♪ announcer: from our studios in new york city, this is "charlie rose." charlie: welcome to the program. it is the end of summer and as we prepare for the next season , we bring you some of the they were conversations on "charlie rose." tonight, and evening at the playwright,the director, and actors. and then a look at the musicals with the star and writer. >> the contemporary audience is less used to rhetoric and the

idea of speaking verse. i think it is important to honor the tradition of speaking verse and poetry and giving audience poetry that has music to it. it is important not to alienate the audience but to find a way that it is also contemporary communication. >> the play talks about how there is a voice inside of your head. that voice is you. but you have all of these other voices colliding in on it. the voices of your parents, your husband, the people in your community, telling you what you should be doing. she has to stop hearing those voices of other people and hear, if i am left to myself, what do i want for myself? >> the first 12 or 15 minutes, you meet evan. you get an idea of who this kid is and how in need of some sort

of savior he is. you really understand why he falls into this life. ♪ "arlie: blame shakespeare's hamlet" is one of the best-known plays in history. the new production is directed by sam gold. they first conceived of the project when they were students at juilliard. the production will run until september 3. i'm pleased to have oscar isaac and sam gold back at this player. say oneat juilliard day, let's do "hamlet" together? >> sam was there is a directing student. i was there as an acting student. "hamlet" and the rosencrantz and gilded sting scenes together. >> i wanted to work on "hamlet."

everybody wants to do this play. it was not a strange idea to want to do "hamlet." it is the best play ever and everyone wants to get your hands on it. i grabbed oscar from his actor training and said on your brakes, will you do "hamlet" with me? tackle one of these big meals. i thought it would be fun to start with these friendships scenes. also, we were students and friends. it seemed kind of appropriate for the vibe at juilliard. >> we did that at school. after we graduated, we kept in touch and were always talking about wanting to do shakespeare. we finally were able to get some time. it took about two years of really trying to find a window where we could both have the

time to put the play up. we finally did. it was a 15-year enterprise. >> 10 years of talking about doing it and a couple of years of doing it together. charlie: what makes it is great as it is? >> it is a bottomless play. you can look at it from a million points of view and each one of them feels like an entire universe. you think, someone else has this other idea about the play when they open up that door, it is the term "p ss -- oem unlimited" is a shakespeare term. >> it has the ambiguity of religious text. a line is crafted in such a way that it feels like it has infinite meaning. one of the funny things sam to any question an

actor would ask is the opposite is always true. >> the most frustrating play in the world to direct because you can never get to a choice. you choose something and someone can always say, wouldn't the opposite also work? and it does. it is like directing in quicksand. you are trying to lay groundwork and get ideas settled. you want structure and you wanted to be functioning. every time you get somewhere, you keep digging and digging. you are digging in quicksand. charlie: two people do the entire text. you have four hours. >> is three hours and 45 minutes, but we have cut quite a bit. i go slow. i have a hard time making it go by fast. charlie: what was the vision you presented to oscar of what you wanted to do? how did you want to make it

contemporary? >> the great thing is it came from us and our friendship over so many years. it was never like, here is my idea. we started miles and miles from where we ended up. it was what was inspiring us, what was moving us, how we were seeing our lives and ourselves reflected in the play. when it came time to go into production, it was what was on both of our minds. i think what we were both really interested in at the time we started getting into rehearsals father.death of the the play starts with the death of hamlet's father and about his grief and mourning process and the stages of grief he is going through. the idea of a man who has lost his father and the grief sending him into madness was something i

think both of us could really see the play entirely through that lens and do it quite well. charlie: you have spoken of how your mother was dying. and you read from "hamlet," long passages. and you were informed by that experience in terms of how you wanted to own the part. already decided and figured out when we were going to do the play. we were going to start rehearsals in may. november of last year is when my mother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. it happened quickly with her declining health. i was able to be with her. at the same time, i was preparing for this. her favorite thing in the world was to see me do shakespeare. she loved it. she came to see me at school when i did "romeo and juliet." she loved it so much.

when i was sitting with her first at home and in the hospital, i would read it to her. it, i endedorizing up doing almost the whole play for her. text, thereigious are things in it that feel like parables. particularly, a meditation on letting go and grief and death. and so, it was very comforting for me and her. there was this one section i .ead to her about the readiness if it be not now, yet it will come. she was very moved by that. i thought that was amazing. as it got worse, in february she passed. funeral. wanted a she never wanted any of that. we did not do that.

