By Michael Buckley
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HBO's "In Treatment" (Sundays and Mondays, 9 PM ET; and On Demand) started its second season April 5. (Season one is available on DVD.) Each week, there are five episodes this season: two on Sunday; three on Monday. Four feature analyst Paul Weston (Gabriel Byrne, a Season One Golden Globe winner) and respective patients; one episode observes his therapy session with mentor Dr. Gina Toll (Season One Emmy winner Dianne Wiest).
"Even with world-class actors, great writers, and a very good crew we shot it like a Mexican telenovela. We shot the episodes in 74 days, which is ridiculous." Last season was filmed in L.A., and this season "at Silvercup Studios in Queens."
Weston has relocated to Brooklyn from Maryland, after a bitter breakup with his wife (Michelle Forbes). He returns there on weekends to see their children, teenager Rosie (Mae Whitman) and younger brother Max (Max Burkholder), and also for his therapy session. The season started with Weston being served an injunction for a malpractice suit, brought against him by a deceased patient's father (a cameo by Glynn Turman, a Season One Guest Actor Emmy winner).
Based on an Israeli TV series, "Be'Tipul," created by Hagai Levi (who's directed some HBO episodes), the U.S. show was developed and produced by first-season show runner Rodrigo Garcia. The Israeli title "is a literal translation of 'In Treatment,'" reveals Leight. "I think that they should have called it 'In Therapy.'"
Episodes are adapted from the Israeli series "though it's a bit of an insult to the New York writers to call them 'adaptations.' Each episode requires two days to shoot. Usually, 'the patient' is filmed first. That gives Gabriel time to get up to speed. The 'patients' have had their scripts for a week. Gabriel didn't want to know too far in advance what was going to happen with his patients. Two cameras are running almost all the time. There isn't any rehearsal. You start at seven in the morning, with a script that's never been read aloud.
"Most often, we start on a shot that Gabriel's not in. It's called 'a clean single.' Shooting over Gabriel's shoulder is 'a dirty single.' By the time we turn the camera around to photograph Gabriel, he's ready."
Leight hired playwrights, "because they can't make a living in theatre. Everything is grant-based. That's why I had the quality of writers that I did." Jacquelyn Reingold writes the storyline for Mia, a 43-year-old attorney. "I worked with Jackie on ['Law & Order:] Criminal Intent.' She's great for Mia," who's played by Hope Davis (now on Broadway in God of Carnage). "When Hope was cast, I didn't have to worry."
Sarah Treem, he tells me, "is our youngest writer. I thought that Sarah would respond well to April," a 23-year-old college student, portrayed by Alison Pill [a Tony nominee for The Lieutenant of Inishmore]. "Everyone in New York knows Alison, and how good she is. She was less well-known to execs out west. I waited them out."
Keith Bunin writes the storyline for 11-year-old Oliver, played by a superb child actor, Aaron Shaw. "Gabriel was great with him. From time to time, we improvised. That loosened him up. Then we'd go back to the script."
Sherri Saum and Russell Hornsby play Oliver's parents, "and Keith Nobbs will be in the 'Oliver' episodes, starting week five, I believe."
"Everyone knows John Mahoney [who plays Walter] as the 'Frasier' father [twice an Emmy nominee], but he's also a Tony winner [The House of Blue Leaves]. His work ethic is remarkable.
"John was doing eight shows a week, in The Seafarer, at the Goodman [he's now in the play at L.A.'s Geffen Playhouse]. He would get on a plane Sunday night, arrive at his hotel at midnight, and be on our set at 6:30 in the morning letter perfect."
Though enjoyable, Leight describes his "In Treatment" experience as "like being in a cave for six months." Having emerged, he's focusing on his first love the stage. "I'm doing a workshop of a new play, Home Front, in June
Evan Yionoulis is directing. She directed the first [productions of] Three Days of Rain and The American Plan. We just began to discuss casting.
"A musical version of A Separate Peace [based on the John Knowles novel]" is also on tap. "It's set at a boys' prep school, toward the end of World War II. The score's by Todd Almond, and Stafford Arima [Altar Boyz] is directing."
Married to Karen Hauser (of the Broadway League), the Leights have a two-year-old daughter, Isabel, "and one on the way." Of his work, to date, what has given him the most satisfaction? "It's always going to be Side Man, at the rehearsal room at Vassar. Not even the New York transfer, which took two years, compared.
