Victor L. Cahn has had several plays produced Off-Broadway and regionally including Roses in December, Embraceable Me, Dally with the Devil, A Dish for the Gods, and Sheepskin. He is Professor Emeritus of English at Skidmore College, and the author of a dozen non-fiction books including several on Shakespeare and a book on classic television episodes. New Jersey Stage spoke to him about Villainous Company, which premiered last year in New York City and is currently being presented by the New Jersey Repertory Company in Long Branch.
How do you describe Villainous Company? It’s a mystery/thriller for three women, where the audience never quite knows who’s ahead in the struggle for money and power. Although the play is not about murder, the stakes are high. I also like to think that the script contains surprising humor.
Do you think audience members generally find themselves “rooting” for one of the three characters? Possibly, but the shifts of power will, I hope, leave audiences wondering just where their loyalties should lie.
This is a play involving 3 women. Some writers find it a challenge to write characters of the opposite sex. Part of the fun of writing plays is to create characters completely unlike me, and I tried to do so here. I hope that both men and women will respond positively, and so far they have.
Did you make any changes to the play after its premiere last year? Do you normally do rewrites after a play’s initial run? After the NYC production, I cut some dialogue and rewrote a few passages. I wanted a lean, tight script, and now I think we have one. For a playwright, rewriting is inevitable. As one dramatist famously noted, “Plays are not written. They’re rewritten.” Most playwrights can tinker with scripts endlessly, and I certainly fall into that category.
How did you get involved with NJRep and were you involved in the production? My agent and my producer have both worked with NJRep before. I attended opening rehearsals, then visited periodically. Over that time I handled questions about dialogue, but otherwise my absence gave the actors and the director, SuzAnne Barabas, opportunity to explore the script on their own and experiment with how to present it. Altogether the process was a happy collaboration.
What can Shakespeare teach today’s playwrights just starting out? I taught Shakespeare for decades, but his style and construction are so extraordinary that I’m not sure what any modern playwright can learn from his masterpieces, except to feel appropriately humble.
Two years ago, your book Walking Distance: Remembering Classic Episodes from Classic Television was published. What did you learn from television? Writers in early television had to work under tight constrictions on subject, action, and language, and re-watching those shows while preparing my book confirmed how beautifully they were constructed. In particular, the dialogue had to be crisp, a valuable lesson for any playwright.
Villainous Company is on stage at New Jersey Repertory Company now through June 5. For more information visit www.njrep.org
