A Conversation With the Actor HEATHER ROBISON November 2008

Heather Robison is an actor who has performed Off Broadway in New York and in regional theatres around the country. Her work on the play The Belle’s Strategem is discussed in Chapter 4. The following interview focuses on why Robison became an actor and her preparation to play a character who appears in different disguises. See photographs of Heather Robison in two different versions of the same character in Chapter 4. The director, Davis McCallum, who directed Robison in The Belle's Strategem, also directed Water by the Spoonful, discussed in Chapter 13.

Stephanie Arnold: Why did you become an actor?

Heather Robison: My mom, who was a schoolteacher, took me to see my first play when I was five. It was Shakespeare's Macbeth, and I fell in love. I thought there was nothing better than a stage full of witches, ghosts, blood, fights and moving forests. I never thought I'd actually be an actor, I just loved the theatre and I thought I'd do anything to help make it happen. When I went to college, I got cast in a play and then in another one. I went to study marine biology, but I loved theatre. So I auditioned for grad school and made that my cut off. I thought if I got into school it was meant to be and if I didn't then I'd go fill air tanks on a boat. I was accepted into New York University's graduate acting program. It was the first time that I really had a community of people all after a common goal, all celebrating acting. I started to really find what that community was but also what the craft of acting was. I think what has kept me wanting to act is the need to always be a student of life. That's definitely why I fell in love with it.

SA: You're at a distance now from the formal part of your training. What was most valuable to you in the training that you had?

HR: Learning to fail, and not to be embarrassed by failure. Failure is just another way to say I'm learning something. So often I think we're all to ready to go for the final product instead of the exploration process. I think to me what has become the most treasured part of what I do, and I'm not saying it's not difficult, but to get up every day and work and be vulnerable to try something or be in a moment in rehearsal or in a reading or whatever it is that actually can take you somewhere new and that is unexpected. Sometimes, I remember, when I was in school, that would happen when I was so tired that I didn't have any more reserves or barriers up, and suddenly you'd realize there was another part of you that you didn't know was there. I think the thing to me about the training was certainly getting technique and all the vocal training and the breath: everything that goes into the physical ability to perform. But I think there was also the affirmation of putting all of those things together, which takes some time as a student to make it all happen naturally and not think about it. But getting up and using all of those things surprises yourself sometimes.

1 SA: When you go into a new play, what do you hope for from a director?

HR: When I started in my career, what I looked for in a director is very different from what I look for now. I think primarily you want to trust whatever their vision is. If a director comes to a table and says, this is really what I want to try, I find that my job is to show up and do the best I can to make that vision work. So what I'm looking to a director for is to be my eyes and ears so I'm not looking back or in a moment that just happened. I'm going forward. One of my favorite directors that I've worked with, Livia Ciel, is a brilliant director and asks you to slice apart a play with every second involved, whether it's textual or not. I've also worked with directors who are very much about show me what you've done, where you come in the room and you show them everything, then you work together and collaborate. I think there are benefits to both, but I think primarily what I am looking for is a relationship with a director where we can work and discuss and grow together with the vision of the play.

SA: What kind of preparation do you do before you begin rehearsal?

HR: That's one of my favorite parts. I love to research. I'm a big researcher. For me, especially living in New York City, one of my favorite resources there was going to the Midtown Public Library picture collection. I've done a lot of brand new plays, and I've done a lot of period plays. If the play is a historical play, a play set in a different time period, I want to learn as much about that culture as possible. So I get images from that time. I get paintings from that time. Sometimes I'll research paintings of women from other periods if there is a particular spirit to the painting that I want to try to keep. I like to bring new images into every performance that I do. It helps me explore and build character in a different way. I also read everything I can get my hands on about etiquette for a particular time period, particularly if it was set a while ago. That's the first part of it. Second, I do a lot of text work before I go into rehearsal. I'll read the play a lot. I also think going in with images in your head makes it specific to the imagery in the play. I try to build different imagery for every play. I think those are the primary things. I'm a good memorizer, but I don't like to go in fully memorized because I find that for me sitting around a table and taking your time with tablework and listening to your fellow actors in that first read through is really important, and that can change everything you've researched. Usually I come in with several file folders full of things, and I go from there. Sometimes that means I go back to the library and I get all sorts of different things. A lot of times I walk into rehearsal and I think the play is going to be set in a specific time period and it's not. I think also once you are really starting to collaborate with people, a lot changes, too. I've gone back and gotten new research or new imagery in the middle of a rehearsal.

