PART I: ROBERTO AS A PLAYWRIGHT

When I was a child watching TV or a film, I would ask myself sometimes, why did the actor deliver that particular line that way; why did the writer write that particular sentence that way; why was this or that plot or character choice made by a writer or an executed a particular way by that director. I was discerning what I would do differently. Even though I took liberal arts and humanities courses in college, the idea of studying acting was out of sight out of mind. Meanwhile, it was difficult to write an analysis of a topic that someone was requiring me to do. However, that left-brain, logical development became important for scouring to make sure there were no logic gaps when I did end up writing essays, articles, and scripts. There was a freedom and catharsis in learning that I enjoy writing dialogue-driven stories. Writing a full-length script as far back as 2015-2016 about Vito Marcantonio as my only serious drama and magnum opus project was a “North Star” in a universe of comedic scripts that I generally prefer to write.  Taken together, these scripts provided the epiphany that I would prefer to write a story and cast myself as one of the characters (and play a role in production, where needed) rather than audition for other people. I want to provide transcendent value that is relatable, universal, paradoxical, and ironic, where possible. I feel like I’m trying to run in the opposite direction of any potential accusation of being cliche-ic, formulaic, and “First-World, woes-me,” superficial. Ultimately, I want people to be able to identify with a character that is in some way identifiable, relatable, and/or applicable with respect to their own lives. I also want the characters to dialogue using American idiomatic expressions and colloquialisms (including old-school language for characters with “old souls”) that English-speaking people throughout the world enjoy. I hope to establish a legacy in a way that may even foster a bond among good-faith, reasonable people. Art Bernal has been supportive of producing and directing my scripts on stage, and I am pleased to have received theatre credits as an actor and playwright for his productions, including – The Possible Origins of ‘Forget About It’ – a last-minute addition when the production was in a bind. Three of those plays – all directed by Art Bernal. have been made into films or are on their way to be: Bromance-A-Roni, which won Best Production at the Midtown International Theatre Festival in 2017 (with full houses with Jay Michaels as publicist) was made into a film, winning Best Trailer at the Vesuvio Film Festival and being accepted into the Paris Lift-Off Film Festival; The Final Covenant of Vito Marcantonio, a film short of a scene from my full-length script, was performed at American Theater of Actors, and then made into a film that was also accepted into the Vesuvio Film Festival and Paris Lift-Off Festival; and Five Consecutive Zeros,  a semi-finalist in the Strawberry Theatre Festival that is now in post-production as a film.

Share with us your creative process.

When I have heard snippets of interviews with Ms. Phoebe Waller-Bridge, where she describes her approach to writing, her descriptions seem to resonate and align the most with me compared to other writers. In a 60-second clip where she says, “I never thought structure first…” I was drawn to the rest of the clip. If a relatable insight represented an additional length in a horse race, then the applicability of her overall approach for me is like Secretariat winning the Belmont Stakes – and thus, The Triple Crown – by 31 lengths in 1973. I consider the most how far away the writing is from the early school learning requiring an outline and the concomitant mental blocs that come from attempting to be linear in one’s thinking. I relate to what Ms. Waller-Bridge appears to be describing as the random and instinctive/intuitive nature of the writing, pairing, and juxtaposing. That may not describe Ms. Waller-Bridge accurately, but it makes me contemplate whether this is the way I would describe my process. More specifically, in my case, I might write about an experience I went through or historical event about which I learned. The easiest dialogue for me to write appears to be a variation of a conversation that actually took place, or a new, invented conversation based on an observation, comment or quip I heard directly or from someone else. To the extent that my dialogue is a comedy or contains comic relief, I have described many of my comedic exchanges as an Italian-American version of educated ethnics engaging in a dynamic amounting to a combination of Woody Allen, Seinfeld, The Odd Couple, Abbot and Costello, and a dash of Bugs Bunny. How can I take cultural literacy that I have learned and convey it through characters who sound like they went to college but prefer the ol’ front stoop to the armchair at the Algonquin Hotel sipping Vermouth and smoking a pipe. In terms of non-linearity, when I finish a specific scene based on a specific experience or historical events where the dialogue poured out easily, I then realize, this makes a great Scene 2 or 3. Then I realize I have to be creative about what arc, conflict, and stakes to create to bring me to this scene. I might even figure out then how the ending resolves itself, but I want to give extra thought to what irony (perhaps by compositing and reincorporating earlier themes) to bring to the audience that fills them with the catharsis of happiness from joy or mournfulness from pathos. Even if I have figured out the stakes of a plot, what tends to lag until later is the “deadline,’ that is, what needs to be done by when in order for the resolution to succeed or fail. Perhaps, this is “the road home” portion of the hero’s journey. Dr. Gerald Meyer said something to the effect, “To get something done, sometimes you need to start it off as something like a random archeological dig.” Although Dr. Meyer might have been speaking about the decluttering and organizing of one’s home, it ironically turned out to be a great framework for explaining my process:  i.e., randomly searching and committing pen to paper those “findings” that appear obvious, avoiding mental blocks; then discovering deeper nuggets of insight and creativity for a story, or seeing them rise to the surface. (I wonder if Ms. Waller-Bridge would agree with the late Dr. Meyer’s analogy.)

