Robert Locke

Who He?

Robert Locke should have known better. With Clayton Bess already clear evidence of a great defect in career stratagem—this division of identity doubling the workload—Robert Locke should have contented himself with only one writing career in only one genre.

But no. In fact Bob found it necessary to divide himself yet further, into Robert Locke The Playwright and Robert Locke The Novelist—completely different genres, folks, in completely separate markets, with completely separate who-do-you-knows and how-do-you-know-’ems—a recipe for a careening, caroming career.

And then there were the fifteen years devoted on-again-off-again to yet another genre, the musical historical tragical comical operettical opus, Howling Twain, Bob’s libretto into which Bob injected his own songs and his own lyrics. Robert Locke The LibrettistSlashComposerSlashLyricist. How does that fit into anything? Who are the who-do-you-knows here? And how do you get to the how-do-you-know-’ems?

All of these “words words words”, however, do have a common strain of authorial dna and that descends from Robert Locke The Actor, that talented kid in the high school plays, that promising young collegian tackling Hamlet, that taxi-driver Peace-Corps-volunteer Directors-Guild-typist and Hollywood-cub-Reporter scrapping for chorus roles in L.A. dinner theater. All those roles! All those assumed identities! Of course this would have to end up a split personality.

Could it be this is why both Robert Locke and Clayton Bess tend to write in the First Person? Because there is no... first... person?

In short: Robert Locke—Who He?

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