And so I did. Like the 49ers before me (the gold miners, not the football team), I went west to make movies and it was an eye-opening experience. I wasn’t actually all that young when I did it—I was an “overnight success” that was ten years in the making—but I made a film (In the Company of Men) in relative obscurity, had success with it and then was given the chance to go to Hollywood and do the same thing again, this time with more money and a bigger cast. I loved that experience, which resulted in the film Your Friends & Neighbors—thanks in no small part to the brilliant acting and producing of Jason Patric—but after almost twenty years of making films (on both a small and large scale) I have never recaptured the feeling of making that first movie with a cast and crew of friends who did it for no reason other than their love of the cinema. I couldn’t pay them very much, so they were all there for the experience and as an experiment in what real independent filmmaking can be.
But spending time in Hollywood and Cannes and various cinematic watering holes in-between did lead me to this place—my first “comedy” as a playwright (or at least the first time I’ve had the guts to write that word on the title page) and one that uses the world of the movies as its playground. I couldn’t have done it without having been at a few opening nights and a few awards ceremonies and having stood on a few studio backlots with a few actors and directors and production executives.
You just can’t make this shit up.
Sometimes—most times, actually—life is stranger than fiction and this was one of those rare times that I took a story nugget for a play from something that actually happened out there in the real world.
I was working in London on a new play when an assistant director told me a story about a certain film directed by a certain Frenchman who had asked a certain set of terrific actors if they would have actual sex in his film. They apparently considered the suggestion and brought their loved ones into the discussion. This just seemed like too rich an idea to let slip away; the rest I imagined. I created my own couples and nestled them high in the Hollywood Hills for an evening of drink and dinner and discussion about art and power and sex. Like all good comedic figures, I think these folks are recognizable types—they’re not based on anyone in reality and this is not a documentary—so The Money Shot doesn’t represent my thoughts about making movies or the studio system or anything like that. It simply allows for a lot of jokes to be made about people who are desperate and willing to do almost anything to maintain their way of life. I could’ve set this story in another city and in another industry, but with my working knowledge of the world of movies, it seemed like the perfect venue for this particular tale of love and lust and greed.
The play had a long gestation period: both my agent and I thought that the best home for this one might be Broadway and so we worked for several years to make that happen. Many readings with various producers led us to chase a variety of famous actors for the show but, in the end, we ended up right where we should be: working with MCC Theater off-Broadway with a terrific director (Terry Kinney) and a cast of remarkable comic actors (Fred Weller, Gia Crovatin, Elizabeth Reaser and Callie Thorne) who were committed to telling the tale and making people laugh. This marks the ninth collaboration between MCC and myself and I feel extremely lucky to have a company who trusts and likes my work enough to have made so much theater with me—it feels great to have a place to call “home” in this business.
The play went through multiple drafts and readings and even a set of staged readings at the Cape Cod Theater Project (in which both Mr. Weller and Ms. Crovatin participated) and so I mistakenly went into the rehearsal process at MCC thinking the script was in great shape. I was wrong (as I so often am in life). It was good. It was fine. It was funny. That said, I have tweaked the hell out of this thing and could keep on doing it forever. Move a word. Lose a monologue. Add a set piece. It never ends with comedy and I and my collaborators have been ruthless in seeking only the best material to put on the stage. “May The Best Idea Win” has been the unofficial credo in the room and that has pretty much been the way it goes. All of us throwing out ideas—even now that the play is up on a stage every night with an audience watching—and I really love the process. I often love the process even more than the product but I’m a weirdo so, please, don’t listen very closely to me.
I don’t know how many comedies I’ll write in my lifetime—it’s a tough business and I admire the hell out of those people who seem to do it effortlessly. You sit down to write some kind of “art” but in the end it really feels like some kind of “science.” There is a sort of alchemy to being funny; a word more or less here, one additional beat of a double-take there and the audience roars with laughter where we had nothing the night before. Comedy is a mystery and it’s been a blast trying to figure it out, but it’s also frustrating and demanding and tiring—I’m certainly glad to be sharing my duties with so many gifted people on and behind the stage of the Lucille Lortel Theatre. To hear an audience respond to a line or a look or a pratfall is a powerful kind of elixir I’ve tasted in only limited doses in my work previous to this but it is strong medicine indeed. I can see why people do it for a living but it’s tough and the good ones earn every laugh they get. Audiences are the great equalizers—laughter is a visceral response and you either get it or you don’t. After a show, people can be calculated and thoughtful in what they tell you but in the moment and in the dark, they are free to be truthful and caught up in what is happening in front of them—if something is funny, they laugh or they don’t. Just like that.
It’s pretty damn simple in the end, this comedy thing (if the creation of the universe seems “simple,” that is). For better or worse, I needed to do this: write a comedy (or at least try something new). Writers have to push themselves, set the stakes high and keep marching off to new unexplored territories—we’re like Lewis & Clark but without the cool buckskin outfits and the fear of Indians at every bend in the river. Mind you, some part of me wishes those great warriors of the First Nation had kicked our asses right back out of this country—after all, look what we’ve done to it in such a short period of time. Twitter and Twinkies and oil spills were not worth the struggle and bloodshed and loss. I also could’ve grown up in Europe, probably France, if the “United States” had never come along but hey, that’s another story.
As for this play, if you don’t get to see The Money Shot staged then I hope you enjoy the read. I love reading plays but again—as mentioned earlier—I’m a weirdo. There is nothing like the live theater so at least get some friends together and read the thing out loud. Go to a local college or high school and see a show. Watch one on television or online, even. In person is best but do whatever it takes to experience the pure pleasure of watching words come off a page and spring to life in the hands of a good director and a talented cast of actors. I promise you, you won’t be sorry.
In fact, it’s as close to Heaven as I may ever get (but for now I’m hedging my bets).
Neil LaBute
September 2014