I tried for months to get an audition for Williamstown the year after I had finished my graduate work. I was told to go to the EPA at Actors’ Equity. I had not moved to New York yet and heard those auditions don’t usually result in any job. But I had few connections in the Biz and so I went to it. I later learned that a young producer friend who knew Bonnie Monte, Niko Psacharopoulos’ assistant, had messengered her my resume that morning and said to keep an eye out for me. She did. Weeks passed. Then, just before moving to New York, I was called to come meet Nikos Psacharopoulos. In Deb Brown’s penthouse casting office, I nervously watched a stream of familiar, some famous faces walking past me. I. finally got in to meet Nikos and did my audition piece. Then he wanted to chat. I thought it went well, but you never know. Again, weeks passed. I moved to NYC, and then I got hit with fevers. 103 for most of the day for 10 days. I was coming back from a big cattle call audition in D.C. when it hit. It was the weekend after we moved to NYC. I only had the energy to get out of bed for 45 minutes a day. I had boxes to unpack and I needed to settle into this new apartment. With no health insurance, I went to the Lower East Side public health hospital and waited 5 hours to be seen. A male nurse came to ask me questions. I was so weak. He took my temperature and realized how high it was and said we need to see you right away. I waited another 3 hours to meet the doctor, another hour for tests, only to be told it was some viral thing, they didn’t know…I waited another hour only to be given aspirin and tetracycline- and that just gave me stomach cramps all that night.
That same week, I got a call from Marilyn Henry head of casting at ABC to come meet her, a call from the Alley Theatre, and Ed Albee’s assistant asking me to come audition for The Death of Bessie Smith. Then, Williamstown called and asked if I could come do Eunice in Streetcar in a week. Eunice? I was disappointed. I asked who else was in the play: Christopher Walken, Blythe Danner, Sigourney Weaver, and James Naughton. Now Eunice looked great! My health got better immediately. It had to.
Albee had asked me to come audition using a monologue that was similar to Albee’s work but not his writing. Tough call. I chose Fugard’s, “Hello and Goodbye”. Afterward, he asked what was next for me. I told him I was going to Williamstown to do Streetcar with Chris Walken. He told me to tell him that he had not seen him at the gym lately and to tell him he was getting fat. Great way to meet Chris, “Ed Albee says- Hi, and you are getting fat”. I think I phrased it a little more politely in the end.
The night before the opening of A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE, Sigourney Weaver, who had been playing Stella, went into hospital. We had a company meeting about what to do. I was about to raise my hand and suggest I take over the role when I heard Christopher Walken suggest to Nikos that I play Stella. I stayed up most of the night learning the blocking and the 100 props. We had an afternoon run-through for the whole Williamstown company/family. It went incredibly well, and Nikos said he had one note for me. “Dunlooz”, he said in his thick accent. I had no idea what he had said. I asked Bonnie Monte if she knew. She translated for me, “Don’t Lose!”. Still carrying the script, we ran through the show that next afternoon, I played the show that evening for the Opening Night, and until Sigourney returned. The company of actors, staff, interns, and directors, all rushed back afterward to share with me that it was the most exciting evening of that summer. It certainly was for me.
Two memories are most vivid from that evening.
Chris Walken didn’t want to yell out “Stella, Stella…” more than a couple of times. He said in rehearsal that he thought it might become a “laugh” moment. Sigourney would stand backstage before that moment and work herself into tears. I thought, at the time, it was because of Chris, but maybe it was an acting choice. Then she’d slowly walk out in the quiet. For me, knowing he would not yell all those “Stella”s, I waited till he had just called out a couple of times, surprised him by throwing the door open quickly, and angrily flew out on the balcony. The tension held. As it was our first “practical” performance, this was the first time the shower water had been used on Chris. When I came out on that balcony, and I saw him standing there all sopping wet, vulnerable like a little boy, I started laughing. I paused a moment, and then I just ran down the stairs and into his arms. He carried me inside the Kowalski’s apartment and wrapped both of us up in the famous curtain that separates the two rooms of that apartment. We were lost to the audience for a bit. Later after looking back over the script (not the official acting one, but a different version), I saw that Tennessee Williams had written that in as a direction, but Chris had never done it that way before. I have been blessed to play Stella many times, and seen the play often, but never have I seen another Stanley chose to do that.
Blythe Danner played Blanche- to me she was Blanche. One evening, while doing the spilled coke scene, I felt a draft of air go past me. When it hit Blythe I saw her translucent skin feel the draft, and then saw it move into her and through her body till it flowed out the other side. So vulnerable. I, also, experienced her one night, early on, going up on a line. She was a little confused, and for the rest of that night, she paraphrased most of the rest of the script. I have never seen anyone do it for an entire evening. But then Williamstown is summer stock. Everything is done so quickly, you’ve got to do what you can to survive.
The hardest thing about Williamstown is once having been a part of a joyous, wonderful time there, you want to be able to come back over and over. And, when that does not happen, you feel the loss as intensely as you felt the joy.
