CIli J 9 . F i l l 1447 19

A CONVERSATION WITH HORTON FOOTE

uiortuti Foote left Texas in ll> l.i at age 17 think about it. You have interesting mate- didn't. Then one day after these early Cite: Was there anybody else in television to beaurn'an actor. He would return liter- rial, an instinct, and a sense of place." plays had been on television, I got a letter at the time w r i t i n g regional things the eBy and tbemattcally to his hometown At the time, I didn't k n o w w h a t she from a lady w h o said, " I ' m very con- way you were? H o w did those regional of Wharton, .55 miles southwest of was talking about. At the time I thought, fused. I live in I larrison, Texas, but we themes play on national television? Houston, many limes during his distin- "Well, doesn't everyone write about have no G u l l breezes." I didn't k n o w Foote: Well, what happened was budgets guished career. From his early plays, lexas?" I just couldn't imagine that until then that there was a real Harrison were very small for television. And there which were performed live in the begin seemed peculiar. So, I thought about it on the other tide ol Dallas. Hut I didn't was a m a n , w h o was really a genius, nini; yean of television, to his nine-play and wrote a one-act play called Wharton change it; 1 decided to stick w i t h it. called h'red Coe. He was a producer from Orph.ins' Home Cycle, to his screenplays Dance. I knew so little that I used real Alligator, Mississippi, w h o decided, since for film, Foote has maintained an undeni- names of kids I grew up w i t h . We put it Cite: The 1950s were a unique time in he liked writers a lot and couldn't afford able connection to Texas. His screenplays o n in our o w n little studio theater, and television wit h shows like the "Philco- stars, he w o u l d make the writer the star. forTo Kill A Mockingbird (1962), 11 ir some reason Robert Coleman, w h o Goodyear Playhouse" and "Playhouse So he featured the writers, really starred Tender Mercies (IfSt) and The Trip to was a critic then for the Daily Mirror, 90." There was a group of distinguished us. It was always k n o w n as a I Eorton Bountiful (1985) were honored with saw it and liked it a lot, and, of course, actors and directors. Foote play or a Paddy Chayefsky play or Academy Award nominations, with the 1 was thrilled. Foote: It was an exciting time. We were a Core Vidal play So I came along, ami it first two winning the award. His play I was only 22 or 2 1 , and I senr the pioneers in a way because television was never occurred to me to write about any- Young Man From Atlanta won the notice and the play back to my mother. live. There was no tape, and it was really thing else but Texas, Fortunately he was a fuliUer Prize for Drama in / ' W . She was so excited about it that she put quite close to theater, w h i c h is w h y I Southerner, so he was very sympathetic. Horton Foote lives and works in something in the Wharton Spectator. liked it a lot. There was a group from the I had enormous success. Vlhiirtoii, where he met with Terrence So all of my friends read the play, but Actors' Studio — Lee Strasberg was quite The most important play for me, the Doody and Honya Crenader on August they were not t o o happy because it wasn't active then, and all of these young actors one that really upset the apple cart when 5,1997, for this Cite interview. all complimentary. I mean, there were were coming along: Ceraldine Page, K i m television came of age, was The Trip to girls d r i n k i n g beer in the play, and they Stanley, Julie Harris. They were just start- Bountiful, That was also because Lillian didn't do that in those days — weren't ing out, and they were burgeoning, obvi- Cish played the role of Carrie Watts. She Cite: We've read that you came to w r i t i ng supposed to. I learned the lesson very ously great talents. Same way w i t h the hadn't been seen in a while, but she had in an interesting way. Early in your career, quickly that, however you did it, you directors: A r t h ur I'enn, Vincent Donehue, this tremendous f o l l o w i n g in America when you were an actor, Agnes l)e Mille didn't use real names. and Del ben M a n n . because of her film w o r k . isked if you ever thought about writing . Everybody was defining TV — mak- I hadn't realized the impact of televi- Foote: That's right. I was quite young (ate: The setting for your early plays was ing it up for themselves. Paddy Chayefsky sion. The studio was fairly small at N B C , mid was invited by M a r y Hunter to join a t o w n called Harrison — a fictional and I were close friends, but we had a 1 saw the dress rehearsal in the booth the American Actors' Company. Members place, but isn't it very similar to Wharton? diflerent vision. I le wanted to do much with the technicians, and then I went to of the company came from all parts of Also, in many ol these plays there is more w i t h the cinema — which finally see it on the set. When we came out after- America, and we tried to get each other something about the C u l t , the breeze won out because of the economics, not ward for the reception with the actors, it familiar with our certain regions. We or smell of the Gulf, and other particulars the aesthetics. When the television indus- was an enormous success. William Paley, wuuld do improvisations, and I was al- of the Texas landscape. try moved out to the coast, it was good- who was at CBS, said, "Television has ways doing something about Texas. Agnes Foote: It's interesting — I took the name bye; then, the minute they discovered come of age tonight. " A n d it was mainly kadcume to do a show w i t h us, and she Harrison because my grandfather's name tape, if was another good-bye. W i t h tape because of Lillian Cish. took me aside and asked, " H a v e you was Albert Harrison Foote. There is a they could stop and cut, but you couldn't Then K i m Stanley had great success thought about w r i t i n g ? " When I said, well-known family lure named I larrison. do that w i t h teleplays — once you started in a play of mine called Young Lady of "No, I never have," she said, " Y o u should They all think I used their name, but I you couldn't stop. Property. I went on and o n , but finally I lid H W I M Foote. Ftnlo by EH H. tntonmi 2 0 I .il I I <>9 7 • Cite 39

