The Quality of Life - American Conservatory Theater

A M E R I C A N C O N S E R V AT O R Y T H E AT E R
Carey Perloff, Artistic Director Heather Kitchen, Executive Director
PRESENTS
The Quality of Life
written and directed by jane anderson
american conservatory theater
october 24–november 23, 2008
Produced in association with the Geffen Playhouse
and Jonathan Reinis Productions
WORDS ON PLAYS
prepared by
elizabeth brodersen
publications editor
michael paller
resident dramaturg
dan rubin
publications & literary associate
lesley gibson
publications intern
doug harvey, megan cohen
dramaturgy interns
a.c.t. is supported in part by the Grants for the Arts/San
Francisco Hotel Tax Fund, the National Endowment for the Arts,
and the donors of The Next Generation Campaign.
© 2008 AMERICAN CONSERVATORY THEATER, A NONPROFIT ORGANIZATION. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
table of contents
.
Characters, Cast, and Synopsis of The Quality of Life
The Quality of Life Meet and Greet / Design Presentation
Muse of Fire: An Interview with Jane Anderson
by Dan Rubin
Joyously Sharing the Burden of Grief: Interviews with the a.c.t. Cast
by Dan Rubin
The Innate Power of Nature, Light, and Air: Designing The Quality of Life
by Lesley Gibson
The Law of Assisted Dying
by Dan Rubin
. “Off-Time” Widowhood
by Dan Rubin
Wedding Night
by Jalaluddin Rumi
. “Because It’s Illegal”: An Overview of the Evolution of Medical Marijuana Law
by Lesley Gibson
. Fire Stories
. Questions to Consider
. For Further Information . . .
OPPOSITE Aftermath of the Mount Vision fire in West Marin, 1995. All photographs of the Mount Vision fire are by
Tamia Marg and appear courtesy of Jane Anderson.
characters, cast, and synopsis of
THE QUALITY OF LIFE
The world premiere of The Quality of Life opened at the Geffen Playhouse,
Los Angeles, October , The68Iproduction opens at the American
Conservatory Theater, San Francisco, October
characters and cast
dinah
bill
jeannette
neil
JoBeth Williams
Steven Culp
Caroline Lagerfelt and Laurie Metcalf
Dennis Boutsikaris
the setting
Ohio, and somewhere in the hills of northern California. The present.
synopsis
A
ct i, scene i. Ohio. Dinah and Bill’s living room. Dinah and Bill, a middle-aged
Midwestern couple, are spending a quiet day in their living room. Dinah knits while
Bill reads the newspaper. Dinah mentions that Jeannette, a cousin with whom she had
lost touch, called to send her condolences on the recent death of Dinah and Bill’s collegeaged daughter, Cindy. We learn that Jeannette and her husband, Neil, live in northern
California and have recently suffered their own tragedies: their home was destroyed in a
wildfire, and Neil is dying of cancer. Dinah suggests to Bill that they take a weekend to
visit them. Bill, still raw from Cindy’s death, has little sympathy for his cousins-in-law and
no desire to visit them, but when Dinah breaks down in tears he reluctantly agrees.
scene ii. Northern California. The burn site of Jeannette and Neil’s former home. Dinah
and Bill arrive at Jeannette and Neil’s fire-ravaged northern California property, which
now consists of the yurt in which they are living, an outdoor kitchen, a working bathtub, a
makeshift outhouse, and a solar panel generator. Jeannette describes the fire in vivid detail:
it began from an improperly extinguished campfire and swept through the nearby canyon
and up to the house in a matter of minutes. Neil explains that he was on the deck when
it happened, and Dinah was in the shower. The two recount the panicked experience of
OPPOSITE Aftermath of the Mount Vision fire
deciding what few things to save from a lifetime of living and collecting: they both looked
for the cat and were unable to find her, but they were able to grab Neil’s reading glasses
and Jeannette’s favorite pen.
Neil is physically much frailer than Jeannette, due to the cancer, but he seems at ease
even during the story of their loss. Jeannette explains that they have gained a certain
amount of insight from their tragedy: although they lost all their belongings, they now
understand that they can be happy with just the bare necessities of life and each other.
They only regret their inability to find their cat, which they have not seen in the two
months since the fire.
Bill, uncomfortable in the presence of the free-spirited couple, makes small talk with
Neil about the technical workings of their unique kitchen and bathroom setup. When
Jeannette mentions that Neil would like to smoke some pot to ease his pain, Bill excuses
himself to the car to listen to a baseball game on the radio, but Dinah remains. As Jeannette
hooks up the vaporizer, Dinah nervously chatters on about the hobbies she has picked up
to distract herself from her grief and presents her cousins with
an array of homemade gifts, including a photograph of Cindy,
of whom she talks with pride. When the conversation veers
towards the upsetting details of Cindy’s death, Neil changes the
subject. Dinah and Jeannette recall shared memories from their
childhoods, and Neil describes his parents’ intense, nearly narcissistic love for each other. This love resulted in an undignified
death for Neil’s mother after his father dragged out her illness,
refusing to let her go even when she was ready to leave. Dinah
says that she understands Neil’s father, as she would do anything
get Cindy back. The only comfort she can find now is in God.
When Neil has had enough marijuana, Jeannette goes to
retrieve Bill. Jeannette confides in Neil that she was unaware
that her cousin was a born-again Christian. Bill and Dinah
return, and Jeannette serves a vegetarian lunch with organic
wine. When Dinah comments on the “guilty pleasures” of the
lunch, Neil jumps on the opportunity to lure Bill into a debate.
At first Bill resists, but soon he admits to being uncomfortable
with Neil’s marijuana smoking, as well as the couple’s tendency
to take the Lord’s name in vain. Neil apologizes but pushes the
marijuana issue until the two end up in a full-blown argument,
Dinah, by costume designer Lydia
Tanji
which is broken up when Jeannette tells Bill to loosen up and
pours him a glass of wine.
The two couples briefly bond by discussing the awkward
attempts of their respective friends to help them through their
grief, and it is revealed that Cindy was murdered by a schizophrenic. Bill begins to pry into Jeannette and Neil’s religious
beliefs, and he and Neil argue about evolution and morality.
Irritated by Bill’s goading, Neil reveals that he intends to take
his own life before the pain of his cancer becomes unbearable.
Bill condemns the decision, calling suicide a sin regardless of the
context. He then tries to get Neil to “take Jesus Christ into [his]
heart,” but Neil turns him down, saying, “I appreciate the offer,
Bill, but my spiritual plate is pretty full.” Dinah tries to change
the subject to “happier things,” and Bill excuses himself to the
outhouse.
While he is gone, Neil decides to smoke more marijuana,
and this time, after some reservation, Dinah decides to join him.
She opens up about her unhappiness in her marriage and her
frustration with the church, and Neil reveals that he has chosen
his date of death—just two weeks away, following a final lecture
he will give at the university where he teaches. Dinah talks Jeannette, by costume designer
about feeling isolated and abandoned since Cindy’s death, and Lydia Tanji
Jeannette teaches her to ululate: to cry out passionately in order
to achieve “a great emotional flush.”
While the two women ululate, Bill returns carrying the remains of the missing cat.
Jeannette breaks down in tears. Dinah invites her to come stay with them in Ohio after
Neil’s death, and in this vulnerable moment Jeannette reveals to Dinah that she plans to
take her own life along with Neil. As Jeannette and Neil go to bury their cat, Bill grabs
the astonished Dinah and walks her to their car, shaking his head in disbelief at their
“misguided” cousins.
A
ct ii, scene i. Northern California. A restaurant. Dinah and Bill discuss Jeannette’s
plan to kill herself. Bill is convinced that Neil has manipulated her, and he tells
Dinah that they should go back and “talk some sense into her.” Dinah suggests they call
ahead, but when no one picks up the phone she leaves a message saying that they are on
their way over, using the excuse that they are bringing dinner.
scene ii. Northern California. The burn site of Jeannette and Neil’s former home. When Bill
and Dinah arrive, they discover Neil asleep in the yurt, while Jeannette is nowhere to be
found. Assuming that Jeannette and Neil have already poisoned themselves, Bill instructs
Dinah to call while he looks for Jeannette. While Dinah is on hold, Bill returns, embarrassed: he found Jeannette in the bathtub, very much alive.
Jeannette enters from the bath, and Dinah and Bill confront her. She explains that she
has achieved everything she ever wanted in life and describes the sad and empty existence
she imagines for herself following Neil’s death: killing time with busy work, spending “the
next thirty years with the lights half-dimmed,” and dying old and alone. Bill calls Jeannette
amoral. She replies that he is ignorant, narrow-minded, and insufferable. When he shouts
that she’ll be going to hell, Neil emerges from the yurt.
Bill berates Neil and accuses him of casting a spell on Jeannette. Neil explains that he
and his wife have discussed the issue at great length, and he
tried to talk her out of her decision. Ultimately, he says, the
decision is Jeannette’s to make. Bill denounces Neil, and Neil
kicks him off their land. Before leaving, Bill declares that the
fire and Neil’s cancer were punishment for their lack of faith.
In response, Dinah slaps him across the face and asks what
their daughter might have done to deserve God’s vengeance.
“If there is a God,” she laments, “he should be weeping.” Bill
exits.
Dinah apologizes to her cousins, and as Neil prepares for
his bath, she bids him a kindhearted farewell. After Neil exits,
Dinah begs Jeannette to wait a year before taking her own
life, and contends that it would break her heart to lose her
now that they have made a connection. But Jeannette fires
back that the only thing they have in common is their grief.
Dinah is stung, asks for Cindy’s picture back, and storms out.
The car doors slam and Dinah and Bill drive away.
scene iii. Northern California. The interior of Jeannette and
Neil’s yurt. Jeannette and Neil discuss the events of the day
with regret. Neil acknowledges that he was trying to antagonize Bill and admits that Dinah came to them looking for
comfort in family. Jeannette agrees, but says that there is no
reason to worry about it now.
Neil, by costume designer
Lydia Tanji
Jeannette then reads to Neil a draft of the letter they plan to send to their friends to
explain their decision to take their own lives. After she finishes, she asks Neil what he
thinks. He replies that he now sees that there is no way they can rationalize what Jeannette
is planning to do to herself: “I don’t want our thirty years of marriage to be dismissed as
delusional.” He tells Jeannette that they’ve been romanticizing suicide because they feel
they are a part of “the spiritual elite.” He has decided not to let her kill herself, and he will
let his own illness drag on to ensure her survival. He says that he can tell she isn’t ready
to die, and that he will not die in peace unless he knows she is still alive. Jeannette finally
gives in and agrees to live on without him.
scene iv. Northern California. A university lecture hall. Neil stands at a podium in a large
university lecture hall, addressing his anthropology class for the last time. He discusses the
history of the people of Muyula, a small island off the coast of New Guinea. In , he
explains, a group of English sailors carrying smallpox landed on the island and obliterated
half the native population. The grieving survivors were able to repopulate, and the new
generation was pox-resistant. But a visit by a group of Spaniards in brought a strain
of influenza that left all but one man and two women dead. The remaining three realized
they would have to travel to another island and join a new tribe in order to continue their
lineage, but one of the women was so stricken with grief that she refused to go.
The other two survivors forced her onto the boat, but halfway through the trip she
threw herself overboard and drowned. When the remaining woman and man arrived at
their destination, she was pregnant. The couple and their child, and all of their descendents, lived as slaves in the new tribe. Generations later, Neil tells his students, a greatgrandchild from this family left the island and told his family’s tale to an anthropologist.
Because of that one woman’s will to live, the story of an entire tribe lives on. He blesses
her for her courage, then says goodbye to his students.
scene v. Ohio. Dinah and Bill’s yard. Bill has purchased an avocado tree for Dinah and
offers to plant it for her. Dinah says that she doesn’t care about the plant, and Bill confronts
her about the deterioration of their marriage. He argues that they owe it to Cindy to stay
together, to which Dinah replies, “Cindy’s gone.” Bill says he will neither give up nor leave
Dinah alone with her grief, even as she pushes him away. Dinah asks Bill to show her
where he wants to plant the tree.
scene vi. Northern California. The interior of Jeannette and Neil’s yurt. Neil has taken a
lethal dosage of medication. He lies in Jeannette’s arms as she talks him through the story
of how they met. He tells Jeannette that he didn’t realize he would be so sad, and asks her
if her heart is still beating. She replies that it will beat for the both of them, as long as she
lives.
THE QUALITY OF LIFE meet
and greet /
design presentation
Remarks Made to a.c.t. Staff and the Cast of The Quality of Life, September O
n the first day of rehearsal of each production, a.c.t. staff members and the show’s
cast and creative team gather in a studio to meet, mingle, and get to know each
other. After personal introductions are made, the director and designers present to the
assembled group their vision for the design of the production, which is typically the culmination of months of research, discussion, and textual analysis. This introduction is a kind
of “snapshot” of the creative team’s understanding of the world of the play at the moment
they step into the room with the actors, an understanding that will evolve and grow and
perhaps change in significant ways as the cast brings life and breath and physical action to
the playwright’s words over the following four weeks of rehearsal.
Below are excerpts from remarks made at the first rehearsal of The Quality of Life
at a.c.t., a glimpse into the initial impulses behind the look and feel of the upcoming
production.
a.c.t. artistic director carey perloff
Welcome, all of you. This is the beginning of the next stage of the journey of The Quality
of Life, Jane Anderson’s beautiful play, which we first came across about a year ago now.
It’s a play that hits home on many levels for us in northern California, because it’s about
events that we have gone through, either recently or not so recently. And it’s kind of amazingly apropos in many other ways, since we’re in the middle of this election season, and
we’re being told that this is a country divided down the middle. This is a play about two
couples who seem to be that, and about how ludicrous it is to assume that that is in fact
the case. Our assumptions about where people live in their ideologies and in their hearts
are actually much smaller than where people probably do live. So this play gave me a lot
of hope when I read it. It’s very sad, it’s very funny, and it asks really hard, big questions,
which is kind of wonderful.
