Like Tennessee Williams and Max Fischer before him, Anthony Smith ’11 (perhaps better known as Anthony Bryan Lexington Smith) has taken the world of (campus) theatre by storm. His most recent production, HUSK, premiered this past weekend, but Smith took a break from rehearsals to talk to The Argus about his life, his experience being a gay artist at Wesleyan, and his plans for the future.
The Argus: Why so many names?
Anthony Smith: Long names are a Spanish tradition, like government-sanctioned naptime. I come from a Spanish-Filipino family, and there’s a tendency in both cultures to over-name children.
A: Where did you grow up?
AS: The Philippines, first, among mangos. North Bronx, next, among the working class. Now when I’m not on campus, I live with two of my best friends above a L’Occitane in the West Village, which has taught me to hate the smell of verbana, whatever it is. Academically, I went from public elementary to Christian middle to old money private boarding to whatever you’d call Wesleyan.
A: Is it true that you’re king of the gays at Wesleyan?
AS: A community of queens has no need for just one king, but I think that the gay male community at Wesleyan still has a definite center, or people who become synonymous with the phrase “gay male” at this school. And while power has definitely shifted out of the hands of just one person, where it existed when I was a freshman, into the hands of many more of us, I don’t think that we’ve become a democratic community. But what community doesn’t have some form or another of due paying? It isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Equality for me exists solely as a legal consideration. Let’s all actively earn the respect we deserve by proving ourselves. But to answer your question: No, I am not king of the gays. But I sure have cuckolded my fair share of fools.
A: When did you first become interested in theater?
AS: My first ever play was a production of King John in which I was cast as Arthur when I was seven. I enjoyed jumping to my death and have been an actor at heart ever since, even though my talent hasn’t grown with me. In high school, I was outclassed by just about every other male actor. I wasn’t getting any parts, see, so the head of the drama department made a concession to keep me motivated—that I still be involved in theatre, but as a writer and a director. And I couldn’t be happier. I’ve never been so thankful for any other rejection in my life.
A: How did you come up with the idea for HUSK, a dark whodunit set in the middle of Middle America?
AS: I had an idea two years ago for a slapstick comedy about a woman who takes to being a detective to distract herself from the grief of her dead husband. Then I just sort of let it die after writing the first two scenes. But this summer, someone broke my heart or something, and I tried to write something, anything, to distract myself. Most of it was all bad poetry, and then I remembered that woman I had come up with two years ago, and I reminded myself of her, and I took to reimagining that.
A: What’s this one about?
AS: It’s hard to say what it’s about, but I can talk about process. I wanted to blow the dust off some very old clichés in American writing and find out why they became clichés in the first place. Formula has become a dirty word for writers and it shouldn’t be. There’s something exhilarating about formula, and more writers should do what they can with it. It gives the audience a point of reference, so they can see exactly the choices you’ve made and what you’re doing, and your risks and deviations and newness don’t end up looking like irresponsible madness. So here I wanted to write a mystery story that smacked of Fargo, only to have it then turn on its head and become something different—not a story about the solving of a mystery but a story about getting to the bottom of things, where the solving of a mystery becomes a red herring in and of itself. And every time the audience thinks they know how the story is going to be, a new character is introduced, and the center of the story changes, or intermission happens and half the cast dies or disappears. So the play is not about the crisp, clean conclusion of one of these plots but about the crisp, clean conclusion of none of them. And even though my drawing from Fargo and The Cherry Orchard and, to a lesser extent, A Streetcar Named Desire was obvious, I wanted to bring storytelling for the stage into new territory without forcing that newness down anyone’s throats, because no one likes an aggressive newness, as much as critics and artists claim that’s what they want. It feels very insular, and theater is a medium that should seem democratic and be radical. So newness and progress should creep up on us. And if I’ve accomplished that here, then I’ll consider my work a success and keep moving forward into other territory.
A: Who are your influences?
AS: Anton Chekhov, Tennessee Williams, Ethan Coen, and Ashton H. Minty, a little-known playwright who penned “A Gay and Succulent Bird” and “Knock, Knock! Who’s There? Rape.”
A: Any theater plans for next semester?
AS: At this point, I’m really enchanted with an adaptation of the Icarus myth I wrote that follows the gay male experience in five different moments or eras of American history—the Civil War, the Gilded Age, the Vietnam War, the late 1980s, and finally, the night of the 2008 elections. It’s avant-garde as hell.
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