It can be very misleading to describe any play as “a comedy about unhappy people.” No one likes to laugh at other people’s troubles.
Playwright John Spellos, who wrote “Rosie is Red Everybody is Blue,” says his play, which opens at Capital Repertory Theatre on Tuesday , April 29, is centered about a woman resolving personal issues. However, his expectation is that audiences will laugh with the characters, not at them. He says there is not one line in the play that was written as a joke.
Indeed, he argues that no one in the play says anything with the intent of being funny. He says, It’s people talking naturally. “That’s where genuine humor comes from, doesn’t it?” he asks rather rhetorically.
He enjoys telling how at the first reading before an audience he knew certain things would get a laugh. It felt good, but it was more satisfying to him that it got bigger laughs in places he didn’t expect. He reasons it was because people totally identified with Rosie’s problems. He says the reaction confirmed his opinion that he wrote a play about family. Describing Rosie, he says, “We all know that strong person whom everyone depends on. They seem so strong and reliable that people never consider they might have their own problems. Rosie is that person.”
A thumbnail description of the play has Rosie’s brother-in-law living at her small house. He’s a handful. On top of this, her “down and out” adult son returns home to live. At what point does Rosie take action for her own good?
This is only Spellos’s second play. That it won The Rep’s Next Act New Play Award is a rather remarkable achievement Though a professional writer and producer for years, his experience is mostly screenplays and documentaries. He insists, that no matter the form being used, he always tries to create characters who deserve the respect of the audience. “I’m very proud that the same characters turn out very likeable,” he says.
In a tasty bit of coincidence, always a musical theater fan, Spellos saw his first straight play at Capital Repertory Theatre. It was David Mamet’s “Glengarry Glenn Ross” in 1992? After seeing the Albany production, Spellos said he found himself enamored by the art form. While living in New York he immersed himself in the attendance of plays. That pursuit helped him become fast friends and business associates with famed producer Robert Whitehead and his wife, the legendary actress Zoe Caldwell. The two, who Spellos refers to as “the Godfather and Godmother of Broadway theater,” worked with him on screenplays but always pushed him to write a play.
It was the pandemic that turned his attention to theater. He has no explanation and says he is still surprised at the decision. The inspiration for “Rosie …” came at an invited Playwright’s retreat at Cape May, NJ. Famed playwright and teacher at the Juilliard School of Drama, Marsha Norman, led the gathering. At the end of a session she gave an assignment to write 10 pages of a play about a personal tragic event.
Spellos says he resisted the assignment for several reasons. Among them was he lived what he called “a blessed life” and could not relate to the assignment. Out of respect for Norman he took an incident from the life of an acquaintance and wrote ten pages about a woman whose life was closing in on her. But, as was his style, he wrote it as a comedy.
That morning fear struck him. Norman’s best known play is “’Night, Mother” about a woman whose troubles drive her to suicide. He said he was desperately concerned his play might make Norman think he was making fun of her work. However, after hearing it read, Norman was thrilled and demanded he finish the play. He says, “When Marsha Norman tells you to write a play, you write a play.“
He adds, with pride, that the first ten pages that Marsha Norman heard are still intact. They are the same words offered at that momentous retreat. But better yet, there’s 90-minutes of additional dialogue.
“Rosie is Red and Everybody is Blue” runs Tuesday, April 29 to May 18. For tickets and schedule information go to attherep.org
Bob Goepfert is theater reviewer for the Troy Record.
The views expressed by commentators are solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this station or its management.