What inspired you to write this play?

I experienced a series of coincidences beginning in an African American history class in the spring of 1986 when I first encountered Congressman Vito Marcantonio as fighting to outlaw the poll tax and lynchings in the 1940s. I was floored by the Congressman’s advocacy for civil rights, his Italian heritage, and his very “kool” name that’s hard to forget. Then the topic of Vito Marcantonio kept recurring in my life over several years that led two friends of mine who don’t know each other to both in turn, coincidentally observe that my re-encounters are like in the novel, ‘The Celestine Prophecy.’  Examples of these coincidences included, in the late summer of ’86, I volunteered to make sure my friend’s mother arrived home in East Harlem while he cleaned up his photography set up for a summer program. I am walking in East Harlem with his mother, who was originally from the Caribbean, and she suddenly stops, stares at a building, and says to me something like, “That building looks familiar to me. I wonder if that’s where Vito Marcantonio had his office. He was so helpful to everyone. And he helped me.”  And I excitedly replied, “You knew him! You met him?!”  In 1988, there was a Village Voice article by Maria Laurino critiquing Governor Mario Cuomo around the time he was being considered as a Presidential nominee for the Democrats after his compelling keynote address at the 1984 Democratic Convention. Ms. Laurino was framing the question as to whether Governor Cuomo was meeting the standards of Italian American progressivism set by Fiorello La Guardia, Vito Marcantonio, and Leonard Covello. (When I went back to that article, I had forgotten that the article had mentioned Leonard Covello, who would prove to be an important intellectual mentor to Marcantonio.)  The characters of Mayor La Guardia and Dr. Leonard “Pop” Covello make an appearance in the one-man show. Then in 1992, I had an anachronistic, “Everyone Loves Raymond” moment with my mother. She called to tell me a wedding invitation had been mailed to her home for me. When she said the wedding was in California, I thought my mother was misreading the invitation because I was convinced that the only wedding in California I would ever be invited to took place the year before. Then when she read the name on the invite, I realized it was from a college friend of mine, who happened to be half-Italian, who was a college activist when I met him. We became closer friends when we graduated, but I didn’t expect him to invite me to his wedding. The night before the wedding, the guys went to a bar, and we were all political junkies, so we discussed politics. Then my friend, the groom, said to me something like, “when I get back from the honeymoon, I’ll mail you a book I read about an Italian-American guy who had a management style where he would see everyone directly face-to-face for five minutes before letting his staff deal with the details.” When I asked who this person was, I thought he was going to tell me the name of a business leader, but he said, “Vito Marcantonio.”  And I exclaimed, “You too?!” This person keeps popping up. Recurring in my life.”  