In 1987, I wrote my only theatrical play. It was called Three Men and a Dick. The story was a one-act comedy about three twentysomething roommates forced to share a penis due to an unspecified disease that destroyed male genitalia. The play was intended as an allegory about fears of intimacy and sexuality. The first roommate Dirk was an athletic Lothario with a drinking problem. Kyle was a shy nerd who’d never been kissed. Colin was a handsome actor with a sexual-identity crisis.
The penis was kept carefully wrapped in aluminum foil in the refrigerator crisper. Every Sunday night the men gathered over pizza and beer to schedule usage for the coming week. Each was allowed to use the penis two nights a week. The user had to be home by midnight in case the other roommates needed to urinate. During sex, condoms were mandatory. Masturbation was permitted as long as velvet gloves were used.
The key incident in the play happens halfway through. Dirk, the womanizer, comes home drunk on a Saturday night and confesses he’s lost the penis. His roommates are apoplectic. They attempt to retrace Dirk’s steps but all he remembers is having sex with a mystery woman in an alley behind a bar. Desperate, the roommates drive through the dark streets of “Dicktown” near Western and Fountain looking to purchase a contraband penis. They end up buying a ravaged penis of unknown provenance with strange red bumps near the tip. The play concludes with the three men in a hospital lobby waiting to hear if they’ve contracted an STD.
I don’t remember what inspired the story but this was the height of the AIDS crisis and it was on my mind. I was living with two guys in a rented home in Hancock Park, finished the play in three days and left copies for my roommates to read. Lee, an actor who was my closest friend, loved it. He understood the satirical tone and thought it was hilarious. Dan, a bartender and college friend, hated it. He viewed the piece as one long infantile dick joke.
The play was a writing experiment I never intended to put on stage. But Lee showed it to his acting coach who gave it to several of his students. I received a call from an actor named Bernie who’d been in a few studio films. He wanted to direct and star in the play at a non-equity theater in Hollywood. We met at the Pikme-Up Cafe on 6th Street and Bernie shared his take on the project.
“You’ve tapped into modern paranoia about dating. Nobody wants to have sex anymore. We’re all afraid of AIDS, gonorrhea and chlamydia. It happened to me, man. I met this chick I really dug but she had this sore on her lip. We’re getting ready to kiss and all I can think about is herpes and how if I get it I’m fucked. People say true love lasts forever. Wrong. Only Herpes lasts forever. Hey, that’s a good line. Let’s put it in the play.”
Bernie was hyper and fidgety, quick to blurt out suggestions no matter how absurd. I was quiet and cautious, hesitant to voice my ideas for fear of looking stupid. Bernie wasn’t that bright but he had passion and passion always trumps intelligence. He also had industry contacts. His Rolodex of friends included Robert Downey, Jr. and Mickey Rourke. He wanted me to sign over the rights to the play so he could bring it to life. I asked for a few days to think it over.
I called my father, a film producer, for advice. He told me three things. “Don’t invest your own money. Unless you live in New York and your name is Neil Simon or David Mamet, plays are a losing proposition. Don’t let someone else get creative control. If they screw it up, it’s your reputation that’s damaged. Most important, never relinquish ownership on your writing unless you’re getting paid a lot of money.”
“So what am I supposed to do?”
“Produce it yourself,” my dad advised.
“I don’t know the first thing about producing a play.”
“Then talk to someone who does.”
My roommate Lee had a friend who worked as stage manager at the Hudson Theater in Hollywood. I drove to the playhouse on Santa Monica Boulevard and met Daniel, a bespectacled man with gray hair and pork-chop sideburns. We sat in the first row of the 100-seat venue and Daniel awakened me to the realities of theater production.
“You’ll need $10,000 to open the show. Your biggest costs are theater rental, insurance and promotion. You’ll need to pay the stage manager, the lighting technician, the production designer and a security guard. Even though it’s non-equity theater, you still have to pay the actors. Each week of production will cost you about $3000. Most nights you’ll be lucky to have twenty paying audience members. At $10 a ticket, that’s $200 a night. Five shows a week will make you $1000.”
“But you said it’ll cost $3000 per week.”
“Welcome to the world of theater.”
I called Bernie and told him I wouldn’t sign over the rights but was willing to produce and he could direct.
“That’s awesome,” he said.
“We have a problem though.”
“What?”
“Money. We need a patron.”