as a family, we had our own way to say goodbye. my sister came to see the show. she said it feels like the version of a funeral she would have wanted, to have the space to grieve and tell that story about losing someone you love so much and having this beautiful architecture and beautiful framework and communion with everyone else to tell it. charlie: this guy came with a sheer command. >> yeah. oscar, it is a kind of magic trick where he knows the play inside and out and knows what each word means and how to use each word so well that he can do it as if it is contemporary conversation. it is so clear in his mind. it is like when you learn a foreign language and you get to the point where you are thinking in the language and not thinking in english anymore.

that is how he has gotten with the part. he brings the text alive in a way that is musically very beautiful and also extremely easy to understand and follow. charlie: a lot of people have spoken of that. audience members have spoken to that as well. it is more compelling for them because they understand it better. i think a contemporary audience is a lot less used to rhetoric and the idea of speaking verse. i think it is really important to honor the tradition of speaking verse and poetry and giving the audience poetry which has music to it. i think it is important not to alienate the audience but to find a way that is also contemporary communication. i like to put a group of people together. 299 people come every night. they are all in a room together.

they are all going to communicate some things about grief and suffering. we are all going to be in the room to experience it together. the communication has to make it to the audience. you cannot just be 400-year-old poetry. it has to be a contemporary conversation about something everybody in the audience is going through. >> hamlet says in the play twice , two different spots, the actors are the abstract and brief chroniclers of the time. and the job of the actor is to show the age and body of the time, its form and pressure. that is about now. the actor's role is to reflect to the audience how man is right now, in this moment of time. for us, it was very important to strip away as much artifice as and all that representational stuff, trying to convince you we are in denmark in medieval times and

all those things and try to find a way to make it much more immediate and relatable. charlie: knowing the history of how many productions and continue to be everywhere every year, did you want to make sure you did --what did you want to make sure you did? >> "hamlet" is a play that is like a little devil for a director. you have to battle with it because everyone has tried to do their "hamlet." and it can really get in your head that you have to add something to that history. that is not a very healthy way to approach working on a play. to not for me, i tried think about any of the productions i had seen and not think about its history at all. charlie: but can you? >> yeah.

you respond to the people you are in the room with. a group the room with of actors and this beautiful language and you see what happens. you focus on that. what do they have to offer this audience, in this moment, in this room we are all in? it kind of takes over. i tried hard to listen to that. i tried to strip away everything else. i did not come in with a concept. i wasnot come in with -- not trying to think about a fashion or dictate what is rotten in denmark and try to make some kind of statement about it. i just said we are in an empty room with an audience and these words, let's see what comes out of our time together. and the essential nature of that helped me from having to be in too much dialogue with concept or history. charlie: do you have to assume

hamlet went mad? >> not necessarily. for me madness, understanding it through the lens of grief it became much more relatable because grief feels like a form of madness. it feels like it can easily -- it is such a shock and such a trauma to lose someone you love so much. on the other side of that, it is a whole new existence. i think many people that have had to deal with that can feel how easily their mind can get away from them and change, and you see the world differently. a lot of pretense falls away. i feel like that in some ways in the play is a euphemism for the feeling of grief. charlie: some actors have said after doing "hamlet," they have to take off for a while.

>> it is very overwhelming. the interesting thing that has been so different in a short, condensed amount of time, so many things happened. the passing of my mother, adding married, the birth of my son. that it is almost like my personal stake in doing hamlet and the play lowered. it did not mean everything to me. it felt more like release than something that needed to be proved or proven. that is a wonderful state to be. as an actor, you always want your personal stakes to be low and the character's stakes to be high because that gives you freedom. i think i was able to approach it strangely in a kind of relaxed way, even doing all the work. with theverburdened personal consequences. charlie: if you could sit down with the actors and say to them,

this is what i want you to give me, what would you tell them? >> truth. to me, it is always about honesty and not pretending. like, having the thought. i think that is an amazing thing for the audience watch to have it -- audience to watch an actor have a thought. you see the thought that gives birth to the language of the play. you see that ignite in an actor's imagination. the audience gets so excited to see that and see someone not faking it, to see it actually happen. charlie: what is that about as an actor? >> i think as an actor with an audience, it is about synchronicity. you are trying to synchronize with the other actors and people so everyone is moving together almost unconsciously. i think when you do have the thoughts and you are approaching it that honestly, your body unconsciously behaves in certain ways that the audience

unconsciously picks up. and suddenly, we are all synchronized and moving together. i think that is when you really can feel things are alive. but i think it is about -- working on it, there is so much puzzle solving we had to do. , whyem-solving like suddenly go into a soliloquy here? what do these long thoughts mean? charlie: thank you both. at the public theater until? >> september 4. charlie: you do not want to miss this. ♪

