Wallace Shawn

Wallace Shawn (born November 12, 1943), sometimes credited as Wally Shawn, is an American actor and playwright. Regularly seen on film and television, where he is usually cast in comic roles, he has pursued a parallel career as a playwright whose work is often dark, politically charged and controversial.

Biography

Wallace Shawn was born in New York City, where he continues to reside as of 2007. He is the son of William Shawn, longtime editor of The New Yorker, and journalist Cecille Lyon Shawn; his brother Allen is a composer.

Shawn attended The Putney School, a private liberal arts high school in Putney, Vermont, and graduated with a B.A. in history from Harvard University. He studied economics and philosophy at Oxford, originally intending to become a diplomat; he also traveled to India as an English teacher. Since 1979, he has primarily made a living as an actor.

Shawn's longtime companion as of 2007 is writer Deborah Eisenberg.

Acting

His involvement with theater began in 1970 when he met Andre Gregory, who has since directed several of his plays. As a stage actor, he has appeared mostly in his own plays and other projects with Gregory.

Shawn made his film debut in 1979, playing Diane Keaton's ex-husband in Woody Allen's Manhattan. His best-known film roles include: the evil Vizzini in fairy tale comedy The Princess Bride (1987); debate teacher Mr. Hall in Clueless (1995); and a version of himself in the semi-autobiographical dialogue My Dinner with Andre, a collaboration with Andre Gregory. His rare non-comic film roles include two other collaborations: Gregory, directed by Louis Malle, and a combined production and backstage drama of Uncle Vanya titled Vanya on 42nd Street.

Shawn is a widely used character actor on television, where he has appeared in many genres and series. He has had recurring roles as the Ferengi Grand Nagus Zek on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, a comic ex-reporter on Murphy Brown, the Huxtables' neighbor on The Cosby Show, a psychiatrist on Crossing Jordan, and Marilu Henner's love interest on Taxi. He is also a voice actor for animated films and animated TV series, including Toy Story and Toy Story 2 (as Rex the Green Dinosaur), and two episodes of Family Guy (as Stewie's half-brother Bertram). Most recently, he voiced the character of Munk in "Happily N'Ever After".

In a DVD extra for The Princess Bride, Shawn claimed that he lacks a sense of humor and played Vizzini in a way that seemed appropriate to him without actually "getting" the jokes.

Playwright

Shawn's early plays, such as Marie and Bruce (1978), portrayed emotional and sexual conflicts in an absurdist style, with language that was both lyrical and violent. In the conversations with Andre Gregory that became My Dinner with Andre, Shawn later referred to these plays as depicting "my interior life as a raging beast". Critical response was extremely polarized: some critics hailed Shawn as a major writer, while John Simon called Marie and Bruce "garbage" and described Shawn as "one of the worst and unsightliest actors in this city". His play A Thought in Three Parts caused a minor uproar in London in 1977, when the production was investigated by a vice squad and attacked in Parliament due to allegedly pornographic content.

His later plays became more overtly political, drawing parallels between the psychology of his characters and the behavior of governments and social classes. Among the best-known of these are Aunt Dan and Lemon (1985) and The Designated Mourner (1997). Shawn's political work has invited controversy, as he often presents the audience with several contradictory points of view: in Aunt Dan and Lemon, which Shawn described as a cautionary tale against fascism, the character Lemon explained her neo-Nazi beliefs with such conviction that some critics called the play effectively pro-fascist. The monologue The Fever, originally created by Shawn to be performed for small audiences in apartments, was dismissed by some critics as "liberal guilt"; it describes a person who becomes sick while struggling to find a morally consistent way to live when faced with injustice, and harshly criticizes the record of the U.S. in supporting repressive anti-communist regimes.

Three of Shawn's plays have been adapted into films: The Designated Mourner (basically a film of David Hare's stage production), Marie and Bruce, and The Fever. As of 2005, the latter two had been screened only in festivals.

Shawn has also written political commentary for The Nation, and in 2004 he published the one-issue-only progressive political magazine Final Edition, which features interviews with and articles by Jonathan Schell, Noam Chomsky, Mark Strand, and Deborah Eisenberg.

Shawn is credited as translator of The Threepenny Opera, which opened at Studio 54 in Manhattan on March 25, 2006. He appears briefly in voiceover during Song about the Futility of Human Endeavor.

Plays

• The Hotel Play (1970)
• Our Late Night (1975)
• A Thought in Three Parts (1976)
• Marie and Bruce (1978)
• Aunt Dan and Lemon (1985)
• The Fever (1990)
• The Designated Mourner (1997; film directed by David Hare, 1998)
• The Threepenny Opera (2006; new translation)

Selected film and television roles

• All That Jazz (dir. Bob Fosse, 1979) - Assistant insurance man
• Manhattan (dir. Woody Allen, 1979) - Jeremiah
• Atlantic City (dir. Louis Malle, 1980) - Walter
• My Dinner with Andre (dir. Louis Malle 1981) - co-written with Andre Gregory
• Crackers (dir. Louis Malle, 1984)
• The Cosby Show (TV series; guest appearance 1984) - Jeffrey Engels
• The Bostonians (dir. James Ivory, 1984)
• The Hotel New Hampshire (1984) - Freud
• The Princess Bride (1987; dir. Rob Reiner) - Vizzini
• Radio Days (dir. Woody Allen, 1987) - Masked Avenger (radio-show character)
• Prick Up Your Ears (dir. Stephen Frears, 1987) - John Lahr
• The Moderns (dir. Alan Rudolph, 1988)
• Scenes from the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills (dir. Paul Bartel, 1989)
• Mom and Dad Save The World (1992) - Sibor
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (TV series, recurring role 1993-1999) - Grand Nagus Zek
• Vanya on 42nd Street (dir. Louis Malle, 1994) - Uncle Vanya
• Meteor Man (1993) - Mr.Little
• A Goofy Movie (1995) - voice of Principal Mazur
• Toy Story (1995), Toy Story 2 (1999), and Toy Story 3 (2010) - voice of Rex
• Clueless (movie & TV series, 1996-97) - Mr. Hall
• National Lampoon's Vegas Vacation (dir. Stephen Kessler, 1997) - Marty
• The Curse of the Jade Scorpion (dir. Woody Allen, 2001) - George Bond
• Crossing Jordan (TV series, recurring role 2002- ) - Dr. Howard Stiles
• The Incredibles (2004) - voice of Gilbert Huph, Bob Parr's boss
• Melinda and Melinda (dir. Woody Allen, 2004) - Sy
• Family Guy (Tv series; two appearances) - voice of Bertram, Stewie's half-brother
• Chicken Little (2005) - voice of Principal Fetchit
• Happily N'Ever After (2007) - voice of Munk

References

• King, W.D. (1997). Writing Wrongs: The Work of Wallace Shawn. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. ISBN 1-56639-517-8
• Wallace Shawn article at Memory Alpha, a Star Trek wiki.
• Wallace Shawn at the Voice Chasers Database
• Graphesthesia.com: Wallace Shawn (fan site)

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