“I’ll make some calls,” Bernie said. “In the meantime you and I should get together for a scene by scene break down.”
We met at Bernie’s apartment in the Park La Brea towers. I entered to find him watching a VHS copy of Red River starring Montgomery Clift. When he saw me, he paused the movie and rose from the couch. “Dude,” he said with a bright smile. He punched me in the upper arm then gave me an awkward sideways hug.
“Alright man, let’s rewrite this bitch,” he said.
“Rewrite?”
“Yeah, didn’t I tell you? I met a guy who’ll back our play if we turn it into a musical. He loves musicals.”
“You want three guys singing about a dick?”
“Or not,” he said. “I like to throw everything out there and see what sticks. That’s how you get the best ideas.”
“But the play’s already finished,” I said.
“In theater the play is never finished.”
Bernie was a font of bad ideas. He wanted to change the play title to “The Pecker.” I vetoed that. He said we should make the character names Dick, Roger and Willy. I squashed that. He wanted to write a scene where we explained the machinations of how the men attached the penis to their groins. I felt this was unnecessary and only slowed the narrative. Our biggest disagreement involved the penis itself. Bernie wanted it to be a crucial prop.
“Every time we show it,” Bernie said, “the audience should see more of it until it’s in full view on the edge of stage. Maybe we can make a penis puppet that talks to the characters. Or we can rig a pulley system that makes the penis fly over the audience.”
I told Bernie the play wasn’t about the penis but about how men viewed their penises. “We don’t need to see it,” I said. “We need to see the actor’s reactions to it. We can put a light inside the foil so every time the character looks inside his face lights up.” (Quentin Tarantino utilized this effect with the briefcase in Pulp Fiction.)
My dad’s advice was prescient. If I wasn’t involved with the project, Bernie would tear it apart. His instinct was to go big and broad while I preferred a more subtle approach. The scenes should be played straight, like drama. Bernie preferred farce.
Bernie’s one good idea involved a neighbor who comes over and searches the refrigerator for something to eat. Eyeing the aluminum foil, he assumes the contents are some kind of sausage or knockwurst. He puts the item in the microwave and turns it on high. Colin saves the day by shutting off the microwave before the penis is cooked.
I told Bernie I wanted dominion over the script while he focused on the actors. This is where his skill set shined. To me, communicating with actors was like having a conversation with your cat.
We parted with specific assignments. Bernie would spread word about the play to his actor friends and place an ad in Backstage Magazine. He’d also look into renting the Park La Brea Theater to hold auditions. My job was to create a budget. I’d copy sample budgets I obtained from Daniel at the Hudson Theater.
A few days later, Bernie called. His friend Patrick Swayze told him about a wealthy guy who lived in the Hollywood Hills near the Magic Castle. The man made a killing in real estate and was a big supporter of the arts. “Patrick said he’s eccentric but loves live theater.”
I picked up Bernie in my convertible Renault and we drove to the Outpost Estates in the hills. The neighborhood was pure old Hollywood bordered by Mulholland Drive to the north and the Hollywood Bowl to the east. We drove up a steep curvy street called Castilian Drive and parked outside a large Spanish villa with palm trees. The security gate was open and we walked through a lush courtyard filled with tropical plants and trees. An enormous man wearing a red and yellow striped jacket greeted us at the front door.
“I’m Sterling. Which one of you is Bernard?”
“That’s me,” Bernie said. Sterling stepped forward and gave him a huge hug.
“And you must be…”
“…I’m Loren.”
He pulled me forward and squeezed the breath out of me. He was about 6' 2" and 300 pounds and smelled like ripe French cheese. He led us into a step down living room with shiny wood floors, vaulted ceilings and large windows overlooking Hollywood. Fresh flowers were everywhere and the double-sided fireplace was lit even though it was 100 degrees outside. He gestured for us to sit on a brown leather sofa then poured mimosas in Champagne flutes.
“To the theater,” he said. We clicked glasses and drank.
“Bernard, when we spoke on the phone I must say I was intrigued. My two great loves in life are theater and male genitalia.”
He smiled and gestured to the fireplace mantel that displayed several ivory phalluses. I immediately put down the champagne glass fearing it might be dosed.
“I have a large collection of priapic art from around the world. Do you know they’re called bobbies in Scotland? And pizzles in Australia? And my favorite is tallywhacker from Britain. Do you have a favorite, Bernard?”
“I call mine a purple-headed yogurt slinger,” Bernie said.
