INTERVIEW: This new play features David Greenspan hosting a séance, enough said
Photo: David Greenspan stars in On Set With Theda Bara. Photo courtesy of Emilio Madrid / Provided by Everyman Agency with permission.
David Greenspan is one of the legends of the New York theater scene, building a career impressive in both its variety and breadth. The interpreter is back on stage in the new show On Set With Theda Bara, in which he portrays four characters during a séance. The experience is brought to life thanks to writer Joey Merlo and director Jack Serio. The extremely limited engagement, presented by the Exponential Festival and The Brick, runs tonight, Feb. 1, through Wednesday, Feb. 8.
“I think the audience can expect hopefully something they have not experienced in the theater before,” Serio said in a recent phone interview. “I think those who are familiar with David and his work can certainly expect a David Greenspan performance and all the things that those performances are known for, which is a highly technical, impressive, virtuosic feat of acting and interpretation. But I think, unlike some of David’s prior work, it’s situated in a highly theatrical environment.”
That highly theatrical environment entails a moody, candlelit séance where Greenspan will channel multiple people right in front of the audience. On Set With Theda Bara presents the rare chance to be up close and personal with the actor and see his process at play. The seating arrangement for the show maximizes the intimacy: Audiences either sit at the table with Greenspan or on surrounding stools.
“I’ve never written a play for one performer, and whenever I write a play, I try not to have actors in mind,” Merlo said. “I try to start with characters of my own creation or in this case Theda Bara. The mythology of Theda Bara was used as an inspiration, but I think it’s been really exciting to be in rehearsals with Jack and with David, especially because David Greenspan as a performer is a kind of supernatural performer I feel. There is a kind of channeling happening.”
For those who don’t know cinematic history, Bara was a silent film actor known for such movies as A Fool There Was, Camille and When a Woman Sins, according to her lengthy IMDb page. Merlo said that Greenspan interprets Bara and others by digesting each character, almost becoming them on a molecular level. Then, through his body and voice, he’s able to channel the respective roles.
“It’s all in service to each of these characters but also in service of the text and of the themes that the play is exploring,” said Merlo, whose other works include Love of Men Ferocious and The Witch of St. Elmora Street, among others. “It’s poignant at times, but it’s also incredibly campy and melodramatic. Like Theda had to do in her films, there’s a lot of pantomiming, and so it’s really fun to watch David find those different elements and bring out those different textures of the play. … When I wrote the play I didn’t describe any set or anything. All I had listed for the setting was mirrors, shadow and candlelight, so those were the three ingredients that I wanted the director and creative team to play with. I’m really excited because I think Jack has come up with an incredibly innovative and visceral concept, and our design team is executing it so that I think it will be exciting for the audience to see how these elements are used in the space and how David playing these four different characters can use the mirrors we have in this space on either side of this table to create these kinds of exchanges between characters in a very theatrical, unique way.”
Merlo said the writing process for this particular play was unlike any other theatrical endeavor he’s taken on in the past. He was sick and bedridden for months, and the idea for On Set With Theda Bara came to him in a fever dream. He was in his last semester at Brooklyn College, and after workshopping the piece among his college cohort, the play remained relatively unchanged. He only began cutting certain passages when he started working with Greenspan and Serio.
“I think also David and Jack are both wonderful dramaturgs, so that’s been really helpful to be in a space with them,” Merlo said. “And they understand the play. I feel like they care about it, and I feel like the cuts are very specific and sharp. And so that’s how the play has changed. It’s probably from two hours, and now it’s a 70-75 minute play. So mostly sculpting away at this big block of marble that was the first draft and turning it into something that I think we all are contributing to as dramaturgs and as creators, and it always changes just having an actor and seeing what they can do and what’s communicated and what maybe is more interesting left out.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
On Set With Theda Bara, written by Joey Merlo and directed by Jack Serio, plays Feb. 1-8 at the Exponential Festival. Performances run at The Brick in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. Click here for more information and tickets.
