Howard Katz (play)

Ron Cook is Howard Katz

Twenty years ago, during the summer of 2001, my wife and I were left with nothing to do. We were prepared to have a child some time in May, and we were unprepared suddenly not to. My brother suggested a visit to London, which seemed like as good an idea as any.

That the two of us, my wife and I, had difficulty negotiating large cities and interpersonal relationships on this trip is documented in my play I Hate This. Put simply, we only wanted to look at beautiful things and talk about the baby and be sad. This made things challenging.

I wanted to attend theater, which I found a distraction. This is all well and good when you are attending a fancy dress party version of Macbeth at the Globe, or a revival of Noises Off. It is quite another thing to attend a new play, one which decides to slap you about the face and head during the final two minutes.

Howard Katz was Patrick Marber’s eagerly awaited follow-up to Closer. I very much enjoyed reading Closer, which premiered in 1997 and was first produced in Cleveland at Dobama Theatre in April, 2001. I would have auditioned for that, I thought I would be perfect for the role of Dan. I was at that time deeply interested in contemporary drama about transgressive relationships. But I did not audition, because you know why because.

Anyway, we went to see Howard Katz.

A cross between King Lear and the story of Job as told by David Mamet, Howard Katz, the man, is an asshole, a show biz agent who has a midlife crisis and loses everything in order to save his soul. The company featured Ron Cook in the starring role, a young Russell Tovey, and Paul Ritter, who I recently noticed in Chernobyl. The show opened in the Cottesloe at the National Theatre that weekend, where it received rather tepid reviews.

“Marber is trying to write a modern Death of a Salesman; but, unlike Miller, he never establishes a molten link between his hero's private flaws and the false dreams imposed by society. So one is left to take what pleasure one can in some sharp showbiz satire and odd zingers.” 

- Michael Billington, The Guardian 6/14/2001

London, Summer 2001

Most galling to me, to us, was Katz’s closing monologue. Having self-sabotaged his relationships, his career, and his fortune, left homeless and alone on a park bench, his epiphany, his redemption arrives as he remembers the complete and utter joy he felt at the birth of his son. I was disturbed, and Toni was inconsolable.

The train ride back to Battersea that evening was difficult. My brother wanted to chat about the show, because that’s what we do after a play. We were not in the mood to do that, and it took a moment for him to understand that. We went back to his home, where my sister-in-law was sitting up, and we all drank hot chocolate with Baileys, and yes. We talked about the baby.

It occured to me that summer just how many stories end with the birth of a child. As the ideas for a solo performance about my experiences started to come together, I asked myself how I could end my tale at the beginning.

Playhouse Square will premiere "I Hate This (a play without the baby)" in Summer 2021. Details to come.