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(Permission to use this article must be obtained
from MR. James Leverett at Yale School of Drama, INCLUSION IS
AT SPONSOR'S DISCRETION).
HOYLE ON THE CONVICT'S
RETURN
Berkeley Rep's dramaturg James Leverett had
the following conversation with Geoff Hoyle.
James Leverett: How did you begin
work on The Convict's Return?
 Geoff
Hoyle: When Tony Taccone and I got together under the auspices
of the Berkeley Rep commission, we had no clear idea what we were
going to do. We sat down with a tape recorder and had a conversation.
I began to relate my experiences over the past two years. They revolved
around what happened to me in New York when I took my show "Feast
of Fools" there and also what happened when CBS supposedly
cast me in a new series about remaking old silent movies. Both of
those projects didn't take the course they should have. I began
discussing those disappointments together with what had influenced
me in the business of comedy in the first place.
Then I went away with reference books and
research, and I started to write. When Tony and I created "Boomer"
in 1986, we generated material while I was on my feet, transcribed
it and then worked through on paper what I'd improvised. With "The
Convict's Return," the emphasis was much more on trying to
write dialogue, or a monologue. Sometimes the process was successful,
but at other times my English classical education intruded. Self-censure
and self-criticism stopped me from getting out that first improvisational
flash. Some days you can come up with great ideas and it just flows.
Other days it's like solving a terrible problem and you just can't
get to the bottom of it. But it's really a great luxury to work
like that. Normally you just get a script and in four weeks you
put it on stage. But in this situation, who knows what might happen.
JL: How does it relate to your other
work?
GH: "Feast of Fools" was
about the fool tradition and popular entertainment. "The Convict's
Return" sketch stands in that tradition. "Boomer"
was autobiographical. The title refers to the Baby-Boom Generation,
specifically to my growing up in England and having children in
America. It was about tradition and influences-how we pass on values
and what values we pass on. It had lots of characters all played
by me: my school teachers, priest, parents, family. And it ended
with a section called "Meetings with Unremarkable People,"
which included a southern waitress named Darlene, a Palestinian
grocer, and a black guy on welfare-all three in some way teaching
a cultural lesson to my son, Daniel. I hope it opened up a doorway
to an appreciation of a culture that doesn't come out of the TV.
It wasn't just about entertainment but also about the question of
what we value as a culture. To some extent, there's also an implied
educational value to the stuff I've come up with in "Convict's
Return." It's about surviving: in Samuel Beckett's phrase,
"I can't go on. I'll goon on." There are certain moments
in the show when I feel more like a Beckett character or a comic
King Lear or a survivor from Chekhov than Milton Berle or Red Skelton.
The piece is about tenacity itself. It's about losing, but there
is some kind of heroic, comic dignity this performer achieves trying
to make something happen, to achieve his dreams. It's related to
a thought I had the other night when I came home, carrying all my
stuff from rehearsal, and my son Jonah, fresh from an audition of
his own, asked, "How'd it go, Dad? I realized that one of the
gifts I give him is the opportunity to see me struggling with all
this: getting on planes, boxing up my stuff, doing my little circuits
here and there. And still getting back home. He understands what
that's about. He sees it.
JL: Comedy always gives a kind of
education for survival It's "physical" education in the
sense of being visceral, of having to do with a body getting through
the world. How did you become interested in the actual Bobby Clark
sketch from which "The Convict's Return" takes its name?
GH: The specific idea came from looking
at Stanley Green's book "The Great Clowns of Broadway."
I happened to be looking through the biographies of several comedians
in it. I knew about Clark and remembered using his trademark, the
painted-on glasses when I worked in the street in San Francisco.
I became intrigued by the fact that Green described certain similarities
I felt I had with Clark, mostly having to do with rhythm and speed
of operation. He was very fast and would never "touch base
but always keep moving. Though he was tremendously popular in his
day, he's virtually unknown today, mostly I think because his success
was in live shows. When I read the description of his skit, "The
Convict's Return," the idea of it made me laugh. I thought
there were a lot of possibilities there.
JL: It's interesting that Boomer,
which you created in the mid 80's, was about having children and
about family values, and here at the beginning of the 90's you're
making a piece about surviving and looking towards a past that somehow
seems more secure.
GH: My question is whether it really
was, or is it just wishful thinking and nostalgia. Was it really
any easier to live and do your work back then? The Depression, the
Second World War? Certainly the context for live theatre was different,
and the art had more support from the public.
JL: I was reading a profile of Bobby
Clark published in the New Yorker in 1947 and all around it were
current advertisements for "Oklahoma," "Annie Get
Your Gun," "Brigadoon," "Carousel," "Harvey,"
"Finian's Rainbow" - all these plays and musicals that
we now consider American classics. No wonder we have such a soft
spot for that time. "The Convict's Return" sketch, of
course, is very far from a classic, but it's tightly, even elegantly
constructed and it operates thoroughly from within a strong, old
tradition of vaudeville comedy. He certainly didn't have to invent
any wheels to make it, but here over 50 years later we're obliged
to reinvent a few in order to revive it.
GH: Yes, but I like the idea of using
history and reclaiming the past of reinstating the "real thing."
And "Convict's Return" isn't necessarily even the roots.
The tradition goes back much further to Harlequin and beyond. But
in order to do it in 1992, when there is really no more forum for
that kind of comedy, I've tried to bring it back to life by weaving
it into my own story.
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