Scribe of the finely circumscribed

When Victor L. Cahn started writing

his play Fit to Kill, he already had an ending in mind. “So I asked myself ‘What happened before that?’ and the script answered the question,” he says. The twisty thriller about love, deception, and double-crossing was published in 2008 by Samuel French and has been staged in several theaters. Cahn, a Skid- more English professor, has even played the male lead, an egotis - tical chess player who plans to murder his wealthy wife.

“I do like to play the villain,” he notes. “One of the best com- pliments I ever received was from a woman who told me that one year she saw me die on stage three times, and was glad every time.” The garrulous per- sonae Cahn adopts when acting often be- lie the self-described “bookish nerd” who lives alone and spends

characters, on the other hand, are equal - ly vivid but totally apart from him, and thus “a lot of fun to create.”

Cahn writes what he calls “chamber plays,” technically simple pieces for a few actors on a minimal set. His work typically dramatizes two people trying to negotiate their way in each other’s lives. The characters tend to be witty and iron -

tive that reveals the inner thoughts of the two women and one man in the story.

CAHN AS ACE DETECTIVE HOLMES IN A 2008 PRODUCTION OF HIS SHERLOCK SOLO AT NEW YORK CITY’S KIRK THEATRE

his time reading, writing, or playing the violin. “I guess I prize solitude—except when I’m in the theater or the classroom, or playing table tennis with my colleague Steven Millhauser.” Cahn has writ- ten some two dozen plays, and more than half

have been produced, including several Off-Broadway. He admits, “Every man in my plays seems to be some extension of me.” The characters range from a reclu- sive writer to a college professor, from a corporate executive to Sherlock Holmes, whom Cahn portrayed in a one-man show he wrote for himself. His female

6 SCOPE SPRING 2010

“WHEN I’M SERIOUSLY PRACTICING THE

VIOLIN, I CAN’T WRITE. WHEN WRITING

IS MY PRIORITY ... I CAN TINKER

WITH A MANUSCRIPT ALL DAY.”

ic, but nonetheless struggle to connect or reconnect with themselves and each other. As he explains, “I don’t have a pano ramic vision. I just want the charac- ters to be be- lievable and the plot to have sus- pense.”

In a departure from his usual genre, Cahn recently published his first novel,

Romantic Trapezoid. Like his plays, Roman-

tic Trapezoid focuses on a single relation- ship complete with tension, sensu ality, and elation complicated by a mysterious third presence. The novel, too, is driven by dialogue, but also enhanced by narra-

In addition to the armful of plays and the novel, Cahn has published a mem- oir, Classroom Virtuoso; books about Shakespeare and modern dramatists Tom Stoppard and Harold Pinter; a guide for col lege students; and articles and reviews for magazines, newspa- pers, and professional journals. Yet to call Cahn “a writer” alone would be inaccurate. In fact, he talks enthusiastically about his versatile life as a performer who fre- quently appears on up- state New York stages as a leading actor, and who since 1982 has found a long-running role as an entertaining and enlightening pro- fessor at Skidmore. In addition, he has for many years presented violin solos for concert- goers and still plays

each semester for his students. “When I’m getting ready to perform, I have to practice every day,” he says. But the creative juices can’t be too di- luted: “For some reason, when I’m seri- ously practicing the violin, I can’t write, and when writing is my priority, I don’t practice much.” He also enjoys golf, but “can’t play without guilt” when he’s supposed to be turning out pages. “I can tinker with a manuscript all day.” His current project is a play for three women that has a political theme. “I’m very lucky,” he says of his output, “to have had the opportunity to tell all my

stories.” —Helen S. Edelman ’74

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