Victoria Clark
The theatrical world loves a Cinderella story, and first-time Tony Award nominee Victoria Clark has emerged as this year's belle of the Broadway ball. As the critically-lauded star of The Light in the Piazza at Lincoln Center New York Times critic Ben Brantley flat out called her the best of the season, Clark brings strength and humor to the deceptively low-key role of Margaret Johnson, a well-to-do southern matron on vacation in Italy with her childlike adult daughter, Clara Kelli O'Hara. As Margaret struggles with the possible consequences of a romance between Clara and a handsome young Italian Matthew Morrison, she must also come to grips with the disappointments in her own life and marriage. Clark seems to embody Adam Guettel's rich, complex music, and her performances represents a big leap after 20 years of supporting roles Titanic's Alice Beane, Smitty in How to Succeed… and replacement stints as Fraulein Kost in Cabaret and Penelope Pennywise is Urinetown. Not surprisingly, she is enjoying every minute.
What was your reaction when you read Ben Brantley's review in the Times?
I never actually read it. I have this weird thing where if I see things printed, I can't get them out of my head, so I don't read reviews. But my friends gave me the gist of it! It's been glorious and crazy and very exciting. I'm excited for the show and, of course, thrilled for myself after all these years of having worked so hard. I see my success as being tied to the work of everybody around me-the creators, the director [Bartlett Sher] and the entire cast. It just happens that my character's story is prominent and unusual.
Didn't you expect to be singled out by the critics?
You know what? I'll be honest and say yes. I think I deserve to be, just because she's such an interesting character. Everybody has worked hard to make Margaret memorable, so I would have been disappointed if people hadn't said, "This is a really beautiful character."
Being southern yourself must help you feel comfortable with the role.
When I read the script, I knew exactly who Margaret was. I was raised in Dallas, but my mother comes from Tennessee and my father is from North Carolina, so that area of the country is very familiar to me. She's a composite of many of my girlfriends' mothers, a couple of my aunts, my mother, and both of my grandmothers. Because I knew the character so well, I felt I could take huge risks with the performance, contradict myself from scene to scene, and know that it's still truthful. If you take a role that you don't personally know much about, I think it's scarier to take those risks; you say to yourself, "That's not consistent with what I did in the first act." But the more I act, the more I realize we're all complex and mixed up and variable.
Why do you find her sad?
It's hard to imagine the reserves of love and patience you'd have to have to make it through so many years with a disabled child, even if you had a loving partner, which Margaret does not.
Right, but she's got the means to have help at home. More than anything, she is spiritually and emotionally and physically exhausted. She's also worried about what's going to happen to her daughter as she gets older. She doesn't hold out any hope of her daughter having a family because no one back home would be interested. The only alternative is having her institutionalized. So what starts as a nostalgic trip to get the daughter out of the house turns into this huge blessing. What's sad is that this child is clearly Margaret's primary relationship and she has to learn to how to live without it. That, to me, is the killer thing.
Your wigs and costumes are so perfect, it must be a shock to look at yourself all done up!
[Costume designer] Cathy Zuber is a true artist, and we have a fantastic hair staff. The lady who does my wigs, Alice [Ramos], is a perfectionist. She spends at least a half hour a night on that wig after it's on my head. When the last pin goes in, I look in the mirror and say, "There she is!" It's that specific. By the time I put on the clothes and the hats, it's a real transformation. She's so different from who I am, but she's also so familiar that it's fun when she shows up.
Were you surprised that Adam Guettel and [book writer] Craig Lucas could get inside the head of a southern woman from the 1950s?
Elizabeth Spencer's novella really captures Margaret. But having said that, we had a male director, a male composer and lyricist, a male book writer, and male producers at Lincoln Center, the Intiman Theater in Seattle, and the Goodman Theater in Chicago. I was surrounded by men, and they all climbed deep inside Margaret's soul. I'm very impressed by that. But, you know, Adam wrote very successfully for the women in Floyd Collins and Craig is a genius at writing women. I mean, Reckless? Prelude to a Kiss? And Missing Persons, which starred Mary Beth Peil, was a brilliant play.
How did Kelli O'Hara move from playing the Italian sister-in-law to the lead role of Clara? Did Celia Keenan-Bolger, who'd done it in two previous productions, bow out to join The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee?
That's a decision that came from the top; I don't think it was [Celia's] decision. The two girls are totally different and I wish people could have the opportunity to see both of them. Luckily, Celia had this other opportunity [in Spelling Bee], and I think everybody is good where they landed. I love Kelli so much, and she is a rock. She's completely there every night, and she and Matthew are beautiful together. Everybody who contributed to the piece along the way can feel proud of their work on it. And we're all very good friends. Celia and Kelli and Wayne Wilcox, who played Fabrizio in Chicago, and Steve Pasquale, who played it in Seattle, all come over to my house and we have parties. Everybody loves each other, and we're supportive of the piece and want it to do well. These actors are young, but they're old souls-they've been able to lift the project apart from their personal feelings about it. I'm very impressed by how talented and generous they are.
