Broad Appeal

The Timespiece quoted you as saying that you’re often up
until 3 or 4 in the morning following performances. All my life that’s been a problem. I
never liked going to bed. Even as a young kid,
I’d set the alarm clock to 4 in the morning because a
Norma Shearer movie would be on. And I know this is
going to make me sound a little loony, but the curse
of my imagination is that I have the wildest dream
life. Sometimes I’m almost afraid to go to sleep at
night. I don’t have nightmares, but every dream
I have is like an epic, full-length movie -- quadruple
features. Sometimes I wake up more exhausted than
before I went to sleep.

I was also surprised by your admission of being a
reality-television addict. It’s an obsession. Is there a 12-step
program? I really need one. Though I like to convince
myself that I’m only addicted to high-end reality TV.
I’ve never missed a single episode of any season of
Survivor. I really like Project Runway, Top Chef,
Top Design, American Idol, Dancing With the
Stars… I went so far as to attend a taping of
Dancing With the Stars. And for some reason, I
keep running into all the winners of my favorite shows on
the street, so I accost them. I never know if they
know who I am or if they just think I’m a kook.

Doing Dancing With the Stars seems like a
logical next step for you.[Laughs] I don’t know. When I have to
dance in a show I’m like one of those old star
ladies who doesn’t move while the chorus boys do
all the work. In fact, I think my next play will be
something where I can just wear a kaftan and sit on a
divan. I’m so tired of learning blocking.

Explain your choice to star in The Third Story
after not having taken on the female leads in
your plays Our Leading Lady and The Tale
of the Allergist’s Wife.Not everything I write is in the same style. The
Third Story suits my genre-parody style, so I
wrote that for myself. The characters aren’t supposed
to be real women; they’re comments on
star-acting. Allergist’s Wife, for
example, was much more naturalistic, and having me play one
of those roles would’ve made it seem like it was in
the same style of Vampire Lesbians of Sodom. Although
sometimes I wonder if I’m being hypocritical,
because I had to really fight hard to get the rights
to play Auntie Mame. The Lawrence and Lee estate
didn’t ever want to allow a man to play that
part because they didn’t want it to turn into a
camp piece. I had to write letters saying that I was going
to play it very much like Roz Russell, and that I
wasn’t making fun of it. At the same time, I
would receive letters from theater companies who
wanted to do Allergist’s Wife and cast a guy
in drag in one of the roles, and I said, “Absolutely
not. You can’t play Allergist’s
Wife like you’re doing Psycho Beach
Party."

What happened to plans of a film version of
Allergist’s Wife?A wonderful producer optioned it and paid me a lot of
money to write the screenplay, and we both felt that
the screenplay was an improvement on the play. Then he
had a terrible time getting a production company to
make a movie about middle-aged Jews in New York. One studio
head said, “Can you make the Michelle Lee
character 20 years old?” So it’s sitting
in limbo. At one point we sent the script to Barbra
Streisand, and there was a brief flurry of e-mails
about her doing it at HBO. Then some emissary
basically said that if Streisand was going to return to the
screen, it should be in a role of import. Of course, then
she did Meet the Fockers. But who knows what
Streisand really wanted or if she really even looked
at it.