Author: Jane

This is the last performance in Feb. It’s gone by so fast. So guess who saw the show this afternoon and came back to see me? Arthur Laurents!!! He is 90. You’d never believe it. I was surprised that he came because he is in previews for his revival of “West Side Story.” In case you’re too young, Arthur wrote “West Side Story” (and “Gypsy” and the play of his I was in, “Invitation to a March.”) He’s on his pees and Qs, for sure, pointing out to me that in the play’s program, my bio calls his play “Invitation to a Waltz.” Major Oooops. But he made it funny: “Clearly you really are obsessed with Beethoven.” (In the play I am obsessed with Diabelli’s waltz and why Beethoven wrote 33 variations on it.) Also backstage came Jay Craven, a filmmaker from Vermont, who became my friend back in the early 70s antiwar movement. The cast was going to party in Chinatown tomorrow after the 3pm show but, at Moises’s suggestion, we postponed. He doesn’t want us tired for next week (critics come). Plus, it’s supposed to be wicked, cold and sleeting weather tomorrow. Novelists I know have told me over the years how their characters often “get away from them” and write themselves—tell the writer what they want to do and who they are becoming. I thought of this last night and today. I know what my character, Katherine, is supposed to be like, how she is meant to behave. But there are times when I feel like she has taken over and is coming across as someone slightly different and there’s not a thing I seem to be able to do about it. Last night, for instance, she was soooo cool and stiff. The other day she became way more emotional. Moises was there yesterday and said it seemed fine but it is weird and disconcerting. There is a scene in the second act that I have never felt great about. Last night Moises told me that I was acting it just as he wanted me to and that now all that needs to happen is for me to own its rightness.  So that’s what I am working on now. My best, longest-known friend is here tonight: Paula Weinstein. I’ve known her for decades. Her mother was a famous film producer, Hannah Weinstein, who gave me my first funding in 1970 when I was opening the GI Office in DC to get help and congressional attention for soldiers’ complaints and problems. Later Hannah called in the favor, asking me to help her fresh-out-of-Columbia daughter, Paula, get a job in Hollywood. Paula became my agent, got me the role in “Julia” (Lillian Hellman was Paula’s godmother), then became a studio executive (took charge of my film “Nine to Five” at Fox), and then a film producer. She was a producer (at my request) on “Monster-in-Law” and fought to not quit till we got it right. We have a long, loving history together. I hope I don’t fall down or skip a scene. Stage Manager just called 15 minutes (till curtain goes up) so… See you next time.