INTERVIEW: In new play, horror icon Lin Shaye transports audiences to the 1960s
Photo: Lin Shaye wrote and performs in Tripping on Life. Photo courtesy of Amanda Rebholz / Provided by JT Public Relations with permission.
Lin Shaye is a household name for genre fans. As a movie star, she has appeared in a great number of horror films, including A Nightmare on Elm Street, Critters and the Insidious franchise. She’s also well-known for many comedic turns, perhaps most notably in There’s Something About Mary. For her latest project, Shaye is getting personal and transporting audiences back to 1968, a time in her life filled with joy, risk and eventual sadness.
Shaye’s one-woman show, Tripping on Life, is entering its final week of performances off-Broadway at Theatre Row, located in Midtown Manhattan along 42nd Street. In the 75-minute work, Shaye recounts her life in the 1960s, detailing her run-ins with sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll. Her husband at the time, Marshall, is a key character, along with her parents, her brother and some suspicious police officers. What audiences learn during the monologue is how influential this decade was in Shaye’s life and how the memories of her relationship to Marshall still linger.
“This really has been something I’ll never forget,” Shaye said about Tripping on Life. “It’s just been wonderful. The audiences seem to really love the show, and that’s the whole point of doing it. So I’m thrilled with everything we’re doing.”
Five or six years ago, Shaye sat down and wrote 10 pages of what would become this one-woman show. Her original intention was to film a short movie about 1968 and her relationship with Marshall. In fact, today’s script still has remnants of that short movie. On stage at Theatre Row, Shaye moves between scenes as if she were a director, saying “Cut to” and “Close up on.” Tripping on Life is that rare treat — a live dramatic work, informed by a cinematic sensibility.
“Then I thought, trying to raise money for a short movie, forget about it,” she said with a laugh. “But I kept the work, and every once in a while, I kind of pulled it out and showed it to somebody. And Robert Galinsky, who is my director, I met him through my manager. Robert is a wonderful jack of many trades, who is a writer and a performer and a performance artist and poet. He does just about everything, and I had seen his show, which I thought was wonderful. He’s great, and I met him briefly. This was a couple years ago.”
Eventually Shaye shared those 10 pages with Galinsky, and almost immediately the director said, ‘Let’s do it.” Shaye has a particular desire to work with colleagues she calls “Yes” people. They started working together on Zoom in late 2022, and Tripping on Life started to materialize.
“The 10 pages turned into 36 pages, and the story took its own shape, which I’m very proud of,” she said. “I never really manipulated much with this project. I really wrote from that space that your hand is writing stuff down, and you don’t really censor it or redo it or rethink it. It’s beautiful. I’m very proud of it. I’m proud of the writing. I’m having a wonderful time performing it. The audiences seem to really enjoy it. It’s got fractured timelines that kind of move around, and I act out the different characters — my mother; my father; my brother; Marshall, who was my husband at the time. And everything fell into this magical place. We did it in L.A. for these five performances, and my big brother, Bob Shaye, who has been a very important part of my life for many years, he actually started New Line Cinema in 1968 and has had a very successful career as a producer in film and television as well, and he said, ‘Let’s do it.’ So everybody fell into place, and here we are. … It’s very exciting. I’m really enjoying this more than almost anything I’ve done in many, many years. I’m glad the audiences love it, too.”
When Shaye thinks back to the 1960s, two words come to mind: freedom and risk. She said that at this time in her life, everyone around her was trying something different. Tripping on Life, for example, dives into her drug use and how being stoned changed her perspective. “It was very pure, very mild, kind of gave you courage and made you feel good about yourself and about the people around you, and that usually spawns creativity,” she said. “So I think it was a very fertile time to try new things, and the ethic was about loving each other. We all know that’s still an ethic. And people still had fights then. Things didn’t work out the way you wanted it to or whatever, but the general feeling of the time was, let’s all do this together. Let’s see if we can make the world better. Don’t forget, we were coming out of Vietnam. We were coming out of terrible, terrible trauma in the world, and it was the perfect breeding ground for joy and for new kinds of commitment and to surprise yourself a little bit. It was a very special time.”
Shaye said that the 1960s stressed community and hope. In fact, Tripping on Life uses the word “hope” a lot in its storytelling. As she performs on stage at Theatre Row, Shaye looks into the audience with a feeling and desire that things will get better. But outside the safe confines of the theater, the world is saying otherwise, and Shaye knows that.
“I don’t know where we’re at right now,” Shaye admitted. “It’s all very confusing. I think we’re a mess, really. I say that loosely and lovingly. I mean, I think the sense of community doesn’t exist anymore. People are very self-involved. COVID had a lot to do with changing people’s lives and the way they felt about themselves and their life I think. People were isolated those three years. It changed my life and not for the better. I think there’s a lot more fear again, a lot more, ‘Don’t come near me.’ That feeling of, you don’t want to get close to people, still exists for me. I back up when people come toward me, and I go, pardon the expression, that’s shitty. That’s not the way you’re supposed to behave, but nevertheless it’s taken its toll. So I really do think that period of time I don’t know if it’ll ever come around again. Who knows what’s going to happen to our world. There are a lot of big questions out there right now still, and there always is. But that period of time [in the 1960s] I think had an element of hope that I would love to regain again.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Tripping on Life, written by and starring Lin Shaye, continues through Sunday, Oct. 8 at Theatre Row on 42nd Street in Midtown Manhattan. Click here for more information and tickets.
