[music]

Matt Katz: This is All Of It. I'm Matt Katz, filling in today for Alison Stewart. Welcome back to the show. Think of the characters you encounter at your local laundromat. A new off-Broadway play from Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright John Patrick Shanley begins in a laundromat run by a guy named Owen, played by David Zayas. Soon, a woman named Fran walks in, played by Cecily Strong, and the two get to talking about life, laundry, and their respective problems. They also have some chemistry, and eventually, Owen asks Fran out for dinner.

The play is called Brooklyn Laundry and it follows Fran and Owen through the start of a budding relationship. We also follow Fran deeper into her own family history and her struggles in helping out her two sisters who are facing their own troubles. Brooklyn Laundry just opened this week. It's running at New York City Center through April 14th. With me now, is playwright John Patrick Shanley and actor Cecily Strong, and David Zayas. John, Cecily, David, thank you so much for coming on All Of It, nice to see you all.

John Patrick Shanley: Thank you.

Cecily Strong: Hi.

Matt Katz: The play doesn't only take place in this Brooklyn Laundromat, it's where a lot of Fran and Owen's dialogue takes place, and obviously, the laundry is in the title. I want to start with John. I want to know if the laundromat was a setting you chose incidentally, could it have been a coffee shop, say, or was it very intentional?

John Patrick Shanley: I'm deeply attached to drop-off laundromats in New York City and always have been or have been since I was 31 years old. That's when I first discovered that somebody was willing to do my laundry other than me and fold it up. I have done it ever since. I have a washer and dryer in my apartment, which I keep unplugged because I don't want to get dependent on it. I prefer to go out and see the people at the drop-off laundry.

Matt Katz: Is it the other customers that you're interested in seeing? Is it the people who work there? What is the pull?

John Patrick Shanley: It's an almost mythological situation where I walk in with a bag and put it on a scale, and a woman behind the counter basically judges my life based on the weight of what's in that bag. I've found it to be an ongoing provocation year after year and a source of strange joy to me.

Matt Katz: Wow. It becomes a very intriguing setting for this show. Cecily, can you describe where your respective characters are emotionally when we meet them at the drop-off laundromat?

Cecily Strong: Sure. Fran, she's in a rut. She's not in a great mood. She's having the worst day of her life. It's the way I've been told to play it a couple of times. It's a rested development in a bit where she just hasn't quite figured out where her place is in life. She's the baby in her family and she's been taken care of, and it hasn't led her to much she doesn't feel. That's where she starts off the show.

Matt Katz: That becomes apparent pretty quickly to Owen, played by David. David, there's an obvious repartee between Owen and Fran. I'm curious how you create that mildly flirty banter. I'm sure much of it is in the actual writing of John Patrick Shanley, but in watching the show last night, I noticed so much in the way David, how you moved your hands and Cecily, and the expressions on your face. Do you mind talking about how you create that repartee night after night that feels so genuine and authentic like you're watching real people doing in front of you?

John Patrick Shanley: Well, I think you're right, a lot of it is in the writing, and then a lot of it is what I get off of Cecily when we're on stage. I think this guy, Owen is a very hopeful person, but I think he's also a very broken person. I think that he's constantly in search for a connection that can just lighten up whatever's going on in his life.

I think in that first scene, there's an immediate attraction there. It's a moment where he's trying to be impressive. He's trying to calm the situation. I think there's something about people being attracted to a broken attitude that they may have or circumstances in their life.

Matt Katz: David, in watching these two performers, are they bringing to life the characters that you had in your head when you were initially writing this play?

John Patrick Shanley: I'm sorry. My name is John.

Matt Katz: I'm sorry, my apologies. Thank you for noticing my error there.

John Patrick Shanley: Cecily brings crankiness to a high outfit, and David is from the next neighborhood over from me in the Bronx. He brings a groundedness, a genuineness, and a visceral understanding of my point of view about things on a very basic level. I have to confess that I am cracked up by people who are really difficult and really just not having it. Whatever kind of charm thing you're throwing at them, they can deflect and continue to see it as a source of umbrage.

I had great fun writing it, but then when I handed it over to these two, they really understood what I was doing. They were able to take something that could be an exploration of people who were not particularly happy and turn it into something that actually causes joy in the people who are watching it.

Matt Katz: Oh, I can affirm that it caused joy in this person who was watching it, so, you succeeded there. Cecily, what drew you? You see the script, you want to do this project, was there something specific in the story that intrigued you? Are you also a drop-off laundromat fan? What brought you to it?

Cecily Strong: Sure, I love having my laundry done. I could start there. I'm obviously a big fan of John Patrick Shanley, so that was a super exciting prospect to get to do world premiere. Just reading through the show, I thought it was funny and devastating and surprising and so lovely. I think the women, in particular, are written so well and there's just so much, it seems like this is going to be a lot of fun to figure this out and to get to do. It was a very quick and easy yes for me.

Matt Katz: I want to avoid spoilers, but I'm so curious about this. Let's call it a psychedelic experience. David, was that-- Cecily just brought up fun. Was that just very fun to try to challenge yourself in that way to pursue that?