Did you think it would take two years for the show to make it to New York?
I didn't know, but I told the creators if they wanted to do this show in a mall in Oklahoma, I would go. As long as they keep asking me to do it, I will.
Everybody is saying, "Oh, it's so daring." You know what? It's not that daring. It's good theater. We're not asking people to listen to music that's not melodic and beautiful and harmonic. What makes this special is that Craig and Adam and Bart had a specific story they wanted to tell and they stuck to their vision.
The audience responded so warmly at the end; they obviously feel an emotional connection with you.
People have been sobbing and almost knocking me down. Do you remember The Syringa Tree [Pamela Gien's one-woman show about growing up in South Africa during apartheid]? When I saw that with my two best girlfriends, I said to Pamela, "I have to hang on to you for a few minutes because I'm weak." We had a group hug, and I thought, "If I could ever do that for anybody, even one person-if I could ever give a performance where that kind of healing energy came out of me-I'd be the luckiest girl in the world." That's what Lincoln Center and the creators of this piece have given me. They handed me the opportunity to get a little healing out there.
You've mentioned being a churchgoer in several interviews. How does that inform your work?
My faith is very important to me, and I think there's a lot of Christology in this piece. I don't want to be too analytical about Adam's work, but the end of Floyd Collins is similar. When Floyd talks about seeing the light, there's a feeling of redemption and release and forgiveness and letting go. The same kind of thing is going on in Piazza. You don't have to be a Christian to see that. It has a universal spirituality about it. I don't see Margaret as being particularly religious, but I do think she has a spiritual breakthrough. Anytime you can forgive yourself for something you've been carrying around for a long time, that's the first step.
It only took you 20 years to get your first big leading role in New York...
Can you believe it? Good thing I have nice skin, right?
You've had lovely parts in How to Succeed... and Titanic and Cabaret and so forth, but have you always secretly thought, "When will I get to show what I can really do?"
Yes! I teach voice, and I've spent years and years building people up and telling them to believe in what they have. I was always happy to see my colleagues rewarded with great roles, but it took me a while to figure out what I really wanted to say as a person. I knew I wanted to use every ounce of my energy because I've been training for a long time. I'm one of those nerdy people who works out every day and practices every day; people think I'm a nut. [Laughs]. The thing is, I don't need the success of this show to be happy. I love my child, I love my life, and I have a fantastic family and friends. I'm a very happy person. But what I needed to say as an actress came to me in this role. I could have waited my whole life and never had anyone hand me something close to being this good. So when I had the opportunity to audition, I really went after it. I told everybody involved, "If you give me this chance, I know who she is and I know I can do something special with it." Thank God they believed me.
Well, I think producers have learned a hard lesson this season: Casting correctly is really important!
Isn't it interesting? It's been a while since people have taken a chance on a non-star to carry something of this magnitude. And I could list a dozen actors on my level who have worked just as hard as I have and who deserve similar opportunities. We don't really need to go to the Hollywood casting table, especially for musicals. This city is full of extremely talented people who could do exactly what you see me doing. There are some extraordinary people who are unknown to the public, but not to me!
Have you taught many young actors who have gone on to do high-profile roles?
Mostly it's been the other way around. I've had stars and colleagues who know they can come to me and they'll be comfortable.
Now and then people will call and say something like, "Can you get me ready for my Urinetown callback?" And I say, "Actually I'm auditioning for that too, and I'm going to use all my good ideas to try to get the part myself." But I'm a pretty laid-back person so we end up laughing about it. Teaching has definitely made me a better actor, and so has being a mom. If I wasn't a mother, I wouldn't know the first thing to do with this part.
How do you handle the juggling act of being a single mom and a Broadway actress?
It's not easy. I have a big support team and an amazing ex-husband. The two of us are great friends, and that helps. And we've got a very flexible kid.
Who's with your 10-year-old son, Thomas Luke, at night when you are working?
His dad or a babysitter. Or if I have relatives in town, my family looks after him. My ex is an anthropologist with a specialty in New York's Chinatown. He's pretty high profile in the anthropology community, so he's often away, but a lot of people pitch in and help make everything work for me. I'm very lucky.
Your son looked so happy in the opening night photos. Was he proud?
Oh yes. He's so precious! After the opening, he said, "Mommy, what's going to happen to the show?" I said, "We haven't heard if it's going to be extended or not." And he said, "Well, what would it take?" I said, "We're going to have to get B+ reviews or better." He understood that.
What do the two of you enjoy doing together?
We like to go to movies, and he comes to work with me occasionally and hangs out backstage. He's a Yankee fan and enjoys any kind of sporting event. He's a big sports person himself and I go to as many of his games as I can. Before I had a child, someone said to me, "With Central Park as your front yard and Riverside Park as your backyard, what could be bad?"
Will he be your Tony date?
I think I will take him as my escort. I have to say "escort," because when I say "date," it makes him nervous. He can't picture being my date. That's way too gross!
See Victoria Clark in The Light in the Piazza at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre, 150 West 65th Streett. Click for tickets and more information.
