INTERVIEW: Luba Mason on traveling from the ‘North Country’ to ‘Los Otros’
Photo: Luba Mason and Caesar Samayoa star in Los Otros. Photo courtesy of Russ Rowland / Provided by Richard Hillman PR with permission.
Luba Mason has had a wonderfully busy year on New York stages. Earlier in 2022, she appeared in the on-again-off-again Broadway production of Girl From the North Country, a show that dramatized the songbook of Bob Dylan, and now she’s appearing in the off-Broadway two-hander Los Otros, opposite Caesar Samayoa (Come From Away) and brought to the Big Apple by Premieres NYC. The show, playing through Oct. 8 at A.R.T./New York Theatres, follows two Californians, Lillian and Carlos, as they explore different memories of their separate and shared lives, according to press notes. The one-act musical features a book and lyrics by Ellen Fitzhugh and music by Michael John LaChiusa.
“The project was offered to me,” Mason said about her path to Los Otros. “Michael John is a dear, dear old friend of mine. We did summerstock together when we were 18, so I’ve known him a really long time. As a matter of fact, when the project was offered to me, I had written him an email as soon as I got it, and I said, ‘You know, I’m finishing Girl From the North Country. I was looking back at my career from day one, and I thought, gosh, I still haven’t done a show with Michael John LaChiusa yet.’ … And then this came along, and I said I’m just tickled. It’s a project I’ve wanted to do with him for a long time, any project of his actually.”
Mason said she’s a big fan of LaChiusa’s music, and she finds the tunes in Los Otros lush, melodic and romantic. Many of the songs surprised her, especially how challenging they can be for her and Samayoa.
“It’s very difficult to learn,” she said. “He changes time signatures within one measure or changes keys within a measure or every other measure. Not everybody can really sing his material, and it’s very rangey as well. So it’s a real challenge, and having been in this business for so long, it’s nice to be brought a project that’s going to make your knees wobble a little bit. It’s nice. So to accomplish this piece and to bring it forward is an achievement, and I’m proud of it, very proud of it.”
The rehearsal process for Los Otros, which is directed by Noah Himmelstein, was relatively fast. They had three weeks before they started previews, and last week they opened the show for critics. Over that time, the character of Lillian has grown.
“She has become someone that I’ve discovered is quite a flawed character,” said Mason, who has appeared in nine Broadway shows. “I sing three different stories in this piece, and one of them takes place in 1952. Another is in 1967, and the other is around 2000. So it takes place during a time [when] the world was much different than it is today, and so Lillian is prejudiced. She’s not a very good mother, and she falls into alcoholism. But she’s human, and she still retains compassion in her stories with the characters that she comes across. So what I love about the character is she’s very real, and it’s been a challenge to not sugarcoat too much, at all really, and to just really play the truth of this person.”
Mason said the character of Lillian is not villainous, per se, but she still gets to bite her teeth into the role because of how flawed the character is. Helping her every step of the way is Samayoa, playing the part of Carlos.
“He’s absolutely terrific,” she said of her partner on stage. “I had never worked with him actually before this piece. I did see him in Come From Away, and I loved the show. He is terrific, and, yes, we have leaned on each other quite a bit during the process because it was so fast. We know the struggles of each other during the process. He’s a wonderful singer, actor and just a lovely, lovely guy, and he’s quite endearing on stage.”
Los Otros is a nice icing on the cake for Mason’s work in New York theater this year. Her journey began with Girl From the North Country.
Mason’s time in the Bob Dylan show tracked with the ups and downs (more downs than ups) of the global pandemic. The celebrated musical opened before March 2020 and then shuttered like the rest of the New York theater world. The producers and cast stuck it out and reopened at the Belasco Theatre when it was safer to do so, but the Omicron variant closed the show once again in winter 2022. But, with perseverance, the cast kept up their hopes that a return engagement would be possible, and that did occur. Girl From the North Country opened a third time on Broadway and finished up its limited run in June. Mason looks back with fondness on the experience.
“We had three openings, and the cast, we just became a tight-knit, close family,” the actor said. “How could you not, having sustained opening and closing during COVID over a four-year period of time, and Conor [McPherson], our director, was superb, just couldn’t ask for anyone better at the helm. And he was the writer as well. What was beautiful about the piece is he contoured and shaped the characters and the dialogue to suit the person that he had cast in the role. If you were to see another production of it, let’s say in Canada or in London, it would be a very different show because he did change some of the script for us. … He really gave us freedom to explore our characters, and if he felt maybe we should do a little less or a little more, whatever, he navigated that. But in general he was just terrific to work with. The quality of the piece was just beautiful. You don’t see that kind of stuff on Broadway very often. It was a very unusual, unique piece on Broadway, so I’m just very proud to be a part of that.”
And now Mason has a second memory from the 2022 theater season, with Los Otros.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Los Otros, featuring Luba Mason and Caesar Samayoa, plays through Oct. 8 at A.R.T./New York Theatres. Click here for more information and tickets.