jusr quit because 1 didn't feel these things when the highway was paved, and they I .isi t olumbia in Bra/oria * iunity. has probably changed even more than were coming very spontaneously out of took the highway to the coast, there was And from there my grandfather came to Wharton, k\ .nisi- t [ i i \ weren't able tu me and my experiences and what J a big debate about whether to bypass the Wharton. The plantation was torn d o w n shoot the film there. They had to shoot thought about this plact . I ft Ir ] would town, I he merchants were against it, said in the 1950s or 1960s. My branch ot the it on the back lot at Universal. begin to repeat. ll w o u ld kill W h a r t o n , that people w o u ld family didn't inherit it. W h a r t o n itself is never trade in W h a r t o n again, and they still an old t o w n , and most of the original Cite: Certain scenes in the f i l m were Cite: It must have been interesting for won out. A n d I remember the advent of lamilies Mill have land here Sinn, ol tht ir not in the novel — I remember one on you to take Trip ttt Bountiful from that the car and when the first filling station children have si.iveil; some are farmers, a porch. teleplay to a stage play. was built on this street, I suppose they but it's all changed. Foote: Yes, that was one I invented. Foote: A n d then to f i l m. thought it was progress. The other thing that defined the t o w n CHe: Orphans' Hume Cycle, written Cite: There were conversations overrun T Cite: You're k n o w n for a certain kind back then was the invention of the cotton in the l 9 lls, is a series ot plays based from the inside of the house to the pord ol independence, machine. 1 was carrying on about the cot- more specifically on your family — par- and vice versa. One was w i t h the chil- hoote: That's right, I'll fight for it. I'll ton machine, and someone asked " D i d ents, grandparents. dren, in their bedroom, talking about take much less money to keep some mea- you ever pick c o t t o n ? " I said, " W e l l , n o . " Foote: Yes, I didn't k n o w this until about their mother. It seems that could have sure ot control. I he\ said, " I t you had gone in that field ten years ago, but Shelby foote and I happened on the porch of this house. and picked cotton you w o u l d understand realized we were kill. O u r ancestors — I Foote: Well, that's where I got it. See, Cite: Samuel Irccdinan nl the \ V ( r Wi tin- cotton machines." My father had a don't k n o w how many greats ago — that was my front bedroom, and I'd go limes describes your work as "offering a store. I worked w i t h h i m , and we w o u l d were brothers in Virginia. Mis branch to sleep listening to my mother and fatht private kind of pleasure, much like the open the store Irom 7 in the m o r n i n g to went to South Carolina, then finally to talking on the gallery. My father called u scrubby, flat landscape of W h a r t o n in I I at night on Saturday because that was Mississippi. M i n e came d o w n to Gal- a gallery, my mother called it a porch, 1 winter; ordinary to the itinerant eye but a day ot great celebration — e v e r y o n e veston. The story was that they had listened to them. If you remember in the oddly beautiful to one w h o lingers," coming in f r o m the fields. N o w von go a shipping fleet out of Galveston or that novel, ihe mother is scarcely mentioned, Foote: Yon know, I've always thought n into t o w n on Saturday, and no one is they came d o w n to buy and sell cotton, you just don't k n o w what happened CO was beautiful around here. It never there. I've long since stopped being upset but no one is alive w h o remembers. her, and that bothered me. After all thnt occurred to me that one w o u l d n ' t . My by it. I just observe and say, " T h i s is years I asked Harper about it because wife, w h o passed away five years ago, how ir is." Cite: You mentioned that you k n o w many she never complained about the changes. adored it. She thought it was beautiful, ot the old stories. I've read that you were But in this scene I was able to bring in and my children think it's magical. I do Cite: So much of your w o r k is about a good listener as a child; you spoke of a the mother. like it; there's something very appealing change, about characters c o m i n g to terms strong oral tradition in the South. This house was built the year I was about it. Willi those changes. Foote: Yes, I took it all in. People seemed born | 1 9 I 6 ] , and I was brought here as hoote: Yes, what else are you going to very real to me because of these stories. I a baby. My grandfather built it as a kind Cite: If you had never left, how w o u l d do? 1 still keep a place in New Y o r k , and was ,iK\a\s lascmated