By Kevin Hylton
January 21, 2003
Going Home With John Corwin
An interview with writer John Corwin and actress Kellie Overbey
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Over the last few years, the Manhattan Theatre Club (MTC) has been responsible for some fairly mammoth stage productions. In 2000, David Auburn’s PROOF opened on Broadway after starting as a small off Broadway show starring Mary Louise Parker (most recently seen in TV’s THE WEST WING) in the title role. As many may know, PROOF just closed this month after giving Jennifer Jason Leigh and Anne Heche turns at the play’s title role. The London production of PROOF starred Gwyneth Paltrow who is also starring in the upcoming film based on the play. As well, MTC is the company responsible for the very successful New York and now touring production of filmmaker Charles Busch’s THE TALE OF THE ALLERGIST’S WIFE. Busch wrote and directed the cult classic film PSYCHO BEACH PARTY and has a new off Broadway show in previews entitled SHANGHAI MOON. Over the years, MTC has collected a devoted group of Hollywood actors who work in MTC productions.
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Presently, John Corwin’s drama, GONE HOME, is playing at the Manhattan Theatre Club’s City Center Stage II. The production boasts the acting skills of Josh Hamilton who most recently played opposite Jennifer Jason Leigh in the second Broadway casting of PROOF and with 1980’s film queen Ione Skye in EVOLUTION (stage production). I first found Hamilton in my post-PULP FICTION Eric Stoltz film retrospective. Hamilton was one of the primary characters in Noah Baumbach’s coming of age college film, KICKING AND SCREAMING, that also featured Stoltz and Parker Posey. In KICKING AND SCREAMING, Hamilton played a writer searching for a voice at the end of his college career. In GONE HOME Hamilton reprises his role as a young scribe. But this time he is a wordsmith on a different mission. He’s going home with his new bride (Chelsea Altman) to deal with his family and past. Upon his return, Hamilton encounters his fully-grown sister (Callie Thorne), his father (Rob Campbell), and his mother (Kellie Overbey).
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Each of these performers has had a wealth of acting experience both on stage and in front of the camera. Callie Thorn was a series regular on HOMICIDE: LIFE ON THE STREETS and was recently in Robert De Niro’s ANALYZE THAT. Chelsea Altman and Rob Campbell both have film and television work under their belts. Kellie Overbey is a veteran to film and stage. Overbey recently worked with Woody Allen on two films and acted in the Pulitzer Prize winning Steppenwolf Theatre production of Sam Shepard’s BURIED CHILD (directed by Garry Sinise). John Corwin, the author of GONE HOME, is a hot new playwright from Chicago. Although this is his first production in New York he has already had plays mounted in Chicago and London. As well, he’s done some writing for British Television and film. Recently, I had an opportunity to speak with both Kellie Overbey and playwright John Corwin.
You may not recognize Kellie Overbey when you see her picture. In fact, you may not even recognize anyone from this cast. Nevertheless, readers will likely find some of Kellie Overbey’s comments on acting to be interesting. I recently saw the Signature Theatre’s production of Lanford Wilson’s play, BURN THIS. The production just closed its doors after a rather successful run. The first cast included Catherine Keener and Ed Norton. After Norton and Keener left they were replaced with, two other “film” actors, Elisabeth Shue and Peter Sarsgaard (recently in the film EMPIRE).
