The Apple Family - Richard Nelson

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      OTHER BOOKS BY RICHARD NELSON AVAILABLE FROM TCG

       Frank’s Home

       Goodnight Children Everywhere and Other Plays

      INCLUDES:

       Franny’s Way

       New England

       Some Americans Abroad

       Two Shakespearean Actors

       Rodney’s Wife

      IN A TRANSLATION SERIES WITH RICHARD PEVEAR AND LARISSA VOLOKHONSKY:

       The Inspector

       The Cherry Orchard

       A Month in the Country

      

      The Apple Family: Scenes from Life in the Country is copyright © 2014 by Richard Nelson

      That Hopey Changey Thing, Sweet and Sad, Sorry and Regular Singing are copyright © 2014 by Richard Nelson

      Introduction is copyright © 2014 by Oskar Eustis

      The Apple Family: Scenes from Life in the Country is published by Theatre Communications Group, Inc., 520 Eighth Avenue, 24th Floor, New York, NY 10018-4156

      All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in newspaper, magazine, radio or television reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

      Professionals and amateurs are hereby warned that this material, being fully protected under the Copyright Laws of the United States of America and all other countries of the Berne and Universal Copyright Conventions, is subject to a royalty. All rights, including but not limited to, professional, amateur, recording, motion picture, recitation, lecturing, public reading, radio and television broadcasting, and the rights of translation into foreign languages are expressly reserved. Particular emphasis is placed on the question of readings and all uses of this book by educational institutions, permission for which must be secured from the author’s representative: Patrick Herold, ICM Partners, 730 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10019, 212 556-5600.

      The publication of The Apple Family: Scenes from Life in the Country, by Richard Nelson, through TCG’s Book Program, is made possible in part by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

      Special thanks to Long Wharf Theatre for its generous support of this publication.

      TCG books are exclusively distributed to the book trade by Consortium Book Sales and Distribution.

      Due to space constraints of this copyright page, credit information for excerpted material may be found at the back of the book.

      LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

      Nelson, Richard, 1950–

      The Apple family : scenes from life in the country / Richard Nelson.

      pages cm

      ISBN 978-1-55936-775-2 (ebook)

      1. Rhinebeck (N.Y.)—Drama. 2. Domestic drama. I. Title.

      PS3564.E4747A85 2014

      812’.54—dc23 2014006961

      Book design and composition by Lisa Govan

      Cover design by Mark Melnick

      Cover photograph: Arvind Garg / The Image Bank / Getty Images

      First Edition, November 2014

      CONTENTS

       An Introduction

       By Oskar Eustis

       THE APPLE FAMILY: SCENES FROM LIFE IN THE COUNTRY

       SWEET AND SAD

       A Conversation on September 11th The Tenth Anniversary of 9/11 2011

       SORRY

       Conversations on Election Day Election Day, November 6th 2012

       REGULAR SINGING

       Conversations on November 22nd The Fiftieth Anniversary of the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy 2013

       Author’s Notes

       Acknowledgments

       By Oskar Eustis

      The Apple Family: Scenes from Life in the Country began with Richard Nelson not giving me what I wanted.

      It was early in 2009. I had asked Richard out to breakfast and proposed that he write a large-scale, research-based play, set in Washington, about our war in Afghanistan. Early in my tenure at The Public Theater, in the spring of 2006, we had produced David Hare’s remarkable play Stuff Happens, about the origins of our war in Iraq. I loved everything about that play, and its production, with one exception: the only play on the subject we had was written by a Brit. A Brit we loved and admired, but nonetheless a Brit. We had no Americans writing that kind of large-scale, public-issue plays with the expertise and craft that Hare brought to Stuff Happens. And no wonder, as I said publicly at the time: for thirty years Hare had been writing large-cast, big-issue plays, and every year the National Theatre of Great Britain produced them. He could master the challenges of the epic form, and write with tremendous speed and grace, because he had been afforded a lifetime’s worth of production opportunities to hone his skills. It isn’t that American writers can’t do this work: it’s that the American theaters hadn’t given them the opportunity and demand to do so.

      After deep discussions within our artistic staff, we determined that Richard was the writer we were close to who had all the brains, knowledge and artistry to pull off such a task. Our relationship was long-term and deep; we had just had a wonderful success with Richard’s Conversations in Tusculum; we knew Richard could write both rapidly and with depth; and his long-term interest in politics and curiosity about the world made him, we reasoned, a perfect candidate for this job.

      Richard is also unfailingly polite and, as I remember, he let me talk at great length about my proposal, making occasionally encouraging replies. I did notice that there was one aspect, in particular, that seemed to excite him about the project: the idea that we would work rapidly, setting an opening date as soon as we shook hands on the commission. We parted with him agreeing to come back to me with a proposal.

      Within a week he did. His proposal

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