, man.
Marc:It's some weird kind of like pioneering shit.
Guest:Yeah, there's a lot of darkness.
Guest:I actually feel like Twin Peaks being set there made perfect sense.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Like history of history.
Guest:And of course, the other side of that is like it also, you know, a lot of those women who came over on that boat then ended up being suffragettes and Washington gave women the right to vote before many other states.
Guest:There was an interesting.
Marc:It all backfired on him.
Guest:It all backfired.
Yeah, exactly.
Marc:That's an interesting part.
Marc:I'm surprised you did.
Marc:What made you choose not to discuss some of the other avenues that those women took?
Guest:Well, there was just so much.
Guest:I actually, there's like seven more hours of play that I just had to cut out.
Marc:You know, there was a lot of other amendments.
Marc:I mean, you could keep this going.
Guest:I actually, I did.
Guest:That was my first very ambitious idea was that what if I kind of, could I relate to,
Guest:Once I sort of realized I was telling this personal history, like, could I relate a personal story to every single amendment?
Guest:And then I realized that would be a I don't know, a year long play.
Guest:And also I would probably die before finishing it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, I mean, I think the the the more practical approach would be like, you know, is there any way that you could do live events with each amendment in the hat?
Marc:You know, with these kids, with these teenagers, let's just riff it.
Marc:Let's just have live.
Marc:Let's really put you on your feet with, you know, and just do it for real.
Guest:That's a great idea.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Can I take that idea?
Marc:Yeah.
Okay.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:I just pitched a perfect show for you.
Guest:You really did.
Guest:I'll be following up later.
Marc:Yeah, you could do it.
Marc:And that way you could get new teenagers too.
Guest:Exactly.
Marc:And you could even do it at high schools.
Guest:That's a great idea.
Marc:There you go.
Marc:I feel like you've just, thank you.
Marc:You're welcome.
Marc:I'm just, I'm looking out for you.
Marc:You got kids now.
Guest:Two expensive kids.
Marc:This is it for you.
Marc:It's just starting.
Marc:I hear they're cheaper now.
Marc:Like it pretty much, you just got to put them in a box and feed them.
Marc:They get expensive.
Marc:They get expensive later.
Guest:Yeah, we'll see what happens with college education, I guess.
Marc:This is the budget days right now.
Marc:This is OK.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So when you like but growing up there, I mean, I have your your your immediate family was OK, right?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:I had a great immediate family.
Guest:I have a wonderful father and my younger brother.
Guest:He's still around?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Both my parents are still alive.
Guest:That's good.
Guest:They're in Washington.
Guest:They have not been able to meet the babies because they're in Wenatchee, and so they haven't been able to fly because of COVID, which is just my mom's going pretty nuts.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:It's terrible.
Marc:The plague has isolated everybody.
Marc:Now, Wenatchee, where is that exactly in relation to Spokane?
Guest:So Wenatchee is right between Seattle and Spokane, sort of right dead in the middle of the state.
Marc:So it's not quite white supremacist land.
Guest:Exactly.
Marc:You're not in meth supremacist land.
Guest:No.
Guest:No.
Guest:In fact, it's sort of like...
Guest:you're right in the middle it's like a tiny little paradise before you cross it near anywhere near where uh where lynn's parents are where lynn's father is you know chris twisp or quist what is it twist twist yes it is close to twist oh okay so you yeah it's a very beautiful part of the state very pretty um but very far you know seattle's the nearest big city and that's what two hours three hours it's almost three hours between to either of them
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Spokane is like four hours.
Marc:It's weird.
Marc:I kind of I was in Spokane, you know, even, you know, in its like demise.
Marc:I found it a very charming place.
Guest:Is it?
Guest:My dad's family is from there.
Guest:So my I visited there a lot.
Guest:My my grandparents on that side, also German and Swedish.
Guest:lived in spokane and actually my great grandma on that side was bing crosby's uh cook she was a swedish cook so you're what a great what a great show business story you're connected you're totally connected she hated him she hated him so much i hear he wasn't pleasant i hear he's not a good man abusive boozing guy he was yeah and she what so she lived in hollywood
Guest:No, he lived in Spokane with his family.
Marc:Bing Crosby did.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:No kidding.
Marc:Yep.
Marc:I had no idea.
Marc:I thought the only thing that Spokane was famous for were the boots I'm wearing.
Marc:White's boots.
Marc:No, it's now it's White's.
Marc:You know that Bing Crosby.
Marc:White's boots and Bing Crosby.
Marc:And your great, what is your grandmother was his Swedish cook.
Guest:Yeah, Elsa.
Guest:She was his Swedish cook.
Marc:So you knew Elsa when you were a kid.
Guest:I did.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I used to dress up like her.
Guest:That was my favorite thing to do was to borrow her glasses and like her shawl and dress up like an old lady.
Marc:Oh, she must have loved that.
Marc:Did you do a character of her just telling horrible Bing Crosby stories?
Marc:Was that your first one person show is Ilsa.
Marc:And it's just you doing an hour of what an asshole Bing Crosby was.
Yeah.
Guest:She was also the one.
Guest:Maybe that was my other grandmother.
Guest:She was the one who said she came from Sweden when she was 19.
Guest:And apparently they'd been passing out these flyers in Sweden, like come to America.
Guest:It's the promised land.
Guest:There was a famine.
Marc:But, you know, they did that because they wanted these Scandinavians to come plant the country up there because they couldn't grow anything.
Marc:So they give them and they knew that the people in Sweden, they're like, they can grow things in rocks.
Marc:So they wanted them to come.
Marc:I read this in that book Ian Frazier wrote, The Great Plains, but I'm sorry.
Marc:Go ahead.
