DRIVER These people need to live gigantic lives in order to feel something. These people want to feel something big. We’re not often given that space to feel. Or probably we are, but we don’t take it. We’re too distracted by everything else.
RUSSELL Tanya Berezin, she holds the rights to “Burn This.” Before we started, she came in and said Lanford’s characters need everything about their lives to feel humongous. They wanted to do the best possible art, they wanted to fall in love in the best possible way. Everything had to mean something and it had to be huge.
And you sort of go, ‘Well, I did want to do that, but I guess I needed to make money, too.” Or, “I did really like that guy, but he was a lot of work.” Life moves in.
These characters are in so much pain. What’s the experience of rehearsing that kind of pain?
DRIVER The rehearsals are six hours long. You get in that mind-set for six hours and you go home, you’re still pumping, and it’s hard to not make everything urgent. My dog will do something pretty mundane and my first impulse will be like, “WHAT THE — ” [The rest of Mr. Driver’s sentence was too colorful for publication.] I’m not good at letting things go. Other people are and I envy that. I’m always working. It’s always in the back of my mind. There’s a benefit to constantly asking yourself questions about it. The disadvantage is you drive yourself insane.
In the play, Anna says that she and Pale are apples and oranges. I’m not sure they’re both even fruit. What attracts them to each other?
RUSSELL Pale’s feelings are so loud and he’s not embarrassed by them, he’s not ashamed of them. I know a few people like that and they’re so fun to be around. Pale, he’s so alive. Burton is a great guy. He’s rich and he’s polite and he’s nice. But he doesn’t have the stuff, the excitement. That’s what Anna wants desperately.
DRIVER I think there’s hopefully a physical attraction, though ——
RUSSELL I’m not going to do that.
This play only works if we feel that connection, pheromones that hit the back row. How do you find that?
