Watching from the outside

Some people drive around town to run errands or to shuttle kids to the next activity. Celebrated playwright and screenwriter Suzan-Lori Parks sometimes drives around simply to sort out her thoughts.

In a recent phone chat, the Pulitzer Prize winner and MacArthur Foundation "genius" fellow was by turns blithely brilliant and blasé as she motored around Venice Beach, Calif., where she lives with her husband, blues musician Paul Oscher.

Parks, 44, won the Pulitzer for her play "Topdog/Underdog." She was born in Kentucky and educated in Germany and at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts. Her works include "The America Play" (1994), "Venus" (1996) and "In the Blood" (1999), which the Guthrie Lab produced in 2001. Her plays also have been staged in the Twin Cities by Mixed Blood and Frank theaters. It was announced last week that Parks will direct the Broadway revival of August Wilson's "Fences" in the fall. She comes to the Twin Cities on Wednesday to speak as part of the Esther Freier Endowed Lecture Series in the English Department at the University of Minnesota.

Q You quit teaching three years ago. Was that to concentrate on work?

A Absolutely. Some people who are writers enjoy running things. I don't need to have control over people. Besides, working at CalArts made me available only to a handful of people. Now I'm able to reach more than five students and 30 other kids in the theater department.

Q Was that a way to influence aspiring writers the way James Baldwin influenced you in college?

A That has to be important because of my history with Baldwin. I just had him as a teacher for one semester. I didn't have much interaction with him after the class. Mentors are great, and Mr. Baldwin was very helpful to me. While it was important, it actually made me realize that students coming up who want to be writers need to write. If I had been like others in the class, and didn't keep the ball running, I wouldn't have gotten very far. So, the most important component in a person becoming a writer is their own commitment to their writing.

Q Weren't you discouraged from pursuing playwriting?

A A high school teacher once told me that because I was such a poor speller, I shouldn't study English in college. "Don't study literature because you're going to suck at it." After college, when I moved to New York, and made the rounds with my first play, a lot of people told me that what I had was not a theater piece. I'm not into doing that to people who come to me and want guidance. I always tell my students that I'm just helping. I'm just present to encourage the beautiful thing that they already have. But the bulk of the power is with the students, not with some teacher they might encounter.

Q "Topdog/Underdog" and many of your plays have this stream-of-consciousness quality that makes me think of the German language, which you speak. Everything in German depends on the verb, which almost always comes at the end.

A I write that way because I lived in Germany for so many years and was, for a while, fluent. You have to be patient in German. There's no way to know what you're doing until the end of the sentence. You can't just guess what someone is saying and start talking. But learning any language gives you an insight on your first language. I went to India a couple of years ago, and folks there speak four or five languages. That's just to get through the day in India.

Q Does that perspective, of living in a foreign place, help you to see your home in a new light?

A I was in Germany, in high school, before MTV was popular. So, they hadn't seen that many black people, in the flesh, sitting next to them. But I don't want to make my experiences unique. I like going back to Germany now; it didn't scar me. I can't think of any writer who doesn't have that outsider thing. To be an artist means that you have to be slightly outside of the flow, because you're watching. Albee and Pinter are like so many writers who have strangers in a strange land doing strange things. Sam Shepard and Caryl Churchill are all about being apart from the world and being a part of it.

Q So many black artists become spokespeople. Have you escaped the burden of representation? And do you cop to the "post-racial" label?

A I never really quite understood what post-modern was. Post-feminism means that I can wear lipstick and high heels again -- I don't have to leave my girly at home. As a black woman, you need a big handbag or backpack because you've got all these labels and stuff that you're supposed to be carrying around. Post-racial? Does that mean I can bring my black with me and still be seen as American?

Q It sounds like a discussion for our political season.

A There is such an urge ... to name everything: you, a cat, a dog, a donkey. Barack is a strong candidate who's encouraging us to think of things in new ways. I'm a playwright who's writing about things that are interesting to people. Why do you need a box for it? A box is only good for things that you want to pack up and put away.

Q You wrote the teleplay for Zora Neale Hurston's "Their Eyes Were Watching God" and contributed to the screenplay for "The Great Debaters," among others. What's the difference between writing for screen and the stage?

A As a playwright, you're in the theater every day, working with the director, the dramaturge, whomever. But in movies, you write the script, hand it off to the director/producer, and they run the next leg of the relay. You kind of run alongside with them, saying, "Don't stop for water."

Q I understand that you are adapting Toni Morrison's "Paradise" for the screen.

A Can't talk about that. I'm doing a lot of things, actually, but can't talk much about them.

Q You recently wrote "Ray Charles Live!" for the stage. How'd that go?

A I don't read reviews. The producers told me the family was having issues. Ray Charles had many children -- with his wife, then with many girlfriends and lady friends through the years. Those children were upset because they weren't depicted; the musical is not called "Ray Charles and His Children." The man lived 70-odd years. There's a wealth of biographical info to choose from. We've got two hours, plus some songs, to present his life story.

Q I heard recently about a celebrated young writer dissing a distinguished old woman who asked him a question. He told her not to buy his book.

A When I give these talks and stuff, it's very clear to me that the fine print of my job description is to extend compassion. I'm a writer, and that's all cool. But actually my job is to extend love and compassion, not to show people how smart I am. A lot of writers think that writing is to show how brilliant my insights are, how talented I am with words. My job is to spread love like spreading peanut butter on a sandwich. And for those who are allergic, there's jelly.

Rohan Preston • 612-673-4390