Why David Lindsay-Abaire Is Thankful Marylouise Burke’s Voice Is in His Head
The Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and the veteran character actress discuss their latest collaboration: The Balusters on Broadway
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At a recent talkback at The Balusters, David Lindsay-Abaire’s seriously funny world-premiere comedy, the Pulitzer Prize winner joked that “the worst thing that could happen to our country was the best thing that could happen to this play.” On the surface, it’s a battle of wills at an upscale neighborhood association, as the diverse and passionate board members clash over the placement of a stop sign. But according to the playwright, “it’s really about legacy and mortality and people wanting to maintain control… it’s about something bigger that we as a country are wrestling with.”
Commissioned by Lindsay-Abaire’s artistic home, Manhattan Theatre Club, and running at Broadway’s Samuel J. Friedman Theatre through May 24, The Balusters is directed by Kenny Leon and features a crackerjack cast, including the playwright’s longtime muse Marylouise Burke. The beloved performer gets some of the biggest laughs in the show as Penny, the mature board secretary who’s sharper than many assume.
Since their first collaboration, A Devil Inside in 1997 at Soho Rep, Lindsay-Abaire has been writing Burke scene-stealing parts, including a stroke-impacted sexagenarian in Fuddy Meers; a 16-year-old who looks 60 in Kimberly Akimbo; and a resident of an assisted living facility fighting with her roommate in Ripcord. Dear friends as well as theatrical accomplices, the two chatted with TDF Stages about their three decades of working together and why The Balusters is unlike anything they’ve ever done.
Raven Snook: Marylouise, it’s nice to meet you. I’ve actually known David even longer than you! We met in college.
David Lindsay-Abaire: That’s right. Don’t tell all the secrets!
Snook: I still remember that great play you wrote in college that you claim is not so great.
Lindsay-Abaire: Oh, that’s nice. It’s called A Show of Hands, and it’ll live in a box forever!
Snook: I want to take you both back to the last century to talk about your inaugural collaboration, the 19th-century Russian lit-fueled dark comedy A Devil Inside in 1997 at Soho Rep. How did that come about?
Lindsay-Abaire: The director, Julian Webber, knew Marylouise. He ran Soho Rep at the time, so he teamed us up. So that’s how we first met.
Snook: Marylouise, what do you remember about that first pairing?
Marylouise Burke: That I was terrified! I spent a lot of the play up on a raised platform, and I was terrified of plunging to my death, but it was worth the fear and trembling. I just loved David’s writing so much.
Lindsay-Abaire: I remember vividly that Marylouise was genuinely terrified of heights, and Julian put her way up there on a pathway that was maybe three feet wide without a railing. Everything that I wrote for her afterwards was to make up for that experience!
Snook: Your next collaboration was Fuddy Meers, which started at Manhattan Theatre Club and was such a hit, it transferred to the Minetta Lane Theatre for a commercial run. Marylouise, is this the point that you became David’s muse?
Burke: Well, I can’t say that he considers me his muse. He’s certainly central in my life.
Lindsay-Abaire: Can I say that she is my muse? Because she is. Her voice started to get in my head, so much so that whenever I would hit a bump in a play, I would think, okay, let’s bring in Marylouise. Does that solve the problem? And automatically, the dam would break. Then I just started writing with her in mind, and she made and continues to make all of my plays so much better.
Snook: I believe The Balusters is your sixth collaboration?
Lindsay-Abaire: Seventh, actually. Marylouise also did Good People on the West Coast.
Snook: I know this play was a Manhattan Theatre Club commission. Were there any guidelines?
Lindsay-Abaire: All of their commissions have been to just do anything I want. So it makes my job easier and harder—I would like some barriers! But the fact that Manhattan Theatre Club is committed to doing my new play, whatever that play might be, is a gift that I’m incredibly grateful for. So of course I put Marylouise in it, since I can do what I want, and what I want is Marylouise in all my plays.
Snook: And this is your first Broadway collaboration.
Lindsay-Abaire: That’s right! It’s about time.
Snook: David, you live in a Victorian house that always has the best Halloween decorations on a picturesque Brooklyn block. Watching The Balusters, I had to wonder, how much of the play is based on your own experiences?
Lindsay-Abaire: It’s not my neighborhood, but it is very similar to my neighborhood. They’re definitely not my neighbors. But the seed of the play came from some really contentious Google group conversations that were happening in my neighborhood about drainage ditches and stop signs and other things. Some of it ended up in the play. Obviously, I jacked it up a bit, but I can’t lie, it’s a neighborhood that’s very similar to the one I happen to live in.
