By Katharine Gilbert
The Irish Edition is celebrating the collaboration of two of our outstanding writers Sabina Clarke and Thom Nickels who have recently presented the play Rendezvous in Bangkok…Who Killed Thomas Merton? At the Commodore John Barry Arts & Culture Center Sept. 26th
The Irish Edition has published writers’ collaborations over the years — most recently John Rodden and John Rossi’s riveting Cruzada three-part article.
However the Clarke-Nickels collaboration producing the play Rendezvous In Bangkok…Who Killed Thomas Merton? is certainly a first.
We have a few questions:
1. When and how did you decide to collaborate?
Sabina Clarke: I actually mentioned the idea of a play about Thomas Merton to the actor and playwright Jason Miller in 1991, when I was promoting the play he starred in Inherit the Wind in a City Hall courtroom. I remember Jason said, “Forget the structure-just write the words.” A few years later in conversation with Thom Nickels at the Free Library, I discovered that we shared a mutual interest in Merton — but it wasn’t until recently when our paths crossed again that the idea resurfaced — as if by a twist of fate. Merton had been on my mind for a while over the years. I had begun questioning the circumstances of his death in the mid 1980’s wondering if his pull to Eastern mysticism and the Dalai Lama — an alliance the Catholic Church was not ready to embrace at that time made him a target. Then in the mid 1990’s it seemed plausible to consider that Merton’s anti-war stance and writing against the Vietnam War and the dangers of nuclear war was also problematic for both Church and State. His first article for the Catholic Worker “The Root of War is Fear” created quite a stir. When he was warned by his superiors to stop writing against the Vietnam War and the dangers of nuclear war — he began circulating his Cold War Letters — mimeographed by a friend surreptitiously. Recently, there has been a fresh investigation into his death that suggests he may have been murdered. There is reason to believe he was.
Thom Nickels: I met Sabina at a Central Free Library press event years ago and we got talking. I had just published something about Merton in the Philadelphia Free Press or Huff Post that caught her eye. We discovered that we both knew a great deal about Merton and his works. During that first meeting Sabina suggested that we do a play about Merton. Her suggestion at first struck me as empty cocktail hour chatter, but every time we’d meet or talk on the phone, the idea of a play (about Merton) would come up. “We have to do this play,” etc. Years passed. In 2021, the chatter ended and the collaboration began. We had script sessions in Sabina’s Wayne apartment over hoagies, tuna fish sandwiches and coffee. We acted out scenes and experimented like mad chemists in a basement lab.
2. Was Thomas Merton your first choice?
Sabina Clarke: Merton was the only choice. He was the reason for the collaboration. His life is such a vast canvas — so focus is needed. His contradictions make him a fascinating subject. He was no plaster-cast saint. He was very human with many faults. He was also the greatest contemplative of the 20th century.
Thom Nickels: He was our only choice. I included Merton as a character in my surreal science fantasy novellas, Walking Water & After All This, published by Banned Books in 1989. The book was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award in 1990 and I knew that honor was due in part to the Thomas Merton character in Walking Water.
Years ago, I wrote a play about the young Abraham Lincoln but ran into difficulties when the non-writer producer invited 10 other “playwrights” to contribute lines of dialogue — the play literally became a free-for-all, or a play written by committee. Awful! My one other attempt at collaborating on a play also failed because there were odd jealousy and competition issues. With Sabina, there are no such pitfalls—so far.
3. What is different about play writing as opposed to your other works?
Sabina Clarke: Playwriting can be lots of fun if you like dialogue and creating characters. Of course, I don’t mean to minimize the amount of work that goes into it. Also it is so important to have the best actors to convey the message — the success of your play is so dependent on this. The actor Steve Gulick who is in the role of the Franciscan Provincial who rejects the young Merton from the Franciscans is outstanding. He was an actor in my 2016 production at the Irish Center “Philadelphia Artists and Actors remember 1916 in Art & Words.”
The entire cast came together so well. I am most grateful to Peggy Mecham, the Artistic Director at Irish Heritage Theater without whose help this production would not have been possible. We would never have been able to summon 16 actors of this caliber had it not been for Peggy and Irish Heritage Theater actress Kirsten Quinn who so skillfully played the role of Joan Baez.
Thom Nickels: Playwriting is more of an abstract canvas where the writer’s personal voice is diffused and almost invisible. Writing a play takes you completely out of yourself, especially when you come from a literary tradition, as I do, of writing largely autographical works. Seeing real people on stage saying the words you wrote and then acting out scenes you sketched at your desk has a hot immediatecy that writing a novel lacks.
4. Are there certain challenges to keeping a balance of voice / tone in a play?
Sabina Clarke: It is very important to be of like mind and like sensibilities with your co-writer. In our collaboration we are very much on the same page regarding our sensibilities — also there is a bit of humor in the play which is always good. I feel we get the message across — perhaps several messages — with a light touch. The goal in theater is foremost to entertain.
Thom Nickels: A good way to keep the balance is to keep reading aloud what you’ve written — and rewritten. This allows you to get the full import of the words. You hear them as the audience will hear them. As a playwright, one must be attentive to the audience. Novelists like to say that they write for themselves (“damn the reader”), but a play must always consider the audience. Playwriting is a selfless art. There’s also a fine line between an endless rant and artful soliloquy. I can’t tell you how many critically acclaimed plays I’ve seen on prominent Philadelphia stages that beg for radical surgery from a dramaturge. Political plays with a “message” seem to be the worst offenders. Collaborations don’t always work but when they do there’s this sense that the writers involved act as each other’s editor and dramaturge — and that’s wonderful.
5. How did you feel seeing the audience enthusiastic reception to your work?
Sabina Clarke: I was surprised and very grateful particularly since this was our first attempt at collaboration and because I rather ambitiously set the date too early for actors to remember all their words — so it became a staged reading with lighting effects and stage design very artfully done by Katharine Gilbert, the Stage Director. The audience responded with great enthusiasm and the cast had a great time. We are going back to the drawing board in January to perhaps add a scene or two and hopefully have another production in April — if all goes well and the stars are aligned!
Thom Nickels: This was the major worry: how would the audience react? While I didn’t expect anyone to throw potato salad, what I feared most was that look of boredom or ennui that suggests, “Okay, you’ve gone on too long, you’re over reworking this, enough already!” In our collaboration, Sabina and I worked hard to curtail this sort of thing. The moment I realized that Rendezvous was really working — that the dialog was really sailing — was a few minutes into the first rehearsal. At the premier, I hung out with the actors because I played a Belgian bishop in the opening scene. This gave me an opportunity to study the audience’s reaction, and it was good…very good. The audience was a kind of dream audience that any playwright would want on opening night.