INTERVIEW: Mark Moses on the fallacy of memory and the power of renewed love
Photo: Still stars, from left, Mark Moses and Melissa Gilbert. Photo courtesy of Maria Baranova / Provided by KSA PR with permission.
Still, the new play by Lia Romeo, finishes up its off-Broadway run at The Sheen Center for Thought & Culture’s Loreto Theater on Monday, March 3. In the show, Melissa Gilbert plays Helen, and Mark Moses plays Mark. The characters were in a relationship three decades prior, but things fell apart. Now they are rekindling some of that past love, but they also realize how the world has changed them both — sometimes in unexpected ways.
“There’s a lot of references to ships at the beginning of the play, about ships that float that are made out of wood or metal,” Moses said in a recent phone interview. “When I read this, I thought this [play] was a sailboat that could sort of skim across the sea. Many plays that I read or work that I read, I don’t have that feeling about, and therefore I think it would be very hard to do. But this play I thought was well written and well put together and had a lot of meaning that would keep this afloat and lead to a wonderful voyage.”
Joining Moses on this journey is director Adrienne Campbell-Holt, who has expertly led these two actors on this voyage. Gilbert is a well-known actor of stage and screen, having performed in everything from The Miracle Worker to The Glass Menagerie to Little House on the Prairie. Moses is best remembered for his many films and TV roles, including in Mad Men and Desperate Housewives, among many others.
“In a play, essentially once the director and the playwright and everybody else is gone, you’re up there by yourself, or in this case I’m there with Melissa Gilbert, and she’s a joy every night,” Moses said. “When you do that, you have to keep in mind that this has got to work every night, and some plays work better than others. I think Still is an example of a terrific, terrific small play that works very well, especially given the times that we’re in right now.”
Moses had high praise for Gilbert as a fellow performer. He is impressed with what she brings to the stage — a career that stretches back to when she was a child. He also mentioned his appreciation for her time as president of the Screen Actors Guild. “So she has been around a long time, a fascinating person,” he said. “She’s terrific, so we enjoy working with each other. And it’s a bit of an adventure every night that we look forward to.”
This play has Moses thinking about the power of romance and love. He acknowledged that certain people are more romantic than others, and some people may be nostalgic for past relationships. This nostalgia and romance usually leads to some interesting questions.
“There are many people that you think, did that one get away?” he asked. “Or, what would have happened if I stayed with that person? Or, did we get along? What broke us up? These questions come up. There’s a romantic element of that.”
The actor added: “Some people you see maybe at a reunion or something like that, and you hit it off immediately, the same way you did when you were younger. You get along, have things in common. There’s a spark that’s there. I think that this play, along with having other aspects like a political aspect and other things that come up in a play, there’s also the idea of getting together with someone that you absolutely adored, and that’s what Still is about.”
Moses said he’s intrigued by his character of Mark, and he was so happy to learn that they share the same name. Other than the name, they have distinct differences, including when it comes to politics, and that makes playing the part quite fascinating to the actor.
“He’s different from me,” Moses said. “He’s incredibly optimistic. He also has a different political slant than I do, so that’s kind of interesting. He has different ideas about what happened in the past and how he sees things, and then Helen, who is the other character in the play that Melissa plays, has a different idea about what happened in the past as well. So they each bring their memories of what happened to both of them and why they broke up in the first place, and that differs between people. It’s sort of like Rashomon. Everybody has a different point of view about the past and their memories. Their memories oftentimes lead them astray. You think you remember something one way, and you don’t actually remember it that way.”
As an example of this point, Moses pointed to his own marriage. “I’ve been married almost 40 years, and I looked back at an old letter of mine,” he said. “I thought, oh, we decided to get married when we were 28 or 30. … But it turned out when I read this letter, I was 21, and I said, ‘I’m going to marry this woman, Annie.’ And I did, but I didn’t remember that. I didn’t remember that I had those thoughts at 21 or 22. I thought when I looked back, my memory was different about meeting my future wife. So those things change.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Still, starring Melissa Gilbert and Mark Moses, continues until Monday, March 3, at The Sheen Center for Thought & Culture’s Loreto Theater. Click here for more information and tickets.
