STAGE TO SCREENS: Jon Robin Baitz and Keith Nobbs Discuss Their TV Projects
By Michael Buckley
11 Mar 2007
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"Brothers and Sisters" writer and creator Jon Robin Baitz.
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This month we talk to playwright Jon Robin Baitz, creator of the hit ABC Sunday night drama "Brothers & Sisters", and actor Keith Nobbs, who plays Joey Ice Cream in the new NBC Monday night series "The Black Donnellys."
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With his first kickoff, Jon Robin Baitz (called Robbie by friends) has scored a touchdown in television. "I'm proud of 'Brothers and Sisters,'" he says. "At its very best, it presents a grown-up view of the world, in which there's tolerance and imperfection, and a desire to connect rather than a highly Botox artificiality."
Many find it appealing to have one of the main characters be openly gay (attorney Kevin Walker, played by Matthew Rhys) and totally accepted by his family. "There's absolutely no issue about that," declares Baitz. "Viewers who write complaining letters are usually addressed by other letter writers telling them, if they don't like it, to watch something else. It's an evolving family, and there's not a scintilla of shame directed towards Kevin.
"He has his own issues to deal with and, at times, his own internalized homophobia. The network and the studio have been unfailingly supportive, so much so that it's never come up as an issue. I'm really proud of that.
"Kevin is certainly the most like me on the show. I use my psychological state with him quite a bit. [Laughs] Sometimes you can see where I am by watching Kevin flailing about haplessly." I mention a Baitz quote "I am fueled by self-disgust, but I am not ruled by it" and ask if Kevin is similarly generated. "Yes, by comedy and self-disgust, as I am." Adds Baitz, "And charm."
How does writing for television differ from writing for the stage? "I think it's an act of compression. I'm not able to find the space and depth and breadth in the writing of scenes. You learn to shorten and find that which is necessary.
"But that doesn't mean it's artless. It can be very satisfying writing, artful writing, too. It just doesn't breathe the same slow and steady breadth that a page of playwriting does at least, in my case.
"Then there are the demands of a commercial network. I tend to gravitate towards a kind of crisis-moment in real drama; at times, in a strange kind of way, that can be at odds with what works best on the show. So there's a balance between dark and light that I'm trying to learn. It's very different [from theatre] in every respect.
"That said, I have to say that being a playwright is fantastic preparation for writing television one-hour drama scripts, because they are dialogue scenes and they are about character. In a show like mine, playwriting is perfect training."
A recent TV Guide cover-article cited the many challenges faced by "Brothers & Sisters," including the making of two pilots, a casting change that had Sally Field replace Betty Buckley as the family matriarch, and the departure of the original show runner. "Getting something wrong is not an unfamiliar feeling to a playwright. So, as difficult as it was, I feel that my training in the theatre prepared me enough to be able to keep going, to persevere."
Does Baitz write most of the scripts? "I've written half of the episodes [thus far], and I try to flesh out stories that I'm not writing. We have a great group of writers. The day-to-day mechanics of those scripts are done by Greg Berlanti, who's the show runner."
Being unfamiliar with the term "show runner," I inquire if it has a stage equivalent. "There isn't one in the theatre. It's someone who is a sort of day-to-day writing boss. He assigns scripts, makes sure they [are completed on time]. It's an incredibly managerial job, but one that requires real talent. Greg Berlanti [also an executive producer, as is Baitz] has been both artist and manager. If I'm the creator of the thing, he runs the company."
Acknowledging a quote "I write from doubt and confusion" Baitz explains, "Yes, as a playwright, I do. As a television writer, I write from a structured curiosity and a desire to entertain, while finding what's intelligent and grown up in the inquiry, in the script. I make suggestions, but I like the idea of it being like Esquire in the Sixties, the Harold Hayes [Hayes edited the magazine, 1961-73], where everyone senses their own uniqueness as a writer.
"As well as myself, our writing staff consists of some very good writers and two other playwrights I brought in: David Marshall Grant and Craig Wright. The writers are very proprietary; I'm trying to build that. Next season, I'll try to bring in another playwright, and [in time] try to rescue some more impoverished denizens of the theatre from a life of pennilessness." Television, I interject, does pay slightly better than theatre. States Baitz, "Ever so!"