Guest:yeah yeah no no no that's right that makes total sense well then she said when she got here she was like she would all be like you know they said the streets were paved with gold but really they're paved with shit she knew so get me back to sweden she was surprised she didn't go back
Guest:man i mean i mean right now i'm just i can't believe they all left i'm like what were they what were they thinking well well now they're like i don't know i think i think that their big covid plan is backfiring but yeah i well that's true i spent some uh i spent some time there have you been there i've never been i actually lived in russia for two years and i never i still have not visited sweden where did you go
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:What's the big city?
Marc:Stockholm?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:I did a show there in Stockholm.
Marc:I saw the ship.
Marc:I ate some of the food.
Marc:It's weird when you only have a couple of days in these countries where you're like, I went there.
Marc:What'd you do?
Marc:I ate the stuff that you eat at that place.
Guest:The dumpling.
Guest:That country's dumpling.
Marc:The meatball, the dumpling, the bread.
Marc:What's the berry?
Marc:It's not cranberries.
Marc:There's a berry.
Marc:Oh, lingonberry.
Marc:The lingonberry thing.
Marc:I ate some of that.
Marc:yeah and i saw the boat you know that viking boat you know that was that oh right but yeah but i went there's also you really you make it sound so exciting it's great i loved it it loved a great museum there and you can walk along the water it's very it's very nice i it's it's it's everywhere is pleasant but here um right now
Marc:Anywhere you go outside the United States, you're like, oh, it's not the main thing here.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:The chaotic fucking... They're not currently living in a codependent relationship with a lunatic.
Guest:No.
Marc:But that aside...
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:There's other fascists around.
Marc:Some of them are.
Guest:But yes, we we have a particularly special version of that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's uniquely American, I think you can say.
Marc:This is our take.
Marc:What's the American take on auto crap?
Marc:It's happening now.
Marc:Enjoy.
Marc:We made him.
Marc:But but that.
Marc:OK, so you're growing up there.
Marc:So that side of the family seems your father's side seems grounded.
Marc:And there's a history of hardworking Swedish people who came over.
Marc:And then your mother's side is just the dark logger.
Guest:Well, yeah, I mean, yes and no.
Guest:I think that I mean, that side also was and they were both they're both like half German, half Swedish.
Guest:That side was also, you know, really hardworking people.
Guest:And then but but yeah, but growing up in a more that place, according to my research, was just a more violent place than where my dad's family.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:This was actually Castle Rock.
Guest:So more Western Washington.
Marc:And because that was a stronghold of the logging industry.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:I think it was just more remote.
Guest:There were, you know, it was...
Guest:As I say in the play, it was mostly men who were there to log.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And it was pretty harsh living conditions for quite a while.
Marc:For some reason, I'm thinking McCabe and Mrs. Miller.
Marc:I'm thinking like, you know.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:Right?
Marc:That town.
Guest:Totally.
Guest:That town.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But her family was amazing, too.
Guest:I mean, my grandma happened to marry a really bad man.
Guest:But I mean, part of the...
Guest:Working on the play, that was one of the myths.
Guest:There were many sort of things I unlearned while making the play.
Guest:And one of them was like the myth of the one bad man, right?
Guest:Where I sort of grew up being like, oh, if only that bad man hadn't come into my family's life.
Marc:That's weird.
Marc:I was just going to say that.
Marc:So what is that myth?
Marc:The myth is that all it takes is one bad man to set a history of repetitive, a legacy of repetitive abusive relationships.
Guest:Yes, that.
Guest:And then I also think that the one bad man is somehow a lone figure, not divorced from a larger culture of male violence, divorced from a larger culture of laws that don't.
Guest:protect people from that kind of violence, divorce from centuries of Western law that says you can beat up and kill your wife.
Guest:You know, it was sort of like, I really started to see him as a symptom.
Guest:And then I think because of the focus of the show, also just some, a person that,
Guest:enabled by laws to to take out his violence on children and take out his violence on you know what I mean like that the law I think in some ways continues to enable that and had for centuries and that that's the macro but the micro is still the one bad man the micro is still the one bad yeah she ended up with right with a yeah the wrong person
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And it happens all the time.
Marc:I think that a lot of the statistics that you cite and the way you sort of capture in the show, you know, how how does this negligence happen when you kind of share in the show those bits and pieces of those proceedings in past Supreme Courts?
Marc:You know, we're men.
Marc:These men are clearly uncomfortable and having arguments over semantics when there's really lives in the balance shows, you know, a strange disconnect.
Marc:An empathy.
Marc:There's no there's no empathy there.
Marc:And I think is the point that they can't see how their their policies are making it dangerous specifically for women and people of color.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That was the thing that struck me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The most when I listen, I listen to hundreds of hours of Supreme Court cases.
Guest:And particularly in the case you're talking about, which has to do with an abusive man, I was just shocked at how dissociated the judges seemed from their own feelings.
Guest:You can sort of hear it in their voices as they sort of ramble on, like, you know, does shall mean shall?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Sometimes it means shall.
Guest:Sometimes it means this.
Guest:And in the meanwhile, at the center of this case is a...
Guest:painful, horrific story that they've just stopped talking about talking about.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And and I think I think right now is as we're having apparently this national debate over whether the Constitution is is a living thing or a dead thing.
Guest:I feel like.
Guest:This idea that.
Guest:that you could interpret law without putting, without keeping the living human beings at the center of your argument and keeping them in your mind and in your heart as you're making these decisions.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But it feels like that disconnect goes like that.
Marc:That disconnect applies to the Senate.
Marc:It applies to the leadership in power that everybody sort of seems to be insulated in their job and in their bubble and in whatever numbers they're fighting for, that there are these broad ideas around, you know, fiscal support and fiscal responsibility that that really come down to numbers without really having stories attached to them.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And but that case, that was just insanity that it's really about a woman who had a restraining order on her husband who then took the kids, killed them.
