TS: Why do you think the character of Bobbie decides to go back to a town where he’s a social pariah?


WD: I think it’s a combination of things. I don’t think it’s as simple as wanting to set things right. That would be a less interesting play. I think Bobbie is the most incendiary example of what everyone in the play is doing. He is looking for a sense of belonging and comfort. I don’t think he’s coming back against his will. He’s coming back to feel a sense of belonging in the community. We are never given a scene where he says: “I’m so sorry,” because that would be unsatisfactory. That would minimize the complication of living in a small town and knowing everybody.


TS: Do you think Bobbie has forgiven himself?


WD: No. He’s in this exquisite limbo. He can’t undo the thing he’s done. Nor does he have the facility to undo it. Part of that is because of the kind of person he is emotionally and psychologically. He’s not rehabilitated.


Will Davis in rehearsal for Bobbie Clearly Photo: Jenny Anderson


TS: When I read the play, it didn’t strike me as a conventional “whodunit,” but more of a “whydunit.” Do you agree?


WD: I love the “whydunit” appraisal. That is why I reference Our Town when I talk about this play. There’s this “whydunit” aspect of the play, which is also saying, “why anything?” That’s part of the very large existential question that the playwright is asking and leaving us with.


TS: I want to ask you about your research process for this play.


WD: One thing that this play allows me to do is research style. I’ve been watching all the true crime documentaries that I can. The reason I’m doing this research is because I want to understand all the tropes, styles, and clichés of that form so I can manipulate them or play into them. I want to stock the pantry with all the ways this genre works because one of the great, sublime tensions of the play is that a character can be talking to another character, but they also have to deal with their second scene partner, which is this camera lens. There is an intrinsic human instinct to be concerned about being recorded. Whether we’re conscious of it or not, we have a finite lifespan and the camera, this recording device, is infinite. It has Godlike qualities to it.


TS: How will the play manifest itself visually?


WD: In terms of design research and building the psychological world, I’m looking at the work of Pina Bausch, who was a choreographer. I feel the design needs elemental excess. It needs one thing and perhaps a thousand of those things. I have also been looking at the work of the visual artist Ai Weiwei. His work is all about repetition. A single object on its own signals us in one way, but if I give you a hundred of those objects, it means something else.


TS: How do you keep yourself inspired as an artist?


WD: My whole artistic methodology can be summed up in one phrase: how curious. I try to stay in a place of curiosity or wonderment. So, when things go really well or really badly, I think: “how curious.” I try to keep a steady practice of never arriving. When I go to the theatre and see a show that I don’t like, I still think “how curious” and ask myself, “What’s here for me?” I ask myself, “How can I get fed here?” I try to think about abundance. I feel that life is too short to have a bad night at the theatre. You can go and not like something and still get something from it. Learn something about your aesthetic that you can work with some other time. I think if you’re having a bad night at the theatre, it’s because you are being lazy.


TS: Do you have any advice for young people who want to direct for the stage?


WD: What you should do is not wait for an invitation. If you spend too much time waiting for an invitation or waiting to find out if someone thinks what you’re saying is good or bad, that is all a waste of time. Who you are as an artist is always enough. You are responsible to make work that only you can make, and that’s not hard to do because there’s only one of you. The responsibility is to honor what comes out of you and make it.•


BOBBIE CLEARLY UPSTAGE GUIDE


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