| Review Fix chats with playwright Richard Curtis, who discusses their newest production, “Quiet Enjoyment.†For More Information, Click Here. About the Production: Who will survive The Closing? As the clock runs down, desperation rises for the harried junior manager trying to seal her first deal, the out-of-touch avuncular attorney, the smug type-A seller with both the ex-wife and yoga instructor girlfriend in attendance, the papers fly and the temperature rises. A can’t-miss farce that brings out the uncooperative in co-op. Review Fix: What was the inspiration for this project? |
Richard Curtis: A crazy incident at my own closing sparked the idea. Since then I have heard horror stories from dozens of buyers and sellers.
| Review Fix: What is your creative process? |
Curtis: I need to know how a play will end and what statement I want the ending to make (political, spiritual, etc) Then I create characters to represent that statement. But then the characters take over and push back, and half the time the play goes in a completely different direction. Whenever I get blocked I realize it’s because a character of mine is protesting about being made to behave out of character.
I start every day’s session from page 1, adding a few lines like dropping butter into dough and rolling it thinner and thinner and thinner.
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Review Fix: What did you learn/are learning about yourself through this process? |
Curtis: Thanks to my amazing director Marcus Gualberto I’ve learned that while my play may be funny in two dimensions (words on paper), the director makes it funny in three dimension (actors on stage) plus a fourth one, time, or rather timing. In a comedy, timing is almost everything.
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Review Fix: Tell me about the cast. What makes them special? |
Curtis: They bonded at once over the script, and they have since bonded with each other. Even when they’re not rehearsing they address each other by the names of their characters. They have inhabited their roles, and are reacting to one another theatrically, not just socially.
| Review Fix: What are your ultimate goals for this piece for the future? |
Curtis: Every New Yorker is involved in real estate whether they realize it or not. So let’s get them into the theater and make Quiet Enjoyment a permanent fixture in the Big Apple.
| Review Fix: Bottom line, why must someone see this production? |
Curtis: There’s so much depression in the world, I just want to make people laugh. Quiet Enjoyment is a combination of farce and drawing room comedy – witty repartee, Gilbert & Sullivan nonsense, and Punch and Judy pratfalls.
| Review Fix: What’s next ? |
Curtis: Vauthor – a satire on branding. Marketers take a shlubby, schnooky author and make him a media rock star.
| Review Fix: Anything else you’d like to add? |
Curtis: Laughter is alive and well at the Playroom Theater.
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