Tim Robbins: Well it was the essentially the federal theater was created to give people jobs just as any kind of federal program was uh… Created in the thirties uh… Was visionary in that uh… It was something that was something that’s going to help out unemployed theater professionals but was also going to prove provide entertainment for people who are in the midst of a depression at a very low cost from free to 25 cents for a ticket. And so it was going to lift some of the burden through entertainment. What was interesting also was that it was, it wasn’t, you know, it was taken down. It was canceled because it was I guess Democrats and Republicans both viewed it as controversial and a threat because it was raising questions in the theater. By the way a real good play does anyway, but most of it wasn’t political, most of wasn’t even socially oriented. A lot, a great deal of it was vaudeville and children’s shows and puppet shows and entertainments, musicals, and throughout the country too. Federal theater actually, by the time it was canceled, had reached a quarter of the population in the United States, about 25 million people at the time, had seen federal theater shows. So it was a real national theater. It was the first and only time that that’s been achieved in this country.
Interviewer: Who ran it and what did she want to figure out?
Tim Robbins: Well, Hallie Flanagan was a teacher at Vassar College. And she had run an experimental theater program up at Vasser. And she was tapped by Harry Hopkins, who was working in the Roosevelt administration. And he asked her if she wanted to do it. And she took on the challenge. And they started by. Starting in New York City, and they expanded into all the major cities and then into touring companies that reached into the heartland. Hallie was a remarkable woman. The testimony that you read at the hearings on American activities, the first ones, before there Huac, were all generated out of fear of… Uh… And uh… What the messages were being spread by uh… The federal theater program and halley’s uh… Vision of theater was pretty all-encompassing was uh… A belief in not only traditional forms of theater but also in experimental theater and also in the theater that they were doing in europe at the time which was uh breaking ground as far as uh… Different forms, different styles of theater. So she wasn’t only interested in American realism, which she did do in the Federal Theater, but also constructivism and expressionism and different styles that were happening in Europe. Well, her idea was that she would be creating a theater that’s free, adult, and uncensored. And in doing so, she had many different ideas. One of the ideas was this thing called the living newspaper, which would… Take an issue at the time and they put in, put on, you know, 50 journalists and 100 actors and a whole bunch of musicians and they would research a particular social program, whether it be power or venereal disease or, and they were, they would basically produce a play that would be informative but also entertaining. So it was, they’d have a whole much of people unemployed vaudevillians. That they would figure out jugglers and acrobats and figure out ways to put the theatrical spectacle with the information. So that was a brand new theatrical form. The Federal Theater gave rise to the careers of John Hausman, Orson Welles, E.G. Marshall, Nick Ray. It also provided for the first time in America. Uh… Funding for african-american artists companies uh… Not only exclusive uh… Africana-america companies which it did do but it also was the first time that you were seeing blacks and whites on the same stage together in place not in you know initial shows in vaudeville but in in place about real experiences at the time. And that was one of the things that drove the Southern Democrats crazy. They just could not deal with that. Of course, the Republicans as well. But that was just something that probably was the great unspoken thing in the testimony that really killed it, was because it was a belief in a certain equality in the races. And it was really a radical thing to do at the time.
Interviewer: It makes perfect sense that, you know, Howie Flanagan, with those aims, would choose Hausman and Wells. Take us through, she chooses those guys, and they pick this play, Cradle Will Rock, which we’re going to focus on. Why did they choose that?
Tim Robbins: Well, they, Mark Blitstein had a relationship, I believe, he knew Hausman from whatever theatrical circles and he brought this idea to him and when he had finished it, he played it for Wells and Hausman who were both really impressed by it and wanted to do it and they brought it to Hallie Flanagan who said go ahead. What it was, the reason why it was unique was that there really wasn’t a whole lot of issue related musicals at the time, in fact none. I think maybe Porgy and Bess in the American Opera had kind of addressed some social issues. But no one had really, the musical was basically Boy Meets Girl, etc. And Final Curtain, everything’s okay. It was escapism. This was the first one that started really dealing with problems in society, and it was right out of the newspapers. When it was opening, part of the reason why a lot of people believe that the opening was canceled was that there was a labor strike that had wound up with a lot of strikers being killed by the police, had two weeks before Cradle was supposed to open. So it was a real hot issue at the time. And i think the federal government was afraid of stoking the fire and uh… That was one of the reasons why the guard showed up at the door and uh and and put chains around it
Interviewer: Walk us through that. First, just plant the idea that there’s steel workers rioting and they create a show that’s about what?