SA: What's most exciting or interesting to you about the rehearsal process?

HR: It varies greatly. The energy that's in a room, the people that are in a room together creating a play. Sometimes finding the levity of a moment together is really quite extraordinary, or finding the depth of a moment. I think there are so many levels of things that are going on in a rehearsal hall for that first time, when you are trying to mine what's

2 in a scene and trying to learn the people that you're exploring with. With these three-week schedules, things are quite condensed. You really do need to accomplish a lot in an eight- hour day. So I think we're all going in trying to accomplish a certain amount. When you can discover something, and really build on what you are thinking about, those are the best days. The days when you're mired down and you feel like you can't bring anything new and the ideas you had were all wrong; those are also very informative, but those are harder days. I relish all those days, because I think to some extent the rehearsal hall is the best part of it. It is the most freeing part if you can come in and give yourself permission to fail, because the only people who you are really allowing to see you fail in your attempt to find something are the people that you're building with. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn’t, but I think that’s where you get to put all of your training and creativity and stamina to work. Certainly when you are able to build it and able to find those moments that work, finally when you're having run-throughs and heading towards previews and opening, you have to string those moments together and find what the muscles are that you need to sustain it for the whole show. I think really it's like training for a marathon, in a way. You're building towards something always. But those times when you can forget that you're opening in two weeks, and really just be in the moment of the play are the best.

SA: What are some of the high points of the collaborative process for you, with the actors, the directors, and the designers?

HR: With the actors, I think a lot of it is established at table work. Of course it depends on if you're working within a company and you already know each other or you're all new to each other. I think when we're sitting around reading a play for the first time we all bring a certain insight and ideas of character. When you really start to talk about your ideas of the play, or even when you're talking about the specifics of one line that a character might have in the play, sometimes those are windows into a whole other part of a character you had not conceived of. To me, that kind of collaboration, when you're really listening to the insights that someone else has about what their character is, a lot of times that's when I'm surprised by things I had never thought of, because I have goggles on about what I think of my role. To go back to the director, I really give them the responsibility and gift that they see everything. I don't want to see everything, I can't, but I can see my part of it. I don't want to try to figure out someone else's equation in the process and I am so grateful that the directors can do all of that. But as for the collaboration with the director, a lot of times the director will come in with a certain vision for a scene or a moment. I know this was true of The Importance of Being Earnest, which I did in Ashland. We had ideas for where we wanted it to go and it just kind of evolved by play in a rehearsal hall. Those moments, where we really discussed with the director, "what are we shooting for, what is the bigger arc and the story we are trying to tell," we could collaborate and talk about what that story is and what those people were experiencing, and sometimes that does change the overall direction of where we were going with the story. I have also worked with costume designers. I did a play called A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur in Atlanta and played a crazy, unfortunate German immigrant, and I brought in a pair of coke bottle glasses. She kind of had the gift of sight and I thought it

3 would be fun to play with that. We talked a lot and we decided to go even crazier with the prints of the costume. We looked at all sorts of crazy pantaloons and things because of the more physical nature of what I was coming up with in the rehearsal hall, doing some tumbling and all sorts of antics. Collaboration with a designer can grow and really flesh out who you are. For me, listening to the costumer's idea of the play is where I feel like I get another entire book of who I am. I love the first day of rehearsal where we have the presentations and really get to collaborate with the whole team of people. That to me is one of the best things that I do. There are all these professionals who have so much knowledge and experience and insight into corners of the play that I don't. So I get to learn from them and then build on that in the rehearsal hall.

SA: I'm struck by what you say about the limits of the three-week rehearsal process and how efficient and effective you need to be with your time. Does that make your pre- rehearsal preparation all the more important, so that you've covered as much ground as you can, because there's just not going to be the exploratory time that we might want?