by the quirks in of peace offering. My mother and father that have affected your imagination and I was w a l k i ng d o w n Hudson Street in lamilies, w hy one person in a family was eloped, and my grandparents weren't your sense ol this place? Greenwich Village when someone asked successful and another person wasn't. speaking to them. Foote: I've always kept in touch. I'm real- me, " D i d you k n o w the Hudson River There were vivid storytellers in my family, ly a senior citizen out here — one of the used to be here, and they've filled it all and it was interesting to listen to them. Cite: D i d you feel you were out of place last — so I carry a great deal of the histo- in?" Well, there it is. I was never bored. I sometimes can't when you lived elsewhere? ry, and people are always calling me believe they're all gone. There are so Foote: O h , no. For so long my world w* about it. lint memory can't always be Cite: They did it to build tenement many rhings I w o u l d like to ask n o w that the theater, and m a way, my w o r l d is si trusted, you know. When 1 talk to the houses. H o w did your family come to I didn't think to ask them — so many the theater. In some ways I've made an people w h o have lived here forever, have \X barton? things that you get different versions of, adjustment now. I just have learned to never left, I think their sense about the Foote: My great-great-grandfather, Albert and you don't k n o w really which is cor- live without the theater. First of all, it's |>lace is different from mine. They may be Clinton i l o r t o n , came f r o m Alabama. I've rect. H o w much is fantasy and how much shrinking. But that was my great passion a little more pragmatic than I a m . M o s t of never k n o w n h o w he got here. 1 think he is reality, whatever reality is, none of us much more than f i l m . I was just a theata them have a sense of loss. 1'art of it is sen- first went to Matagorda. I don't think he realK knows. It's so subicctivc. nut. I was either teaching or directing ot timental, I suppose, because, as we know, came to W h a r t o n until, well, I k n o w the I didn't live here for a while, but I've writing or involved in some way. And nothing is going to stay the same. I don't plantation was built in IH40. He was a always come back to visit. About eight that's a very special w o r l d . I've never know quite the way 1 rationalize it. very successful planter. He had sugar cane years ago I decided to come back, and it been able to write about the theater. I've For instance, when I was young the and cotton. I don't k n o w how many acres was a very wise decision. In a way I feel tried a couple of times, but my instincts street my grandparents' house was on was he had, but a large amount of acreage. like a stranger because the W h a r t o n that are not there. called Quality H i l l , and the houses were I le had 120 slaves. You think of what it I stilt cherish is obviously not here. There- Katherine Anne Porter, w h o m I just fantastic. When 1 think of h o w it is was like, the slavery, and you almost can't were eight families that controlled every- admire a great deal, thinks — I've never now, I have a surge of anger. But then 1 conceive of it. But there it was, and it was thing. They seemed almost, well, immor- proved ilns theory, but I have a hunch n think, " W e l l , that's ridiculous, it's hap- not that long ago. tal. A n d they're all gone. true — that for writers, themes arc esttt- pened all over America. " I w o u l d have He was first lieutenant governor of lished by the time you are ten years old, been too young to do anything about it, Texas, during the M e x i c an War. The gov- Cite: I was recently watching the f i l m To It doesn't mean that you stick in that but the people here have viewed it as a ernor went off to war, so he became gov- Kill a Mockingbird, which you adapted period of time, but what is going to con- great loss. The street tins bouse was on ernor. His portrait is in the rotunda of the for the screen from Harper Lee's novel. cern you thematically is somehow myste- was called Richmond Road. When I grew Capitol as governor, which he was indeed It was such a m o v i n g book and f i l m. riously there. I think she may be right. up it was gravel, and it took four or five — at least half a term. Foote: It was interesting because Harper hours to get to Houston. Often it was so M y mother's branch of the family all and 1 are very good friends; we share the Cite: Are there any writers you like who muddy you couldn't get there at all. But came from Virginia. They came first to same sensibility. I think her Monroeville you think are strong writers about their file J •> I .111 I 9 9 ; 2\

