The Substance of Fire and Other Plays

by Jon Robin Baitz

"Marked by the aching articulation, scathing wit and deep convictions of a mature artist with a complete vision."--Frank Rich, The New York Times

"If Arthur Miller had married Noel Coward, their son would have been Robbie Baitz." --André Bishop, from the Preface


Jon Robin Baitz startled the theatrical world with the 1985 debut of The Film Society . A frank examination of the controlling forces behind a nearly bankrupt private school for boys in South Africa, The Film Society introduced a young playwright with an extraordinarily mature grasp of people, language and society.

Baitz's recent works have fulfilled his early promise and enhanced his reputation. In The Substance of Fire (1991), a fiercely intellectual New York publisher struggles with his children for control of his business, and with the relentless pride which has made him previous to love. In The End of the Day (1992), an expatriate British doctor adapts to America by abandoning his ideals and succumbing to the twin lures of status and crime.

Jon Robin Baitz is the author of Three Hotels , The Film Society , Other Desert Cities , The End of the Day , and The Substance of Fire , which he adapted into a major motion picture. He was the showrunner on ABC’s Brothers & Sisters . He also wrote the screenplay for the upcoming film Stonewall directed by Roland Emmerich. He lives in New York.

Genres: Plays

224 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1993

About the author

Robbie Baitz was born in Los Angeles, California, the son of Edward Baitz, an executive of the Carnation Company. Baitz was raised in Brazil and South Africa before the family returned to California, where he attended Beverly Hills High School.[1] After graduation, he worked as a bookstore clerk and assistant to two producers, and the experiences became the basis for his first play, a one-acter entitled Mizlansky/Zilinsky. He drew on his own background for his first two-act play, The Film Society, about the staff of a prep school in South Africa. Its 1987 success in L.A. led to an off-Broadway production with Nathan Lane the following year, which earned him a Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding New Play. This was followed by The End of the Day starring Roger Rees, and The Substance of Fire with Ron Rifkin and Sarah Jessica Parker.
In 1991, Baitz wrote and directed the two-character play Three Hotels, based on his parents, for a presentation of PBS's "American Playhouse", then reworked the material for the stage, earning another Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding New Play for his efforts. In 1993, he co-scripted (with Howard A. Rodman) The Frightening Frammis, which was directed by Tom Cruise and aired as an episode of the Showtime anthology series Fallen Angels. Two years later, Henry Jaglom cast him as a gay playwright who achieves success at an early age - a character inspired by Baitz himself - in the film Last Summer in the Hamptons; the following year he appeared as Michelle Pfeiffer's business associate in the screen comedy One Fine Day. In 1996, he was one of the three finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for his semi-autobiographical play A Fair Country.
Subsequent stage works include Mizlansky/Zilinsky or "Schmucks", a revised version of Mizlansky/Zilinsky directed by Baitz's then-partner Joe Mantello (1998), a new adaptation of Henrik Ibsen's Hedda Gabler (first at L.A.'s Geffen Playhouse with Annette Bening in 1999, then at Long Island's Bay Street Theater with Kate Burton in 2000, followed by a Broadway production with the same star the following year), Ten Unknowns (2001), starring Donald Sutherland and Juliana Margulies, and The Paris Letter (2005) with Ron Rifkin and John Glover. His screenplays include the adaptation of his own Substance of Fire (1996), with Tony Goldwyn and Timothy Hutton joining original cast members Rifkin and Parker, and People I Know (2003), which starred Al Pacino.
Baitz's occasional work writing for such television series as The West Wing and Alias led to his position as creator and executive producer of the ABC TV drama Brothers & Sisters, which premiered in September 2006 and ran for five seasons, ending in May 2011.
Baitz was the New School for Drama's artist in residence for the 2009-2010 school year.[2]
His play Other Desert Cities opened Off-Broadway at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater (Lincoln Center) in New York on January 13, 2011, starring Stockard Channing, Linda Lavin, Stacy Keach, Thomas Sadoski and Elizabeth Marvel. [3] The play was originally titled Love and Mercy.[4]. The production transferred to Broadway, opening at the Booth Theatre on November 3, 2011, with Judith Light replacing Lavin and Rachel Griffiths replacing Marvel.

Reviews

[Carrie White · Rating 3 out of 5]

'The Substance of Fire' absolutely rips, what an incredible play. 'The Film Society' gets a little lost in the sauce, and I found 'The End of the Day' to be a pretty flawed work, not quite up to the standard of the others. Glad to be getting back into reading plays!

[Michael Gardener · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Film Society

a painful portrait of a "CIVILIZED SOCIETY" coming to terms albeit subconsciously that the gig is up and no matter how much they try to keep things going It ain't like it once was...
I have tremendous respect for the play write who knows his subject well enough to give us specific full human beings whose white privilege has begun to finally haunt them as they face the inevitable loneliness that is fully depicted through the "protagonist" "john balton" and his co-harts who for they're own duplicitous reasons support him while tragically he falls to the temptation of lucifers apartheid... before the fall.

A Fair Country deals with this subject matter more expansively and more economically at the same time.

will read Substance of Fire next.

[Aaron · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of play deserves a lengthy response, and so I wrote a blog about it that can be found here:

http://littlejohnnyjonesripoffblog.bl...

I rated the collection overall with 4 stars, but to break it down further by play:

The Film Society = 3 stars

The Substance of Fire = 4 stars

The End of the Day = 3.5 stars

[Sasha Kaye · Rating 1 out of 5]

Man, this guy likes to hear himself talk...or write, as the case may be.

[Lauren · Rating 3 out of 5]

Liked it, but not nearly as powerful or emotional as Other Desert Cities