Zoe Caldwell

When Zoe Caldwell steps on a stage, it's an event—especially now, 11 years after her Tony Award-winning performance as Maria Callas in Master Class. Caldwell stayed close to home for most of the past decade with her husband, producer Robert Whitehead, who died in June 2002, though she published a well-received memoir, I Will Be Cleopatra, just before his death and later did two brief stints as Madame Armfeldt in A Little Night Music in Chicago and L.A. But she's finally back on the New York stage as part of the ensemble in A Spanish Play at Classic Stage Company. Clad in a tailored red pantsuit with a chic short haircut, the 73-year-old actress plays an uncharacteristically coquettish role in Yasmina Reza's latest work, which features snippets of a play within the play and a variety of video effects dreamed up by director John Turturro. Watching Caldwell interact with co-stars Larry Pine, Linda Emond, Denis O'Hare and Katherine Borowitz, it's hard to fathom that she began her career more than 60 years ago as a child actress in her native Australia. Her resume is impossible to summarize, but just consider this brief list of her stellar co-stars: Paul Robeson in Othello, Charles Laughton in King Lear, Christopher Plummer in Antony and Cleopatra, Sean Connery in Macbeth, George Grizzard in Hamlet and Jason Robards in Long Day's Journey Into Night. She's been a leading lady in four countries her native Australia, at Stratford-on-Avon in England, at Canada's Stratford Festival and at the Guthrie in Minneapolis before conquering Broadway. She's won four Tony Awards for Slapstick Tragedy, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Medea and Master Class. Given the range of her accomplishments, including directing for the stage, it's no surprise that Caldwell has a unique conversational style—dramatic yet cozy. In every way, she is one of a kind.

How did you get involved with A Spanish Play?
Simple: John Turturro asked me. I'm such an admirer of his work onstage and on film, I thought, "I'll go along with what he suggests." I'd been at a reading of the play and I was knocked out by it. So here I am, with this wonderful company… and then there were three, and then there were four, and then there were five, and then six with John.

Your fans may be surprised that you're very much an ensemble member in this play rather than carrying the whole show.
That's what was so thrilling to me about it. I wanted to be part of an ensemble. People only think of me as a tragedienne and I'm not, actually. I'm not a load of laughs, but I'm okay [laughs].

What drew you to the character, and to the play itself?
I liked Pilar's femininity, and I liked the play's portrayal of the idea of actors. I think people assume that we're all downstairs at the theater having a riotous time. We're not: We're working very hard trying to do what the playwright and the director ask of us. I thought the play made that quite clear.

Yasmina Reza doesn't offer a very flattering portrayal of actors!
Well, actors are living lives of stress and strain. I think if you took plumbers and showed them working at their job, you'd say, "My god, plumbers are a weird lot!" Because we're all complex, whatever it is we're doing. I think one of the reasons why actors need to act is to get away from themselves and forget themselves by being in a character. Yasmina Reza is also an actress, you know. She's very beautiful.

It's fun to see you in a flirtatious role.
Oh yes, Pilar is flirtatious! She doesn't want to be Mum sitting in a barn. She wants what she wants. She has set her sights on this fair man [Fernan, played by Larry Pine] and she is playing the right cards. Eventually, it's real love with them, I think.

Do you enjoy your romantic scenes with Larry Pine?
Who wouldn't?! [laughs]

I must say your character has two of the most ungrateful daughters imaginable [played by Linda Emond and Katherine Borowitz].
Well, Pilar is not too nice. As the character, I'm wildly narcissistic; I have to be the center of the stage. I think it's tough for two beautiful and talented girls to have a mother who wants to butt into the limelight.

Well, I was siding with your character the whole time.
Oh! Well, maybe I'll put some new annoyances in. It's live theater, so I can change [laughs]. Have you seen The Seagull? It's like that. The mother in The Seagull is never anyone you want to stab, but you wouldn't mind giving her a bit of a pop.

What's your take on the play's varied levels, including scenes from a play within the play? Are audiences getting it?
The play is unusual, and audiences take a little while to clock on to what's going on, but once they do they seem to connect to it. It is like Pirandello, but it also has, at certain moments, a touch of Chekhov, which can't hurt.

How do you feel about John Turturro's use of a live videographer throughout the evening, an element he added to the script?
That is something of John's creation and imagination—and his imagination is huge. I like it. I don't do any of it, so I can stand off and watch. I'm not a film actor. I've never been a film actor. And the reason I'm not a film actor is not because I have a great talent that I'm keeping under a bushel. I can't be photographed. I'm terrified of that.

Seriously?
Yes, terrified! Point a camera at me at a picnic, and I'm terrified! The only person I trusted to photograph me, ever, was Robert [Whitehead, Caldwell's late husband] because he understood. He took so many photographs of me, and he tore up a lot of them, too. I'm such an old-fashioned person.

Did you expect to be away from the stage this long after your Tony-winning performance in Master Class?
No, I didn't. You know, Robert was very ill for a long time, and then when I decided perhaps it wouldn't be a bad idea if I worked again, I truly didn't quite know if I would work again—I mean, if the parts of me would work. The longer you're not riding the horse, the more difficult horseback riding becomes. You've got to keep all those muscles in tune, and I've let mine not stay in tune. But I'm trying to correct that.

This play was probably the right way to do that, rather than taking on a huge part.
Oh, I couldn't have. For me, this is huge right now.