In the past, Baitz has said, "Plays lead to other plays." Do TV series lead to other TV series? "They could. In my case, I'd like to try another one, because I do believe in the medium and particularly network television, because it's free [for viewers]. I'm also drawn to cable, because there are less restrictions for the writer. I've learned a lot in the year-and-a-half I've been [writing for episodic TV] that I think would stand me in stead as creator of another show. But it would certainly have to be done in New York. I don't want to be out here in St. Helena-slash-Elba forever." [Laughs]
Born Nov. 4, 1961, in Los Angeles, Baitz was raised there, as well as in Brazil and South Africa, due to his father's job with the Carnation Corporation. His family returned to California in time for Baitz to attend Beverly Hills High School. "It was a very, very different time, 200 years ago." Did any of his classmates achieve success? Baitz responds, "Tina Landau, Gina Gershon, Patrick Cassidy, Jon Turteltaub, Lenny Kravitz kind of an auspicious group."
When did he decide to write? "In my early twenties," notes Baitz. "I think I felt that I was a storyteller. I had been drawn to the theatre since I was a little boy, and I thought that I could make a life in it.
"All of the living overseas was a good preparation for being a playwright, because it's all about being foreign, and about language, and not understanding the language. You sort of develop an outsider's ear. If you have a tendency to be a bit of an eavesdropper, that's a perfect cauldron for being a playwright. And then there's the discipline and the challenge of facing a blank page. You have to forget about the here and now of it and find your way into the artistic world of purely invented reality seven hours a day."
Which playwrights did he admire? "I think I was very influenced by a set of British playwrights: Misters [Harold] Pinter, [Simon] Gray, [David] Hare, [Howard] Brenton, [Alan] Bennett, [Tom] Stoppard.
"To me, the athleticism of a David Hare harkens back to Shaw. Going back further, a big influence was Chekhov. Probably because of growing up in South Africa and it being a sort of British colony, [the British playwrights] were slightly more redolent for me.
"Frankly, it was less so with American playwrights with the exception of Wally Shawn. When I first read [his] Aunt Dan and Lemon, I felt freed up from a rigid naturalism, and into a more lush, densely textured language."
Baitz' plays include Mizlansky/Zilinsky, The Film Society, The End of the Day, Three Hotels, A Fair Country, The Substance of Fire, Ten Unknowns, Chinese Friends, a new version of Hedda Gabler, and The Paris Letter.
Is there a play of his that has given Baitz the most satisfaction? "No, because I see virtue in all of them, even those that failed and didn't particularly work that well. They seem to be steps towards something else.
Once, I took exception to a review of Three Hotels in the L.A. Times, written by someone I had been friends with. He no longer liked me, because I was a working playwright and he wasn't. He described [Three Hotels] as 'a tapestry of falsity.' That play, in particular, came out of a deeply biographical inquiry on my part [and two of its characters are based on his parents]. In some respects, Three Hotels is a favorite play. Joe Mantello directed it so beautifully, and Ron Rifkin and Debra Monk were so great in it.
"I'm very, very fond of Mislansky/Zilinsky, also directed by Joe Mantello and starring Nathan Lane. I could watch the Manhattan Theatre Club production hypnotically and totemically. It was also extremely personal, even though it was funny on the surface. It was evocative of a specific time for me when I was deciding that I wanted to be a writer. That was certainly the most perfect production I've ever had. It was utterly pitch perfect, a master stroke of Mantello staging."
For PBS-TVs "American Playhouse" in 1991, Baitz directed "Three Hotels." "I'd like to do more directing. I'm going to start directing on 'Brothers and Sisters,' and last year I wrote a movie [based on the 1952 Japanese film "Ikiru" and called "To Live"] that I threw my hat in the ring to direct if the studio lets me."
As an actor, he's appeared in the films "Last Summer in the Hamptons" (1995), "One Fine Day" (1996), and "Sam the Man" (2000). Are there plans for a new play? "I have many, many pages of a new play. I'm very eager to find a place to do it. I owe a play to Playwrights Horizons, and I'll probably end up doing it there, on a hiatus from 'Brothers and Sisters.' The working title is What We Want." Concludes Jon Robin Baitz, "It's important to me not to be the boy who turned his back on the theatre."
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