♪ the 1879 play has long been considered a literary classic. a one studentwith for housewife walking out on her husband and three young children. the conclusion has inspired much debate and speculation over the last century and a half about what happened to her. a new follow-up from the playwright flashes forward 15 years as she returns to her old home to face her family for the first time. here is a look. >> here is another thing that bothers me. [laughter] >> you don't get angry. >> right now, i feel angry. >> i don't believe you are angry

, that you are inside the feeling of feeling angry. i think you are just outside of it looking at it. [laughter] >> you don't act! constant painted. -- constant painted. charlie: it is currently running at the john golden theater. joining us, the director and two of the stars. i am pleased to have all of them at this table. welcome, welcome, welcome. let me begin with you. did you long think about what here and to happen over the aftermath of what happened to the character? >> yeah. i have always loved the play. i have seen it in productions. the first thing that came to me was the title. i thought it was an audacious title for a play, "a doll's house, part two."

it was not until i started writing it that i had to get serious and get past the joke of the title and consider what it means to revisit the story. ibsene: what do you think intended people to think about it and speculate about it? >> maybe in some ways what i did when against his intentions. he wanted that store -- door to slam us to consider the meaning of nora leaving. over 100 years later, i think it is time to revisit that story and think about what does it mean that she left and what would it mean to return and what would bring her back. charlie: was there much debate over how she turned out rather than might --how she might have turned out? >> much debate? i love the fact that lucas when he had the idea of what nora's outcome would be, would it be positive or negative, because she had limited options with no

skills and no education, the stigma of being a divorced woman in 1879. people fought her options would be negative, so lucas wanted to go in the opposite direction. when i mean in a positive way, successful way. ibsene: people believe intended it as a feminist argument? keptthink the thing ibsen coming back to in all of his plays was, how are we not free and how could we be more free? is that really truly possible? he was a writer that seemed to yearn for people to be more free, to be less constricted by social norms, social judgment. house" i think "a doll's is part of his consideration of it. one of the things he is thinking

about in this play is the roles men and women all into playing or are forced to play. nora's action at the end is to break out of a certain expectation. charlie: but she comes back for legal reasons. she has to come back. >> yes. he has a very clever method that brings her back. what is fun for the audience is to find out what made her come back after 15 years of silence, no communication at all, and also what she has been doing in those 15 years. charlie: how does torvald see her? >> as a completely changed person. he does not recognize her. charlie: is he surprised? >> i think he is dumbfounded. charlie: he thought she would go off and drift into nothingness? >> yeah. i think he was convinced she is still living but her outcome, what has happened to her, i'm sure he has no idea. charlie: why does she leave?

>> she has gotten into a spot where she is not sure what she wants and she has this strong suspicion the way she is walking through life is without any understanding of who she is as a person. so she thinks she needs to go find out who she is. charlie: her identity. >> yeah. she certainly does not think she can find that person if she stays in this house because she will keep falling into patterns of behavior, so she needs literally a change of scenery. the way the play articulates it, it talks about is a voice inside of your head. but you have you, all of these other voices colliding in on it. the voices of your parents, your husband, the people in your community telling you what you should be doing.

stop hearingas to those voices of other people and am left to, if i myself, what do i want for myself? charlie: is part of this play not only how they react to her but how she reacts to them? >> it is an amazing surprise. the door slams in 1879. since then, we have all been wondering what happens. it is a fun exercise. for this play, you have all of this buildup and excitement about what is going to happen when she comes back. are people going to flip out? are they going to welcome her back with open arms? what is she here for? over the course of the play, you get the series of little meetings between her and the important people in her life where you get the surprise of finding out how they treat her

