The Crimson: I noticed that, I also noticed that you added lines, for example when the stable boy tries to compel Miss Julie into saying the word "fucking." I don't remember that in the script, although I could be wrong.

Canosa: No, you're not wrong, but I went back to a transliteration of Strindberg that demonstrated that Strindberg really did use words like fuck and shit, because he was an excremental poet, but it wasn't well-received in the theater of the day.

The Crimson: Are there any limits to the theater of "our" day, in profanity, sex, violence?

Canosa: I don't think there should be any limits or rules; on the other hand, what will be dramatically alive on stage? I think nudity on stage is often very boring, sex on stage is often very boring, because it's not that interesting to see two faces smushed, but it is to see two faces coming towards each other, and the tension, and they can't kiss.

Watching Cinema Paradiso frustrated me so much, that part when they have all the kisses spliced in, because I realized no matter how much I do, I will never shoot an original kiss, because they've all been done, look at them, they're right there. Kissing is a whole other thing. Usually, there's a lot more interest in subtlety, something that's held back.

The Crimson: Do you find major disadvantages working in theater rather than film, or vice versa?

Canosa: When I first thought of doing theater, I felt, 'why do that when I can be so much more powerful manipulating film as a director,' whereas theater is only there for a second, but [at the same time] that's the great thing, that transitory moment, anything can happen, you can't rewind it, or freeze frame it.

That's what I love to do when I'm watching film, I can freeze frame it, watch exactly how the director frames it, how the audience sees it through his frame. Whereas in theater, there's a phrase that always crops up when I'm speaking to actors, about multiple points of focus, or multiplicity of perspective.

There's something meta-theatrical about everything I do, I love the sense of theatricality invading its own medium. I love designing to implicate the spectator, to put them into it.

The Crimson: Why didn't you go for the big moment at the end of Dream Play, the chrysanthemum?

Canosa: The chrysanthemum opening is supposed to be an orgasm at the end of Dream Play. But to me, the very first thing is she is born into the world, to me the end was like the womb closing back up, sucking her back up. Not about any chrysanthemum opening. No. [With] Dream Play, I'd say, I violated more of the integrity of the text than any other time. Because I didn't tell that story. It came from when I wanted to be a painter in theater, now I think storyteller is something I need to be as well.

I don't know if you saw New Tenant, it was like an explosion of ideas thrown at the wall, but it stayed that way. You know, like buckshot. There was no tying together.

The Crimson: Are you a director's director, as opposed to an actor or author's director? Do you always privilege the director's concept?

Canosa: I work with my actors, I tell them, inside this magic space, you can do nothing wrong, morally, ethically--maybe physically, I don't want you to hurt another actor. On the other hand, you can do something that represents the hurt of another actor.

The Crimson: But no one in your plays ever stands out individually, no one would have been recruited from your fall plays for notable performances, none of them have their own signature, it's always your signature on the play.