INTERVIEW: Alone in the snowy wilderness of Alaska … a knock on the door
Photo: Alyssa May Gold and Blake Merriman star in Cindy Lou Johnson’s Brilliant Traces at The WorkShop Theater. Photo courtesy of Grace Merriman.
Alyssa May Gold has stayed busy on the stages of New York City. Last year her company Pocket Universe staged a revival of William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, a production she also starred in. This year, she’s playing Rosannah in Cindy Lou Johnson’s two-hander, Brilliant Traces, currently playing New York City’s WorkShop Theater on West 36th Street.
In the play, which continues through March 4, Henry Harry (Blake Merriman) is startled to hear someone knocking on the door of his remote cabin in Alaska. It’s Rosannah, a woman who is fleeing her marriage in Arizona, and together the two characters must confront their past and consider their future.
Recently, Hollywood Soapbox spoke with May Gold about the new play. Here’s what she had to say:
On what attracted her to the play …
“The play itself is so interesting. I love it so much. It’s really just about a man and a woman who both for different reasons don’t want to connect with anybody in this particular moment in their lives, but are fighting the human nature to connect, and so wind up really gravitating toward each other and trying to stay apart, but not really being able to. And I think it’s such a human exploration of that in a really beautiful way, so it’s been really good so far.”
On her character of Rosannah …
“I’m a very internal person. I really think things through, and I’m constantly in my head thinking and then acting. [Rosannah] is act first, think about it later, if at all. It’s so interesting to play someone like that because as the actor you have to be in that thought process and understanding what her leaps in thought are that lead her to each outburst or each moment, but then you also just have to give it over to this character and let her take you on the journey.
“I think Cindy Lee Johnson has done such a really good job of writing her, so the answers to her are all in the words that she has written and the journeys she’s written for her. So I’m trying really hard also to just trust the words and trust how the story unfolds, but it’s really physical. It’s like a full assault on all senses to play her, and I’m also trying very hard to honor the circumstances that have led her to this moment in her life where she’s so confused and uncertain and alone and so desperate. …
“I think on paper it’s also easy to see someone like this as just broken and unstable, and I think it’s more interesting for me to think of … the circumstances that led her to here, and couldn’t this really be any of us and how to bring truth to that. I love her so much.”
On working with Merriman …
“[The trust] felt very immediate when we started reading it. I think a lot of that probably has to do with he’s been thinking about this and working on this play for the last decade, like he’s been wanting to do it. He really knows the story inside and out and his connection to it, and I think that enables me to come in and trust that between him and Josh [Warr], the director, that they have a very clear sense of what this is. And that enables me to really go in and trust them, but that’s one of the coolest things about theater and acting and finding your artistic community. People are so ready to trust each other and to jump into something very personal and very emotionally charged, and really just trust in everyone’s good nature and desire to be there and tell the story together. I don’t know if that happens in other industries. It’s the one real saving grace of this whole business.”
On how she was became inspired to enter the acting field …
“I wanted to be Annie. I saw the movie, and I was like, great, sign me up. I would like to do that. I think when I was 6 or 7, and Annie was on Broadway. … I put together that girls my age got to play Annie, and so it took a very long time to convince my very reasonable, rational parents to allow me to pursue this professionally. They let me go to one audition for the TV movie of Annie that the Wonderful World of Disney back then made I guess in 1999. They let me go and see what happen, and I wound getting really close.
“And from there, I was like great, so I can do this as my job. Sign me up. I’m in. Over the course of the next 18 years now, I’ve grown in my understanding of why it’s so important to gather together and tell stories, and why it’s important to our nature as humans to experience catharsis together in groups and the value of seeing ourselves on stage.”
On the value of acting …
“I think there’s something that actors do, and it’s my favorite part of it, it’s that you’re able to access and manufacture emotions and heighten and show them to people and hold that emotional face for audiences. … We still have emotional extremes within us, and everyone has complicated situations that they don’t know how to handle. And when you go to the theater, you get to gather with a group of people who are all coming with their own things that they’ve put aside for the day to go do their work and do their job and keep the world going, and you all get together. And a group of actors come on stage and feel these feelings for you and heighten them to guide you through the journey of understanding yourself.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Brilliant Traces is currently playing The WorkShop Theater on West 36th Street in New York City. Click here for more information and tickets.
