Joanna Gleason: Lessons from Playing an Anti-War Radical
Tony-winning actress Joanna Gleason is best known for her deft comic touch in musicals ranging from the wife-swapping '70s hit I Love My Wife to Into the Woods and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. But Gleason is equally expert at more serious theatrical fare, as she proved in her Tony-nominated performance in Joe Egg and the off-Broadway revival of The Normal Heart. Now Primary Stages has lured this gifted star to play a notorious '60s radical imprisoned for 30 years for her role in killing a police officer in Willy Holtzman's Something You Did. At a time when the specter of terrorism and the perils of dissent surrounds every American, Gleason's character is up for parole, and her plight drives the drama, directed by Carolyn Cantor. Broadway.com asked the actress to share how she prepared for this unusual role, and what she learned about herself along the way.
It's rare that a character I am playing bleeds over to any large extent into my daily life, but Alison Moulton, the 1960s anti-war radical I portray in Something You Did, is always just over my shoulder. I can't read a newspaper the same way, can't think about politics the same way I did before I began working on this play.
My character didn't get busted for drugs. She was an accomplice to an explosion that took someone's life. A policeman's life. And the officer was black. Here's a character who went to Mississippi to register black voters in 1964, before she was even old enough to vote herself. She had all the impulses in the right order, but then the Vietnam War reared its head, and service to disenfranchised Americans was replaced by outrage at government policy. Outrage was fueled by frustration, and frustration turned to violence. And Alison was caught up—a far cry from the idealism of her early impulses, but the noise was too loud and her inner voice of reason too soft to distinguish them as polar opposite gestures.
Former offenders began to come to the theater, and David saw a need for a forum in which they could share and vent. Beyond that, he saw the need to provide these newly released people with tools to help them function on the outside. This need spoke so loudly to David that he began the Fortune Society. Recently, I spoke with Nancy Lopez and Yolanda Morales, both of whom had done some time, and now, through the Fortune Society, offer their skills and insight to those trying to reintegrate. I came to know two very bright, golden souls whose personal rehabilitation was not an overhaul of incorrigible character, but a gained maturity from realizing that bad decisions had been made, and life was a process of making better ones.
So in Something You Did, we hear about Alison's service while incarcerated; she's found a way to rekindle and hone her better impulses. She serves not only time now, but others— the very thing she was looking to do.
The notion of having spent 30 years behind bars made me want to shut down some of my own comfort zones during rehearsals and now the run. Nothing could approximate a jail cell hey, I wasn't going to move into my dressing room, but I could make a list of things I loved and people I loved seeing and just shut myself off. This does not include husband and dog, thank you very much; I'm not crazy. And I took stock and came up with another list, a list of regrets and the people to whom I owed my apologies or my forgiveness.
This has not made me a barrel of laughs these last few months, but how often does an actor get to do a role like this? This is meat and potatoes. Often, I get to do some potatoes and a little side vegetable. In films lately, I'm the parsley. The cast is extraordinary, the playwright divine and brilliant, and director as smart as they come. Yes, they added gray to my hair, and yes, by the end of the run they won't have to.
Here are eight things I have learned from this experience:
1. It's fun to wear no makeup. Scary for you, fun for me.
Yes, cheddar popcorn is good for you. I'm telling you!
2. Primary Stages is heaven on Earth.
3. When you do an intense emotional drama, reruns of Mad About You are essential after the show.
4. Cheddar popcorn is good for you.
5. Doing a play is my favorite way to get healthy.
6. Read the papers. All sections.
7. Help fix something. Think global, start local.
8. Remember that great line from The Philadelphia Story: “The time to make up your mind about people is never.”