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Campbell Scott: Here

March
14

Campbell Scott may live in Connecticut now, but he hasn’t forgotten his Westchester roots when it comes to three of his loves: theater, literature and music.

• Tomorrow night, the son of acting greats Colleen Dewhurst and George C. Scott will bring Ronan Noone’s one-man play “The Atheist” to Westchester Arts Council’s Arts Exchange in White Plains, to kick off the venue’s Theater Week.

• On April 10, Scott will read short stories – “Thurber, Cheever and some other great choices” – at the Katonah Museum of Art.

• And on May 31, he and his band, The Right Out Louds – playing The Beatles, U2 and Hendrix, with Scott on the drums – will play at the Katonah museum’s annual benefit, at Roosevelt Ballroom in Yonkers.

He phoned from his home.

I was in my car the other day and I heard this ad for an oil company. And I thought, “That sounds like Campbell Scott.”

That would be Chevron.

Any of your friends ask you about that?

People do mention it. Knowing that I’m such an environmentalist, they’re shocked.

This is the guy who did the voice for (the anti-Iraq-war film) “No End in Sight.”

I know. Who the hell is he?

Who’s side is he on?

I’m not trying to take sides. I thought about that one quite hard, but, in fact, I figure whether we like it or not, it’s not going to be a grass-roots movement if we change things. It’s going to have to be these companies that change first. I figured if they’re going to spend millions on an ad that at least acknowledges the problems, then that’s a start in the right direction. And now they’re all doing it, which is really fascinating. I think we might have to sleep with the enemy and hope they turn into allies and start developing something we can all use.

In Ronan Noone’s “The Atheist,” you play Augustine Early. He’s an amoral reporter. It’s fiction, right?

I don’t know what you mean by that! Does such a thing exist?! He’s just telling the truth, man. In the play, he’s reporting on a court case in a rather subjective way and his boss says, ‘They could say we are influencing the course of justice.’ And he says, ‘Are we not doing that every day, boss? Our opinion, one way or another?’

Augustine Early is a creation of Ronan Noone, a playwright up in Boston who is just coming into the forefront. It was done in London and, I think, in New York in a small production.

Didn’t Augustine start out as an Irish journalist and now he’s American?

Ronan himself was a journalist for a year in Dublin. And the character was Irish at the start, but Ronan soon thought that American was better for it.

Had you read earlier drafts when he was still an Irish reporter?

No. Nicholas Martin, the artistic director at Boston’s Huntington Theater, who’s an encourager of Ronan’s work, asked me to do a reading about two years ago and I fell in love with the play. I said let’s find a way to do it.

Do you like doing one-man plays?

No. It’s lonely. I really miss the theater and the schedule I have as a single parent now — because I have my son every other week — makes it very difficult for me to do theater: I can’t do eight performances a week. So I have not done theater for a long time, even though that’s all I did for years. I really really miss it. … The great thing about one-man is it’s easy to mount and you can take it places. That’s what I hope to do with this.

Like Westchester Arts Council?

Yes. (Council staffer) Jonathan Mann and I are old friends. Our dads worked together at Circle in the Square. I went down and looked at the space and it’s really cool. It’s perfect. You don’t have to bring in a whole bunch of people and lights. It’s just me and a table and I talk for way too long.

How long is it?

It’s two acts, with an intermission. They’re both about 40 minutes, so it’s about 90 minutes. And it should be mentioned that it’s adult, too. It’s for mature audiences. Don’t want any kids showing up. Not that we don’t love them …

How old is your boy?

He’s 10. And he is not allowed to even look at the script. But I like playing a character like this, like I did in ‘Roger Dodger.’ It’s fun playing someone who is very different from me, someone who’s incredibly outspoken and expressive – which is very different from me – and I like playing someone who is so convinced of their own truth even though their truth is something that is, 80 percent of the time, rather repellent to us. There’s something about someone like that staying consistent, though, that is very attractive to all of us. Ultimately, they’ll say a truth that we, in the audience, might not agree with, but we’ll recognize. And it makes us laugh. What’s perfectly ironic is that he’s supposed to be completely objective, because he’s a reporter of the news. And he’s not. He’s explosive and angry and very, very funny. All those things are, hopefully, rewarding for the audience. They’re certainly rewarding to play. If you can get laughs out of that stuff, you can get laughs out of everything.

What was it like working with Ronan?

Great. … Like any great writer, Ronan wants to tell you how to do it all the time and yet he is smart enough to shut up until he really really feels like he has to say something. When he does, you know he’s right.

Still, in performance, it must get lonely.

You really have no one to lean on, except the audience. You only have yourself and the script to depend on. At first, that’s thoroughly petrifying, but once you get through that, man is it fun. The writing has to be good, and here it is, but if it’s good, it’s like a little marathon you do every night. I compare it to running, because it is like that. It’s so lonely when you run and you often think. I wouldn’t do it all the time, because I miss other actors – especially if you go up on your lines – luckily Augustine has notebooks all over the stage because he’s constantly writing.

You’ll also be in Katonah next month to read short stories?

I’ll be there to read some stories in April, but I’m also in a band – The Right Out Louds – that’s playing at their gala in May.

Who do The Right Out Louds sound like?

(Long pause.) We sound like no one else. … We usually sound like whoever we’re covering. I think we have exactly the right attitude. We’re all of a certain age and we all have families, so we’re just … grateful to be playing music. Our gratefulness is larger than our ambition.

What will you read in April?

Right now it’s Thurber and Cheever. They have some great choices. It’ll be a lot of fun and I love doing things like that. Like the thing at the Arts Council.

And your folks worked with Jonathan Mann’s dad?

Ted Mann was one of the co-founders of Circle in the Square, one of the first Off-Broadway spaces. My dad and mom worked there many times. It was their theater second home. It’s cool that Jon can call me and say ‘I have a space now.’ And it’s a fantastic space. It’s a gallery and it’s music and theater, too.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 14th, 2008 at 8:24 am by Peter D. Kramer.
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If it involves theater in any way -- from grade-schoolers learning Shakespeare to high school musicals to Broadway veterans getting into character -- this is the place to talk about it. We'll have audition notices, casting notices, mini-reviews and plenty of ideas to fill a theater junkie's to-do list.
About the Author
    Peter D. KramerPeter D. Kramer has loved theater his whole life. A Rockland County native and 19-year employee of The Journal News, Pete relishes his current role, alerting theater lovers to the possibilities and talking to artists young and old about their craft. A former actor, director, technical director, ticket-taker and bon vivant, Pete has put a theater life behind him, living vicariously through those he interviews.

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