AND A WORD FROM WRITER/DIRECTOR, THE GREAT L.R. RING

1. What inspired you to write this story?

I discovered I enjoyed the stage play format. Previously I had written screenplays, and had only very modest success. The idea of writing stage plays hadn’t occurred to me. When it did, I got very excited and wrote my first very quickly. The second stage play I wrote was Wangle Dangle, and I thought, well, it might have its place between the overly silly mishap comedies being produced today (which I love), and the message-heavy theater that dominates the scene.

2. It has a 1930s screwball comedy feel to it. Was that your intention? Are you trying to bring that genre back?

It very much has the kind of frenetic energy, and drinking, of the Thin Man series. It’s no accident the center of my set is a bar. In “After the Thin Man,” my favorite of the series, the action, and the drinking, amps up hilariously. Wangle Dangle has a bit of that. I did not necessarily set out to bring back any particular genre. I’m just heavily influenced by everything from the Marx Brothers to Neil Simon. Comedy with a bit of wit, some smarts.

3.Was is it set on a boat so no one could escape?

The play is set in a waterfront home in Florida with a sailboat moored at the dock. My set includes a small sailboat cabin and yes, I was very much thinking of the cabin in “A Night at the Opera.” I really wanted to cram a lot of people into it, but didn’t quite achieve what the Marx Brothers did so brilliantly. There is a storm that intensifies with the action that contributes to an overall sense of confinement.

4. Are the characters based on actual people?

There is a lot of Greg in me, and my close friends will recognize themselves in certain characters. Izzy and Floro are recognizable caricatures, I think.

5. What else do you have coming up?

I’m writing a comedy called “Big International Ramifications.” It is a spy story set in an indeterminate time so I can contrast attitudes found in films like “Casablanca” and “The Thin Man” series, for example, with modern attitudes regarding romance and violence. Contemporary attitudes regarding pronouns and courting, or violence and conflict, simply must be made fun of. Not ridiculed. We just need to recognize some of today’s absurdities and laugh together about them.