Brian Dennehy

Q: The last four Broadway plays you've done have been big, modern, classic dramas. Why does that kind of play appeal to you?

What you're saying is that they're old, and that's what I am! [laughs] What interests me is doing the really demanding, tough, hard plays. I'm not particularly interested in doing something I know I can do. I'm not interested in doing what I do in the movies or on television. I want to do O'Neill, I want to do Miller, I want to do Chekhov, Shakespeare, Beckett. They're hard for the actors, they're hard for the directors, and they're hard for the audiences, because they're asking difficult questions. They're dealing with powerful emotions. Most modern playwrights, with some exceptions, are interested in a version of what happens in the movies and television, because that's what'll sell. Well, that's not O'Neill. O'Neill was interested in diving deep and coming back with a piece of his soul, or your soul, and saying, “This is what it looks like, be prepared to look at it, be prepared to think about what a soul really looks like and what's important to it.” It's why the passions, the genuine passions, are so powerful. Some audiences are prepared to look at that, and some audiences aren't.

Carla Gugino

Q: In Desire Under the Elms the dialect is very thick, and there are so many stage directions. Do those help you in creating your character?

The dialect obviously was important to O'Neill because he included it, but with the stage directions… both Bob [Falls, the director] and Brian [Dennehy] are huge O'Neill aficionados, and O'Neill's very known for stage direction on every single line, because he just didn't trust actors, apparently. [laughter] With this script, Bob took out all the stage directions. He wanted us to be exploring things. It was nice to have them stripped out, to be able to find things you might not have found if you were beholden to those particular stage directions.

You have this fascinating career where you make all these movies and TV shows, and then in your spare time you do O'Neill, Williams, and Miller.

It's a dream for me. I started out in film, and I love movies and TV. And to be welcomed into the Broadway community is really incredible. It's bizarre, when I did [Arthur Miller's] After the Fall on Broadway I felt like I had come home, and I knew very clearly that theatre had to be a big part of my career and my life for the rest of my life. As an actor, you learn so much from the different mediums. Film is so intimate and then it becomes so public, with millions and millions of people seeing it. With theatre you get to share each night, with each audience having a different personality, so the play is slightly different every night, and that's an incredible tool as an actress.

We've heard a lot about your chemistry with Pablo Schreiber. Is that something that comes naturally, or is it something you work at and create?

If two actors are really alive and present and in their characters, if the characters are supposed to have chemistry, it's actually there, created by something larger than the two of you. The truth of the matter is, though, that Pablo and I do have really good chemistry, and we do have a really great trust for each other, so neither one of us was like “Put your hand here, and don't move there, or touch that,” and so on. We were able to find out what was right, and explore it in a deeper way than I think often you can. So, definitely I think sometimes chemistry is just natural and just shows up on the first day, and in this case that is the case, and then it was just made deeper and fuller and stronger by the characters. Sometimes you may not even feel that as actors, but the characters will create it for you, so it's a good question, and I think it comes in different forms.

Get tickets to Desire Under the Elms.

Visit the Desire Under the Elms website.

View a list of Pablo Schreiber's Broadway credits.
View a list of Brian Dennehy's Broadway credits.
View a list of Carla Gugino's Broadway credits.

Ah, Men!

Tovah Feldshuh (Irena's Vow), will host the third annual Broadway Beauty Pageant on April 20 at Symphony Space (2537 Broadway at 95th Street). The popular event benefits New York's Ali Forney Center. The pageant, formerly titled Mr. Broadway, features male cast members representing Broadway shows. Celebrity judges include Ana Gasteyer, Beth Leavel, Charles Busch, and Seth Rudetsky.