Pulitzer Prize finalist, Adam Rapp is one of the most prolific artists in America; in 2015 alone he has a new novel coming out, called Know Your Beholder, he’s planning on bringing two shows to the stage - one he did last year in Australia, the other he developed at NYU - is working on new a TV show for HBO about the music scene in the 70s and is also releasing a new film, called Loitering with Intent. The film was written by Michael Godere and Ivan Martin, who also star as two down on their luck writers who take a trip to the country in order to write a screenplay that might just give them their big break. Hilarity and chaos ensue when their creative weekend is interrupted by siblings, sexy strangers and jealous partners who in the end might just be the very inspiration the writers need to get the job done. The film also stars Marisa Tomei, Sam Rockwell, Brian Geraghty and Natasha Lyonne.
Rapp is no stranger to chaos, which seems to be the axis around which most of his plays revolve, his characters are often drawn to extreme situations that challenge their notions of self, as they point out the absurdity of modern living. As a writer, Rapp’s dark sense of humor leads him to create truly unforgettable characters that manage to be quotable without ever being reduced to mere intellectual concepts. As a filmmaker, he achieves the same; he knows exactly how long to keep the camera rolling, where to cut and despite the theatricality of his filmography, you leave his films believing the characters will go on existing after the credits end. We talked to Rapp about making Loitering with Intent, how NYC affects his work and discussed the possibility of ever seeing his work on Broadway.
Watching Loitering with Intent reminded me of Bingo with the Indians because they’re both about people trying to raise money to do their shows.
Oh right!
Was that one of the reasons why you wanted to direct this film?
You know what I never thought of that, because the play has an absurdity and lunacy to it, but I see the parallel, because it’s really about these artists who are willing to put themselves through hell in order to achieve a possibility in their career. I think the guys in the movie have toiled for so long...and it’s hard to watch really talented actors become professional bartenders and I think this film is like an antidote to do that and hopefully not an anecdote about that. Like Bingo, in a more sincere and more poignant way, this film discusses what it means to be an artist in New York City and what it means to try and achieve an opportunity so you can approach an idea of transcendence in some way. How can we elevate out of our daily grind and do this thing called art, which is why so many of us come to NYC. We try to pursue lives as artists, and that’s what drew me to the film.
Since you brought up the city, I find it interesting that most of the plays you’ve written have characters who escape their hometowns to come to NYC, and this film is the opposite, you have the characters leave the city in order to be reborn and then come back.
Yeah, that’s definitely something we were thinking about a lot, and even visually it was interesting to me and the cinematographer. We wanted to show the claustrophobic feeling of the city, besides the buildings there’s so much noise, it’s strange that we come here to be artists. I’ve been in the same apartment for 23 years, and I’ve tried to create a sanctuary where I can do my work and have the life that I want to have. And it’s weird that our sanctuaries in NYC, for at least 95% of us, are these small rooms with bookcases and a laundry in the corner. It’s about how finding a small space to dream and work and sleep and wake up and pursue a career as an artist. When we were discussing the interiors of NYC and the exteriors of upstate New York, we wanted to capture the bucolic elements of upstate, the treelines, the colors, the flowers...because we don’t see that down here. We only see the color grey, the color of cement and how the rain affects that, or the three story buildings in the East Village. It’s interesting that we come here wanting to be artists and many of us end up creating these cages for ourselves, and if you only go two or three hours away you can rediscover the concept of beauty.
Do you find that all these East Village blackbox theaters inspire you in any way?
Yeah, those are my churches, that’s my religion. I love trying to create intense stories in these little black boxes where seventy or forty people come, and give them an experience they’ll never forget. It’s like giving them an invitation to intimacy in some ways. I’ve always loved those spaces because you get so much closer to the actor, so you are much closer to the emotional truth of something. It’s really hard to convey those kinds of stories in huge proscenium Broadway theaters. You can do it, but that’s why I think great directors are great, but I really love the closer the audience is, the happier I am, which is why I also love the camera, because you can push in on a close up and get to their thoughts.
I know you love New York City and for some reason I think out of all the shows I’ve seen recently, If/Then is the one that captures the city the best. Did you talk to Anthony about this when he was doing the show?
He said that one of the things that was challenging for him was that he had to dance a lot in the show, there’s a lot of movement, and my brother’s 43 now and he just had knee surgery and had to leave the show because he got injured playing on the Broadway softball league, like pivoting on second base to pitch somebody out, and the reason I’m bringing that up is because when I saw the show, on opening night, there’s so much energy onstage, like there was in Rent, but even the cross-fading of scenes and the multiplicity of actors onstage at the same time, feels more like a modern New York, the way stories slide into each other. I thought that was really exciting, it wasn’t just vignette after vignette, there was lots of different accesses that were being thrown together at the same time, so he talked to me early in the process about how this was a different way of doing a Broadway musical, how there was this constant overlaying of movement, which I thought was really exciting.
I thought "this is what an Adam Rapp musical would be like"!
Oh that’s interesting…
You’ve said in the past that your shows are probably too dark for big Broadway houses, but have you ever woken up and said “hey, I wanna write a Broadway type show today”?
I’ve never really thought that way, but one thing I’m interested in is trying to do something in a commercial venue that’s a completely different experience for the audience, and that they might not even be seating at all.
Something like Here Lies Love?
I didn’t see that, but I want to do something that’s a different experience for the audience, something without the proscenium, where the audience is excited to physically be challenged to stand through something. That would be really cool, maybe the show is happening over their head in a circus way, or to tell a story that gets people out of their chairs. It seems like it would be a different kind of experience, not necessarily a “rock and roll” kind of experience, but something with that energy. I’ve always been blown away that back in the 90s when I would go to The Knitting Factory all the time and see bands, that people always complained that young people wouldn’t go to see theater and then there’d be like 150 25-year-olds standing up to see a slow-core band like Low or Cat Power. They would stand and completely devote their attention to something and not drop their beer and not be on their phone, it was just thing thing where the stakes were high for them and they were engaging with it in such an exciting way that they were willing to stand. And then you hear the stories about the old Globe and the Shakespeare theatres, where in the pits, they would wet down the mud so you couldn’t sit. I just think that’s a really interesting way to re-imagine how we are like audience members and to try to do that in a commercial venue would be really exciting.
Right, something like what Fuerza Bruta does.
Yeah exactly, I saw that and it was so exciting, where everything was happening above you, and to try and tell a story that way, without it having to be a circus event, but a narrative play could be really interesting.
I found it kinda funny that in the UK they took your film Winter Passing and renamed it Happy Endings.
Yeah, which I didn’t even know about until about six months ago (laughs) I had nothing to do with it. In fact I don’t even think the movie is streamable on Netflix, I think it’s the hardest movie to find. I’ve had people tell me they’ve tried to find it, it’s really strange. I saw an image of it and it had Will Ferrell in his Saturday Night Live days and Zooey Deschanel looking like she does on TV which is so not what the film is about at all. It’s sort of telling of what our culture is like nowadays.
Do you find it kinda funny though, especially since people have pointed out how sad your plays usually are?
I do, yeah, and they call it Happy Endings... like calling to mind the end of a Russian massage in my neighborhood (laughs). I don’t know what happened, it’s embarrassing and I hope they’d just call it Winter Passing and just embrace the film for what it is, a sad, slow burn of a drama with a little bit of humor, which is what I wanted to make.
Loitering with Intent is now out in theaters and available on VOD.