You had been mentioned as a possible co-star with Marian Seldes in Terrence McNally's new play Deuce. What happened with that?
I wanted to do it badly, but this play came along first. I thought, "I can't be such a grandiose person to say, 'Oh well, now I've got another play.'" No. I had made my commitment to this play, which is immensely strong, and there would be only three weeks' rehearsal between one and the other. They've got Angela [Lansbury] now with Marian, which is sensational. I really love Marian.

Would you consider directing for the stage again?
No, I can't do that anymore. Directing is very hard. I think it's harder for the period that you're doing it than acting. But then the actors experience something that the director never can. As a director, you stand as if at the station waving them all good-bye as you finish your work and they go off to play. Physically, I couldn't do it again. I couldn't think that well! I'm dancing as fast as I can to keep up with this company.

I have to ask about your Playbill bio. It's extremely short and doesn't even name the four shows for which you won Tony Awards.
That's a bio made by my son Sam Whitehead. He said, "Mom, have you ever looked at your bio?" and I said "Not really, no." He said, "I think you should take a look at it and shorten it." I said, "You're such a smart fellow—you shorten it!" So he did. And I said, "Well, that's short. Good!" That was his creation, not mine. I don't have an agent or I suppose my agent would do it. It's a home-grown product by Sam. Both of my boys [Sam, a writer, and his brother Charles, a producer] are very honest with me. I like that.

I guess he figures everyone knows the incredible range of your work so you don't have to sum up 50 years of great roles.
It would be silly to do that, but I guess I tried because I had a long bio—or so Sam said! And I'm sure I did. I just let him take it away. He's the writer!

I can't resist asking you a few fan-like questions.
Oh, please do. We've been talking very seriously here.

Who is the most magnetic man you ever appeared with onstage?
[long pause] Christopher Plummer, I think. Yes, I'd say it was Chris.

You not only acted with him in Antony and Cleopatra, you directed him.
Twice! That's the sort of chutzpah I had [laughs]. Once as the Scottish lord [Macbeth on Broadway in 1988] and also [as Iago] with James Earl Jones in Othello [on Broadway in 1982]. I could no more do that now…

What's the greatest role ever written for a woman?
Oh, no question: Cleopatra. No question. She's all women! You've got to have some connection with all women, not just queens of Egypt.

Why isn't it done more?
I don't know. I did it at Stratford in Canada and I had the best time.

What is your most cherished theatrical memory?
Cleopatra, I think. Actually I've got a lot of favorite ladies. But I don't like doing one-woman shows. I did Lillian, about Lillian Hellman, and that's so lonely at the theater. There's nobody to laugh with.

Master Class was lovely in that way, because you shared the stage with those young co-stars one at a time.
I had the best time with that because of the company, and Terrence [McNally's] knowledge of Maria Callas. Eventually I had quite a lot of knowledge of Maria myself.

You must have been so touched that Audra McDonald named her daughter after you.
Oh, well, Audra McDonald… be still, my aching heart! I mean, she's like the best daughter you could have. And, of course, the most beautiful and the most talented. And she has the most terrific little girl.

Where do you keep your four Tonys?
None of them are still on the stand that twists. I have them in special places, and I actually use them. It's no good having a shelf; I want to enjoy them. I use mine as paperweights. I use them as coasters, for drinks. I love for things to have a reason and a purpose, not just be propped up. The Tony medallion is very handsome creature!

What's your favorite form of entertainment these days?
Movies and the theater. I watch television if it's Channel 13. I'm not a big junk girl. There are so many marvelous things to see now; I've never known a time with so many gifted young actors.

Very few young actors these days follow the path you took through repertory theater.
No, but that's because there wasn't a lot of film around when I was little. I did a lot of radio. Young girls today would be preparing for a movie career.

What's the last movie you saw?
The Departed, a very superior movie. People said, "Don't see that! It's too violent!" It was rightly and believably violent. [Martin Scorsese] is a terrific filmmaker. And Leonardo DiCaprio! That's a big, big film star.

What was the key to your wonderfully successful personal and professional partnership with your late husband?
Well, our relationship came out of the blue. I remember saying once to Robert, "Do you love me?" We'd been living together by this time, and he said, "Yes, but not as much as I will next year." I said, "Next year? No, no no! Now!" And he said, "No, you'll find I love you more." And that's what happened—to both of us. We were a pretty romantic duo. And then we had those miracle things called sons. We were both so old to have them, but we did, and we were so grateful.

After your sons were born, you ramped down your career quite a bit, didn't you?
I took a lot of time away, yes. I wanted to be a mum! I mean, I'd been an actress all my life, and now I wanted to be a mum. So I was. And they're swell fellows.

I was impressed to read that you donated 30 acres near your home in Westchester County for a wildlife habitat to be called "Robert Whitehead Preserve." Do you still enjoy living in the country?
Yes, we built the house together and the boys were born there; that's where our life together was. There's still a lot of life there, because the boys are there a lot and they have lots of friends.

Is it possible to achieve a career as distinguished as yours without being a diva?
Oh, a diva I'm not. Maria Callas was a diva. I never set out to be a diva, I set out to do what I could do, and I was so lucky to have that opportunity. I think if everyone could do what really makes them happy, and earn a living at it, the world would be very different.

See Zoe Caldwell in A Spanish Play at Classic Stage Company.