900 Oneonta was a play that had to be written. David Beaird had to write it. 900 Oneonta-not just the play, but the story of how it finally arrived onstage at the Odyssey-qualifies as some kind of saga.
The title refers to the Shreveport, Louisiana, address of Beaird's grandfather. The tale of his family's fascinating dysfunction seethed in the playwright's consciousness for years. At last he started putting it down on paper.
"I knew someday I would write something huge about my family, one which has had a very operatic existence and a great deal of wealth, largely unearned," Beaird declared. "A wildcat oil well guy like my grandfather punches holes in the ground and if he gets a gusher he's rich from then on. There's an expression, "oilfield trash,' about people who become instantly wealthy and can't handle it. The worst thing that could happen to our family was all this instant money; so much wealth, so many servants-like ancient Rome in some ways. As I was growing up, black people were so suppressed in the South it was damn near slave labor.
"I watched all this rot develop. My grandfather's house was filled with money but no values. He was alcoholic, his wife never went out of the house, my mother was alcoholic, the family was riven with dysfunction, and racism was a given.
"I could see how dysfunctional I was, so I wrote and wrote, trying to figure it all out. Half of this play was written in Jerry's Deli in Studio City, half at the Yellow Submarine on Santa Monica Blvd., which stayed open until 4 a.m. There were thousands and thousands of hand-written pages that I stashed away in a trunk."
They became a play by happenstance. Leland Crooke, who would go on to originate the grandfather role in the play's London premiere and now plays it at the Odyssey, was one of five people living in a house with Beaird at the time. He found the epic-length play in the trunk and "typed it up for me," recalled an astonished Beaird. "He didn't even tell me he was doing it. He brought it to me and said, "You have to do something about this play.' "
Busy with film and TV work at the time (he wrote and directed the independent films My Chauffeur and Pass the Ammo, and the TV series Key West), Beaird staged a workshop production of the play in New York with unpaid actors, folding chairs, and a rehearsal room. The New York Times "tore it apart," the playwright ruefully acknowledged. So Beaird figured he'd have a lot of trouble in L.A: "In America, theatre is getting smaller and smaller," he noted. "Broadway is mostly one-man or two-man plays, or musicals. My instinct was huge plot, lots of drama. What I tried to do in this play is bring back Jacobean and Elizabethan theatricality; I also tried very hard to obey all Aristotle's classical unities.
"I wanted to beat the rap of aping Tennessee Williams, too. Goddamit, this is about my own life! My grandfather died on the floor; it's about the day he died. If Tennessee Williams happens also to be from the South, I can't help that, you know? I threw all this boiling cauldron of plot in on purpose, like a giant fireball rolling along toward the audience, to sort of mimic the growth of America, and I was going to name it Wretched Excess. I love Pinter and Beckett and Mamet, but that's not the only way to write-there are other colors on the palette. American critics are getting used to less and less, but I felt the English sensibility would understand my play right away."
English critics and audiences welcomed 900 Oneonta enthusiastically. It was nominated as the Olivier Best Play of the Year. It went on to successful productions in 17 counties, including Greece, Norway, Sweden, South Africa, and Germany.
"They did a good production in Berlin. It was hysterical," Beaird recalled. "They made 'em all cowboys. The Swedish program had a complete reprint of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream' speech, which really has nothing to do with the play. It went over best in Athens-a huge production, they put a lot of money in it."
But no one was willing to do the play in America. English actress Colleen Passard fell in love with the play in London, where she saw it five times. "She went all over America with it," said Beaird. "Everyone was afraid of it. Ron Sossi's Odyssey was the only theatre willing to do this play. I want to do another play at the Odyssey, because they took a chance on me."
Mentor Health
But first he'll do another movie: "I like to switch back and forth. The title is Kill Me a Little; it takes place entirely in Hollywood. I want to get away from the impression that I can write only about my Southern roots. It's been a while since I did a film and the reality is I have to do films to pay for doing theatre."
Beaird confesses he's really excited about his new movie. "It's about dancers in Hollywood. Dancers work harder than farm laborers, work themselves to death, and have to look beautiful doing it. An actor's training pales compared to what it takes to be a dancer. These dancers are 18 to 25 years old, and they're not star-struck kids. They know all about work and discipline. It's a joy to teach them acting."
But Beaird is deeply rooted in the theatre. As a youth, he confided, he was in and out of detention facilities until a perceptive psychiatrist interviewed him, was instantly impressed, and adopted him to become Beaird's father surrogate, teacher of the classics, and revered guru. Young Beaird fell in love with Shakespeare, and Socrates became his first hero, as well as the protagonist of one of his first plays, Dignity. It opened in 1974 at the Wisdom Bridge, a Chicago theatre Beaird founded while in his very early 20s. Ten years later (1984 was a very good year for L.A. theatre) the playwright staged it here in another theatre he founded, the Whitefire in the Valley. Its cast included Socrates, Zanthippe, and a space traveler from the future-or another dimension. I reviewed it with enthusiasm, deeming Dignity "an unheralded little masterpiece deserving of a Pulitzer Prize." (Call this "wretched excess" if you will).
Like his foster father, Beaird is a mentor; his house is always full. "I always have a dormitory full of actors. I always know people who need a place to stay. Jennifer Tilly [the actress who starred in Key West] calls my place Camp David."
As compelling as his need for theatre is Beaird's search for meaning beyond the physical and material. He frequents the Los Angeles Zen Center and likes to retreat to a Zen monastery when possible. "Religion is very important to me-all of it," he declares. "I consider myself Buddhist and Catholic and Jew, the whole works. I'm fascinated that as the world gets smaller a wave of inter-religion is taking hold. A few years ago people scoffed at meditation, hypnotism, fire-walking. I've done, or do, all three, which no longer necessarily brands me a kook."