Just Shows To Go You

Rod Kinter’s athletic fight choreography for Last Life, one of the hits of The Brick’s recent Fight Festival now enjoying a short encore run at The Ohio, is viscerally exciting and technically impressive (and it’s far more convincingly executed than what I’m used to seeing on stage). There’s also plenty of it – the show hasn’t dubbed itself a “fightsical” for nothing. The rough, decidedly R-rated violent smackdowns are underscored with percussive bursts of music, the way they would be in a film: the sometimes edge-of-your-seat stage combat is the main reason for the play and sure to satisfy action-seekers. Tim Haskell’s direction adds great additional vitality thanks to a striking meta-theatrical presentation: for much of the play, the actors are seated facing the audience while delivering their lines to each other. Even cooler is a conceit that regularly has the actors freeze mid-fight while an effects guy applies stage blood. Eric Sanders’ script is not always entirely clear in laying out the backstory of the characters and the post-apocalyptic setting, but it does what it needs to do in setting up the combat scenes and it wisely does so with some mitigating humor. Special shout-out to lead actor Taimak Guarriello who, whether delivering deadly roundhouse kicks or spoofing an infomercial with tongue in cheek, capably handles his role’s varied demands.

I talked with Heidi Blickenstaff as she prepares to play Neely O’Hara in the star-packed Actors Fund benefit on March 15th of Valley of the Dolls.

When did you first see the movie of Valley of the Dolls?

Ready? 3 days ago. It’s not very gay of me, I know, I’m sort of ashamed of myself since I consider myself an honorary gay. I’m a disgrace. I watched it by myself…with a bottle of wine! I was laughing out loud and I kept looking at my dog for support, like “Are you seeing the movie I’m seeing?” I couldn’t believe that it was a movie made for real because it is such a classic example of delicious camp.

Now that you’ve seen it, why do you think they came to you to play Neely?

I have absolutely no idea! I was even talking to our Music Director Steve Marzullo about it, like “what were you thinking?” I’m a brassy gal, I share that with Neely O’Hara, and I have some of her dance moves. I certainly don’t take myself too seriously as an actress and hopefully I will be able to capture her essence. I don’t know how much I have in common with her because she’s clearly an animal, she’s this aggressive beast of a girl. We’re different that way, but I know on stage that I can plant my tongue firmly in cheek. I think I can handle her, although she’s quite the buckin’ bronco. Should I learn all the ins and outs of Patty Duke’s gifted performance, or should I do my own thing? That’s kind of a ridiculous thing to ponder. People love the movie so much because of those specific lines and those specific line readings. In a way, doing it on stage is like doing Rocky Horror. Everybody knows it so well and it’s such a wonderful gift to the gays. If I mess it up, I know there will be like a hundred guys in the audience who could do it better.

I think the mood will be so celebratory and really about having fun…

Because it is so familiar to everyone I do think there’s a spirit of ridiculousness that goes along with it. I can certainly tap into that even if I’m not doing a perfect impression. It’s the kind of thing where you have to be fearless. I’m thrilled that I get to do it.

I know you can’t be deep into rehearsals yet, but has anyone in the cast proved surprising to you so far?

No one has surprised me because these things are anything goes. I’m thrilled to be working with Martha Plimpton; I think that’s brilliant casting too and I love and respect her work. I know Chris Sieber very well and he and I are I’m sure going to get really stupid with each other.

How about those, um, songs?

Oh my God. I was going over them with Steve Marzullo and we were literally cracking up to the point where he couldn’t play and I couldn’t sing. The songs are – hmm, well, how do I say this in a politically correct way? – STUPID! That “It’s Impossible” song is so ridiculous! And then you add all her fancy dances on top of that, it’s pretty spectacular in a 70’s way. I think they were drunk when they wrote it because those lyrics and those melodies are pretty outrageous. But also “Come Live With Me” is so great and hokey and cheesy, that will be really fun.

I can’t wait for the insane asylum reprise of that one!

That’s what I said, and somebody said that originally it wasn’t in there. I said “You have to put the nut factory song in there!” It’s definitely in and I can’t wait either.

I was at the first Broadway preview of [title of show] when the audience stopped the show on account of several minutes of wild applause….

