INTERVIEW: Jane Goodall and her mother are subjects of new comedy
Photo: Have You Met Jane Goodall and Her Mother? stars, from left, Brittany K. Allen and Kristin Griffith. Photo courtesy of Valerie Terranova / Provided by press rep with permission.
The Ensemble Studio Theatre’s new show is titled in the form of a question: Have You Met Jane Goodall and Her Mother? The comedy, written by Michael Walek and directed by Linsay Firman, is actually based on real events. Goodall, the world-famous conservationist and primatologist, did study chimpanzees in the early years of her career, and one of her first forays into the wilds of Eastern Africa, in what is today called Tanzania, found her mother, Vanne Morris Goodall, sharing the company of her daughter.
Brittany K. Allen plays the role of Jane Goodall in the show, which continues through April 6 at EST. Allen is an actor and writer; her previous credits include Redwood, which she wrote and also starred in. Her work has been produced or developed at many theater companies, including Manhattan Theatre Club, The Public Theater, Clubbed Thumb, WPLab, Portland Center Stage, Jungle Theater, Studio Theatre and KC Rep, according to her official biography.
Recently Allen exchanged emails with Hollywood Soapbox. Questions and answers have been slightly edited for style.
How much did you know about Jane Goodall’s life and impact before signing up for this project?
Not a lot beyond the Wikipedia basics, to be honest! I’d seen snippets of Jane documentaries, and I knew her name and basic jurisdiction from like middle school biology class. It’s been a real privilege of this process to get to know more about her amazing life.
What did you like about this show when you first read the script?
As a big fan of the screwball comedy as a genre and style, I was very drawn to the language and character games. I love text that has an innate rhythm to it; it’s so much fun to get on the ride of a script and just feel the dialogue guiding you, drawing you forward through the thing. It’s like being on a roller coaster.
I also loved the mother/daughter dynamic. And more generally? Michael’s capacious sense of theme. This play is stealthily epic. Via Jane and her research mandate and all the interpersonal entanglements within the ensemble, we get into the impulses that govern human behavior; we get into shame and love and ambition and what it means to live a successful life. It’s a very deep story, under that hilarious gloss.
Although the show is a comedy, there’s truth behind this scenario, right? Jane Goodall did bring her mother to Tanzania at one point, right?
All the biographical details about Jane and her mother are 100 percent true, yes!
What has it been like working with this ensemble of actors?
A dream! I love our cast to bits, honestly. I also think we’re each very distinct actors in terms of how we approach comedic, meta-theatric text, so it’s been a particular delight to find a common tongue with this crop of blessed weirdos. I learn a lot from all of them every single night.
How is it working with the Ensemble Studio Theatre?
EST is an incredibly special place for me. I came up in Youngblood, their emerging writers program. There I met many of my best friends and favorite collaborators — Michael Walek, our fearless playwright, among them. EST produced my play Redwood last season, and I’ve had the good fortune to appear in many brunches over the years. So basically, working here is like being at home. Everyone from the artistic leaders to the run crew is warm and brilliant and thoughtful, consistently rooted in a love for the work. And to be very literal, I feel cozy in every part of the building. I am intimately acquainted with its quirks.
What do you believe this work says about mothers and daughters?
I think Michael is interested in the ways children — especially Jane’s character, in our play — can take an incredibly strong foundation for granted. Jane and Vanne have a profound bond. They like each other and love each other, to parrot a line in the play. But as our story is in some ways a portrait of Jane’s monstrous ambition, she comes to overlook and underestimate Vanne as her own wants come into focus. And that dynamic reaches a zenith, ultimately, where the two have to have a confrontation. Jane eventually has to see her mother as a person, for the first time.
I see a lot of my own mother/daughter experience in these two women. On the one hand, they have a lot in common: a preference for the charm offensive, a kind of indomitable optimism and a willingness to flay society’s expectations. But part of the pain of growing up (in the best case scenario) is clocking the ways you are dissimilar from the soil you were planted in.
What are the qualities that make Jane Goodall such a great role model?
She’s just so cool — and really worth researching, even for not-necessarily-chimp fans. Apart from her Heraclean patience, her love for the natural world and her ferocious drive, something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately is Ms. Goodall’s career arc. Jane left field work, her favorite thing in the world, to become a conversation activist in and around the 1980s. And maybe especially because our play explores some of the less attractive sides of that initial ambition, I was so moved to discover that she put it aside. She did this hugely selfless thing in abdicating a dream job she invented for herself, all because she believes in a cause that deeply. That’s what I’m finding extra-admirable today: her willingness to fight for what she believes in in the most direct way possible, in spite of personal preference.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Ensemble Studio Theatre’s Have You Met Jane Goodall and Her Mother?, starring Brittany K. Allen, continues through April 6 at EST in Midtown Manhattan. Click here for more information and tickets.
