Brian Dennehy

Dennehy: Well, when he’s alive, I think he should have all he wants. Eventually, they all die, and usually you have some greedy lawyer running the estate saying, “Eh, hell, I don’t care. Do what you want.” But the fact is, the O’Neill estate is run by an extraordinary gentleman named Biff Liff who is a friend of mine. And Biff is the real goods. Now, it depends on the situation. I think it’s… I know that they have done black versions of Long Day’s Journey, so—now, that may be after he’s passed away—but Beckett is a whole different thing. Endgame, I think, you probably could get away with a female version, but it would be very hard to do Godot that way…it seems to me. I had an idea for Godot: Given the play as it is, the way it’s been written, wouldn’t it be interesting to have Lucky played by a woman? Say a woman in her 40s, with makeup coming down her face, in some kind of a dress that would have been sexy 20 years ago—and she is the slave, she’s the one that’s been…. It doesn’t seem to me that that would be against the point that he was trying to make about exploiting people. Why not exploit it in terms of gender as well? Now maybe it’s too obvious. But the point is, that would be an interesting way to go if you had Pozzo pulling around this woman who represents the, you know, the exploited female over the last 500 years. There’s no way of saying that that’s not the case, because obviously it is. But it seems to me that would be Beckettian in concept, but it would obviously break the rules as far as gender is concerned. One more. Somebody else. Yeah?

Audience: Ok…[Dennehy: The smart guy]. First of all, I just wanted to mention that there’s a superb production of The Emperor Jones going on right now by the Irish Repertory Theatre in New York City [See Ciarán O’Reilly’s contribution ]. Superb. John [Douglas Thompson] is playing the lead, and it’s really something. But my question is this: You had mentioned that you feel that the dominant motif of The Emperor Jones is the exploitation motif. My own reading of it is somewhat different, and I’m curious if you’d accept this. I think what is…that that’s the secondary motif…and that the primary one is black essentialism. The notion that there is inherent in being black certain characteristics that are not really changeable, no matter in what society you grow up in the West, for example, and that that reason—that is the primary one—is the reason the academics have rejected The Emperor Jones, calling it a racist play.

Dennehy: I don’t agree. I think that the Emperor Jones, that man, has shown an enormous intelligence [Audience: Oh, yes] and energy in escaping from slavery in South Carolina, as he has done, and finding his way to this island republic, which is probably Haiti, which is not a republic, but whatever it is. And then, mutually taking advantage of the white benefactors of his power, but, of course, ultimately placing himself in the position where—whose killing him? Not the white guys. They like the idea of him being there. It’s the tribes who were chasing him, the drums…Now, was O’Neill affected by racial thinking? Probably. But I don’t think that play’s a good example of it. I think that what it usually is an example of is the academics with their heads firmly placed up their ass—as usual. Now, there are obviously exceptions to that, but I haven’t known too many. The point about academics is they’re, you know, they’re like lemmings. They all have the same goddamn idea, especially if it comes to something like race. God forbid somebody should have a contrary opinion. So I don’t bother with them. Was that an honest enough answer for you? [laughter and applause]

Richter: On that note….