MICHEL VINAVER DIALOGUES (2003-2022) | Kevin Doyle
I first read the plays of Michel Vinaver during the late 1990s in the PAJ DRAMA CONTEMPORARY: FRANCE Anthology edited by my professor at Purchase College (SUNY), Philippa Wehle. But it was reading the English translation of Vinaver's job interview play SITUATION VACANT that cracked open my brain into an approach to playwriting that was almost musical somehow -- without sacrificing its literary or dramaturgical value. Being exposed to Vinaver's SITUATION VACANT -- I think via an English translation by the French director Marion Schoevaert published in Yale's THEATER Magazine -- had a major influence on me when I wrote my plays THE POSITION and COMPRESSION OF A CASUALTY during the Summer of 2023.
I was not prepared for what happened next.
My professor, Philippa Wehle, returned that summer from the Avignon Festival and brought with her a new play by Michel Vinaver for me to read -- a bilingual English/French edition of his recently published "11 SEPTEMBER 2001". It was a masterpiece. It proved that theatre can respond in real-time to major world events, if in the hands of a playwright who knows how to structurally and dramaturgically map a response that fits the urgent needs of a particular moment in time. Nothing has been the same for me since.
My own father was a 9/11 survivor -- who saved three of his co-workers lives that day -- and I immediately felt the need to direct a performance of "11 SEPTEMBER 2001". At Prof. Wehle's urging, I wrote Vinaver's publisher and they granted permission for me to stage a single performance in New York that Fall 2003 -- but under one condition: I must write a full report and letter to the author, to convey how the performance was received by New York audiences.
That letter I wrote to Michel Vinaver in October 2003 -- began a regular correspondence and dialogue between Vinaver and myself that lasted right up until his death in May 2022.
With the early death of my father in 2010 -- my dialogue with Michel Vinaver grew deeper and more profound; almost like a second father -- in addition to being a mentor and colleague. This connection was deepened by an accident Vinaver had in 2016, when he was hit by a van while crossing his street. I was in Paris at the time, scheduled to meet with Michel in person for lunch -- but he never appeared. I stayed on in Paris for several days, waiting to hear back from him -- only to finally receive a phone call from his daughter, who relayed to me what had happened. I wrote Michel a very long letter, urging him to stay alive -- because our dialogue had only just recently the year before evolved into new terrain (based on two plays I had completed the year before). I ordered him to stay alive and recover fully.
Months later, when I finally saw Michel in person after he survived multiple surgeries and months of physical therapy in the hospital -- he told me that my letter saved his life. And we had another five years of letters, correspondence, dialogues, conversations, and in-person lunches and dinners in Paris.
After his accident, we both mutually agreed that I would record each in-person visit and conversation in Paris. Many of these lasted for hours and hours. The topics covered family, playwriting, politics, theatre, and our thoughts on the future.
In the clip below, Michel discusses how he came to first write for theatre in Annecy, France.
" In all my plays, writing is used as research. It endeavors to know -- not to expose or to illustrate what’s already known. It’s useful for deciphering. It advances by establishing connections between disparate elements. Furrows are made, little by little, the initial formlessness is reduced. There is a drive towards meaning. None of my plays ever reaches for one single meaning. Instead, from start to finish, from one play to the next, the galleries of meaning expand into a network of multiple communications and create crisscrossings and intersections, like the mapping of a territory. "
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excerpt from "A REFLECTION ON MY WORKS" by Michel Vinaver
" Kevin, I have been in dialogue with many younger playwrights in France during my career -- and they have been rewarding to a degree. But those dialogues with French playwrights was always colored by -- well, an undertone of them wanting something -- either a recommendation from me, or it was some form of a reciprocal relationship. This has it's own place. But this dialogue of ours -- has not been about that at all. It has been something different. I cannot describe it fully, but I want to stress to you that our conversations and letters mean a great deal to me. It is unique. The only comparison I can make is the dialogue I had with Albert Camus, when I was a younger man, and he was my writing idol. I sought him out in New York when he lectured there after the war. And we had a correspondence for many years -- until we had a break. I knew he would never understand the kind of playwright I wanted to be. It was not his fault. He just could not conceive of it -- this approach to playwriting. And with you -- we have never had this break, our dialogue has only grown stronger since we first corresponded about the 9/11 play. It says more about how you have grown as a writer, and what you focus on in your plays, and how you structure them. This dialogue means a great deal to me -- to have such a dialogue late in my life. I am just very happy to be here again, sitting with you, and to be able to tell this to you in person."
Michel Vinaver, audio recording from a Dialogue in Paris (2018)