Quick Q&A: Charlayne Woodard

I spoke with actress-playwright Charlayne Woodard, who shares stories in her mesmerizing new semi-autobiographical show The Night Watcher about some of the children she has been blessed to mentor in her life.

Most of the plays you’ve written have been solo shows you’ve performed. What attracts you to them?

I must say that it’s not me who says I should write them, and everytime I do I say it’s going to be my last. The first one happened because I was on a retreat with 450 women. I had been asked to prepare 20 minutes of musical entertainment but I told my Bishop’s wife, who’d seen me in Ain’t Misbehavin’, that I couldn’t do it. I was in mourning for my grandmother who had just died. My husband suggested I get up and talk about that.

I’m an actor today because of something my grandmother did when I was 12. She said that before she died she wanted to see one of her grandkids sing in the church choir. We all thought she was dying, so 5 of us joined. Then she said that before she died she wanted to see one of us sing solo. So I was going to tell this story at the retreat for 15 minutes and it turned into 40, with all these women waving their napkins and coming up to me after to thank me for telling their story. I thought: wow, with a few other stories this could be an evening of theatre.

Can you explain the contradiction that the more specific and personal theatre is, the more universal it becomes?

It just works like that. I didn’t know it at the time; I thought I was just going to be with these people and share my truth. I learned it that night. I see it in other plays and it’s why we go to the theatre, isn’t it? We want some truth that affects us. I’ve always been an avid reader – Toni Morrison, Tennessee Williams, Eudora Welty. They write about the human condition. That’s what I like.

How did The Night Watcher come about?

I was literally doing nothing in L.A. when I got a call from Catherne Kimmel at the Ojai Playwrights Conference asking if I was going to give them anything that season. I had given them a five character play two years before. I told her I had nothing for her and she said “well, you have a month”. In that month I sat down and wrote. I’m calling this one semi-autobiographical to protect the kids I talk about.

In the play you talk about an incident when a stranger judges you for being married and not having children of your own. Did it happen or did you invent it for the play?

It happened but it went on for fifty minutes and over the course of changing trains to Fordham Road. I want you to know that when that man said those things to me, that I was a waste for being married and not having children of my own, it was like an assault. I had always run around saying that I liked my freedom but what that man on the train did to me forced me to ask myself how I really felt about it.

Why is there such societal pressure on married people to have children?

It’s the law. If you believe our Bible, it says “be fruitful and multiply”. People think you are breaking the law and they treat you like you have no feelings. Maybe I can’t have children or maybe something else; they have no sensitivity to that and they can really get on you. I’m happy that I don’t have children of my own because my husband was right – we would have closed ranks and it would have become all about us and our kids.

I got a letter from a woman who said that she was like the man on the train. She thought that not having children of your own made you a waste, and she wanted to tell me that the play changed her mind. One of the reasons I chose to write the play was to tell people to get involved, to get off the pity pot about not having children and contribute because children are here. It doesn’t have to be about writing a check to the Boys’ Club, it can be about listening. I grew up with the world given to me in spoonfuls. Look at the world now – kids have access to the whole world and I don’t think they’re ready for all of it.

Have the children in your life who you talk about and portray in the show come to see it?

The kids on the West Coast did when we did the show in Seattle; the East Coast kids are coming. Not all at once. There’s the family you are born with and the family you ohoose – I am blessed to have both in abundance. I did a matinee once at Manhattan Theatre Club with all my family there and they gave me 2 standing ovations in the first act. They were reacting to things I wasn’t even saying; just the mention of a name would make them crack up laughing and the rest of the audience wondered what was going on. That was the last time I had everybody in en masse. A dress rehearsal with all friends and family would kill me – I would want to honor them, and I wouldn’t find the play and its rhythms.

When I saw The Night Watcher the audience was vocal in appreciation of many of the moments…

Daniel (Sullivan, the director) has the lights so I can see out. You notice when I come out I look right at y’all. I need that give and take – if I can’t see and hear the audience I can’t tell the story. I call my solo plays duets because I am using the audience every night as my scene partner. Some people avert their eyes at first, they’re saying “I’m not in it, I’m just going to hear it.” I’m looking for the people who are responding to what I’m saying; I love the matinee ladies even when they are quiet – I can feel the silent gasps and sighs.

Does the pace of the show change depending on what the audience gives you?

I treat my plays like they are someone else’s: that playwright and that director want this to happen now. Daniel gave me an outline – I know that at some point one story is going to end and music is going to come up in 5 seconds so I need to do what I need to do. If I lose it in a section of the play where I didn’t expect to I can catch up in the next part where I’m narrating. The audience reacts differently every night. When they are finishing my sentences for me it jazzes me but I think “stay ahead of them, Charlayne” – I don’t want to bathe in that, I have to hit and run. That first act had better be no longer than 46 minutes, because I want them to come back.

What makes Daniel Sullivan a valuable director?

He’s smart. And he knows a lot about a lot of things. When you have that, you’re in good hands. He sees the humanness in my characters and he makes a safe space in the room to share. I’m not a foreign entity to him – this black woman, look at her, how bizarre – there’s none of that! He knows the world of my plays and by now he’s a friend.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Cristin Milioti recently and I’d like to touch on your experience with Stunning earlier this year.

I love Cristin. I can’t just play politically correct characters, that’s boring for an actor. But then you’ve got to be ready for the gaga when people react with hostility when you’re playing this predatory lesbian. The play dealt with some issues and brought out hate in some people: at curtain call, certain people would turn their heads and not look at me. I did Stunning as an acting exercise. I love working for other playwrights. That dream is never-ending.

Which playwrights especially?

Suzan-Lori Parks is fabulous. I live for the way that Lynn Nottage writes. I would want to be part of anything they write. Did you see Ruined? Come on! Those actors got to fly. That’s all you ever want to do.