Interview: Chris Ward on THE INDEPENDENTS

Writer/director/producer Christopher Ward is charting new territory. After winning an Emmy Award, three New York Film Festival awards and five Cable ACE nominations, the independent filmmaker and network television producer will present his first play, The Independents, at Stamford's Curtain Call Theatre.

Ward was inspired to write the play after seeing the exhibit of both artists' work at the National Gallery last year. He's loved art since childhood, when his mother would take him to art museums. He hung art posters in his room during college, and his girlfriend (now his wife) was impressed with that. Ward's film and television work ranges from documentaries such as Outwitting Hitler and Gail Devers: On Track to celebrity interviews and promotional material. He also teaches filmmaking at Quinnipiac University and New York Institute of Technology in Manhattan.

The title of the play refers to the way the French painter Edgar Degas and American painter Mary Cassatt saw themselves as artists. Degas loathed the term impressionist. "I do not paint impressions; I paint what is real, what I observe," he explains in the play.

Although there is some speculation that Degas and Cassatt were lovers, Ward's play makes no reference to that. And while their friendship lasted some 40 years, there is no collection of letters to reveal their feelings about each other. Instead, Ward focuses on the professional relationship they had. Also, while some people believe that Degas was Cassatt's teacher, he wasn't. She was an established painter in both her native Philadelphia and in Paris before they met. She went to Paris on her own, something few women did at the time. She developed her own paints to get the texture she wanted. Degas was an abrasive, egotistical artist. "He had a superiority complex," says Ward. "I think he actually enjoyed insulting people, but she could hold her own against him."

Degas helped Cassatt switch from the academic style of painting that was somewhat standard in Paris, to use the impressionist style of brush strokes, color and light. Still, they rejected the term impressionist because they thought it implied haste and carelessness. They labored over their work.

Ward thought he would write a straightforward play about the two of them, but he realized the complexity of their relationship. As he continued to write the play, he put more humor into it. "There's a lot of good banter in it," he says. In the play, they sit side by side and paint. As they talk about their work, projections show the paintings. Degas added his own interpretation to one of Cassatt's most famous paintings, Little Girl in a Blue Armchair (1878, oil on canvas). A recent cleaning and infrared images of the painting confirmed Degas' brushstrokes and similar angles from his 1878-1879 painting, Rehearsal in the Studio.

The one set, two-act play had a reading at the Town Players of New Canaan and will have a staged reading with a couple of scenes off-book on Monday, November 16 at Curtain Call in Stamford. There are plans to have projections of these artists' other works as the show progresses. Audience members don't need to know anything about art to enjoy the show. Judging from the script, it will be an enriching and enlightening experience for everyone who attends it.

The Independents will be read by Linda Moran and Will Jeffries and will be moderated by Curtain Call's executive director, Lou Ursone. Curtain Call is located at 1349 Newfield Avenue in Stamford. Admission is free. Call 203-461-6358. Visit www.christopherwardfilm.com and www.curtaincallinc.com.

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