How do creativity, war, and energy politics converge in the conversation between Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner?

In this wide-ranging exchange, Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner move from adolescent playwriting and artistic structure to war, oil, and geopolitical instability. Jacobsen reflects on writing disciplined, rhymed plays in youth as a way to impose order on chaos, while Rosner contrasts theater’s formal constraints with modern audience expectations shaped by film and television. The discussion then pivots sharply to Ukraine, Iran, Trump, and the global energy market. Together, Jacobsen and Rosner examine how conflict in the Middle East may strengthen Russia economically, disrupt fuel flows, raise prices, and deepen political irrationality in the United States and global insecurity everywhere.

Early writing and play development

Rick Rosner: So you wrote a play in eighth grade?

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: No, in high school.

Rosner: In high school? You wrote a play in high school?

Jacobsen: Somewhere between grades 9 and 11.

Rosner: Okay, and you said that, even in retrospect, it still holds up strongly.

Jacobsen: I remember putting a significant amount of effort into it, and it still holds up. I would usually self-denigrate out of humility—Canadian humility—but this is genuinely a good piece. I republished it a while ago through In-Sight with an ISBN. It was one of the shortest books I published. It is interesting how well it held up.

Rosner: That is good. I mean, yes, that is impressive. I have written bits and skits, which is not the same as writing a play. I started taking a playwriting class in college, wrote one scene, turned it in, and the teacher said it was bad, so I dropped the class. I would drop classes for almost nothing. I quit going to one class because the teacher told me to stop chewing gum. I was a terrible, indifferent student. I accumulated about a solid year’s worth of Fs on my transcript because sometimes I could not even be bothered to withdraw from a class. I just stopped going. I was irresponsible.

I do not remember much about the play, except that it had a kid in it who was part of a preppy family, and they had given him the name Spinnaker. A spinnaker is a type of sail used on a yacht. I thought that sounded like a fancy, preppy name for a kid. It was not great, but it was not terrible. I thought the teacher judged my bad play more harshly than it deserved, so I thought, to hell with it.

Nature of plays as an art form

Jacobsen: I also think plays are a very clear art form—perhaps even clearer than instrumental music, painting, or sculpture—because you are directly building narratives that people then act out, either in their heads while reading or in an actual performance. That is a direct expression and distribution of a person’s interiority. I remember that a great deal was happening in my early life at that time, and many elements of that moment were being processed in the play before I had the language to describe them directly. The tight rhyme scheme, thematic structure, and the careful counting and remembering were built into it as well. There was chaos around me, and I produced a highly structured work in response.

Rosner: So it had a Shakespearean quality? It was not just a modern play in which people talk to each other casually. It had something closer to an Elizabethan structure—is that what you mean?

Jacobsen: Yes. It did not have Shakespeare’s iambic pentameter, but it did have an extended rhyming structure, so it drew on that style quite a bit.

School productions and early experiments

Rosner: Did they put it on at your school?

Jacobsen: Maybe. I wrote at least two plays. One was about two stoners at a corner store, a comedy. I handled production and direction, and I had two actors who were one grade younger than me. They were also part of the improv group I founded in high school. I do not know what happened to them. That one worked well. The other one—I think it was performed, but I do not recall clearly. If it was, it would have been something like a Waiting for Godot–style situation without a “Godot.” It was very abstract. Looking back, I am surprised by the level of sophistication at that age.

Challenges of modern theater

Rosner: Plays are tough—extremely tough—especially in the modern era. They do not have many of the supports that make things easily watchable for people.

Jacobsen: This was before AI, before large language models, before autocorrect, before predictive text. It was just hard work. That is how I remember it. But it was also an escape.

Rosner: I am not a fan of going to plays. Tickets are expensive. You have to travel—often to areas where parking is expensive—and sit through the performance without necessarily having good seats. Your view may not be great, especially as you get older. It runs for a long time, then there is an intermission, and then it continues for another long stretch.

Compared to staying home and watching television or movies, it is different. In film, even if characters are just talking, it is part of a production that might cost $120 million. Modern audiences are used to that level of production. There was even discussion about Timothée Chalamet criticizing ballet and opera as difficult to watch. Plays face a similar challenge. Opera, for me, is difficult to sit through. Ballet at least offers physical movement to engage with. Theater does not always have the same elements that make things accessible to modern audiences. We have become accustomed to high production value.

Also, a play has a fairly fixed structure. You can do a one-act, but there are still constraints.

Narrative structure and storytelling

Jacobsen: Most books and plays follow a beginning–middle–end structure. It is straightforward. Some works break or experiment with it, but generally people write what is most satisfying to themselves and to audiences, which is that structure.

Rosner: Also, a play will usually run between about 80 minutes and 2 hours and 10 minutes. On television, if a story takes six hours, creators will take six hours—which can be frustrating, because many stories that are stretched to six hours could have been told in two.

Jacobsen: There is a well-known lecture by Kurt Vonnegut where he draws a vertical axis: at the top is absolute bliss, and at the bottom are the depths of misery.

Rosner: Say that again—what is at the top?

