S: Bill, you return in one scene of Old Hats to a long-running interest of yours, the relationship between humans and technology.
Why do you find that such an engaging point of departure?
BI: You name any year of the last fifty and I’m ten years behind that with technology, but I have a fascination with how technology
impacts our physical character. I think we are genetically inclining our heads forward now because we relate only to the thing in our
hands so that our necks are not necessarily ever going to straighten up. So that’s my clown fascination: how we relate to our own
image and the machines that we build to absorb ourselves. We think that we’re in control of these things.
Somebody of my generation, I know we’re not.
TL: They’re in control of you.
S: David, how did “The Hobo” scene come about?
DS: I always loved the hobo character because it’s quintessentially American.
Emmett Kelly and Red Skelton really made that character popular. This is probably
the most difficult piece for me to do because I’m really going out on a limb.
But I remember one rehearsal I was trying different things with the character.
I found this pathetic crying [bit] and Bill just laughed out loud. So I kept this
really sad laugh and it really solidified the character for me.
I thought, “What a great way to make the audience
(right) Bill Irwin, Tina Landau,
and David Shiner in rehearsal
for Old Hats, 2013.
(below) Bill Irwin in Signature
Theatre’s production of
Old Hats at American
Conservatory Theater, 2014.
S: How did Shaina become involved?
Shaina Taub: The first time Old Hats happened, I desperately
tried to see it but it was sold out the whole time. Then a year
later I got a call from my agent for the audition. I was doing a
show in Las Vegas at the time, but I was so excited that I wanted
to find a way to do it. So I flew back [to New York] and came
right off the red-eye into the audition room, twenty minutes late.
I was practicing accordion in the cab on the way over.
TL: She came in with a rawness of energy and a seriousness of
purpose that we all responded to instantly and thought, “Oh this
is an interesting flavor to add to the mix.”
DS: It didn’t take long for us to really embrace Shaina. She’s easy
to work with. She’s a lot of fun. It was a good fit.
S: How did you select which songs to include?
ST: When I first came on board I just sort of sent Tina all the
songs that I had lying around, and we started to narrow that
down and cull. I’d say half of the songs in the show are songs
we picked from existing material I had written for concerts, and
then the other half are brand new songs I wrote for the show.
Initially, I was thinking only songs that were bright and joyful and
fun, but I realized in working with the clowns that there’s just
something so much deeper at play. They’re taking the soulfulness of the human experience, the pain and darkness, and
showing truth through comedy. So the songs that I wrote for the
show were inspired by that and by taking darker topics, but putting them into a joyful, bright, buoyant context.
TL: I think there’s a kind of overall story that the scenes and the
songs create together until eventually they coalesce to make an
ending that is really a trio more than it’s a solo or a duet.
BI: Clowns will come and go, but Shaina is with you always,
on stage. That’s what we say about the show.
That’s my clown fascination:
how we relate to our own
image and the machines that
we build to absorb ourselves.
– BILL IRWIN
(right) Shaina Taub in Signature Theatre’s production of Old Hats at American Conservatory Theater, 2014.
(far right) David Shiner and Bill Irwin in Old Hats at Signature Theatre, 2013.
7
I needed
to just
absorb them
and learn
how their
minds and
bodies and
imaginations
worked.
– TINA LANDAU