The play's run is open-ended. How long do you think it will run?

These actors have signed on for four months and it's just open-ended, and I'm sure the producers will gauge it as they do: Is it making money?

With "In the Company of Men" [LaBute's debut 1997 film], you seemed to really strike a chord at a time when the culture was becoming aggressively self-analytical in a frank, provocative, post-politically correct style. But I'm wondering, as an artist now, as times have changed dramatically, how much does that weigh on your creativity? How much does it change your work?

I shudder to say no, that it tends not to. Since [Sept. 11] I've been thinking of possibly doing a film of "The Shape of Things," though certainly people would look at "Possession" as a tamer, more wildly romantic movie by most people's standards and surely mine, as was "Nurse Betty" [LaBute's 2000 film based on a story by John C. Richards], by which tends to be the things that have someone else's hands on them. But the things I have been working on -- I have been working on a musical.

Now that sounds different. That sounds sort of post-9/11.

Well, it is as much from the idea that no one would expect me to do that. But the book that I'm writing for the musical is as severe as anything that I've ever written. Because I thought, you know, I've never seen a musical where people were generally pretty heinous, and they would just burst into song.

I'm working on the book now, and Elvis Costello is hopefully doing the music.

This does not sound like a feel-good project.

I don't feel like I need to get a bit softer here to sell. I've never really thought much in terms of product ...

But, obviously, artists are shaped by their time.

And I'm sure you're right, and that I will shaped by the moment. But in fact the first piece that I thought of since the piece since September and the first story was actually quite cynical, so ...

So you might not be interested in remaking "Mrs. Miniver" yourself. What do you think of these White House talks with Hollywood studio heads about creating products that can somehow help the war effort? If you were asked to help, what would you do?

I would probably suggest carpet-bombing them with "Dawson's Creek." The tide would turn so quickly the Taliban would say, OK, already. You know, just whack them with WB programs. You know, when [Dan] Rather was talking to Letterman, saying, well, basically they're just jealous of us. If they actually saw what we have, maybe they'd say, OK, maybe it's not so bad over here.

I can't imagine what I would make for the home front.

Not even a little Frank Capra in you?

Oh God, yeah, though it tends to be more Billy Wilder.

I guess there might have been a little Billy Wilder in "Nurse Betty."

There certainly was. A very little, unfortunately.

But why is it that your movies are much more optimistic when you use other writers?

It was infused with a sweetness.

Right, [a sweetness] that I think we can safely say is absolutely lacking from, say, "Your Friends and Neighbors."

Well, probably deep inside I have one of those soft gooey centers like, you know, a Tootsie Roll Pop had and I just don't know how many licks it will take to get to, nobody's bothered to lick down that far.

But will it happen? Can you infuse something with a sweetness by yourself?

Yeah, I mean, I'm sure there's a version on the floor with someone getting scalped. But if I just keep rewriting until that just drops away, then maybe so. But right now I like trying to keep that balance that keeps something gray instead of black and white.

Recent Stories