I will never ever forget that as long as I live. I feel like I could never have an experience like that again in theatre. The memory of that will recharge my heart and soul and spirit for this business for the rest of my career. We were all very overwhelmed. Susan Blackwell said, and I feel this is very accurate, that it was almost like standing behind a waterfall. The power of that, the noise of that, this natural thing that was happening; you could almost reach out and touch and get some of it on you, it was so palpable and so beautiful. I also feel like it was very symbiotic. People were surely rooting for us, but it wasn’t just about us. It was about all of us. I felt like people were screaming for themselves too. “I’m an actor!. “I’m a painter”, “I’m a runner”; whatever your dream was, it was a collective roar.

How do you feel about having a signature song of your own now in “A Way Back To Then”?

It’s totally a trip and an honor having a stamp on a song. I can’t tell you how many people have written me on Facebook that they are singing that song for drama school or in a cabaret or wherever. Everyone has sort of claimed that song. What’s crazy about that is that when we were developing it, it came out of a journal entry of mine and I was very reluctant to share it. Jeff Bowen sort of forced me. I gave it to him overnight, just thinking that it would inspire him, and what he came back with lyrically was pretty much verbatim from my journal entry. I felt very vulnerable and precious about letting that go in the world and didn’t want to do it at first. I felt like I wasn’t going to be able to be generous with it because it was so intimate. I would cry all the time when I sang it. Eventually Michael Berresse, our director, was like “That’s behind you now. You need to give this away to people because you’re not the only one with this story. You may feel like you are, but it’s actually all of ours.” That clicked with me. I would think of that every night before going on to sing it. And it turned out that the specificity of that song is what people connect with. It’s united all these people, all these gypsies, who come to New York with that dream.

If you could, what would you go back and tell your younger self who wrote that journal entry?

Oh boy. Well, I spent many years in the business when I first graduated from college, and frankly all through college too, really trying to stick. I don’t want to go as far as to say that I was trying to be someone I wasn’t, but I feel like I was trying to be a type, to fit in. What I would say to that younger self now is that the trick is actually embracing yourself. That doesn’t give you a license to be lazy, you still have to be the best you. There’s a lot that goes in to that, including taking care of yourself physically and mentally and having other interests, not just being obsessed with theatre. I have the best friends on the planet, I have a delicious dog and a wonderful boyfriend, and a great family. I like to do other things that have nothing to do with theatre, so when theatre lets me down – and it always will, bless it – I have other things that feed me. You have to find it and figure out how to market your own individuality, because a lot of times difference is not celebrated. If you can tap into what is weird and colorful and unique, you’ve got it!

Have you seen other productions of [title of show] with other women playing Heidi yet?

The only production I’ve seen so far was the very first college production at Baldwin-Wallace. It was double-cast and all of us went and saw both casts. It was so trippy. They did such a beautiful job. If it was me, I don’t think I’d have been able to do it because I’m a big chicken about things like that. On Monday night I am doing a gala for John Kander. Liza is performing too, and I’m singing “Maybe This Time”. What is that?! I’m just gonna have to put on my armor and be brave and know that I’m an individual. I’m honored, of course. I did an evening of Kander and Ebb music at Signature Theatre which was all shepherded by John Kander. Besides [title of show], it was the honor of my life. It was a 19 piece orchestra and 6 actors; Julia Murney and I did this amazing arrangement by David Loud where she sang “The Money Tree” and then I sang “Maybe This Time” and then they braid together. Julia and I both walk offstage and need oxygen. We lovingly refer to it as The Belt-Off. That’s what we’re doing at the gala. If that doesn’t get your gay juices flowing, I don’t know what would!

I talked with Jon Levenson, John Wellmann, and Aaron Sharff, the actors in the most comedic roles in the not-to-be-missed, site-specific production of The Boys In The Band.

JON LEVENSON
(Harold)

Was making Harold funny on your to-do list?

It wasn’t, and one of the reasons I admire the director (Jack Cummings III) so much is that he never mentioned the humor to me in rehearsals. I just never thought about the things that you think about when you think about comedy, like timing. I just wanted to crack the character. When we had our first previews and audiences started to laugh I thought “Oh. These guys must be funny.”

Because Harold can be so cutting, did you think about whether the audience would like him or not?