Marc:And she wanted recourse, you know, for the police not defending or prosecuting the restraining order.
Marc:And that argument that you have from the Supreme Court is about whether there was a constitutional responsibility on behalf of the police department.
Marc:Right.
Marc:To protect that woman and her children.
Marc:And they decided no.
Marc:Yes, that was the decision.
Guest:And that's fucking nuts.
Guest:It's I agree.
Guest:I 100 percent agree that it's fucking nuts.
Marc:But that that that was the issue of, you know, originalism.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And intent so that.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, the way you sort of flesh out the kind of negative rights, positive rights and all that stuff, I wouldn't have known any of that.
Marc:And I could have went to my grave not knowing that, you know, and now I know it.
Marc:And, you know, and I find it I think that like when you're my age and you learn these things.
Marc:You're sort of like, oh, wow, that well, that really changes everything in the way I think or understand things.
Marc:But I think more importantly, the show may sort of instigate younger people to realize, like, I got to get involved with this shit.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, I hope so.
Guest:It certainly made me feel that way.
Guest:Like, I think even the grownups on the show have all become more politically active just because of
Guest:because of the things we all learned while making the show.
Guest:I knew nothing about positive rights or negative rights.
Guest:I honestly only learned about that because of that case.
Guest:I listened to that case so many times, and I was like, I don't understand.
Guest:This makes zero sense to me.
Guest:She went to the police, you know, like 14 times in one night and said, my husband has my children.
Guest:Will you please go look for them?
Guest:And they were like, go home, lady.
Guest:You're being dumb, you know?
Guest:And the fact that she could not sue that police department is...
Guest:I just couldn't fathom how our laws work.
Guest:So I actually that's when I asked a friend who knew a constitutional scholar to hook me up.
Guest:And I said, can I just please take you out to dinner?
Guest:And can you just explain to me?
Guest:And it was a very long dinner because it's very confusing.
Guest:But that's when I first learned about positive rights and negative types of constitutions.
Guest:The two types of constitutional rights.
Guest:And, you know, and that's when I learned that that all modern constitutions, you know, ours is the oldest one still in use.
Guest:It's really an antique.
Guest:Most other constitutions were made after the 20th century and they all contain positive rights, which are like affirmative rights that say the government has to, you know.
Guest:Right.
Guest:protect you.
Guest:It has to provide basic things like health care and a certain standard of living.
Guest:It has to protect people.
Guest:It has to protect minorities.
Guest:It has gender protections and it has racial protections, ability protections.
Guest:And a lot of them contain clauses that protect, that say that you have a right to clean air and water, that you have a right, that it's the government's duty to look after the environment.
Guest:And I was just sort of gobsmacked.
Guest:I had no idea.
Marc:And it's interesting that like, you know, even knowing that all that stuff is proactive and good, that this country seems to be wrestling with the ideas like we can bend our old document.
Marc:We will, you know, instead of like evolving that, why not just bend this society back to the 1700s?
Marc:Without taking into consideration that most of the government has been turned out by corporate pimping and that, you know, all you're going to end up with if you do that explicitly is fascism.
Marc:So, yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's really what's going on now.
Marc:I agree with you.
Marc:And there's enough dum-dums to be like, you know, but what about liberty?
Marc:Oh, shut the fuck up.
Marc:I'm sorry.
Guest:No, no.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I feel like the notion of liberty has really gotten twisted.
Marc:That's for sure.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's like we have a right to spread plague.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You know, don't tell us what to do.
Marc:You're not you're not the boss of me.
Marc:Whereas a positive rights constitution, like we are kind of the boss of you and it's public health.
Marc:So, yeah.
Guest:Or, you know, we have I think I feel like when I think of that kind of constitution, I think of the idea that.
Guest:I feel like the statement it's making is that we're all responsible to one another.
Marc:I know you would think that people would get the hang of that.
Marc:But see, like the nature of capitalism and the free market has twisted everything up and mind fucked so many people.
Marc:It's all very calculated on some level, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yes, it is.
Marc:I think people have lost their way.
Marc:And that's reinforced by the representatives of malignant business interests.
Marc:But I think we're getting away from, you know, why why you went to Siberia and how you.
Marc:So what.
Marc:But I think what's interesting to me when I was thinking about, you know, how this evolved for you is that this was not, you know, what you set out to do.
Marc:You set out to be an actor.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And, you know, and a writer.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And this sort of evolved because, I mean, you've been working at it like when did you start?
Marc:You started acting in Seattle.
Guest:I started acting.
Guest:Yes, I actually started acting when I was a kid.
Guest:My mom had a Shakespeare company for kids called The Short Shakespeareans.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:It still exists, actually.
Guest:She handed it over to an amazing woman, and it's been going now for almost 40 years.
Marc:Children's Theater is great.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I got to play, I got, she of course cast me in all the lead roles.
Guest:So I got to play all the great Shakespearean heroines between the ages of six and 12.
Guest:I really cut my teeth on the best.
Marc:That's some heavy shit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Actually we only did the comedies.
Marc:We didn't do like that or anything.
Marc:You didn't do Lear.
Marc:I'd like to see a six year old.
Yeah.
Guest:i would actually like that'd be great with some six-year-old kid with a beard doing that last monologue it would probably be quite moving actually it would be great a really good idea i feel like you're pitching a lot of excellent i run with them to run with them yeah i'm going to i gotta earn that money um
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So that was, I did that as a kid and then I acted in college.
Guest:And then yes, when I, I took a little detour, I spent a couple of years in Russia.
Marc:What is that?
Marc:What is that about?
Marc:Who does that?
Marc:So you're, what are you, you're in college for what?