True to his word, when I got back from the honeymoon, he mailed me the book, entitled, Vito Marcantonio: Radical Politician (1902 to 1954) by Dr. Gerald Meyer, history professor and scholar, considered the definitive biography on Marcantonio. I read the book in 1993 and was blown away by the additional knowledge. I intended to organize an academic presentation, but then left for Cambridge, Massachusetts for graduate school, and could not persuade anyone to organize a presentation in my absence. Then I met Dr. Meyer, who became a “Leonard Covello” to my personalized Marcantonio. I organized an event where Dr. Meyer presented about his book to 20 people in 1997. I vowed to organize a larger event that evolved into a high-production value, multimedia event in 1998 at NYU, Marcantonio’s alma mater. Organized through FIERI, an Italian organization of young professionals I helped run, with the help of Dr. Meyer, four cosponsors, over 20 endorses, and honorary chairs, this was the most successful event ever organized on Vito Marcantonio with estimates ranging from over 400 to about 700. Here’s the key:  Dr. Meyer said to me that we shouldn’t make this a one-time activity on the subject matter. We had already begun other projects like walking tours of Vito Marcantonio’s East Harlem. Dr. Meyer suggested a range of ideas, but the one that resonated the most for me was the idea of a film or theatre script I would eventually write where I would portray Marcantonio. (I also took an interest in doing a documentary, but that offered its own set of challenges.) After a couple of false starts, Dr. Meyer and I were among the co-founders of the Vito Marcantonio Forum in 2011. Dr. Meyer and I would Co-Chair the group. For one of our events, Dr. Meyer suggested that rather than dramatize one of his speeches, I portray Marcantonio addressing a modern-day audience. We both, by coincidence, arrived at the angle that because Marcantonio is the only Catholic politician not given a Catholic burial, his limbo status allows him to return and speak to people in more contemporary times. These presentations inspired the idea that, perhaps, I can include a one-man show into my artistic goals related to Marcantonio. So, I developed a one-man show for REaP the Art Theatre Festival to be directed by Art Bernal. I was designated a 20-minute slot, but I had immersed myself in writing what turned out to be a 40-minute piece. We edited the piece down for the REaP the Art Festival, circa 2018, but I knew I was on my way towards a full-length one-man show. (And I only performed the 20-minute one-man show, ironically, because I wasn’t going to be able to perform a scene from my full-length script on Marcantonio in a timely matter.)  Dr. Meyer, who passed away in 2021, inspired moving me beyond the scholarly/academic  and towards the artistic/theatrical/cinematic portrayal of Marcantonio in terms of brainstorming projects. Then he inspired the idea of a one-man show with the both of us thinking about the limbo and purgatory angle. However, I don’t think the theme of a “purgatory trial” had yet occurred to me around the time of the 2018 “mini-performance.” The Purgatory Trial angle might have come to me as I was writing another script I would entitle, The Casablanca Curse of Christopher Columbus. Having then used “Purgatory” in the Marcantonio title, “Casablanca” became a metaphor for Purgatory in the Columbus story, which involves a trial of four historical figures, presided in Purgatory by Mary Magdeline, with a representative of a respective oppressed group having to serve as the defense attorney for the historical villain. (While this script would be fascinating to mount as a play if the funding was there for the production, I am working on making “Casablanca Curse” into a film.)

What should the audience take away from this work?