I think I figured that the audience might find him unlikable but that was a fleeting fear. Once you get under his skin, you start falling in love with him because you realize how mature and evolved he is and what he’s gone through. I think he has a soft core somewhere in there, but what everybody sees on the outside at this party is his very hard shell. His artifice is his coping mechanism. I think a lot of his mean jabs are also love for his friends. Harold is sort of the queen mother of the pack and protector of all those other men; he has a lot of love in him although his way of showing it is maybe not the way that we think of love.

Do people like Harold exist in the gay world now?

I think he’s alive in anyone who is fighting to be themselves. There are pieces of him in those people who sit and comment because they have been through the battle and have come out on the other side. That’s sort of what he’s about. That exists not just in old bitter queens; I’m sure there are soccer moms like that too.

production photos: Carol Rosegg

Did you watch William Friedkin’s movie of the play?

We did not. I did the play in San Diego 9 years ago at a theatre company called Diversionary Theatre. This is funny to my castmates and my friends but I actually played Alan. The comments on that production were that Alan was like a young Billy Crystal, which is absolutely not what he’s supposed to be! I remember watching the actor in that company who played Harold and thinking that I would never be that kind of actor.

What kind of actor do you mean?

I mean that the extremity of the character didn’t interest me then as an actor. Harold may not be the most likable character, and when I was in my 20s I had hoped to be the most popular person in the show. Harold is a bit dark, and I don’t think I was intrigued by darkness that way I am now. Now that it’s crossed my path I am so grateful. And (playwright) Mart Crowley has been an inspiration of mine – never in a million years did I think I would get to meet him much less work with him on this play which, in my formative years, was one of the highlights of my artistic life.

What was your reaction when you saw the “apartment” where the show performs?

I loved the space when we first saw it but I didn’t know how it was going to work. Every day we’d show up there would be something new – the furniture, the elemental set – to gradually increase our comfort. The final element was the audience; the day they put in their seats was scary for me because they were so close. There was absolutely no place to hide on the set, no place to go upstage and take a breath or reign in your focus. It was a fear at first but now it’s a joyride. You’re looking for your fellow actors as your anchors in this sea of heads. If the boys are sitting, then they are level with the audience. You see someone dark and brunette and think “that’s my scene partner” but it’s not and you’ve started delivering a line to someone in the audience. At one show I accidentally hit the head of an audience member who was sitting next to me. Luckily it was our director who happened to be sitting in that chair.

JOHN WELLMANN
(Emory)

Have you worked before on as “environmental” a stage as this one?

I have certainly worked in places where the audience is very close and on the same level. The biggest difference with this is that at every single performance I wind up making body contact with somebody. Even bigger than that is that audience and actors are lit the same. That was terrifying to think about in theory, but then became very comfortable once we started playing. We had a couple of dress rehearsals where the director brought in a handful of people and had them sit all over the audience. That was awful. It was a face here, a face there, and very hard to think “oh they’re not in the play”. As soon as we started previews – the show has always been selling very well, so there was a full house even at the first performance – it totally got resolved with a relative sea of people. It’s sort of a game: you are crossing somewhere and the only way you are going to make it is if the people in your way move their legs, and then they do. It’s a dance we’re all playing together.

Since the audience is seated in clusters all about the “apartment”, are you aware of getting different vibes from different pockets of the audience?

I don’t know why, because you would think that I would, but I don’t get that much awareness from different parts of the house. There are only a few seats for the audience at that table where we serve the lasagna in the play – I’m very aware that it is crucial that I don’t have any relation to those people at all. I know that they’re there and I feel their energy and that’s fun. It would cease to be fun very quickly if I played to them.

Do you think of how you play Emory as comedy?

I am aware that Emory very much wants the other guys at the party to laugh at anything he says and that his sense of humor is his survival mechanism when the world is dangerous. The only way he can handle it is to turn things around and make them funny. He comes in in a very good mood and anticipating that he will say very funny things. That’s why Hank is so annoying to him; Hank doesn’t think he’s funny.

Do you think that the play is dated in any way?

