Q&A; WITH GEORGE C. WOLFE : It’s ‘an Extraordinary Time . . . Now’

For playwright - director George C. Wolfe, theater is “a way to connect to that which you come from.” He explored the African-American experience in “Jelly’s Last Jam,” his Tony-winning musical about jazz musician Jelly Roll Morton , and , before that, in both his satirical revue “The Colored Museum” and his play “Spunk,” a dramatization of Zora Neale Hurston stories.

All three of the New York-based Wolfe shows were either developed or presented at the Mark Taper Forum, one of the Music Center’s premier showcases. This year, Wolfe was the recipient of the Music Center’s $25,000 Dorothy B. Chandler Award in Theatre. Fellow playwright Athol Fugard, in presenting Wolfe’s award, said the younger man “exemplified a courage, compassion and preparedness to face the truth unflinchingly.”

The 38-year-old artist maximizes highly stylized stagecraft, especially in “Jelly’s Last Jam,” to ensure that his tales have wide resonance. His next projects include a play called “Boz ‘N Buzzard, the Two-Headed Monster Dances the Jig in the Nightmare Revue,” which he previewed at the awards ceremony, and a screenplay about a turn-of-the-century Pygmy displayed with other primates at the Bronx Zoo. Question: “Jelly’s Last Jam” has been filling Broadway’s Virginia Theatre since last April, was nominated for 11 Tony Awards and took home three. What does its success tell you about Broadway audiences?

Answer: It lets me know that you do not have to feed audiences mindless revivals, that they have an appetite and a hunger for textures and ideas. “Jelly” is a very entertaining show, but it also goes around a lot of dark corners and the audience goes with it.

Q: Do you think people are willing to listen to something in the theater that they wouldn’t have listened to in another forum?

A: I don’t think you have to compromise edge for entertainment; in my life, they’ve gone hand in hand. . . . When you go to the theater, you can experience somebody trying to deal with his own vulnerability, and it’s affirming to see the struggle and the attempt to survive. I think that’s what good theater does.

Q: Is that what “Jelly” does?

A: So much of what “Jelly” is about is those emotional human complexities; all the crying, the dying, the bleeding, the bruising. Not to get very therapeutic about it, but I really think that (“Jelly”) is about figuring out how to embrace the emotional complexities of one’s existence. Because if you do not embrace them, they will destroy you.

Q: This theme has come up before for you, hasn’t it?

A: If there’s a recurring concept in my work, it’s that: How do you form a relationship with your past--which you must--when your past has pain as one of the defining emotional dynamics? How do you get the goodies and the strength that come from pain without being consumed by it? There’s a line in “The Colored Museum”: “I can’t live inside yesterday’s pain but I can’t live without it.”

Q: How do you explore these ideas?

A: Writing opens up something inside of me that nothing else does. Then there’s this directing side. I love talking and exchanging ideas with people and creating emotion and pictures and images. But then there’s this other side of me that likes creating rooms where other people can do what they do. Producing is fulfilling in a way that the other two are not.

Q: Do you expect to do more producing, such as the Festival of New Voices at New York’s Public Theatre that you oversaw last season and will again next month?

A: I’m learning this new vocabulary of how to nurture and support other artists, particularly other artists who I feel are helping to redefine the cultural landscape of America. I think we’re in an extraordinary time right now. Not since the ‘20s have we been as actively in pursuit of the dynamics of American culture. There’s always been this European dominant energy, and that’s not the case anymore.

Q: What about movies? Wouldn’t film provide you with a wider arena?

A: Yes. Simply put, there are a whole lot of people who I would love to see my work and who cannot afford $65 a ticket to go see “Jelly’s Last Jam.” The one thing that is truly horrifying to me about this whole experience is that only a small number of people can experience this play, not because there’s a limited number of seats but because of the cost of going to see a big Broadway show.

Q: Are you also interested in television work?

A: At different times in my career I’ve had very different courtships--mutual courtships--but as of yet there haven’t been any official “I do’s.” I like working places where they let me work. You make a giraffe and (TV people) go, “It should be an elephant. Why isn’t it an elephant?” (I say) “It’s a giraffe.” “Well, let’s make it more like an elephant.” “No, why don’t you hire somebody who makes elephants? I made a giraffe.” When people come to me and say, “You made a giraffe, we like giraffes, they’re just what we want,” then I’ll work with them.

Q: Are you referring just to writing for television?

A: It’s especially true of television, but I think it’s true in all forms. You find the people who’ll respect you and who create an environment so you can do your best.

Q: It sounds to me like what you’re trying to do now is create environments for the next generation of artists.

A: Precisely. I’m a warrior, and I’ve always been very rigid about saying, “No, I’m not doing that. No, I don’t want to do that.” I’m not hostile, but I know the right conditions under which good work happens. And there are a number of artists who may not be as good at being warriors as I am, but they’re good artists. If I can use my connections and the force of my personality to create structures for other artists, great, because other people did that for me.