When Hollywood actors decide to do a Broadway or off Broadway show there frequently is immediate backlash. The backlash appears to come both from the dedicated stage actors who feel as though their jobs are being stolen by actors who do not “need” the work and also from critics and theatergoers who feel film and television actors do not produce worthy performances on stage. If a theatergoer only saw the stage version of THE GRADUATE, with Lorraine Bracco, or, BURN THIS, with Elisabeth Shue I could understand anyone who forms the opinion that film actors have no place on the stage. However bad Bracco and Shue were, it would be a mistake to ignore all of the film actors who truly succeed on New York stages. Recently, Paul Newman received accolades for his role as the Stage Manager in Thornton Wilder’s OUR TOWN. A few years ago Philip Seymour Hoffman and John C. Reilly acted together in an astounding revival of Sam Shepard’s TRUE WEST. And anyone would be remiss who failed to note the brilliant performances of Stanley Tucci and Edie Falco in the 2002 revival of FRANKIE AND JOHNNY. Although Shue received mediocre reviews in BURN THIS, Catherine Keener and Ed Norton were highly praised by New York audiences and critics alike. What does one take from the example of BURN THIS, where one set of film actors succeed on stage and one fails? Is there a distinct difference between acting for the stage and acting for the camera?
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KELLIE OVERBEY: [With theater] you really do start at the beginning and go through to the very end. And you don’t ever step out of that within the context of the play. Film is interesting but I don’t think it’s the actors’ medium at all. I think you can do wonderful work but you are really micromanaging moments. You’re really breaking it down and isolating a single scene or single sentence or single exchange between actors. You do it all out of context and some brilliant editor puts it back together and hopefully it makes your performance look amazing. I remember John Malkovich take issue with someone who said “The camera doesn’t lie.” His response to that was “That’s exactly what it was meant to do.” And I sort of took that to heart in the way that [the camera] manipulates. In other words, what I’m saying is on a stage you’re completely exposed, completely vulnerable. And I find that those challenges make me a better actor all around. So it’s really a good acting work-out to do a play every night.
MOVIE POOP SHOOT: It seems to me that the difference between the film and television actors who do well on stage and those who do not is in the actor’s ability to sustain a consistent performance over the course of two or three hours. I’m sure many film actors would take issue with this comment saying, “Three hours? I have to be prepared to act for a full twelve hour day of shooting.” But when they’re working a full day they’re getting take after take after take to get one right. It seems with theater you’re out there and have one shot.
KELLIE OVERBEY: I’ll tell you. I think yes. And I think it’s a developed skill that might be taken for granted by a lot of people. The truth is, I’m actually friends with Catherine Keener. I think she’s a great actress and I saw [BURN THIS] and thought she did a lovely job in that. And I told her, “You should do more plays.” Because I think that people who are talented actors, whatever defines a talented actor, but people who have that ability and have most of their experience in front of a camera would probably learn a lot and blossom if they had more experience on the stage. I think that it’s a matter of and I don’t like to use the expression “Filling up the space” because that seems to indicate some kind of Greek mask work and I don’t mean that. But I just think that there is some sort of a way to reach the back row without shouting and I can’t explain what that is.
Over the last few years Overbey did some work with Woody Allen. She acted in SWEET AND LOWDOWN and DECONSTRUCTING HARRY. In both of these films, Allen did not provide her or other actors with a full script. She only saw the lines for her own scene and had no further knowledge about the film. According to Overbey, Allen “talks about how film isolates an exchange or scene or moment in a way that theater does not for the actor’s experience.” Allen is known for giving his stars room to maneuver with his lines. Frequently actors are surprised by the freedom Allen gives them for reworking his dialog. The actress echoed this saying, “the first time I worked with [Allen] I was scared to death for a second because he said, ‘Oh, I don’t know why I wrote that little bit.’” Allen let Overbey and the other actors in the scene rework his script and “set up everything in a way so that [Overbey] felt very comfortable.” Overbey was afraid at first because she’d “never had anybody give [her] that much freedom.” Allen “doesn’t want [his actors] to sound like [they’re] acting at all which is why he does a lot of two shots and three shots for more than one person. Not close ups in other words. If you do a close up the problem is you have to cut away from it so you can’t have people’s speech overlapping.”
So what makes a good director? “A good director knows how to listen to his actors tell him or her what they need.” At the same time the director can “reconcile those needs with his or her own vision of the play” Overbey said.