I think that it can feel like a period piece sometimes in its references. The use of the word “faggot” all the time and the references to things like Maria Montez – we just don’t talk that way anymore. But the issues of people in the closet, of fidelity in gay relationships, and of issues of self-hatred – none of that feels dated to me. I’ve had a couple of friends my age who have seen the play and feel the world is not like that anymore. Interestingly, my friends in their late 20s and early 30s think the play is very “of the moment” and is reflecting certain things in their lives. I think that’s a very interesting intergenerational shift. Maybe my younger friends see the more universal issues in the play.

I do feel that the play is a very New York evening. Because New Yorkers are all from someplace else, we find ourselves with a close-knit group of people who become like a family. Therefore we take and pile on abuse from them because there’s that sense that we’re going to make it anyway, do you know what I mean? Michael says to my character at one point: “One could murder you very easily.” What a terrible thing to say, but I can remember saying to a very close friend of mine that I wished I could put a knife in his head. I was that angry, but we’re still friends today. You get worked up about something, or God forbid you have too much to drink, and that’s what happens.

AARON SHARFF
(Cowboy)

I’d like to ask you, as the youngest member of the cast, what you think of the play as an artifact of gay urban life?

Lots of people have said that they thought the play would be dated and it isn’t. It’s interesting because no one ever wonders that about other older plays; no one wonders if A Streetcar Named Desire is dated. Even people who have never seen The Boys In The Band before wonder if it’s dated….

Maybe people wonder, before seeing it, because they’d like to believe that the world has changed for gay people since the time the play was written…

Have we really come that far since then? We’ve politically come a long ways but it’s important to remember that there’s still psychological damage; it’s not like you abolish slavery and get rid of segregation and suddenly black people are fine and doing as well as white people. It’s just not true. Gay people have gained more rights but a third of America still thinks there is something wrong with them. The play isn’t politically correct, but it’s not a political play. It’s a personal play that shows us a very intimate effect of what is like to be gay in a straight world.

Do you think of Cowboy as a comedic character?

I saw the movie and didn’t think the original actor played it that way or was trying to be funny. He counterbalanced all the older, bitter gay men by being innocent, naïve and strangely hopeful even though he’s a prostitute. I think the role has potential to be comic, but it’s sort of in-between. I think it’s less a specifically focused approach to accomplish something comedic, than I did something naturally, it got laughs and it developed in that way. I’m not unaware that it now is a comedic role, nor did I specifically set out to make it that way.

Naive and innocent are not qualities you would expect in a hustler…

Yeah, you might expect the prostitute character to be the most complicated, damaged and rotten inside, but instead he’s the one that the other characters might be jealous of for being less jaded. He doesn’t appear to be smart, but there is the possibility that he is. I read a book about a mid-60’s hustler who had to play dumb because there was something attractive about that to the men who hired him. There’s a story in the book about how he went home with a guy and while he was sitting around he picked up a book. The guy saw that and threw him out; it totally ruined the allure.

What’s challenging for you about performing in an “apartment”?

It just takes a little more focus than normal because there’s a lot to block out. It’s harder to let your eyes scan the room because, as they do, you make eye contact with people. On the other hand, we can play little mini-scenes that only certain people see, so there may be moments that only those people laugh at. That’s kind of neat. A lot of times in a larger proscenium space you could put in little moments but no one is going to notice. In this play every little thing is going to get caught by at least a couple of people. It’s nice to have your entire performance appreciated in that way.

photo: Joan Marcus

I had hoped to like The Temperamentals, now transferred to one of the New World Stages, a lot more than I did in its earlier, off-off Broadway incarnation, but by the middle of its first act I was once again slumped in my seat with a case of the Gay History Lesson Blues. The playwright, John Morans, should get due socio-cultural credit for dramatizing the mostly overlooked gay rights pioneers who formed the Mattachine Society decades before Stonewall, but did he have to go about it with so heavy a hand? Although the show is not the joyless slog that most “good-for-you” theatre is – there’s lively entertainment value in watching the unlikely love relationship unfold between social activist Harry Hay and young fashion designer Rudi Gernreich – it’s still essentially the kind of theatre that makes you worry you’ll be told to stay after to clap erasers. The playwright makes sure we know that the characters are fighting for something, but that’s not as involving as giving them something playable to fight against: the play lacks actable conflict until a new character shows up out of nowhere very late in the first act. The lead performances, by Michael Uhrie and Thomas Jay Ryan, are at all times nuanced and credible, the main reasons to see the show, in fact. Arnie Burton is a clear standout among the otherwise far-from-subtle supporting cast.

