XVR27's Improv Interviews - Don S. Davis - Don's Favorites
Whose Improv Is It Anyway? : Original On-The-Spot Satire
An Interview With Don S. Davis
Don's Favorites
ChivalRuss: Any particular type of theater you prefer over...
Don S. Davis: I love musical comedy and I love comedy, but I've performed every
kind of role.
ChivalRuss: What would be your favorite movie that you've seen and not been
in?
Don S. Davis: One of the ones that I love the best was "What Did You Do In The War, Daddy?" and it was because of the
comedic element in it. Especially the performance of Dick
Shawn. And "The Producers" with Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder. I like comedies; I'm a person with a somewhat dark view of what fate or the supreme spirit
has done to mankind and I'm very much humanistic in my view of what's good in life. So, I like movies like that. I
like movies that show the human spirit soaring.
ChivalRuss: Do you have a favorite television series?
Don S. Davis: Yes, "The
Singing Detective", which was a British series about this crazy novelist detective named Marlow who has horrible
psoriasis and was in this hospital in a ward with other patients in England, but it was a stream of consciousness type
of thing. Have you ever seen "The Singing Detective"?
ChivalRuss: No, I haven't.
Don S. Davis: You need to get a copy of it. It starred Michael Gambon.
ChivalRuss: Is it on video or DVD?
Don S. Davis: It's on video but you may not be able to get it over here. I'd
think you could because it showed on PBS over here. Y'know, at one point the doctors, for example - and this is typical
of it - at one point they're talking about his condition and the doctor and a nurse is there and he goes from talking
realistically about, y'know, his hip has got problems and his hip has got problems and [singing] the hip bone's
connected to the thigh bone and then, all of a sudden... it goes from being terribly real until this stupid music comes
in [singing] the thigh bone's connected to the, etc. And then, all the nurses and the doctors and everybody, but the
poor patient who's lying there, is dancing to the thing. And then as they finish the dance, it segue ways right back to
the doctor saying "... and now this, and we've got to do something about this, and hey let's go on over to here and
check the next patient..." and it was just done smoothly and I like that.
ChivalRuss: What about a favorite book or series of books?
Don S. Davis: Uh, that's changed as I've grown older. My favorite
science-fiction writer is Spider Robinson who writes these books about Callahan's bars. I like that in
science fiction. At different periods of my life I've been a Hemingway nut or an Ayn Rand nut. I like Anne Rice's vampire stories very much; I've read all of them. I read a lot of mysteries, especially Rex Stout's books about Nero Wolfe and things, but I read an awful lot. I'm a voracious reader. I read
every kind of book. I love biographies, especially about people in the arts or in architecture. I guess biographies
are probably my favorite, other than books about art and architecture, because I like books that explore creativity,
that explore the creative mind. So I've read, y'know, biographies on Kubrick
and about every other great director that you can name and some non-great directors; I just like stuff like that. I
like to know what makes someone who lives past his time tick.
ChivalRuss: Do you have a favorite type of music?
Don S. Davis: Yeah - jazz. Mellow jazz, barroom jazz. Y'know, like
Thelonius.
ChivalRuss: So not much big band?
Don S. Davis: No, not really.
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