While Overbey is now a seasoned veteran of New York’s stages, this is all very new for John Corwin. Corwin studied acting in college in Illinois. After graduating, the author picked up the pen and began to write. He formed his own production company with a few other graduates from his college (known as Wax Lips). Wax Lips sent NAVY PIER, another of Corwin’s plays, to London’s Soho Theatre in 2000. NAVY PIER got him a trip to London to see his play produced and landed him his first agent. It was his British agent who obtained him New York representation. The New York agent eventually submitted GONE HOME to MTC. GONE HOME was written in about three to four weeks back in July of 1999. It was first produced by Wax Lips in Chicago in 1999.
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Corwin directed neither the Chicago nor the New York productions of the show. When asked if he has some aversion to directing his work Corwin said “I did it once. But I still can’t speak of it. I have no patience unfortunately and I’m also a little bit neurotic. It just wasn’t cool it all.” The author was present for the majority of the rehearsals of GONE HOME. He stayed in New York till the day after the opening of the show. About ten to fifteen minutes were cut from the original production. According to the playwright, in the three years since the Chicago production he realized “there was some material that didn’t need to be there anymore.” So how is it being there for the rehearsals of your first off Broadway play?
JOHN CORWIN: At first you stay off to one corner staying as far away as possible. For the first couple of weeks the actors have all of these questions. They were logistical questions about what kind of neighborhood did he live in Chicago. We were hashing out “what it all means.” And then once we got into actually running through the first act or chunks of the second act I would talk to the director for like fifteen or twenty minutes, just giving him my input. And then, to his credit I think, he would pretty much say to the cast what I told him verbatim. So I had a lot of input indirectly that way. Obviously there were things he was like “No, you’re wrong.” But he did take a majority of my notes and made them work.
After finishing the run of NAVY PIER at London’s Soho Theatre, Corwin returned to Chicago. His agent in London was able to get him work writing for the British television show, NIGHT AND DAY. NIGHT AND DAY was like a version of THE EAST ENDERS, if it was directed by David Lynch. For those of you who are not familiar with British television, both of these shows are prime time soap operas. However, they are very different from DALLAS and DYNASTY and what America knows as a prime time soap. Corwin spoke about how it was writing in Chicago for a British television show.
JOHN CORWIN: Well, first, you lose every argument in TV. And it was strange for me since I was [in Chicago]. If I was still in London I could have jumped on the train and watched them tape it. I did everything by email. They’d send me scene breakdowns. And they’d give me the 200-page bible of everything in the show that you’d want to know. And so I’d have to run through the bible and try and find out everything I could about this character named “Josh” or whatever. and I had no idea what he looked like. You’d get the scene breakdown at like noon Chicago time which is like 6 PM over there. And they’d be like, “We’re going to need this by tomorrow morning at 10.” Which is like 4 in the morning [in Chicago]. And so I’d have to spend literally like 13 or 14 hours straight cranking through a whole half hour. And then they would change it. I had a great time but it brings the worst fears out in you. Like when you get notes via email you never really know what they intend. When you get things like “That line is crap” or “God that’s awful” you don’t know if they’re joking or being brutal. I’ve never been that paranoid about myself in my whole life. Having said that, it was a great experience.
It’s difficult to talk about GONE HOME without giving away the twists and turns of the plot. So I went directly to the source and asked the writer about his outlook on the play. Many critics claim that Corwin’s plays are similar to jigsaw puzzles. Corwin himself admits that he is a big fan of Mamet and Pinter’s work. Both of these playwrights work frequently force audiences to piece together the plot at the end of the show. I asked Corwin if he saw his play as a jigsaw puzzle, what picture was on the puzzle box.
JOHN CORWIN: It’d probably be some sort of family picture. I wouldn’t know how it would be arranged but all the different relationships at once.
If you’re interested in assembling the puzzle for yourself, tickets to GONE HOME can be obtained for $45 through MTC’s box office at (212) 581-1212 or online through MTC’s website at www.mtc-nyc.org.
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