This play is also a great opportunity to bring a group of remarkable artists together,
some of whom are new to a.c.t., and others who are already familiar with us. So a huge
welcome to JoBeth [Williams] and an about-to-be welcome to Laurie [Metcalf ], who
will be here with us down the road. And huge welcomes back to Caroline [Lagerfelt],
Steve Culp, and Dennis Boutsikaris. Also, welcome to [sound designer/composer] Richard
Woodbury, whose first a.c.t. moment this is but who has an extraordinary and storied
Devastation caused by the Mount Vision fire
career. And big welcomes back to [scenic designer] Donald [Eastman], [costume designer]
Lydia Tanji, and [lighting designer] Kent Dorsey. Donald and Lydia are returning after
their triumphs in After the War, among other things. It’s an amazing team.
writer/director jane anderson and scenic designer donald eastman
jane anderson: I just want to begin by thanking all of you. You’ve made such a beautiful
home for this play already and for me. And the actors will soon find out what a gracious,
marvelous place this is to work. Thank you Carey for choosing this, and all of you for supporting this. And thank you, thank you to the trustees for having faith in theater. Being a
Hollywood gal, I do a lot of film and television, and I love it, but theater is so visceral and
beautiful, and really, really important in these tough economic times.
This is going to be such an interesting rehearsal process. Thank you Caroline, for
sharing the role of Jeannette with Laurie Metcalf, because without you this production
wouldn’t be possible. And Dennis and JoBeth, welcome back to the play. You have come
from a tiny stage with a hundred people in the audience. Donald is such an incredible
designer, and we’re going to use this theater like nobody’s business.
donald eastman: We’re going to be using the Geary curtain, because it’s a beautiful
curtain, with a beautiful gold proscenium. When the curtain goes up we’re revealing a very
closed set, which is just a little pallet for Bill and Dinah’s moment in their house [in Ohio],
with comfortable chairs, throw pillows, a table, a lamp, their activities. One of the images
Jane has in the script is that floating above this is a photograph of their daughter. I was trying
to figure out a way to do that without having a floating photo, and we thought, “Well, let’s do
a photo detail floating above that is just another moment in the room.” It’s like that selective
thing you see in the corner, just a side table with light coming through the window and the
framed photograph sitting on it. So that way we can kind of see the information of the family
together, but it’s in a nice, subtle way. Somehow between that and the picture below we get
an idea of what kind of people they are, and where we are in the country.
ja: And then [sound designer] Richard [Woodbury], in the blackout, will create the
most outrageous sound of fire and crashing and blasting, so that everybody in the audience
who has experienced these fires will think, “Oh, I remember this.” And then we will reveal
this gloriously burned-out set. It will be a combination of grimness and what Jeannette
and Neil have done to make this a livable space. So there’ll be prayer flags and a fountain,
and a kitchen area with all their things.
de: The floor actually takes on three subtle rakes, so by the time we get to the back of
the stage we have this feeling of a porch that used to wrap around the house silhouetted
against the sky. Jane and I worked really hard to keep rotating the geography of the place
so we could get a lot of big sky.
My first reaction was that I didn’t want to see these people couched in a world surrounded by the trees that survived the fire, but more of a nothingness etched against the
sky. There is nothing but air and light around them, but they’ve made coziness and comfort
out of it. The set is a combination of ground cover that’s been bulldozed, concrete foundation slabs, low concrete walls—all the elements of real architecture—and then the memory
of this big wooden porch. And then this [points to a spot on the set model] used to be the
great room, the room they loved to be in, which is so beautiful because they’re in it again;
they’re still there. And the kitchen area is once again strung with lights and things.
We live with them here through act one; then act two is another scene with Dinah and
Bill outside the compound. It’s very similar to what we did in the opening scene. There is
a very simple pallet, which this time holds a restaurant table and chairs. The image above
is now a selective detail of something seen in the restaurant. We’re thinking it’s that camera
angle that’s just catching the salt and pepper shaker, the sugar container, and maybe one of
those little stand-up cards letting them know about the special of the week.
ja: Rather than a fast food restaurant, which was the concept in the original production, we’re making it more like a Howard Johnson, or ihop, a place that feels Midwestern
and familiar to Bill and Dinah. So after being at Jeannette and Neil’s place all day, they’ve
found a place that feels a little more like home.
de: Then the magic starts happening. We go to the scene where Neil and Jeannette
are alone in their compound. It’s that early evening scene where you’re starting to see—of
course this stage is made for side lighting—so we’re starting to feel the sun setting. It’s the
magic light. There are candles lit in the yurt, so the yurt is actually glowing. Once again, we
are looking at individual people in this bigger landscape. There is a chaise for Neil; there
are probably a couple of little floating chairs; the edge of the yurt is the perfect height for
sitting on. So when we have everyone together, it really is a down-center-stage event. But
then there are great moments where you [actors] can just walk to the cliff, walk to the
horizon line that is etched in the sky.
Running all through this are hoses and electrical cords and generators; there is a solar
power cell and all that funny wiring. We’re trying not to fill [the stage] up, but find great
pockets of something real, and let a lot of the sky keep coming through.
It’s really a cliff house, so [offstage] the cliff starts moving down to the road, and it
probably moves on up to another road, where the fire trucks would have been with their
hoses. There are half-burned trees going into living trees, stage right, where it gets lush.
So we’re left in that beautiful light, where Jeannette and Neil have their moment once
Bill and Dinah have left. The next thing that happens is Neil’s lecture, and the scrim comes
in again, and in front of the scrim is a lecture hall screen. His PowerPoint slide show happens on that, with Neil below doing his lecture. Then we move away to Bill and Dinah
entering, where Bill is nursing the new tree. Once again there is beautiful light from the
setting sun, but also through the scrim you see a bit of the sky in the background, so the
worlds start to mesh a bit.
ja: In the final scene, the yurt will disappear, and Neil and Jeannette will be on the bed,
and we’re going to bring the yurt platform into the sweet spot on the edge of the stage. So
Neil and Jeannette will be heard, and it will feel blown out, and everything will be surreal.
Moonlight will be coming in, and you [indicating Caroline Lagerfelt and Dennis Boutsikaris]
can have this deeply intimate moment as Jeannette helps Neil out of this life, and it will be
as close to the audience as possible.
de: Jane and I kept talking about the magic of that moment, and what happens when
the spirit leaves and the body remains. We went through cosmic ideas of stars swirling,
but eventually we came to this idea that the light within the yurt and the exterior will all
become one. So it’s no longer about being in the yurt or being outside; everything is the
same landscape. So it’s all of these objects and the people etched against the bigger sky.
Once again, the walls and everything else will go away. We have the heat of that moment,
and then all of a sudden the moonlight comes through and hits Jeannette, and we restore
it to naturalism, and end the play that way.
muse of fire
An Interview with Jane Anderson
by dan rubin
J
ane Anderson’s professional playwriting
career literally began with a bang. The
tragic explosion of the Challenger shuttle
inspired her first full-length play, Defying
Gravity. This event propelled her away from
a successful career as a solo performer and
writer for television and directed her toward
the creation of theatrical works that “channel
our times” through the exploration of such
challenging topics as sexual “normalcy,” personal and national disaster, and the American
culture wars.
“I realized that the Challenger explosion
was too profound an event to make into a personal showcase,” Anderson recalls. “I realized
Playwright/director Jane Anderson
that writing and performance and theater are
about the subject and not about myself. That’s what turned me into a true writer: finally
being able to separate self-glorification from the writing.”
Anderson has been writing for the stage ever since. Her plays have been produced off
Broadway and in theaters around the country, including Actors Theatre of Louisville,
McCarter Theatre Center, Long Wharf Theatre, the Geffen Playhouse, and Pasadena
Playhouse. Her published plays include Looking for Normal, The Baby Dance, and Smart
Choices for the New Century, as well as Defying Gravity. She first worked with a.c.t. in
, when she developed and premiered Food and Shelter with director Joy Carlin as part
of a.c.t.’s Plays in Progress series.
Anderson has also maintained a celebrated and award-winning career in film and television as a writer and a director. She first established herself in Hollywood with her teleplay The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader–Murdering Mom, for
which she received an Emmy, a pen Award, and a Writers Guild Award for best teleplay.
This success was quickly followed by her feature-film writing debut, It Could Happen to
You, in and her adaptation How to Make an American Quilt in. She also wrote and
directed The Baby Dance (), If These Walls Could Talk 2 (), When Billie Beat Bobby
(), Normal (), and The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio ().
The project that would become The Quality of Life started in , during the Geffen
Playhouse’s production of Looking for Normal. After the completion of Normal’s run, the
Geffen commissioned Anderson to write The Quality of Life, which opened in the autumn
of and garnered four Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award nominations.
A month before rehearsals for a.c.t.’s production of The Quality of Life began, Anderson
spoke with us about her career as a writer and director of theater and film and the origins
of The Quality of Life.
act i
how did you learn to write for the theater?
I lived for the theater, even when I was kid. I had my heart set on being an actress. I did
amateur theater in the Bay Area. This was in the late ’H, early ’s, and my biggest
triumph was playing The Bat-Winged Hamburger Snatcher in this crazy hippy musical
called Odd Bodkins. I worked out this absurd roller-skating bit and managed to bring down
the house. Robert Kelley directed the show at this funky community theater in Palo Alto,
which he later transformed into TheatreWorks, which is now a major regional theater. I
was a sponge back then—I still am, I hope. I got my parents to take me to plays; I read
Stanislavsky’s An Actor Prepares and got all dewy-eyed over The Method; my favorite playwright was Chekhov.
When I was , I moved to New York City determined to be a star. I took acting classes
and voice classes and tap and ballet. I auditioned and acted in terrible plays in closet-sized
theaters where the cast was usually larger than the audience. More importantly, I watched.
I second-acted Broadway shows and went to every off- and off-off-Broadway piece I could
find.
New York theater in the ’s was remarkable. Joseph Papp was running The Public
Theater and he was producing all these hot new playwrights: Sam Shepard, John Guare,
David Rabe, Caryl Churchill, Tina Howe. I saw the premiere of A Chorus Line. I ran down
to La MaMa and saw Andrei Serban’s mind-blowing production of Trojan Women, which
still haunts me. I went to performance pieces by Richard Foreman and Spalding Gray.
Meryl Streep was just getting her start, and I watched her performances in awe. And then
there was the New York street life—the great parade of humanity that I was exposed to
every day. Mini dramas were happening all around me, and I just sucked it up.
Then in , I was in the New York premiere of a play called Sexual Perversity in
Chicago by this new playwright, David Mamet. No one knew back then that he would turn
into an institution. Rehearsing that play taught me how to write. The act of figuring out
his subtext and how to play the rhythms of his dialogue—it was the best training I could
have had as a writer.
A few years later, I helped put together a group of writers, directors, and actors called
Writers Bloc with the playwright Jeffrey Sweet and my buddy Donald Margulies, who
back then was just another struggling young writer and now he has a Pulitzer. I joined the
group as an actress, but soon I started writing little scenes that I’d bring in every week to
be read by the other actors in the group—who, I’ll admit, were much better than me. I
thought the experience was thrilling. I started to bring back the same characters until they
began to develop real flesh and bone. Later, when I had the confidence to write full-length
plays, I brought back some of those characters. Food and Shelter, which premiered at a.c.t.,
was created out of some of those early hints of scenes.
how did you go from new york to becoming an l.a. writer?
Before I became a bona fide playwright, I took another left turn and hit the cabaret circuit.
Lily Tomlin was a hero of mine, and I wrote and performed these characters and made a
small name for myself doing shows at clubs like The Duplex and Don’t Tell Mama. Billy
Crystal came to my act, scouting for talent for a television variety show he was producing,
The Billy Crystal Comedy Hour. I was hired and brought out to l.a. I thought it would be
my big break, my own Saturday Night Live, but the show was canceled after three weeks.
I think every young artist needs to go to New York, because New York is such a marvelous, eclectic, vital, difficult, gritty place, and the artistic standards are so high. That’s
where to learn a craft. I felt by the time I came to l.a. I had built a fair amount of artistic
integrity. I had a backlog of artistic snobbery so that, no matter what Hollywood decided
to do to me, I had reserve energy.
So I stayed in l.a. and kept doing my one-woman show. I needed a steady job, so I
wrote a spec tv script and got work as a staff writer on a sitcom. Working on staff was
invaluable to me as a writer, because it took the preciousness out of the process. I learned
how to rewrite, which is the most essential part of a writer’s craft. Before, I thought everything that came out of my typewriter was God’s gift. No writer should operate that way.
You have to have humility and you have to be able to look at a scene and say, “That doesn’t
work,” and get rid of it without regret. It was only then that I was ready to go back to the
theater and write a proper play.
Then the Challenger exploded in . That was when I started writing my first fulllength play, Defying Gravity. I really hadn’t dared write plays for other people. Actually,
my first play was during the ’ Olympics in l.a. I was part of the Ensemble Studio
Theatre–la out here, and they decided to do a series of short plays about the Olympics.
The very first play I wrote was called Shot Put. It was about two parents watching their
daughter in the shot put event and the mother’s shame that her daughter was this big burly
thing competing in this really unfeminine sport. That was really my first attempt at writing more than just scenes, and I found it deeply satisfying to hand the work over to other
actors and let them have a go at it.
your playwriting first brought you to a.c.t. in 1990?
That was Food and Shelter. I wrote that during my social justice, social consciousness
period. I don’t think the play was entirely successful, because I was still a new playwright
and I don’t think it has the pace and craft that my work has now. But I’m still proud of it.
There’s actually an interesting story connected to it that makes my coming back to a.c.t.
pretty marvelous: The play is about a homeless family who spends the night in Disneyland.
One of the characters is a little girl, and I thought, if you’re living out of a car and you’re
a desperate kid you would start making up an imaginary friend, maybe an angel figure,
to talk to. I named the angel Raphael—I just grabbed it out of the air. The director, Joy
Carlin, told me about a shelter for homeless families in San Francisco called Raphael
House, and she took me there. I talked to the Jesuit priest who ran it, Michael Ennis, who
told me that Raphael is the archangel of families: the name means “God has healed.” Then
cut to ten years later. My spouse, Tess, and I were trying to start a family. It was a long,
hard road, with some devastating losses. We finally ended up at this adoption agency as a
last resort. The social worker asked us if we had considered adopting a child from South
America. She made a call, handed the phone to us, and a man got on the phone and said,
“Well, you’re in luck. We have a beautiful baby boy who was just born in Paraguay. His
name is Raphael.” God has healed. Raphie is now and will be coming to the opening of
The Quality of Life. By the way, he wants to be an actor.
act ii
how did THE QUALIT Y OF LIFE come about?
The premise came from this: I have two friends, a couple in their late s who are truly
devoted to each other. The husband said to me one day that, when they found out his wife
had breast cancer, he was prepared to take his own life if she died. “Really?” I asked, “You’re
kidding.” He said, “Look, I’ve had a wonderful life, I’ve traveled all over the world, done
work that I love, gotten awards. I’ve done it all. But without her, my life would have no
meaning and I would be living in a world of gray.”