Guest:I double majored English in theater with a minor in Russian language.
Marc:Oh.
Guest:Because I really liked, you know, I loved Dostoevsky.
Guest:It was my favorite.
Marc:And you wanted to be able to read it in Russian?
Guest:I did want to be able to read it in Russian, and I thought it was a beautiful language.
Guest:I also kind of grew up obsessed with Russian dancers, particularly Baryshnikov, who was a big crush.
Marc:So you had a plan.
Guest:I had a plan to meet Baryshnikov.
Marc:In Russia.
Guest:I still haven't met him, although I've met now his daughter, who's a wonderful actress.
Guest:I've actually never confessed to her.
Guest:I'm sure she knows all the women my age had huge crushes on her father, but I've never talked to her about it.
Marc:Misha, right?
Guest:Yeah, Misha.
Guest:Yeah, I watched The Turning Point over and over.
Marc:But also Russia has a long history of theater and film and have made, despite whatever horrors they were responsible for governmentally, they definitely changed theater and they changed film and they changed dance.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:There's definitely a totalitarian work ethic, I guess, that really delivers the goods.
Guest:I think the work ethic.
Guest:I also think the spirit of creating art in the face of probably all of that horror.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:uh but yeah obviously the they changed i mean they invented acting as we know it um yeah i i i loved living there i lived in siberia for a year a little tiny town called tinda and then i moved to saint petersburg you love siberia i feel like um you know that you don't see that bumper sticker a lot uh i heart siberia what uh what was it like it
Guest:It was so...
Guest:It's unbelievably beautiful.
Guest:I can't... I lived in this place called Tinda on this river called... Well, there's this amazing lake called Baikal, which is like the largest... It's like a lake that's like an ocean, which is one of the most incredible places on earth.
Guest:And then I lived on this Amur River.
Guest:And when I first got there, everything was covered in snow and ice.
Guest:And then spring came and everything melted.
Guest:And it was just...
Guest:like the birch trees and the river and the like miles of step, I guess you call it.
Guest:It was one of the most physically beautiful places I've ever been.
Marc:And how's your Russian?
Guest:It's okay.
Guest:So my brother followed me there and he was a journalist in Moscow for 10 years.
Guest:And now he lives in Prague with his family and his wife, who's Russian.
Guest:And so my niece and nephew speak Russian and they I thought my Russian was still really good, but they just mock me mercilessly when I try to speak.
Guest:They imitate my accent.
Guest:And so I guess it's not that good.
Marc:How many siblings you have?
Marc:i just my just my brother younger brother and so then you go to st petersburg and you were there total for two years in russia yeah wow it's a long time i actually fell in love with someone in siberia and we moved to st petersburg together and i got a job at a newspaper and you were what you were like what 20 19 23 you fell in love with a russian 23 24 i did yeah what happened to that guy
Guest:He, he, this is going to sound like fiction, but he's a Russian Orthodox priest.
Guest:Look what you did.
Guest:He has a very long beard.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He, he, yeah, he was a really, he is talk about him in the past tense.
Guest:He was a really brilliant guy.
Guest:Very into, um,
Guest:Honestly, like a cult things.
Guest:And then somehow that shifted into an interest in religion, which, of course, had been banned for so long, like while he was growing up.
Guest:And he just became more and more fascinated with religion while we were dating.
Guest:And then several years after we broke up, he decided to.
Marc:So you you dated a Russian witch who we found.
Marc:That just, you know, piecemeal interest in a cult ritual was not working out.
Marc:And there was a much deeper, more historical type of magic that seems to be more reliable.
Marc:But you get to and you get to dress as a wizard.
Guest:You've really you've summed it up.
Marc:Good.
Marc:I'm glad I'm glad he's found his wizard chip.
Marc:Are you in touch?
Guest:No, several years ago, he Facebook friended me, and then we corresponded a little bit, and then he disappeared from Facebook.
Marc:Oh, I wonder what happened.
Guest:Yeah, I'm not sure.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:It's so weird because rarely does anything coming out of Russia disappear from Facebook.
Marc:It seems to just take over Facebook.
Marc:OK, so you come back here and then you decide to commit to acting.
Marc:Is that what happens?
Guest:Yeah, when I came back, I came back to Seattle because it was near my hometown and a lot of friends from college had moved to Seattle.
Marc:Hold on one second real quick.
Marc:Were you studying acting in Russia or no?
Guest:No, I did not.
Guest:Although I did.
Guest:I know, but I did work.
Guest:I went to the theater all the time and I worked as a theater reviewer for a little bit.
Marc:So, yeah, but I was not studying, you know, John Bernthal, the actor.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:He spent that's he learned to act in Russia.
Guest:Oh, he did.
Guest:Was it was it through the Harvard program?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Or did he?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, that program sounds incredible.
Guest:I wish I had been able to.
Marc:The only problem was, like, he got back when he got back.
Marc:He was like, you know, like, you know, you guys don't know how to act.
Marc:Harvard sent him there.
Marc:But he comes back and he was just sort of like, you're a bunch of weenies.
Marc:You don't know what real men do when they act.
Guest:i i i get that i mean really you go you well also they you know they get to rehearse their plays for seven months before they go on stage where because of capitalism we get the three and a half weeks you know yeah and it's make or break throw you onto the stage and see what happens three and a half months and then maybe a week yes if things don't go well
Marc:Right.
Marc:Did you ever study Suzuki?
Marc:I did.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I'm so wild that I fucking knew that, man.
Guest:You know how I. How did you know that?
Marc:No, I do know.
Marc:You want to know how I knew?
Guest:OK.
Marc:How you act out your crying and when you hold your core to find your center.
Marc:When you put your hand on your stomach.
