INTERVIEW: Emerson Brooks ponders ‘…what the end will be’
Photo: From left, Gerald Caesar and Emerson Brooks star in … what the end will be at Roundabout Theatre Company. Photo courtesy of Joan Marcus / Provided by Polk & Co. with permission.
The new play … what the end will be, written by Mansa Ra and directed by Margot Bordelon, is receiving a critically praised production at the Roundabout Theatre Company’s Laura Pels Theatre in New York City. The show, which centers on themes of love, pride and identity, follows three generations of Black, gay men living under the same roof, according to press notes. Emerson Brooks plays Maxwell Kennedy, the middle part of that trio. He lives at home with his ailing father and his younger son. On stage, he is joined by Gerald Caesar, Keith Randolph Smith and other accomplished actors in the ensemble.
Performances of … what the end will be continue through July 10 at the off-Broadway venue. For Brooks, known for TNT’s The Last Ship, the chance to play Maxwell was an opportunity that came late in the development of the play.
“I came on to the process much later than most of the people involved with it,” Brooks said in a recent phone interview. “They were planning to go into production for the show before COVID, so obviously that shut down the theater scene, that stopped the play. And just recently the Roundabout opened back up and restarted this production. The gentleman who was so supposed to play the part of Maxwell Kennedy, the part that I play in the production, was hired for another job in the meantime, so they had to recast my part and my son’s part.”
This meant that approximately two weeks before going into rehearsals, Brooks was on Zoom meetings with the creative team, reading the material, going over his character, having in-depth discussions about this family and sending in taped auditions. He wanted to see if he was a good fit for the role, and he found out rather quickly, he definitely was.
“I thought, as soon as I read the script, that it was a part I had to play,” he said. “I know that kind of sounds cliche, but I’ve read plenty of scripts where I’m like, this is not a part I need to play. But this one was absolutely undeniable. There was no way I was not going to let myself read and fight for this role. I fell in love with the story, and I fell in love with the character.”
Brooks said he enjoys watching Maxwell grow throughout the 90-minute play. The actor accepts that he’s a flawed character, but Brooks understands some of the issues that he faces in this family unit.
“He’s the father to his son, who lives in the house with him,” said Brooks, who is appearing in Netflix’s Uncoupled. “He’s the son to his father. … I am a son. I’ve lived with my father. I have a relationship with my dad that has helped inform some of the choices I make for the character and in the show, so I approached it from trying to understand what Maxwell wanted to accomplish — that was to get closer with his father, to give his father a comfortable place to live out the rest of his years, to maybe hopefully bring some closure to some of the distance and tumultuous past that he had with his father. I think we see some of that in the show.”
This theatrical family feels like an actual family, in Brooks’ estimation, because the creative team did such a wonderful job with the casting process. The actor gave much credit to the Roundabout personnel and Bordelon for helping to bring Ra’s words to life.
“It’s their vision and casting and deciding which actors they want to play the role that does I think the heavy lifting when it comes to creating a believable family on stage,” he said. “I think the next part of that is the rehearsal process where we all sit down and really dive into what is this family’s story and the story that’s not just on the page. There are dozens and dozens and dozens of pages [about] just the history of the characters and this family that us as actors, alongside with the writer and director and the creative team, came up with to create this life that lives below the surface of the script, and I think any show or any production either on stage or on film that’s worth it’s salt does that, creates these deep back stories that inform the behaviors, inform your choices.”
He added: “You create the life that’s not on the pages.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
… what the end will be, featuring Emerson Brooks, continues through July 10 at the Roundabout Theatre Company’s Laura Pels Theatre. Click here for more information and tickets.