I was deeply moved by the intensity of his love for her. And, of course, when you hear
somebody say that, you start examining your own relationship: If my beloved died, would
my life be so miserable that I wouldn’t want to go on? Or do I value my life too much to
do that? Does that mean I value my life more than her, or is committing suicide because of
grief a copout? There’s this Buddhist belief that suffering is just a fact of life, and it is your
job to take whatever grief or pain that life hands you and find a way to move through it.
On the other hand, and the reason why I call the play The Quality of Life: Are we obliged
to keep living if the quality of our lives is so absolutely awful?
I think most liberals will support the decision of someone who is suffering physically
from a horrible disease to take themselves out: if you’re going to die, you don’t want to
spend your last days in pain. I think most people can get behind that unless they’re super
religious and believe you can’t mess with God’s plan. I think most people believe that if
you are experiencing extreme physical suffering that leads to death it’s perfectly justifiable
to end your life. But nobody talks about ending it if you’re going to spend the rest of your
life in emotional pain, because pain is more abstract.
On the other hand, there is another side to grief. That’s why I put our Midwesterners in,
Dinah and Bill, who I think are heroic. They’re suffering a grief that, I think, goes beyond
the death of a spouse: the loss of a child. They feel that it is their duty and obligation to live
on. A duty to their daughter, the world, to God. I find that very brave. That’s my personal
take, but at the same time I do sympathize with Jeannette’s point of view.
did these same friends lose their home to a fire, as the characters in the play do?
No. The play is a combination of events. One of my brothers lost his home in a terrible
fire on the Inverness Ridge, the Mount Vision fire, in ’. It was an awful loss. It took him
years to get over it.
But the marvelous thing is, now he’s rebuilt and his place is more magical than ever. All
of the Bishop pines on the ridge burned, but those particular trees need fire to propagate:
they need that intense heat to explode the pine cones and spread the seed. After the first
rain, thousands of little pinelets started emerging, and they grew up so thick and so fast
that every Christmas when my family goes up there, my brother will take his chainsaw and
cut us a couple of Christmas trees. Those trees are now , feet high. The regeneration
is incredible. You know forests want this. It’s part of their process.
I love the fire as a metaphor. I have always wanted to stage a play at a burn site. I
remember seeing a play by Lanford Wilson called Lemon Sky; there’s this marvelous speech
that the young protagonist has where he describes these hills in l.a. scorched by a fire, and
Devastation caused by the Mount Vision fire
the eerie outline of the blackened trees in the ash. I was only when I heard that speech,
but I could never get the imagery of out of my head.
how was directing THE QUALIT Y OF LIFE for the geffen production last
autumn?
It was fantastic, because that was when I crafted a decent performance draft. I love
rehearsal for that, and that goes back to learning that rewriting is % of the process.
When I was a younger writer, I used to dread rewrites, and I thought that I would just die
if someone gave me notes on a script. But now, for me it’s just delightful. And the actors in
the original production [Laurie Metcalf, Dennis Boutsikaris, JoBeth Williams, and Scott
Bakula] are all seasoned, strong, powerful performers. It was like working with four stallions. What I loved about it was that they had no problem saying to me, “I don’t get this.
I don’t think this works.”
Many times they brought up something that made me think, “Why did I put that in?”
The tricky thing about being the writer and the director is that as the writer, if an actor
has a problem with something that first week of rehearsal, my first impulse is to say, “Okay,
let me rewrite it.” A director would say, “Just hold off. Let’s give it a chance.” The writer
part of me still gets nervous. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been writing, you always
doubt your work, and if it doesn’t work for an actor I respect, I think, “Oh no, there must
be something wrong with the script.” I had to learn very quickly to distinguish between a
fear note and a genuine note. That’s why it is nice to have a director by your side if you’re
a writer.
what did you learn about the script during the run in l.a.?
I write much thicker than I thought. I don’t put in a lot of stage directions, because I think
actors don’t enjoy them. I think they like to find it out themselves. But Laurie kept saying
to me, once she figured out what the scene was really about, “You have to put directions
in this script because you don’t want to hand this off to people and have them completely
misinterpret it. You need a map for this script.” That’s interesting, because as writers we
want to trust that the directors and the actors who will do subsequent productions will get
it without you in the room.
are there things you plan to do differently this time around?
I have to wait and see. I always sit back and let the actors work around the table and work
the script and talk about it before I put them on their feet. I like blocking to come out
of their impulses, not mine, and then I’ll start cleaning it up and creating more elegant
stage pictures. This is going to be a huge challenge, because I chose the small theater at
the Geffen last October, which is only about seats, so it’s a tiny space, super intimate.
Now it’s going to this grand, fabulous –seat house. So expanding the picture will be
the challenge.
act iii
tell me about your writing process.
In my early days, when I was just developing my discipline, I used to write from to with a little break for lunch. I thought that’s the way to go. Then I realized that if you keep
writing past a point of exhaustion you’re not doing your muse any favors. The subconscious
is a very delicate organism. It will rebel if you work it too hard, and I’ve learned to back
off. It’s the same with raising my son. If you want a kid to do something, you have to give
them a positive action. So if they keep touching a delicate glass, instead of saying, “Don’t
touch that! Don’t touch that! Put that down!” you say, “Come here, go pick up that block,
isn’t that cool?” You distract them with a positive. You have to do the same thing with
your muse. Every time you write a sentence you can’t start saying to yourself, “Stupid idea,
stupid stupid.” It’s a horrible thing to do! You wouldn’t do that to a friend or to a child,
but we do it to ourselves all the time. If you want your muse to relax and create, you have
to make gentle suggestions to yourself: “Why don’t you try this direction? There, there,
you’ll be fine.”
do you do the same when you are directing?
Oh yes, absolutely. I have great respect for actors, and I don’t want anyone to ever think
that I think of them as children, but their muse is as delicate as mine, perhaps even more
so. Here’s the thing that writers and directors have to remember—especially writers,
because as a writer [by the time I walk into the rehearsal room] I’ve already done %
of my creating. I’ve made all my wrong turns, and I’ve done it in private, and I’ve done
it months ago, maybe even years ago. So I’m arriving on the first day of rehearsal kind of
smug because I’ve already solved it: “I’m done, finished!” A lot of writers make the mistake
that, because they’ve figured it out, they think everybody else should be able to figure it
out right away, including the director. But the actors arrive on the first day of rehearsal in
that same raw terrified state that I’m in when I sit down to write that first page of my play.
Writers think that because they’re working from that blank page it’s much scarier, but it
is just as terrifying for an actor to look at a script with these words and these people they
don’t know yet and face the huge task of finding their way in. So, as the director, my job
is to protect them from the writer.
how do you protect your cast from the writer when you are the
writer?
Well, often I just have a running monologue with the writer inside, saying, “Shut up, just
shut up, just calm down.” It’s exhausting, but hey, I signed up for it. And I love it. I love
directing. I came into it as a film director when I started directing my screenplays. I love
directing because the director gets to choose the visual look of a play or a film and the
music and the soundscape. I find those other media as exciting as the written word.
do you prefer the control you have as the director of film
compared to theater?
I love them both. I also have to remind the film director in my head that this is theater. The
reason you really have to back off as a writer in theater is because the actors are the ones
who eventually run the show onstage, so they have to completely and utterly own it. A film
actor often doesn’t entirely have to own the part because their performance gets shaped in
the editing room, and as the director I get to choose my favorite takes. Film actors don’t
get a month of exploration. Often, they show up a week before, we have a read-through,
maybe you have a few rehearsals; but film actors are performing on the fly. They have done
an enormous amount of prep before showing up to the set, but usually there’s not a lot of
exploring to be had once the shooting starts.
In theater, the actors get a whole month of finding their way through the play, so you
can afford a few wrong turns. When you have a week to rehearse for a film and an actor
starts to go down the wrong hole, you say, “Wait a minute, actually the line means this and
the character is really going after a instead of b.” And they’re grateful for that because you
have to take shortcuts. If you do that for a stage actor the first week of rehearsal, you crush
the exploration process.
how is writing for film and television different from writing for
theater?
Screenwriting is all about story structure; plays are about character development, and so is
the one-hour television series. Screenwriting is like architecture: you have to have a blueprint to hang your characters and tone on. I’ve tried writing screenplays starting on page
one and just going, and you always run into a huge jam. There’s a structure to a film that’s
very specific, and when I start writing a film, I start by drawing a horizontal line across
a sheet of paper dividing it into three acts and writing out basic plot points: where each
character should be by each point. And then I write an outline. And then I write the script.
With plays I don’t do that. It’s a completely different process—I let myself meander, I let
the characters tell me where to go. I don’t impose a structure until I know what the play’s
about. I’m delighted to be able to work in these different media. It keeps me fresh. Writers
shouldn’t have to limit themselves to just one field. Visual artists may switch from painting
to sculpture to printmaking and play with every tool in the box. Besides, this thing we call
show business is so fickle—when I’m bashed by the critics in one medium, I’ll just switch
to the other.
joyously sharing the burden of grief
Interviews with the A.C.T. Cast of The Quality of Life
by dan rubin
W
ith three actors ( JoBeth Williams, Laurie Metcalf, and Dennis Boutsikaris)
returning to The Quality of Life after a year-long hiatus since the play’s run in Los
Angeles, and two actors (Steven Culp and Caroline Lagerfelt) approaching their characters for the first time, a.c.t.’s Quality cast brings a fascinating mixture of perspectives to
the table. A month before rehearsals began for a.c.t.’s new production, they spoke to us
about the play and their careers on stage and screen.
dennis boutsikaris
Dennis Boutsikaris (Neil) originated the role of Neil in The Quality of Life. He has been
recognized for his work on and off Broadway, as well as in television, film, and audio-book
narration.
(l to r) JoBeth Williams, Laurie Metcalf, and Dennis Boutsikaris in The Quality of Life (photo courtesy of the Geffen Playhouse
and Michael Lamont)
how did you approach this role?
My impulse as an actor is always to find ways to get moving and get going and doing and
being. But Jane and the script kept saying, “No, you’re actually quite sick. You need to just
stay right there and pay attention.” That was hard. I felt restrained and reined in, but out
of that restraint came a much better performance for me and for the play. It was a learning
process for me, and it is nice to have lessons when you are later in your career.
was there something in that stillness that made you confront
the play more?
In rehearsal, we knew there was an emotional door we were going to have to walk through,
but we said, “Instead, why don’t we just doodle on the door.” Eventually we would walk
through it, and once we walked through, there was always gold to be found both on a personal level and as an ensemble. It was so positive. Rarely do you have these experiences in
theater, because usually you are in a play and everybody is very disparate and you go off on
your separate ways and you don’t really talk about what you’re doing, really. But this show
just came together in a way that is strange. It was really good.
have you been living with the play since the first production?
Well, we thought we were going to do again it pretty quickly after the first time we did
it, and then it didn’t happen and I kind of put the play away in my head. I’ve kept contact
a little bit with Laurie and JoBeth, and with Scott, but the idea of actually doing the play
again didn’t seem real. But I have this big lecture I give in the play, and every once in a
while I would try to remember it from beginning to end. As a little exercise.
One of the things about this play, and I guess this is true of most plays, is that you have
scene one and then you have scene two and then scene four, and you aren’t really experiencing the cumulative effects of those events, one after the other, because you are in the
middle of trying to get onstage, or get off, or change your pants. The cumulative events are
not accreting on you as they are on the audience, and so there was a part of me that didn’t
really understand the reaction that we would get: the communal sob we would feel at the
end of the play. It was all kind of a great gift.
did you feel detached?
No, no, no, my experience was just not the audience’s experience of it. My experience was of
working hard with Laurie to create a relationship that felt true in the things that were said
about us and the things we had to say. And these were emotions that were really unknown, deep
things that people don’t often feel in their lives, except maybe fleetingly. Almost mythical.
Laurie probably won’t mind me telling you this, but we were sitting there one day, and
she said, “So do you relate to any of this?” And I said, “Well, quite honestly . . .” “What is
this cult of two? Do you get that at all? Would you want to die if . . .” “Yeah I don’t know
if I . . .” “Yeah I don’t get it.” “I don’t get it either.” “Well, we gotta figure something out
here.” And that was a great moment for us, when we admitted to each other that this is
unknown territory: this impenetrable cult of two.
are there specific things you want to explore in coming back to
the play after a year?
You know, I had a conversation with Laurie about this, and we both agreed there were at
least a dozen things that made us think, “You know, that moment there—what were we
doing? We were just trying to muddle through it.” So we can specifically look at those. But
it’s going to be a whole new animal in a way, too, because it’s a new set and a new space; so
there’s a lot there. And certainly we have these two new people, which will be a wonderful
jolt of energy. So it’s all the same, and it’s all new, all at the same time.
steven culp
Steven Culp (Bill) received Drama-Logue Awards for his performance in Angels in America at a.c.t. in and returned to a.c.t.
in Blackbird in . Also a prolific screen actor, he received wide
acclaim for his performance as Robert F. Kennedy in the film
Thirteen Days and Screen Actors’ Guild Awards in and as part of the cast of abc’s Desperate Housewives.
do you prepare for your roles in theater and
film differently?
Essentially, no, although with Bill I’m already thinking that I want to transform myself
physically, somehow. And I’ve been listening for him, which is something you get a chance
more to do in theater than in tv and movies, although I’ve had a few roles in tv and movies where I’ve been able to do the same kind of thing: I’ve been keeping an ear out for what
I would like his voice to be.
I’m very different from him. Bill is a farm-bred, Midwestern man of few words (seemingly). More the salt-of-the-earth type, while I’m more the white kid from the suburbs who
went to university and was an English major. I have more of an East Coast sensibility.
It’s funny, because you go through all the possibilities of what you’d like to do, and a
lot of the time you come right back to yourself, but you’ve taken what you’ve learned from
exploring those other possibilities, so what you come out with is richer. But I really do feel
that I want to change him so that he doesn’t look like me.
I did the same thing with Ray in Blackbird: he’s older than me, he’s in his mid s, and
I was concerned about making the age sell, because I thought that was a really important
aspect of that play, the age difference between the two characters. For Ray I ended up graying the hair and dressing a certain way, but also I changed my posture. There was a certain
visual image I had in my head based on someone I knew, and it just felt right. Also, vocally
for Ray I had a certain model in my head, a certain actor’s accent, which is where I started
and developed it from there. And now I am looking for that with Bill’s voice.
what else are you doing to prepare for the role?
