From Daytime Drama to Courtroom Drama

Beltline to Broadway: So how does working on soaps inform how you approach acting on stage?

John: And it’s something I can speak to right away. This is something both Marsha Clark, still a very good friend of mine, uh, talked about the first time we went to LA. Of course, when we’re doing daytime, what’s great about is you have multiple cameras and you, you get to do the whole scene. We went out to Hollywood and they would chop things up like, uh, somebody would come onto the set and they’d say, Oh my God, I have such a heavy day, I have a page and a half. And Marsha and I look at each other and it’s like, you know, here we are getting 50 pages a day, you know, in daytime. And so, um, but the experience of having, being able to do a scene beginning, middle, and end. You do get a run at it like you do in theater. You get to have the whole experience.

David: I can, I can dovetail on that and say that because of that, sometimes they want you to only do one pass on it. And if you get it, they’re like, we got it. We’re going to cut print.

Everything’s ready to go. And so being word perfect is not necessarily the name of the game. Whereas in theater, the word is the most important thing.

So if you’re not careful, you can develop a habit of substituting in the way I would say something versus the way in the case of this play, Mr. Wong. So I have found even working on this play, I’m like, oh, I’m saying a word that’s kind of like that. And it needs to be very, very precise, which like I said, can develop into that habit. But I think there’s pros and cons to both, but I will say it does. It’s like later because you do get a whole go at it. There’s three cameras working and you don’t have to stop to be set up.

John: I’m going through the script and I’m circling all of my bats because I don’t want to change a syllable. All of the stutters, all of the ellipses, all of the, well, it’s like, all of that is written in the theater. And you have to honor the playwright’s rhythm and words and structure.

Beltline: And even the film is so theatrical in its rhythm and language. I’m glad, not alone in the love of the language.  I also want to ask, sticking with the soap opera theme for a second, because I’ve been watching, you know, I follow Broadway, and I’ve seen a lot of talk about the stage door and fans at the stage door of late. And I feel like coming from the soap opera world, soap opera fans, they’re a fanatical bunch, as our superhero fans, John, as you know all too well, having appeared on The Flash. So in your opinion, how has fandom evolved and changed maybe for the better or worse? 

John: Daytime drama audiences and comic book audiences have a lot in common. So there are fans who have watched that or read the comics, and they know as much or more about those families and the histories of those towns than you do. And you better find out about it from the executive producer on down and honor the legacy.

David: Somebody described to me once that because we were in people’s homes five days a week instead of one day a week, there is a connection that many viewers feel that they don’t have with a prime time show or even a stage experience.

John: There’s such immediate access to social media, and sometimes one could get the closeness wrong. It’s like, yes, we are close as a character and as someone who enjoys the show. Within that, we share personal things with each other.

But most of these people I’ve never met. And so sometimes it can be a little awkward. Someone said the word respect is getting the distance right. And it can be confusing when everybody has total access to everyone all the time to get that distance right.

Beltline: I think what I love about theater so much is that it demands its audience be active and present and engaged. You both appeared on stage in these courtroom dramas, which courtroom drama, nothing makes you be more engaged than that because there’s so much detail and intricacy. What did you learn from the audience in doing that kind of play that you’re bringing to this production of Caine Mutiny? 

David: We both have played the same role in two different productions. And I think we both know it pretty intimately, both as a film and as a stage production, but you always forget, or at least I did, when the audience comes in, who’s essentially the jury, you forget that they’re going to react in real time in a way that you’ve already made those discoveries. So they’re gasping, they’re laughing, they’re doing things because they’re discovering it, some people for the very first time.

So you’ll never forget that first time of discovering the twists and the turns. When I think of this current play like Caine Mutiny, it’s very important to me that when we come on stage, that the audience who doesn’t know the play doesn’t know who the lead role is. That we don’t know this play is about Captain Queeg, or this play is about Greenwald, this defense attorney, or this play is about Charlie, the prosecuting attorney. Everybody should be on equal playing field. And for me, that requires, to some extent, not acting. To present the facts as they are, I am somebody presenting my case in a courtroom, and over time, the pieces of not just the courtroom drama itself but also the personal biases that will come out start to bring their way to the surface. And that’s when the character sort of gets formed. And I think about this a lot from the writer’s perspective. What is the writer’s intention? 