Somehow, in all my years of theatergoing, I had never seen this musical. This small off-off production, performed with two keyboards and running through this weekend as part of the Active Theater Company’s season, proved an enjoyable and often charming introduction. The show is comprised of two one-act musicals: the first, adapted from a short story and set in late 19th century Vienna, concerns the often whimsical affair between a well-off confirmed bachelor and a socialite who are each secretly slumming; the second, adapted from a French play to take place present-day in the Hamptons, centers on the temptation for romance between a man and a woman who are best friends but married to other people. As the Viennese lovers, Nick Dalton and Abby Mueller make a far more engaging pair than Nathaniel Shaw and Stephanie Youell Binetti, who lack comparative warmth as the modern-day friends. Despite this, and less than ideal design elements, the show is generally delightful and comes off with a good deal of charm. Even if you’re familiar with the material, it’s worth catching for Dalton and especially for Mueller, who is altogether wonderful.

I had the great pleasure of talking with Jeffry Denman about his onstage role in Yank! and his offstage role as the show’s Choreographer.

Your association with the show goes back a ways…

I jumped on board during NYMF. The director Igor Goldin and I had done shows together in Summer stock. We ran into each other in 2005; he had started directing and he told me I would be right for this show. I had been doing plays at the time and even though Yank! is a musical it read like a play; I really liked that. Chase Brock was the Choreographer at NYMF, but when we did the production in Brooklyn he was busy with his company, The Chase Brock Experience. They asked me to do it and I jumped at the chance because I love the show. Everyone says, even David and Joe (Zellnik, the writers), that it’s an homage to the Rodgers and Hammerstein classics. Those are very close to my heart because of how well dance is integrated. It was a great opportunity to have dance be a part of the storytelling and they’ve done a great job of that just by writing the song “Click”.

That song is about Artie’s mentorship of Stu, and so is the dance.

Absolutely. It worked out really well with Bobby Steggert (who plays Stu). While he has a great affinity for tap dancing, he doesn’t have a lot of training. For the last couple of years we would literally get into a studio every once in a while. I’d say: “When Yank! happens, whenever that is, we’re gonna have to have some really cool steps.” The only way to get that stuff done is if you work on it for a while. He welcomed the chance to get his dance vocabulary up. So, there was a mentorship going on while we were doing all this. I think you can really see that in the number.

Let’s talk about the dream ballet, which is something of a flashpoint. Did the show always have one?

David and Joe have always maintained that they wanted Yank! to have a dream ballet. To their credit, they’re trying to do something with a dream ballet that nobody has ever done before and that is to have it in a place in the show that is extremely important. It’s basically the 11 o’clock number. The character has a decision to make and he has to gain information. Originally at NYMF there was certainly a lot of dance in the dream ballet but there was also pantomime and very specifically depicted story. In Brooklyn, there were some moments retained with pantomime but it made us step a little more toward a more metaphorical style. For this production I asked David and Joe for the ability to go full-on with the metaphor, to not do any kind of pantomime. We made a huge cut during previews that we really didn’t need. At the end of the day, we all believe in the dream ballet.

It’s funny. As an actor I don’t like to read reviews, but as a Choreographer it was pointed out to me that it was almost a duty. I noticed that everybody was focusing on the dream ballet at some point. Since the reviews have come out the reaction in the theatre to the dream ballet has gotten better and better. I love our audiences because either they didn’t listen to the criticisms of the placement or of the concept of the dream ballet or they did and they don’t care. I think it’s great that people are talking about it because really that’s what the Zellniks most want, to affect people. They don’t don’t mind if they goose someone’s opinion-maker.

photo: Carol Rosegg

Did you base your character, Artie, on anyone you know?

When I first read Artie I kind of half seriously and half jokingly said it was loosely based on Brooks Ashmanskas. Brooks and I had done a couple of shows in Summer stock and I absolutely love him. I think he’s a singular human being because of how he looks at life. The joy he brings to everyday moments is something I wanted for Artie. At the same time Artie has an archness – he’s a man who has, if you want to get right down to it, been beaten. This isn’t touched on in the show, but I don’t think he’s able to run around in the Army the way he does and not have some consequences from someone somewhere. I think he has learned to get around it and to create an insulated place where he can do what he wants. But I do think he has been hurt.