Tim Robbins: The show is essentially set in Steel Town, USA, and it tells the story of a union leader named Larry Forman, who is leading a strike against the steel mill run by Mr. Mister. And it shows the different power, elite, in the town and how they unify. Against the Union, even though the Union has the majority of people and has a lot of power in its leader, Larry Foreman. So they try to kind of subvert and destroy the labor movement. But it’s also, at the same time, that sounds like, wow, that’s a heavy-duty musical. At the same time, it’s also very funny, this play, because it… Doesn’t take itself too seriously it has uh… Very funny songs it uh… Deals with it in kind of a vaudevillian way uh… There’s uh… A relationship between mister mister’s brother and sister that is questionable uh… I’m sorry mister mister son and daughter that a relationship is happening that People are worried about bad press. And so there’s a song about Hawaii and sending the son to Hawaii to be a journalist. And there’s different songs about the freedom of the press, but done in a very fast clip way. It was very funny. A lot of which we shot for the movie, which we didn’t wind up having enough time to use. It’s a, for what it is, is a great musical. Whether it works today, I don’t know. I know that certain parts of it are timeless. The music in it is very interesting, historically incredibly important. I think Leonard Bernstein at one point said that that musical was why he started writing for the American musical. There was something in the music, in the notes. Chosen to, that set it apart from other music at the time. There’s actually a great film of him saying this. You might be able to get your hands on it. We have a clip of it. But he goes and explains specifically why in the opening song it becomes a brand new kind of musical in the note choices. In that very first thing. In the movie, at the beginning of the movie when you’re pulling up into the window and he’s writing the music, that’s what we’re talking about is that specific thing that Leonard Bernstein had said about the choice of that note and the dissonance of that not and why that was so different and so radical at the time that American composers for the musical theater after that really were deeply affected Bye. Blitzstein and his style of music, influenced by jazz, influenced by discordant chords. And you can see how that leads to Bernstein and you see how that leaves the Sondheim. All the Heims all the Eims all the Einz.
Interviewer: When, uh, you know, we’ve got, we do have this great thing of De Silva singing Cradle of Rock, Jerry Orbach singing at one point. Help us understand if we just feature that snippet and they’re singing the Cradle will rock. What do they really, what is the, what do they mean by the Cradle?
Tim Robbins: That the, well, they say that’s thunder, that’s lightning, and it’s going to surround you. The storm birds circle around you. Now I can’t remember. The cradle will rock is basically Our social order is not as secure as it seems. I think what the song is saying is basically… Once everyone knows, once the masses know what the truth is, you can’t stop them. For all your newspapers and for all your power and for the way you control information, once the truth out, you can stop it. And in essence, that’s what happens at the end of the play, is that there’s a huge crowd of people. Uh… Marching towards where mister mister is and he’s cowering in fear What was it about this play that was so dangerous? I mean, if you look at it in 1999 or if you look at in 2002, it’s interesting. It’s entertaining. But politically, you think, well, it was kind of benign. I mean this is about a labor strike. But you forget the context of the time it was done in. You forget that this kind of thing was not on the stage. This was not being done. Certainly not in the movies. And on a Broadway stage funded by the federal government with a hot young director, Orson Welles, directing this thing, it had a certain focus on it. People were paying attention to it. Someone was deeply threatened by it to the point where they felt that they had to shut it down. And nine times out of ten that would have worked.
Interviewer: Here is his visionary director, and this remarkable producer, John Housman. They’ve chosen to do this incendiary show, and the government reacts.
Tim Robbins: Well, someone wanted to make sure that that play didn’t open. Someone was afraid of it. Someone feared the message of it, perhaps, or maybe it was because there was such a current problem with labor that they felt that would stoke the fire more. But someone decided to go to the theater and lock it. And nine times out of 10, that would have worked. Actors aren’t the hardest people in the world to intimidate. But they didn’t count on some of those actors being some of these actors. And they didn’t count on the fact that Orson Wells was the director and John Hausman was the producer. And those are two incredibly strong, powerful personalities. And not only believed in their artistic and creative rights, but also in America and what it is to be free in America and what freedom of expression really means. And they had a very clear idea on that. When they saw those chains on the theater, they saw it as a threat to their democracy the way they knew it. And so they went backstage, they snuck in through the back of the theater and they started trying to find a different venue because they had 1,000 people coming to the theater that night. And they got on the phone and they started calling all the bookers and trying to find some bacon theater and couldn’t find one, couldn’t find one. And eventually the day wears on and Wells is of course working, the press saying we’re gonna do a show tonight, I don’t know where but we’re doing one. And he has called people, he’s made it an event, he has made sure that this is not going to be swept under the rug and be a quiet thing. He’s on the phone saying that we are being censored. Saying that we are being oppressed by this government that professes to be so so free and so So, eventually they find a theater and they decide to take the audience that is gathered out front and march uptown with them and do the show uptown. But in the interim, while they’re looking for this theater, the unions have said to the actors and musicians that they cannot do the shows because the original Producer of the show, the federal government, had canceled it. So they needed to do a new contract before they could do a new show. So this is where the who said what kind of gets confused. But some say that there was a speech given saying that you can come up and just watch and if you feel like you want to sing, go ahead