Nice Fish's Jim Lichtscheidl on Working with Mark Rylance, Meeting Celebs and How to Pronounce His Name

Jim Lichtscheidl has played London before, as part of an amalgam of Tony Kushner one-acts that came to the Tricycle Theatre in 2010 under the title Tiny Kushner. This season finds the Minnesota actor graduating to the West End to co-star alongside Oscar and three-time Tony winner Mark Rylance in Nice Fish, the Garrison Keillor-esque study in whimsy, American Midwest-style, that ran at St. Ann's Warehouse in Brooklyn last season. Broadway.com caught the engaging actor one recent evening to talk about appearing opposite an acting legend and playing to audience members at the Harold Pinter Theatre who arrive dressed as—wait for it—fish.

How has Nice Fish changed en route to its journey here to London?
[The play] is like this beautiful creation that keeps evolving. The first version was two and a half hours with an intermission, and there were three characters who were completely different. Then when we went to Boston and New York, the play started to focus more on the relationship between Ron [Rylance] and Erik [Lichtscheidl], and what it was that they were discovering. I really appreciated that since it's nice to have a bit of an arc when you're just reciting poetry.

How do you actually describe the play given that it is an unconventional piece co-written by Rylance and the prose poet Louis Jenkins?
I think of it as a piece about two old friends who come out onto the ice to go fishing on a big frozen lake, partly to re-establish their friendship, but also so that they can be angling for fish and asking the bigger questions that have kind of evolved from that.

Do you smile when people refer to it as, for instance, Waiting for Cod-ot?
There has been a lot of talk about its surrealism—Waiting for Godot on Ice gets thrown around all the time. But some people have commented that it's actually funnier than Waiting for Godot. The good thing is that it's finding its audience and that it seems to be something different for everyone who sees it: every evening is a study in different moods and sensibilities.

What has it been like having audience members arrive dressed as fish, which I read that they can do in return for a free ticket?
It certainly adds to the evening, and of course, it's also an opportunity for people who couldn't afford a standard ticket to get in. So far, I've seen one shark and a couple of fish sticks or fish fingers. And there's always at least someone with a fish hat on.

Is the piece fun to perform?
A lot of the fun is in the blackouts. We have a quick succession of blackouts where we appear in different parts of the stage through trap doors and trick holes and different things that pop in and out. A large part of the rehearsal process was running to a place in the dark with my arms forward, blindly waving!

Is that as scary as it sounds?
There's one specific part where Mark is downstage in a blackout, and I have to run toward the lip of the stage next to him and into his stiff arm, hoping that he will keep me from falling off. That's one of the more intense changes.

How pleased were you to be tapped to be part of this?
I was really very honored. Louis Jenkins' poetry is right in my neighborhood. Because I was born in Minnesota, I understand Lewis' tone and sense of humor; it fits like a glove.

Were you concerned that [Jenkins’] humor might not translate to London?
I actually think it's a perfect fit: the Minnesota sense of humor tends to be very dry and similar to a lot of British humor, so it is going over very well. It's almost like we should be sister cities, Minneapolis and London.

Did you have a prior relationship with Mark?
He and I were in a Tim Carroll production of Peer Gynt together at the Guthrie Theatre [in Minneapolis in 2008], with Mark in the title role and me as the Button-Molder. We kept in touch and when Nice Fish came along, the original script was between Ron and an older uncle character. They had me to come in to read thinking that maybe I could understudy Mark as Ron, and apparently, I read well enough that they considered changing the other character so that the two could be old college friends.

What has it been like watching Mark progress through the years from multiple Tony-winner to the recipient of an Oscar earlier this year?
I love just watching how he handles each situation with such dignity and grace, and what's great is that I haven't really noticed a change in him. You would think with all these successes that he would be this huge egomaniac, but he's still very much the same down-to-earth, approachable, very personable guy he was when I first met him. I admire him so much and hope to have some of those same qualities myself.

Did your cast acknowledge Mark's Oscar at the curtain call?
There's a moment during the curtain call where we have a puppet in our show come up through the ice and wave to the audience, but on Mark's first show back [from the Academy Awards], we had the Oscar come out and take a bow. What's amazing about all that is that Mark was gone for all of a day and then he came back, and we had a show that night.

Have you met a variety of people through doing this, as one or another celebrity has come back afterward?
Oh, yes. Spielberg's been, of course, and Joel Coen, and it's still a little surreal to me as this starstruck Minnesota boy. I write back to my family that tonight at the theater I met so-and-so or so-and-so, and they all get more excited than me. It's incredible when I meet [celebrities] that they treat me like a peer, given that they have seen me perform for the first time and I've been watching them all my career. I won't quickly forget moments like Emma Thompson giving me a hug and saying, "You were just incredible," and things like that.

Do you see an onward life for Nice Fish beyond London?
I'd love to imagine that and have been wondering where else we could go. Mark had briefly mentioned China or Japan, and I will certainly ride this as long as I can because it has been so enjoyable.

What can you tell us about a surname sure to keep copy editors on their toes?
Well, first off, it's German and is pronounced as if it were "lick-shy-dull."

Have you ever had an agent or anyone try to get you to change it to something like Smith?
No, but I met Mike Nichols once when he came backstage after Tiny Kushner at the Guthrie, and he congratulated me, and as his assistant or intern was telling him my name, he went, "What? Lose it!" I've been taking suggestions from people but I have to say I like it as it is.