"Michael Mayer directed [as he did on Broadway], Edie Falco [who would receive a Theatre World Award] was a waitress, and Frank Wood [who would earn a Tony] was teaching math in a high school. We were all so young. I learned more about what I do for a living during those three weeks in Poughkeepsie, than I'll ever know."
Has HBO picked up "In Treatment" for a third season? "Not yet. The reviews are very good, but we don't know for sure. It's a very stressful job for Gabriel, and I don't think you can do the show without him."
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Various and Sundry
Brotherhood: The feature film, "Lymelife," written by Steven Martini and his brother Derick Martini (making his directorial bow), stars Alec Baldwin (one of four brothers who act) as the father of two real-life brothers, Rory Culkin and Kieran Culkin. The Martinis also appear in the film (Steven as a cab driver; Derick, a photographer), and the executive producer is Martin Scorsese, who's made a few films about a group called "the Brotherhood."
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Motherhood: The "Partridge Family"-"Brady Bunch" TV-Moms, Shirley Jones, Florence Henderson, will hit the road together, starting at the Indianapolis Hilbert Circle Theatre (Nov. 20-22). The concert features songs (solos, duets), anecdotes, and clips.
Both ladies share Rodgers & Hammerstein connections.
They've played Laurey in Oklahoma! (Henderson in 1953, at City Center, with Barbara Cook as Ado Annie; Jones in the 1955 movie), and both have been in South Pacific (Jones made her Broadway debut as a replacement Ensign; Henderson starred as Nellie in a 1967 Lincoln Center production). Jones was Julie in the film version of "Carousel," and Henderson played Maria on tour in The Sound of Music.
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Impressionism closes May 10 on Broadway, but its stars Jeremy Irons, Joan Allen will still be dealing with the art world: In a September Lifetime movie "Georgia O'Keeffe," Irons plays Alfred Stieglitz (O'Keeffe's husband) and Allen has the title role. Bob Balaban ("Bernard and Doris" Emmy nominee) directs.
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This year's "Memorial Day Concert" (May 24), a live PBS telecast, from Washington, DC, features Brian Stokes Mitchell, Katie Holmes, Colm Wilkinson, Laurence Fishburne, Dianne Wiest, Gary Sinise.
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Three-time Emmy winner ("Roseanne") and Tony nominee (November) Laurie Metcalf will play Kate Jerome in the Broadway revivals of two Neil Simon plays, Brighton Beach Memoirs, Broadway Bound.
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Whoopi Goldberg joins the second season of the A&E series "The Cleaner," which stars Benjamin Bratt as an interventionist. (Perhaps he can intervene to try to get Goldberg's co-hosts on "The View" to stop speaking simultaneously.)
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Stage to Screens is Playbill.com's monthly column that connects the dots between theatre, film and television projects and people. Contact Michael Buckley at stagetoscreens@aol.com.
04 May 2009
Warren Leight, a Tony winner for Side Man (1999's Best Play), is one of six executive producers, and the second-season show runner which means, "You do the casting, work on every episode, look at every costume," he says. "You tone the script, give notes, do a little polish, either a minor or major rewrite. You sit with directors, mostly freelance guys, jobbed in, and walk them through every beat of every line. You're on the set for the first take of every set-up. Then, you're editing, and trying to get the next day's episode ready. The buck stops with you, on every decision. With 35 episodes, you run yourself into the ground.
Warren Leight photo by Aubrey Reuben
Marsha Norman (a Pulitzer Prize winner for 'night Mother, a Tony winner for The Secret Garden) writes the Gina-Paul [Dianne Wiest-Gabriel Byrne] episodes. "I ended up taking over the storyline for Walter [a CEO in his 60s], who has the weight of the world on his shoulders. As a show-runner, it was easy for me to get into the character. [Laughs]
Dianne Wiest and Gabriel Byrne in "In Treatment" photo by Abbot Genser
STAGE TO SCREENS: Carla Gugino, David Hyde Pierce, and "In Treatment" Writer Leight
New York Times reviewer Alessandra Stanley observed, "In many ways the second season is richer," and New York Post critic Kyle Smith stated, "The writing...could not be tighter or purer....Each episode is like a two-character play pared down into one critical scene."
