Quick Q&A: Tim Donoghue

Actor Tim Donoghue finds rewarding, fulfilling work as a lowly wage slave in Morris Panych’s The Dishwashers.

What do you look for when you choose a role?

There are so many plays done about families and breakdowns of marriages and all that and I just don’t find that interesting anymore. Most of all I look for something different and perhaps something about what’s happening in the world today. That’s why I love this play – I think it speaks so much to who we are right now, especially in this recession, and to what it means to be a worker, to have a job and make a living. The playwright dedicated the play to his father. Reading the play made me think so much of my own father who worked all his life and didn’t particularly like what he did but he knew he had responsibilities and kids to put through college. It spoke to me so deeply, I knew I had to do it.

Is The Dishwashers a comedy or a tragedy??

That’s what’s so wonderful about it, it’s a little bit of both. Somebody said to me the other day that it’s like a cross between Waiting For Lefty and Waiting For Godot and it is.

Were you familiar with the playwright, Morris Panych, before you took the role?

I had done a play of his before called Vigil up in Massachusetts. I went out and bought every play of his that I could find. He’s a major guy in Canada; it’s shocking that more people here don’t know him. Yet. Vigil was done in Westport last year and I think that production is slated to come into New York somehow with Tim Busfield.

What’s the most challenging thing about playing Dressler, your character?

He never f**king shuts up, first of all. Voice-wise, it’s challenging; he drives the play. But that’s a technical thing. What I found challenging is that he’s not like me at all except that I have come to like and respect him so much that my job has gotten easier the more I play it. He’s just a guy who looked at his life and said “this is what I can expect out of life and I’m going to love what I’m doing because that’s my only choice.” And he does it with such dignity and grace. He’s worked for thirty years in this job as a dishwasher because it’s what he had to do. Some people can’t have it all, that’s the problem with the world. This guy embraces that.

photo: Rick Teller

When I saw the show the audience roared with laughter at some of your character’s bleakest lines. Is that the reaction you always get?

We sometimes don’t get the laughs because people are so caught up in what’s happening. Last night we had an audience that didn’t laugh. Even the great big laugh lines got no response at all. But it was very clear that they were very intent and listening. Somebody said afterwards: “I don’t think it’s a comedy, I think it’s a tragedy.” Some people see it one way and some see it another but I do feel that people, especially those who love language, love this play because the writing is so beautiful. It’s compact and it’s dense so you do have to listen.

What can you tell me about the experience of performing in the world premiere of Stuff Happens?

It was very exciting to be in on the ground floor. David Hare was there every day and Nick Hytner, who I like and respect very much, directed it. I thought it was going to be more of a work in progress but it wasn’t really – I think David felt that he had pretty much written the play that he wanted to write. It was a very positive experience but our last performance was the night after Bush got elected for the second time. The play closed on a very very dark note because we were just devastated.

I live in France now, my partner and I left the country when Bush was re-elected. I luckily have an Irish passport so I can work in Great Britain and Europe. I’ve come back to do a couple of plays but while I was living here my career was pretty much in the regional theatre. This is the first play I’ve done in New York in 27 years.

How has the business changed for actors since you started out?

It’s changed exponentially. I think the access is so much more limited. It seems to me that you used to be able to get in to see casting agents and now it’s so much more difficult, I honestly don’t know how young actors do it. The generation before me used to say the same thing, they used to walk into a producer’s office and get seen before there were casting agents, I guess. As everything tightens down there’s less and less work for more and more actors. Just with the regionals alone: so many of them are closing and so many are hiring locally because they’re having trouble.

How does The Dishwashers speak to where we are right now?

I think it’s fascinating right now because the generations that have come up since WW2 have been told they can do whatever they want, that they can just go out and do what they like and it will all work out. Well we all know that that isn’t true. All those guys on Wall Street who thought they had it made are suddenly without jobs. After the events of the last few months, the play takes on a new meaning for a lot of people.