NOW PLAYING:
1001
Mixing the labyrinthine wordplay of Jorge Louis Borges with the ideas of Edward Said and the slapstick comedy of Monty Python, up-and-coming playwright Jason GroteÕs 1001 hyperlinks ScheherazadeÕs tales to contemporary Manhattan. Time blurs and reality is fractured and reconstructed in a world inhabited by characters whose identity shifts unpredictably and deliriously. With rollicking storytelling, a touch of magic realism, and even a little trip-hop music, 1001 simultaneously defaces and energizes A Thousand and One Arabian Nights to guide us through a tour of the dizzyingly precarious world of the 21st century.
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Playwright and director Jason Grote steps into the Q-Box to answer our always informative, albeit mostly ridiculous, questions.
What drew you to One Thousand & One Arabian Nights and did you have a particular philosophy you used as a guide rule when adapting the work?
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I had never read the Arabian Nights in any version, but they kept
popping up in various places -- sometimes in the media but often in
books or comics that I was reading. I thought the universe was trying
to tell me something. The philosophy I used was Edward Said's
Orientalism, which is a book about how Western literature has created
the image of the Arab "other" over the centuries. You still see
vestiges of this today, for example with images of Arab terrorists on
shows like 24.
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What edition of Arabian Nights did you work from?
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The Richard F. Burton— -- still the only one I've ever read. Burton was
the Indiana Jones of his time, a mad English orientalist who once
disguised himself has an Afghan and did a pilgrimage to Mecca, which
was (and still might be) punishable by death. The 20th-century
Argentinian author Jorge Luis Borges claimed that it was Burton who
added all of the lush exotic imagery to the tales.
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How much changed in the script from your polished draft to produced
play?
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Not much. The first reading was at Soho Rep in 2005, and to my
surprise it was 3 hours long with no intermission— -- I've mostly made
cuts since then, but I've also added a few hints to help audiences
find their way through the play's labyrinthine structure.
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The work of Jorge Louis Borges is cited as an influence apparent in
1001— -- What's your favorite Jorge Louis Borges' story (and how come)?
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Ooh, that's a tough one. I love so many of them. I could narrow it
down to two: The Library of Babel about a library the size of the
universe with books containing every possible combination of letters,
but most of those books are gibberish. People spend years looking for
books that make sense, and some people believe that, somewhere in
those stacks, there is a book that tells the future. I feel like
Borges was describing the internet years before it ever existed. The
other is Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius, about a bunch of scholars who
create a fictional world as a hoax, and after years of placing the
world in encyclopedias and such, the world becomes real. [Editor's Note: If you haven't cracked open Borges yet, get on the stick and start reading -- it's the kind of work that changes the way you think.]
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This is your first NYC production. How was this production different
than your previous plays?
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Much, much larger, and more public, which makes it more
nerve-wracking. The biggest difference is time— -- for various reasons,
NYC productions have less rehearsal time, and you have to do much more
much faster.
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How did you get involved with the arts?
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I was actually almost a high-school dropout, but I was always
interested in theater. I hated the cheesy musicals we did (and
actually got kicked out of one) but discovered that my county had a
performing arts school. By sheer luck, I wound up studying with a
woman named Judith Robinson, who had studied with Lee Strasberg in the
1950s and who, as a teenager, was in William Inge's The Dark at the
top of the Stairs, directed by Elia Kazan. It was a life-changing
experience. I studied acting and directing at Montclair State
University, where I wrote my first play, then spent about 8 years
trying to make it as a playwright and director. Finally, I wound up
getting a Dramatic Writing MFA from NYU, and worked closely with Soho
Rep for a number of years (and still am, as a member of their Artists'
Advisory Board), and now I teach at Rutgers University and have a
career as a playwright!
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THE STATS:
High school attended:
Steinert HS, Hamilton, NJ, and The Mercer County School of Performing
Arts, West Windsor, NJ
Favorite Class?
Acting I, with Judith Robinson
Next-up on your Netflix queue?
Prime Suspect, Season 7: The Final Act (Disc 2)
Playing on your iPod right now? A podcast of The Best Show on WFMU
Favorite pizza topping?
NY pizza is nowhere near as good as it used to be, but I still think
longingly of the chicken, garlic, and tomato pizza at Gino's in
Flushing, Queens.
Last good book you read?
A tie: The Best of LCD: The Art and Writing of WFMU, by Dave the
Spazz and Taking Things Seriously by Joshua Glenn and Carol Hayes.
All-time, hands-down favorite piece of theater?
Another tie: Mud by Maria Irene Fornes, and King Lear by Shakespeare.
What's more annoying? People talking on their new iPhones or people talking
about their iPhones?
People talking about their iPhones on their iPhones.
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