David Zayas: Yes, it was. I think that underlying exactly what's going on in that scene, that extra added bonus of being in the psychedelics is something that brought it in a different-- I didn't expect it to go that way when I was reading it the first time. As we worked on it, as we explored it, I realized, "Oh, this brings it to another level. Yes, I had a lot of fun with it.

Matt Katz: Cecily, I imagine you had fun with that as well.

Cecily Strong: I have fun with it every single night. I think it's a funny scene, but it's a magical scene, it's lovely. It's so sincere in a way that once you're on a drug, you can't help, but be sincere and authentic, which I guess the kids would say is cringe these days to just be so open and vulnerable. It's such a treat to get to start a scene like that.

Matt Katz: John, why did you decide to go that route? It seemed very-- there's a moment. Yes, why do you include it that way?

John Patrick Shanley: My experience of interpersonal relationships is that, a lot of conversations quickly turn into a prison. You find yourself saying all the things that you've always said before and answer to various questions and vice versa. You can see that there's some other whole conversation that the other person would like to have than the one they're actually having, and you too. In this scene, yes, they take psychedelics and they have that other conversation, the one that I think a lot of us want to have and don't know how to access or how to begin.

Matt Katz: That's really interesting. John, and there was a way for you to access, I guess, grief and coping with feelings of loneliness. Just to give a little background here for our listeners, Owen is a hustling business owner. He's recovering from being hit by a car. He's struggling with some physical insecurities. Fran is trying to help out her sisters while also coping with her own feelings of loneliness. That other conversation, John, that you were trying to provoke, and was it a way of getting those in the audience to explore big themes like grief?

John Patrick Shanley: I think the one thing that happens with people is they ghettoize certain feelings. It's like that's inappropriate to talk about in this situation. Maybe they have a lot of grief or joy going on in their life. Let's say you're talking to somebody who's just lost a loved one and you're having one of the great romantic experiences of your life at the same time. You feel like you can't even talk about it because it would violate the spirit of grief that they're inhabiting.

The play says, "No, there is no real walls between these things." Grief spills into joy. Joy spills into nostalgia. All of these things are really parts of the same thing, which is this experience of life. Why not have the whole thing? Why not feel free to laugh and cry and everything in between all the time?

Matt Katz: David and Cecily, have you learned anything, given what John just said, about the experience of life, about your own interpersonal relationships, about the way human beings tick by doing this performance?

David Zayas: Well, you know--

Cecily Strong: I'm--

David Zayas: Sorry, go ahead. I'm sorry.

Cecily Strong: No, no, no, please go.

David Zayas: I was going to say that what I discovered and what I find so interesting that eventually, when you're having these conversations, whether it's on stage or whether it's in real life, ultimately, when it gets to that point, you hope, and it doesn't always happen that way, but you hope that truth comes out. The truth of what you're feeling, the truth of what you want to say and that's something that's always pleasantly surprising to me, particularly, when I'm speaking with somebody about very personal things.

Matt Katz: Cecily?

Cecily Strong: I think it's a good reminder all the time and performing it, that it's like the minute, being someone who's being on stage and doing a show that is both very funny and can be very devastating, that laughter is such a relief and people can hold things in until that moment they laugh, which then frees them up to cry. I remember at my cousin's funeral, I spoke and I tried to make a couple of jokes. I don't know if they were very good, but his friend came up to me after and I was able to hold it together through this very sad funeral because it was just sad.

Then it was like, but the minute he laughed is when he could start, then he just started bawling. I find that in shows too. If we get them to laugh too, then it's like people are-- I like hearing who's going to laugh in this moment, who needs to laugh right now, who needs to cry? It's like people need to feel things differently and to release it differently. I love having a show that allows that.

Matt Katz: Yes, the laughter can access emotions that aren't-- they can access deep emotions that aren't necessarily connected to the laughter. They can just break that wall down. John, how did you build so many twists into what's a relatively tight, straightforward story? This is not a long play. How do you find that in the writing where you're surprising the audience? I felt like the audience was just constantly surprised in little and big ways.

John Patrick Shanley: Maybe I'm surprised all day long by the fact that I'm alive and other people are too, and that anything is possible once you bump up against another human being. These things, for writers, I think we're all fascinated by plot because plot is the most difficult, mysterious thing that a writer circles. Plot is really something happening in front of you. Not you hearing about it, but something happens in front of you.

It hits you at the moment that it happens. When I write, like when I wrote this play, there were moments in it where I found out what was going to happen when it happened, not before. As a result, the audience doesn't see it coming because I didn't.

Matt Katz: You're listening to All of It. My name is Matt Katz, I'm filling in for Alison Stewart today. We're speaking with playwright John Patrick Shanley and actors Cecily Strong and David Zayas about their new play, Brooklyn Laundry. Cecily, in the play, we've been talking about emotions here and Fran and Owen, but especially Fran, has a real emotional journey. Without giving away the resolution here, what exactly is Fran grappling with about herself and the world as she moves through this performance?