Jacobsen: At the top is absolute bliss—everything is going perfectly. At the bottom, everything has gone wrong. Then he draws a horizontal axis. He marks the beginning with “B,” and at the far end, instead of “E” for “end,” he humorously calls it “entropy.” He uses this to illustrate the general structure of stories: movement between good and bad states over time, from beginning toward resolution.

That pattern—rising and falling fortune—is common in storytelling and in life, which may explain why it feels natural and satisfying. Even unusual narratives, like The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, still impose a beginning–middle–end structure, even if the timeline runs in reverse.

Context of war and regional tensions

Rosner: Yes, but he still experiences life moving forward, even if his body ages in reverse relative to everyone else. All right, we should probably talk about the war—specifically the one you are in. How is it going?

Jacobsen: There was nothing for about a day and a half. We had air raid alarms.

Rosner: I was here before the Gulf War, and now there are ongoing tensions involving Iran. Russia had seemed to be on the ropes—Ukraine was pushing back effectively in certain areas with drones and other technologies—but Russia continues to generate revenue through energy exports. What do you think?

Jacobsen: From what we are seeing, the situation involves ongoing tensions between the United States and Iran, with periodic escalations across the region, including proxy conflicts and strikes involving various actors. There have been disruptions to shipping and energy infrastructure in the broader Middle East, contributing to uncertainty in global markets.

The Strait of Hormuz remains a critical chokepoint, carrying roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil supply. Even partial disruptions or threats to shipping there have significant global economic consequences.

Oil and gas remain dominant energy sources—even in Canada, they account for a large majority of primary energy consumption, while renewables and non-emitting sources, including hydro, make up a smaller but significant share. These provide some buffer, but not enough to fully offset major geopolitical shocks. The long-term impact depends on how prolonged instability becomes and how extensively energy supply chains are disrupted.

Military and strategic considerations

Rosner: From a U.S. liberal perspective, this appears to be a strategically unsound conflict dynamic. It is unlikely to topple the Iranian regime, though regime collapse is never entirely predictable. Iraq’s regime fell quickly in 2003, but Iraq differed significantly: it was smaller and structurally weaker. Iran’s regime has endured for decades and has survived multiple serious challenges.

Iran has a large military: roughly 600,000 active personnel, several hundred thousand reserves, and additional forces through organizations like the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which also functions as an internal security force. Iran is often ranked among the larger militaries globally by personnel. While equipment losses and sanctions have affected capabilities, personnel capacity remains substantial.

Tehran, with a population of roughly 9 to 10 million, lies deep داخل the country, making a ground invasion extremely costly. Historical precedent reinforces this: Iraq’s 1980 invasion involved large forces and significant equipment, yet failed to collapse the regime and led to a prolonged war.

The idea that airstrikes alone could trigger regime change is therefore implausible. Meanwhile, nuclear concerns persist. Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile is limited in volume but could potentially be further enriched for weapons, making it difficult to neutralize through force alone; negotiation remains a key avenue.

Economic and political dynamics

Economically, fuel prices are sensitive to instability in the region and can rise significantly during periods of escalation, contributing to inflationary pressures.

Politically, Trump retains strong support from his base despite fluctuations in broader approval ratings, often maintaining a substantial core level of support. Criticism of figures such as Robert Mueller—despite Mueller’s credentials as a war veteran and former FBI director—illustrates the degree of polarization.

More broadly, there appears to be a decoupling of political allegiance from factual evaluation. Historically, U.S. political parties framed arguments assuming a rational electorate. Over time, strategies shifted toward emotional mobilization and identity-based loyalty. This has contributed to what might be described as the “sportification” of politics—where allegiance to one’s side outweighs considerations of truth or consistency.

Rick Rosner is an accomplished television writer with credits on shows like Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Crank Yankers, and The Man Show. Over his career, he has earned multiple Writers Guild Award nominations—winning one—and an Emmy nomination. Rosner holds a broad academic background, graduating with the equivalent of eight majors. Based in Los Angeles, he continues to write and develop ideas while spending time with his wife, daughter, and two dogs.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen is a Writer-Editor for www.rickrosner.org with more than 2,000 collaborative short-form and long-form interviews with Rick Rosner. He is the Founder and Publisher of In-Sight Publishing (ISBN: 978-1-0692343; 978-1-0673505) and Editor-in-Chief of In-Sight: Interviews (ISSN: 2369-6885). He writes for International Policy Digest (ISSN: 2332–9416), The Humanist (Print: ISSN, 0018-7399; Online: ISSN, 2163-3576), Basic Income Earth Network (UK Registered Charity 1177066), Humanist Perspectives (ISSN: 1719-6337), A Further Inquiry (SubStack), Vocal, Medium, The Good Men Project, The New Enlightenment Project, The Washington Outsider, rabble.ca, and other media. His bibliography index can be found via the Jacobsen Bank at In-Sight Publishing comprised of more than 10,000 articles, interviews, and republications, in more than 200 outlets. He has served in national and international leadership roles within humanist and media organizations, held several academic fellowships, and currently serves on several boards. He is a member in good standing in numerous media organizations, including the Canadian Association of Journalists, PEN Canada (CRA: 88916 2541 RR0001), and Reporters Without Borders (SIREN: 343 684 221/SIRET: 343 684 221 00041/EIN: 20-0708028), and others.

Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash

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