TV's Finest Discuss Their Work

NEW YORK (AP) _ During the question-and-answer period, an audience member hailed the six men on stage as modern-day Shakespeares. Their predictable response: gracious scoffing all around.

But maybe their admirer was on to something. The Globe Theatre of Shakespeare's time has given way to the global theater of television, some of whose worthiest bards recently held forth at Manhattan's Museum of Television & Radio to swap thoughts on TV dramaturgy.

'`Television is a writer's medium,'' Steven Bochco began, ``and every single one of us has gotten where we've gotten by virtue of being writers, not producers or directors.''

As writers accounting next season for 12 weekly dramas _ and surely among the best _ this was a team of TV all-stars kicking it around.

Here were Bochco (``NYPD Blue'' and a new midseason medical series for CBS); partners Edward Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz (creators of the memorable ``thirtysomething'' returning with ABC's ``Once and Again''); Dick Wolf (``Law & Order'' and its upcoming NBC spinoff ``Special Victims Unit'' as well as the WB midseason candidate ``D.C.''); and Tom Fontana (the departing ``Homicide,'' with a midseason UPN entry in the works as well as ``Oz,'' which returns to cable's HBO in two weeks).

Plus the preternaturally prolific David E. Kelley (``The Practice,'' ``Chicago Hope,'' ``Ally McBeal'' and ABC's upcoming ``Snoops''), to whom the burning question was inevitably posed: How in blazes does he write so much good stuff so quickly?

``My acuity functions best, unfortunately, under the adrenaline of a deadline,'' he replied, deadpan-impish. ``If I have seven days to write a script, that's fine. But it won't be as good as if I only had four days.''

Asked and answered. Sort of.

This seminar was titled ``The Television Author: Shaping Character and Conscience,'' a timely topic indeed when television is not just looked at, but increasingly looked at as dangerous. Exactly what do these six fellows mean to accomplish with their dramas as they keep pushing TV into new areas of violence, explicitness and navel-gazing candor?

For Wolf, the goal is ``a thought response on the part of the viewer, rather than a cheap laugh or a horrified reaction.''

``I think my job is to get people to talk about things,'' Fontana said, explaining, ``I get confused by so many things that I ask a lot of questions in my writing.''

Despite the tough social issues with which his shows have always wrestled, Bochco insisted that story precedes message.

``I have never, ever sought to exploit a theme in anything I've ever done,'' he said. ``I have always trusted that if we construct a good story, that in the story the theme will emerge.''

But how accountable do these television auteurs hold themselves for the impact of that story, of that theme, on their viewers?

``I feel an overall sense of responsibility,'' Zwick declared. ``What I'm trying to do is fundamentally humanistic _ the issues of being a person. Sometimes it's violent, sometimes it's scary, sometimes it's loving. But it's always interconnected and complicated. And that's the only responsibility I assume.''

Anyway, Fontana chimed in, what responsibility does TV news assume? He recalled that the ``Homicide'' episode scheduled for the Friday after April's Columbine High School shootings was abruptly deemed too violent by NBC, which postponed its airing.

Fine. But that same night's ``Dateline NBC'' was spared from such ideals, complained Fontana.

``There was two minutes of news about what's going on in Colorado and 50 minutes of graphics and music and _ they might as well have had showgirls,'' he said. ``The news can get away with exploiting a tragedy, whereas (for) drama guys: 'Ohhh, you've got to be sensitive.'''

``I've always felt that the most dangerous areas of TV are television news,'' Marshall Herskovitz agreed, ``and commercials. Commercials are unindicted co-conspirators in this whole question of what entertainment does to the psyche of the country.''

Let media-violence researchers tally the thousands of murders children see on TV. ``But how many times have they seen a product that makes them feel bad about themselves and their lives and how they look and what they have?'' asked Herskovitz.

Bochco voiced his own grievance about commercial breaks: They carve up his dramas. It's a fact of life, he allowed, ``but as a purely personal matter, I hate it.''

No wonder he and the other TV Shakespeares opt to watch their creations in a screening room, intact and unadulterated.

Kelley shared his dismay at rediscovering how the other half watches: Recently he had been home visiting his parents.

``They're devoted to my shows,'' he said. ``But the phone was ringing. My father made a sandwich and then fell asleep. My mother asked me, 'Why is this person so upset?' I said, 'Mom, because the other person died while you went to the bathroom.'''

Kelley sighed. ``You realize this is how most of America watches television,'' he said.

But he needn't fret. Four centuries ago, things got pretty rowdy at the Globe Theatre, too.

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