Darrell Larson

DARRELL LARSON Director. Storyteller. Began his experiments in theater in Los Angeles in 1968. Starred in films with Deborah Winger, Jessica Lange, Gene Hackman. Involved in the Met Theater Company with Ed Harris, Holly Hunter and Amy Madigan. Moved here in 1996. Co-founded the Apartment 929 Theater Company.

Do you feel the theater world is open to experiments? It's in a bind, which is reflected in the whole culture, in that everything has become a commodity. Nobody's focused on creating art-they're focused on selling something.

Describe genius in storytelling. The root of the word genius has to do with fire, a flame that is inherent in something. So the real geniuses, like Melville, are able to take us right up to that flame. Also, a flame is something that is in constant movement, so the genius is able to accept that ambiguity and not try to nail down one facet of anything as being the truth. [W]hen you make a commodity, you erase all the ambiguities so that people are comfortable. But they aren't challenged and, in fact, are more asleep. Most of the art that we see is about giving us pleasant dreams.

From beginning to end, how do you sculpt a play? It is focusing the actor on the character's intention on the deepest level. And making sure they keep coming from that, and they don't go to something they're more comfortable with. Sometimes it takes a while of watching and listening to plumb that.

What do you look for in a script? An organic flow of ideas. The situation being believable. A credibility in what people are doing and saying.

What do you find most compelling about theater? The people we are telling the story to are in the room with us; there is a direct energy exchange. In theater you can really go back to the source? We are carrying a torch, the flame of which can be followed all the way back in time to the first fire in a cave where people gathered to tell stories to one another. We're all still doing that same thing. We are telling the stories of what we felt when the lava was falling from the sky, and the Earth was still cooling. Those myths are direct reports from the people who had those experiences because they want us to understand. And so we keep telling these stories over and over because it helps us to understand what human beings are. Or what we want human beings to be.

Darrell Larson is directing three of the eight plays in Motel Blues. Featured playwrights include Sam Shepard, Lee Blessing and Adam Rapp. Greenwich St. Theater. 547 Greenwich St. (betw. Charlton & Vandam Sts.), 212-946-1042, Weds.-Sat., 8pm, Sun. 4pm. $15. Through Sun., April 11.