CHARLIE ROSE
The world.
ROB REINER
World theater.
ROBERT HUGHES
Um, what about a...
CHARLIE ROSE
From now on, here forth, on this program, it's the world.
ROBERT HUGHES
Okay, what about Jean Louis Beraud? What about uh, Welles? What
about um, uh, I mean you can certainly extend the category a lot in the
English theater, and in, you know, and of course on the American, again,
it is the problem of narrowing it down. I mean, if you want one
superbly achieved classical actor, you know, the person
who defined, the (Inaudible) at the same time enlarged, the conception
of classical English drama in its time, I think it's got to be Olivier.
You know, there is no American classical actor who quite comes up to
that, although there are, you know, extraordinary individual
performances, which none of us have seen, like, for instance, Robeson's
Othello, which I would have given my left arm to have seen. Um, but uh,
if you're going to pick one, I think it's got to be Olivier, but
then what about Gingold (?), what about, uh, you know, even extraordinary
actors like uh, say Finney, uh, you know that (Overlapping voices).
NORM PERLSTINE
....Ralph Richardson.
ROBERT HUGHES
Ralph Richardson. What about Alec Guinness, my god. You know, the
CHARLIE ROSE
who could literally do anything.
ROB REINER
When I think of theater I think of the playwrights as having the most
impact, and I think about Eugene O'Neill, uh, uh, as maybe the most
impactful, George Bernard Shaw, uh, but then the American playwrights
have Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams, and those are the
people I think of, when I think of theater.
CHARLIE ROSE
Who is the...?
ROBERT HUGHES
You're forgetting Beckett.
ROB REINER
And Beckett. And Samuel Beckett overall.
NORM PERLSTINE
Yeah.
ANNA DEAVERE SMITH
Well we've also, in the theater, gone through a time of the great
directors, so, for example, we wouldn't, um, have uh, theater where
we're able to see the lights, if it hadn't been for Berthold Brecht,
I think he really turned it around so that we exposed more about what
was happening, and made us question realism in general. And also, Peter
Brook. My guess is, that kind of physicalization of theater, and new
story telling, was so innovative, that we probably wouldn't have Rent,
if it hadn't have been for Peter Brook, just that way of looking at
telling a story.
CHARLIE ROSE
Do you think there are things we have lost in theater today, that we had
before? Uh, when we...
ANNA DEAVERE SMITH
Because of television of film?
CHARLIE ROSE
Because of, yeah, television and film. You mentioned political theater,
but, what have we lost in theater today, uh, when you, I hear all these
voices...
ANNA DEAVERE SMITH
Audience.
CHARLIE ROSE
Audience is one thing, yes. 20
(LAUGHTER)
CHARLIE ROSE
I hear all these voices talk about...Wilson. Olivier.
ANNA DEAVERE SMITH
I was talking to a Bosnian playwright who told me that people went
to the theater in Bosnia, kind of the way they went to the bakery, that
they really needed to go. And I think uh, that when I hear people talk
about the old, great Yiddish theater in New York, for example, I had
that feeling, and I think we've lost that about theater, somehow. The
feeling that, that we all need to be together, alive, telling a
story, largely because, there's so many other ways of telling stories
now.
CHARLIE ROSE
I want to get at this question. In America, who is, if you look
at the most influential playwright, in America, I'm limiting it now,
just for, benefit of my own curiosity, is it Tennessee Williams?
ROBERT HUGHES
Today?
CHARLIE ROSE
Today. In America, in the last century.
ROBERT HUGHES
Uh, I mean, there's certainly a long fallout from Williams' theatrical
achievement. I think probably in terms of the technique and
possibilities of writing for the stage, somebody like David Mamet would
be more influential on younger artists today, than Williams is. I think
that's possible, but I, I think we...
ANNA DEAVERE SMITH
I think, I think we have to go back and look at the spillage from the
last century, and look at, for example, Anton Chekhov, who is still
writing in this century, because if, if there hadn't been that
investigation, of naturalism and realism, that Ibsen and Chekhov,
for example, um, did so well, we would not have the naturalistic play as
we know it.
ROBERT HUGHES
Yeah, that's true.
NORM PEARLSTINE
And what really...
ROBERT HUGHES
And Beckett, too.
