11 - ‘She’s a Genius, and I Don’t Use That Word Casually’:Elaine May’s Collaborative Relationship with Woody Allen

Summary

Abstract

From influence to actress and collaborator, this chapter seeks to analyze the evident and powerful influence that Elaine May has had on the work of Woody Allen as collaborative muse, and considers the ways in which we can read May as ‘author’ within her two Allen screen appearances. Beyond the screen, her influence flows into Allen's stage work too. Allen wrote the single-act play Honeymoon Motel, performed alongside May's George is Dead and Ethan Coen's Taking Cure, as part of the three-act play Relatively Speaking (2011) directed by John Turturro. Allen and May previously collaborated, with David Mamet, to write the three-act play, Death Defying Acts in 1995.

Keywords: collaboration, comedy, theatre

Woody Allen's work often deals with intimate portraits of women. Maureen Dowd has pointed out that, ‘as a writer, Woody Allen creates rare female roles, and, as a director, he draws rare performances from his actresses and makes them look original and enticing’ (1986). Interviewing Carrie Fisher for her role in Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), Dowd reports, ‘Around someone like Woody Allen – and there are not many people like him – you want to be at your best’ (1986).

Overlooked, however, is the impact of Elaine May on the work of Woody Allen both on-screen and on-stage. Elaine May is a singular creative force who augments the work of anyone with whom she collaborates, but for the films in which she has acted for Allen, her authorship has a tendency to stand out from the filmmaker himself. May has acted twice with Allen, first in Small Time Crooks (2000), about which Richard Schickel observed that the comedy here is ‘mostly supplied by Elaine May's radical innocence’ (2003: 59), and again in Crisis in Six Scenes (2016). Sharing a manager in Jack Rollins, Allen was well aware of May's early comedy work, describing the inimitable ‘Nichols and May’ duo as ‘a brilliant comedy team, very perceptive and gifted’ (quoted in Kelley 1976: 18).