Snook: I assume the character of Penny was written for Marylouise.
Lindsay-Abaire: It was.
Burke: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you!
Lindsay-Abaire: Thank you for doing it. Because you could have said no! Although she hasn’t said no to me yet. But she gets lots of offers. The world is her oyster, so I’m grateful.
Burke: I just love working with David, it feels wonderful, like coming home. It’s a fabulous play, and I just love my character. If David writes something, I’m on board, because I admire his work and trust him artistically, and he’s a nice guy… most of the time.
Snook: When I was reading the script, I could hear Marylouise’s voice as Penny in my head. I was cackling to myself on the bus, everyone thought I was crazy!
Lindsay-Abaire: I’m not one of those writers who laughs at their own stuff while writing. But there were moments during the writing of this when I would laugh out loud—not because I thought I was so funny, but because I heard Marylouise delivering very specific lines in my head. There is a line that is literally one word that made me laugh because I could hear her doing it. To have that very specific unicorn of a voice is such a gift to a writer, and then such a gift to an audience when she delivers her brilliance.
Burke: Oh, David…
Lindsay-Abaire: But it’s true! What makes Marylouise so special is not that she knows how to deliver a joke, which goddamn she does, but she also grounds it in such a real, genuine place that the audience cares deeply about her. So when the play takes a turn, they’re with her, because it’s never not real. That’s the thing that keeps me going back to Marylouise as an actress.
Snook: Marylouise, in an interview a few years ago you talked about how challenging theatre is, especially as one ages. Are you looking more at TV and movies these days?
Burke: I would love more of those opportunities because, frankly, theatre is an exhausting schedule. It’s worth it, but it’s harder than it used to be.
Lindsay-Abaire: Don’t underestimate yourself! I saw Marylouise do Epiphany at Lincoln Center a few years ago, and she ran up and down three flights of stairs several times during the course of that play. My heart was in my throat the entire time, but I was also astounded by her energy and ability to accomplish it. I certainly couldn’t have done it.
Burke: Thank god, I’m kind of spry. But I’m not athletic at all.
Snook: Is it hard being friends as well as collaborators? Can you still be honest with each other in the rehearsal room?
Burke: If I have a question about how something is supposed to work, I feel free to ask David or the director. I just have a wavelength, I think, with David. Am I doing anything wrong now, David?
Lindsay-Abaire: No! Because we have such a shared history, we have a shorthand, of course, but we also talk behind the scenes. If something’s bugging us in the room, we’re going to talk about it. Sorry, everybody else, but I have a special friend in the show, and that’s Marylouise, and we’re going to talk to each other. I am deeply protective of Marylouise because we are so close. Marylouise, you don’t even know this, but for example, if a show comes up and I want her in it, I say, “If you don’t want her in the show—first, goddamn you—but I’m not going to have her come in and do a reading and string her along. I just need to know now that everybody’s on the same page about Marylouise.” I’m not going to make her do three readings and then not cast her. That’s absurd. Luckily, everybody knows our relationship and knows that if I’ve written something for her, she will do it.
Snook: That speaks volumes about your relationship.
Lindsay-Abaire: I don’t have that luxury, honestly, with anyone else, not a single other person in the world. Because the parts that I write for her are so tailor-made, nobody can actually imagine anyone else doing it. So, I’m sorry everybody else.
Burke: I think this play is one of the richest journeys David’s written. The balance of comedy and seriousness—I think both of them work so well. It’s been something of an adventure to be part of that, because I think there’s a new balance in this show of how he’s attacking this subject.
Lindsay-Abaire: It’s nice to hear those nice words from Marylouise, because I honestly don’t know what the play is. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever written, and it was never in front of an audience before this run. It doesn’t have a plot with a capital P, which I generally like. Obviously, there are plot threads. So, any nice words mean a lot.
Snook: Do you worry your neighbors will be mad at you?
Lindsay-Abaire: I’ve done everything in my power to assure them that it is not them. My wife is maybe a little more concerned than I am, because she was the one who actually was on the board. The entire board of my neighborhood association are coming on April 16. They’re very excited.
Snook: Aren’t you glad you live in a rental Marylouise?
Lindsay-Abaire: Yes, but I think I’m probably the oldest person in the West Village!
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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