House, Divided
 La Tempestad
 The Ballad of John Wesley Reed
 Girl Science
 The Allure of Oriental Wisdom
 Memorial Day (formerly Varia)
 Pride of the Lion
 The Dostoyevsky Man


 Monica for Chanukah
 Angie and Arnie Sanguine
 Edward and Ellie Supine
 The Lion Eats His Lunch
 The Lion in His Lair
 The Lion Leaves His Mark
 Prayers


 But Who's Counting?
 Emma Goldman Imagines the Millenium


 Just Before the War Between the Plates
 I Can Handle That


 Talking  with Lee Blessing

...with Tom Coash
...with Mary Fengar Gail
...with Richard Kalinowsky
...with Jamie Pachino
...with David Rambo
...with Jason Sherman
...with Naomi Wallace
...with Tom Gibbons
...with Dick Goldberg

InterAct: GOD OF DESIRE has some similarities but many differences to other plays of yours. Like FAMILY BUSINESS, this is a family drama. Like your play on the blacklist era, COMRADES, this play asks questions about how one finds one's place and meaning in the world. But this play is much less conventional than either of those in its form. How did you get interested in this subject matter, and which came first, your sense of the play's form or its content?

Goldberg: Content! Actually, an incident in my life started me down the road to this play. It was many years ago, when my son was very little (he's now 28!). We were at a bar miztvah at a conservative synagogue in Center City. I was wearing a tallit (Jewish prayer shawl) and he needed to use the bathroom in the middle of the service. I was a young father focussed on attending to him and didn't think to take off my tallit when I took him into the men's room. All went well until we exited the facilities and a man saw us and berated me for wearing a tallit in the men's room. I apologized - but it bothered me. It seemed to me what I had done was loving and human- specifically, caring for my child. Why would I need to shed a religious garment to do that? Wearing one for that purpose seemed "spot on" to me. So... that was the triggering incident of the body/God connection that GOD OF DESIRE explores.

InterAct: You are interested in characters who push the envelope, particularly Jewish characters. Why? Do you think pushing the edge is a particularly Jewish characteristic?

Goldberg: If it's a Jewish thing, it's only so to the extent that it flows from the emphasis on learning and ideas that is part of Jewish tradition. But I will admit to some pro-Semitism. Like the protagonist in my play, one of the many joys in my life comes from being a part of the People of the Book.

As to the envelope-pushing, what fascinates me are new ideas- so I'm drawn toward people and creating characters who are hell-bent on finding, exploring, understanding, living and championing new ideas. Let's face it, when you compare human potential with the human condition, we are practically dealing with parallel universes- there's that much disparity between who we are and who we could be. For me, new ideas- which often at first appear extreme and unsettling- speak to the possibility of bringing those two spheres closer together.

InterAct: GOD OF DESIRE brings us into a world where an extreme version of religious educational practice takes place. Radical re-interpretations of how religious education ought to progress are not all that rare in Judaism I gather. What attracted you specifically to the Musar teachings?

Goldberg: My extreme and mercurial personality. Musar is a strict, demanding but ultimately transformative approach to Judaism- a spiritual discipline that emanates from nineteenth century Lithuania that focuses on healing the inner self. I like to think of it as the antithesis in many ways to our (pre-Bush!) laissez-faire Western culture.

Musar is clear and demanding and it has a prescriptive but ultimately very positive vision of the potential of the human soul. It made sense to me that anyone engaged in the kind of journey that my protagonist pursues- finding a flame to ignite and drive your life, putting your essence under a microscope, making relentless demands on yourself to discover your contribution, possessing a full-throttle commitment to healing the world- well, it made sense to me that such a person might explore an extreme, demanding perspective and see what he could learn from that.

InterAct: An interesting view of sex and sexuality informs "God of Desire," as audiences will see. How do you feel that we have evolved culturally around questions of sexual openness since the dawn of the so-called sexual revolution in the 60's? And given our times and the changes in our understanding of gender and sexuality, could this as easily be a young woman's quest? Edwina instead of Edward?

Goldberg: I suppose that the central character could have been a woman- but I couldn't have written that play. The fire and energy of the play are male, and I think I was able to write it because I'm a man.

As far as our degree of sexual openness is concerned, I agree with all those people who say we're as schizoid about it as ever- sexual stimuli and prudery stride hand-in-hand almost wherever you look. My theory as to why we make such a big fuss about sex- manifested among other things by the imagery the entertainment industry pumps out, the jokes we make, the attacks on sexuality from the rightwing hysterics, etc. - is that it is such an incredible and as yet not fully understood phenomenon.

We want it so much. It feels so good. Under certain circumstances, it's the means for creating people. Desire/pleasure/reproduction- what's not to like? Am I - as sex educators used to say- "sex-positive?" That's an understatement.

InterAct: One of the questions the play wrestles with is how spiritual awakening can be communicated to others. In light of events like the film release of Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ," there has been a lot of conversation in the popular press and elsewhere about the relation of secular art to spiritual awakening and spiritual revival. I wonder if you have a view of this, either as a Jew who has watched the unrolling of "The Passion" as an event, or as the playwright of GOD OF DESIRE, who I know has some hope that this play provokes some spiritual investigation of its own.

Goldberg: Let me talk about both. Because both make a connection to God through the body- what I think of as "somaticizing." "The Passion" says that Jesus was whipped and flailed and that the flesh was torn from his body so that others- those who choose to believe in him as a savior- will know God and eternal salvation.

GOD OF DESIRE says God is an alive and palpable presence within- and expressible by- our own bodies (and hearts and minds and souls and all the other grand accoutrements of our corporeal/spiritual selves) and that that phenomenon is a means to our knowing God.

