he Great Leveler One Astor ia Pla ywright ’s Tale of Success THE ARTS 42 | BOROMAG.COM | NOVEMBER 2014 We meet outside a bakery on 30th Ave, and then walk a few blocks to find a bite to eat. Mike Bencivenga is one of the warmest, kindest, most generous spirits I could ever hope to meet—and certainly not at all the sort of character one might expect of a gifted playwright or an Emmy-winning producer for ABC Television. As we sit down for lunch at The Astoria Brewhouse, I feel like I am settling down to laugh with a dearly trusted friend. Later in the evening, I will be watching the New York premiere of his latest play, Billy & Ray, at the prestigious Vineyard Theatre, under the direction of Garry Marshall, and starring Mad Men’s Vincent Kartheiser, Broadway’s Larry Pine, Drew Gehling, and Sophie von Haselberg— recent Yale graduate and daughter of Bette Midler. But right now, I am interviewing a playwright who has called Astoria his home for nearly thirty years. Billy & Ray chronicles the odd couple pairing of writer-director Billy Wilder and novelist Raymond Chandler as the struggle against all odds to adapt Double Indemnity for the silver screen. Set in 1940s Hollywood, Billy & Ray is the true story of how two brilliant and clashing minds challenged the Hollywood censors and each other to create a groundbreaking movie classic, and one of the most influential film noirs of American cinema. BORO: What prompted you to write a play on this particular subject? Mike Bencivenga: When you are about thirteen years old, you start thinking, ‘somebody actually made this movie.’ I started to realize that 4 or 5 of the movies that blew my mind were all made by the same guy—Billy Wilder. Sunset Boulevard, Some Like it Hot, Double Indemnity,The Fortune Cookie—and then I became a fanatic. I went to NYU Film School, and in 1983, I learned that they were honoring him at the Film Society at Lincoln Center. And I’m like, ‘I’m just a kid, but I’ve gotta go to this.’ I went by myself because I didn’t have the money to take my girlfriend. BORO: How did you get into the event? MB: A Broadway show was still twenty-five bucks, and this ticket was the then unheard of price of one hundred dollars. And I had to get a tuxedo, because I’d learned, when I was an usher for several years, that the tuxedo is the great leveler. If you’re in a tux, you can walk up to anybody and say hi, and if you’re not in a tux, somebody grabs you by the shoulder and throws you out in the yard, so I said, ‘I’m wearing a tux’. BORO: So did you get to meet Mr. Wilder? MB: I remember I spent three quarters of the night running over to the woman who was running hat check and saying, ‘that’s Jack Lemmon’ or ‘look, there’s Shirley McLain’– I couldn’t go up to anyone else, because they were all famous. I was 26 or 27. I wasn’t leaving until I got to walk up to Billy Wilder and say to him that he was my inspiration---that he was a great guy. But I’d always heard that he was like Groucho Marx, that he had a biting wit, that he was notorious for saying some incredibly nasty things. He once told an actor who was supposed to be singing something, he put his arm around him and said, ‘you have VanGogh’s ear for music.’ Ouch. BORO: That’s incredibly intimidating. So what did you do? MB: So I went up with nervousness, and said I’m an NYU film student and I am a huge fan—and I would love to make just one Interview + Images by Bradley Hawks Billy & Ray Mike Bencivenga, Playwright will play at the Vineyard through November 23rd 108 E. 15th St., NYC For more info and to purchase tickets, please visit www.vineyardtheatre.org/billy-ray
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