And that is, I’m struck by, every single time I read it, that I’m shifting every single time into a lot of the audience space to do that too.

John: The play that an audience sees depends more than many of them realize on what they bring with them into the theater. I also want to say the Judson Theater in Pinehurst, North Carolina, where we’re going to be doing the Caine Mutiny Court-Marshall, when I did 12 Angry Men there, the Morehead Foundation sponsored buying Twelve Angry Men from five different high schools, and they studied it against the backdrop of the Constitution, which rights, which articles are being addressed in the course of this play.

And with those 600 high school students filled the theater that matinee, they were ready. And I have never performed before a more alive, informed man. They got it.

And the enthusiasm was powerful, and it was a sharing back and forth.

David:  One of the great things I think about this play is that it does reach back to a nostalgic, you know.

There’s the book. But also, if you sit down with the words, it is very challenging about what its views are about the military, what the views are about morals and ethics, and who’s right and wrong. And it’s deeply uncomfortable.

And if you present it just as it is, people will walk away thinking so-and-so is the bad guy and somebody else is the bad guy, or that there’s no bad guys at all. And that is what I think makes it a perfect play. And that’s why I also think that if it does challenge you, it does make you feel uncomfortable because of whatever you brought into the room, that it’s doing its job, and that’s what we’re here for.

John: I also want to say to an audience, because I know that there’s a military base very close to Pinehurst in this very active military community, that you may see the title, Caine Mutiny Court-Marshall and think, oh, this is an opportunity to bash the military. Well, nothing can be further from the truth. There’s so many ambiguities.

There’s so much about, you know, it’s not so much right and wrong. It’s about which tactics, whose ethics are best. Why did this person make that decision? What were the stress factors? What is the cost to our brave men and women in uniform over the history of this country, defending democracy and defending the Republic and defending the Constitution as its going concerns, serving in that capacity? What does it cost them?

There’s so many of these things, I think, which we, from a contemporary perspective, can make our production honor the military. It’s not about tearing it down at all. 

Beltline: This feels a little timely and relevant to me. Do you feel that this play has a political bent and will land a little differently with audiences in the wake of the political climate we’re living in? 

John: I want to harken back to a production of Julius Caesar that I did with the Eugene Shakespeare Festival. It was during the Iran Contra hearings.

And the director, very cleverly, as the audience was filing in, played the hearings and then we went into the play Julius Caesar. What could be more timely? What could have been more timely? To that same effect, we’re very focused right now on military, about who achieves what position, who comes up through the ranks, who has certain attitudes or opinions about the military, which may or may not be ultimately hopeful. And so, yes, I think it’s an intriguing play for today and very topical because the military, the democracy, our republic, our constitution, are very much on our minds right now.

David: There’s no question that when people sit down to watch this book and play in pie first next month, that people are going to be bringing many different perspectives based on what’s happening in our country today.

This play is a little bit of an allegory for something broader that I think is an important question that is never going to go away.

Fifty years from now, this play will still be relevant for that reason. I was actually thinking on the train to your house how my character seems to resemble Mark Anthony and you seem to resemble Julius Caesar slightly in this particular context. Because Mark Anthony has this whole thing about him, of people being honorable men.

My character Greenwald is saying, I’m going to take on this case. I know who’s guilty here, but I also know who’s not.

And the reason I’m taking on this case is because I have to make sure the person who’s not guilty is not punished for something that he’s not guilty of. But I have to do the wrong thing in order to do the right thing. And that is something that keeps grown men and women up at night.

And that’s for me, that’s why I’m doing the play. You can’t help but watch that and go, I know who that is. I know that that’s me, or I know what I would do in that situation.

I don’t think we would know. And I think that’s ultimately the definition of courage is how we react to the situations. But that’s why it will be relevant as long as Julius Caesar is relevant.