The Great American Play is ...

Thornton Wilder's 1942 The Skin Of Our Teeth. I just revisited the extraordinary 1983 televised production at San Diego's Old Globe Theatre, in which one of Portland's finest actors, Diana Bellamy, has a role, and it's striking how contemporary, how utterly in the present tense, this epic story is. And how thoroughly American in its thematic irrational optimism. I love this play. It's right up there with the Brecht/Weill opera Mahagonny for dramatic work before which I stand in complete awe.

In a smaller arena, I worked on the opening sequence of my film, introducing the narrator and setting up the brother, and have a rough cut I can use, about two minutes.