Marc:wow and then the way you stopped yeah when you were doing the crying i'm like she did suzuki there's no way that woman didn't do suzuki because i had my uh my uh my uh an ex-wife of mine studied it and i was able to see it uh you know i was able to go and watch it being done and i'm like that's that's got to be where she got that
Marc:I feel so exposed.
Marc:How many people are like, that Suzuki lady, that lady did a Suzuki.
Marc:That's so wild.
Marc:I'm so happy that I was right.
Guest:Yeah, that's really, you kind of took me off guard there.
Guest:That's what did it?
Guest:I was like, did he do some kind of a deep dive?
Guest:But there's no record of me doing Suzuki.
Guest:I made sure to scrub the internet clean of all of that.
Marc:I saw it in practice.
Guest:You did, apparently.
Guest:Wait, was this your wife from Seattle?
Marc:Nope.
Guest:Ah, OK.
Guest:So there is a lot of Suzuki in Seattle.
Marc:No, it was my my my first wife went on to become a therapist, but but she was studying to be an actress and she was kind of dug in with that.
Marc:I mean, she was doing the Suzuki training and I never quite got it, you know, but but over time, you know, she explained it to me.
Marc:And then I went to see them, you know, where they, you know, let the family and friends come in to to watch a performance to reassure you it's not a cult or something too fucking weird.
Guest:Right.
Marc:And, you know, you just it's not it's not convincing, right?
Marc:No, no.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's like I got it.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:I understood the technique, but it is sort of rare and it's specific.
Marc:And I don't think a lot of people know about it.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Do you study in New York?
Guest:No, actually in Seattle.
Guest:There were a couple amazing teachers at University of Washington that I studied with first in high school, actually.
Guest:And then and then.
Marc:But it was interesting how effective it is, because like, you know, whatever you've however you've trained yourself as an actress.
Marc:You know, everybody takes a bit from here and there, but I was so clearly able to lock into those two actions, which were fairly, you know, intense and, you know, emotional and powerful, both the way you cry as the acting that out, but also just the other device of centering, you know, in moments of emotion where I see you do it.
Marc:You kind of align yourself.
Yeah.
Marc:So it is a powerful method.
Guest:It's interesting because while I was working on the play, these two books were really important to me.
Guest:One of them is called Trauma and Recovery, and the other is The Body Keeps the Score, which is a book all about how trauma lives in your body and also inherited trauma lives in your body.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Guest:So I think that kind of idea was with me the whole time I was rehearsing the play of thinking.
Guest:I do talk about at one point in the play, like the places in the play where my throat, I could feel it tense up.
Guest:I was actually pretty tense the whole time I was performing and kind of trying to figure out where that came from and why.
Yeah.
Guest:And, yeah, just thinking about it kind of in a way, thinking about the play is a little bit of an exorcism of some of that stuff out of my body.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And like and I think that like from my recollection of Suzuki, that seems to be a very decent method to exercise.
Guest:Yes, I think that's right.
Guest:Well, it's very, yeah, it's very physical.
Guest:And there's a lot of releasing of things.
Guest:Yeah, there's a lot of grunting and stomping.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But but that's interesting.
Marc:What are those two books again?
Guest:One is called Trauma and Recovery.
Guest:The other is The Body Keeps the Score.
Guest:Trauma and Recovery is, I think, one of the most brilliant books.
Guest:I guess like psychoanalytic texts of, it was actually recommended to me by my husband's therapist via my husband many, many years ago.
Guest:But one of the things that talks about is it actually makes the connection between this therapist worked a lot, both with, um,
Guest:military veterans who were grappling with PTSD and with sexual assault survivors.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And she noticed the similarities between the two kinds of symptoms and what, what both groups were going through and sort of made a larger connection through that about violence in our culture and the way it affects the
Guest:both people who go to war on behalf of the country and the victims of violence and sexual assault in the country, which are often women.
Guest:And she yeah, she delves into that
Marc:that's interesting in a really profound way yeah and then that sort of combined with the idea of uh hereditary behavioral uh like like i think it was interesting in the show how you know you you don't find it necessary to define why the darkness is in you
Marc:That, you know, is it or is it a legacy of abuse that goes back generations that causes this depression or is it chemical?
Marc:And does it matter?
Guest:Right.
Marc:You know, it is what it is ultimately.
Marc:But, you know, to have the framework.
Marc:To think about that, to think about because that's fascinating.
Marc:There's no way it isn't true that even if you break the cycle of abuse, the emotional nature that is underpinning to somebody who is willing to put up with that or is an abuser is still going to be in you.
Marc:You just you know, you just evolved to make different choices on purpose.
Marc:Right.
Yes.
Guest:Yes, you evolved to make different choices.
Guest:I will also say you have different, I mean, I question a little bit the phrase like someone who's willing to put up with it because I feel like, I mean, this is one of the things that I discovered making the play is like, I am in part able to make many different choices than my grandmother because like the legal framework of my life is much different than hers.
Guest:I have different laws protecting me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And also like the cultural,
Guest:the culture has evolved.
Guest:Thank God.
Marc:Don't underestimate the power of terror, fear.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It was my mistake.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, I just, but I think, yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm only calling it out because I feel like it's what I grew up thinking.
Guest:Like, Oh, what, what was wrong with my grandmother that she stayed in this relationship.
Guest:And now I understand the, I understand it in a much more,
Guest:I have a much larger perspective.
Guest:I understand it as it relates to the laws of our country, as it relates to our culture, as it relates to the misogyny in our culture.
Guest:And then, of course, it's just true for many women today.
Guest:And because of the play, I've been able to talk to a lot of people who've been in relationships like this now and really understanding that you
Guest:you can think that you're a person who would never end up in this kind of relationship and discover that you're absolutely wrong.