I’m reading. I got in contact with an old friend from high school who is a born-again
Christian, and I asked him about where I could go to find some good stuff on Creationism.
I’m actually reading a book by James Dobson now, When God Doesn’t Make Sense, because
I think that really relates to what these characters are going through with the loss of their
daughter. It’s interesting to read, because Dobson is a fundamentalist Christian, and he has
some interesting things to say about dealing with tragedy, when God doesn’t seem to be
there, and I think that’s exactly the kind of thing that Bill is going through. So I’ve started
my preliminary work, but it’s hard to say where it is going to end up.
have you ever lived through a fire?
I was in l.a. in during the riots, and we finally left the apartment when the camera
store around the corner went up in flames. Some friends of ours who lived in Burbank
called us and said, “You should come over here.” So we threw things very quickly in the
car, but, what do you throw in the car? I grabbed my guitar, we grabbed our wedding
pictures, and some clothes, and I forget what else. I don’t know if we thought to take
bank statements and stuff like that. We were younger and lived simpler lives. Nobody had
computers back then. We stayed in Burbank for a little while, but I did go back. We had
just got permission from our landlord to start a vegetable garden in the back on this little
bare spot next to the wall. And I actually went back to water the garden during the couple
days when things were really tense.
caroline lagerfelt
caroline lagerfelt (Jeannette) spent five years in San Francisco as Inger Dominguez on
television’s Nash Bridges and played Queen Elizabeth in Mary Stuart at a.c.t. under the
direction of long-time collaborator a.c.t. Artistic Director Carey Perloff.
what is it like coming back to a.c.t.?
It is a dream come true. People always ask actors, “What was
the favorite part you ever played?” And I don’t know that I can
pick just one, but out of my five favorite productions I’ve done
over the last – years, three have been with Carey Perloff
directing, which is sort of amazing. And all three of them have
been seminal experiences for both of us. They’ve been different.
They’ve been trailblazing.
The first time I came to a.c.t. was to play Queen Elizabeth
in Mary Stuart in . That play was absolutely an extraordinary experience for me and for Carey and I think for the whole
cast. It was a very tough play, and I had two small children, and
it was a big commitment both for me and for her to help me deal with my children, who
were in l.a. But the play was a huge success and we were sold out every night, and then
we were invited the following year to go to Boston to do it at the Huntington [Theatre
Company], which was really exciting for all of us.
By that point my son was a tiny bit older, he was probably about nine years old, which
is a strange and wonderful age, when he was too little to leave behind but too grown up to
ditch all his friends and his soccer for three months without a better reason than hanging
with Mom. Carey said, “What can I do to make this production work for you?” and I said,
“Well, I have to figure out what I am going to do with Michael.” She said, “Well, how
about if we”—because he is a terrific actor and musician—“write him in a small part as a
page?” So I went to Boston and we worked together for three months. That’s how Carey
thinks outside the box. I think that’s how she makes things work so well.
Carey has been kind enough to invite me back many times, but raising two kids as a
single mother, I couldn’t really leave them again. Every year she’d call, and I’d say, “I have
to wait.” So one son graduated and moved on, and my other son is now a senior in high
school, and I told everybody that I was not leaving town during his senior year.
Then this extraordinarily strange and scary and exciting and amazing situation came
up: the idea of actresses sharing a part. Which is in some ways anathema for actresses,
but I just think Laurie Metcalf is one of the most brilliant actresses in America and I am
absolutely thrilled. I would be even more thrilled to be sharing the stage with her; honestly,
that would be my favorite thing to do. But then my next favorite thing is being in the same
production with her, even if it is on alternate nights. It worked out perfectly, because that
way I am only away from my son three days of the week.
And I love San Francisco with a passion: I spent five years there on Nash Bridges as
Cheech Marin’s wife, and their only rule was that they couldn’t film on the Golden Gate
Bridge, so they filmed everywhere else. So I have been everywhere in San Francisco and I
love it. I cannot wait to get on Southwest [Airlines] and come up there.
laurie metcalf
Laurie Metcalf (Jeannette), an original member of Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre
Company, may be best known for her appearances on the television series Roseanne and
The Norm Show. She originated the role of Jeannette at the Geffen Playhouse, where she
also received Ovation Awards for her performances in Jane Anderson’s Looking for Normal
and Arthur Miller’s All My Sons.
what was it like the first time you worked on THE QUALIT Y OF LIFE ?
Frankly, it was a bitch. It is a terrific play that delves into a lot of very emotional personal
subjects for everybody. Everybody in it, everybody watching it, will respond to it in some
way. I remember all four of the actors sort of procrastinating on certain scenes because it
was painful to rehearse.
where did you go within the play to find protection?
Protection is a good way of putting it, because some of it is so intense that you substitute
different things for yourself to come up with what the characters are really going through.
It is a tough one.
But weirdly, there is so much humor in it. Jane walks that fine line of sadly casual things
being very funny. Jane really has a firm vision of the tone of the show; she insisted that we
find the humor, and she was right. It wasn’t anybody’s first instinct. None of us would have
gone for that without her. When you know that you are doing a drama, the tendency is to
go for the drama. But she said, “No no no, there is a roundabout way to do this.”
the returning actors seem to be happy to return to the show,
despite the burden it places on you emotionally.
I think this play really shook us up. What makes it work is that it is just a beautiful piece
of writing with four extremely juicy parts. And those don’t come around all that often. I
love how balanced the show is with all four individuals, and then with both sets of couples;
at one time or another throughout the play, I think the audience can identify with all four
of the people. Everyone gets their moment.
It is a tough show to do eight times a week, but it is very rewarding. And it is full of
surprises for the audiences. I also love that it’s a new play and that the audiences don’t come
in knowing much, if anything, about it, and yet from the very start they can tell, “This is
going to be a ride.” And it is. It’s a real ride. The pleasure comes from taking audiences
on that ride.
is taking the audience on that ride what distinguishes theater
from acting for television or film?
I think most actors enjoy the process of rehearsals, which you don’t get in any real sense in
movies and tv. I mean they call them rehearsals, but they’re not. You’re just scratching the
surface, and I know I always walk away from a day on the set kicking myself and thinking
about what I missed or should have done or didn’t think of quickly enough. You’re never
satisfied with what you did.
So the luxury of being able to dig around in a play is so rewarding and makes it ultimately so different. And the fact that, once it is up and mounted, it’s really in the hands
of the actors to lead the audience on the journey rather than the editors. Theater is by far
my preference because of that. Also, in theater you are never going to have a perfect show,
because you’re always going to be challenging yourself, and that’s what makes it interesting and leaves every night open to surprises. It’s a living thing. It never will be put away.
And I love the fact that there is no permanent record. After a performance, it just exists in
everybody’s imagination of it.
are there things you are looking forward to trying differently
in this production?
We’ve all been away from it for almost a year, and rarely does this opportunity come around
when you can go back and revisit a play that you’ve done and loved doing. So this is a
fantastic opportunity for all of us. And as I’ve picked up the script and leafed through it
and looked back and remembered parts that I loved, things have jumped out and hit me
in a different way after this year off. I think it is going to be a really great time for experimentation, taking it one step further.
jobeth williams
JoBeth Williams (Dinah) is probably best known for her starring roles in the films
Poltergeist (I and II), The Big Chill, Teachers, Switch, Fever Pitch, Stir Crazy, and Kramer
vs. Kramer, among many others. She received a Back Stage West Garland Award and an
Ovation Award nomination for her performance as Dinah in Los Angeles.
did growing up in texas inform your playing of dinah, who is a midwesterner?
I certainly do see some of my family in Dinah and Bill’s characters. There is a certain
optimistic innocence that a lot of people in Texas have, and I think it is a Midwestern trait
as well. One of the wonderful things I love about Dinah is her naïve hopeful take on life.
Growing up in Texas, women are raised to be helpful and take care of things and make
people feel comfortable. I think I bring some of that to Dinah.
She has a different take on life from her husband, or she is in a different place. I think
she certainly has her own anger at the loss of their daughter. She has suffered the deep,
deep sorrow of it, and I think it has left her incredibly vulnerable and wanting to connect,
but she is not connecting with her husband.
I think one of the reasons I love the play is that Dinah desperately wants to connect
with her cousin, Jeannette, who she really has nothing in common with, but she wants to
connect because they’re family.
what is this play about for you?
How different people look at life and death, and the quality of their life. Is the quality of
their life the most important thing, or is it life itself that’s the most important thing? I love
the play. I think it is fascinating and deals with so many different issues, and when we did
it in l.a. it resonated with so many people.
We would do these q&a sessions afterwards, and people would tell us these heartbreaking and shocking stories. One woman, who came back to see the show three or four times,
had been contemplating suicide. She came with her friend. She had lost her husband a
couple of years before, and her friend had seen the play and talked her into coming. After
the third time she saw the play, she said, “This play has made me look at the value of my
life, and that I still can continue to find value in my life.”
So many people were really touched and would come up afterwards and tell us that they
had lost someone recently or lost their son in Iraq, and you see what people go through in
their lives and yet go on.
was the rehearsal process as moving for you as the performances
were for your audience?
It was excruciatingly painful. We all had to go to these very dark places. As a mother, just
the thought of losing one of my sons . . . of course it is every parent’s worst nightmare. In
working on this character I really had to deal with the possibility of that kind of loss. I lost
my father when I was , so I know how your life changes from that kind of loss and how
that empty space never gets filled, even though you try desperately to fill it.
It was hard for all of us. Whenever we took a break, it was very hard to wrangle us back
into rehearsal. We’d be joking the whole time, and Jane said it was like herding cats to get
us all back into the rehearsal room. Well, part of that was resistance to having to deal with
these very painful issues. So there was a certain amount of cutting up and misbehaving that
went on among the four of us, part of which was just to relieve the tension.
When you deal with grief, you don’t just let it go when you get home and have dinner;
it’s something that permeates. When you deal with something as difficult as that kind of
loss, day-in day-out, eight hours a day, it’s very hard to just let that go when you go home.
I would be upset by the slightest thing, and I’d get angry or sad very easily. I was in mourning. And yet I couldn’t wait to get back to rehearsal every day.
why, then, are you putting yourself through that again, with a
new production?
Because it is such a wonderfully written character and a wonderfully written play. And the
actors were all so connected, and we worked off each other so well. Every day was a joy,
because we were getting to do what we love to do, which is do a great play with wonderful
actors. That kind of situation does not come around often. So at the end of a long day of
rehearsal, even though you emotionally have to put yourself through the ringer, you feel
well used. You feel like you were able to use your craft and your training and all the things
you love about acting in a really good way, and ultimately a very healthy way. I’m really
looking forward to doing that again.
And it’s going to be very interesting, because we are going to have a different Bill, and
I don’t know where my Dinah will go with this guy. And it’s going to be different with
Caroline. I was talking to Jane about the doubling [of Caroline and Laurie]: I come out
of repertory theater. When I graduated from Brown I went right into Trinity Repertory
Company in Providence. I spent two years with them, and we would sometimes double
cast plays, or we would do rotating casts. I remember we did three different incarnations
of [Molière’s] School for Wives, so every time I played Agnès I had a different leading man,
and it was so much fun because I found whole new areas of the character and the play
by working with someone different. So I think it will be very exciting having two women
playing Jeannette. It is going to keep us all on our toes.
the innate power of nature, light, and air
Designing The Quality of Life for a.c.t.
by lesley gibson
P
laywright Jane Anderson’s stage directions for the opening scene of The Quality of Life
describe Dinah and Bill sitting alone in their living room, “isolated in a pool of light,”
with a single photo of their late daughter hanging above them. When The Quality of Life
premiered in the Audrey Skirball Kenis Theater in Los Angeles last year, an audience of
watched the action from three sides of a thrust stage, experiencing the intimacy of the
couple’s grief at a close enough distance to all but reach out and touch the actors.
Following the final performance of its successful l.a. run, a.c.t.’s artistic and production teams prepared to welcome the play into the –seat American Conservatory
Theater, with its -foot-wide stage and majestic gold-leaf proscenium. A new group of
designers, familiar with a.c.t.’s historic house, were brought in to re-imagine the sensory
experience of the play—which travels from the closeness of that opening scene to the
expanse of a fire-ravaged northern California hillside—in a way that would make the most
of the theater’s grandeur and sophisticated technology while allowing the comic and often
tender emotional themes of the play to shine through.
Just before rehearsals began in San Francisco, we talked to the designers about the
process of re-setting the stage for a brand-new production of The Quality of Life at the
American Conservatory Theater.
scenic designer donald eastman
what were your initial thoughts about the design for this play?
donald eastman: I was interested in capturing the power of setting the people against
the sky, as opposed to a painted drop of trees, which is what they had in [the original
production]. The characters in this play have lost everything. This set has to look like loss.
You want to see small people in a big sky with nothing left. Of course, the set is richer
than that, but it’s all about: Which way is the view, which way are we looking out from
the cliff of the house? It’s a hill house, so it’s perched up somewhere, so that’s why I tried
to put the feeling of the view at the back, so we can see sky, as opposed to a comforting,
foresty, idyllic thing.
The Quality of Life set design sketch of Jeannette and Neil's home, by scenic designer Donald Eastman
what particular challenges did you confront in designing a set
for a theater ten times the size of the original venue?
The most important thing is that, when the setting is realistic, you have to keep the emotional air right. In this play you don’t want to look at a lot of stuff; you want to feel like
there’s nothing. So there are areas where there is a lot of detail, but then there are areas
where it just chills, so you get a rest from all the information.
When you’re in a more intimate theater, you’re really in the location. Things tend to
seem real to you. Realistic sets are especially challenging, because you might naturally have,
say, a trash can next to one thing, something else next to another thing, and so on. But
when you step back and look at the bigger picture you might see: I really need something
shiny here, or something that lights up over there. Ultimately, you’re making a kind of a
picture that can in turns be haunting, familiar, evocative, and emotional. It’s very hard
work, and I’ve been cursing it [laughs]. And then to make it more fun we get to go to three
other locations.
how did you approach the design for the other locations?
Whenever we’re not [on Jeannette and Neil’s land], we’re in Bill and Dinah’s space. We’re
trying to set those as simply as we can, so really the focus is on Bill and Dinah and what’s
happening with them at that moment. So those scenes are very minimally done. And we
want to make it very intimate before we open up into the very large world of Neil and
Jeannette’s property.
how did you research this project?