Mrs. Watts: It's strange how much I had forgotten, Ludie. Pretty soon it'll all be gone. Five years . .

ten . . . our house . you . me tense of place? I'd like to go to Ireland, I guess, because Footer I was thinking of J. K Powers, who of Yeats and people like that. A dear writes a lot of short stories. A practicing Ludie: Yes'm. friend of mine was 1 ierbert Berghoff who Catholic, he writes about Catholics in a had a famous acting studio m New York wonderful way. 1 think he's a great Mrs. Watts: But the river will be — HB Studio. He was a Jewish refugee wriicr. Willa Gather was a great writer. from Germany and, even though he Nathaniel Hawthorne was a great writer. spoke English fairly well, he asked me here. T h e fields. T h e woods. T h e once, "Do you know what it is like to Citt: I've just been teaching Proust, and lose your language?" Ami 1 think that's he is as firmly in the place of his child partly it. I find myself very insecure — in hood as anybody. By the time he was ten, smell of the Gulf. T h a t ' s what I other words, I don't have any linguistic it was all set. talents. Somewhere very early on, I got Foote: Yes, that's right. Well, look at intimidated. There are many people I Philip Roth's Partnny's Complaint — took my strength from, Ludie. Not know and admire thai are passionate there's a man who writes about his milieu about learning Italian and Spanish ami — and Adventures of Augie March by from houses. Not from p e o p l e. French, Russian, Japanese, and so fin. Saul Bellow about the Jewish experience. And the nearest I've gotten is because I'm very fond of Ezra Pound's Cantos. And so One of my favorite novels — a short The Trip to Bountiful. 1953 novel. Seize the Day, by Bellow — I do a lot of work on that — trying to absolutely comes out of his experience. figure out something he's talking about. A writer who is not read much today but For instance, I don't have any desire to go at one time was very popular is James T. turn and examine it, almost impersonally, I don't know about you, but I have no to Mexico, Something about being away Farrell, who wrote about Chicago. and try not to be sentimental or subjec- desire to see any of these new films. I just from my language is very frightening to Most writers I admire have a strong tive. I just try to know the truth as it is, don't go. It wouldn't do me any good, mc. Well, that's very provincial, I know. sense of place. of that moment. That's the only kind of since we don't have a movie theater here. But, this is inn resting, speaking i.l tin truth you can count on, because the Hut I belong to the Academy so every Mexican culture. The thing I'm working Cite: Did you know Gore Vidal at all? truth can fool you. Who would have year I'm inundated with videos. ! watch on now for Universal is dramatizing Foote: Yes. thought that the morass here would die as many as I can so I can vote sensibly. 1 Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House on the down, too? Now the filling stations arc have films that I watch here. I'm very Prairie series. 1 have a housekeeper who Cite: I just read his autobiography last all closing and moving to another area. fond ot a )apanese filmmaker called O/u. is Mexican and doesn't speak English month, Palimpsest, and was surprised 1 Who knows what will happen here with And 1 love John Huston's The Dead. very well. She's having great trouble get- liked ir so much. I was moved by it. activity moving to the freeway? And There's a film called jean dc Florette that ting to be a citizen because of the lan- Foote: I was moved by it, too, and also who would've thought that there's not a is very different in style. It isn't that I only guage barrier — even though she should very saddened by it. He's bright, oh so merchant left in downtown Wharton like gentle, quiet films — Jean de Florette he, she'd be a fine citizen. And she was bright, and politically, I usually agree except one, and he lives in Houston has a lot of melodrama .use! thrust