House of Cards' Beau Willimon Responds to Breaking News in The Parisian Woman

The 2017-2018 theater season has officially begun, and a slew of highly anticipated musicals and plays, both brand new and revisited, are set to bow. Broadway.com's Fall Preview series captures the stars and creators bringing these stories center stage in the new season.

While Beau Willimon was stuck in traffic on his way to Broadway.com, it was easy to keep tabs on his mindset: A quick Twitter check revealed several pointed political jabs. “I was making the best use of my time,” the bright-eyed scribe laughed upon his arrival. Willimon is widely known as the creator of Netflix’s House of Cards, on which he served as showrunner for the first four seasons. He’s a playwright (“Tennessee Williams is my spirit animal”) who wrote the campaign-trail play Farragut North, which became the film The Ides of March. Willimon is now making his way to Broadway with The Parisian Woman, inspired by Henri Becque's 1885 play La Parisienne. Willimon's new work received its world premiere at South Coast Rep in 2013. Now he’s revisiting the piece with a sharper lens, thanks to the 2016 presidential election.

How do you feel about making your Broadway debut?
It's still hard to digest in the best possible way. If you're a living American playwright, you don't necessarily ever presume you're going to get to have something on Broadway. It's almost like you don't even aim for it because it seems so unlikely. To have an opportunity like this is nothing short of mind blowing to me.



Tell me about making this play your own.
I had never heard of Henri Becque and certainly hadn't heard of the play. I read it and was blown away with how amazing it was. It was fun for me to look at a playwright that history didn't remember quite as well as it should. It also opened me up to make the changes I wanted to make without folks thinking that you're messing with something. And I messed with it quite a bit.

How did you mess with it?
I set it in D.C. in the present, changed the characters and made the structure completely different. The beginning of the play is much more aligned with what Becque did in La Parisienne, but the further I go in the play, the more I depart from what he did. It's certainly not a straight-up adaptation.

What do you say about the inevitable House of Cards comparisons?
This is a complete departure for me. Certainly, it's taking place in D.C., and you're looking at a marriage the same way I did in House of Cards, but at the center of this story is Chloe, who doesn't share the same sort of ambition that the Underwoods do. I don't know what would be more different: this is an investigation of personal responsibility and finding one's moral compass. I'm sure there will be some elements that are similar to not just House of Cards but anything I've else I've written. I try not to overanalyze that stuff too much, but I think that if someone liked House of Cards, they'll like this but for different reasons.

This play has up-to-the minute references. Will you continue rewriting in response to breaking news?
We may have to respond to current events. If something drastically changes, it is likely we may have to make some changes. I really want it to exist in the present. The day you're watching it should roughly be the day that it's existing in its fictional version of the world that we're currently living in. The theater is one of the few places you can respond in such a way with immediacy and where something can evolve over time. I see this as an opportunity to do what I think theater does best: live in the moment.

And you get to react to the current administration.
Post-election there is an added sharpness to the play that I don't think existed before. In some ways, responding to the moment improved the play. There is an engine driving this play now that might have been a little muddier before. Now there’s a clarity to the sound of those pistons.

Do you find any similarity in characters you’re drawn to creating?
Certainly, if anyone has looked at my previous work, whether that's Farragut North, which became Ides of March, or House of Cards or even some of my other plays that have nothing to do with politics, you might see that I am drawn to characters that are making up their own rules. I think in a way that's all of us if we're honest with ourselves.

What’s the most exciting aspect of bringing this to Broadway?
I am as excited to see Uma Thurman have her Broadway debut. I'm excited to be in the audience with everyone else and see her do her thing. She's an actress I have admired since I was a kid, and I think her work speaks for itself in terms of her incredible range and her commitment to finding and digging into the most interesting characters she can pursue. She's one of those actors who's always looking to test and push herself.

Did you watch the House of Cards characters on stage at the Tony Awards?
I was actually traveling during the broadcast, so I didn't see it live. I saw clips afterward, and that was completely surreal.



"The Parisian Woman" begins on November 7 and opens on November 30 at the Hudson Theatre

Photos: Emilio Madrid-Kuser | Hair Stylist & Makeup Artist: Angella Valentine