Writers to participate in Hammer head-to-head
By Daniel Boden
Oct. 13, 2009 10:08 p.m.
Normally, eavesdropping is a social taboo. Normally, staring idly at two gentlemen engaged in a private discussion is disconcerting. Normally, butting into their conversation is downright insolent.
Tonight, “normally” doesn’t apply.
As a part of the Hammer Conversations series, Wallace Shawn and Bruce Wagner ““ two writers who walk with one foot in the literary world and the other in the entertainment industry ““ will be sitting down with each other for a chat.
“Wally (Shawn) is a marvelous thinker,” Wagner said. “And a talker as well.”
Shawn has made a career out of thinking as a writer, although he may be better known for talking as an actor. His trademark balding pate and distinct voice can be seen and heard in film and television programs of the past three decades, from recurring appearances on “The Cosby Show” to his voice-over as Rex the Green Dinosaur in the “Toy Story” series to his portrayal of Vizzini, the cleverest Sicilian, in 1987’s cult classic “The Princess Bride.” Shawn’s breadth as an artist, from playwright to essayist, is ““ you guessed it ““ inconceivable.
Bruce Wagner, contrastingly, has always been a behind-the-scenes player. One of his earliest Hollywood writing credits was right next to Wes Craven’s name in “A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors.” He has since left the horror genre to become one of Los Angeles’ most distinct literary voices as a novelist, screenwriter and producer.
“I think Bruce is a fascinating person,” Shawn said. “As a matter of fact, … I have actually left my own apartment to hear Bruce because I feel his thoughts are fascinating.”
When attending a Hammer Conversations program, the audience is encouraged to probe these “fascinating” thoughts.
Audience members get a candid look into the lives, the bodies of work and the minds of some of the most intriguing artists and thinkers of our time. The program ends with an open forum during which the audience has the chance to ask the guests questions.
But first, they can just sit and listen as Wagner muses with Shawn about whatever topics they feel inclined to explore, such as Shawn’s book, “Essays.”
“Wally’s the one who has the book out,” Wagner said. “So I’ll be talking to Wally about those essays and what motivated him.”
Shawn said his collection deals with his sense of the individual as well as society as a whole and raises the question, “What does it mean to be one person?”
“Obviously, in plays I’m writing as someone else,” Shawn said. “I’m allowing the completely unconscious, strange voices that come from inside me to come up.”
He also explained how his prose writing is technically tighter than his plays.
“I wouldn’t want to have a sentence in an essay that was incomprehensible,” Shawn said.
Wagner spoke of the difficulties involved with actors and directors interpreting a writer’s play or film script.
“When you’re writing a screenplay, you’re writing for characters and dialogue that are unknown,” Wagner said. “Prose, you have a certain degree of control over. Actually, you have absolute control.”
Richard Walter, professor in the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, explained how screenwriting often focuses, rather than controls, a writer’s work. With novels, he contended, the writer can meander through past, present and future as well as delve into characters’ inner thoughts and feelings.
“It’s easier to write a novel than a screenplay,” Walter said. “In a screenplay, you’re stuck in the present tense; you’re stuck with sight and sound and you have to be concise.”
Wagner uses the convertibility of literary forms ““ the ability for film scripts to become novels and poems to become plays ““ to argue that a writer can still maintain his or her voice despite varied levels of control.
“The idea of what is one’s voice is pretty mutable … and it depends on the medium,” Wagner said.
He said that the novel is what nourishes him, but that the world of film and television is often more lucrative.
“It’s not that every artist is rich,” Shawn said. “But in a way ““ certainly in our country ““ artists live off the rich.”
He described the artist’s life as one of privilege.
“Writers spend a lot of time alone and they don’t work, so they don’t have a job, so the theory is that they might come up with interesting thoughts,” Shawn said. He pokes fun at his own career as an explanation for why people should attend tonight’s Hammer event.
“People might get sick of themselves and they might want to hear somebody else,” Shawn said.
Wagner is confident that his counterpart is going to keep the crowd on its toes.
“I wouldn’t be surprised to hear anything from Wally. It’s like that,” Wagner said.
