'Last of the Boys' is First in a Series Of McCarter Programs at the Library

Candace Braun

Following the first program in the Princeton Public Library's McCarter Live series on Monday, residents left "hungering for more," exactly what Playwright Steven Dietz looks to achieve every time an audience leaves one of his productions.

McCarter Live is a new series co-sponsored by the library and McCarter Theatre that allows residents to ask questions of playwrights, directors, and actors involved in upcoming shows. Monday night's program focused on McCarter's Last of the Boys with Mr. Dietz and McCarter's Artistic Director Emily Mann.

Author of more than 20 plays and adaptations that have been staged off-Broadway and in more than 100 regional theaters, Mr. Dietz will premier his play at McCarter beginning Tuesday, September 7.

Last of the Boys is about the relationship between Ben and Jeeter, two men who came of age in the sixties and fought in the Vietnam War. The play reflects on the changes that took place within each man due to the war, and how it has affected those around them.

The play was first inspired by a letter Mr. Dietz was writing to his friend Joe, a Vietnam veteran. Knowing from his own father the significance of war, Mr. Dietz saw that there were many stories that could still be told about Vietnam veterans.

"[My father] fought for his country the rest of his life; the way he voted, the way he raised us," he said.

Artistic director for McCarter for more than a decade, Ms. Mann said that at first the idea of another play on Vietnam didn't interest her. However, after reading it through, she completely changed her mind. She said that this particular play triggered a very strong emotional response in her, causing her to make it the premier production in McCarter's fall schedule.

"Vietnam was never put to rest. It's cropping up again as we're having the 2004 election," she said. "I think Steven's play is a great addition to the national dialog."

Ms. Mann said she was also looking forward to working with Mr. Dietz on the stage again after his production of Fiction in the 2003-03 season. She called Mr. Dietz a "true playwright," adding, "There's just this high level of craft that I love [about his plays]."

In this play, the main character, Ben, is the last remaining inhabitant in a rundown trailer park where he lives among "found objects" and abandoned debris. What makes the scene stand out is seeing Ben ironing a pristine white shirt on an ironing board, said Mr. Dietz, adding that creating the first scene took a lot of time and effort: "I was looking for things I hadn't seen on stage before."

He said that in order to create the most likely scene to capture an audience, a playwright has to pretend that he's working with a group of people who are simply passing by the stage.

"You have to work under the illusion that the audience has somewhere else to go," he said. "What would stop them in their tracks?"

The beginning of every play is a mystery, said Mr. Dietz: "That's the delicious time when your mind is filled with perfect images."

However, as a playwright and director, he said that if his play stays exactly the same from the time it was first written on the page up until the time of the first production on stage, it hasn't blossomed the way he had anticipated. There is always room for growth, he said.

Describing how it is inside the rehearsal room for the first time with a play and its actors, Ms. Mann said it feels more like the chaos of a nursery school classroom than being in the presence of a professional production group.

As the actors come to know their parts, however, and begin to see their relationship to the character and their character's relationship to themselves, a change takes place.

"There's a kind of improvisation with the text ... relationships just form," she said. "By the time we're on stage [the actors] are going to know more than I do about the play ... They're on their own and they're alive."

However, it's the in-between process that both Mr. Dietz and Ms. Mann experience together that helps make the play take shape, said Mr. Dietz.

"Both of us are writers and directors ... she can speak 'playwright' with me."

While an author and director of many plays, Mr. Dietz told his audience that he doesn't envision himself ever changing careers to become a novelist: "I would love to write fiction ... but always about 30 pages into the book I figure out how I can turn it into a play."

When asked what makes him know that his true calling is a career as a playwright, Mr. Dietz said, "I'm a loner with really good social skills ... The loner in me has a social need to be in a rehearsal room."

Audiences will have the opportunity to form their own opinions on Mr. Dietz's play once McCarter opens the curtains on Last of the Boys on September 7. According to Ms. Mann, it is a play that should not be missed: "The play is so human and loving and friendly ... I think you'll come out thinking a lot more than when you came in, which to me really says something."

For more information or to purchase tickets, call (609) 285-2787, or visit www.mccarter.org.