by George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber
Directed by John Dennis
September 16 – September 27
09/16 (Pay What You Can), 9/17 (Preview),
9/18 (Opening),
9/20, 9/22, 9/23, 9/24, 9/25, 9/26 at 7:30
9/27 at 2:00
Shaver Theatre

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Non LSU student............. $19.00
LSU student.................... $15.00

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Interview with Director, John Dennis

John Dennis has been an integral part of both LSU Theatre and Swine Palace Productions for decades.

For year after year and season after season, John Dennis – “JD” to all of his students, friends and colleagues – has done his best to give audiences in Baton Rouge and around the world the kind of theatre they deserve. Whether it’s Shakespeare, Edward Albee or Tracy Letts, audiences know what to expect from John Dennis.

When I found out I would be working as John Dennis’s dramaturg (for the second time, might I add), I was ecstatic. Not because John Dennis is an excellent director – OK, actually, that was part of it – but because it is impossible to sit in the same room with him without smiling. John Dennis’ love for the theatre is more contagious than Swine flu.

It didn’t take long for us to start talking about his upcoming Swine Palace production, The Royal Family. This lost classic of the American theatre by George Kaufman and Edna Ferber is the first show to play in the newly renovated Claude Shaver Theatre.

Neal Hebert: So I hear you’re finally doing an animal act.

John Dennis: God, these dogs are better pedigreed than some of the actors! They’re not better pedigreed than the whole company – they’ll kill me if I don’t say that, by the way – but I think everyone can agree that the dogs certainly have better manners.

NH: Why The Royal Family? What is it about the play that attracted you to it?

JD: It’s called The Royal Family because the play is about the Barrymore family – it deals with a family at the heart of the theatre. One of the things that made me excited about the Royal Family is that it’s a perfect play for the new Shaver theatre.

The play is about the family’s commitment to excellence inthe theatre – a commitment that’s been seen year after year from the students and professionals who’ve appeared onstage at The Shaver. Just as in the play, there have been a lot of sacrifices made for the work that’s graced that stage; and this program has produced some really fantastic success stories who walked off that stage to work all over the world.

Just like the Cavendishes, these students are continuing the lineage. They even say it in the play: “When one drops out, another replaces it.” No matter how bad the condition of that theatre was before these renovations, we did our best to do it right year after year, no matter what. Year after year, we’ve picked plays that are important to the community and to the university. The university wants to promote excellence – and this department has been doing the same thing throughout its existence.

NH: The Royal Family gives us a family that has given their lives to the theatre; generations of men and women who are bound together as much by their art as they are by their blood. Is it fair to say that theatre creates communities and families while it presents them on the stage?

JD: I think it should. When it’s at its best, it creates ensembles that reflect a community with an important common goal in mind.

There’s nothing like a theatre ensemble. That’s why I’ve filled the Cavendish household with people of all races and creeds – the Cavendishes, for all their faults, remain open to change and growth. Their household is one of the most tolerant, loving and embracing households. Sure, they have pretentions: but mostly they care and they give.

NH: So it’s safe to say that you’re a big fan of the script?

JD: I wanted to do this play more than any other play at this point in my life – and I think the cast is joining me in realizing that this is a wonderful, beautiful play.

NH: If you could sum up The Royal Family in one pithy line, what would you say?

JD: See it, and tell somebody else to see it!

NH: What can audiences expect from The Royal Family?

JD: It might change your life. It might send you home in somebody else’s car. It might pay your mortgage. It might even give you dollars for clunkers. I always say that people do not go to the theatre to see the ordinary: they go to be surprised. And I promise you, this play’s filled with them. Now find some in your life

NH: The Royal Family is a play that delighted audiences around the world in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s; it featured a revival in the mid-1970s, and it’s getting another one this fall that opens in New York the same week we do here in Baton Rouge. But despite this new-found interest, it’s not a play that has seen a ton of revivals over the years. What is it about The Royal Family that made you want to revive it for Swine Palace’s 2009 season?

JD: Because of the theatre we’re reopening, I made some phone calls to see if I could cast it – this play is really hard to cast. I made three phone calls; once I found out I could cast it I knew we would do it.

Plus we’re saving you airfare and an airport frisking. Why go to New York when you can see it here and bring as much emotional luggage into the theatre as you wish?

NH: What is it about The Royal Family that you believe will grab audiences today?

JD: We’re fascinated with celebrities, and The Royal Family is the theatrical equivalent of looking at the Osbournes or T.O. on VH1. This play is a play about the Osbournes of the 1920s, the Barrymore family of actors. Everyone knew what the Barrymores were doing on stage, but this play truly pulled back the curtain and showed us what they’re up to offstage.

And if that’s not enough, there’s all hell breaking loose in the play: comedy, drama, farce, melodrama and tragedy! Every problem introduced in the play is resolved neatly, without straining believability!

NH: It’s like in Chekhov – you don’t show a gun onstage in act one unless it goes off in the fourth act.

JD: Absolutely.

NH: Do you believe in the power of theatre to build communities? Families?

JD: Theatre does more than that: I believe it helps us realize what it is to be human.

Theatre asks us what it’s like to be alive. Whether it’s the twenty-first century or the 1920s, I think we forget what it means to be human: we lose sight of relationships, and sometimes get too busy to feel concern for each other. We’re all about me and my cell phone. We’ve got to stroke each other. Touch more, talk less. Everybody needs a hug.

I don’t believe in plays that teach lessons; but I know plays can remind us of our humanity. If nothing else, theatre inspires us to care: about cultures, about history and even about each other.

NH: The Royal Family is a comedy. Why do audiences need to laugh?

JD: Everybody needs to laugh. A lot! Not just audiences – everyone.

We’re here for such a short time. We take things far too personally. And we’re afraid of laughing at ourselves and with others these days. Look at funerals! I’d like to see more laughter in funeral parlors! It could only help. Laughter is the healthiest thing we can do.

NH: Speaking as someone who’s worked in a funeral home, I think you’re dead on.

JD: I didn’t know that – that’s great! Put this in the interview before you embalm yourself!

NH: But how do you make people laugh? How can you as a director make sure the comedy is actually funny?

JD: You have to know that comedy is about tragedy. It’s something awful that’s about to happen as soon as the curtain rises. For the actors, comedy is serious business. It’s life or death. Tragedy!

NH: Though you’re working as The Royal Family’s director, you’ve taught acting for many years. Have you ever figured out what it really means to act?

JD: It’s interesting because in this play we see Julie – the superstar of the American theatre – and we see her training. Boxing, tai chi, the whole nine yards.

And that’s what acting is. It’s a never-ending growth process. And it’s hard work.

To be an actor, you have to observe. You have to have imagination. You have to be empathetic. You have to feel what it means to be someone else. You have to wear someone else’s shoes. You have to be comfortable and care about someone else.

And you have to mean it.

More than anything, you have to mean it.