Jane’s brother lives on the ridge in Point Reyes, and his house was caught up in [the Mount
Vision fire in ]. After the fire, he built a tent and had hoses that ran everywhere, connecting water sources to a shower and bathroom he created. He built a kitchen out of
some of the old wood, and the place was decorated with some of the burned and charred
remains from the fire. In a way, that was the inspiration for Jane in creating the location
of this play.
There are great photos taken by Jane’s family of that fire. All the details you could ever
want are in those photos. So it was that, combined with a sense of architecture, and also a
sense of how fires happen. Fires come up a hill, and the house on the hillside gets hit, and
perhaps farther up the hill is the road that the fire truck can get to, but the fire truck can’t
get down to the house. So they’re hosing everything and it’s eventually at that place where
they can make some sort of impact on the site.
Making a new home after the Mount Vision fire
When you look at the set you kind of feel that geography: the cliff is off to the left,
the fire is coming up from below, and eventually trees start reappearing on the other side.
That’s probably where people come in from the road. So a lot of detail and research has
gone into it, but at the same time we’re not copying; it’s not a play about a specific event.
We’re also facing the challenge that [in this setting] we don’t want to make Jeannette
and Neil look like hippies, or crazy. It has to stay essential, with a sense of style and Eastern
grace. They’re going through a lot; all four characters are going through a lot. It has to be
sympathetic, but somehow also hopeful. It’s a fine line we’re walking.
what have you done with the design to balance the hopefulness
with the hopelessness?
I think the idea that nature is tempering it all really helped—the qualities of light, the
beautiful haze that happens when the sun is setting and everything is becoming golden and
all of a sudden it feels like an enchanted place; or when the moon is lit at night and there is
the little glow of light bulbs and lanterns, tempered with the deep indigo sky. Emotionally
it just keeps becoming a new place. And then there certainly are times when it’s just very
clear, and you see the light coming through the remaining trees. All of the poetry comes
from the innate power of nature, and light, and air.
costume designer lydia tanji
in your design notes you assigned each character a color scheme.
what are you trying to illustrate about each character through
color?
lydia tanji: With Bill, we wanted to keep him in cool colors, stripes, and plaids, as
opposed to floral or any other kind of pattern. The blues will accentuate his pragmatic
character and contrast the warm colors that Neil will wear. And then Dinah is in spring
colors—light aqua, pink, pale greens. Dinah and Bill’s colors are easily ordered from
a catalog and available at any Midwestern mall or chain store, like Target, Mervyns,
jcPenney, Sears, etc.
Jeannette and Neil’s colors are more “Berkeley”—shades of spirituality, custom dyed,
richer, more vibrant. So Jeannette is in very vibrant purples and turquoise, with Neil in yellows, rust, and maroon. At the end we have him in indigo, which has a lot of significance
in African and Asian cultures. And anywhere I could, I tried to slip in some kind of ethnic
piece into their accessories or wardrobe, because of their interest in anthropology and that
kind of worldly, intellectual milieu that is Berkeley.
donald eastman mentioned that in a large theater, from a distance, the set becomes a visual picture. how have you collaborated with him to make sure your designs work together to
create that picture?
Donald had said that he was using a lot of grays and
browns in the background, and warmer wood in the
front, so I mostly tried to stay away from the grays,
although I like them. And Jane had mentioned to me
that she wanted me to pop the colors a little more,
and to keep Neil and Jeannette in warmer, vibrant
tones. Originally, I’d had Jeannette in more muted
plums, greens, and blue/greens, but Jane advised
stronger colors to offset the colors of the set. So I
put her in magenta, deep purples, and teal.
in this play, where the regionalism of
each character is so pronounced, how
do you think that being from berkeley yourself has influenced how you
approached the design?
I’ve lived off and on in Berkeley since , and I
know a lot of people that are teaching at uc Berkeley,
and I grew up around the uc system, so I think
it’s sort of intuitive. I am hoping that it will seep
through naturally and not appear too applied.
how did you approach the design for
the two midwestern characters?
I went on the Internet and looked at people in places
Bill, by costume designer Lydia Tanji
like Ohio, and I know people in the Midwest. I
based it in part on that personal experience. With
Dinah I kind of figured that Martha Stewart was her guru, so I patterned her on a Martha
Stewart wavelength. And with Bill, some of his accessories—I have a good friend who is
an architect turned contractor, and he has all of this paraphernalia on his belt, and I don’t
know what it is [laughs], but we thought we’d have that to start with, and have the actor
play around with it a little.
sound designer richard woodbury
what is your plan for the sonic landscape of this play?
richard woodbury: I have two roles: I am both the composer and the sound designer.
On the one hand I have been working with Jane to come up with the various musical
themes and orchestrations that will support the production, primarily in the transitional
moments. And then I’m also responsible for the sonic environment, soundscapes that will
happen within the various scenes.
As for the music itself, we’re trying to get something that leaves it open for the audience to read the play as both a comedy and as a comment on the processes these two
couples go through in dealing with their loss. One of the things that the play does is reveal
information gradually as the play goes on, so we didn’t want the music to get ahead of the
information that’s in the play. If you start with a very sad theme, the audience will think,
“Oh, this is a sad play.” Or if you start with a very funny theme, they think, “Oh, this is a
comedy.” This play lives in both of those places.
how do you plan to achieve that balance?
That’s an interesting challenge. By hopefully crafting some music that both provides, for
lack of a better term, permission to laugh, but also the possibility that there’s more going
on. I like to think of it as context. It’s a theme that could be read one way when I have this
set of information. But by the second act when there is a new set of information I think,
“Oh, gee, I read that differently than I would have the first time.”
so it will all be new music?
Yes, all original music, and it will be mostly in the transitions. There’s going to be no
underscoring, no attempt at being filmic in that regard. I shouldn’t say “no attempt”; there
is a possibility that we may get into rehearsals and tech and add something, but the intention at this point is to introduce and transition between scenes.
what kind of research did you do for this project?
There were a couple of musicians and composers that Jane referred me to, and some I
referred her to, and then there was one npr piece that she had been struck by that was
about a commissioned score for funeral parlors in France, and we talked about music and
grief and the connections between those.
I’m also researching coyotes, because there are a couple places in the play where coyote
howling is prominently featured, and I had to locate and sift through numerous sound
effect recordings to get to just the right thing—short of hauling in real coyotes and getting
them to howl on cue [laughs]. Fortunately there are all these wondrous people out there
who collect this stuff in the field, and then you just try to play it back and find the right
combination, and if not, then create it out of what’s there. And then I play it back in the
theater in a way that works.
what particular challenges does designing for a large theater
pose for a sound designer?
We talked about some things we might have done in a more intimate setting that we won’t
try to pull off in the more grand setting. For example, when you have a couple sitting alone
in a room grieving, in a small intimate space, just the subtle sound of a clock ticking can
allow you to hold that moment a little longer. In a grander space that’s not going to work
so well. So there are things we thought about doing that we realized, although the gesture
might register in a small space, it won’t so much in a large one.
There are a couple of transitions that in a small space might have been overwhelming,
but the way we’re building them for the larger space, we feel it can handle the larger-scale
transitions, sonically. For example, in the second scene, after the prologue, we will actually have the sounds of the fire roar through
the theater as our transition. This will be
quite loud and cinematic, which in a smaller
theater might seem a little melodramatic, like
overkill.
Remnant of the Mount Vision fire
are you trying to achieve any
particular effect overall?
My goal is always to support the sense of
the place and time of the play, and then its
emotional and dramatic values. In this play,
because it happens in an environment that
has been ravaged, and because it happens
outdoors, I will attempt to accentuate the
violence of what’s happened to the place,
but also the fact that it’s set in this natural
beauty, in this calm that’s after the storm, so
to speak.
The other big one is to stay out of the way. It’s become sort of a cliché in sound design
to say, “If no one notices what I’ve done, I’ve done my job well.” People shouldn’t walk
out of the theater saying, “Oh, those were marvelous crickets, weren’t they?” They should
just accept the world that has crickets in it. It should just seem like it’s a natural part of
the world.
lighting designer kent dorsey
what kind of research have you done to prepare for this project?
kent dorsey: I have had personal experience with wildfires. I bought a house in the
Oakland Hills in . The fires ended on a Sunday, and we were scheduled to move in the
following Friday. The house was still there, but at the time the insurance company told us
they thought it was lost; no one could tell where anything was because all of the roads were
so damaged. So I know a lot about what wildfires look like, and what the light and the air
is like after a wildfire. A lot of what I’ll be doing will be based on the memory of that.
how does the size of the theater affect your design?
In the original production, because they were dealing with a much smaller space, the
lighting design had to be a little more abstract. But with this show, the set that Donald
[Eastman] has built is really like an open hillside, and the larger space allows us to be
much more naturalistic and mimic the light of the sun or the moonlight. Also, with such
a large stage, the general lighting scheme will be able to achieve a more dramatic, even
filmic quality, which is especially appropriate for this play, considering Jane’s background
in television and film.
this play is set in a very bleak physical environment, yet it
explores themes of hope and love. what is your role in achieving
that balance?
A lot of what lighting design is about is pulling the attention of the viewer toward one
thing or another. I know that Donald and Lydia are essentially finished with their designs,
but most of my work won’t be done until we get the production into the theater. I have to
see the colors they’re using in the setting, and some of that will inform what I’m going to
be doing. So it is something that is still in progress, and when everything comes together
onstage—the colors of the set and the costumes, the way the actors play off of each other—
then I’ll adapt the lighting design to subtleties of this particular production, and shift the
mood in reaction to those factors.
the law of assisted dying
by dan rubin
bill:
neil:
bill:
dinah:
neil:
bill:
neil:
W
Does this doctor of yours know about this?
Yes. She’s aware of my decision.
And is she going to be the one to put you down?
Oh, Bill.
No, I appreciate the phrasing. That’s exactly what it is. Kindest
thing you can do to a dying dog. But no, Bill, she won’t be a part of it.
Because of the legal issues.
That’s right.
ith the preceding passage, playwright Jane Anderson merely hints at the political
controversy that surrounds the thorny issue of physician-assisted suicide, focusing The Quality of Life not on social debate but on her characters’ individual emotional
responses to grief. Yet, in the context of a play that is at least on some level about our
nation’s divisiveness over the balance between individual freedoms and a perceived lapse in
morality, some exploration of the historical development of the “legal issues” Bill mentions
may be helpful.
On a Sunday night in , Dr. Jack Kevorkian helped Thomas Youk—a victim of Lou
Gehrig’s disease—die on national television. Kevorkian hoped the very public nature of
this act of euthanasia (the intentional killing of a dependent human being for his or her
alleged benefit) would help overturn America’s laws prohibiting both active euthanasia and
assisted suicide (knowingly providing an individual with the information, guidance, and
means to take his or her own life). Instead, his sensationalism triggered a backlash and
contributed to the polarization between the right-to-die and the pro-life camps that had
been growing for some time.
Throughout antiquity, there was widespread support for voluntary death to avoid
prolonged suffering, and physicians often gave their patients requested poisons (in direct
conflict with the Hippocratic Oath). The predominance of the Judeo-Christian belief
system eradicated this acceptance until the middle of th century, when new trends in
science and sociology prompted some to reevaluate traditional ethics surrounding death
and dying. This was the beginning of euthanasia’s arguably disadvantageous relationship
with other movements that advocated for abortion rights, social Darwinism, and eugenics. Life-extending medical advances in the late th century, however, made end-of-life
decisions an issue all its own because, suddenly, the end of life had become a consider-
able period of time. Stephen P. Kiernan explains in Last Rights, “A generation ago life
ended swiftly. Death fell upon most people with nearly the speed and severity of a guillotine blade. . . . Over the past years the rapid causes of death have declined, while the
gradual causes have grown exponentially. Most people today do not die suddenly; they die
incrementally.” It is ironic that the right-to-die movement gained support because of the
advancement of life-saving treatments.
Euthanasia translates roughly from the Greek as “good death” or “easy death,” which is
how supporters like the Hemlock Society (now called Compassion and Choices) also think
of assisted suicide: a death with dignity. Founded in , the Hemlock Society became the
largest organization in America fighting for voluntary euthanasia and physician-assisted
suicide to be made legal for terminally and hopelessly ill adults. There are times, its members argue, when suicide is a rational act, particularly when death is imminent and the
patient’s final days will be filled with unbearable, dehumanizing pain. In these situations,
they contend, the quality of life diminishes to a point where it is not worth enduring.
Studies show, however, that the primary motivation of people who initiate a physicianassisted suicide is the desire for control, more than the avoidance of pain, prompting
pro-life advocates to suggest that assisted suicide is less about mercy and more about playing God. It is not surprising that the fiercest protests against assisted suicide come from
Aftermath of the Mount Vision fire
religious organizations that emphasize the sanctity of life and see no distinction between
the suicide of someone who is terminally ill and the suicide of someone who is physically
healthy. Additionally, opponents argue that if assisted suicide were legalized, abuses such as
nonvoluntary euthanasia would become more frequent and unscrupulous family members
would add pressure for hastened death. For the most part, pro-life contingents have successfully kept assisted-suicide illegal in the United States.
In , when Americans Against Human Suffering—the political wing of the Hemlock
Society—decided to go state by state to change the laws to permit physician-assisted suicide, California seemed like the logical place to start because of its progressive population’s
attitudes towards personal freedom. In , however, they failed to get the initiative on the
ballot. They then set their sights on Washington, d.c., where, in , they also failed with
a congressional vote of % to %. At the same time, however, a lesser triumph was found
in Congress’s acceptance of the Patient Self-Determination Act, which ordered hospitals
to inform patients of their right to refuse medical treatment, even if refusing treatment
would hasten the patient’s death.
Reinvigorated, proponents of the right-to-die cause moved on to Oregon, where they
rightly predicted the political climate of libertarianism and progressive populism (not to
mention the lowest rate of churchgoing in the country) would finally help them secure a
victory. The Oregon Death with Dignity Act passed with a vote of (%) to (%) in . The law—which has a number of safeguards against abuses—allows adults
with terminal diseases who are likely to die within six months to obtain lethal doses of
drugs from their doctors.
Court challenges followed, eventually forcing the Oregon legislature to return to
the electorate for a second vote in . This time % of voters supported Death with
Dignity. The following March, two terminally ill patients became the first to obtain
physician-assisted suicide under the terms of the law. But the controversy did not end. In
, u.s. Attorney General John Ashcroft began a campaign to reverse Oregon’s decision;
this campaign lasted until the beginning of , when the Supreme Court affirmed the
lower court’s decision to uphold the Death with Dignity Act. At this time, the act remains
in effect, but, years after it was first passed into law, it is the only one of its kind in
the United States; similar laws exist only in Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and
Switzerland.