I would want the audience to contemplate the question: How does what Marcantonio experienced, and what Americans and people in other nations experienced in Marcantonio’s time, remain relevant today. Some issues remain exactly the same. Some are different in an ironic way. As someone who majored in history, almost minored in sociology, studied a core curriculum of liberal arts and humanities courses, and obtained a graduate degree in public policy, I try to think in a cross-referential, interdisciplinary manner, and hope to foster that thinking with my audience. With the one-man show about Vito Marcantonio, the question was going to be what Marcantonio was going to discuss in a “trial” in the court of public opinion in a jury of his American “peers.” These are “peers” who may not have any idea who he is because he is an unsung hero only beginning to come out from “buried history” – a not quite unintended pun on the word “buried,” in “light” of the controversy behind Marcantonio’s “resting place.” I believe the Marcantonio scholar, the late Dr. Gerald Meyer, had described Marcantonio’s history as being “eradicated.”  Marcantonio’s “appeal” (pun intended) includes some of the more uniquely fascinating, paradoxical, and controversial aspects of his life. So, for example, I hope audiences will learn that Marcantonio was able to position himself to take controversial stands that were ahead of his time by first connecting with constituents with first-hand, high-quality, high-follow-through delivery of constituency services. This point comes up very briefly, but hopefully with poignancy in the play. It helps to see 300 households per weekend face-to-face in your office and assist them in overcoming their daily struggles if you’re then going to explain to them at a townhall meeting why you are the only one in Congress who voted against the Marshall Plan and the Truman Doctrine, or why you are advancing the interests of farmers or civil rights for African Americans, even if there are few African Americans and no farmers in one’s district. Compare this to a Hollywood celebrity (or former/current Twitter employee who fancies himself as “Commie as eff”) – whose brand of liberalism Marcantonio sneered at back then – who drives past a growing homeless population in Los Angeles (or walks past them in San Francisco) in a gas-guzzling limousine to tell the rest of us to eat vegan and help the Amazon jungle – regardless of one’s personal position on veganism and the Amazon jungle.

There are several plays this season happening that take place in “Purgatory.” What is our fascination with the afterlife’s waiting room?  

I wasn’t aware of the coinciding plays with Purgatory as a theme. In fact, as I mentioned in answer to the question related to how I came up with this play, the  five-minute presentation I conceived for a Vito Marcantonio Forum event was extended to a 20-minute version for the REaP the Art Theatre Festival without thought given to a Purgatory angle as a through line plot/arc. The Purgatory Trial angle might have come to me as I was writing another script entitled, The Casablanca Curse of Christopher Columbus. Having then used “Purgatory” in the Marcantonio one-man show title, I decided to use “Casablanca” as a metaphor for Purgatory as arrive at an alliterative title. I might have combined the words “Curse of Christopher Columbus,” and then it occurred like an epiphany to add “Casablanca.”  The story focuses on nine historical figures: four are on trial, presided in Purgatory presided by Mary Magdeline, with a representative of a respective oppressed group having to serve as the defense attorney for the historical villain. For example, Gandhi is the defense attorney for Winston Churchill. I think the growth of sophisticated audiences correlates with the growth in the appreciation of ambiguity and complexity, compared to say the more “clear-cut” good versus bad of a cops-and-robbers, superhero-to-villain story. While the world has loved stories about anti-heroes, perhaps the world (writer and audience) is catching up to the question of where the anti-hero might end up when he or she passes. Perhaps people are realizing that the spiritual  “waiting room” (or the “waiting area”) can be a riveting setting for a compelling story  about ambiguity of lives lived and future fate. Will people pray for a soul that did the right thing for the wrong reason or the wrong things for the right reason? I have read Dante’s Inferno twice and even portrayed Dante in a couple of scenes in a brief showcase of a modern script. But I have never read Paradiso or Purgatorio and never met anyone who has, except maybe an acquaintance from a distant past. (I should take inventory of friends and family in Italy to see who has read them.) That acquaintance was speaking from the perspective of having read Paradiso or having learned commentary from others. He said, there appears to be a lack of true drama and conflict in Paradiso, which would make sense in explaining why Inferno was more popular of the two. However, it would be interesting to learn from a Dante scholar whether Purgatorio ever became popular. Perhaps, modern writers are becoming better at optimizing themes set in Purgatory. Perhaps, what is happening in theatre will popularize Dante’s Purgatorio.  Purgatory offers themes of cleansing and catharsis; of spiritual reluctance, renewal, and rebirth – a Renaissance of the soul – that lands a soul a place in heaven. Maybe a restored soul from Purgatory won’t bring bad karma to the next human being it enters into. This theme is a refreshing alternative to stories a bit obsessed with the Satanic and Demonic. How about an action film (action comedy may be pushing it) where the devil is driven back down to hell because it has no business trying to extend its domain into Purgatory?