and how she treats them. arelie: some have said you a mentalist -- minimalist in the design of your theater productions. >> i like to focus on the words and have the performers do all the work. when i read lucas' play, i thought of a boxing match. it has got a lot of rhetoric, a lot of argument in it. i felt like making a production where it could be great actors sparring. that was the basic idea. charlie: where would you rank ibsen? where do you rank this play? >> it is one of the most important place in dramatic literature. one, because it was extremely shocking when it was written, to give a woman the things you were talking to lucas about, to give a woman that inner voice, that decision to leave her family, to

leave her children, and leave at the end of the play with the door slamming was an incredibly important moment in cultural history and theater history. it is a great role actors have played forever. you get to watch a great actor play one of the great roles. for this play, it is a chance to get to see someone play nora but also get to see someone in completely new plays. it borrows from the old play. but it really is its own play that gets to use some of the context of ibsen. but it is really lucas and lucas' voice. fascinationift of is the manner of man or woman that had the strength to do this. what manner of human being would strike out at a time in which nobody ever left? >> i know. it is a wonderful character. it is fascinating. even though i have not done the original "dolls house."

i am playing nora helmer, but she has reinvented herself in the 15 years she has been away so i felt i had a free pass to reinvent the character myself. wherethe nora we see everything bottled up in her in the original has come out and exploded. she has a confidence and sense of humor and aggressiveness about her. she is on a mission. and she is focused. it is thrilling to be able to play a character who is still very flawed in lucas' production, but you wrote for her because she is so passionate about her feelings. she is selfish. she can be petulant. she can be kind of heady -- petty and impatient. i find within a character that still has the passion, i find

those negative after buttes sort of endearing -- attributes sort of endearing. >> this is also what has changed for both -- torvald. ,aving had nora leave the house ld ise the word torva constipated. through this shock he's taken, he's left to raise three kids with the help of anne-marie, the housekeeper housemaid. his life, i think, is so narrow. it is the bank and home. he has no social life. , very concerned about what society thinks of him.

justeaving, i think, has turned his world inside out. charlie: would she want to come back anyway? >> i think that's absolutely true. it is never stated it explicitly in the text. but you can read between the lines there is a curiosity and a , bute to see her daughter a resistance to it because she is worried a good open up some wound and it is better to let wounds heal. we also talk about the moment when she walks into the door. there's a little bit of a vibe of the person who's just been off to college and learned all these new things and wants to go home and show mom what they learned. that is sort of the fun of it. charlie: does the audience choose sides? >> the hope is that they choose

sides and then hear another side and flip a lot over the course of the evening, which is why i use that sports metaphor. hopefully you as an audience member feel every side of the argument over the course of the show. i think it is one of the things lucas did so well and what makes the show really fun. >> it is so funny that we are dealing with a marriage and divorce, and then along comes cene, and they have very different takes on marriage, which is surprising. but also, it has a lot to do with abandonment. someone whocross as has dealt with it well, but you see how she's been affected by

it. she's concerned about living a more conventional life. >> she just wants her daughter to have options. she sees in her daughter the same things that she fantasized about what a marriage would be at her daughter's age. to have options. that is the best thing she can do to give to her daughter, as she's having a second it is any and heading out the door to do more work -- second it is any -- -- second epiny phany. >> this production takes place in the 1890's, but the writing style is extremely contemporary. you feel like you can keep

asking yourself over the course come whatduction about our world is exactly like victorian norway and what is different? you bounce around between the two. charlie: how do you add that contemporary sense? in terms of the staging of it. >> it was always clear to me to have very contemporary american performances. the voice of it, when i read it in writing, was not feel at all period, norwegian, like some stodgy production, but to feel like i was doing a brand-new play in a very contemporary american vernacular and that the victorian context happen in the subject, and some beautiful victorian clothes helps. charlie: you have a very contemporary sound and touches like something as simple as a kleenex box.

>> exactly. charlie: the point is to make it contemporary. >> i wanted people to see the contemporary world and think backwards instead of the other way around. charlie: did you want to sort of say as you started writing this, forgive me, but -- [laughter] >> i didn't feel apologetic with him. charlie: did you want to say, at long last you're going to have somebody answering the questions you raised mark -- raised? >> it felt like i was having a conversation with him. he's a playwriting mentor of mine. let me do a little bit of a modest to you and something that's little bit of -- little -- homage as well. end, ihad gotten to the