How would your career have been different if you had been born a few decades earlier?

You know, when I was in my 20’s that was my mantra: I was born at the wrong time. I’ve come to believe that you’re born when you’re supposed to be born. What I specialize in and what I’m good at is bringing an era with me, especially when you’re talking about the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s. That is something that is still needed. If I was born in the 20’s there’s a chance that I wouldn’t have worked because there were so many good people back then. Not that there aren’t good people now. I love my career and I love the fact that that time period feels like home to me. It wouldn’t be that way if I were in those eras.

Does it feel like home because that’s the theatre you first turned on to, or is there another reason?

The first thing I loved about theatre was just the pretending. In the first grade I was part of a pretentiously titled “gifted and talented” section of the school. We put on The Fox and The Hungry Tiger. All I knew at 6 years old was that I wanted to be either the fox or the tiger. I ended up being the tiger. From that point on, whenever there was a show I wanted to be the lead. It was a non-issue; it was just what I had to do. In high school I met a wonderful choreographer and director who told me that I had a resemblance to Fred Astaire and that I needed to watch one of his movies. I did and that was the end, or rather the beginning, of that.

Is there any chance that you and Marc Kudisch will be doing your two-man holiday show again?

It’s really funny because in most ways Marc and I could not be more opposite. But in the ways that count, in creative approach and in always coming up with ideas, we are very similar. We met doing a couple of Broadway By The Years. I directed a couple, he directed a couple. I immediately respected him not only from his work but because of how he dealt with directing those shows because they are so specific. You don’t have a lot of time to put it together, you’re dealing with a lot of different personalities, and you have to come up with really good ideas on the fly. We both really fed off each other’s creative energies. He approached me and said that he had this idea and that he wanted to talk to me about it – that’s usually how Kudisch says things, as statements rather than questions. We met for lunch with a couple of notebooks and in 90 minutes we had 19 really good ideas that could be developed into a holiday show. When we did the shows those audiences told us so much – it’s one thing to be sitting around laughing with your friend in your living room but when you’re in front of people and they’re all laughing at the same things, that told us we had something. We’re in talks now to develop it further.

Besides that and Yank!, what’s been your most satisfying artistic experience so far?

That’s a toughie. Last Summer, Glen Casale at Sacramento Music Circus took a chance on me to play the Baker in Into The Woods. Usually the Baker is played by someone in the Chip Zien/Lonny Price mold, so I had accepted that it was a role I would never get to play. It was so satisfying. Viki Lewis played The Baker’s Wife and we both had such a great time. You only get to do it for a week, that’s Summer stock, but it was a fantastic week. But if you ask me that question in a year I might say whatever I just did.

We were just talking about this at the theatre, that it’s so important not to constantly be looking for the next thing for some kind of validation. Like with Yank!, everyone is talking hopefully about a transfer. That’s wonderful, but right now we’re selling out and the cast is wonderful about not letting buzz get in the way. They go to work, do their job, they’re present in the moment. That’s what it’s about, making sure that whatever I’m working on is what I am happy about and being creatively nourished by. Yank! is that in spades.

I was thrilled to get to chat with Matthew Rauch about his compelling performance as Bosola in Red Bull Theater’s latest hit “The Duchess of Malfi”.

I first want to ask you about your continuing association with Red Bull Theater…

I keep going back there. I met Jesse (Berger, the Artistic Director) years ago and was lucky enough to be asked to be in The Revenger’s Tragedy which was an amazing experience for everybody involved. I loved the aesthetic and the people I was working with. I was able to do Edward The Second and I’ve now joined the board of the company; Jesse and I have become sort of collaborators, I guess. This role now is one of the hardest I’ve ever tried and I feel very lucky to be able to do it in New York with this terrific group of actors and with this company, which I think has quite the singular mission.

How would you describe the Red Bull mission?

