BACK STAGE WEST
April 25, 2002
ACTORS' DIALOGUE: Abby
Craden & Tracy Middendorf
How two L.A. actresses
deal with the Marilyn factor in current stage roles.
The ghost of Hollywood
cinema's archetypal sexpot, Marilyn Monroe, haunts two local productions still
running at small L.A.-area theatres: The Fountain Theatre's revival of Arthur
Miller's autobiographical play After the Fall, which deals in part with his disastrous
marriage to Monroe, and A Noise Within's production of William Inge's 1955
classic, Bus Stop,
which is indelibly associated with Monroe's starring performance in the 1956
film. Physically and vocally, these two actors could hardly be more different,
and their roles less alike in emotional color, but their respective approaches
to After the Fall's
Maggie and Bus Stop's
Cherie turn out to have much in common.
Both are busy
performers with high profiles on the local theatre scene: Craden with a series
of performances in classics, from Ibsen to Shakespeare to Coward, at the Will
Geer Theatricum Botanicum, Los Angeles Repertory, and A Noise Within, where she
was recently named a resident artist. Middendorf works regularly in TV, but
she's best known for a series of acclaimed performances at the Fountain Theatre--especially
in Tennessee Williams' Orpheus Descending and Summer and Smoke, for which she won a raft of awards.
The two met a few
weeks ago at a Glendale coffee shop to talk about Marilyn, about vulnerability,
and about other stuff, too.
Abby Craden: [Director Sabin Epstein] and I talked
about how a good sort of prototype for me was Marilyn Monroe--not to play her,
but to think about. Cherie would want to be Marilyn. She would have seen all
her movies, and she would think Marilyn was beautiful, and she would wanna dye
her hair to look like Marilyn. That would be her idea of what a glamorous woman
looks like.
Tracy
Middendorf: I was very
nervous about doing this play, because it is based on someone who was so well
known. I read Donald Spoto's biography of Marilyn, and I had a very difficult
time with the play after reading that; it was so much Arthur Miller's, or his
character's, point of view of their relationship. I struggled with certain
lines that I thought were his perception of what she would say. It wasn't until
really just a few weeks ago, and I was talking to a friend of mine who was male
and saw the play, and I was saying, "It's so much his point of view--Louise
is his point of view, Maggie is his point of view," and he said,
"Yes, but we all know that, and it says something about him that this is
how he represents the women."
It's very hard to
do somebody's version of someone--especially someone who you read about and you
find out. . .
Abby: What the other part was.
Tracy: Yeah. It was a hard line not to be
Marilyn. I was scared to death that people were going to say, "She did a
terrible Marilyn." So you feel like if you go all the way toward Marilyn,
you're doing an imitation of her, but if you stay away from it--there are
certain lines that are so Marilyn, and you look similar, people are going think
that you failed miserably at doing Marilyn.
Abby: The thing for me that was interesting was
the vulnerability. I felt like Marilyn has that--that her heart is really on
the outside of her body; there's a sweetness. Things like that, I sorta went:
That's Cherie, that's how she is. The way she moves with men, the way she deals
with it--they're so similar in so many ways, in the way that they interact with
their world.
Tracy: It's very childlike. I actually watched
my child a lot in this, and people who know my child have come up to me and
said, "That was Calvin." And I never paid attention to that, but
children live so in the present and so in the moment; I have to kind of find
that place before I go onstage, because Maggie does--she just reacts to exactly
what's coming to her and doesn't bring a lot.
Abby: Yeah, I felt like there were no defense
mechanisms. I was kind of like, Where's Cherie's defense? There is no defense.
Which is why she's so vulnerable to everything around her, and so freaked out.
It's almost like she's walking around naked all the time.
Tracy: I was just working on a television show
and a lot of actors were asking about the play, "Where is it?"
"It's at the Fountain," I said, "it's Equity Waiver." And
they're like, "Oh, Equity Waiver--no pay, huh?" And I said, "You
know, I wouldn't be here, working on The Practice, if I was doing an Equity show."
That's the only way I can juggle it. You don't get paid to do the theatre, but
you're doing what you love to do, and then you do the television and the films
to support yourself. In New York it's a little different because you're there
doing that--a lot of people come to theatre, and it's much more respected. If I
could get paid well to do theatre, I would do only that; I love it. I wouldn't
do anything else.
Abby: I'm lucky to work at two theatres in town
that actually pay a little bit. The Geer has an Equity Letter of Agreement, and
A Noise Within pays $55 a show--so if you actually do four shows, you make a
little something. But I supplement that with voiceover work and try to do film
and TV, but I haven't had much luck with it. I teach a little bit. Mainly,
doing two or three plays at the same time is a way I can make a living. If I do
two plays, and I've got four or five shows a week, I can actually make a living
and stay in L.A. and audition.
Tracy: You spend so much of your time waiting
around for an audition, and you find that's the only time you're acting. When
you get to do a play, you're working those muscles and being creative.
Abby: And you're working on great writing.
That's the thing I miss with film and TV; it's not the same idiom. It's just
not. There's something about doing Inge or Shakespeare or Chekhov; it's like
heaven. I think I'm crazy sometimes, because it would be nice to make some more
money, but if I fall in love with a play, that's what I have to do.
I used to send
postcards [to the industry], but now I'm like--it's just so not about that. If
they come and happen to see it, great. And I look so different in the different
roles in rep that I feel like they're not going to be able to pin me down for
film and TV, anyway, or recognize me from one thing to the other. Because with
TV casting and film, they really want you to look like the part--they want you
to walk in and be that person, and that's kinda not who I am.
Tracy: I never sent postcards out; I was usually
so insecure. It was like, OK, maybe on the last weekend this person can come
see it now. But since I've had my child, everything's become more practical to
me; my managers have sent out packets and postcards and reviews. And if having
people come and see the play is going to open a door for me to get another job,
then I feel like I have do that. I never felt that way before--I always kinda
waited till they came, and it was nice, but now, I'm like: I've done the work,
I'm proud of the work, come and see the work--and give me another job. It's
wonderful to have the praise, it's wonderful to get nice reviews, but this is a
town where there's a lot of work happening, and a lot of us should be working.
So I'm trying to keep that ball rolling.
Abby: Actually, I came out to L.A. to do film,
and then I realized I'm a theatre actor.
Tracy: I went to New York for college and pretty
soon came out here. But you can't really go back without a name and do
Broadway, or even some Off-Broadway. So it's nice if you can keep your theatre
experiences going here, so that if that does happen--if you do land on a series
or do a couple of films--you can go back to the theatre and actually have the
chops to do it.
Abby: That's also why I like the L.A. theatre
scene: If you're good, you can rise to the height of it without having to be a
name. In New York, I think it's harder to do quality theatre; in L.A., it's a
little more open, because it's not where everyone wants to be.
Tracy: And if you're in the right theatre,
people come see it. The Fountain always has full houses. A lot of people do
come to theatre in Los Angeles.
Abby: Yeah, A Noise Within has a huge
subscriber base. I mean, I live out in Woodland Hills, and these old people who
live right near me drive all the way down to Glendale and see everything there,
and I'm like, "You drive 40 minutes to go see theatre?" But there's a
hunger for it--for really good classical theatre, for good writing. General
folk want to see theatre. They need it in their lives.