NORM PEARLSTINE
....distinguishes the American theater in the twentieth century is the
musical, and the, it, I don't know if we're mixing categories, but I
don't know how you can ignore Rodgers and Hammerstein...(Overlapping
voices).
CHARLIE ROSE
Don't worry about mixing categories. Let's talk about the American
musical.
NORM PEARLSTINE
I would say that the American musical is really one of the things that
really defined this century from other centuries.
CHARLIE ROSE
Yeah.
ROBERT HUGHES
See, I think Anna Deavere Smith raises a very important point. It's not
as though the 20th century is the self-contained unit, which began in
1900, and is still going on today. There is an enormous cultural
continuity between the 19th and the 20th centuries, and this
particularly strong in the theater. Uh, it's also very strong in the
model (?). I mean, you know, people think of, Proust, for instance, as
a 19th century novelist, but in fact, most of his work was published in
the 20th century. And so, if, if we, uh, we can certainly talk about
Chekhov as being a modernist writer...
CHARLIE ROSE
Right.
ROBERT HUGHES
....uh, but then, uh, are we talking about mod--, you know, the
achievements of modernism, or are talk about, specifically, the
achievements of THE 20th century, and then, did the 20th century begin
in 1900? Or did it begin in 1914? Is it going to end in the year 2000?
Or did it end with the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989?
ANNA DEAVERE SMITH
And how can we project about who's going to last in the next century, if
we think about the American musical, for example, and look at the impact
that George Wolfe has had in, particularly the success, I think
of Bring in the Noise, Bring in the Funk. Would we, next cent--, in the
next century would we say, oh, well, he was in this century? Or do
people fall through the gaps because of, sort of when they're born?
(Overlapping voices)
ROB REINER
And where's Neil Simon's place? The most popular playwright in the
history of the world?
ROBERT HUGHES
Is he the most popular playwright in the history of the world?
ROB REINER
Yes. Yeah, well, Shakespeare and him.
(LAUGHTER)
ROB REINER
Absolutely. Absolutely. 20
CHARLIE ROSE
And who was the other guy, the, Neil Simon?
ROB REINER
Neil Simon.
ANNA DEAVERE SMITH
Where does he fall? Where would he fall?
ROB REINER
Well, I don't know, I mean, you got to talk about him, the, having an
impact on, on theater, I mean, they may name the theater after him.
ANNA DEAVERE SMITH
Maybe even in televi--, he has impacted television, too.
ROB REINER
Absolutely.
ANNA DEAVERE SMITH
Story telling.
ROB REINER
Absolutely.
ANNA DEAVERE SMITH
That he established in the theater.
CHARLIE ROSE
Before I go, I want to expand this category to, also, in terms of
theater, to, as we got into writing, uh, and it's too broad, again, but
who is, what novelist has had the most impact in our time? If our time
is this century?
ANNA DEAVERE SMITH
Part of this century is before some of our time in the, in the room,
but..
CHARLIE ROSE
Right.
CHERYL CROW
Hemingway.
NORM PEARLSTINE
Joyce, Hemingway, those are the two.
CHARLIE ROSE
Robert?
ROBERT HUGHES
Joyce.
CHARLIE ROSE
Joyce.
ROBERT HUGHES
Joyce on the high brows, absolutely, because, and yet, you know, a man
without a very wide public impact, at all, except through, as it were,
secondary sources. Because he's influenced every writer, but I've never
met anybody who's read Finnegan's Wake.
ROB REINER
I read it. I didn't understand a word of it.
(LAUGHTER)
ROB REINER
I didn't understand one word of it, but I read it.
ROBERT HUGHES
But you see, Joyce, Joyce is one of those, one of that small group
of writers, whom you absolutely have to read, some of, at least, or you
have to come to terms with in some way, if you're going to write
fiction. Um, and yet, you know, he never had a huge popular following.
I mean I would say that, uh, the, the um, you know, I would certainly
include Cathcar (?) on the list. Although, again, Cathcar, did not have
a very wide social resonance, except in a secondary sense, I mean, you
know, everybody knows that Cathcar wrote novels about undefined menace
and the creepy possibilities of totalitarianism. And yet, at the same
time, relatively few people who, you know would cite that as being one
of the factors in Cathcar's cultural, uh, input...
NORM PEARLSTINE
Would you put Hemingway in there? Would you put him in at all?
