Mind Made Up

Bruce Graham thrives on the conversations he has with himself.

by A.D. Amorosi

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Published: Apr 7, 2009

Philadelphia playwright Bruce Graham, the man who famously penned locally debuted classics Burkie, Belmont Avenue Social Club, According to Goldman, Coyote on a Fence and one-man production The Philly Fan, the guy who teaches film and theater courses at Drexel, would bust at the seams to talk seriously about his new work, Something Intangible, and answer my heavy questions about people longing to move beyond their stations.

If it weren't for college basketball, that is.

"Jesus, can't you ask any easy questions?" jokes Graham from his home in Pennsport. "I'm hungover from the Villanova game. Besides, to tell you the truth I've never dreamed of any sort of greatness. I thought I was gonna be a schoolteacher who wrote plays. Great stuff comes from artists and I'm no artist. I'm a craftsman. Artists suffer. Screw that."

To tell you the truth, that's the Graham we've come to adore and expect.

"I've been thinking about this play for about 15 years," says Graham, whose original inspiration was the van Gogh brothers: Vincent, the artistic genius, and Theo, the business-minded protector. "We wouldn't have all those great paintings if it weren't for poor Theo," says Graham. "But that felt kind of thin to build a play around. Besides, I realized I was sort of out of my depth as to knowledge of art and the period. So — 'write what ya know' — I switched it to Hollywood in the '40s."

The movie business, where Graham got his chops writing for films like Dunston Checks In, is just the engine that drives Intangible. "To me," he says, "it's about a guy trying to find out what's missing in his life."

To create the play's odd-couple scenario, local actor Ian Peakes plays a movie-studio cartoonist who wants to move beyond his money-making mien to create delirious animation set to classical scores (think Fantasia), while Scott Greer's business-brother must stay grounded for the sake of the film company, his brother's fragile genius and his own sense of self-worth. For Graham, it all hits close to home.

"My plays are arguments with myself. When I finished Intangible I left a copy on the bed for my wife to read. ... Her first comment was, 'The brothers ... you're both of them.'"

Rather than come from an incident he saw (as in Belmont Avenue Social Club) or an issue that struck him like lightning (as in Coyote), Intangible was written with specific actors — in this case Greer and Peakes — in mind.

"I'm starting to do that now that we have such a great talent pool here in Philly," Graham says. "When I started out — a lonnnng time ago — we didn't have that luxury. Everyone had to be brought down from New York. Now I'm thinking of asking the IRS if I can list the Greer family as dependents."

Something Intangible plays into Graham's ongoing fascination with left brain/right brain relationships, the realms of the "creative" versus the "logical" and a certain indignation he has with the trend in the arts to "look down on the civilians" — the folks who don't create the art but raise the money and support it. "I can't stand that," he says. "I was the artistic director at the Philadelphia Festival Theatre for New Plays for two years and ran it into the ground. I could pick plays, hire directors and designers, but I couldn't raise money. Hey, I have trouble asking my wife for a couple bucks. I really grew to appreciate folks who make the art possible but rarely get any credit.”

Graham is 52 now, with some mileage on him in his estimation. Remembering William Holden’s line from Network — “I’m closer to the end than the beginning” — pricks up his ear.

 “People die, friends divorce, kids grow up — all that stuff,” Graham says. “Once in a while I think we all look back and maybe ask, ‘What if …?’  That’s the question nagging Scott’s character in Intangible. And at the end, he finds his answer.”

Something Intangible, through June 7, $29-$48, Arden Theatre Co., 40 N. Second St., 215-922-1122,
ardentheatre.org.

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