Jenna Augen on Her High-Octane Turn in London’s Bad Jews & Why She’s Like Her Singular Character

Breakout performances rarely come as high-voltage as Jenna Augen’s turn in Bad Jews, the Joshua Harmon play that is transferring to the Arts Theatre starting March 18 after previous runs both at the St. James Theatre and out of town in Bath. Inheriting Tracee Chimo’s New York role, Augen puts her own spiky, sparky spin on the religious Daphna, who comes to grief with her assimilationist cousin Liam (Ilan Goodman) over the fate of a family heirloom. The immediately warm Augen chatted to Broadway.com on the eve both of the play’s West End upgrade and of turning 30 about defending a tricky character, making it overseas, and being ready for whatever happens.

The Arts Theatre marks your third run of Bad Jews—how does that feel?
I’m so lucky. I was so happy to get this job in the first place. It was a long shot because I had been out of the country for a couple of years so it was just really nice to get the job. Then to be so well-received in Bath—where there are no Jewish people [laughs]—and at the St. James was incredibly exciting. I started crying when [co-star] Ilan [Goodman] came and told me this transfer was a possibility.

Daphna is so quick-witted, yet volatile. Do you enjoy playing such a vibrant character?
I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to her at the St. James; I think we were all finding things every single week. It only really hit me towards the end of the run just how strong her sense of injustice is about the fact that her cousin Liam has really stolen the chai [the Hebraic heirloom belonging to their late grandfather]. It was taken off this elderly man who was lying comatose in the hospital, so no wonder it remains a hot-button issue when Daphna and Liam meet.

You and Ilan Goodman are so well-matched that the play’s various debates deliver big-time.
Well, Ilan's amazing, without which I wouldn't be able to do what I do, but also the writing for the two characters is so perfectly paralleled and Liam’s rant has exactly the same thought patterns as Daphna’s; they’re on one wavelength, [but] the two sides of a single coin. And while they dislike each other and tick each other off, they on some level enjoy having that other person kicking off in the room: you’ve got to have some enjoyment in what they do on stage.

Daphna is such a high-octane presence. Is it hard to leave her behind every night?
I do find it difficult to shed her skin because her rhythms are so total. She’s so aggressive and her energy level is at such a high voltage that I have a really hard time coming down off it; I get completely exhausted. The last couple of weeks at the St. James we had 9-show weeks so two days of back-to-back shows. At the end of those, I didn’t know which end was up! [Laughs.]

You’re the only American in the four-person cast. Does that feel weird?
Not at all. I went to [the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art] here and was often the only American being British in plays, so the fact of being the odd person out doesn’t feel strange to me. What’s good, I think, is that the accents in our show are pretty great and because I’m there, if anybody has a question about anything, they can just ask.

As long as your American accent hasn’t been too tempered by time abroad!
I know, right? We had a great dialect coach who caught me up on some stuff and here I was thinking, “Wait a minute, I’m from Connecticut,” and he said, “No, you’ve got a few Canadian sounds in your speech”—that’s what I get for spending so much time in England [laughs].

Did you see the play during either of its two off-Broadway runs?
I hadn’t, but I’d heard such wonderful things about it, and the original Liam [Michael Zegen] from the New York production happened to be in London and he came to see us, which was nice; it was really exciting to feel as if we were part of this trans-Atlantic team.

The title of the play is an eye-opener with its suggestion that there are different kinds of Jews. Do you relate to that thematic?
Well, my mother is a non-Jewish opera singer so I’m the product of the kind of situation that Liam has in the play with Melody [his non-Jewish girlfriend, who studied opera]. My dad is Jewish: he’s a molecular biologist and also genuine supporter and appreciator of the arts, and I’ve always felt very lucky to be my parents’ daughter. But there are spooky coincidences between my own life and what is in the script. When I first read it, I went, “Whoa, this is strange!”

You have a base in L.A.—is this third run of Bad Jews making you reassess where you want to focus your career?
Now it just seems as if there are many more possibilities in terms of staying here. When I left almost two years ago now, my prospects here felt very limited but now it looks as if there are options. I do have a life out in L.A. now and would love somehow to get a proper career going there as well as here, so I’m not sure how that bridge is going to be built.

So you’re open to whatever happens?
I am—I have to go where the wind takes me. You never know what’s next in this business but for now I’m just so glad to be having this job, and doing this play, for the third time.