A lot has happened to theatre since you graduated from Harvard. As a student/actor in the '50's, were you involved in productions comparable to The Blacks, either in form or content?

Certainly not in content. If you mean avant-garde plays by "form," I produced and acted in Deathwatch here in Boston.

Did you do plays around then that dealt with race relations?

Uh-uh. Nobody'd touch it.

What was the first race play that you did?

The Blacks, which back then, you see, was a very controversial thing. I remember when the play was first to be done, there were distinct camps of black actors, some of whom said, "By no means should we do this play." They thought it was an essentially anti-black play. Others felt that it definitely wasn't.

There were prominent black actors who refused any involvement in it?

Yes. And that was only about ten years ago.

Considering how much people's perspectives have changed since you left Harvard, are the things that you as an actor want to get out of your work basically the same as they were thirteen years ago?

No. I think when you're young, you dream things. I wanted to be a star. And that's no longer really a consideration to me. I want to work, I want to do things that I think are constructive, that have immediacy to the moment, and hopefully have meaning for the people who are watching it.

Have external events in this country in the last ten years influenced the way you personally look at your acting, your objectives for being in the theatre?

No, I don't think I could say that they have. I think I always wanted to be an actor because I thought I had a "third eye" where life is concerned, something the average person has but doesn't develop. I was always fascinated by why people do things the way they do them, why they walk a certain way, talk a certain way, or have a tick. I've always tried to take any character that I've played and tried to find the beauty in him, even if it's the most arch-villian role ever written. Richard III is not an evil man because he's an evil man; something made him that way. He speaks of the mountain on his back and the withered arm. He's hideous-looking, and so he compensates for his looks by what he does with his looks by what he does with his life. I think that any actor has to understand psychological disturbances, because any role that's interesting is going to have a psychological aspect to it that you're going to have to investigate before the character comes to life. And I always tried as an actor to hold the mirror up to nature, to reflect as accurately as I could the things that I observed about life, whether they were pleasant or unpleasant.

And to personally identify as a human being with a character like Richard III?

Yes, some aspect of him.

The value that you put on understanding is naturally going to be reflected in your teaching. What are you trying to give a child when you teach him to express himself dramatically?