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GP: How did you decide to leave the West Coast, where you grew up, and move to New York City?
BI: Life decisions in my life are very often not delineated as decisions about life. At the time, it's a gig. You take this gig or not. I actually came to New York a few different times with different pieces of work and then, when we brought "The Regard of Flight" in 1982, it was just one more gig in New York. I was such a hick -- I didn't entirely know what off-Broadway theater was; I wasn't a member of Equity. I didn't know what a stage manager was. In many ways, coming to New York involved learning about the way theater was done. I'm still catching on to how things work, but I came, for better or worse, out of this very provincial, very self-sufficient ethos ... which can be enabling but also incredibly crippling. The show's run ended, and I decided to stay on and live in New York; [that] was the real decision for me. But it was a kind of natural decision. New York is where live performance is centered, partly because there are so many bodies here and so much possibility here. New York is a great place to be when you're involved in the theater because there's so much going on. It's a tough place to be for that very reason, and it's a tough place to make a living and make ends meet. And in the 1980s, early '80s, it was -- New York was, in many ways, a tougher place than it is now.
It's hard to go back to a small city as a performer. Doing work as a performer, making a living as a performer, is all about where audience bodies are. So it never seemed like moving away from New York made a lot of sense.
GP: How would you define "new vaudeville"?
BI: I haven't a clue what "new vaudevillian" means. This catch-all "new vaudeville" term came up. "New vaudeville" is a phrase that somebody made up, and it serves a purpose. I've even found myself using it sometimes, but I have no definition for new vaudeville or what new vaudevillians are -- a kind of alternative vaudeville, or new vaudevillians who weren't working out in circus lots, but were taking a sort of collegiate or postcollegiate look at these circus traditions? And sometimes I get nailed [by people] asking me whether I'll join or organize a new vaudevillian festival. And I'm sure it sounds like some crusty old fart being difficult, but ... I just don't know what that means.
GP: In an era when any kind of feat or stunt is digitally possible, what kind of future does physical comedy have?
BI: Traditional physical comedy with top hats and bowler hats and stuff is kind of rooted in a certain era, and that's gonna need to shift and change. But people will be funny with their bodies always. There are young folks getting interested, but it has to give way and evolve.
GP: How important is it to you that you pass on your craft to younger performers?
BI: I sure hope that passing on craft is a big part of my next years. I'm not sure there's any choice to that -- you do your thing, and if people find it of any value, then they comb through it for what they like about it and pull the pieces out that are useful to them and then throw everything else away. How much you actively are handing on is something -- I'm not sure how much control over that you have. I mean, you can take a job as a teacher or look for jobs as a teacher. Sometimes teachers are good handers-on, sometimes they're not. Sometimes just doing your best work on the stage may be the best way to hand things on.
GP: You once said that honesty and perseverance are qualities that are more important for an artist to possess than brilliance. Why?
BI: Honesty and perseverance make moments of brilliance -- possibly. So in a certain sense you can say that honesty and perseverance are more important than, or wiser than, striving for a way to unleash some brilliance. You never want to make light of brilliance, of a moment of transcendent brilliance, but sometimes it's less important than just continuing to strive for it. In fact, those moments will never happen unless you keep working and plugging and looking for the possibility of a surprising moment. Because as soon as you're consciously looking for a way to unleash brilliance, you're about 90 percent defeated.
Interview for GREAT PERFORMANCES conducted in May 2004.
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