In June , the California Compassionate Choices Act—a bill based on Oregon’s
Death with Dignity Act—died in the Senate Judiciary Committee. Supporters of the bill
reintroduced it into the legislature the following session, and in March , on a strict
party line vote, the California Assembly Committee passed it. Subsequent legislative deci-
sions have, however, ensured that no bill has reached the California voters despite the fact,
proponents claim, that % of the population favors any bill that would resemble Oregon’s
Death with Dignity Act.
facts and figures from
SUMMARY OF OREGON ’S DEATH WITH DIGNIT Y ACT—2007
s"ETWEENTHEACTSPASSINGANDTHEENDOF, patients have died under
the terms of the law.
s$URING, prescriptions for lethal medications were written by physicians under the act, compared to prescriptions in . Of these, patients
took the medications (thus ending their lives), died of their underlying
disease, and were alive at the end of .
s -OST OF THOSE WHO COMMITTED LEGAL PHYSICIANASSISTED SUICIDE HAVE BEEN
between the ages of and at the time of their passing; the median age
dropped in to from in . Approximately % have been male,
% female; % were married,% were widowed, and % were divorced.
s!LMOSTALLHAVEBEENWHITE%), well educated (% had attended college),
and suffering from terminal cancer (%).
s4HEMOSTFREQUENTLYMENTIONEDENDOFLIFECONCERNSWERETHELOSSOFAUTONomy (%), decreasing ability to participate in activities that made life enjoyable (%), and loss of dignity (%). Most patients died at home (%) and
were enrolled in hospice care (%).
Sources: William H. Colby, Unplugged: Reclaiming Our Right to Die in America (New York: AMACOM, 2006); Ian Dowbiggen, A
Merciful End: The Euthanasia Movement in Modern America (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003); Arthur J. Dyck, Life’s Worth: The
Case against Assisted Suicide (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2002); “Euthanasia Definitions,” Euthanasia
.com, http://www.euthanasia.com/definitions.html (accessed September 2008); Derek Humphrey, “Farewell to Hemlock: Killed
by Its Name,” Euthanasia Research & Guidance Organization, http://www.assistedsuicide.org/farewell-to-hemlock.html, and “The
Physician-Assisted Suicide Oregon Trail,” Euthanasia Research & Guidance Organization, http://www.finalexit.org/law-ORlaw.html
(accessed September 2008); Stephen P. Kiernan, Last Rights: Rescuing the End of Life from the Medical System (New York: St.
Martin’s Press, 2006); Oregon Government, “Death with Dignity,” Oregon Department of Human Services, http://www.oregon.gov/
DHS/ph/pas/index.shtml (accessed September 2008); Frank D. Russo, “Death with Dignity,” The California Progress Report, http://
www.californiaprogressreport.com/death_with_dignity/index.html (accessed September 2008).
“off-time” widowhood
by dan rubin
A
rguably the major dramatic conflict within The Quality of Life is not over Neil’s decision to take his own life before cancer makes that life unbearable. Although Bill and
Dinah—who are suffering their own kind of pain from the loss of their only daughter—are
not at all happy with this idea, they are much more concerned about Jeannette’s plan to
depart with her husband. Jeannette is not only family; she is also perfectly healthy.
In addition to experiencing the concern that every person feels for a friend or loved one
who suggests they may take their own life, Bill and Dinah are born-again Christians. Their
faith stresses the sanctity of human life and tells them that suicide is a sin. While some
cultures have condoned suicide throughout history, at least under certain circumstances,
most of the major contemporary religions condemn it. Although a prohibition against
taking one’s own life is not recorded in the Talmud, Conservative Judaism cites Genesis
—“And surely your blood of your lives will I require”—as the basis for the argument
against self-inflicted, as well as assisted suicide. Both are an offense to God because, having
given life, He is the only one who has the right to take it away. Point of the Catholic
Catechism states, among other things: “Suicide is contrary to love for the living God.”
Islam, like the other Abrahamic religions, views suicide as detrimental to one’s spiritual
journey: a verse in the fourth chapter of the Koran instructs, “Do not kill yourselves, surely
Allah is most Merciful to you.” Similarly, Hinduism sees no difference between self-murder
and homicide, except in the currently defunct practice of sati (see below). Buddhist ethics
emphasize reverence for life and proscribe the infliction of self-harm as a cause of suffering
in oneself and others. Moreover, the end of one life is believed to influence the beginning
of the next. A person’s state of mind at the time of death is important, which implies that
suicide is morally acceptable only for those who have achieved enlightenment.
Despite the religious prohibitions, however, Jeannette’s inclination to end her life
because of the impending loss of her spouse is not unique. Although recent studies have
found that the rate of suicide among widowed women over the age of is relatively low—
prompting analysts to argue that they “appear to be ‘protected’ from suicide in the context
of widowhood”—widows and widowers in the first half of life are at a much higher risk
for suicide. Both widows and divorcées have suicide rates well above that of the general
population (between % and % higher, depending on the study; according to the World
Health Organization, the u.s. suicide rate in was per people for men, and
per for women), but widowed women between and are three times more
likely to commit suicide than divorced women of the same age.
The American Public Health Association hypothesizes that the phenomenon of youngwidow suicide occurs because: “When a younger person loses a spouse, it is considered an
‘off-time’ event, and the personal adjustment following the loss is more difficult than for
older age groups. Because the death of a spouse is less common during young adulthood,
there may be little expectation of its occurrence, fewer models and preestablished patterns
for grieving, and greater difficulty in accepting the death.”
SATI
The image on the following page is a depiction of sati, or immolation by a widow on her
husband’s funeral pyre. Sati was first mentioned in the ancient Hindu epics. According
to legend, Sati—wife of the Hindu god Shiva—killed herself when her father insulted
her husband. The earliest historic case was recorded years ago by invading Greeks.
Historians argue that the practice became common in the last years, after brutal invasions by Muslim warriors began: whole families were wiped out, and wives supposedly
killed themselves rather than submit to the conquerors. There are also many recorded
instances of women being forced to commit sati, some heavily drugged and others physically bound and thrown into the fire, suggesting that the tradition was as much about
preserving the patriarchy as it was about romantic notions of self-sacrifice. Sati has been
illegal in India since and now reportedly only occurs once or twice a decade.
Sources: E. Wilbur Bock and Irving L. Webber, “Suicide among the Elderly: Isolating Widowhood and Mitigating Alternatives,”
Journal of Marriage and Family 34, no. 1 (1972); Prem Chowdhry, “An Alternative to the ‘Sati’ Model: Perceptions of a Social
Reality in Folklore,” Asian Folklore Studies 49, no. 2 (1990); Jason B. Luoma and Jane L. Pearson, “Suicide and Marital Status
in the United States, 1991–1996: Is Widowhood a Risk Factor?” American Journal of Public Health 92, no. 9 (2002); Lata Mani,
“Contentious Traditions: The Debate on Sati in Colonial India,” Cultural Critique 7 (Autumn 1987); Darwin Sawyer and Jeffery
Sobal, “Public Attitudes Toward Suicide,” The Public Opinion Quarterly 51, no. 1 (1987); Steven R. Weisman, “India Widow’s
Death at Pyre Creates a Shrine,” The New York Times, September 19, 1987; Sara Wilcox, et al., “The Effects of Widowhood on
Physical and Mental Health, Health Behaviors, and Health Outcomes: The Women’s Health Initiative,” Health Psychology 22, no.
5. (2003); World Health Organization, “Suicide Rates,” http://www.who.int/mental_health/prevention/suicide/suiciderates/en/
(accessed September 2008).
wedding night
by jalaluddin rumi
The day I’ve died, my pall is moving on—
But do not think my heart is still on earth!
Don’t weep and pity me: “Oh woe, how awful!”
You fall in devil’s snare—woe, that is awful!
Don’t cry “Woe, parted!” at my burial—
For me this is the time of joyful meeting!
Don’t say “Farewell!” when I’m put in the grave—
A curtain is it for eternal bliss.
You saw “descending”—now look at the rising!
Is setting dangerous for sun and moon?
To you it looks like setting, but it’s rising;
The coffin seems a jail, yet it means freedom.
Which seed fell in the earth that did not grow there?
Why do you doubt the fate of human seed?
What bucket came not filled from out the cistern?
Why should the Yusaf “Soul” then fear this well?
Close here your mouth and open it on that side
So that your hymns may sound in Where-no-place!
From Look! This Is Love: Poems of Rumi, translated by Annemarie Schimmel (Shambhala, 1996)
OPPOSITE Funeral Scene: On the Death of the Husband All His Wives Throw Themselves into the Fire, from The Book of the
Mogul, 17th-century manuscript (© The Picture Desk)
“because it’s illegal”
An Overview of the Evolution of Medical Marijuana Law
by lesley gibson
I
n the first act of The Quality of Life, liberal-minded Neil attempts to lure his conservative cousin-in-law into a moral debate on the topic of medicinal marijuana. Cannabis,
he says, is “as indifferent to the laws of man as a tomato plant.”
While cannabis does indeed govern itself in nature, in the plant’s brief history in the
United States it has been continuously pulled in one direction or another by the laws of
man. Even before the nation had achieved independent governance, the plant was subject
to legislation, dating back to when the residents of the Jamestown Colony were issued
an order to grow Indian hempseed.
The early colonists farmed what is now called industrial hemp, a variety of the cannabis sativa plant that contains less than % of delta--tetrahydrocannabinol (thc), the
most potent of the biologically active ingredients in marijuana. The plant known as
marijuana varies in potency and is also a variety of cannabis sativa, but generally contains
between % and % thc, which is responsible for the mildly euphoric effects typically
associated with consumption of the plant. thc has been legally available by prescription in
the United States since in the form of fda–approved and –controlled dronabinol. It
is illegal under federal law in its raw form.
Marijuana has been described in Indian and Chinese medical texts for more than three
thousand years as a treatment for a wide variety of conditions. In the middle ages, herbalists used it externally to relieve muscle and joint pain. Political and legal controversies have
limited wide-scale medical testing on marijuana, however, and the results of what research
has been done on its medical applications have been mixed. Some studies have found the
drug is effective in relieving pain, controlling the nausea and vomiting associated with
cancer and chemotherapy, stimulating appetite in aids patients, controlling seizures and
muscle spasms, reducing eye pressure associated with glaucoma, and calming anxiety.
Other studies have found, however, that marijuana use may produce toxic side effects.
Some researchers believe marijuana contains carcinogens and that its use may actually
encourage tumor growth and increase risk for lung, throat, and mouth cancers. Other side
effects include short-term memory loss, depression, confusion, decreased reproductive
function, hallucination, disturbed heart rhythm, and difficulty concentrating. Additionally,
side effects vary from patient to patient; although marijuana use may calm one person’s
anxiety, it may create anxiety in another.
moral panic
While most early Americans utilized industrial hemp for manufacturing purposes,
marijuana appeared occasionally in medicinal potions and common cure-alls in the th
century without anyone giving it a second thought. In , however, the Mexican revolution propelled a wave of immigrants across the border and into the southwestern United
States at the same time that immigration from the West Indies increased in New Orleans.
Commonly smoked in both Mexico and the West Indies, marijuana became a recreational
drug in the United States for the first time, and many white Americans linked it to what
they perceived as an uncontrollable cultural invasion. Over the next two decades, states
quietly banned the drug.
In a new branch of the Treasury Department was formed, and Harry J. Anslinger
was named the Commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. Anslinger, who had
previously worked in the Bureau of Prohibition, was an aggressively ambitious man, and
he viewed his new post as an opportunity to both define a new threat to American society
and establish himself as the leader of the crusade against it. He launched a fear campaign
designed to invoke a national hysteria, publicly declaring marijuana “the most violencecausing drug in the history of mankind.” With the assistance of billionaire media mogul
William Randolph Hearst, Anslinger set about the task of ridding the United States of
what he perceived to be a sudden new scourge.
Hearst had his own motivations for eliminating marijuana from u.s. society. His primary concern was protecting his wealth; he had invested in hundreds of thousands of acres
of timber and was terrified at the prospect of competition from hemp-based paper. An
unabashed racist, Hearst resorted to rampant yellow journalism in his papers as a means of
tainting the drug’s reputation and permanently associating it with Mexican and AfricanAmerican minorities.
As Hearst led the public crusade, Anslinger spent the s pushing for strict federal
regulations on marijuana. His first victory came in when the Marijuana Tax Act was
passed, outlawing the drug on a federal level. While World War >> brought a brief break
from the hysteria (hemp was so valuable a commodity during the war that farmers who
grew it were exempt from military service), Anslinger powered on in the late s, eventually associating marijuana with the new national fear—Communism. His efforts resulted
in the passage of the Boggs Act in , a measure that categorized marijuana with narcotic
drugs and imposed mandatory minimum sentences on all drug offenders. In the Narcotics
Control Act of , those minimum penalties were escalated, and a first-time offense of
marijuana possession came with a hefty sentence of two to ten years in prison.
The s ushered in a period of social and political change, and public condemnation
of marijuana began to ease. The drug became popular with white middle-class college
students, and its association with what Anslinger (who retired in ) had called “the
degenerate races” began to fade from the national consciousness. Drug policies underwent
a shift in focus as lawmakers began to concentrate on rehabilitative treatment for drug
offenders rather than criminal prosecution.
In , however, Congress passed the Controlled Substances Act, which grouped all
drugs into five categories or “schedules.” Marijuana, along with heroin, lsd, and peyote,
was designated a Schedule drug—the most restrictive of the five groups, defined as having the highest potential for abuse, no accepted medical use, and no safe level of use under
medical supervision. Schedule drugs, which are considered to have accepted medical use,
include cocaine, phencyclidine (pcp), and methamphetamine.
Still, marijuana use was more widespread than ever, and in a bipartisan congressional committee appointed by President Nixon to research the effects of the drug recommended that the possession of small doses be decriminalized at both the state and federal
level. Nixon, who felt betrayed by the conclusion, rejected the committee’s findings, and
marijuana remained illegal on a federal level, but over the following decade, states
decriminalized small amounts of the drug.