to it. in here the other day and said, "Oh, my with him. 1 think he's awfully hard on Bill and commutes? It's just the sensibility that interests me. daughter's reading those books." Her Clinton, whom 1 happen to like a tot. I daughter is tin ve.irs old, and it's so mar- haven't seen Gore in a long time, but Cite: You've talked about how film has Cite: In addition to your current screen- velous for me to think that this child, •here was a time when I did see him quite changed. Do you have optimism for the play and the retrospective of your films whose mother can hardly speak English, often, and he was always witty and independent filmmaker? at the Telluride Festival, are there other is an avid reader. always nice to be around. Foote: Well, it's very difficult. Increasingly pro|ecis? difficult. I just finished a film called Foote: I'm also writing my memoirs for Cite: Those are books with a strong Cite: In your recent play, Young Man Alone, which will show at the Telluride Scribner — only the first 16 years. They sense of place — my memory is that From Atlanta, you come back to Film Festival this September. Now, you want me to do Wharton, and I think real- every other chapter begins: "And then it Houston. almost have to finance through cable. ly more about Wharton than about me. got colder . . ." Foote: Houston has always been the We can thank Mr. Keagan for that, one Foote: When they called me about it, I nearby city because i was raised here. I'm of the many things he blessed us with. Cite: You say you still keep an apartment had never seen it on television. I heard it sentimental about Houston, too. Those There was a time that there was an in New York. Do you go there often? was not very good, and 1 didn't think 1 fantastic oaks. 1 cannot bear to go down antitrust ordinance against the big studios Foote: Well, during Young Man From wanted to do them. But I decided to look Main Street. It's a trashy street now. owning the theaters, then he came along Atlanta, I was there a lot. And when it at them, and I was very impressed. It's Maybe it was never as beautiful as I and changed all that. Now the studios was nominated for a Tony, 1 went for not Mark Twain — it's not Huck and it's remember it. control everything, and it's very hard for that. And I'll go back in October for a not Tom — but there's something very xt independents. It's getting to be so corpo- bookstore that's opening and wants to honest about them. Don't you think so? lift Cite: Young Man From Atlanta was not rate. Well, it's tin- same .is ilit- publishing feature nn hooks. Ii |usi depends on what tab so much about change in Houston but of books. It's all getting to be ant; big happens; if I have another play done. Cite: Absolutely. Wilder's descriptions of Id about change thrust upon the characters, conglomerate, like hospitals, to make the landscape are beautiful. about circumstances. If people left more money. And that's what's driving the Cite: Are there any other places, large Foote: When they came down here, right nn- Harrison for Houston because of oppor- engine. Not that you don't have to make cities or not, that interest you? here in this room, I said, "Look, if I do Stt tunity, do you think these towns and a profit; you do, to stay in business. But Foote: I'm really very provincial that way. this I'm not going to sentimentalize this. ones can he as resilient as some of when I made those films, particularly I don't think I'm a good traveler. I'm too I'm going to somehow find the spirit of your characters? those that my wife and I could do togcth involved with my work, I guess. Now, these books." I don't know that it's possi ha Foote: I don't think you can predict that. cr, we could do them for under $2 mil- when i go to London, which I don't do ble, but I'm sure going to try. There's a •ir I don't try to do that. 1 try to take a situa- lion. It's very hard to do that today. often, I spend all my time in the theater. great quietness about it. 11 I .1 I I I ')

