The Modernist Beat sat down with actor-producer David Gow to discuss his upcoming production of Decky Does a Broncoby Scottish playwright Douglas Maxwell. This production is the American premiere of the piece that first toured Scotland in 2000. [NB: There is a character “David” in the play that Gow discusses.]
THE MODERNIST BEAT: David, if I’m not mistaken, you saw a production at the Edinburgh Fringe. What attracted you to Decky Does a Bronco?
DAVID GOW: I first fell in love with this play because of the way it handles adolescence and innocence. Maxwell identifies childhood dynamics so accurately in his writing, and he knows exactly what to strip away from the kids when they grow up.
TMB: Why bring this play from Scotland to the United States? Does it translate to the American experience?
DG: I’m particularly excited about American audiences seeing it for two reasons. The first is I’m very proud we get to be the first ones. The second is because I think our culture in the United States doesn’t handle this subject matter as well as other countries do.
TMB: What does it illuminate about the “coming-of-age” narrative that perhaps an American work would not?
DG: It can be an ugly, uncomfortable topic of conversation for people, and whenever that’s the case I love when theater throws it up on stage right in people’s faces.
TMB: Over the course of the work, the characters of the play, five boys, grow into men. The same actors play those characters at both ages. What were the challenges in making that journey? How were rehearsals structured so that the cast could believably inhabit both realities?
DG: That’s been one of the most rewarding parts of this process. We’ve done a great deal of physical improv that has really helped define the relationships within the group, and those changing relationships have dictated a lot of the behavior that shifts as we become adults. In past performances they have different actors split the role, one playing the child one playing the adult. I greatly prefer what we are doing because we get to finish the characters arc and really sit in the changes of the characters.
TMB: What insights do you think the play offers on childhood trauma (and how that trauma continues to haunt us into adulthood)? Also, what does it try to convey about guilt and responsibility?
DG: That’s the big question in this story, one that the narrator David is wrestling with out loud with the audience throughout the play.
TMB: In 1990, Tim O’Brien wrote a volume of interlinked short stories entitled The Things They Carried. It focused on a platoon of young soldiers during the Vietnam War whose every action was something they carried on life (assuming they survived). But the central incident in Deckyhappens when the characters are 9. How do you dramatize “carrying” that incident into adulthood? Is it possible to strip away the judgement and focus on the complexity of it all?
DG: There’s no question that all the boys carry the incident into adulthood and that it has an influencing power as to who they become. But through the help of David the characters are all really trying to focus on the overall picture and not the looming guilt they’ve carried for years. He asks questions that are trying to help him make sense of things – how do they all continue to go on with their lives as if nothing happened, how to they now process watching similar events on the news, ect. And while David is definitely still discovering this for himself as the play goes along, I think it does offer some relief to the characters and the audience.
TMB: What should audiences be prepared for stepping into your space? What counts as (artistic) success for you?What do you need the audience to carry with it out of the theater?
DG: I hope audiences will experience three things:
- How hilarious the kids’ antics together are.
- How simple and pure Douglas Maxwell’s writing is
- How brilliant and unique this form of storytelling is.
TMB: What about that set?
DG: We are building a swing set ON STAGE ON THE THIRD FLOOR OF A BUILDING AND WE DO STUNTS ON IT. That alone should be reason to see this show.
Decky Does a Broncofrom Starting 5 Productions plays from September 6 – September 21 at Royal Family Productions, 145 West 46thStreet, New York City. Ethan Neinaber directs. The cast includes: Graham Baker, Gow, Kennedy Kanawaga, Misha Osherovich, and Cody Robinson. For more information and tickets, please follow this link: https://www.deckydoesabronco.com