Scott Cohen: The Seductive Power of Caryl Churchill

About the author:
It's a long way from Gilmore Girls to the dark political musings of British playwright Caryl Churchill, but Scott Cohen inhabits both worlds with ease. Now starring in the Public Theater's production of Churchill's elliptical drama Drunk Enough to Say I Love You?, Cohen received excellent reviews for his performance as Sam, a gay man who represents nothing less than American imperialism in aggressively seducing Guy, a stand-in for the more submissive Britain. Cohen, who made a strong impression last season in the otherwise forgettable Broadway comedy Losing Louie, has kept busy on the small screen in recent years, playing Lorelai's fiance in early seasons of Gilmore Girls, a detective in the short-lived Law & Order: Trial by Jury and now Parker Posey's lover in the new Fox sitcom The Return of Jezebel James. Broadway.com asked Cohen to write about the challenges of starring in Churchill's latest allegory—and he graciously shared his impressions.

In early December of last year I got a phone call from “the agency.” No, not the CIA, but the other agency that just so happens to bear the same nom de plume and just so happens to be involved in similar technique. Little did I know that the next few months would actually be fraught with feeling as if the former was really behind the wheel for this particular job. My representative at the aforementioned agency told me that the Public Theater wanted to see me. Need he say more? I think not.

A play by Caryl Churchill. Caryl Churchill? The Caryl Churchill? Opening in March, closing in can't hear the date. My excitement soon fled because I thought for sure I would need a British accent. But I decided to not say anything. The writers' strike was in full swing and I never worked at the Public. I wanted the chance to work downtown where so much has begun. There seemed to be no thought in the decision to audition. Then I read it.

Before I say anything about the play, I need to mention a couple of things about my past with Caryl Churchill. When I was in college I had an acting teacher who was in love with Ms. Churchill. It seemed like every discussion about any play we read went back to this mysterious playwright who, to me, was not writing about the times I was living in. She felt like Orton, Ionesco, Beckett, Pinter or Genet. But those playwrights I understood or strived to understand. I never really got her plays. Gender politics, Thatcherism, land reform, and so on. A couple of years went by, and I found myself in London on a theater excursion. I saw about 20 plays in a fortnight and traveled as much as I could in and around London. I walked the streets of Covent Garden and felt the cobblestones under my feet, the history of the English theater, knowing then that I would always be an actor. This is where I belonged.

That part of London has a few main streets that stand out in my mind: Tottenham Court Road, Shaftsbury Avenue, Charing Cross Road. All the side streets and small alleys that are hidden from view and take on an ethereal ancient quality as you walk them late at night. But the one that has stood out the most for me was Charing Cross Road. For some odd reason I equated it with Caryl Churchill. Every time I walked it, I thought of her. I heard her. Her plays were present: the language, the confusion. But why?

I sat down and read Drunk Enough to Say I Love You? And it all came back to me. London. Cobblestones. Charing Cross Road. Twenty years later it all made sense. Her words are like living, breathing organisms. Her plays are in a language that stimulate and question. Her originality is immeasurable. She is a creator. The politics, the questions or gender, sex and family were everything I was living then but refused to see. And that, of course, is what attracted me then and even more so now.

So here I am in a Caryl Churchill play as Sam, an American described as “a country,” opposite Samuel West as Guy, a British character described as “a man.” In comes James Macdonald, the director. We discuss the political references in the play and he tells me not to worry about those quite yet: “Think about the relationship between you and Guy.” I asked him if there were any books he could suggest where I could find all this political material referenced in the dialogue. I think he balked at the idea of giving it to me at first but then relinquished and gave me the list, reminding me that the relationship between the two men was most important.

My reading list consisted of six or eight books that would take me through the most horrifying acts of terror I could ever imagine. Since the beginning of this nation our government has been directly and indirectly involved in the slaughtering, killing, kidnapping, bombing, influencing, and manipulating of other sovereign nations, all in the name of democracy and freedom. I found myself reading these books one after the other wanting to disbelieve all that was being told to me. I started getting depressed and angry.

We started rehearsal in a café near James' house in London, where I met Sam West and Caryl. I was floored. Here I was in London. Right off of Tottenham Court Road, not too far from Charing Cross, sitting opposite Caryl Churchill. She wasn't who I thought she might be. She was this beautiful woman with a simple sweater torn at the sleeves, long coat with silver hair just beyond her ears falling down in front of her. Her eyes were bright and energetic, her speech soft and careful. She listened with what seemed to be every ounce of her and responded not always with words but with kind, knowing gestures. It was obvious that her love was of the theater. The work was what is most important and inevitably most fun. I was home.

The play is in eight scenes. James explained that each of these scenes had a political theme and each had a relationship theme. The seduction, the honeymoon, the sex, the fight, etc. They become increasingly more complex as we know more about the material and about each other. There became some real difficulties in the process of rehearsing the play though. The first was when we realized that we were not sitting at a table. We were doing the whole play from a couch. The whole play. Then, to make matters worse, the couch started on the floor and in every scene floated off the ground until it was about 12 feet in the air. Costume changes, lighting changes, seat changes, standing, sitting, lying, all of which had to be done while the couch was moving and up in the air.

The next thing was a little more problematic. I started having nightmares. In London I was waking up about 4 a.m. saying one of my lines, “white double cable whip.” This was the beginning of an entire section on torture. This developed into full scale dreams about murder, rape, kidnapping, guilt, escape, telling too much to the wrong people and constantly on the run. They all had to do with people I knew. Close people. This was a direct response to the material in this play, I thought. But how do I know these things and play completely unaware, or in denial of the “bad” things I do? Or how do I see it as the “right” and “necessary” things I do? In the name of freedom, democracy and of course power. Where do I find the entitlement to pursue the spread of the American dream across the globe. Yeah, I know…make it personal. Easy to say, more difficult to do. This is the challenge. And so here I am.

The devil is in the details. It is not so much what Sam says but how he behaves when indoctrinating a prospective lover. The words become the tools of the sorcerer's magic. The trick is for Guy to sign away his life. Right, how to do that? In dreams, in looking in Caryl Churchill's eyes, on Charing Cross Road, on cobblestone streets, on a couch in a room far, far away or right here at home. All of it is useful. All of it is devilish. All of it is America.