Q & A: Director Sean Graney
What happens when you tell an already-cheeky director that being irreverent is “part of his persona?” Artistic Administrator Jack Tamburri found out when he interviewed The Mystery of Irma Vep’s director, Sean Graney. A podcast of the interview is available online at www.CourtTheatre.org/podcast/, but here’s an excerpt of what Sean had to say about classic theatre, his experience at Court, and audiences’ taste in pineapples.
Jack: You write plays, and you occasionally direct new work—primarily at Chicago Children’s Theatre—but mostly, throughout your career in Chicago, you’ve been directing classic plays. How is working on a classic different from a play you’ve written, or a new play? Why have classics been the majority of your focus?
Sean: I think that when I try to generate new plays completely out of the blue, like great playwrights can do, it doesn’t feel quite as good to me as when I start from source material. I feel like I’m a derivative artist, and I feel like that’s where I thrive. I thrive within this really strong framework—commenting on the framework and playing within the framework, and using the framework to its own advantage. I feel that’s when I’m best as a director. As a playwright, my favorite things to do are adaptations, where I can take this story that already exists and make out of it my own really strong story that’s in tandem to the story that already exists and comments on it.
Jack: In 2007 you directed What the Butler Saw here at Court. Tell me about your experience working at Court on such an outrageous play, and learning about Court’s audience.
Sean: It was a great experience for me, it really was. The support structure that Court has for the artists making the plays is amazing. Everybody feels like a family—the same people have worked here for years and years and years together, and they really understand each other. I was very welcomed from the get-go, and I had some crazy ideas for that play. And the response was always “Yes.” In terms of the audience, the truth is, I went really, really far with that play because I felt that Joe Orton wanted that play to go really, really far. And I felt that, since it was written in the 1960s, we have gotten used to a lot of the topics that were once taboo. So, in honor of Joe Orton, I felt like really pushing the play to a sort of outer limit of taste. And I think that Court audiences were interested by it. Some of the post-show discussions were very engaging and interesting, because there were some people that were just like, “This whole thing is a terrible mockery of theatre.” And then there were some people who understood, “Oh, you did exactly what Joe Orton would want you to do.” I love that exchange of ideas, because not everybody’s going to like everything, no matter how much I try, which I do try. I mean, my goal with every production is that everybody will like it. But once it opens, I realize that it’s about taste a lot of the time, and some people like pineapple, some people don’t like pineapple, and you can’t get mad because somebody doesn’t like pineapple. So, I tend to—because I make broad strokes, and subtlety is not my strong suit as a director—I tend to alienate people, but then, on the other side of it, I tend to really—
Jack: You’ve got a lot of fans.
Sean: I think I inspire some people as well as turn a lot of people off to me. I don’t want to make bland, middle-of-the-road experiences for people because I feel like, not only in theatre but in life, people have bland, middle-of-the-road experiences all throughout their days, you know what I mean? Of course I would rather people come up to me and say, “That was an amazing experience!” when they come to one of my shows. But if someone comes and says, “That show was offensive! I’m totally upset. I’m never going to see another Sean Graney show again!” then at least they know themselves better, they experienced a little bit of excitement in their lives.
-Edited by Laura Burgos
–Jack Tamburri, Artistic Administrator