and do it. Others never heard that. People that I’ve talked to that never heard a speech. It was too chaotic. So they get up to this theater and Blitstein gets on stage and he starts to play the first chords of the first song, which is the song of a prostitute named Maul. And he starts the sing her part and he hears a voice in the audience and it’s the actress who’s made the walk uptown with the rest of the cast and with all this thousand people in the audience. And she starts singing her part from the crowd and uh… Before you know it other actors popping up in the audience, and the show is done in this completely strange and wonderful way. This was the, I mean, this story for me was such an important one to tell because it really is, this really is about what it is to be free. I mean you can write and do movies and plays about heroes that we accept as our heroes, but we tend to forget the ones that really make it possible. Which are the people that really don’t make it into the history books for some reason. And those are the individuals that really inspire thousands. And this individual, this woman, for whatever reason, I don’t necessarily think it was a particularly political reason. I think it’s a very personal reason. In her standing up, she inspired not only the people in that room in a way that they would never forget. And they would pass on to generation upon generation of their relatives. But also inspired actors and artists in that era to have power. One individual act of defiance can create so much, so much. And in the simple act of singing her song, she gave us a great gift, which is a gift shows us how to live free in a free society. So many of us censor ourselves and worry about the ramifications of what we do in a professional way or in a political way. We won’t really express our opinions because we’re afraid it will keep us from future work. So as long as we live in that kind of fear, what is it worth to have the freedom of speech. If you don’t really use it, what’s the purpose of it?
Interviewer: Wow, thank you. It was a courageous act on her part. But the government, in a way, still won out, didn’t it? Put a lot of those.
Tim Robbins: Well they killed it after, they killed the Federal Theater after four years. They killed it for… Out of fear, going through the whole process of making Cradle Wall Rock really drove home something I had suspected for a long time, which is that there’s a fear of artists. Usually by government officials, politicians. I’m not just talking about the United States, I’m talking about There’s some that fear them so much that they kill them, you know. There’s that will not tolerate art like we see recently in Afghanistan. They don’t want any kind of art at all. And if you’re an artist, you’re dead or you’re banished or you are ostracized or driven out of town. Western societies do it in a more subtle and less complete way. But there is definitely a fear of art. And why? I mean, if it’s such a benign thing, if its, you know, just stuff on the wall and entertainments at the theater and movies as distraction, why? Why would they fear that? And the answer lies in the fact that art touches people. Art touches people in a way that politicians’ speeches never will. Art touches in a visceral way and into their soul that changes them. Affects life change. A great piece of art. And that’s why they feared the federal theater, is because it was changing people. They were seeing live theater for the first time and they were saying, wow, that’s amazing. That’s moving me, that changing me. And you think of just the effect that that theater had on this society. What a huge gift it gave us as a country to provide entertainment for 25 million people, number one. To have turned on twenty five million people to the possibility of theater and what kind of gift that gave to the generations upon generations of those people that were affected that’s pretty remarkable and that’s what could happen in this country were our priorities right how we could affect cultural change first which really profoundly It changes human nature and human behavior. Compassion is something that we’re not going to get out of the way we use our money in this country. Compassion comes from art. Compassion come from understanding of the human condition in a profound way that we can find on the stage or in the movies.
Interviewer: You think, what’s your take on the Broadway musical after the Federal Theater in general? Do you think it’s voiced those concerns sort of for, or it’s painted a rosy picture? What’s your?
Tim Robbins: Well, different American musicals. I think to talk about the American musical, you’re talking about such a wide canvas. I mean, there are the American music that are just fun, just flat out fun. And that’s good. That’s great. It’s good that there is that kind of entertainment. Because we need that. We need to be able to go and laugh our asses off and have a good time and hear a good tune and fall vicariously in love with the other person on stage through the lead actor or actress. And then there has been also, the American musical also represents much more substance as well. There’s been musicals that have raised some the questions that are. In society at the time. Now, it’s becoming harder and harder, as you know. It’s such a huge investment now. But there is possibility, and there always is possibility around the corner of some significant work of art making a breakthrough. And it might run for three months, but that’s not the important thing.
Interviewer: Just because the music’s different, the social cause is different, just if you can try and encapsulate that as one sort of lead idea that might lead into another story.
Tim Robbins: Well, you know, um… Blitzstein was friends with Bertolt Brecht, and I think drew a lot of his inspiration for Cradle Will Rock from his knowledge of Brecht and what they were doing with musical theater over in Berlin at the time with Kurt Weill, with Three Penny Opera. His belief of using the form of a musical in the way he did certainly led to other people’s perceptions being widened. You can also revisit Brecht to go to the source of that inspiration. You know wonder why there isn’t more musicals coming from that Certainly he’s, I think, been done in a way that is too intellectual and too esoteric, and that’s probably limited his appeal. But there is a way to do these things in a very funny way. I think people forget that Brecht had a sense of humor and try to over-intellectualize it. But And he dedicated, Britson dedicated Craterwall Rock to Bert Brecht and later translated Threepenny Opera that was done at the Theater de Lys with Lottilena and Jerry Orbach I believe was in that.