In the presidential campaign, Ronald Reagan declared marijuana “probably the
most dangerous drug in America.” His administration ranked the war on drugs one of its
top three national priorities and, propelled by Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” campaign,
launched an all-out attack. It became the hot issue of the decade. Crack cocaine, a relatively new phenomenon, caused a media frenzy, as it seemed to be a crisis that happened
virtually overnight. Antidrug organizations popped up around the country, and iconic
commercials (“This is your brain on drugs”) aired frequently on television.
Toward the end of the s, however, public opinion, as well as the evolving political
climate, began to cool off with regard to the drug scare. More pressing issues took center stage (the economy, global warming, etc.), and when Bill Clinton entered the White
House in early , his administration dropped the war on drugs from one of the top three
to the very bottom of a list of national priorities.
Though regulations that maintained marijuana’s federal illegality were continuously
upheld in the early s, California lawmakers began to introduce legislation that would
permit loosening regulations on the drug at the state level. For the first time, an open conversation on the legalization of marijuana for medicinal purposes was entertained, and two
measures introduced to the California state legislature in the mid s that would have
permitted marijuana use as prescribed by a doctor were passed with bipartisan support.
They were both vetoed by Governor Pete Wilson.
compassionate use
In , Vietnam veteran and gay rights activist Dennis Peron spearheaded the formation of Californians for Compassionate Use (ccu), a group of advocates that authored
Proposition , also known as The Compassionate Use Act of . Peron, a long-time
crusader for the legalization of marijuana for medicinal purposes, wrote the initiative in
honor of his deceased lover, who had frequently used the drug to relieve his symptoms
from aids. The ccu collected more than signatures to place the initiative on the
November ballot.
The text of Proposition was brief; it stated, in simple terms, that its purpose was to
protect any seriously ill patient and their caregivers who possess and cultivate marijuana for
medical purposes (if recommend by a physician) from criminal prosecution. It encouraged
the federal and state governments to adopt laws legalizing marijuana for medicinal purposes, and ensured that physicians recommending marijuana to their patients would also
be protected from prosecution. While it could not decriminalize marijuana under federal
law, it gave users a practical defense in court, as generally the prosecution of cultivation
cases in California is handled at a local level.
The opposition argued that the proposition was too vaguely worded and essentially
would legalize marijuana use for an infinite range of ailments (the text of Proposition defined “any illness for which marijuana provides relief ” as a legitimate cause for a recommendation.) The initiative included no age restriction, and allowed marijuana to function
as medicine outside of the boundaries or regulations of the fda, so purity, dosage, and
usage would go unmonitored. The opposition argued that thc was already available in the
form of dronabinol, and that legalization of use of the raw plant form for medicinal purposes was an underhanded attempt at legalizing marijuana for general use. Additionally,
under the wording of Proposition , marijuana would not be obtained through a “prescription” (which, under federal law, puts physicians at risk of criminal prosecution), but
rather a “recommendation,” either oral or written.
On November , Proposition passed with a % majority of the vote. It is estimated that there are currently users of physician-recommended marijuana in
the state. In , the California state legislature passed Senate Bill , a measure that
permitted patients to obtain up to half a pound of processed marijuana from a dispensary,
but imposed limits (eventually overturned as unconstitutional) on the amount each patient
or caregiver was allowed to grow. Since its passage, Senate Bill has been amended by
individual counties to impose, but sometimes loosen, guidelines for growers of marijuana
for qualified patients, which has led to a large-scale cultivation business in the state that far
outweighs the demand for medicinal marijuana. According to one estimate, in alone,
million pot plants were grown in California. Currently, the value of the state’s marijuana
crop is estimated to be around billion dollars. The national crop is ten times larger than
it was in ; marijuana is now the leading cash crop in the United States.
In response to complaints of the overproliferation of profit-motivated dispensaries and
abuse of California’s laws by large-scale commercial growers, California Attorney General
Jerry Brown recently proposed new guidelines for the industry that include requiring dispensaries to operate as nonprofit organizations and imposing stricter limits on the amount
of marijuana each patient and his or her caregiver are allowed to grow.
Eleven additional states have passed laws legalizing marijuana for medicinal use since
. First-time possession of small amounts of marijuana for any purpose has been
decriminalized in states, making it an offense that carries no mandatory prison sentence.
Nevertheless, the legality of medicinal marijuana remains hazy: under federal law, possession and cultivation of marijuana with or without a doctor’s recommendation is strictly
prohibited. In practice, however, federal authorities generally ignore individual users and
small growers and focus their efforts on traffickers and dispensaries, and almost % of all
marijuana arrests are at a local level and tried by the state or county.
While debating with Neil in The Quality of Life, Bill says he objects to marijuana
“because it’s illegal.” Bill’s argument is valid under federal law, but as an individual consuming marijuana with a doctor’s recommendation, Neil is operating well within California
law, and he and his visitors are unlikely to draw the attention of the dea. Moreover, while
Bill’s home state of Ohio does not currently permit the medicinal use of marijuana, per
se, it has decriminalized the drug in small amounts; the maximum penalty for a first-time
offender in possession of up to grams of marijuana in Ohio is $.
Sources: Erich Goode and Nachman Ben-Yehuda, Moral Panics: The Social Construction of Deviance (Hoboken,
NJ: 1994); Jack Herer, The Emperor Wears No Clothes, 11th ed. (Van Nuys: AH HA, 2000); Glen Martin, “Medical
Mercy or Trojan Horse?” San Francisco Chronicle, September 28, 1996; Eric Schlosser, Reefer Madness (New York:
Houghton Mifflin Co., 2003); David Samuels, “Dr. Kush,” The New Yorker, July 28, 2008, http://www.newyorker.com/
reporting/2008/07/28/080728fa_fact_samuels (accessed September 2008); Online Library of Drug Policy, http://www.
druglibrary.org/schaffer/hemp/medical/prop215.htm/ (accessed September 2008); “Attorney General Proposes
Sensible Rules on Medical Pot,” San Francisco Chronicle, August 28, 2008; Marijuana, American Cancer Society
http://www.cancer.org/docroot/ETO/content/ETO_5_3X_Marijuana.asp?sitearea=ETO (accessed September 2008); California
State Senate, http://www.sen.ca.gov/ftp/sen/SOR/ARCHIVE/BALLOT/1196215.TXT (accessed September 2008); “Text of
Proposition 215,” National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, http://norml.org/index.cfm?wtm_view=&Group_
ID=4557 (accessed September 2008).
fire stories
Smoke from the 1991 Oakland Hills fire (photograph by Jeff Rowlings)
P
laywright Jane Anderson has said that the experiences of Jeannette and Neil in The
Quality of Life are inspired in part by a wildfire that ravaged the Mount Vision area of
Point Reyes in western Marin County in , as well as by the Oakland Hills blaze of .
Both fires have etched themselves indelibly in the minds of Bay Area residents. Below are
descriptions of those fires as captured in news reports and the reflections of survivors.
oakland firestorm: october 1991
On October , Oakland firefighters dealt with a relatively minor brush fire on the
northeastern hillside above the Caldecott Tunnel. The firefighters knew the surrounding
area was volatile and would easily ignite, especially in October, so they called in engine
companies and two more trucks from Oakland and Berkeley for reinforcements. That
night, they reported the situation under control. At a.m. the following day, however, the
fire resurfaced. Fueled by “Diablo” winds out of the Northeast of up to miles per hour, it
quickly leapt and cruised its way over the crest of the hill, all the way to the opposite side
of the tunnel. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, from there
the fire raced up the hillsides of north Oakland and southeastern Berkeley,
blowing over Highway to upper Rockridge, wiping out home after home and
neighborhood after neighborhood. . . . More than a thousand firefighters from
as far away as Fresno were called to fight the fire. But they were overwhelmed.
Flames took out power lines to pumping stations in the Oakland water system. Antiquated water lines were too narrow to supply adequate water pressure.
Firefighters in some areas simply ran out of water.
According to historian Peter Charles Hoffer, there were times when the fire itself
flashed through the hills faster than the pace of an Olympic sprinter. The fire blazed on
for four days, until it was finally contained on October .
The effects of the fire were catastrophic. In one neighborhood, the Hiller Highlands,
directly north of Highway and east of the tunnel, every single home (most were constructed of wood with shake-shingle roofs) was burned through. Several of the fatalities
were Hiller Highlands residents. The neighborhood’s narrow, snaking roads were susceptible to bottlenecks, and in some cases, these bottlenecks were the victims’ only escape
route. Many residents chose to escape on foot, but even this was impossible for some,
as exploding cars and embers “the size of baseballs” were falling from the hillside. On
Charing Cross Road, a policeman was later found burned to death carrying a dead infant.
Firefighters working on homes in the area had to abandon them, one by one, as down the
line, each house was consumed.
Not all attempts to combat the fire failed, however. Professor Hoffer describes one
account of a man living on the border of Montclair, just south of the fire’s source:
When police ordered the evacuation of the area . . . home owner Ed Yilek
hid. As soon as police had left, he unlimbered his garden hose and started to
put out every burning ember that crossed Broadway Terrace and Pineneedle
Drive. For ten hours he battled to keep the fire from crossing Broadway Terrace
deeper into Montclair. Lt. Ted Aff of ofd’s engine No. arrived on the scene
a few minutes after Yilek started his own personal battle with the fire. Engine
No. had retreated down Skyline, expecting the fire to follow, and there was
Yilek, hose in hand, rushing from side to side dousing the fireballs as they fell.
Mel Copeland, brother of a firefighter and fellow Pineneedle resident, joined
Yilek, and other neighbors appeared as if by magic to lend a hand. Aff recalled,
“[T]hey stretched hose, they tended line, they became additional members of
my crew, they were tireless.” Before the battle was over, three more ofd engine
companies and other neighborhood citizen volunteers arrived. The fire never
took hold in Montclair.
Unfortunately, by this time, most of the damage had been done. According to Hoffer,
by October people [had] died, another were seriously injured, and homes were
totally destroyed. Perhaps as many as people evacuated their homes
and businesses for at least part of the day. The fire perimeter stretched over miles, and the damage was estimated at slightly over $ billion (in terms,
$ billion). One visitor to the area a week later, Lloyd Calder, described the
ruins as reminiscent of pictures of Hiroshima. The forlorn hillside landscape of
bare chimneys and foundation stones was still hot, and those [who] walked the
winding streets felt the heat through the soles of their footwear.
The Oakland Hills fire destroyed more homes than any other fire in u.s. history. It has
been estimated that only about half of the fire survivors stayed and rebuilt.
Today, most historians consider the Oakland Hills blaze the worst fire in California
history, worse than the recent conflagrations near Santa Cruz and Big Sur and the fire
resulting from the earthquake.
memories of a.c.t. staff members
W
hen the [Oakland Hills] fire started, I was up at uc Berkeley’s Lawrence Hall of
Science with my son and daughter. It had been a fine day when we went in, but
when we came out, there was a huge smoke cloud and flames were visible just over the next
ridge from the museum. Pretty much at that moment, they made some sort of announcement inside the museum—not evacuating it, but letting people know there were serious
wildfires in the hills nearby, which resulted in a mass exodus and a pretty sizeable traffic
jam. I turned on my radio just long enough to learn how close the fires were (too close),
then just concentrated on getting off the hill as quickly as possible. I am sure any number
of people in the museum that day didn’t have homes to return to.
We live in Berkeley, so I got a pretty close-up view all during the firestorm. My son
was about months old at the time, so we spent a lot of time at the local park. He would
scale the climbing structure, oblivious, while I would gaze up toward the hills just to the
south, watching the flames. You could see them spreading from house to house and tree
to tree—or randomly jumping from one area to another in a matter of seconds. I took
binoculars over there once or twice, but it was just too intense to actually be able to zero
in on a home being consumed in a matter of minutes. And while the fire never came close
to us (the blessings of living in the undistinguished flatlands), just about every other house
on my block became a temporary home to some family that was burned out. One family
was living with friends two doors down. They had had minutes to clear out, with their
young son. They elected to take photographs, papers, and all his stuffed animals. They,
themselves, literally had the clothes on their backs. We had some friends from the Berkeley
Hills bunking with us—they were safe from the fire, but the smoke in the hills was triggering asthma attacks in two of their children. Other friends ignored all advice and stayed
in their houses, soaking the roofs. Each morning, we had to take the scrapers and clean
our car windshields of at least a half-inch of ash. Forget air quality—when the wind was
wrong, a deep breath was painful. And, as usual, the sound of helicopters, which I totally
associate with disaster, thanks to the earthquake and the fire.
The fate of the Claremont Hotel became a focal point for many people. It is a highly
visible landmark, so there was constant talk all over the East Bay, measuring the disaster by
how close the fires were getting to the hotel. We were all pretty much glued to the televisions and radios. A lot of fire-fighting power was directed at saving the hotel, because it
was such an icon. The feeling was, if the hotel could be saved, somehow it would all be ok.
In the end, they stopped it just a few hundred feet away. My children’s pediatrician had a
house just one street up from the hotel. By a miracle, hers was the only house not destroyed
on her block. She could not figure out why, fully expecting once she was evacuated to come
back to a pile of ashes. For a couple of years, she had the street to herself as her neighbors
rebuilt. She stuck it out, but said it was incredibly eerie.
It really was a weird time. We also live within hearing distance of the train tracks. I am
so used to subliminally hearing the horns in the middle of the night. During the postearthquake time, one of the oddest things was the sudden absence of trains. Very strange,
the things one remembers out of disasters.
—Human Resources Manager Kate Stewart
D
uring October , I was house hunting in my neighborhood of choice, Bernal
Heights [in San Francisco]. On that particular day, I decided to check out Bernal
Hill to see the park and the views. I hadn’t been paying attention to the news, so was taken
by surprise when a Post-it-sized cinder floated by me. I looked toward the Oakland Hills
and saw the massive cloud of black smoke billowing into the sky. I was stunned and horrified. Then I thought of how immensely powerful the fire must be to have sent embers
across the bay and into San Francisco. After watching in silence for awhile, I decided it
would be best to avoid the smoke that had also reached San Francisco and headed home.
As it so happens, I did buy a house in Bernal, and whenever I am up on the hill looking
toward the Oakland Hills, I think of that day with a certain sadness for the losses.
