Literary Manager Mark Routhier speaks with Mat Smart, the author of the upcoming The Hopper Collection. One of the youngest writers to premiere at the Magic, Mat talks about his obsession with Hopper, the play's connection with Edward Albee, being a young playwright in today's economy and boxing.

Mark Routhier: Let’s start with an obvious one: Why Hopper?

Mat Smart: Edward Hopper's paintings – the ones with people – have an inherently dramatic quality to them.  It seems like something important is about to happen, or is happening, or has just happened.  There's a sense that a significant change is occurring – and that these people will never be able to go back to whatever it was like before.  So I like looking at Hopper's paintings and trying to figure out what may be happening.  What are the people saying?  Whose heart is being broken?   

Mark Routhier: I'm sure you've been asked before—the play obviously feels influenced by Edward Albee's Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf. How much did you use that play as a source? 

Mat Smart: I think Mr. Albee has a patent on plays with an older, hostile couple and a younger couple that take place on one evening.  If a play has those elements, I think the comparison will be made.  Consciously, I didn't use it as a source.  The sources of the play are primarily Summer Evening by Edward Hopper, my response to it, and my own experiences.  If Hopper had never painted it, I wouldn't have written this play.

Back to the other Edward.  I didn't think of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? until I was far along in the writing of The Hopper Collection.  However, I had seen Virginia Woolf and read it, and I'm sure it influenced my writing of the play in subconscious ways – as I hope all great plays do.  There are similarities to be made, but on the tenth page of my play, when the young Edward arrives, I think my play is drastically different than Mr. Albee's play.

Mark Routhier: What other influences would you say went into the writing of The Hopper Collection?  

Mat Smart: To confuse the issue, Edward Albee himself, was a significant influence in my decision to be a playwright.  In the summer of 2000, I had the opportunity to do a lengthy interview with him at the O'Neill Playwrights Conference in Waterford, CT.  Afterwards, I asked him a few personal questions – things dealing with what it means to be a writer and the ethics of it.  His answers made a lot of sense to me and eased some of my fears.  I knew I wanted to be a playwright, but that day – it was like he signed my visa or something.

As far as The Hopper Collection, specifically... boxing was a big influence.  When I was in grad school in San Diego, I trained a boxing club for about two years and had one amateur fight.  One was enough.  So I think that is where the boxing element of the play comes from literally.  But it is also structural.  Good scenes should play out somewhat like a round of a fight.  A character can't always go out there swinging, he or she has to strategize, use footwork, try to deceive.  I think that that boxing mentality is prevalent in The Hopper Collection more than other plays I've written.  The focus really is on two person scenes, in which characters get in the ring and spar... each round usually has someone who scored more points than the other.

Mark Routhier: What are your influences, generally? 

Mat Smart: My entrance into art was through music.  I've played the trumpet and piano for fifteen years.  For me, a lot of writing is about sound.  A line, or a section, will sound out of tune to me if it's not working.  It'll actually hurt my ears.  And I always speak things as I write.  My neighbors probably think I'm crazy. 

Mark Routhier: Favorite playwrights?    

Mat Smart: Chekhov is my favorite, hands down. Also, Albee and August Wilson.  Two younger writers: Sarah Ruhl and Adam Rapp.   

Mark Routhier: You do a lot of your own theatre with your gang in NYC which, I think, is a great thing to do after leaving school.  Now that your plays are starting to go out into the world, do you find it difficult to relinquish artistic control?

Mat Smart: Yes.  But I try to keep in mind that the majority of productions don't have a playwright lurking about in the back of the rehearsal hall, or putting in his or her two cents during casting.  (Often because the playwright is dead.)  A play really should be able to stand on its own, without answering to neurotic demands of the writer -- things like: "No, no, no.  I really think Character B needs to stomp his foot on this line." 

This production is the first time that I've been absent for the bulk of the rehearsal process.  I'm nervous about that, but also, it's exciting because I trust this artistic team.  What things will they find that I never thought of?  What surprises will there be?  It's kind of like letting someone borrow your car... will they trash it?  Or will they bring it back with a full tank of gas, washed, waxed, and looking better than ever?  Maybe it'll even be a different color than before. 

Mark Routhier: Since you are profoundly interested by music, what is it about theatre that has drawn you to write for it?

Mat Smart: When a play works, I believe it's an experience that's unparalleled in art.  The end of a play should blow the roof off of the theatre.  It should end in a devastating choice or revelation that you'll never forget, and that you can learn from.  Six or seven years ago, I heard the Chicago Symphony Orchestra play Mahler's Symphony No. 1 and it absolutely blew my mind.  I still think about it.  I know that concert changed me in some way, but I couldn't say what that change was in any literal sense.  I couldn't tell you what truth was challenged or questioned in that symphony.  However, I could tell you exactly what John Proctor's choice at the end of The Crucible means to me and how it's changed the way I approach certain decisions in my life. 

A play is both storytelling and a debate.  Theatre allows people to hear live, unamplified voices, telling a story and debating – which is a rather rare event these days.  It goes back to basic human rituals – the story around the camp fire... the Greeks gathering to debate a question of morality.  That is why I am a playwright and not a musician or composer. 

Of course, music and theatre are not exclusive from each other.  I have a one-act called Chopin’s Preludes in which the action of the entire play is set to the music of Chopin's 24 Preludes.  The dialogue and music play together the whole time.  I'm working on a rock musical with a composer in Chicago that is a somewhat absurd, modern adaptation of Moby Dick.  If you can get music and theatre working together in exciting ways, watch out.

Mark Routhier: The theatre loses a lot of young playwrights to television and film for obvious reasons – paying off student loans, not the least of them, and reaching a wider audience, another – do you feel, even if you are lured to those mediums, that you will continue to write for the theatre?

Mat Smart: I'm only interested in writing for theatre.  I'm not attracted to the idea of being an employee with my creative work.  In Hollywood, you can be fired from your own script.  That's awful.  And I simply don't believe in TV and film, like I believe in the theatrical experience. 

That said, the economic challenge of being a writer is daunting.  Perhaps after twenty years of living paycheck to paycheck, I won't be so idealistic.  I used to say I'd rather flip burgers than write for TV or film.  Now I just say I'd rather work in a nice real estate office typing leases rather than write for TV or film.  But I'm lucky, I'm actually making a fair share of my income from playwriting and that has helped immensely.