Rules for others to live by Comments and self-contradictions

Review by New York Times Review

IN NEW YORK, seeing a play by Richard Greenberg remains as much a native delight as sunset on the Hudson or snagging a seat at the King Cole Bar. In the last 30 years, he has written more than two dozen plays, his inimitable mix of wit, smarts and heart inviting comparisons to Noël Coward and Philip Barry. But Greenberg has never limited himself to the strictures of the drawing room. His 1988 "Eastern Standard" may have been the first Broadway comedy to address AIDS, and he went on to explore topics as unlikely and disparate as the Collyer brothers and major-league baseball. In his 2003 Tony Award-winning play, "Take Me Out," a nerdy gay business manager finds himself smitten both with baseball and with his new client, a hotshot player who has just come out. The money manager delivers a monologue, a lyrical ode to baseball - and democracy - that became almost as acclaimed as the play itself, a Pulitzer finalist. "Three Days of Rain," Greenberg's 1997 play about the mistaken assumptions children make about their parents, was also a Pulitzer finalist. When Greenberg hits, he hits high, and seeing the world through his characters' eyes is most often an unparalleled pleasure. Now he has published his first book of original essays, "Rules for Others to Live By: Comments and Self-Contradictions." Though I yearned for his tutelage, I am sorry to say he enumerates no rules at all. Instead, he has embraced his inner contrarian and essentially riffs on whatever he wants. This makes for a certain ambiguity. He begins with a page entitled "Apology to Oprah," in which he writes: "Everything in this book is true. . . . A few of the people I describe do not, in the strictest sense of the word, exist. . . . The character called 'I' is a total fabrication. This book is a work of fiction." For the uninitiated, feint and parry is part of Greenberg's psychic camouflage. I observed it firsthand in 2006 when, for a Broadway production of "Three Days of Rain," starring Julia Roberts, Bradley Cooper and Paul Rudd, I spent a week with him, reporting a profile for The New York Times Magazine . He has an almost palpable terror of the spotlight (the accompanying photos showed a man in misery), and divulging even ordinary personal details caused him distress. He was at his most comfortable, even with his numerous female friends, talking on the phone. (Joe Mantello, who directed "Take Me Out," said he and Greenberg spent hours together watching baseball. On the phone.) "He is not only a worldclass talker who gives superior phone (going unseen seems to free him)," I wrote of Greenberg then, "but also a high-fidelity listener who remembers every word someone says." I think it's fair to say that in "Rules for Others to Live By," Greenberg, for the most part, is giving superior phone. While he occasionally identifies the people he writes about, his insistence on omitting last names or creating pseudonyms is irritating in the extreme. These are mostly real people he's writing about, and as a reader, I'd like to know who they are. I do know that Patti is the actress Patricia Clarkson, his classmate at the Yale School of Drama, his former roommate and his soul mate. And Jill is the late, great actress Jill Clayburgh, who starred in a Greenberg Broadway flop, "A Naked Girl on the Appian Way," in 2005. She not only forgave him, they became and remained close friends until her death in 2010. As a playwright, Greenberg embodies his characters, so here, without them, he apparently feels the need to hide. The word I never used in my profile was "agoraphobe" because he does leave his Chelsea apartment, however reluctantly - for rehearsals, previews, even the occasional party. His new play, "The Babylon Line," which Lincoln Center Theater will produce this fall, is set in an adult education creative writing class in 1967 Levittown and features an aspiring writer who had not left her house for seven years. In "Rules for Others to Live By," Greenberg talks about his unwillingness to leave his house and his bouts of bronchitis that can actually last six months. But he also discusses the reason for these things. In his early 30s, Greenberg was very sick - and without a diagnosis - for a very long time. It turned out he had Hodgkin's lymphoma, which, as he puts it, is the good kind, not the Jackie Onassis kind, and he was cured. Physically, at least. He admits to episodes of extreme hypochondria along with real, debilitating ailments, and much of the life he observes is through his window. I felt no shortfall here, because anyone who lives in New York spends an inordinate amount of time peering through windows, like the caged animals we are, and whether it's the excuse of four snowflakes or Obama gridlock at the United Nations, we scheme to stay home. Greenberg misses nothing from his perch. Mocking the current admonition to live "in the moment," he writes: "I am always in the moment. The moment I'm in happens to have taken place 50 years ago, but I see no reason that should count against me." After decorating his place with the ideas he had then, he adds: "The look of my apartment was up-to-the-minute if you were Dean Martin. ... The problem with planning your life for a very long time is that when happiness finally comes, it's outmoded." Which is why he tempers his expectations when it comes to his city-dwelling companions. "Mediocrity, at its best," he writes, "is competent and a little shy. Aren't these the qualities we look for in a neighbor? ... Someone who, encountered in the hall or lobby, will ask after our well-being, but insincerely. In other words, a presence that is almost as welcome as an absence." GREENBERG DEVOTES A long section to "Several Dead Women of Whom I Was Fond." One was the New Yorker writer Maeve Brennan, author of "The Long-Winded Lady," whom he didn't know and who died in 1993. He is a sucker for her intricate observations of daily life in New York, and seems both tantalized and horrified when she withdraws from the world, drinking excessively and passing out overnight in the magazine's ladies' room. "As her tether loosened, the updo rose," he writes of her appearance. "Her hair had passed beehive and attained silo." Greenberg has one male friend - in the book, at least - whom he calls Jason. Greenberg allows Jason to characterize him, in the guise of why he would make a bad politician. This isn't "Jason" at all; the rant is vintage Greenberg: "First of all, there's your love of the concessive clause. No one sticks a pin in his own argument the way you do. And that's how you open. ... And you clam up in public. It's like you're physically disabled. ... Also, you have too elusive a relationship to the tangible. The world really isn't your priority. Writing about it is. You go places and do things not for the going and the doing but to bring back nouns." Trips worth taking, it seems to me. I relish the advice Greenberg once gave an 18-year-old who wanted to write plays: "Acknowledge that you're the center of the universe," he told her, "then radiate." As he does, often. Something like the sun. 'A few of the people I describe do not, in the strictest sense of the word, exist.' ALEX WITCHEL'S most recent book is "All Gone: A Memoir of My Mother's Dementia. With Refreshments."

Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [October 23, 2016]

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Review by Booklist Review

Tony Award-winning playwright Greenberg's intrinsic wit, style, and charm are apparent throughout this eclectic mix of 59 long and short essays loosely grouped under 10 topic headings that range from city life to health, relationships, obsessions, and neuroses. It will come as no surprise that this writer loves words, and his erudition prompts him to season his musings with such gems as brilliantined and Spatchcocked. Greenberg's long residency in New York City is evident in his focus, frame of reference, and sensibility, even when the city's many joys and challenges are not the subjects of his unique observations. From his sharp perspective on everyday experiences to discussing edgy, not-for-everyone topics, there is a rich variety that should more than satisfy a large following of sophisticated readers. If it were possible to revive the spirited discourse of the famed Algonquin Round Table with a contemporary crowd, this collection would surely earn Greenberg a prominent seat among his peers.--Hayman, Stacey Copyright 2016 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Library Journal Review

Greenberg (Our Mother's Brief Affair) has the self-consciously idiosyncratic attitude toward the world that one would expect from a well-known playwright who has lived in New York City for decades. From theater to memoir, he explores how one constructs an identity; the problems and benefits of gentrification in New York; changes in artistic culture and sensibilities since the 1980s; the vicissitudes of medical problems and aging; and, via a set of darkly humorous vignettes, mental illness and murderous impulses. Through all of the essays runs an engagement with the dangers of nostalgia and the importance of strongly held but considered opinions. As with Greenberg's dramatic writing, this work is full of quick thoughts and shifts in tone, and while much is seemingly inconsequential humor, it builds into a sharply constructed worldview that commands respect. The author's personality may not appeal to all readers, but those who appreciate a cantankerous outlook overlaying thoughtful reflection will find that his humor grows on them. VERDICT This volume should appeal to fans of David Sedaris and the late David Rakoff as well as theater aficionados.-Margaret Heller, Loyola Univ. Chicago Libs. © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

