Craig Lucas: The Dying Gaul goes from stage to screen.
Writer Craig Lucas (Longtime Companion, The Light in the Piazza) makes his big-screen directorial debut with The Dying Gaul, a tale of gay sex and deceit.
HX: Like the screenwriter in The Dying Gaul, have you ever had to "straighten up" a script to get it produced?
Craig Lucas: Yes, but I should've expected it. It was my naivete and grandiosity that led me into thinking I could bend the rules.
What motivated you to be a pioneer?
Bad parenting.
Whom do you consider a gay pioneer?
Socrates, because he refused to sleep with hunky Alcibiades even when he was in his 60s and could probably have used the ego boost.
Do you share any special Pride traditions with friends?
We blare Judy Garland snarling, "I have rainbows coming out of my ass!" very loudly until the police come. Then we re-enact Stonewall — or at least we did, until local cops got wise and started showing up with beer kegs and swim trunks.
Tell us the wildest thing you've ever done.
Swum in the Harlem River at night with my clothes on. Oh, okay, I fell in.
HX, June 2005.
Death Becomes Him: Writer-director Craig Lucas gets tragic with The Dying Gaul.
By Brandon Voss
Out playwright Craig Lucas (Reckless, Prelude to a Kiss) makes his directorial debut with The Dying Gaul, an intense psychological thriller that he adapted from his off-Broadway play of the same name. Peter Sarsgaard stars as Robert, a gay screenwriter who becomes sexually involved with his bisexual Hollywood producer, Jeffrey (Campbell Scott), while befriending Jeffrey’s wife, Elaine (Patricia Clarkson), and coping with the loss of his lover to AIDS. Lucas gave us an advanced tour of this unsettling Bermuda Triangle of lust, deception, and revenge.
HX: Peter, Patricia, Campbell... Was that your dream cast?
Yes. It was the most joyous experience of my working life, by far.
How faithful is the film to your original play?
I’m of the opinion that a work of art should stand alone — apart from its creator and also its predecessors. It either works or it doesn’t. The more obvious changes would include the basic marital contract between Elaine and Jeffrey. In the play she knows that Jeff is bisexual, and their agreement permits him dalliances — he just can’t fall in love. In the movie the whole thing hits her as new information. Of course, people almost always know everything; it’s just whether or not they allow themselves to know what they know, you know?
How do you expect the audience to respond to Robert, who, while pitiable, does some very bad things?
Robert has always been a dodgy character, but in our culture we pour an automatic empathy-syrup over him so that we don’t have to deal with the reality of what suffering and emotional abuse does to people. People with AIDS and their loved ones who lived through the nightmare of Ronald Reagan and America’s complete indifference to our suffering did not necessarily become better people because of the trauma. Robert is living proof of the worst possible kinds of effects; he is emblematic of our unexpressed, largely impotent rage.
Did you have to share any personal homo expertise with the “hets” to achieve such realism in those rather explicit gay sex scenes?
No. Though I have very few boundaries, so I’m always blabbing shamelessly about things I’ve done.
You’re making your debut here as a film director. What were the biggest lessons you learned?
Movies are infinitely more collaborative than theater. So many great people on the team helped me learn because they knew I was often clueless. Taking care of other people and helping point them — point us — all in the best direction possible with the highest goals set, that is my favorite thing in life. Besides oral sex. [Laughs]
What do you hope the audience takes away from the film?
First and foremost, I hope they feel they got their money’s worth! When we watch a tragedy unfold, there is a realization of the perilousness of living, which thereby implies life’s preciousness. Edward Bond writes, “When creators do not compromise, they change reality.” I believe that. It is the artist’s job to stick to the truth, because if you don’t, you are already beginning the process of dying. And why hurry such a thing along?
HX, September 2005.