I don't get into eternal salvation because as Bette Midler says, "Why bother?" I think it's enough to know God during the time we're living and playing on the planet. Oh, and just to finish off this theological discourse, by God I mean whatever you would like that to mean.

InterAct: Because of the gay marriage debate, and even, I suppose, the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church, the social meanings of sexuality are on a lot of peoples' minds. Historically, sexual morality has been legislated by religion. Do you think we continue to have rules about sexual behavior? Do you think we continue to need them? Do you think religion is the best arbiter of those rules? Do you think there is a social change afoot?

Goldberg: I think what you're asking me is what do I think is the relationship between sex and society, and what role, if any, do I think religion might play in that dynamic going forward.

First of all, I think the same-sex marriage issue is about sex. I think when some people think about the physical acts that gay people engage in, they get squeamish, horrified and judgmental. My take is that that is the root cause of homophobia and in turn much of the virulent opposition to same-sex marriage. Another example of society's extreme discomfort and quasi-demonization of sexuality is "abstinence-only" education. I'm horrified by that. That is a terrible idea. Wake up, young people are sexual. That's one of the best parts of being young (and middle-aged).

The Catholic Church molestation scandal. Doesn't that say that thousands of young men who took vows of celibacy just couldn't keep those vows so they broke them- and in ways that also broke others' lives? In other words: what you do in bed means you need to be relegated to being second class. Or you're too young to do anything in bed with anyone. Or you need to take a vow that's incredibly difficult to keep. None of which strikes as human or godly or a good foundation for laws or morals.

I don't think religion should stay out of these issues, I just think it should take my position: same-sex marriage is a wonderful idea; teenagers should be encouraged to be - responsibly- sexual; and priests should be too. Is there change afoot? A little bit. In some of these areas. But its pace is far too glacial.

InterAct: This play has been in development for a long time. The development process is a mystery to the average theatergoer, but it is an essential part of getting any play ready for stage these days. What has the process been for this play?

Goldberg: This play, as I mentioned before, has been kicking around in my head- and on the page- for a very long time. I'd like to think that it stayed with me- and I with it- because its themes are so important to me. Sex. Love. Healing the world. Being Jewish. Making a contribution. New ideas. But to tell the truth, it took me a long time to realize that was what I was writing about.

There was another incident besides the one I mentioned earlier that propelled my work on GOD OF DESIRE. Several years ago- within a space of ten days- two different people (on two coasts!) recounted for me the story of the murder of Rabbi Morris Adler in Detroit in 1966. He was killed in front of his congregation during a Sabbath service. His murderer was a deranged graduate student, who after he killed the rabbi, killed himself.

In early drafts of the play, the protagonist was certifiable, pulled a gun on the rabbi, killed himself in front of the congregation- oh, and he also went to a prostitute, rejected her, then started to castrate himself. All of those incidents were there on the road to my finding the play. Not to put too fine a point on it, the development process forced me to find the play. And it was a painful- and necessary- process.

InterAct: I know you are working on an interesting piece as your follow-up to this play, also about a pretty extreme character. Would you talk about that project?

Goldberg:: The project is in its infancy- actually, gestation would be more accurate- so I'm able to talk about it only with the broadest strokes. It does deal, like "God of Desire," with someone who most of the rest of the world regards as extreme, intense, and driven by a new idea- well, one that has been around for awhile but not often pursued. But I would say that that's really the only way to be if you're going to be the author of important change in the world- which the world clearly and sorely needs. To tell you the truth, where I am with this play is struggling not to make it a remake of GOD OF DESIRE. We'll see.

InterAct: Like many playwrights, you have worked in the worlds of television, film, and advertising. What's your favorite kind of non-theater work. What crosses over between the worlds of theater and media?

Goldberg: I'd like to go on record as saying even though I've written a lot of non-theatre material, nothing for me compares to writing for the theatre. First of all, I love the control (Should I be lying on a couch for this?). The writer has a vision; the writer explores that vision; she or he beats himself up to get it right; a dramaturg and director (present company included) tells the writer that the writer is off the mark, and then the writer does ten more drafts; and then a lot of talented people spend a lot of time and money bringing that writer's vision to life. This was not the process I went through to write radio spots for Hatfield ham.

Be that as it may, there is another kind of writing that is especially meaningful to me- heartfelt, persuasive writing- sermons, speeches, op-ed pieces, fundraising letters, brochures, video scripts- about issues and causes about which I am passionate. Does that make me a polemicist? I think it does. I especially like to fight bigotry and anti-Semitism, and fight for civil rights, reproductive rights and gay rights. And when doing this, it helps I think, not only to know how to lay out an argument but also how to get dramatic when you do.

InterAct: One of the reasons InterAct originally became interested in GOD OF DESIRE was that the play puts unusually smart and articulate kids front and center. Recognizing that this is not an autobiographical story, are there aspects of Edward and Ben that resemble or reflect you at that age? Given that so few plays these days seem to do it, is it an artistic choice or simply personal affinity that made you want to make this kind of kid the center of your story?

Goldberg: What makes you think this is not an autobiographical play? It is, I think, in the two senses that writing which is personally very meaningful to an author is autobiographical: If you conjure it, it's your experience. In other words, I may not have actually said or done the things my protagonist does, but they all did come out of my head- my imagination- so they are all part of my life in that sense.

And the other way that such writing is autobiographical is that it's a wish fulfillment. I wish I had had Edward's journey. I like what he feels, what he wants and what he gets.

And yes, at my bar mitzvah, just before I gave my speech, I overheard one of my mother's friends, Mrs. Schwartz, whisper loudly into her husband's ear, "I wonder what the little genius is going to say tonight." I wish Mrs. Schwartz were alive today. I'd give her a copy of the play and say, "Okay. So it's been 44 years in coming. So? Here. Read. Enjoy."