Guest:And that it doesn't always have to do with there being something
Guest:It's not always about you.
Guest:You know, abusers are often incredibly charming people who don't show their true nature until you're you're very much connected to them.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And right.
Marc:I mean, like, I think that when I was younger, I was emotionally abusive person.
Marc:You know, and I do.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, for sure.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I you know, it took me, you know, a lot of, you know, heartbreak and, you know, willingness to figure out where that comes from, you know, where that fear ultimately and that kind of inability to connect emotionally in an appropriate way comes from, you know, and it is family stuff.
Marc:But over time, you know, not unlike recovery from alcohol and drugs, you know, you learn to make different choices and you start to see, you know, if you're willing, who you are, you know, in that dynamic and what that is, you know.
Guest:And how do you I mean, you don't have to say what it was, but but is there a.
Guest:I guess, like, how old were you when you sort of started to realize that and did something push you toward that realization?
Marc:Well, I mean, I was really just a defensive, kind of ragey guy who always thought, you know, he was being fucked with or manipulated, was not able to trust...
Marc:or wasn't really capable of letting myself give it in a way.
Marc:It was all kind of childish stuff, but childish rage when you're 35 is a very ugly thing, right?
Marc:Right.
Marc:And I think ultimately the beginning of the education was, you know, once I got sober and I entered into a relationship with a woman who helped me get sober in a state that was already volatile, you know, I you know, I made her miserable and, you know, and I was emotionally destructive and she had to, you know, like extricate herself from me.
Guest:Right.
Marc:You know?
Marc:Right.
Marc:Through Al-Anon and through understanding codependency and me understanding all these... Whatever the labels are, it was like that was the beginning of the awakening, but it took a while to sort of reel it in.
Guest:It's sort of about, like, deciding to kind of reckon with yourself, right?
Marc:Well, you've got to decide it as opposed to keep repeating it, right?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Because people are broken from a fairly young age, you know?
Marc:And it's like, you know, either you're going to be able to fucking...
Marc:stop it or not.
Marc:But usually I think these injuries that create these monsters are put upon people when they're fucking children.
Marc:Oh, yes.
Marc:Absolutely.
Marc:And then the wiring is there.
Marc:And if you keep honoring the wiring and finding participants to honor that wiring with you, there's not much impetus to change until you end up alone or crying or in jail or whatever the fuck range of abuse you're on.
Marc:Right.
Guest:I think the hardest thing for me is, and I've been in therapy for almost 15 years now, that also realizing that just knowing that isn't enough.
Guest:There's a point when you're like, oh, I see.
Guest:This is all, you know, this is this wiring that, as you call it, that was sort of installed when I was pre...
Guest:language probably like it's so ancient and so and I don't I don't even know sometimes that that's what's happening um and and now I see it now I understand that like I'm being driven by these things that what were planted so long ago and and that should be enough and then realizing oh my god that's not that's just like the very beginning yeah
Guest:I'm starting to like change some of that habitual.
Marc:Because you have to make, you have to choose against your instincts, which are faulty.
Marc:So, so it's very unsatisfying.
Marc:The, the, the cure is making different choices for yourself and they don't feel great because they, you know, they're not honoring, you know, how you get fed emotionally.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So everything feels a little flat.
Right.
Guest:Yeah, everything.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Or like you're starving, right?
Guest:Like you're emotionally starved.
Marc:God damn it.
Marc:I have to like be able to endure.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Where's the drama?
Marc:It's on the stage now.
Marc:Good for you.
Marc:Congratulations.
Marc:But no, but you I mean, you talk about that and I feel bad that I kind of, you know, that I mean, you know, correcting language is important in the sense that, you know, me saying someone who's willing to put up with it.
Marc:It is it is not, you know, taking into consideration what abuse does to people and what fear does to people and what, you know, you know, honoring, you know, that victimness does to people in terms of.
Marc:they might not see a way out for themselves.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And, and the fact that they might be right.
Guest:I mean, that was one of the discoveries for me to, um,
Guest:Actually, when I listened to Jessica's case, to the case we talked about earlier and learned the statistic that like the most dangerous moment for a woman in that situation living with an abusive partner or a person living with an abusive partner is the moment that they decide to leave.
Guest:That's just statistically when they're most likely to be harmed or killed.
Guest:So there's also a kind of,
Guest:unassailable logic at work, which is like, I I'm actually in a position and there's no, there's no good answer.
Guest:Like I stay and I'm in danger.
Guest:I leave and I'm in danger.
Guest:So also just realizing the enormous, um, stakes of, of making a decision to leave someone.
Guest:I mean, obviously that there are, this is a spectrum, right?
Guest:There are, you know, there's leaving an emotionally abusive partner and then there's leaving a physically abusive partner, but, um,
Guest:Yeah, just sort of realizing, like, all of the factors that are in play that make it about so much more than, like, whether someone's willing to leave or stay.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And, you know, like, obviously this is discussed in relation to your family, in relation to this case, and in relation to what type of protections the Constitution provides for us.
Marc:But, like, I don't want this, like, I feel like we're talking about this and people are going to be like, God, I'm not going to see this show.
Marc:It's true.
Marc:Holy shit.
Marc:I can barely get through this conversation.
Marc:But I just want to make clear there's a lot of levity.
Marc:There's a lot of fun in the show.
Marc:There's comedy.
Marc:There's provocative things.
Marc:And you bring a high school student.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Guest:There is something for everyone.
Guest:I mean, I hope.
Guest:And it is also very funny.
Guest:I mean, I really thought it was going to be a comedy when I started.
Guest:Like I said, I thought just like the 80s permed hair and the fun 15-year-old girl.
Guest:And I thought it would be like a cheeky comedy or something.
Yeah.
Guest:And I think that spirit remains.
