The Right Regrets

Arthur Miller said that "maybe all we can hope to do is end up with the right regrets." That's a profound reflection on the choices we all make. Last week, while away in Portugal, a friend let me know that acclaimed South African playwright Athol Fugard had died at 92. I was lucky enough to spend a couple of months hanging out with the man when he debuted his play Shadow of a Hummingbird at the Long Wharf in New Haven.

My sons Aidan and Dermot McMillan shared the stage with him in the debut of this drama.

Through many days of rehearsals and performances, Fugard proved himself to be kind, attentive, fascinating, brilliant and funny. He loved the boys and was a a doting teacher and model. I'm saddened to see he's gone, but he lived a long, fruitful and meaningful life. Some of his most meaningful regrets informed his playwriting.

It also made me recall that I had an earlier opportunity to spend a few hours with a giant of American playwriting, Arthur Miller. My company was working on a fundraising film for the Mark Twain House, and Miller was going to make a pitch for the preservation of author's homes. We set up the interview to take place on a deck outside of his tiny writers cottage, behind his rambling, gorgeous home in Roxbury CT. We had to wait an hour for Miller to show up, so we poked around. I walked inside his writer's lair, which was wide open, and spied a sheet of paper in his typewriter, with half a page of dialogue. Art in the making. When he arrived, he was generous, funny and completely down to earth. It was one of the few times I found myself tongue tied in the presence of celebrity.