ROBERT HUGHES
I would put Hemingway in there. Hemingway had a vastly larger influence
on popular culture than either of these two novelists. Now, the
question is, do we define the novelist writers, in terms of his impact
upon popular culture? We're back to, where it was. I mean, the, the,
um, Hemingway, of course, stole like mad from Gertrude Stein, I mean
this is, this is the basic source of his style. You know, he got it all ... thus freeing himself to become the world's most macho
writer.
(LAUGHTER)
CHARLIE ROSE
Let's make sure I understood the connection. The macho came from the
Gertrude Stein influence?
ROBERT HUGHES
Well, I think the sick--, sickness, and uh, the, some peculiar brevity
of the sentences that Gertrude's...
CHARLIE ROSE
Norm, if you had to choose in terms of uh, the power of their
writing and their influence between Hemingway and Faulkner, who would
you choose?
NORM PEARLSTINE
Oh, I would choose Faulkner, but that's because I never was a great fan
of Hemingway's, but to come back to Joyce, I guess the way I ask myself
the question is, when I, if I ever get, get the chance to seriously read
novels again, who would I most want to go back and read?
CHARLIE ROSE
Good question.
NORM PEARLSTINE
And I would put Joyce at the top of my list.
CHARLIE ROSE
Yeah. Who would be second?
NORM PEARLSTINE
Faulkner.
CHARLIE ROSE
Faulkner. To go back and read.
NORM PEARLSTINE
Right.
CHARLIE ROSE
Who would you go back to?
ROB REINER
Well, you know, I, I, Faulkner. I would say, I mean, he's a favorite of mine, as well. I also like reading
Steinbeck, and I like reading S. Fitzgerald. I mean, I love reading
F. Scott Fitzgerald. Uh, and then you talk about people who are
popular, and are very small output, somebody like J.D. Salinger, who had
an enormous influence on, you know, teenagers and adolescents for,
for, since the 50s, from the 50s on. I mean, the man who, you know I
hate to say, the man who killed, John Lennon, was steeped in J.D. Salinger and Catcher in the Rye, so, we know the tremendous impact
that he's had, even though it's a very limited output.
ROBERT HUGHES
That's okay, Hitler loved Wagner, too.
(LAUGHTER)
CHARLIE ROSE
Us, sorry, go ahead. No. But I want to lead, you introduced music.
Uh, music. Tell me who you think who ought to be, have under
consideration, as we think about music.
CHERYL CROW
Well, um, I think no one can dispute the impact that Dylan had,
obviously.
(APPLAUSE)
CHERYL CROW
Uh, not, not just as a musician, but as an innovator, he actually
created folk rock, by bringing folk into an amplified medium, although
it wasn't popular at the time, and he took a lot of grief over it. It
changed the way rock 'n' roll is now -- the way he led the
culture of revolution, his very politically abiding lyrics, his
strange look that wasn't clean cut, everything about him was something
that we had never seen before, and it really changed the world...
CHARLIE ROSE
What influence did it have on you?
CHERYL CROW
I was very young, but I still, it's, i--, I go to Steinbeck, I
go to Dylan. I read him like, uh...
CHARLIE ROSE
John Steinbeck?
ROB REINER
He added poetry to rock 'n' roll. He was the first man to add poetry to
rock 'n' roll.
CHERYL CROW
Definitely. And, if you look at Dylan you have to go back and
look at Robert Johnson, you have to look at Hank Williams. And I think
in...
CHARLIE ROSE
Hank Williams?
CHERYL CROW
Robert Johnson, yeah, certainly, I mean, you forget how to look at rock
and roll and not address Robert Johnson and the blues, and the people he
affected, Muddy Waters, Howling Wolf, the people that really, I
think, gave rock 'n' roll its earliest face.
ROB REINER
Yeah, we were talking about that in the green room and I totally agree.
Robert Johnson, if you don't have Robert Johnson, you don't have rock
'n' roll. I mean he basically, I mean, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino,
CHARLIE ROSE
Little Richard.
ROB REINER
Little Richard, they all go back to Robert Johnson, and then...
CHARLIE ROSE
Where do you put Elvis, and who do you say about Elvis? I read a story
about, now I think it was, I'm not sure what the magazine was on the
plane coming out here and the argument was, the most over rated
musician in this century had been Elvis. And the same argument made the
point the most under rated musician of this century was Louis
Armstrong. Now, what about Elvis?
