Scalia played the monster
Why I wrote a play about the justice who loved the spotlight
Playwright explains why he wrote a play about the controversial figure.
Nobody is neutral on the subject of the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. He was a monster. An intellectual bully, a bare-knuckle conservative, a homophobe and gun-rights fanatic unable to overcome or even acknowledge his own biases.
Or Scalia was a hero, a fearless champion of the Constitution, the most influential conservative jurist of his generation, a legal mind of the first order, celebrated for his incisive humor and wit.
Americans may be divided in their judgment of this supremely controversial figure — but then, we have become a very divided and angry country. We don’t do neutral anymore. ‘THE ORIGINALIST’ That, in part, is why I wrote a play about Scalia. The Originalist premiered last March at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., a few Metro stops away from Scalia’s Supreme Court chambers. The play was extended twice and set a box-office record at Arena. People, we discovered, were intrigued by this operatic figure. Most of them had already judged the judge before they took their seats and some, no doubt, were hoping for a hanging. But that would have been cheating the audience.
I spent months researching Scalia and his theory of originalism, a strict textual interpretation of the Constitution. I talked with people who knew him and worked with him. I read his decisions and dissents, his own books and books about him (none better than Joan Biskupic’s moving and evenhanded American
Original). I listened to his speeches, live and recorded, and attended sessions of the Supreme Court, which was his theater.
And I found in myself a growing admiration for the man.
He was nothing if not prolific — nine children, approaching 40 grandchildren — and accomplished: valedictorian of his Georgetown graduating class,
magna cum laude at Harvard Law, law professor at the University of Virginia and University of Chicago, nominated to the Supreme Court by President Reagan, confirmed by the Senate 98-0.
But Nino was also the guy who sat down at the piano and banged out a few tunes for his law clerks at Christmas parties. He loved opera and even appeared on stage as an extra a few times.
He cared about his many law clerks over the years, inquired about their prospects and knew the names of their spouses, their partners, their children. One former clerk, a self-described liberal, told me, “I love Antonin Scalia. I will probably never have a better boss.” SCALIA’S ROLE A portrait emerged, along with this question: Can you like and admire the man while disagreeing with, even sometimes detesting, his views?
In the play The Originalist, Justice Scalia’s law clerk, exasperated with his disparagement of liberals, shouts out, “Ban the words liberal and conservative, strike them from the language — look where it’s gotten us!”
But the character Scalia mocks the wishful thinking that you can ban the words and the problem will go away. It will take more work than that.
These past few decades in American civic life will be remembered, I believe, as an era of debilitating polarization, characterized by the popular sport of demonizing anyone we disagree with. It is not a flattering picture of what we have done with our democracy.
Scalia played a role in that. He is hardly alone among political figures of his era.
My personal theory is that Sca- lia enjoyed playing the monster. He was a performer at heart. He loved the spotlight, or perhaps more fittingly, the ring.
There was a combativeness to him. When he disagreed with his fellow justices, Scalia could obliterate their legal opinions. Outside the court, he seldom missed a chance to bait his political opponents, and they often obliged with a kind of spitting invective. He knew how the left perceived him, and he played the part well. He probably took a stubborn pride in it. THE NO-SHOW Molly Smith, the director of the play, invited Justice Scalia to come see it at Arena Stage. He wavered for a while. His son John came and professed to like it. I suspect he reported back to his father. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Scalia’s very dear and very liberal friend, also attended, and she was kind enough to say good things.
But finally Justice Scalia declined. He told Edward Gero, the actor who portrayed him on stage and with whom he became friendly, that he was damned either way: If he praised the play, he would appear to be pandering. If he criticized it, he would seem churlish.
He was probably right. For once, Scalia avoided controversy and landed squarely in the middle.