Quick Q&A: Bill Connington

After an Outstanding Solo Show award at last Summer’s Fringe Festival, the bone-chilling, impossible to forget Zombie – adapted from the same-named Joyce Carol Oates novella that unflinchingly goes into the mind of a fictional serial killer – will begin performances this week at The Studio at Theatre Row. I had the pleasure of chatting with Bill Connington, who wrote the adaptation and who (brilliantly) performs it.

What convinced you that the story could be dramatized for the stage?

Hubris. (laughing) A few years ago I did a one-man show which I wrote myself. I wanted to do another but I wanted it to be someone else’s writing and I wanted it to be a great American writer who was still living. Joyce Carol Oates was one of the authors I looked at. Something about her voice really spoke to me – very dark, she really “goes there”. In the beginning I was so reverential that all I was able to do was rearrange things and make some cuts. But then after I did that, I did change some things just to make the story clear.

Why Zombie?

It’s the only piece of writing that, as an adult, really frightened me. I thought I’d better do it.

Did you always intend for the character, Quentin P., to interact on stage with a life sized dummy or did that idea come later in the process?

No, it came during the process. I knew I wanted to keep it very stark and just have a little table, initially there was just one chair, and then the chess set came because he is smart and I wanted to have something for him to do. I think the dummy came to me just as a stand-in for the zombie (that Quentin imagines will be his slave). It wasn’t until later when I was doing some research… some critics say, Joyce doesn’t, that the character is loosely based on Jeffrey Dahmer. I found out later that when Dahmer was a teenager he stole a mannequin from a department store and was having sex with it in addition to other things he was doing.

How much research did you do on real-life serial killers?

I did some. I wouldn’t say I did huge amounts partly because it was so fast. I put together the script and the Fringe said yes and before I knew it I was performing it. I trusted Joyce’s work, I think she’s a genius, and so much is there in the words and how she’s put it together. Also you can go on youtube and you can see Jeffrey Dahmer. I’m not doing an imitation of him, but I did get a lot of information from just watching him and how flat his affect is. There’s no affect at all.

photo:Dixie Sheridan

Have you encountered a temptation to pull back at all when you feel that a particular moment is disturbing the audience?

No and I consider that part of my responsibility as the performer because Joyce, in her writing, is so gutsy and is so unafraid to really “go there”. As the performer I have to honor that. In very early rehearsals, I knew all my lines. But when I got to some of the really terrible things that I had to say I would just go blank. But that just lasted a day or two. The audience is very close, that’s part of the experience, it’s deliberate that it’s a very intimate theatre. Depending on what’s happening with the lights, I can sometimes see people and especially because I am talking right to them there’s been a number of times when I’ve seen people covering their face. If I’m talking about doing something to a man’s groin I’ve seen men in the audience crossing and uncrossing their legs. I’m definitely aware of their reactions.

The only time I’ve really gotten uncomfortable, because (Quentin) makes a number of remarks that are not politically correct about minorities, was when there was an African-American man sitting right in the front row at one performance. I was very aware of what I was saying. I made sure to introduce myself afterward and to be extra nice, but he was absolutely fine.

What reactions do you get after a performance?

There was a critic at an event who told me that she was scared to talk to me. What was more surprising was that friends of mine would be afraid of me. Joyce too. We had not met before opening night at the Fringe but we’d had a lovely email relationship. She said she was afraid to shake my hand. She was trying to decide whether she could ask me along with some friends of hers. Later she said I seemed like such a nice man, but just a few minutes ago I was this monster. To put her at her ease I said “oh, I was just pretending”. She’s very smart and quick and she said “Anybody can pretend, but they can’t pretend like you.”

How do you, as an actor who has to put his humanity to use to depict a character, go about playing someone who seems to have so little humanity?

It helps me that I feel I’m 100% opposite of him. He’s so different from me that it’s a wonderful challenge to reach way way out of yourself but obviously you still have to use your own feelings and your own imagination and apply them. I think we’ve all known narcissists and how their self-involvement can create problems in every day life. So this is a narcissist times one million, this person has no empathy whatsoever.

Not a question, but I wanted to tell you that the experience of watching the show is like being locked in a room with a mad man rather than with an actor playing one.

A number of audience members start to feel very claustrophobic and have said that. I take that as a compliment. This is a different acting experience than I’ve had in other plays. When I’m doing it I don’t feel like I’m in a conventional play, although of course it is a play. In America we have certain rules about what you’re supposed to do in playwriting. Even if it’s a horrible dark subject, at the end there should be a lesson learned there should be some uplift and we should feel smarter and better about it. NO. Joyce goes to the total darkest place. She makes no apologies and she doesn’t follow that form and she doesn’t think there needs to be any redemption whatsoever. It’s shocking to people.

How do you shake off the character after a performance?

I found it very helpful going for bodywork. Massage, Alexander technique, whatever, somehow gets whatever he is out of my body. People ask me if I have had nightmares from doing the show but I haven’t. I’m grateful for that.