Cite: Music seems to play a critical part decided I was going to be an actor, and I Why did you come into the room? W h a t in your plays. Is that something that you wasn't going to go to college. My parents is your purpose? So it unconsciously fed grew up with? thought I was too young to make that that movement towards a sense of struc- Foote: N o t then. A g a i n, 1 don't judge, decision, so I had to wait a year. W h e n I ture. I was very grateful because, believe bin there was no music culture here. 1 turned 17 they said, " W e l l , if you still me, by my second play I was k n o w n as a guess the most complicated music I heard want n> go, we can'l have you go tO NeH promising playwright, and I knew noth- growing up was Ethelbert N e v i n . My York, you're just too y o u n g . " So they ing about playwnghting. mother played the piano, my father sent me to Pasadena Playhouse in collected songs like " G o o d n i g h t Mr. California, which was a w e l l - k n o w n the- Cite: That must have been difficult. Elephant* and " M y Sweetheart's the M a n ater school, an o u t g r o w t h of what was Foote: lr was very hard. Tor about tour in the M o o n . " I was fascinated, though, then called community theater. They years it was painful. So I got away from when I sat on the porch out there and taught acting by acting, and the first realistic plays and began to work with heard music, through the cotton fields thing they put me in was a R o m a n come- dancers. I w o r k e d w i t h M a r t h a G r a h a m , two streets over. That's where all the dy. Well, I had read one Shakespeare play, Jerry Robbins, Agnes De M i l l e , and hlaek harhecue joints and barbershops and it wasn't very helpful. But 1 survived Valerie Bettis. Then I went to Washington were, and sitting on the porch, I could and got to New York, where I met a and started a theater of my o w n w i t h my hear their music. A n d on the other side woman named Rosamond Pinchot from a wife. Most of my plays during that time you could hear the baptist church, famous family. She had been the nun in could be considered highly experimental. because they had the w i n d o w s open, Max Rinehart's The Miracle. I told her I I was trying to find a way to use dance always. I'd hear the hymns over here was looking for a job, and she said, " I ' m anil niii-.it and language all together. and the blues over there. studying w i th the Russians, and I need a Sam Shepard's a playwright w h o There's a great thing in Charles Ives's scene partner. W o u l d you be interested?" seems to do that in his play The Tooth music, of which I've gotten very fond and M> Russian teacher had come to America of Crime. by which 1 lived when I was w o r k i n g on with Michael Chekhov, and they were all the Orphans' I limit' C.'yWe. That music disenchanted w i t h politics. It all had an Cite: Do you have other favorite play- has all these thematic interests. I've got- enormous impact on me. They had great wrights? 1 notice John M i l l i n g t o n Synge ten very interested in music. Reynolds scorn for American acting and the com- on the shelf there, the Irish playwright. Price wrot e in his introduction to one of mcrculism of it. It wasn't called " t he Foote: I like him a lot. I do have my piays that I'm " t h e most musical of method" at that time — that was Lee favorites. I'm very, very close to Chekhov. American playwrights." I don't k n o w Strasherg. i worked w i t h h i m , too, so I Almost as much for his short stories as how he arrived at that, because I never became a great believer in method acting. his plays. I think it's a wonderfu l way ot training. formally studied music. But the structure When I went to Pasadena, I was o f music interests me a lot. practically play illiterate. I'd read a lot Last night, for some reason, I turned Cite: A more realistic way? ol novels, and i|uitc fortunate!) the things on Channel H, and they're doing a series Foote: They say that, but what is real- I'd read have stood me in good stead. I on the history of rock ' n ' r o l l , and I lis- ism,- It's in-.! .is much ol .i discipline as loved W i l la Gather, even as a young boy, tened. 1 don't k n o w what they're talking anything else. When you get right d o w n and I hived M a r k T w a i n , and 1 loved The about. To me, it's a lot oi noise. That to it, if something has integrity and mean- Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy. dates me, doesn't if? I had no relationship ing, I don'l think the o u t w a r d form But anyway, during my second year rn Ives .ii in |ohu ( ,ig, , .mil now the) means very much. I think there can be in Pasadena, for my birthday, my grand- are my passion. This other music just as much sham in surrealism or mother came out there. Eva Le Callienne seems almost sentimentally sensuous. expressionism or whatever. Actually, had |ust closed at the Civic Rep. and she They're priding themselves on something there's nothing realistic about it, but they was on tour w i t h three Ibsen plays. I had where there's not much substance. I go after a certain sense of t r u t h . never seen Ibsen and never read h i m . So know tli.it popular music has always my grandmother asked if I'd like to go been sentimental. Cite: There is a truthfulness in your see Hedda. I d i d , and I was transfixed dialogue. and said, "I want to see all three." So Cite: Are there poets you like besides Foote: Yes, the thing the Russians gave she took me to all three, and that really Pound? me was a sense of structure. They had changed my lite. I thought, "That's what Faote: I adore h i m . I love his early w o r k . enormous respect for plays. W o r k i n g as I w a n t to d o . I want to be a part of that And he's influenced me because ol his an actor, you w o u ld w o r k first to find kind of theater." • brevity and the preciseness of him. what the overall thrust of the play was Well you can see behind you [gestures about and then break it d o w n into beats to bookshelves] the poets I like — Dylan or actions or whatever you w a n t to call Thomas, Elizabeth Bishop, Robert that. So you began to see that there were Perm Warren . . . bones, and that there was a spine, ribs, and arms, and legs, and how it was all Cite: When you were an actor. . . connected. That was the search you made Foote: Long time ago . . . as an actor. So when I came along as a writer, I Cite:. . . was there a philosophy during instinctively began to do the same thing that time — a concept? — looking for structure. As an actor we Foote: When I first started, I was 15. I were taught to ask. What do you want? C I tc S9 • Fall 1997 2?

\

look H w u , Whorlon, 1997. Photo by Noiyo borate

"That was my front bedroom,

and I'd go to sleep listening to my mother and father

talking on the gallery,

M y father called it a gallery, my mother called it a porch."