In the Next Room: Mrs. Daldry
In a most astonishing turn of events, I was yesterday offered the role of Mrs. Daldry in Sarah Ruhl's "In the Next Room," or "The Vibrator Play."
I had pretty much written off the chance of being in this. I gave a good audition and a strong callback, but it was very clear to me that I was just slightly wrong for all three of the roles I was capable of playing.
Mrs. Givings is supposed to be in her young twenties. And she is... She is very funny. You have to have a great sense of comedic timing to play her. While I have, ahem, a not inconsiderable personal charm, perhaps, I'm not a natural comedian. You know? You know how some people can just COCK AN EYEBROW and it's funny? Yeah, I can't do that. I gave her up as soon as I saw several other actresses read her sides in a way that made me fall over laughing.
Then there's Annie, the midwife, with whom I had an unexpected connection while reading for her. Who'd've thought? But I knew that she was supposed to be older - late thirties, forties. And that it was RIGHT for her to be older. That the actress needed that sort of face you could look at forever, like Helen Mirren's face, because she had grown into it, because she had gone deep and settled there. That deep-eyed beauty. Wisdom-creased. I knew I could play her okay, but how much better would she be played by an older woman? So much better. And I was not she.
But Mrs. Daldry now, by god. I may be the right age for her, more or less, but she is described as a "fragile beauty." No one, in the long and elaborate string of compliments I've been the wide-eyed recipient of, has ever thought to call ME a "fragile beauty." Now, in essence, I had a lovely, moving time reading for her. She's a character much like one of my dream roles - Fosca, in Passion, whose nerves are so exposed it is as if every breath is a hurricane, every slight a razor blade. Mrs. Daldry, to me, is even more pitiable. A child never allowed her womanhood. Certainly patronized, possibly brutalized, totally misunderstood, with no understanding of herself either. Someone who falls in love with the first person who shows her gentleness and compassion and delight, even in the most clinical of ways. She's beautiful.
But me, a fragile beauty? Ha! WHAT WERE THE CHANCES???
I didn't think I'd be cast in this play at all.
But I shall be playing Mrs. Daldry.
And so I must understand that there are all kinds of fragility. And there are all kinds of beauty. And if I'm playing a fragile beauty, what the hell, I have to figure out how to make that mean ME.
Needs. Wants. Desires.
Here is a new skin.
Let me try it on.
How extraordinary.
This weird theatre, that keeps making me do extraordinary things. There is no predicting it.
So I guess I'll just roll with the role and see where it takes me.
Um.
YIPPEE!
***
I had pretty much written off the chance of being in this. I gave a good audition and a strong callback, but it was very clear to me that I was just slightly wrong for all three of the roles I was capable of playing.
Mrs. Givings is supposed to be in her young twenties. And she is... She is very funny. You have to have a great sense of comedic timing to play her. While I have, ahem, a not inconsiderable personal charm, perhaps, I'm not a natural comedian. You know? You know how some people can just COCK AN EYEBROW and it's funny? Yeah, I can't do that. I gave her up as soon as I saw several other actresses read her sides in a way that made me fall over laughing.
Then there's Annie, the midwife, with whom I had an unexpected connection while reading for her. Who'd've thought? But I knew that she was supposed to be older - late thirties, forties. And that it was RIGHT for her to be older. That the actress needed that sort of face you could look at forever, like Helen Mirren's face, because she had grown into it, because she had gone deep and settled there. That deep-eyed beauty. Wisdom-creased. I knew I could play her okay, but how much better would she be played by an older woman? So much better. And I was not she.
But Mrs. Daldry now, by god. I may be the right age for her, more or less, but she is described as a "fragile beauty." No one, in the long and elaborate string of compliments I've been the wide-eyed recipient of, has ever thought to call ME a "fragile beauty." Now, in essence, I had a lovely, moving time reading for her. She's a character much like one of my dream roles - Fosca, in Passion, whose nerves are so exposed it is as if every breath is a hurricane, every slight a razor blade. Mrs. Daldry, to me, is even more pitiable. A child never allowed her womanhood. Certainly patronized, possibly brutalized, totally misunderstood, with no understanding of herself either. Someone who falls in love with the first person who shows her gentleness and compassion and delight, even in the most clinical of ways. She's beautiful.
But me, a fragile beauty? Ha! WHAT WERE THE CHANCES???
I didn't think I'd be cast in this play at all.
But I shall be playing Mrs. Daldry.
And so I must understand that there are all kinds of fragility. And there are all kinds of beauty. And if I'm playing a fragile beauty, what the hell, I have to figure out how to make that mean ME.
Needs. Wants. Desires.
Here is a new skin.
Let me try it on.
How extraordinary.
This weird theatre, that keeps making me do extraordinary things. There is no predicting it.
So I guess I'll just roll with the role and see where it takes me.
Um.
YIPPEE!
***