What should theatre look like now – post covid?

Combining my commitment to arts and culture and its spiritual and intellectual benefit, and my appreciation for the economic benefits for the arts and culture industry from my prior work in public policy, and along with immersion in the liberal arts and humanities, I believe the theatre community needs to ask itself questions with the same healthy skepticism as Congressman Marcantonio. (His advocacy for musicians offers some proof that strongly supported that artists should be the biggest beneficiary of their artistry.) Here are some questions: Are there laws and policy measures that are being pursued with a blowtorch rather than a scalpel leading to unintended consequences that bring more harm than good to the theatre community – and the broader arts and culture community? Who was gaining while the theatre community was suffering? These are not exactly new questions. In prior decades these same questions could have been asked about real estate policy in New York City that ultimately shut down many independent theatres. Post-covid, theatres should resume their prior protocols. However, in the event there are new calls for sweeping, non-targeted measures (e.g., shutdowns and lockdowns), the theatre community needs to seriously contemplate the unintended consequences of these measures. For example, regardless of your views about masks, a healthy skepticism towards “experts” who have flip-flopped on this issue has merit and is warranted. They don’t lose income from flip-flopping or making mistakes or erring on the side of arguably draconian measures, while the theatre community suffers setbacks. Who benefited from theatre’s loss? The theatre community must come to consensus on the definition of high-risk groups (e.g., the senior population, the co-morbidity population), and figure out an entrepreneurial way to tailor their accessibility to productions if they can’t come to the theatre or sit in the main theatre. For example, can a performance be televised for senior citizens at a specific location? Congressman Marcantonio fought to regulate the utilities companies so customers could not be exploited. Marcantonio detested millionaires (and now billionaires) using leverage to exploit and extract from other groups. Here’s a line from the play: “I confronted the large monopolies and trusts. Who had been profiteering and racketeering -wholesale racketeering – taking millions and millions of dollars out of the pockets of American consumers and increasing the cost of living to working families.”

What’s next for you?

Besides pursuing the Vito Marcantonio story further, I am reviewing the over 20 scripts I have written or are in different stages of completion. While I work on completing the incomplete scripts, I would like to pursue getting the completed scripts produced on stage or on film. However, I do not want to assume any of my scripts need to be produced first in theatre before becoming a film.  Although my stories are dialogue-driven in a way I believe a theatre audience would appreciate, especially the comedies,  it is difficult to conceive obtaining financing for a high production value play and then raising additional money to bring it to a screen.  A perfect example is the play I wrote that I mentioned in response to another question: The Casablanca Curse of Christopher Columbus.  The story is set in no more than two locations, as currently written, but will require the special effects of creating a Purgatory feel along with the real-life historical footage. If the money is going to be invested, should the production create something permanent for posterity, and thus be prioritized as a film? In an ideal world, there would be no dilemma, and the story can be told on stage or on screen. 

WORK OF ART PRODUCTIONS, LLC presents a new play written and starring Roberto Ragone
THE PURGATORY TRIAL OF VITO MARCANTONIO
Directed by Art Bernal
October 4 – 15
The Sargent Theatre
of the American Theatre of Actors arts complex
314 W. 54th Street (Fourth Floor)
WED 10/04 8pm — THUR 10/05 8pm — FRI 10/06 8pm
SAT 10/07 3pm & 8pm — SUN 10/08 3pm 
TUE 10/10 8pm — WED 10/11 8pm — THUR 10/12 8pm — FRI 10/13 8pm SAT 10/14 3pm & 8pm — SUN 10/15 3pm