By Andrew Gans
29 Apr 2005
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| Victoria Clark stars as an American tourist in Florence, Italy in The Light in the Piazza |
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| photo by Joan Marcus |
News, views and reviews about the multi-talented women of the musical theatre and the concert/cabaret stage.
VICTORIA CLARK
As far as I'm concerned, Victoria Clark back on Broadway this season at the Vivian Beaumont Theater in Craig Lucas and Adam Guettel's The Light in the Piazza can do no wrong onstage.
The singing actress was a comic delight as Smitty in the Matthew Broderick revival of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, and her performance as down-and-out prostitute Fraulein Kost (she eventually replaced Michele Pawk) in the Roundabout Theatre Company's revival of Cabaret was stirring, thrilling and in the Act I finale "Tomorrow Belongs to Me" disturbing. Not only did she make a huge impact in these relatively small roles, but she was also a standout in the Tony-winning musical Titanic, where she was both comical and touching as second class passenger Alice Beane, a role that also allowed the actress a chance to display her rangy, powerful belt.
Clark was somehow overlooked for a Tony nomination for her Titanic work, but all should be righted this year come Tony nomination time. In fact, Clark may well walk away with the award itself as she is currently giving the best performance of any lead actress in a Broadway musical to open so far this season. In fact, Clark brings Margaret Johnson mother of Clara (Kelli O'Hara) and wife of Roy (Beau Gravitte) to full dramatic life, offering a poignant, beautifully acted and sung performance that has already received Outer Critics Circle and Drama Desk nominations.
Clark's performance has been unanimously praised by critics: In his New York Times review, Ben Brantley said Clark "emerges as a star not through show stopping flash but with the quiet confidence of an actress who knows every bumpy inch of her conflicted character," while Clive Barnes, in the New York Post, wrote the actress "gives a beautifully layered performance." And, New York Magazine's John Simon simply called Clark's work "superb."
I recently had the pleasure of chatting with the multi-talented, down-to-earth Clark, who spoke about her newest Broadway role, her ten-year-old good luck charm and her desire to direct. That interview follows.
Question: You've been involved with Light in the Piazza for a long time. When did you first become involved with the show?
Victoria Clark: We did a reading two-and-a-half years ago in December in Adam [Guettel]'s apartment that was prior to the Seattle production.
Q: How did you get involved with the show? Did you know Guettel from a previous production?
Clark: It was a very lengthy audition process. I did know Adam because I had sung some of his material during a concert where I was featuring up-and-coming writers at a benefit at my church. We were trying to raise money for an interfaith center between my church and B'nai Jeshurun, the synagogue. We were raising some money for programming, and I went up to [Adam's] house and met him and sang through a bunch of songs and picked a great song called "Was That You?" that I don't think has ended up in any show that he's written so far. That's how I met him, and we also had some mutual friends because we're both Yalies.
I was also a gigantic Floyd Collins groupie and went and saw every production that I could see. I went to Philadelphia and saw it there and saw one of the first readings that [director] Tina Landau had in Adam's loft. Big time Adam Guettel groupie.
I had heard one of the [Piazza] songs, actually the last song in the show that I sing, "Fable." [Musical director] Ted Sperling had played it for me . . . about a year before the auditions. I had just loved the song and called Adam and said, "Gosh, I don't know what's happening with this piece and when you're going to do it, but I sure would like an audition for it." And, he called back and said, "Unless you've had a couple of really bad years, you're way too young to play this part." And I called him back and said, "That's why God invented wigs!" [Laughs.] I thought there were a lot of ways we could get around the age issue. . . And, also, people just looked older in those days. By the time you put all the garments on, [you look older]. And people were having babies earlier then, [so] I think it's believable.
Q: How has your character changed since that first workshop?
