BACK TO BUZZ




NOW PLAYING:
Helmet
The Players Loft
115 MacDougal St., 3rd Fl.
  to W. 4th St.

08/14/07 @ 7:00 p.m.

In the Q-Box: Douglas Maxwell

Obsessed with video games, a young boy named Helmet learns that the game shop where he spends most of his days is closing down. Sal, the owner, despises guys like Helmet and blames them for his, and the shop's, downfall. Sal takes his now ample time pining for his wife's return, dodging his father, and trying to convince Helmet to change his ways. Based on the exhilarating format of a video game, this highly innovative and deeply moving play charts Sal and Helmet's fight for survival.

Playwright Douglas Maxwell, the man behind Helmet, steps into this special Fringe-centric Q-Box to answer our always informative, albeit mostly ridiculous, questions.
What's the best thing about Fringe?
 It's got Helmet in it. And it's in New York.

What's the #1 reason people should come see your show?
It's unlike anything you've seen before. But in a cool, funny, sad, real way...not in a ridiculous, embarrassing, pretentious way. Plus it's about video games.

Do you have any opening-night rituals?
I ritually visit the toilet. Over and over and over. There's lots of looking in mirrors and shaking my head saying "Man, why the hell do I do this for a living?"

I try to do the opening night alone: no family or friends. I give the cast and director good luck cards full of gushing praise and coded notes, like..."even though the way I wanted you to do the speech was funnier, I really respect your choices. You're a brave performer etc., etc." That kind of thing.

Then I go into a kind of shell during the show. I watch the audience, not the show. Then afterwards I look in the mirror, shake my head and say "Man, why would anyone do anything else for a living?"

What are the craziest performance conditions you've had to work under?
 I had a play that was performed in swing parks all over the country. The cast would build these huge, adult sized swing sets and then do the play when people walked their dogs and, being Scotland, it was almost always pouring with rain. They'd get changed in bushes and their touching monologues were, more often than not, interrupted by bums shouting abuse.

Before I had proper plays on, I'd write "hilarious comedies" for big corporate events, like business conferences on Civil Engineering. We'd turn up in a van, do the comedy at about 8 in the morning, usually to a bewildered silence and the actors would leave the stage to the sound of their own footsteps. I'd call these gigs "bank jobs," coz I'd keep the engine in the van running throughout the show, the actors would leap in, I'd grab the cash and we'd bolt for home.

How did you get involved with the arts?
As a student, I did plays and amateur dramatics. Me and friend were kicked out of the student drama society for "misappropriation of funds" during a production of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, so we started our own company. I wrote a play for our final production and loved it. So I decided that rather than work for a living, I'd cruise down easy street as a professional playwright. It only took me six years of unemployment, bitter failure after bitter failure and a host of demeaning, exhausting jobs (including a stint in a computer games shop) before I got a play on. That was when the real hard work started.

By the way, my pal, the guy who started the company with me, went into TV instead. He lives in a mansion in Santa Monica and produces American Idol. There's a lesson in there somewhere.


THE STATS:
High school attended: Girvan Academy. A small school in a small town on the south west coast of Scotland. It's on the bit that pokes out like a thumb.

Favorite Class: I liked English and a subject called Classics that was old Greek myths, which got taken off the syllabus for being "useless in the real world." So what? I've never been good at anything useful in the real world. In fact, I'm not sure I even like the real world that much.

Next-up on Netflix queue: Jesus, I don't even know what this question means! That means I'm old. It's official. I'm a dinosaur; a has-been, a crumbling joke of a man who should quit doing anything ever and float off on a bit of ice and leave the world to those who have things queued up on Netflix.

I'm 33. That's old right? I'll bet you don't even think you'll get to 33. I'll bet you don't even want to get to 33. Well, here's a secret...life gets better the older you get. Marriage, kids, beards, weddings, money, nostalgia, going home to your own bed, being able to drink huge amounts without puking, understanding the jokes on Aaron Sorkin shows...all that stuff rocks. Believe me. So I don't even care what Netflix is.

Not at all.
Not one bit.
...
Ok, I give up what is it?

Playing on his iPod right now: A great songwriter from Manchester called Cherry Ghost. His new album is called Thirst For Romance. Rufus Wainwright's last album. A couple of Tom Waits songs I downloaded where he's playing live with the Kronos Quartet, which have the odd distinction of being moving and hilarious at the same time.

And on my iPod, as in my life itself, Bruce Springsteen (my north star! My hero!), Bob Dylan, Nic Cave, Eels, Talking Heads and of course, Morrissey, are never too far away. I also have a Brit-pop playlist that gets a hammering...lots of Smiths, Blur, Beatles, Stones, The Who, Oasis, Suede, Wonder Stuff and lots of guff that makes me sound even older than not knowing what Netflix is.

But so what -- you little punks will discover these guys soon. Wait 'till you're in college and trying to convince someone you're actually sensitive, clever and deep. You'll ditch your My Chemical Romance and Akon or whatever the hell you're into and have Blood On The Tracks on a loop with The Queen Is Dead all day and all night, believe me. And I tell you something else...it works.

Favorite pizza topping: Pepperoni. But not too greasy.

Last good book he read:
I just read Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson for the first time yesterday. It's amazing. So exciting and brilliantly written. I tell you, someone should make a movie of that book.

I'd also recommend The Last Picture Show by Larry McMurtry, The Flight Of The Cassowary by John LeVert, Catch 22 by Joseph Heller and anything by Dickens but, like Dylan, you tend to come to that a bit later on.

All-time, hands-down favorite piece of theater: Favorite famous plays...Macbeth, A Streetcar Named Desire, The Importance Of Being Earnest, The Slab Boys Trilogy.

Favorite Productions: Resurrection Super at the Moscow Arts, The Wonderful World of Dissocia, The Tron, Henry IV Part One at the RSC.

Favorite Scottish plays: Shining Souls by Chris Hannan, The Slab Boys by John Byrne, Blackwatch by Gregory Burke, San Diego by David Grieg, Further Than The Furthest Thing by Zinnie Harris, The Wonderful World of Dissosia by Anthony Neilson, The People Next Door by Henry Adam and Riddance by Linda Mclean.

Harry Potter House: [If he had one, it'd be] A very strange place to live.

Who complains more: Luke Skywalker or Hamlet?: God I love this question. I have no qualms at all about comparing Luke to Hamlet. Star Wars is a masterpiece, just like Hamlet, with similar themes too, and anyone that thinks otherwise can go to Hoth.

"What a piece of work is a wookie..."

"Alas poor Obi Wan I knew him well..."

Okay, Luke was a whiner, but at least he destroyed the Death Star, which is a darn sight more than Hamlet ever did. I'd like to see Hamlet keeping rocks afloat whilst doing a handstand with Yoda on his foot.

And really, ask yourself this, who dealt with the death of his father better, eh? Luke faced his destiny when Hamlet cringed away from it, terrified of doing anything, never mind completing the lion's share of Jedi school and leading rebel forces to their ultimate victory. So Luke's the best. There, I've said it.

I would worry about Mark Hammil in the role of Hamlet though. If the guy's getting acted off the screen by a puppet then I don't fancy his chances with the greatest dialogue ever written.

"To be a Jedi, or not to be a Jedi. That is the eh...line?"