Roger Rosenblatt Plays the Writing Life
Imagine, if you can, Hoagy Carmichael with an English Ph.D. from Harvard tinkling the ivories at Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor while ruminating for his audience on the writer’s life and improvising “Georgia on My Mind” on the piano. But, you say, Carmichael died before Bay Street was born, and, while he did write that haunting tune made famous by Ray Charles and others, his advanced degree was from Indiana University’s law school.
Okay, substitute Roger Rosenblatt, a distinguished essayist, novelist, editor, professor, and screenwriter whose resume includes Time magazine, “The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour,” The Washington Post, and The New Republic, put him in front of a piano, and you will have “Lives in the Basement, Does Nothing: A Writing Life,” a show of musical and literary improvisation that will happen at Bay Street tomorrow and Saturday evenings at 8.
To raise the ante on the literary side of things, Mr. Rosenblatt has invited two award-winning writer friends, Amy Hempel and Alice McDermott, to drop in for five to seven minutes of their own off-the-cuff reflections on their metier.
“There are so many connections between music and the written word, and that’s the subject of the show,” said Mr. Rosenblatt during a recent conversation at his Quogue residence. “I’ve seen this connection between improvising in writing and improvising in music, seen the connection between hunting for the notes and hunting for the word. Miles Davis said to Herbie Hancock, ‘In music and in life, there are no mistakes, just opportunities to improvise.’ ”
Mr. Rosenblatt will alternate between talking and playing, “and I hope people will be able to tell the difference,” he said. He takes pains to point out that he is nothing compared to real jazz pianists. “But I can get the sound of jazz, and I like jazz enormously. Improvisation is hard, but once you get into it, you see a whole new world.”
While he has played the piano since he was a child, he has never played in public, and he has never learned to read music. “I’ve played by ear all my life, and I’ve driven teachers to distraction because I can hear it before they teach it. The reason I like playing by ear, even though I can’t play as well as someone who can read music, is that I can do things they can’t do. That is, I can improvise in ways most pianists can’t because they don’t need to.”
One genesis of “Lives in the Basement” was his discovery on YouTube of “Free Speech in America,” a solo performance he gave in 1991 at the American Place Theater in New York City. “It was kind of an overeducated standup comedy talking about free speech in America and having a good time with all the manifestations of it.”
After a rave review in The New York Times, what was supposed to be a three-week engagement ran for seven months. “At the end I was going broke because I was spending more money on cab rides to the theater than I was making from the play.”
Revisiting “Free Speech” reminded him that he had liked the experience, but he realized he would require something different and new were he to take to the stage again. “In the almost 30 years since ‘Free Speech,’ I’ve really learned so much more about writing and become so much better a teacher of writing than I ever was before. I thought I had something worthwhile for an audience. Then the craziness set in—the idea of playing the piano.”
Mr. Rosenblatt explained that the conversations with Ms. Hempel (Friday) and Ms. McDermott (Saturday) would be improvised. “They have each agreed to come onstage and talk to me about whatever they feel like in writing. If they want to take off from or disagree with something I’ve said, that’s fine. They’re both amazing on their feet, so it should be fun. And if they show me up, I’ll kick them off.”
While he cited as another reason for undertaking this project the fact that he didn’t have any new writing projects on the table, he has not been idle. “Words and Tune: Playing the Writing Life,” a collection of his musings on writing, many drawn from his novels and essays, will be published in 2020 by Turtle Point Press.
In addition, a film version of his 2006 novel “Lapham Rising,” a hilarious lampoon of the Hamptons that he adapted for the screen, will go into production this summer with a cast including Frank Langella, Stockard Channing, and Bobby Cannavale.
Mr. Rosenblatt explained the source of the title of the Bay Street show. After the sudden, unexpected death of their daughter at the age of 38, he and his wife, Ginny, lived for a number of years in Maryland with their son-in-law and their grandchildren. While there he would from time to time visit the kids’ schools to talk about writing.
One afternoon his granddaughter Jessica, who was in the fourth grade, introduced him to her class: “This is my grandfather Boppo. He lives in the basement and does nothing.” Jessica is now 18 years old and will attend Saturday’s show with her father and siblings.
Tickets for the shows are $30 in advance, $40 when purchased the day of the event.