A Tony Awardwinning playwright turns his hand to humorous nonfiction in this generally disarming, self-mocking collection of essays on matters personal and cultural.From its cheeky title to the arresting bons mots sprinkled throughout, the book is a breezy read that cloaks some penetrating truths in occasionally flippant, mildly corrosive remarks. Some pieces are just writerly doodling with little to commend them. Greenberg, who has written two dozen plays and styles himself an urban recluse, believes that when one spends an inordinate amount of time inside, one's perceptions when out of doors are sharpened (a dubious notion). He addresses many of the more vexing questions of modern life with tongue planted firmly in cheek, and at his best, he is both wryly funny or scathing, especially regarding our propensity to mistake talking about an injustice for actually doing something about it. Greenberg sometimes gets serious, as in his observation about the rocky shoals of political correctness. The language of cultural transit, he writes, is tricky and constantly mutating and one can be embraced and then shunned for the very same gesture. Among many other subjects, he weighs in on the unexpected pleasures of achieving an aim by telling the truth, on the divide between judgment and opinion, on self-congratulatory literary criticism, on the scarcity of unretouched beauty, and on the absurdity of dismissing exceptional work solely because its practitioner may be disagreeable. Mixed in are appreciations of Greenberg's more colorful friends, among them the late actress Jill Clayburgh. Reminiscent of David Eagleman's Sum (2009), in tone if not in content, the shorter essays can be mere fragments of a page. Irresistible hooks sometimes compete with padding, and toward the end, the author gets a bit showy with his vocabulary. Despite the books shortcomings, most readers will be disappointed to reach the final page. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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***This excerpt is from an advance uncorrected copy proof*** Copyright © 2016 Richard Greenberg Introduction   The young woman--a girl, really: eighteen--was touching. She was writing plays and frustrated that they were invariably about herself. I failed her. My advice boiled down to "There, there." She was young; later she would be old. Things would sort themselves out. On the ride home from her question, I gave myself a do-over. Make a helpful answer. In the mirage of a second draft I said this: "Acknowledge that you're the center of the universe, then radiate." She wanted a specific exercise; she wanted out! Go online, I told her, and bring up the front page of the New York Times from the day you were born. Read every article. In amazement. True, we no longer believe A caused B then C happened, as playwrights who thought they were emulating Ibsen did. This should not be taken to mean that nothing causes anything. More that everything causes everything. We travel through clouds of influence. The New York Times will show you some of the influences into which you were born. Do they stun you? Does any of it seem familiar? The New York Times was already guessing what would be happening now; was it naive? Does anything explain that thing your dad is always saying? Does some fact interest you for reasons that apparently have nothing to do with you? Pursue it. In some distant manner, it's connected to you. The best thinking says "the self" is a fiction (I have a piece about that), yet it's a fiction that we all believe, our most intimate experience. Maybe it's nothing more than our tendency to repeat. Maybe we repeat because when we do, we recognize the behavior and the familiarity is com- forting. So the self is just the consolation of our tendencies. This is too deep for me. The reason I never write personal essays is that I have no idea who "I" is. Setting out to write some, I had to locate my main tendencies and, for the sake of convenience, label them. I would say I am an Urban Recluse. The phrase is problematic, luckily. My brother, who trained as an economist, once accused me, as though I transgressed, of being the kind of human integer that screwed up his quantitative analyses (at last, a virtue!). Maybe so. My life goes heavy on the interiors: still, it's crucial that their windows look out on the densest, most complex, most confounding system of social arrangements yet devised. It's what I like to watch. Then I make up stories about it. My tendency. When I call myself an Urban Recluse, I know the phrase doesn't constitute an identity, much less a self. It's the angle from which I radiate, and that's all I have to say about it.       MANIFESTO   Wisdom   I am a very wise man. How I know this is, a number of people have told me so, among them several who consider my intelligence average and my talent meh. Wisdom is another quality altogether. It might surprise you to learn of my wisdom, especially given that my life is patently disastrous. It's the old saw about doing and teaching, which, in addition to being a truism, is true. You can see it in all kinds of situations. For example, drawing from my own world, there's not a theater critic alive capable of writing a play, yet two of them are competent reviewers. When it comes to developing wisdom, failure turns out to be an advantage. I once talked to a group of playwriting students among whom, startlingly, was a woman who had written four novels that had been decent commercial and strong critical successes but who claimed she had no idea what she was doing. I didn't believe this. You simply cannot have four consecutive flukes. She was adamant. Years later, I read a book about the early days of Barbra Streisand and I understood what the novelist meant. It seems that Barbra never valued her singing because it was too easy for her. "I just open my mouth and it comes out right," she said. This is what the novelist found so perplexing: she had stories to tell and she knew how to tell them. Having read novels, she was able to write novels. She knew what she was doing ; what she didn't know was how to describe what she was doing. I don't teach playwriting very often, but when I do I'm pretty good at it because I've faltered as a playwright in so many ways. I look at the student plays and think, almost dotingly, "Ah yes: that mistake! Remember it well. Made it myself in the hardscrabble winter of eighty-six." Failure begets consciousness begets, sometimes, technique. I've messed up at living even more spectacularly than I have at writing, thus my status as a fount. If I have a limitation as a wisdom-giver, it's my too-easy assumption that others are far more capable than I am. As a result, I become testy when they don't follow the rules I set out for them, rules I would never think of applying to my own life. I'm trying to get better about this. Before I was a wise man, I believe I was a bit of a charlatan. That was during my late twenties and early thirties. People were always coming up to me and thanking me for changing their lives when I said to them such-and-such. The problem was that when they quoted such-and-such back to me, I neither remembered saying it nor had any idea if I believed it. In those days, my wisdom was what I would call cadential wisdom. The sentences I put out had the shape and rhythm of truth but were actually rather vapid. You can go far on this talent. The late Maya Angelou wrote the beautiful memoir I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. After that, she became a public figure, in which role she was a virtuosa of cadential wisdom, and the power of the curious things she said was magnified by her extraordinary speaking voice. This is why when Oprah shares something like, "Dr. Angelou once said to me, 'Oprah, it's cold out; put on a sweater,' it never quite hits us with the prophetic force with which it evidently bushwhacked Oprah. Elaine Stritch, rest in peace, was a great actress and riveting Broadway star. She was also imputed with a high degree of cadential wisdom. Show folk thought she carried all sorts of salty insight. I worked with Elaine for two weeks in the late nineties and I thought she was out of her mind. Being out of your mind is not a detriment when it comes to cadential wisdom, as long as you find adherents for your particular wisdom-giving style. This sort of thing has been going on forever. In its modern form, it can be traced back to the sixties, when traditional authority was lain siege and people were freed up to submit to whatever bogus, mumbo-jumboing authority they found sexy. It made no difference that the things these authorities preached never tallied with what was really going on, because so many people had stopped thinking. They had simply stopped thinking. Excerpted from Rules for Others to Live By: Causes and Causeries by Richard Greenberg All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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