Hudson, N.Y. — In an unusual move Stageworks Hudson is bringing back a play it produced two seasons ago, at that time a world premiere – which makes this a world premiere revival, and with it the company is somewhat altering its focus as a producing organization. Laura Margolis, founding artistic director of the company addressed the play and her company’s future in a single, thoughtful statement during a telephone interview with her and her cast.
“Throughout all the years of producing here, there’s a handful of plays that I have seen in a daydream of sorts, a vision of the longer life of the play,” she explained.
Margolis continued, saying, “with most of them we’ve done the world or American premiere and while that’s never really been my focus for numerous reasons, over the last several years we have become enthusiastic about putting our focus on the development of new work and devoting time to the longer life of new work. This play in particular [Kieron Barry’s Tomorrow in the Battle] should have a life in a larger demographic. As we move toward that goal of developing new plays, it felt right to bring this back. It just never left my consciousness…it continues to resonate with what’s going on in our world, of our time. These three characters, these people, are really alive in our times, and the situation is vibrant.”
Premiered in Hudson in August, 2012, the play featured actress Danielle Skraastad who played the role of Jennifer. She is the only returning member of that original company but this time she is playing Anna, a very different role. The play is about a triad relationship: Simon, his wife Anna and his mistress Jennifer. Each is a dynamic human being with a sterling career. Each has a personality that is over-the-top and challenging to other people.
“A lot’s happened in two years,” Skraastad said. “The role of Anna is different. She’s a very smart woman, a scientist, working for the ministry of defense and involved heavily in nuclear missile updating. She’s also a wife with an erotic imagination and high-pressured job.”
Margolis is thrilled to have Skraastad back and in the other woman’s role. “At the time, two years ago, we really didn’t know how the roles would lay out, whether Danielle would play Jennifer or Anna but it seemed right, then, that she should take the role she played. Now, two years later she has changed, matured maybe, and Anna seems inevitable.”
“How rare it is for new plays to get this kind of opportunity,” Skraastad insisted. “Instead of the redoing of historic or classic plays how odd it is for a company to remount a new play with the advantage of an actress playing the other role and looking at the play from such a different point of view – I like the concepts of this play. It’s like looking at Richard II from two different characters’ perspectives. It’s fascinating.”
Olivia Gilliatt, playing Jennifer this time around, agrees. “Danielle is hearing and experiencing new things she had not noticed in the past,” Gilliatt said. “We haven’t talked about this but our philosophy here, as it always is for actors, is beg, borrow and steal. We had a conference call with Kieron Barry, who is quirky and fascinating, and it gave me a whole insight into the world of this play.”
“Danielle introduced me to the play,” said Christopher Kelly who is playing Simon. They had been working on another new play together in New York City at the time. “Laura simultaneously talked with me, we had a dialogue about it, then I read it and Laura and I talked again and I just went on reading it. It was just captivating and surprising and after about an hour I really began thinking about being in it.”
“It’s phenomenal actually,” said Gilliatt. “Danielle introduced me to Laura and I auditioned several ways for her. What was captivating immediately was that because of the style and the writing there could be so many character choices. We get to live and breathe the play through so many different pathways.”
Danielle is a region native from Greene County whose professional career includes work on Broadway and off-Broadway and whose work with StageWorks Hudson has included major roles in How I Learned to Drive and The Countess. She and Christopher and Olivia have all worked together in the past, so their relationships in these characters are an unusually forged set of character involvements.
“We’re living communally here,” Danielle said and she thinks that this is influencing things. “The three of us had worked on a workshop of a new play just before this in NYC so we had just come off a fast and furious period working together. And Chris and Olivia and I went to the same graduate acting program at NYU, though not in the same classes at the same time. I have a history with them that is enjoyable and we get to hunker down in this play in ways that are physically intimate and that’s being reinforced by living together.”
Barry’s language is not the easiest. Born in Stratford-on-Avon in England, this son of Shakespeare’s town brings his own unique vision of the characters into the piece and the actors and director have to work with what he has given them. Jennifer, the youngest of the three, and the character that both actresses will have played is very outspoken at times. “I had random sex with the working class,” Jennifer says. “He could maintain an erection with an intelligent woman: How many can say that?” And later she remarks “He looks at me like he’s going to paint me,” and, “He kisses me and afterward my mouth feels like it did after a clarinet lesson.”
“One aspect of the play,” Margolis offers, “is the relationship Simon has with his wife of many years – the other with a youngerish woman he meets and the interesting thing is that he is at the golden hours, the highpoint of his life. So I think the audience will be able to identify with the dilemmas, or challenges of these people, all of whom are high-powered, with lots of responsibility and involved more with themselves who now are suddenly navigating relationships with difficulty.”
Barry’s play was work-shopped first at the 23rd annual Little Festival of the Unexpected at Portland Stage in Portland, Maine. Later he sent the script to Margolis at StageWorks Hudson and she was immediately taken with it. Barry is the recipient of three Peggy Ramsay Foundation awards; in 2009 Kieron Barry was nominated for the Charles Wintour Award for Most Promising Playwright at the London Evening Standard Theatre Awards. He was also made a Norman Mailer Fellow. He was nominated for a London Evening Standard Theatre Award for his play Stockwell, which enjoyed two sell-out runs in London at the Landor and Tricycle theaters and was described by the London Times as “more gripping than anything else to be seen in the London theatre.” His other plays include Mahler & Rachmaninov, Cumquats – developed with the Royal National Theatre of Great Britain and A Bollocking From Tom Watson.
“The playwright has created such an interesting dynamic,” Christopher Kelly said. “They’re a very complicated triangle — the sense of intimacy lives within each of us differently and when you read it on the page it’s not like an ordinary play. Most of it lives in the present moment, but in the memories as well they’re told from different points of view. The intimacy is so very interesting. He’s a heart surgeon who is completely different with his wife and his mistress.”
Margolis picked up the thought and continued. “For me, this a chance to take another look at those intimacies, to come at it differently. I believe in the journey of this play and I’ll say its style, for lack of a better word. It is probably imprinted now in my mind. I have three new actors in three new roles, and they are brilliant so it would be wrong for me to impose on their work. At the same time my thoughts as a director of this play for the second time, are similar but expanding. This is the work I like doing and that I like having my company do. This is where I hope we can continue putting our time and applying our talents.”
Tomorrow In The Battle begins previews August 13, opens on August 15 and plays through Sunday, August 31. For tickets or information, contact Stageworks by mail at 41-A Cross Street, Hudson, NY 12534 or call the box office at (518) 822-9667. For online ticketing and schedules for this play, consult The Berkshire Edge Calendar.
For further information about this play and Stageworks, visit the Stageworks website at www.stageworkshudson.org.
