INTERVIEW: ‘Net Will Appear’ charts unlikeliest of friendships

Photo: Eve Johnson and Richard Masur star in The Net Will Appear at 59E59 Theaters. Photo courtesy of Jody Christopherson / Provided by Karen Greco PR with permission.

Erin Mallon’s new play, The Net Will Appear, follows and older gentleman and his 9-year-old neighbor as they get to know each other and forge a friendship. He wants some peace and quiet, and she’s, well, 9 years old. Peace and quiet are not exactly the status quo for her impressionable mind.

As the characters in the play navigate their shared life, the actors portraying them do the same. Richard Masur, known for his extensive film, TV and stage work, plays Bernard, and his foil is Eve Johnson’s Rory. Their adventures play through Dec. 30 at 59E59 Theaters in Midtown Manhattan. The production comes courtesy of The Collective NY and Mile Square Theatre in Hoboken, New Jersey, where the play originated with Masur and another young actor in the Rory role.

“The playwright, Erin Mallon, and I are involved in the same group called The Collective NY,” Masur said in a recent phone interview. “We crossed paths there originally. I had done a couple of readings of things she was working on, and she asked me if I would come and read this piece. This is maybe two-and-a-half years ago, and I said, ‘Sure.’ I always say yes to everybody when it comes to doing readings and stuff because I like helping people who are getting going, number one, and number two, there’s great energy behind that kind of stuff usually.”

At that initial reading, the role of Rory was played by a woman in her 30s, Masur remembered. Still, even with the necessary suspension of disbelief, the play’s heart and thoughtfulness shined through in the dialogue. Masur was hooked.

“Then we did another reading a few months later,” he said. “[Mallon] had done some rewrites, and she asked me to do another reading. … It was for an audience, and I did that one with a lovely young actress who was standing by in Fun Home, was from California. And she had done two or three shows, including standing by on a Broadway show. She’d actually never done a reading before, and she was 11, I think. … It’s a very special talent to do a reading in front of an audience — maybe not a talent, but a special technique — but she did a great job.”

Mallon had the chance to hear her play with the audience laughing at the jokes and taking home the overall message. A few months later, Masur received another phone call. This time, the offer was for a full production at Mile Square Theatre in Hoboken.

“They were interested in producing it,” he said. “Would I be willing to do it? I said, ‘If I’m available, I’d be happy to do it.’ I agreed to do it, and in retrospect, it was so crazy, I have to tell you, because I didn’t know the people out there, number one. And more importantly, I really should have said, ‘Look, I’m happy to do it if I meet a girl that I think I’m going to be able to do this with.’ It’s a two-hander with me and a 9-year-old girl, and it’s a very dangerous thing to do, to be honest.”

Masur was lucky for a third time because his costar for the Hoboken run was Matilda Lawler, a young actor who is now appearing on Broadway in The Ferryman.

“The first time I met Matilda Lawler, they asked me to come out and do a photoshoot, and here is this tiny, little blond girl,” Masur said. “She was 8 going on 9. … Everybody is talking to us and telling us where to be and what to do, and it’s clear that Matilda is just not into it. So I said, ‘Give me a second here.’ I started talking to her, and I said, ‘Listen, why don’t you just tell me a story.’ She said, ‘About what?’ I said, ‘Anything you want. How about, do you have a sister or brother or anything?’ She said, ‘Yes.’ I said, ‘Tell me about your sister,’ so she starts talking.”

Masur was able to bring out the incredibly charming, funny, acerbic side to Lawler, and he knew their partnership on stage would be a winning one. During this photo shoot, when she was talking about her sister, Masur would slip in a few gentle commands:

Why don’t you wag your finger in my face? (photo click)

Why you don’t you put your hands on your hip and lean over toward me? (photo click)

“I put her on a chair standing up next to me because she was so little,” he said. “It was the only way we could both get in the same shot together. It was great, and I thought, oh, I could do this with her. If she can learn the words, we can do this.”

Masur has championed Lawler’s cause ever since and was quite proud to hear that she made it Broadway at such a young age. Not only that, she’s in arguably the most buzzed about new play in town, and Masur said it’s hard not to watch her excellence on stage, even when there’s dozens of other actors by her side.

For the off-Broadway premiere of The Net Will Appear, Masur and the creative team needed another young actor and were wondering if four times a charm. It apparently is because they found Johnson after an extensive casting process.

“We all talked about what to do,” he said. “I said, ‘I know there are really good kids out there. … Let’s really do our homework.’ So we went through a really good casting process.”

Johnson, who previously appeared in Annie at New Jersey’s Paper Mill Playhouse, plays a character that Masur admitted is the engine of the entire story. His character is almost entirely reactive because she’s the energy personified on stage. “The character leads every single place that the story is taken, so there’s a huge amount of weight on the little girl,” Masur said.

Johnson has stepped up to the challenge, and Masur seems quite content that this “extraordinarily lovely piece” is having a fourth life in the spotlight.

“It’s funny, and it’s moving and very satisfying,” he said. “It’s a real lovely ride. I know kids who came and saw it and really liked it, little kids, like 7-year-olds, one 9-year-old who saw it. They all really liked it, and everybody else, all the adults that I knew that came were crazy about it.”

By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com

The Net Will Appear runs through Dec. 30 at 59E59 Theaters in Midtown Manhattan. The Erin Mallon play stars Richard Masur and Eve Johnson. Click here for more information and tickets.