Clark: I remember at the very first table read during the workshop there's a mention [that Margaret is from Winston-Salem, NC]. Clara says in the first song, "You don't see a lot of these in Winston-Salem. All we see is corduroys." So I said, "Do you guys want me to read this with a North Carolina dialect or do you want me to fake a dialect?" Craig Lucas kinda looked at Adam, and Adam looked at Craig and they're like, "I don't know, maybe, sure, why not?" And that's it. We never tried it any other way after that because there was something so good about the specificity of that [accent]. Suddenly, she became a very specific person because there is a very strangle little dialect, and it's fun, and it's very musical, and it gives the speech a lot of melody and nuance. That was something that never changed and something that really grounds the character. The piece is essentially the same the heart and core of the piece are essentially the same. The structure is almost the same. There have been some changes along the way, mostly dealing with how and when to reveal Clara's disability.
Q: Had her disability originally been revealed earlier or later?
Clark: We've moved it all over the place. In the beginning most of it was at the very end of the first act right before "Say it Somehow," right before the lovers meet in the hotel room. And, in the novel, Elizabeth Spencer puts all of the information on the second page. Then, the [musical's writers] decided to delve into what it means to carry around that loss and grief and guilt for so long. In Seattle we had a new song that went in that took place in a Presbyterian minister's office in Florence where [Margaret] goes to visit the minister and reveals all of this [information] and confesses all of what happened and how she feels responsible for it. When we got to the Goodman, that song was changed. Some of the information stayed in the very beginning of the act they cut all the information out of the first act and moved the confession scene to the second act in the church. And then with this production, we split it half and half. Some comes after "Hysteria," after Clara gets lost in Florence. The guilt piece, the mother piece, what it means to be a mother and parent, and her involvement in all of that, comes in the second act. That escalates and motivates the rest of the piece dramatically, how the tempo accelerates through the end and the courage [Margaret] has to come up with to go back and fight some more.
Q: I had heard that the Chicago production was physically much smaller than the one at the Beaumont.
Clark: That stage at the Vivian Beaumont is wider by a few feet than the Metropolitan Opera stage. That's probably the biggest stage in New York . . . . What [set designer] Michael Yeargin and [director] Bart Sher did by keeping the sightlines open all the way back they've actually added additional feet on both sides of the stage by having the wings completely open. . . . So for the people sitting on the side, they have beautiful things to look at. I think they've made it so every seat is really great. . . It's a great theatre, but it's a really hard place to design for. And, it's kind of tricky to play. I think we're getting it down now, but at first we were like, "Wow, you guys are everywhere!" [Laughs.]
Q: What's it like having to make your exits through the audience?
Clark: Well, that I love. I love any kind of interaction with the audience. What's taken some getting used to is turning my back squarely to a bunch of folks at a time. I know that in a few seconds I'll be turning around and facing that same group, but that took some definite getting used to because it's very different than playing a proscenium [stage].
Q: Also, from Chicago to Broadway you switched daughters, from Celia Keenan-Bolger [now on Broadway in The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee] to Kelli O'Hara.
Clark: We did. [Celia's] a really good friend of mine, and, I think, a wonderful artist. So, it's been wonderful to see her success in this other piece. We're all friends. The hardest thing for all of us was we had spent two years building a family vibe. It's really hard to play that kind of entrenched relationship with a mother and daughter and have it be believable. So, we thought that [we would have] such a great advantage going in, having that connection for so long. But because Kelli was part of the family in a different role, we were already good friends. The transition was amazingly smooth, and yet we acknowledge that it was hard to lose [Celia]. We're all very close Adam and Bart and Celia and [former Piazza co-stars] Wayne Wilcox and Steven Pasquale all the people that contributed to the piece along the way are still very much a part of it. And it's really important for the people who are doing it now to acknowledge that we wouldn't be at the Vivian Beaumont without everyone's contributions along the way. And it's great we're all friends. We all show up at the stage door and go out and have parties together. Everyone's been very generous about the casting changes, both the people that were replaced and the people who've been replacing. Continued...
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