HR: Yes, or you'll only have exploratory time in the hall if you've done an enormous amount of work before you get there. I think the three-week rehearsal period does really ask a lot of you before you get to the room. What I said about not wanting to be memorized before you go into rehearsal, that is not true in a three-week rehearsal: you have to be.

SA: Do you think that you end up learning more as the play is in performance?

HR: Ideally, no matter how long-- I mean, in Ashland, which is part of what I love so much about that theatre, we had an eight or nine week rehearsal period and then 120 performances. Hopefully, no matter how much rehearsal you have and no matter how many performances, that process is always deepening. There were many times I'd come offstage at 90 or 100 plus performances and take notes on what worked that day. To me, that is exciting. The thing that's hard for me about a three week rehearsal is that you set things with a director as the final version of it, and in three weeks the discovery of what that needs to be often wants to grow a little bit more in performance but can't. At least in some ways. I think certainly emotionally and continuity-wise it grows, and in the language and the ease with which you perform it grows. But the certain things you have set with a director, the physical nature of the play or the moments in the scene where you're trying to land a certain place, I think if you'd all been in rehearsal a little bit longer you might have found something more. And then sometimes three weeks is all you need. I think right now what I'm witnessing in the theatre is a lot of two handed plays. With two-handers, I think, there is a tremendous amount of work before you go into the three- week period, and then a tremendous amount of work to do during the three weeks. I had a dear friend who just did Frankie and Johnny in the Claire de Lune in a three-week rehearsal period, and I think that would be tough. And yet how great to have five people in the room for three weeks trying to explore that play.

SA: Do you end up doing much in the way of improvisation in the plays that you are working on?

4 HR: It kind of depends on the play and what the director is looking for. But yes, I think rehearsal is always somewhat an improv-based situation. Do I put the text down entirely? No. There are certain directors where it's a big part of the rehearsal where we do put the text down and improv a scene, or improv to get at something in a scene. But I think to some degree, I like to bring in something that is a character anomaly, perhaps, or something that helps me physically find a character. Those sorts of things are often improv-based. I think there's a certain amount of play you have to have when you're discovering a scene, because you're listening to things for the first time, always. It's always a, "Yes, and…?"

SA: Let's talk a little bit about Belle's Stratagem. When did you do that play?

HR: 2005.

SA: And when was it written?

HR: 1780, by Hannah Cooley, a woman writer. It was quite vogue at the time to be a woman writer. There were a number of their plays being produced, and this was one of the most popular of its time. It was lost because shortly after it was in vogue to have female writers, it was disgraceful if you were a woman to have a play produced. Hannah distanced herself from theatre at the end of her life. Her play had been lost for about a hundred years; nobody had performed it. Davis McCallum was in London, he was a Rhodes Scholar, and he discovered this play and fell in love with it. Belinda, the dramaturg on it, was just wonderful. She had written a book about women playwrights of that time period and so we did a lot of exploratory discussions about this time.

SA: So it was a full on period play, and clearly done in period style.

HR: Yes.

SA: What parts of your training did you need to draw on in order to do a period piece like this?

HR: This role was a dream, and it's one that doesn't come along very often. I was lucky. To me, with this particular role, it asked me to be basically three different people. Davis was really supportive in going far with those three characters. It pulled on every bit of training I've ever had, from movement and speech and text analysis to dance and all of my circus training. I also think with this particular period piece, when you do read it, it feels very contemporary. There are scenes where the behavior feels dated, but there's a certain life to the language and poetry in it as well. It was really fun and challenging to show up and find what all of those worlds needed to be. Hannah was looking at a traditional arranged marriage and a marriage of love. She was also looking at views of marriage before people had become married, and views of marriage once people found themselves in a relationship. So it was a discovery, too, of our thoughts and feelings and evolutions into what marriage is and can be. I think

5 particularly for its time it was a bold piece. Also, at the time it was written, it was wartime. So, for Leticia, who was the character that I played, for her to have taken a risk and said, "if my arranged marriage is not based in love, I will reject it," for her to say that at a time when young men were at a premium, and this might be the only chance she might have to be married, the stakes are a lot higher. That is an example of all the historical research that surrounds a play that really helps us discover what the meanings are of that particular decision.