Marc:No, no.
Marc:I think structurally, it's not it's not a tragedy.
Marc:It's not a drama.
Marc:I mean, no, you know, structurally, the arc is you start where you start.
Marc:You move through, you know, sort of the the impetus for the conversation.
Marc:Then you end up, you know, kind of like united with a 14 year old talking about, you know, mundane things in a way.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And she's fantastic and also hilarious.
Marc:I don't I don't I don't I don't think I saw it with the one who was in the special.
Marc:Did I?
Marc:I think I saw it with the other.
Guest:So both you can actually see.
Guest:So Rose Deli, who originated the part, is is in the film.
Guest:And then you can also see Thursday Williams, who performed with us at New York Theatre Workshop and on Broadway, who's really a killer debater.
Guest:Terrifying.
Guest:Like when she showed up in the room.
Guest:She came in to audition and said she just got done debating at NYU law school and she'd been in the Sonia and Selena Sotomayor Institute.
Guest:And, you know, she explained strict scrutiny to us.
Guest:And we were like, oh, no, this girl's like the smartest girl you've ever met.
Guest:And she she really up to the the debate got a lot better when she joined our team.
Guest:And so you can see her debate to actually at the end there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:At the end.
Guest:And then you can click on another like special material and you can see you see me debate to abolish the Constitution and Thursday debate to keep it.
Marc:Oh, OK, great.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I think like my inability to debate speaks to like my emotional sensitivity and immaturity and slight propensity for abusiveness, because within two turns of a debate, I'm like, go fuck yourself.
Marc:Who the fuck are you?
Marc:Who are you?
Guest:Yeah, that's not debate.
Guest:You won't win the debate that way.
Marc:I know.
Marc:It's ultimately childish business.
Marc:I've been doing EMDR a bit.
Marc:You know that?
Guest:Oh, I my mom has been doing that.
Guest:She says it's fantastic.
Marc:Oh, has she?
Marc:Oh, good.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Around her childhood trauma.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:She's found it really helpful.
Marc:It's good if you have, you know, real incidents.
Marc:You know, like it's difficult for me.
Marc:It's like the childhood stuff.
Marc:I've done a little bit on that, but it's sort of broad, like his emotional neglect and inconsistency and chaos, you know, but but like, you know, just working it around like lately, I've been doing it around that last week of Lynn's life when she was sick in the house.
Marc:you know, here, not knowing that she was dying and, you know, treating it as like a flu or something.
Marc:And then, you know, eventually, you know, on the day that she was supposed to go to the doctor, you know, she collapses and that was the end of it.
Marc:So like, you know, the feelings around that are so specific.
Marc:And so I've been doing it around that and it is helping me, I think, integrate it, you know, so I can just, you know, live with the loss, you know, but I think it's very effective for that kind of stuff if you have a point of entry.
Guest:yeah yeah but i think that makes a lot of sense i i um i actually my mom taught me this thing which i don't which is called it's sort of silly but it's called a butterfly hug where you put your you cross your arms like this on your chest and do this oh yeah and uh and i uh i have actually found it
Guest:somewhat helpful when I flash on things.
Marc:From when you were a kid or is it a new thing?
Guest:No, no, it's a new thing.
Guest:It may be related to her.
Marc:EMDR thing?
Marc:I can see that.
Guest:With the EMDR, I'm not sure.
Guest:But it's like somehow it kind of grounds you, I think.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, you go like this, yeah.
Guest:And it kind of.
Marc:Wow, that's interesting.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Because the EMDR I do is not with the light thing.
Marc:With the moving, I move it.
Marc:It's like these buzzers that you hold.
Marc:There's a couple of different machines.
Marc:And I'm not exactly sure that I understand the magic of it.
Marc:But it seems to do something.
Marc:The process of it does something.
Yeah.
Marc:So before you did this show, you worked with Annie Baker, though, right, on A Big Thing?
Guest:Yeah, I was in her play, Circle Mirror Transformation, which was sort of her first big breakout play in New York in 2009.
Guest:She actually wrote a part specifically for me, which was a great honor.
Guest:I actually, at the time I met her, she was like a 25-year-old kid who like came up to me at a theater and said she had her like beautiful long hair and her little converse hair.
Guest:And she said, she introduced herself and said she was writing a part for me.
Guest:And I was like, okay, thank you.
Guest:That's very sweet.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Thank you, little girl.
Marc:That's nice.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Good luck.
Guest:And then of course she turned out to be this bonafide genius.
Guest:I know.
Marc:I've interviewed her.
Marc:I like her stuff a lot.
Guest:I know.
Guest:I love that episode.
Guest:I listened to that episode.
Guest:And then we worked together.
Guest:I mean, we're,
Guest:We're good friends, but we also worked together on I Love Dick.
Guest:We wrote an episode of that show together called A Short History of Weird Girls, which is still one of my favorite things I've ever written, and working with her was really fun.
Marc:I was in and out of that series.
Marc:I should go watch it.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:A Short History of Weird Girls?
Guest:A Short History of Weird Girls.
Marc:All right.
Marc:How's Annie doing?
Guest:She's great.
Guest:She has a new, not as new as mine, but she has a beautiful daughter.
Guest:Oh, that's nice.
Guest:Yeah, we live fairly close to each other, so I get to see her.
Marc:Oh, that's great.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You theater people sticking together.
Guest:We do stick together.
Marc:And I have to, like, I remember vaguely, I think I remember, maybe I just read it, but you won an Obie Award for your performance or that play won an Obie Award?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That I, yes, I won an OB award for the performance and then the play one as well.
Marc:That was your second one.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:A few years earlier, I had done a play called The Drum of the Waves of Harakawa, which is a 17th century Japanese play by this guy, Chikamatsu, I had done downtown.