was ready to just keep going. charlie: can you think of any other play ever written that you would like to do part two? in the dramatic cannon, most people die at the end. that eliminates a sequel. subway platforms wondering this question many times, and i think this is my only sequel. view of these points of each individual on stage -- >> these points of view of each individual on stage is so valid that an audience member who is of a certain belief field has to listen to the argument. he will hear his side, and he will hear a whole other side,

and he may hear a second, third, and fourth side, and i think it that theenal, amazing house is quiet. i'm surprised that there isn't more outspokenness from the house. you know what i mean? and theree outspoken, are these big thunderous sections of laughter and big gasps and stuff, and suddenly it is really quiet. >> also when a character drive , like at a sporting event and they applaud when certain points are landed. every character gets a few. charlie: it seems to me to see this kind of play and all of its

engagement and ideas and experiences is what theater is about, so congratulations on what you've done here. ♪

charlie: if i'll is a high

school student with severe anxiety who gets caught up in a social media fueled movement after a fellow classmate commits suicide. "the new york times" writes that the star is giving a performance not likely to be bettered on broadway this season. did is nominated for nine tony awards, including best musical -- it is nominated for nine tony awards, including best musical. here is a look. ♪ [indiscernible]

charlie: welcome. great to have you here. tell me about your character. >> evidence cancer -- evan hansen is a lonely kid who has trouble connecting to other people. that is sort of heightened by

youngcial media and with people, everything to do online is being instantaneously judged and look that -- and looked at. it makes him rich region even more, and he really can't find a place to belong and be heard and feel connected -- it makes him and he reallyore, can't find a place to belong and be heard and feel connected. he starts to come out of his shell, all predicated on the fabrication. charlie: is also a critique of social media. also a critique of social media. >> it is more of a parody or

satire. as the show has evolved, what we became interested and was exploring how social media does promote this kind of false idea of who we are. we are all kind of performing on their. at the same time, there is something real that happens on there. there is a sense of connection, so it is a double-edged sword. charlie: when you thought about this and wrote to this, was it based on a headline you had seen or story? did these things actually happen? >> it was based originally on one of the composers in high school who had a classmate who died of an accidental drug overdose. he was someone who is a real loner, kind of an outsider, no friends. all ofwake of his death, his fellow students began clamoring to say, i was friends

with him, or our lockers were close together. everyone wanted a part of that tragedy. as atored that a way memory he found troubling and interesting, but that he too kind of wanted to join in. college, he met justin paul, and they began working together. they discussed this story and thought echoes of it in our generation and its response to 9/11. we all knew people that had written college essays about their place in 9/11. with social media, that kind of insertion of ourselves into tragedy seems to only escalate and get crazier and crazier until any kind of catastrophe in the world became a way to talk about themselves. us beganthree of working together, that was really where we began. charlie: but was the three of you?

ofwhat was the average age the three of you? >> we were like 26. we were really young. forlie: is it a challenge you -- you have got to make sure you explore him and all he has done in the same time making him a character people don't reject. >> certainly. from the beginning of development, that was always kind of the focus on my part, making sure the onions understood at every turn why he was making decisions he was making sure the audience understood at every turn why he was making decisions he was making. and you get to meet evan see him get his first monologue and sing his first song, you get isidea of how deep a hole he in and out in need of a savior he is. you really understand why he falls into this lie. charlie: is it a savior for him?

-- on somelevel level it does force them to connect in a way it never has. there is a dark side to that, too, forcing them to face demons in terms of self-hatred. at the end of the day it starts a conversation for him, especially with his mother hummel which is what we found the show has the ability -- mother, which is what we found the show have the ability to do. it really seems to just bust that door wide open. charlie: congratulations on the nominations. >> thank you very much. charlie: when you write the book, what does that mean? essentially that my responsibility is partly to structure things, to kind of come up with the roadmap, and then all the dialogue. what it meant in this case because we had no source material -- often you have a book or a movie -- was we came

up together with the rudiments of the story and some characters, and then i went off and wrote the first act as though it were a play, and left spaces were the three of us had decided songs might go. i sent them that draft, and they looked at it and said, here where he thought there would be a song, i think it comes earlier, so the scene needs to be shorter or longer. of building the skeleton. charlie: how do you explain this residence it has? other than great -- this resonance it has? accurately and without any filter or lens depicts the contemporary world and the way people are connected to each other these days and the way social media plays into that and doesn't make too harsh of a judgment on that, presenting at the way it is and make us confront how that affects us as