SA: You have lots of costume changes, lots of wig changes, you have to come onstage exploring a different part of yourself from scene to scene. What is it like to perform it, considering that when you leave the stage you're not just thinking about your next entrance, but you're changing your costume and your hair. How does that work?

HR: With this particular production it was pretty flawless. Ashland and their production values are extremely high. So it was pretty easy for me to leave the stage and do a quick change. There are actors who have very different philosophies about how to stay in it during a quick change. To me enjoying the quick change in all of its quirkiness is part of it. If you build that into the way you think about it, it's much easier than looking at it as an interruption of what you're doing. For this play, Deb Dryden did the costumes, and they were exquisite. They were also comfortable and pretty simple to do quick changes in. I had one quick change to take the outer dress off and I had one wig change that was quick, and I had lots of help with it. So I could kind of play and have fun and let it be.

SA: So you're able to use it as part of your character transformation process?

HR: It builds into your next moment, absolutely. In the second scene you see me in period underwear. We were trying to figure out how I could be a country bumpkin and be gauche, primarily because we didn't want to build another dress and didn't have the budget for it, and Deb Dryden said why don't you show up in your underwear? We wrestled with it because we knew what that would mean in the context that the play was written in, and there were some audience members who had trouble with it. I loved it. I thought it was brilliant, to show up and be kind of naked. What I mean by naked was to strip away the formality and preconceived ideas of what a lady should be in that time period, and to have the freedom, if she's showing up in something so risqué and so dangerous for her, that she actually has permission to do anything. That quick change, in particular, I found very freeing, and it was a very easy transition.

SA: Do you still attend to the detailed internal work, psychological development, when doing the bold physical work and dealing with the costume, text, period mannerisms, etc?

HR: I think it's all there. I think that's the challenge of it. I guess part of my prep work is to look at what the interior moments are. I kind of take that for granted now. I think when I started out, as a student, I always used to think it looked like math homework on the page, with all of the lines and the slash marks and trying to cut things apart and really mine what's there. And I think that work is crucial, I think the test of it is to put that down when you get into a rehearsal hall and find out what those rhythms are, so you know that

6 you can find them. There's a balance between our intellectual self and our physical self that comes to an emotional understanding of what the psychological connection is to the intellect. I think whether it's a comedy or a drama, that work is all there. I think comedy only works if you are being absolutely honest. I think it's just having a bigger moment, and sometimes falling down, which is always funny. Even when it is a physical comedy it has to come out of a true need. I think it was Katherine Hepburn who said that she was working on something, and she kept trying to be funny and have this big moment, and the director said, "No, it's life and death. You have to believe it." I think that is true of comedy. You have to believe it even more than you do in drama.

SA: Everything we do goes towards performing in front of an audience. What happens to you as an actor in a performance when the audience is present?

HR: That's when the play first lives. The play doesn't work without the audience. I love being in a rehearsal hall. I love what you can find in the rehearsal hall. But the audience is the last character of the play, and you live and breathe with them. For me, that's why I love it so much, because we're all in one room telling the story together. That's also where we learn; it's how the story grows, when you listen to each other. That's where you find your rhythms.

SA: How aware are you of the audience, and how aware are you of yourself as an actor performing for the audience?

HR: On my best day, I don't think about myself. I think about telling the story. I think I'm always aware of the audience, but not in a critical sense. I'm not trying to see through their eyes, I'm not looking at us onstage. I'm communicating with them, listening to them breathe and laugh and sniffle maybe. There's a constant exchange between what's happening onstage with us and what's happening in the audience. I think on our best days we are aware of each other always. Just as the audience is aware that they're watching us, and hopefully at some point forget that they're watching a play, we as actors are always aware of the audience, and hopefully we are just there together. We're not thinking about somebody unwrapping a candy in the back row. The exchange is there and we're aware of it, telling a story together, and sometimes an audience response can make me understand a moment even better. Hopefully I am able to make them understand a facet of a character or see themselves in a character and enjoy a story in a new way, too.

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