INTERVIEW: In ‘Sandra,’ the audience is Marjan Neshat’s scene partner
Photo: Sandra, written by David Cale, stars Marjan Neshat. Photo courtesy of Carol Rosegg / Provided by The Press Room with permission.
Marjan Neshat, one of the most acclaimed actors in New York theater, is currently performing in a powerful solo show at the Vineyard Theatre. The extended run of Sandra, written by David Cale and directed by Leigh Silverman, continues through Sunday, Dec. 18.
In the piece, Neshat’s character of Sandra endeavors to find out what happened to her closest friend after a trip to Mexico, according to press notes. What Sandra uncovers is mysterious, thrilling and ultimately revelatory.
“I basically received an offer to come and read the play with the writer and director for a two-day workshop,” Neshat said in a recent phone interview. “I had worked with Leigh on a couple workshops before, so I knew her and was very fond of her. I had never met David. He told me basically what had happened is that he had gotten a long list of actresses for this role, and the casting director had encouraged him to come and see the last play I was doing called Wish You Were Here. And he said that he was upstate, and he said, ‘OK, I’ll go tonight.’ And there was one single ticket left, and he came to see it. And he said after the show, ‘That’s my Sandra,’ so I went in and did this two-day workshop with them. I had never done a solo show before, and I was like, I’ll do the reading, we’ll all like each other, but obviously they’re not going to offer me the part. It just seemed crazy, and then the next day, they’re like, ‘Will you do it?’ I was quite terrified, but I agreed.”
That feeling of being terrified is perhaps because there’s a tremendous burden on the actor in a one-person show. The entire play falls upon Neshat’s shoulders as she tells this story to the crowd. As she put it, there are no ensemble members to help share the load, and that gives more power and agency to the audience assembled at the Vineyard.
“The show is different for every audience because the audience is essentially your scene partner, so some days they are very quiet, even if they’re attentive,” she said. “Some days they laugh. There’s no one to come off stage and go, ‘Oh God, that audience.’ It’s just you going on and you going off.”
Neshat has come to appreciate Cale’s unique turns of phrase in the telling of Sandra’s story. The playwright is known for several works, including his previous collaboration with the Vineyard, Harry Clarke, a one-person show starring Billy Crudup.
“David has such a unique way of writing, and there was something to me that was so surprising and delicate about this friendship that was at the core of the play,” said Neshat, who is also known for English and Selling Kabul. “I think the thing that I really loved about it was following this woman’s journey who seemed in many ways kind of an everywoman. She was approaching middle age. She’s in a marriage that is kind of falling apart. She is recognizable as anyone on the street or unrecognizable, you know the people you pass by, and yet because of the fortitude of this love she feels for this person and her need to continue and to grow and to search, she becomes so courageous and acts in ways that you wouldn’t expect of someone who is living a very ordinary life. And through that she kind of reinvents herself and ends up becoming the person I think she wanted to be, and I thought that was a very interesting and relatable journey, but told in a very unique way in a way that I had never seen before.”
When Neshat performs in a quality play with solid writing, she ultimately is transformed herself. The pact that she and other actors make when bringing words to an audience has a funny way of not only changing the crowd but also the interpreter on stage. She has found this theatrical fact for each of the roles she has portrayed under the proscenium.
“I think it opens you,” she said of the play’s impact. “You can’t help but open parts of yourself, and I think within that you do change. You take on another human being’s thoughts and feelings and experiences, and so you’re left a little more exposed and a little more open. I find that I have been changed by really every role I’ve played in that way. I start to think differently. In your mind and in your body, it’s like a light goes on. There’s just more than there was before.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Sandra, starring Marjan Neshat, continues its extended run at the Vineyard Theatre through Sunday, Dec. 18. Click here for more information and tickets.