My take is that they do modern interpretations of what were populist dramas. These plays were the most popular entertainments of their time in the same way that “Lost” or “American Idol” are now. A lot of people think of plays by Shakespeare and his contemporaries as a bunch of people running around in tights saying “thee” and “thou”. Red Bull is trying to change that perception, hopefully for the better.

One of the reviews of this production said that Jacobean tragedies were the forerunners of today’s slasher flicks. Do you agree with that?

That’s possible. The slasher flicks tend not to have heroes and villains that you can identify with in a profound way. In Halloween you’re rooting for Jamie Lee Curtis, but there’s no tragic figure and no tragic element. What makes plays like this one so amazing is that they can be very complicated plot-wise and there are so many elements of humanity mixed into them. Yes, the violence is extreme and was intended to be. But in a perfect world, The Duchess of Malfi is also very moving and has real insight into the human spirit.

photo: Carol Rosegg

Do you consider Bosola to be a moral character?

At first he’s not a moral person, he’s only interested in status and power. He’s subverted morality to his free agency. Unlike the typical villains of this genre – like Iago, or the Scottish king – he has this descent into behaving badly. Then, almost like a Phoenix, he rises to become a moral character. It’s a complicated journey to ask the audience to loathe him so much and then to sympathize with him.

Is that why you said earlier that the role is difficult?

Yes. Another reason is that there’s no moment where he tells you why he’s doing what he’s doing; he doesn’t have what I refer to as the ‘Iago moment’. At the beginning of Othello Iago says, “I hate the Moor”. In The Duchess of Malfi there are no guideposts from (playwright John) Webster as to why Bosola is hanging around. Yes, the Cardinal owes him and yes, he has some connection to Ferdinand, but he’s not bound to be there unless you invent a reason.

We had a great dramaturg on this production named Laura Brown who brought in a lot of writing about the play. I’m not really a research person, I like the play to be my map, but for some reason I found myself reading articles about this play eagerly. Some critics have said that Bosola is just a functionary character who starts out a villain and ends a hero but I couldn’t believe that this great play, full of this extraordinary writing and these real complex characters, had at its core a role that was two-dimensional. I just refused to believe that.

Was there a lightbulb moment when the character become clear to you?

I wish there was. It was more like little Christmas lights moments during the preview week. There are four movements for him: the first is his wanting what he wants; the second is his enjoyment of his power; third is where the doubt comes in, when he sees the Duchess’ nobility; the fourth movement is fairly clear in the play. That second movement, learning to have fun and to play his enjoyment, didn’t really come until I could play the whole thing all the way through a few times.

What was the reaction to the set design, which initially suggests a giant vagina?

Typically, as an obtuse male, I didn’t realize until it was pointed out to me; the women in the cast realized immediately! We had seen drawings a couple of months before we started, and during rehearsals we had an elaborate model with the drapes indicated. We knew that the set would be two distinct movements: first covered and let’s say “womb-like”, and second much more naked and skeletal. In the playing of it, when those curtains come down, you can very distinctly feel the energy change in the theatre. The play goes from being this episodic, straightforward melodrama to a very dark place very quickly. That’s a lot of fun to play with that transition. It is not a forgiving set – it’s a lot of steel and those platforms are high up. I’m covered in bruises and so is everyone else.

photo: from “Edward The Second”; credit: Brian Dilg

Are you typically drawn to playing dangerous characters?

I think so. I’m interested as an actor in people who do bad things or act in extreme ways. It’s hard to explain what appeals about it – I’m I think a fairly normal person – but there’s a sense when you’re acting of letting people access you privately but it’s not really you, it’s only a facet of you. I think it’s fascinating to watch people play dark characters when they can find the humanity or even a sympathy for them. I’m not sure there’s such a thing as pure evil. There’s always a reason why people behave as they do. And really, that’s your job as an actor – to figure out how to make it real.

What’s one quality that makes you a great actor?

One thing that Carl Forsman said about me is that I’m a gamer; I will come every night and do the best show I possibly can. I work hard. There are always days when you’re tired, or not feeling well, or you’ve had a shitty audition and you come to the theatre and think you’re not in the mood. But in those thirty seconds before you go on, that adrenaline and that recognition of what is going to happen, I know I am always there and ready to navigate the play. I know a lot of artists, none of whom I will name, who are lazy and I think there’s really no excuse for that. You gotta do the work every day.