Marc:Was there Suzuki in it?
Guest:There was actually no Suzuki in it.
Guest:We issued Suzuki for that production.
Marc:Outside of Suzuki, what was your other primary training as an actress?
Yeah.
Guest:I, I mean, I didn't actually, I mean, I, I took acting all through college because I majored in theater.
Guest:Um, and then when I lived in Seattle, I studied, there was a great Russian teacher there, Leonid Anisimov who came, um,
Guest:and taught for almost six months in Seattle, taught Stanislavski and sort of claimed, I think it's probably true, you know, Stanislavski's later writings were not translated.
Guest:So Stanislavski, who founded, you know, what we know as modern acting,
Guest:Apparently, he had this whole new way of teaching at the end of his life that that that Leonid was supposedly teaching.
Guest:And it was a really beautiful method.
Guest:And then I studied with this other Russian guy, Gennady.
Marc:So he had the untranslated writings he knew.
Marc:Apparently, yeah.
Marc:He's like Joe Smith in the plates.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Got it.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:I mean, who knows if he has them or not?
Guest:I mean, there's so much lore in Russia.
Guest:You know, there's so much, so many things that, um, why not believe that around?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Uh, and then I studied also this kind of Meyerhold technique with another Russian teacher who came to Seattle.
Guest:Um, and then, and then the rest of it, I kind of hold Meyerhold.
Guest:What, what is that Meyerhold who was, uh, also a famous, famous, uh,
Marc:russian actor um and acted with stanslowski and uh had a another kind of method that was a more physical method of acting that he he developed it's interesting that like you seem to you've got you you bypass the whole americanization and legend of you know method bullshit and somehow managed to tap right into uh
Marc:direct descendants of the source material in Seattle.
Marc:So you didn't have to go through that whole fucking ego clusterfuck of the Straussburg, Wynn Hanman.
Marc:It's true.
Marc:Stanford Meisner and their fucking people.
Guest:You were like, no, I never took a Meisner class.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Apparently I got the direct.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But you know, but again, everyone's taking the claims.
Marc:You got the pure stuff.
Yeah.
Guest:I allegedly got the pure shit.
Marc:One generation removed, but it was close.
Marc:It wasn't like some like second generation Jewish guy that came up through the Lower East Side and decided that he was an acting wizard.
Marc:Good.
Marc:Not that I have anything against them.
Guest:No, I know.
Guest:They were great acting teachers.
Marc:Those Americans.
Marc:Yes, they're just all great people.
Marc:I'm just full of the beans sometimes.
Marc:I like throwing mythic people under the bus for a second.
Guest:No, they should be thrown under the bus.
Guest:That's what I say about my Russian acting teacher.
Guest:I think he was the real deal, but who knows, right?
Guest:Everybody is just making shit up and pretending like they're the expert.
Guest:I don't know if he was an expert, but I liked him.
Guest:And I do feel like I still have my notebook from that class and I refer to it a lot.
Marc:That's good.
Marc:You got a craft in place.
Marc:And how many plays have you written outside of what the Constitution is?
Guest:Um, probably I've had four produced in New York and there's probably 12 there.
Guest:Some of which I did in Seattle and some of that have never been produced.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:I want to, then one last question.
Marc:Like, are you, are you bummed you didn't win the Pulitzer?
Marc:Cause that must've been a hell of a day.
Marc:I mean, you gotta be a little bummed.
Marc:I mean, it's like, you're, you're so close.
Yeah.
Guest:Somebody wrote, I've been getting a lot of information
Guest:hateful comments because i call the constitution a living document in this ad so on facebook the liberty people yeah a lot of a lot of conservative and and people who consider themselves originalists i guess have been just calling me like a moron and a communist and all these things and um someone really wrote a long thread about how i lost the pulitzer
Guest:And that should disqualify me, I guess, from speaking about anything.
Marc:It's amazing the research these fucking monsters will do.
Marc:Like they could be putting their, you know, their anal weird compulsive behavior to such good use.
Marc:But it's like, no, let's teach the lady on television a lesson.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The person compared it to the Titanic saying like, well, you don't like congratulate the captain of the Titanic because the Titanic went down.
Guest:I guess my Pulitzer nomination is like that because I didn't win.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, of course I wish I had won.
Guest:It would be really fucking awesome to say I was a Pulitzer winner.
Guest:But the woman who won Jackie Sibley's Drury is Jackie Sibley's Drury.
Guest:I just mispronounced my name.
Guest:She's
Guest:I mean, I couldn't lose to a more brilliant person and that makes it a little easier.
Guest:I think if I had lost to somebody I didn't respect so deeply, I wouldn't.
Marc:Oh no, and it's great that you were recognized and all that.
Marc:It's so unnerving that people, how people focus on one thing to attack an entire lifetime of work without taking into consideration or even knowing what people really do.
Marc:It's such a gross element of our current culture.
Marc:But I love the work and it was great talking to you.
Marc:Nice seeing you again.
Guest:Nice seeing you too.
Guest:Thanks for having me on.
Guest:It really, truly is a pleasure.
Guest:I'm a big fan of your show and it was exciting to get to do this.
Marc:I'm excited for you.
Marc:And I thought it was exciting.
Marc:Got some good laughs.
Marc:You're a good laugher.
Marc:That makes me happy.
Marc:Say hi to Annie Baker for me.
Guest:I will.
Marc:I will.
Marc:Take it easy.
Guest:Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
Marc:Okay, as I said before, what the Constitution means to me is now streaming on Amazon Prime.
Marc:No music today.
Marc:I'm not at home.
Marc:Boomer lives.
Marc:LaFonda lives.
Marc:Monkey lives.
Marc:I'm just hoping for okay.
Marc:That's it.
you