By Andrew Gans
Question: If you had to describe Margaret, how would you?
Question: I love the mother/daughter section of the score so much. The two women who played Margaret before you, Barbara Cook and Betty Buckley, are so different vocally. I wonder how you decided to approach the score. What were the challenges for you and what were your thoughts about working on those songs?
Question: How difficult is playing that final scene with Carrie?
23 Mar 2012
Mazzie in Carrie.
Photo by Joan Marcus
Mazzie: Margaret is an extremely passionate woman. She's a very complicated woman, as most women are. [Laughs.] … In her past and how it has affected her and brings her to the point of where she is in her life with her daughter, what her deep religious beliefs are and how rooted they are in her being and in her core, and how that affects every decision that she makes. She loves her daughter more than anything, and she's a mother. She's trying to protect her child, which, I think, is just the natural mother instinct, and she's trying to protect her from what she views as evil, and she thinks she's doing the right thing.
Mazzie: I love [the songs]!… I heard some material when they did [an early] reading. I've heard Betty sing some stuff, and I think Maureen McGovern did a reading. I have never heard Barbara sing any of it, but whenever I look at a score, I approach it for who I am and what's going to fit into my voice. We changed keys, and we re-orchestrated, re-imagined things, songs from different points-of-view. "When There's No One" is, I think, very different from how it was sung. I do it very quietly. It's a very introspective number… It's a very poignant and important part of when she makes that decision and realizes that she's going to be alone. It's a very human moment where, I think, sometimes you could view this woman as not human because of what she thinks she has to do, but she is. [Laughs.] She's extremely human.
Mazzie: Uh! It's horrible! [Laughs.] It's so awful. I say every night — it makes me sick to my stomach. There's a lot of the show that makes me sick to my stomach. "Eve Was Weak" — throwing [Carrie] in the closet is a very emotional thing. It's a horrible thing, and Margaret feels horrible about it. She comes back with "Evening Prayers" saying, "I was wrong. I'm sorry," asking for forgiveness. Look, I'm not saying that this woman is normal. She's not! [Laughs.] But I have to play her as a human being. That's my challenge every night, but that last scene is really… [Laughs.] Taking out a big ol' knife and… Uh!
Mazzie: I look forward to going to the theatre and being with this really amazing company of people that are one of the most enthusiastic, committed companies that I've ever worked with. And, Molly and I share a dressing room at the Lucille Lortel that is literally a closet, so we've gotten to know each other really well. [Laughs.] I really look forward to that, and I look forward to the journey every night, although it's difficult. It's hard, but each moment has its really hard elements, but wonderful also to play — to embody and put out there.
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| Mazzie and Molly Ranson on opening night | ||
| photo by Joseph Marzullo/WENN |
Question: What's it like performing in that intimate space with the audience…
Mazzie: It's really wonderful. The audience has been, certainly, a key element to this whole process… I think that certain people's expectations were of one thing, and so many people come to this with a preconceived notion of what Carrie should be… I think it doesn't take them very long to realize that this is an emotional journey. This is a Carrie that you're going to end up, at the end of the show, feeling something about and talking about in an emotional way. I think that we're all extremely proud of that, and that's what we wanted this to be. I think that is one of the things that people are surprised about—how emotionally involved they get in the story, and how they're seeing the story in such a different way that they never have before, and I think that's so exciting.
Question: Do you think this show or this story has a message or what does it say to you? What do you think it tells people?
Mazzie: It's a fable of our time, and it's however you want to look at it — whether it's a warning or it's a cautionary tale or it's something that you watch and you think of your own behavior, how you treat other people, how you look at other people, how you judge other people, and, hopefully, you leave the theatre with maybe a different point-of-view or maybe a different sensibility.... Each theatregoer has their own experience with because, of course, everyone is their own individual and everyone has their own thoughts and their own way that they look at the world and look at other people. I think that's one of the reasons I love telling this story every night.
Question: Will there be a recording this time around?
Mazzie: I can't say a definite yes, but I'll say I'd be extremely surprised if there's not.
Question: Is there talk of a transfer or doing it elsewhere?
Mazzie: There is talk of everything right now… As an actor, you do your show, and the rest of it is out of my hands. All I know is that the audiences are building, and people are loving this show… From people that, like I said, came with a preconceived notion, and we've completely changed it, and they're like, "I've got to come back. Oh, my God. I can't believe this experience." There are a lot of people that don't know Carrie. I mean, there's a lot of young people—they don't know Carrie. They don't know the music. They weren't even alive in 1988. The movie is an older movie—the '70s. The novel is '70s. Unless their parents or someone has said, "Watch the movie," a lot of people come and don't know the story. Even people my age have come and don't know the story. It's just sort of in the theatre world that it's so [well-known]… Outside of that, it's not. [Laughs.]
Question: After Next to Normal and Carrie, are you ready for a musical comedy?
Mazzie: [Laughs.] I'm ready to do something a little lighter where maybe I don't have to be insane and cry every night. [Laughs.] Yes, that would be nice!
[Tickets for Carrie begin at $89. Visit mcctheater.org. The Lucille Lortel Theatre is located at 121 Christopher Street.]
Well, that's all for now. Happy diva-watching! E-mail questions or comments to agans@playbill.com.