human beings. the character has an incredible universality in terms of his isolation and loneliness and deep dire to -- the desire to reach out and be reached out to. everyone who comes to the show finds themselves somewhere in him. it is so beautifully written that he has this humor and sings these songs, but i think people really see some of their humanity in them. charlie: this is what your mother told "the new york times." [laughter] she said, "i contemplate his emotional well-being everyday. he is very mature, but is only 20. should be out with friends and meeting people. i worry about how much time he spends alone." >> that's my mother. charlie: how proud can one mother the? >> she's the most wonderful human on the earth. we don't have stuck about that now. they're certainly a sacrifice involved with this because it is

a very demanding role and something i take very seriously. to create it eight times a week and give that same sort of emotional intensity and make sure the audience is having identical experiences as much as possible, that requires a lot of me as far as sacrificing social life. this is a kind of peace that is so beautifully written that you want to give yourself to it and make those sacrifices because they don't come along all the time, especially in the theater. charlie: you been working with the same actors for years. >> and that very first reading, four of the actors were already in it. charlie: hasn't caused you to change the writing at all? >> well, these actors have really helped shape this material, absolutely. especially ben with this character. part of the reason the show bennates so much is that

's performance is so specific. we have been able to have a kind of conversation where he will do something and then i will respond to it in the writing, and he responds in performance. that is a real deep pleasure. thingsof the many stephen does brilliantly as finding things in our performances that we are not even noticing we are doing, and then we find they wind up flushed out in the writing, really taking advantage of the performers and what comes naturally and honestly to them. that's part of what the make that part of what makes the characters still so beautifully -- part of what makes the characters feel so beautifully honest. charlie: is there a toll?

is in the endurance and in requirements of singing that much and the demand on you? >> sure. the literal toll would be the physical and vocal demand and the physical therapy and voice lessons, what have you. there's also an emotional told to go to such a dark place 8x8 we can make it as real as possible. it is not always the easiest toll to do -- emotional go to such a dark place eight and make it as real as possible. it is not always the easiest thing to do. virtue of is just by anything from the weather to what has been going on in the world to whether the age of the people of the crowd, sometimes it takes them a little longer to get on the ride. charlie: what do you do if you sense that? >> i try not to push.

the instinct is to go harder and when them -- and try to win them , but if you lay back and let the show do its job and not try to slam on the acceleration, they come to you eventually. charlie: that's a very good way of putting it. this is the cast singing "you will be found." >> ♪ when you are broken on the ground you will be found if you only look around you will be found you will be found ♪u will be found charlie: i asked the average age

of the cast. >> we've got five people in their early to mid 20's playing teenagers, and we have adults in their mid-40's. charlie: you never show him in therapy, do you? why not? >> i think we wanted to get to know evan with his mom, especially. we wanted that to be the way we get to know this character and the lens through which we see him. boring toems to be writers because they are so reductive, and a way. it is sort of like writing an interview you have one character whose job is really to just say, and how does that make you feel, whereas with his mom or his peers there is a level of unpredictability. charlie: and a higher level of engagement. >> absolutely. charlie: it runs how long? >> indefinitely.

until the end of the world. [laughter] charlie: doesn't give you any time to do anything else? -- does it get you any time to do anything else? >> not really. this is a really exciting time, and i love being in it. it is obviously a temporary thing, and i want to take it as it comes. charlie: because it has become such a sensation come are you getting advice from other people in the new york physical stage? >> we have a lot of actors that come and offer their pieces of advice. the thing about the show's people really are very moved at the end and feel sort of really opened up. when i do get to interact with others, everyone is so if uses and ready to discuss and wanting to be open with me because they

feel it we just had this shared emotional experience. that is kind of my favorite time to talk to people. but mostly it is just to really make self-care a priority and make sure i am taking care of me as a human being. here is evan singing with his girlfriend, "only after cup -- only us." us♪ it will be us and only you and me that's all we needed to be the rest of -- that's all we need it to be the rest of the world falls away ♪ charlie: congratulations. >> thank you very much. ♪

♪ welcome to "best of bloomberg markets: middle east." the major stories driving headlines from the region this week, qatar's economy is still willng the blockade, but it able to keep up the act for long? oil prices remain weak. we discussed if the u.s. energy sector could get that push higher. in saudi arabia's economic transformation is taking place as part of its plan to wean the economy off of oil. they are seeking bids for his first utility power project.