Interviewer: Speak to this moment of this as a courageous act.
Tim Robbins: They, in standing up, those actors were risking everything. And when we say everything, you gotta remember, this was a time before social security, before unemployment insurance, before welfare, before food stamps, before any kind of social safety net. If you lost your job, that was it. Unless you had a mother or father or a family system that could support you, you were on the street, essentially. So for a good deal of these actors, that choice to stand up wasn’t simply a matter of, hey, this is a nice Sunday. I’m going to stand up in this theater and sing, get my rocks off. It was, I’m gonna lose my job. But I believe that this is my right to sing this song. In losing their jobs, they were facing down the terrible unemployment and poverty that existed at the time. And that’s depression era America, and that’s bread lines and soup lines and humiliation for millions of people without work. So if you put it in that context, it was incredibly courageous. If you also put it into context that two weeks before police had Strikers in Chicago. Also understand that there were policemen all around this theater and in the theater you’re also putting into context that they were risking their lives because they didn’t know that the cops weren’t going to come in and bust up heads so those two elements It’s enough to just simply get up in front of people and sing for a lot of us, you know? The courage that takes. But these people, in doing what they did, were really creating a huge, large image of courage, in my opinion. Broadway now.
Interviewer: What do you think of Broadway? Musicals, that is. What does Broadway mean? Do you avoid the new Times Square? What do think of the new Time Square?
Tim Robbins: Well i get mixed feelings about it uh… I would have liked to have seen some uh… Nice uh… Hundred fifty seat houses put in their theaters make it really a theater district instead of uh… More cineplexes more neon uh… That would have been nice to see to a real appreciation for experimental theater theater that doesn’t quite have the market to be. Broadway or off Broadway. I like that it’s cleaned up to some extent, but I also know that whenever you clean something up, it moves somewhere else and I know where it moved and it’s closer to my apartment, so I’m not too crazy about that. You know, that’s that kind of put a nice veneer on something, but the problem still exists. When I think Broadway I think of limitless possibility of walking into a theater and really having a great time. Whenever I go to the theater, I feel that. And I go in with those possibilities. Sometimes it doesn’t quite live up to my glorified image of what theater is, but that’s okay too. People are trying, and that’s the important thing. And, I grew up in New York City, So I saw American musicals. Really early on in my life and saw Pippin, you know, a couple, three times and, you now, saw Godspell and saw Charlie Brown down when I was in the village and the Fantastics and I saw my dad on stage in musicals at the Theater de Lys and up in Broadway. And so I, you you know I love the form. I love possibility of the form, I would like to see it expand. I’d like to people take chances with the form I’d like to see people. Get into more substance in what they’re dealing with in the American musical. But I’m happier, I’m always, but I’m always happy to go. And I’m also happy to be there. I was at the opening night of Guys and Dolls when it, a few years ago. And that was incredible, incredible energy, and incredible jobs everyone did in that show. What a fun night, you know? It provided this. Great moment of entertainment and something I will always remember was electric, you know, kind of energy in the house that night. Well, one of the first songs my son sang was, uh, got a horse right here at the end of Paul’s year, and I remember hearing that, driving in the car, I’m like, he had the whole song down. They’re not really, they’re But there’s, you know, there’s always possibility for rock and roll in the musical theater too. You know, I just, how difficult it is to pull off. I mean, if you consider the different elements involved, but also just the talent that is necessary to pull of a successful musical. And to see it is pretty, pretty impressive, I mean I really admire actors that can get up there. Sing and dance. I mean, it’s a special talent. And the ones that can sing and dance and act, I really hate. I’m really jealous of them. That’s amazing. Lion King, I was at the opening of Lion King. That was amazing, amazing. She just turned that theater into a whole new. Experience. It shows the where you can go shows the possibilities and don’t ever enter with prejudices well disney’s doing this musical you know how wrong that prejudice was. They really created something new and special with that musical, and all power to them. I would think it’s always possible. I’m afraid, though, the American left has come farther and farther to the right, and it’s almost at the center now. Because the American Left was, you know, behind Gore and Clinton, and those people are as moderate as you could possibly be and not be Republican. So, I don’t know that there’s a… But there’s always, within all this hyperbole and, you know, blah, blah blah about politics, there’s an interesting voice that’s going to come and it’s going to come from where you don’t expect it and it is going to come with such a simple, clear statement that everyone can understand. Other people will call it left. Other people call it radical. Other people try to marginalize it in that way.
