Playwright Lonergan delves into his past for characters
October 31st, 2003
Playwright Lonergan delves into his past for characters
By Lisa Bornstein, See > Rocky Mountain News t oread more
They aren't necessarily slackers, or even losers. But in two of his three major plays and his Oscar-nominated film, Kenneth Lonergan focuses on similar characters: disaffected, but intelligent, young people.
And he comes by his latest lead honestly. Jeff, in Lobby Hero, spends the nights of his late 20s in a security guard uniform trying not to doze off at his post in a middle-class Manhattan apartment building.
Lonergan had a similar job when he dropped out after a year at Wesleyan University. He was a backstage doorman for the Shubert Organization, keeping watch over theater entrances.
Mostly, though, he read books and smoked pot. "A year of that convinced me that it was a lot easier going to college," Lonergan says.
Lobby Hero, which opens tonight at Denver Center Theatre Company, positions two guards and two cops in a moral tango over a murder investigation. Jeff, who has done little with his life, sees the opportunity to impress an attractive young policewoman, Dawn, by betraying a confidence. In the flirtation, Lonergan saw an interesting dichotomy between a man without a gun and a woman with one.
The idea came from Lonergan's own upbringing in a doorman building in Greenwich Village, where Matthew Broderick was his best friend.
After quitting work with the Shubert Organization, Lonergan enrolled at New York University, where he earned his degree in dramatic writing. His first success, the 1996 play This Is Our Youth, featured then-unknown actor Mark Ruffalo as a trio of rich, delinquent New Yorkers. Four years later, Ruffalo starred with Laura Linney in You Can Count On Me, the film Lonergan wrote and directed that earned him an Oscar nomination. Again, Ruffalo was a troubled, disaffected young man.
"There is no question that our era has millions of people with prolonged adolescences and somehow or other in the last 40 years people got the idea that you weren't really grown up until you were well into your 30s," says Lonergan.
"I also think it's a class thing, in that working class people these days all feel grown up when they're in their 20s. I also think that the incredible, horrible glut of marketing toward the youthful market has helped create the phenomenon as well, and I think it's kind of bizarre."
By Lisa Bornstein, See > Rocky Mountain News t oread more
They aren't necessarily slackers, or even losers. But in two of his three major plays and his Oscar-nominated film, Kenneth Lonergan focuses on similar characters: disaffected, but intelligent, young people.
And he comes by his latest lead honestly. Jeff, in Lobby Hero, spends the nights of his late 20s in a security guard uniform trying not to doze off at his post in a middle-class Manhattan apartment building.
Lonergan had a similar job when he dropped out after a year at Wesleyan University. He was a backstage doorman for the Shubert Organization, keeping watch over theater entrances.
Mostly, though, he read books and smoked pot. "A year of that convinced me that it was a lot easier going to college," Lonergan says.
Lobby Hero, which opens tonight at Denver Center Theatre Company, positions two guards and two cops in a moral tango over a murder investigation. Jeff, who has done little with his life, sees the opportunity to impress an attractive young policewoman, Dawn, by betraying a confidence. In the flirtation, Lonergan saw an interesting dichotomy between a man without a gun and a woman with one.
The idea came from Lonergan's own upbringing in a doorman building in Greenwich Village, where Matthew Broderick was his best friend.
After quitting work with the Shubert Organization, Lonergan enrolled at New York University, where he earned his degree in dramatic writing. His first success, the 1996 play This Is Our Youth, featured then-unknown actor Mark Ruffalo as a trio of rich, delinquent New Yorkers. Four years later, Ruffalo starred with Laura Linney in You Can Count On Me, the film Lonergan wrote and directed that earned him an Oscar nomination. Again, Ruffalo was a troubled, disaffected young man.
"There is no question that our era has millions of people with prolonged adolescences and somehow or other in the last 40 years people got the idea that you weren't really grown up until you were well into your 30s," says Lonergan.
"I also think it's a class thing, in that working class people these days all feel grown up when they're in their 20s. I also think that the incredible, horrible glut of marketing toward the youthful market has helped create the phenomenon as well, and I think it's kind of bizarre."
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