Cecily Strong: It's hard to say without giving anything away. I will say it's such a journey to go on. I'm incredibly lucky to get to work with these actors that I'm working with because I can really-- it feels like what I imagine great tennis must feel like. I told John once, it feels a bit like a car crash on the way to a funeral, which is a real thing that happened. That's a part of life too.

David Zayas: Yes, it feels like the tennis part is that just because everything you're giving over--

Matt Katz: In that analogy, I'm letting myself be a great tennis player, which I've never been, I've never played. I think I played tennis once as a kid, and not for real. What I imagine it must feel like, where you have one partner who you're just like, "This person is, it's fun." It's fun to get to hit the ball back and forth with these guys and not know what they're going to send back. I love the writing so much. I love the shape of the play. I love-- please pardon my dog.

Matt Katz: Oh, wow. Your dog heard that there was a tennis ball involved.

Cecily Strong: Yes. She's like, ''You can't play tennis, you liar.'' Sorry, now I've lost what I was saying. It's a great-- the shape of the journey that I get to go on. I love that restaurant scene, that we get this magic scene in the middle of the show. I don't ever feel overwhelmed in a bad way. I think the ending is so lovely. It's like, I know what's coming. I go through it, but I know what I get to get to.

Matt Katz: David, do you have a sports analogy here, or do you feel the same way that it felt like you were returning serve from Cecily there?

David Zayas: Yes, I felt the same way. The thing about it is that every night, every night, there's a new experience by listening to what she's saying and listening to how she's delivering it. It just brings something new. It's not even something new, it's something deeper each time. Yes, I love the analogy of tennis. I'm not a very good tennis player but--

Matt Katz: John, have you seen the performance? Have you been there for, I know we just opened here, but I'm curious if you've been there.

John Patrick Shanley: Oh, yes. I directed the play. I've been walking alongside them through every step of this process. The one thing that you wouldn't know from just our interview here today is that Cecily plays one of three sisters, and she's the main character, but she is in very intense scenes with each of her two sisters, in addition to the scenes with David. She's always walking into a new situation, a new person to deal with.

The shape of the play is that it starts and ends in this laundromat. It has this circular shape that, Cecily with a laundry bag over her shoulder and David behind the counter and then putting the laundry on the scale and how different things can be from the first time you see that to the second time you see that.

Matt Katz: I'm glad you brought up the sisters. They really help us to understand Fran and understanding that relationship. Cecily, tell us how Fran is different from her sisters, Trish and Susie.

Cecily Strong: Oh, sure. I think she is the youngest, Trish is the oldest. I think of her as Karen from The Wonder Years, where she's just such a pretty, she's like the wild child. She was so much older enough of Fran where it's like she was a teenager first, probably her first teenager, like teenage girl, who you think is like, you're the queen of every-- that's the most beautiful, cool teenage person I've ever seen. Really everything Trish says to her, she takes in the most. Then Susie is the middle sister and she's definitely the boss and she's the most practical even though she's the middle. She thinks that-- even Andrea one night we were out, and Andrea who plays Susie the middle sister, said-- and Susie's the oldest. We all went "You think you're the oldest? You're not the oldest. Trish's the oldest."

Even Andrea thinks of herself that way. It's really funny the two actor, Florencia and Andrea, and myself, we all hit, it's bringing out these parts of our personalities too. I really love in the show. It's very special to me that it's like at some point, I make sure both of them are touching my head at one point. That must have been a comfort as a kid, to have them above me and taking care of me.

Matt Katz: Oh, wow. John before we close here, your play Doubt is also out right now, currently being revived on Broadway, won the Pulitzer and a Tony back in 2004. I actually also saw it this week. I was so moved and I'll be speaking with Liev Schreiber, and Amy Ryan on Monday about it. Before I let you go, John, just tell us why now felt like the right time for a Doubt revival?

John Patrick Shanley: Well, we did Doubt the first time in New York and in America, it was during a period of relative complacency in the country which is gone now. Everyone, they're in the middle of an earthquake right now. It's like trying to play tennis in the middle of an earthquake to just steal a metaphor. The audience that came back then, I had a very different reaction, I think, because they were not fiddled with doubt when they walked in the door.

Now the audience that comes in, I think almost takes some comfort in the play because they're like, "Yes, this is how I feel right from the get-go. I'm not sure what the hell I think or what the hell about anything right now, and I certainly don't know what the most effective way forward is." It's been thrilling to bring it back and to have that experience be so different with the same story being told, but being told in a different time.

Matt Katz: Looking forward to getting into it on Monday with the actors. I've been speaking with playwright John Patrick Shanley, actor Cecily Strong, David Zayas. Their new show, Brooklyn Laundry is running at New York City Center through April 14th. It's been very fun chatting with you guys. Thanks for coming on all of it.

David Zayas: Thanks for having us.

Cecily Strong: Thank you so much.

Matt Katz: All right.

[00:22:57]