—Finance Associate Sharon Boyce
W
hen the Oakland Hills fire began, I was sitting in my
backyard in Noe Valley reading a book. I noticed that
something was falling on the pages in front of me. To my horror,
I slowly realized it was not leaves or residue from some nearby
neighbor’s barbecue, but charred fragments of calendars and
photographs and magazines. Pieces of somebody’s burning living
room were actually floating across the bay, landing in my backyard and covering my skin. Then the orange haze came over, and
Remnant of the Mount Vision
I remember thinking, “What the hell is going on?” As ridiculous
Fire
as it might seem, I was raised in Florida at the height of the Cold
War, with nuclear attack drills a common thing, so I immediately flashed on that. It was
like a bomb had gone off. It was unbelievable.
—Publications Editor Elizabeth Brodersen
D
uring the Oakland Hills fire in 1991, I was living in the Marina District. I woke
up that morning and the sky in San Francisco was orange; I thought Yerba Buena
Island was on fire. After checking the radio, I called my folks, who live in the East Bay
hills. I had to rush over to help them evacuate. As I came off the Bay Bridge, I could see
the hills, the flames, the smoke, and the Claremont Hotel. The canyon behind the hotel
was bright hot orange—it was like driving into the embers of a fire pit. Seriously . . . it
scared the breath out of me.
We were luckier than many—we had about an hour to get out. I raced through the
house looking for things I thought had to be saved. I went into my sisters’ rooms (they
weren’t there at the time) and picked out a few things that they were later very touched by,
that I thought they would want. After evacuating, I snuck back in and spent the night on
the roof of the house—hose in hand. The house was on a street on the edge of a ravine, and
while the fire burned on the other side of the ravine I watched it jump from one eucalyptus
tree to another—each exploding as the flames reached the top. Indeed, we were luckier
than many, because the fire basically stopped at that ridge.
—Production Manager Jeff Rowlings
I
was four at the time of the Oakland Hills fire. I went to Children’s Fairyland in
Oakland, my favorite theme park, and there were ashes raining down. I thought they
were snowflakes.
—Marketing Assistant Eliza Leoni
I
volunteered on a wildfire-fighting crew one summer a while ago. I went through a
week-long training session and then got sent out on three different fires, much to my
surprise and everyone else’s, as I was a bit on the old side for that kind of thing. We were
on a fire line on a Type >> crew, which meant we were digging a line around the outside
edge of the fire. All we saw for the first few days was charcoal, embers, a small flare-up
once in a while, and unburned scrub. Then we got a warning that high winds were headed
our way and we should find a safe spot. The closest one was a rock fall, a wide area of
tumbled rocks. As we were waiting there, the ridge across the way went on a run. The fire
jumped from tree to tree all along the ridge top and within minutes there was a wall of
flames. The side of the ridge had already been fairly well burned, so only the top was on
fire. The wind never did pick up, so the fire stayed over there and didn’t jump across to
our side. I was with a crew of real firefighters [i.e., experienced], but they all watched the
ridge burn—and took pictures.
—Linda Gentile, Front of House
mount vision fire: october 1995
T
he fire at Mount Vision State Park began October , , and lasted five days. The
smoldering remains of a small campfire, combined with -plus-mile-per-hour
winds, sparked a conflagration that burned more than acres of pine forest and
coastal shrub in Point Reyes National Seashore (about % of the park). The blaze reached
degrees Fahrenheit at its hottest moments and devoured acres an hour at its
fastest clip. At the peak of the fire, more than firefighters from agencies all over
California worked to combat the flames. They limited % of the fire to the Philip Burton
Wilderness Area, but the remaining % found its way to private homes in the nearby community of Inverness Park. Below are previously published accounts of the fire.
marin won’t prosecute boys for wildfire
December , San Francisco Chronicle
Marin County prosecutors have decided not to prosecute four teenagers whose campfire
may have caused the firestorm that destroyed homes and more than acres of forest on the Point Reyes peninsula.
Devastation caused by the Mount Vision fire
District Attorney Jerry R. Herman said there was insufficient evidence that the boys
took part in the “reckless burning of an inhabited structure or forest land.”
“In fact, the only available evidence tends to suggest that they made every effort to
make sure the fire was a safe one,” Herman wrote.
He said the four teens—ages and —were driven by one of their parents to a popular campsite in Mount Vision State Park on the evening of September . They lit a fire in
a previously used fire pit, put a ring of rocks around it to make it “safer,” doused the ashes
with water the next morning, and used their hands to make sure the ashes were cold.
Fire investigators concluded that the Mount Vision fire was caused by a campfire that
was built three to seven days before the forest fire ignited. Pine needles below the ashes
of the campfire smoldered and caused an underground fire that traveled up the roots of
a nearby tree. On October , winds of miles per hour caused the tree to erupt into
flames.
However, the district attorney wrote that there is insufficient evidence that the teens’
particular campfire was the one that caused the eruption of the forest fire.
“The area where the four minors camped is a frequent and common place for campsites, and parents allow juveniles to camp there often,” Herman wrote.
fire on the ridge
December , San Francisco Examiner Magazine
by kathleen goodwin (Goodwin and Richard Blair recently published California Trip,
which includes a chapter on earthquakes and fires.)
Before the Mount Vision fire of 1995, artist Kathleen Goodwin and her husband, photographer
Richard Blair, had lived in a cabin “off the grid” near Inverness for five years. They had just
completed plans to build a permanent home on their land before setting off on a trip to Bali in
September . They returned home on the night of October .
T
he following day we were cutting down a dead tree when a friend, Scott Patterson, a
volunteer for the Inverness Fire Department, stopped to give a hand. While we were
talking, he was paged. A vegetation fire had started on Mount Vision. It was p.m. He
rushed off.
Within ten minutes we could see blue smoke in the valley below our cabin. We had a bad
feeling about the direction of the smoke, and told our neighbor our misgivings. We decided
to drive to the eastern side of Tomales Bay so we could monitor the fire’s progress.
We saw a cloud of smoke on the ridge, and a helicopter dropped water onto it. The
flames were not yet visible. After a few runs, the helicopter had to go off to refuel. An
aerial bomber dropped fire retardant, but shortly afterwards the fierce winds blew burning
embers across the vegetation-choked upper canyon. Spot fires erupted in two locations in
the next valley, which were much more difficult for the firefighters to attack. The combination of low humidity, high winds, and a tinder-dry forest thick with undergrowth soon
made the conflagration unstoppable.
We watched in horror as the fire grew in intensity. Bishop pine trees, full of flammable
oils and resins, exploded into flames as the fire spread through the tops of the trees. The
sun turned red as the smoke increased. More helicopters and airplanes arrived to help.
Finally we realized that the fire was definitely heading in the direction of our cabin and
was completely out of control. We called neighbors on our cellular phone, warning them
of the possibility of impending disaster, then jumped into our car to go back to the cabin
to retrieve some valuables. Our cabin is d miles up a narrow winding road, but the road
was strangely deserted.
The light on the trees and bushes on our property was eerily orange. The smell of smoke
was overwhelming, but we could not see the fire in progress. We had no idea how much
time we had to evacuate and ran up and down our hill trying to pack our car. We took
paintings, bicycles, personal treasures. I had a large painting in the cabin, but in the anxiety
of the moment did not think to cut it off its stretcher bars and roll it up. We drove down
Drakes View Drive, passing seven fire engines going in the opposite direction. There was a
roadblock at the bottom of the road. Our timing was perfect.
We headed back across Tomales Bay for a front-row seat. It was a schizophrenic experience to watch Inverness Ridge burn. We knew hundreds of lives were in danger, our neighborhood was in flames, yet it was an awesomely beautiful sight. The moon was almost full,
the ridge was black, the trees outlined in orange and red, huge billowing clouds of white and
gray rising above the skyline. Behind them the sky was deep blue, and the fire reflected red
in the water of Tomales Bay.
At first, the fire was contained to dacres. Winds of mph caused the first fatal jump.
From that moment, it became extremely difficult to fight. . . . The fire traveled, fortunately, down to the Pacific Ocean rather than into Inverness. The wind never permanently
changed direction toward Tomales Bay, thus saving many more homes. There were only minor injuries, and many pets were saved.
Living on the top of Inverness Ridge was like living with a time bomb. There had not
been a serious fire there for more than years. The bomb went off, lives were shattered,
but no one was seriously hurt. Perhaps it will grow more beautiful as the Bishop pine,
which only seed through fire, regenerate. The ferns and the huckleberrry will start growing
again in the spring. The ridge should be a safer place to live now. Those houses that were
not affected will clear around their homes, and much of the park is cleared of dead trees
and brush, allowing new growth.
Now we have sifted through the remains of our cabin. We found a pair of metal candlesticks, still intact, which Richard’s grandfather brought from Russia in the early s.
With a group of friends and volunteers, we shoveled ashes into garbage bags. Two trips to
the dump, and the cabin became a memory. Soon there will be no sign it was ever there.
Having recently returned from Bali, maybe we have a different philosophical perspective.
In Bali, we had witnessed at least cremations. They seemed a
natural part of life. In that culture, cremations are a public event,
a celebration of the person’s life and a freeing of the soul.
As artists, Richard and I found the only way to deal with the
situation, given that we are not trained firefighters, was to record
it with our cameras and our writing. We made images of the fire
to remember what happened, to analyze it later, to capture the
beauty of this phoenix-like transformation from old to young
forest. The great cycle of life rolls on, and, as the Balinese say, we
should not hurry or retard this process, an essential to the life of
the ecosystem we are a part of.
questions to consider
Both couples in The Quality of Life are dealing with terrible personal loss. How are their
means of coping similar and how are they different?
. What is each character’s perception of death, dying, and suffering? How does this understanding dictate his/her actions in the play?
. How does the physical setting of a burn site contribute to the play’s discussions about life
and loss? What do the burn site’s adornments tell you about Jeannette and Neil?
. Most of the action in The Quality of Life takes place during one afternoon between two
couples who have been out of contact for many years. How do the events of this afternoon
change each character individually? How do they alter each marriage?
. How do the events of this play affect your own thinking about end-of-life choices? Do
you think Neil’s decision to end his life early is noble or cowardly? How do you feel about
Jeannette’s initial plan to die with her husband and her final decision to keep going?
. Consider how the characters’ religious beliefs differ. How do the events of this play challenge their personal belief systems?
. Have you ever experienced a wildfire? If so, how does that incident affect how you
respond to the play? What else are you bringing into your interpretation of this play?
. Jeannette and Neil comment on the “silliness” of what they chose to take as they fled the
fire: “a pen and a pair of glasses.” What do these objects say about each of their owners?
Do the circumstances of these characters make you reexamine the value you place on your
own belongings? In a moment of emergency, what would you take?
. Initially, Bill and Dinah are presented as “salt-of-the-earth” Midwesterners, whereas
Jeannette and Neil come across as free-spirited Californians. How does the action of the
play challenge these stereotypes?
. What does Bill mean when he refers to Jeannette and Neil as a “cult of two”? How does
Jeannette and Bill’s relationship differ from Dinah and Bill’s?
for further reading . . .
Anderson, Jane. Defying Gravity. New York: Samuel French, .
———. “Jane Anderson Knows It’s Time to Let Go.” Los Angeles Times, October ———. Looking for Normal. New York: Dramatists Play Service, .
———. The Baby Dance. New York: Samuel French, .
Cannon, Lou. “Misfortune May Reverberate through Star-Crossed Oakland.” The
Washington Post, November .
Carle, David. Introduction to Fire in California. California Natural History Guides.
Berkeley: University of California Press, .
Colby, William H. Unplugged: Reclaiming Our Right to Die in America. New York:
amacom, .
Compassion & Choices of Northern California. http://www.compassionandchoicesnca.org/.
Dobson, James. When God Doesn’t Make Sense. Carol Stream, il: Tyndale House Publishers,
Inc., .
Dowbiggen, Ian. A Merciful End: The Euthanasia Movement in Modern America. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, .
Dyck, Arthur J. Life’s Worth: The Case against Assisted Suicide. Grand Rapids, mi.: William
B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., .
Goodwin, Kathleen. Point Reyes Visions. Inverness, ca: Color & Light Editions, .
Haidt, Jonathan. “What Makes People Vote Republican?” Edge: The Third Culture.
September . http://edge.org/rd_culture/haidt/haidt_index.html.
Herer, Jack. The Emperor Wears No Clothes: The Authoritative Historical Record of Cannabis
and the Conspiracy against Marijuana. Austin, tx: ah ha Publishing, .
Hoffer, Peter Charles. Seven Fires: The Urban Infernos That Reshaped America. New York:
Public Affairs, .
Hoge, Patrick. “Point Reyes Residents View Ruins.” The Sacramento Bee, October .
Holzmann, Barbara. “The Vision Fire.” San Francisco State University Geography
Department. http://www.sfsu.edu/~geog/bholzman/ptreyes/tripfire.htm.
Kemery, Becky. “Yurts—Round and Unbound.” Alternatives: Resources for Cultural
Creativity, July . http://www.alternativesmagazine.com//kemery.html.
Kiernan, Stephen P. Last Rights: Rescuing the End of Life from the Medical System. New
York: St. Martin’s Press, .
Loeb, David, ed. “Out of the Flames: Point Reyes Ten Years after the Vision Fire.” Bay
Nature, July–September, . http://www.nps.gov/pore/parkmgmt/upload/firemanagement_
fireeducation_baynature_outoftheflames.pdf.
Nakao, Annie, Kathleen Sullivan, and Katherine Seligman. “Reliving ’ Fire Terror.” The
Examiner, October Pausch, Randy. “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams.” Presented at Carnegie
Mellon University’s “Journeys” Lecture Series, September . http://www.cmu.edu/
uls/journeys/randy-pausch/index.html
——— and Jeffrey Zaslow. The Last Lecture. New York: Hyperion, .
National Cancer Institute. http://www.cancer.gov/.
Russo, Frank D. “Death with Dignity.” The California Progress Report. http://www
.californiaprogressreport.com/death_with_dignity/index.html (accessed September )
Schimmel, Annemarie. Look! This Is Love: Poems of Rumi. Boston: Shambhala, Schlosser, Eric. Reefer Madness. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, .
State of Oregon. “Death with Dignity.” Oregon Department of Human Services. http://
www.oregon.gov/dhs/ph/pas/index.shtml.
Weisman, Steven R. “India Widow’s Death at Pyre Creates a Shrine.” The New York Times,
September .
Wilcox, Sara et al. “The Effects of Widowhood on Physical and Mental Health, Health
Behaviors, and Health Outcomes: The Women’s Health Initiative.” Health Psychology ,
no. ().
Yollin, Patricia. “Mount Vision Fire: Ten Years After.” San Francisco Chronicle, October . http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a////mngi;dth.dtl&h
w=vision+fire+inverness&sn=&sc=