Sterling laughed. “Wonderful,” he said. “How about you Loren?”
I froze, my mind a complete blank. Bernie pressed his knee into my leg.
“Uh, how about dingus?”
“Not very romantic,” Sterling said.
“My dad calls his a shmekl,” I added.
“How revolting,” he said shifting his gaze away from me to Bernie. I sunk deeper into the couch aware I’d failed Sterling’s parlor game. The thought of him involved with the play was depressing. Fortunately, Bernie kept his composure.
“It’s an honor to meet you sir,” Bernie said. “I hear you’re passionate about the Los Angeles theater scene.”
“This town needs all the culture it can get.”
“We brought the script and the budget for you to look over,” Bernie said.
“That’s not necessary. I have one simple request. If you can oblige me, I’ll be happy to finance your project.”
“What is it,” Bernie asked.
Sterling thrust a finger in the air then yelled out, “Venus.”
A slender teenager with pasty white skin and black painted fingernails entered from the adjoining room. He wore torn jeans and a tank top and his cheeks were spotted with acne. He took a seat beside Sterling on the couch. They kissed each other on the lips then turned towards us.
“This is my protege, Venus. I’m molding him to become a movie star. It would be wonderful if you could find a role for him in your play.”
The kid looked around 15. I felt my stomach clench with nausea.
“He’s perfect for Colin,” Bernie said. “That’s one of the lead roles. Don’t you think so, Loren?” Bernie hit me again with his knee cuing me to show enthusiasm.
“Have you acted before,” I asked.
“We read lines together all the time,” Sterling said. “Just last night we recited from Genet’s Un chant d’amour.”
“How old are you, Venus,” I asked.
“He’s 18,” Sterling said keeping his eyes locked on me. He didn’t like the question.
“I guess we could give him an audition,” I said.
“No auditions,” Sterling said. “He gets the role, you get the financing.”
The atmosphere was becoming tense. Bernie tried to lighten the mood.
“What I think Loren is trying to say is that we need to audition Venus so we can see what role fits him the best. He’ll definitely get one of the three leads. We just need to know which one.”
“As long as we understand each other,” Sterling said.
“We do,” Bernie said.
Sterling rose from the couch and walked toward the front door. We followed. Soon we were back on the road.
“Dude,” Bernie said. “What the hell were you doing in there? You were pissing him off.”
“There’s no way we’re casting that kid,” I said.
“That’s the way it works, man. We rub his balls, he rubs ours.”
“Can you use a different metaphor, please?”
“Look, I’m directing. I know how to work with ingénues.”
“Ingénues refer to young women.”
“You gotta chill out, man. Don’t you want to get your play made?”
“I don’t want to ruin it.”
“It can’t hurt to give the kid a shot. Who knows, maybe he can act.”
He couldn’t. Two days later, Bernie auditioned Venus at his Park La Brea apartment. I watched from the adjoining kitchen, silent. Venus was stiff and awkward and couldn’t remember his lines. Bernie gave him a crash course in acting, but the kid was so awful he began to cry. Bernie tried to soothe him.
“Hey, hey it’s okay,” Bernie said. “Don’t want you to be an actor?”
“No,” Venus whimpered.
“Then why are you here?”
“Sterling made me.”
“Listen, acting is hard enough. If you don’t love it, you don’t stand a chance.”
“I know,” Venus said.
“What do you want to do,” Bernie asked.
“I want to go to college and become a veterinarian. I love animals.”
“Then you should do it,” Bernie said. “Don’t let anyone get in the way of your dreams.”
Venus wrapped his arms around Bernie and sobbed. Bernie patted him on the back like a mom burping a baby.
“Let me get you some water,” Bernie said. He entered the kitchen and said, “Fuck me with a eucalyptus stick.”
The project stalled after that. Bernie was cast in a Jodie Foster film and left town for three months. He urged me to continue searching for funding but I didn’t have his social skill set or connections. I briefly considered backing the play myself but remembered my father’s advice. “Don’t invest your own money.”
The play languished. Bernie returned to town but was then cast in another movie. His career was taking off. I was hired by a Korean/American comedian named Johnny Yune to write a martial arts comedy about a Korean man adopted into a Jewish family. Yune wanted it to be a Blake Edwards-style film farce with plenty of fart and dick jokes.
“Have you ever written a dick joke before,” Yune asked me.
“I think I can handle it,” I said. I gave up on the play after that.