Six Degrees of Separation Interview with Cast Members
The phrase “six degrees of separation” encapsulates the idea that we are all more closely tied to each other by mutual association than we might suppose. The man who fixed the notion in the public mind was the playwright John Guare, whose Six Degrees of Separation was a big hit when it landed at the Lincoln Center and then on Broadway in 1990. It premiered in London in 1992 - and was turned into a film starring Will Smith, Donald Sutherland and Stockard Channing a year later. It is about to come to the Old Vic with Obi Abili, Anthony Head and Lesley Manville, directed by David Grindley.
Dominic Cavendish: The play hasn’t had a big professional outing in London since the Royal Court production of 1992. For those who haven’t come across it before, can you give us a brief synopsis? The title isn’t exactly explained by the action, is it?
David Grindley: No. It centres on an upper-class art-dealer couple, Flan and Ouisa Kittredge, who are playing host to a rich South African friend, Geoff, in order to try to secure $2 million in funding to help them in an auction. Their evening is disrupted by the arrival of Paul - who they are led to believe is an African-American Harvard undergraduate who knows their children well and who says he’s the son of Sidney Poitier. He turns out to be nothing of the kind.
DC: It was inspired by the case of the audacious con-artist David Hampton [1964-2003], whose “victims” included Melanie Griffith and Calvin Klein, didn’t they? Can you fill us in on the relationship between the real-life story and the play ?
DG: Yes, there was this guy David Hampton - who became quite litigious after Six Degrees of Separation’s success. In 1983, he had entered the lives of some friends of John Guare. When they realised he was fraudulent, they said, “You’ll never believe what happened to us John.” This incident lodged in his head, and he wrote the play seven years later. David Hampton was convicted, spent time in prison, and defrauded people of significant amounts of money by claiming to be Sidney Poitier’s son.
The character of Paul, though, is much more ambivalent. What struck John most was this very American Great Gatsby narrative of someone completely transforming themselves from a street hustler into someone who gets accepted by the New York elite as absolutely credible.
Obi Abili: John Guare was clear about making that distinction. He said that this man David Hampton had created quite a lot of badness in his life. He didn’t even want his name mentioned in the room when one of the actors talked about him. Paul was inspired by David Hampton, but he’s also a product of the imagination.
DC: So Guare turned that incident into a springboard for ideas…
Anthony Head: Yes, the idea is that our characters have this nice, cocooned little life - and someone comes in and splinters that. The play looks at how that affects those involved. Some people are affronted; others see he could give so much to the world.
Lesley Manville: That’s key to Ouisa because, as the play develops, she sees him as more than just the sum of his parts - that what he came into their lives with is not the whole story.
DC: So how do we apply that to the idea of six degrees of separation? At the end of the play Ouisa says: “I read somewhere that everybody on this planet is separated by only six other people. Six degrees of separation. Between us and everybody else on this planet. The president of the United States. A gondolier in Venice.”
LM: I think it’s a play about what constitutes family. Of course, that issue was prevalent 20 years ago but it’s even more so now when it’s hard to find those 2.4 families. The play is looking at the kind of families that are not blood relations. Ouisa sees how Paul is compared to her children, and she adopts him in a way.
DG: I made contact with John about the possibility of directing it because I felt it had something to say to us now. That’s partly because the internet allows us to have so much contact with people around the world. But there are also race issues in the play. The iconography of Sidney Poitier is similar to the iconography of Barack Obama at the moment. You can compare Poitier and Obama. Poitier was brought up in the Bahamas - Obama was educated in Indonesia. I think what that did was give both of them the ability to transcend the notion of race in America, or not be a hostage to it.
DC: Have any of you been badly conned?
OA: I was conned once, yes! There was this guy with an East European accent outside my drama school. He had this laptop he wanted to sell for 200 quid. I had to rush to a dance class after I handed over the money. It was only when I opened the box that I discovered he and his friend had taken out the laptop and replaced it with bits of paper and sawdust. I was so angry - but mainly with myself.
LM: You were angry and you were in tights! I’ve felt conned by people in one-to-one situations, where the other person wouldn’t feel they were conning me. You can be emotionally conned. Lovers and partners can con you. That’s as bad. What touches our characters is that they have invested something emotionally in Paul, and then have the rug pulled from their feet. I can relate to that very strongly.
DC: It’s stylistically very snappy. It’s like a sleight-of-hand trick - the dialogue is slick and fast and often funny. There are a lot of direct addresses to the audience. Is that difficult to perform?
AH: It’s challenging. It’s a very tightly written piece. It has an extraordinary poetry to it, and you have to pay attention to the rhythms and punctuation - every full stop. David said to us at the start that this would take the most concentration we’ve ever needed in a play, and I think he’s right.
DC: You’ve gone on record, David Grindley, as saying that the best new writing is American at the moment. Is there a pulse about American writing that makes it particularly exciting?
DG: Did I say that? Gosh! Well, what I like about American writing is the vigour of it. A lot of plays set in New York reflect the city’s atmosphere and energy - Six Degrees especially. There’s a speed and precision that’s required of the actors. If it’s too reflective, it doesn’t work. And the audience has to have their wits about them to keep up. That’s the way it should be, though, isn’t it?
'Six Degrees of Separation’ opens at the Old Vic on Jan 19. Tickets: 0844 871 7628 or www.oldvictheatre.com
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