SANF January, 2012 : Page 38
the talk theater tyler James myers stars as the young Jon moscone in Ghost Light . Below: Jon moscone today (left), with tony taccone. Playing well together how two Bay Area theater giants managed a tricky collaboration. Despite its Oscars, Milk left at least one person unsatisfi ed. “I understood that it was about using one person’s life and death as a symbol for a civil rights struggle, for gay rights,” says Jonathan Moscone, artistic director of California Shakespeare Theater and the son of Mayor George Moscone, who was killed that November day in 1978 along with Harvey Milk. “But that inevitably diminished anyone else’s role in the story—and emotionally, it tore me apart.” To address the oversight, he and his old friend Tony Taccone, artistic director of Berkeley Repertory Theatre, developed Ghost Light —part fi ction, part fact—which premieres this month . Taccone wrote the play; Moscone directs it. Two pro fessional egos, one attached to the words, the other to the material—the potential for confl ict was enormous. How did they handle it? n PAmelA FeinSilBer Jan. 6–feB. 19, Berkeley rePertOry theatre, 2025 aDDiSOn St., Berkeley, 510-647-2949, BerkeleyreP.OrG SF : What’s something specifi c that it took a while to agree on? tony taCCone: My fi rst ending was a kind of chorus of voices talking about George Moscone. the most emotional parts to write were about the boy, and how the boy was connected to his dad. i wrote them in poetic language that for me was deeply evocative. at a particular emotional time, but for the last event of the last scene, tony had written, “a song, e.g., Brian eno’s ‘Spider and i.’ ” i hadn’t even heard it, but i thought, “no, i’ll fi gure that one out myself.” tt: i would have done the same thing. Jm: and i told tony, “it’s gonna Jm: those lines sounded beautiful on the page and in the workshop readings. it wasn’t until i started rehearsing the play that i realized, “Oh, this isn’t—” “What’s the dramatic action of this scene?” it turned out, those were the least successful parts of the play, since they weren’t based in character. But the hardest thing for me to do was to let go of some of that language. san francisco January 2012 San Francisco : it certainly seems like you two have remained friends. know, i was the fi rst vulner-able person, but when tony started writing, he became a vulnerable person. eventually, we understood there was a sequence: it was my turn to be vulnerable, his turn to be vulnerable; my turn to be strong, his turn to be strong; my turn to listen, his turn to listen. Jonathan mosCone: you tt: (completing the thought) be the carpenters.” i associate them with my dad and my mom when i was a kid. he said, “it can be anything, but it’s not gonna be the carpenters.” i said, “yeah, it’s gonna be ‘close to you.’ ” he said, “no.” leGal “i’m taking a class on traffi c law during my lunch hour.” (Dianne’s daughter), on the effects of the latest budget cuts to the San Francisco court system. the number of civil trial courtrooms has gone from 15 to 6, and 67 layoffs have led to enormous wait times for clients—and a daunting workload for remain ing staff. Adds Feinstein, whose many duties presumably don’t include listening to drivers insist that the light was yellow: “there are 11,000 traffi c cases alone on backlog.” Presiding Judge kaTHerine feinsTein f r o m to p: J e n ny g raham; k evi n b e r n e.C o m tt: ( laughs) Jm: then, when we rehearsed in ashland [Oregon], i decided to do the scene with ‘Spider’ to see what it would be like before i defi nitively threw it out. it really worked, so i decided to go with it. SF : What changed your mind? Jm: now the ending is a dance between the younger Jon and George. But here’s another example of where we disagreed. almost no writer insists on a particular song being played Jm: the song is a waltz, which is a great way for the father and son to dance. 38
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