STAGE TO SCREENS: Chats with Intimate Apparel's Viola Davis and New York Newcomer, King Lear's Geraint Wyn Davies
By Michael Buckley
14 Mar 2004
In her earlier TV series, "City of Angels," Davis played Nurse Lynette
Peeler. "The only bad thing is that I didn't feel they used me enough. The
best thing that happened was I met my husband [Julius Tennon]. We just got
married, but we've been together five years. He came from Texas, had been a single father for 16 years, and finally decided to try his luck as an actor.
I got an instant family and a couple of grandkids. Home base now is Los
Angeles. We bought a house. As much as I love New York, it feels good to
have a life. It puts everything in perspective."
A house in L.A. will be convenient if "Century City" is renewed in the fall.
"You sign a five-year contract. Basically, you sign your life away." But TV
work does allow an actor to be able to afford to do plays. "It gives a
certain comfort. I can relax and just rehearse, and not worry about the
mortgage and bills. And that means something. People don't tell you about
that when you start acting. They think it's kind of cool to take a vow of
poverty. I grew up poor. There's no poetry, no dignity in being poor and
struggling and having bad credit."
Had Ron Stetson mentioned an actor's lack of security in Viola Davis's classroom years ago, somehow one believes that this very talented woman would still have her hand raised. She laughs loudly one more time and says, "Absolutely!"
***
This is my lucky month for enjoyable interviews. Geraint (GAR-int) Wyn
Davies is a most likeable chap and a first-rate talent. In his New York
Times review of the current King Lear, Ben Brantley noted, "Mr. Wyn
Davies plays Edmund, a spiritual cousin to Iago, as an almost comic
Restoration-style villain."
Indeed, states the Welsh-born actor, this is a sort of different
Lear, "because of Jonathan [Miller, who directed] and Christopher
[Plummer, who portrays the monarch]. They've gone for a domestic drama
between a man and his three daughters, as opposed to a grand, kingly thing.
[Miller] wanted to reduce it. He often says, 'Life is made up of trivial
moments.' This [production] is really pared down. Some people absolutely
love that, some people don't absolutely love that."
What Wyn Davies loves is to be making his New York stage debut. "You've
heard about [working in New York]. Everything is sort of daunting. Then
you're part of it. It still is daunting, but not as much. Backstage, it's
the same world as anywhere, but outside. . . . I'd love to do more here."
His dressing room "is the watering hole after the show," he explains.
"Christopher will regale us with stories of Orson Welles, Richard Burton
and others. [Plummer] asked me to do this. I think he's brilliant — one of
the most virile, vibrant Lears ever!"
I quote John Gielgud's line that the secret to playing Lear is to hire a
thin Cordelia. Wyn Davies laughs. "So you can carry her at the end of the
play. It would be interesting to know how many Lears carry their Cordelias
on. I know one production where Lear carried a dummy in a bag, with some
hair sticking out."
Was there an aspect of Edmund that was difficult to capture? Replies the
actor, "It was difficult to try to balance Edmund as a very intelligent
villain in a Lear where the director was showing a lot of humor. I
always thought [Edmund] was sort of a Dickensian guy, the bastard outside
the window who would do anything to get inside. It's an interesting journey.
Sometimes, it feels like Benny Hill as Jack Nicholson playing the 'talk-show
host Edmund'; other nights, it has a truth — and that's what you're trying
to go for."
The actor is a veteran of seven TV series, most of which were shown in
Canada. He names them in order: "The Judge," "To Serve and Protect," the
last 26 episodes of "Airwolf," "Dracula" (which he shot in Luxembourg),
"Forever Knight," "Black Harbour" and "Tracker."
Claims Wyn Davies, "You do them, enjoy them — to different degrees. You try to balance it all. Your kids [he has a son, Galen, and a daughter, Pyper]
get used to things. [Doing series TV] is almost like being addicted, but you
have to get back to the stage. Otherwise, it gets pretty false. It's all
about smoke and mirrors, but [the stage provides] better smoke, better
mirrors."
Born in Swansea, South Wales, the actor explains that Wyn was originally
part of his first name, but separate. It's the ending of his father's first
name, but part of the name. "With us [he and his older brother], it was like
a Van, but I made it part of my last name, Wyn Davies."
His brother's a bush pilot; they're the sons of a preacher and a teacher.
"Ironically, we discovered that my dad had considered two other professions:
actor and pilot."
It was while sitting with an organist in his father's church that
seven-year-old Geraint decided to be an actor. Does he find it simpler to
work with directors than with God? He laughs. "I've worked with a lot of
directors who would like incense [to be present] while they speak.
"I ran the theatre in the boarding school [that he attended in Toronto]. I
played all girls' parts when I was growing up. I convinced the school to
bring in the opposite sex. I went to university to study economics, but left
after three months to join the theatre. Since then, I've been going wherever
anyone would give me a job."
Those jobs have included five seasons with Canada's Shaw Festival and four
seasons with the Stratford Shakespeare Festival; working as an actor and
director with the Welsh national performing arts company, Theatr Clwyd; and
amassing several TV and film credits. "The most fun I've ever had," declares
Wyn Davies, "was doing Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady [at the
Stratford Festival]. It was also the easiest thing I've ever done. I love
musicals."
Other highlights include "playing Stockmann in An Enemy of the
People, the title role in Hamlet, Noël Coward's The
Vortex, and my one-man Dylan Thomas show." Among his stage credits:
Gross Indecency, The Boys from Syracuse, Misalliance,
Sleuth, Cyrano de Bergerac and Cloud Nine.
Wyn Davies has spent the last nine years in Santa Barbara, where he lives
with wife Alana Guinn (an artist), Galen (who attends Berkeley; "He's going
to rule the world") and Pyper (a high-school junior "who wants to be an
illustrator"). A few years ago, Wyn Davies took his family to live in Paris
for a year. "It was maybe the best — and stupidest — thing I could have
done. [But they'll always have Paris.] We have a three-week family rule.
Everyone has to see each other within that time."
While in New York, he's seen a number of shows. "I really enjoyed Retreat
from Moscow, Gypsy and I Am My Own Wife. I will see
Avenue Q and Mister Jackman [The Boy from Oz]. We do five
shows a week [of King Lear], but with Christopher doing it, they're
five darn good ones, and every other week we have five nights off." Up next,
Geraint Wyn Davies is "doing Dylan Thomas [Do Not Go Gentle] again,
and directing a short film. But," he adds with a laugh, "there's lots of
space for people to come and ask me to do things."
***
END QUIZ: In 1984, Laurence Olivier starred in a TV presentation of
"King Lear." Which Tony Award winner played Edmund: a) Kevin Kline; b)
Robert Lindsay; c) Jonathan Pryce? (Answer: Next column, April 11)
The February 15 question was: On November 29, 1972, TV's "Hallmark Hall of
Fame" presented "The Man Who Came to Dinner," in which Sheridan Whiteside
was portrayed by a) Zero Mostel; b) Orson Welles; c) David Niven? Answer:
b).
Michael Buckley also writes for TheaterMania.com, and may be reached at
ChannelingTheatre@hotmail.com
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