BWW Interviews: THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST's David Furr

One of the nicest aspects of seeing a play in The Roundabout's beautiful American Airlines Theatre is that it has fine acoustics. Little, if any, amplification is used when drama or comedies are staged at that venue do nothing stands between the actors' voices and the audience's ears. Such is the case with the charming revival of Oscar Wilde's THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST which will be presented there until June 26th.

Throughout the play, the skilled cast performs without amplification and without those terribly noticeable microphones adhered to their foreheads. Every single voice carries beautifully and one that carries extremely well belongs to actor David Furr whose mellifluous voice can be heard even in the furthest reaches of the theater's balcony. Playing Jack Worthing, he clearly enunciated every syllable and consonant the playwright used to create some of the play's wittiest aphorisms and epigrams. The actor also looks fine in the attractive Tony Award winning period costumes Desmond Heely designed for this delightful production.

Meeting Furr in the office of The Roundabout's publicists finds him to be even better looking in person than he appears on stage. Perhaps it's because the dazzle of his cerulean eyes can't be fully appreciated from the 10th row of any theater. He's also extremely charming but that's to be expected of a native Southerner whose pencil line moustache gives him an uncanny resemblance to Rhett Butler. The difference is that Furr seems to be a man who actually "gives a damn" and offers his guest a cold drink before settling down for a lengthy conversation.

It's refreshing to find that David Furr isn't one of those actors who discovered their penchant for performing in his infancy. Volumes could be written about how youngsters portraying germs in theirs schools' annual health pageants heard the sound of applause and went on to greater glory. Furr decided on his career a bit later in life. The North Carolina native explains: "In my freshman year of college I was making friends and there were a couple of people I was getting to know who were going to audition for some one-acts. One girl who I really liked was going so I joined them. I suspected I'd enjoy it or even be good at it. They were interested in me for one of the plays but I wasn't sure I could learn the lines, which I admitted to the director. She made me, effectively, the stage manager and it was my first dose of being around a play. At that point it became rather addicting. By the end I kindda knew the lines without studying them because I was around them all the time. It became less of a fear."

He continues by adding, "The next semester I auditioned again and got on stage. I just got hooked and was having such a good time that by the end of that college experience I was doing Shaw and Shakespeare but wound up with no other skills." Furr chuckles as he looks back on the situation. He went on to obtain his MFA degree through The Alabama Shakespeare Festival and it's now defunct graduate actor training program. "I was there '96 to '98 and it was pretty much year-round. I got my MFA, and people in the program who don't have their Equity cards get them by the end. It should also be noted that it was a professional theater. I not only did my grad work but I was getting to know committed actors and directors. It was a good training ground in terms of graduate work and being around working professionals."

However, it is Furr's rich and resonant speaking voice that makes him a stand-out in EARNEST's otherwise ensemble cast. How much vocal training did he have? "Well, we had some elements of vocal training at Appalachian State University, where I was an undergrad. More came at ASF, trying to meet the demands of Shakespeare and classical theater, which certainly nurtures your voice. Eventually I played Shakespeare outdoors and found myself having to project over the ambient sounds of nature," he says with a hearty laugh. "Ultimately, I would credit my vocal training to some schooling and then just loads of classical theater runs. I think that pretty much pulls it out of you in a way."

Coming to New York, Furr found that the first production he was cast in was a Canadian transplant of Shakespeare's KING LEAR that starred Christopher Plummer in the title role and had received critical acclaim at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival. "They re-cast about eight ensemble roles with New York actors. I was one of them, playing, among other things the Good Servant who tried to stop Cornwall from gouging out and got killed by Regan."

KING LEAR was presented at the Vivian Beaumont Theater at Lincoln Center and soon Furr found himself back on that stage in a production of THE RIVALS which starred Dana Ivey. "I didn't have any lines in that except when Matt Letscher was ill and they stopped the show. I got shoved on stage in his first scene and completed that show, going on for him again in the next two. I was an understudy so I knew my job was to be prepared in case something happened to Matt. It was the holiday season and people were always getting sick. That being said, I had no actual warning except for the wig guy telling me that I might go on that night because Matt was really sick. I was watching the show when I saw Matt leave the stage, so clearly the wig guy was right. However we'd only gotten through half the show during understudy rehearsals and that was a problem, but I'd taken it seriously and felt I was good-to-go. There was a dance at the end and I was supposed to dance with Emily Bergle and we'd never gotten to rehearse. During a break she quickly told me ‘We do two waltz steps in a circle and then you pick me up and twirl me.' We practiced, and it seemed easy enough. Problem was, we were on a turntable going off and I twirled her right into the set. The audience really appreciated that!" he adds with a laugh. In a world that's filled with ironies, Dana Ivey was part of the original cast of the current EARNEST, winning wonderful reviews for her performance as Miss Prism.

Whatever minor foul-ups may have taken place when Furr went on in THE RIVALS, the management of Lincoln Center must have liked what they saw because the actor was cast in their impressive production of CYMBELINE a short while later. "I felt that I was given a promotion, because it was a decent role and gave him even more exposure.

In what was possibly one of the most risky moves he could have made in his career, David Furr took on another understudy job, this time the role was Nick in the very high-profile revival of WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? which starred Kathleen Turner and Bill Irwin. "It's funny," he muses, "when that job came about I had the choice of doing another ensemble role in Denzel Washington's JULIUS CAESAR or understudying VIRGINIA WOOLF. I'd done ensemble work in KING LEAR and so much Shakespeare at that point that I decided I wanted to do one where the playwright was still alive. In this case he was not only alive but famous and in the room. It was also a contemporary play. I felt that even if I was just an understudy and never went on it would be an enriching experience. I had a full weekend to decide and I felt it would be better for me to do the Albee play-even if it meant just observing and understudying. In that production we had the luxury of having four wonderful understudies for four roles so once we knew our stuff we could run it like a play in costume every week during understudy rehearsals. I was really prepared. Suzie Cordon was our stage manager and she helped get me in shape for the role." Furr takes a deep breath before continuing. "David Harbour (who was playing Nick) got a movie offer and the producers came to Suzie and asked if she felt I could do it. She assured them I could and they sent someone to watch our next understudy rehearsal. They felt fine about it and let David go and shoot his movie and gave me a promotion to principal cast, which was really great. Edward Albee and all the producers came to my very first performance, which was nerve-wracking, but it apparently went well When the national tour came around we, of course, took it back into rehearsal with the director and I was able to make it much more my own."

Speaking of the national tour, Furr remembers it quite fondly. "It was a great tour. We hit the Kennedy Center in DC, the Ahmanson in LA, Chicago, San Francisco-those four big, wonderful cities-and then Tucson, Arizona." He hastens to add that "Tucson is a wonderful city. We did some horseback riding which was extremely novel for me. The terrain was breathtaking! That whole experience was sensational because I'd been a huge admirer of Bill Irwin's for a number of years and to get put into a play like that and share the stage with him was great. Following it up with the tour was icing on the cake. It was terrific to get to know Kathleen, too. She was very generous to me. It was a fantastic experience and the play itself proved to be a veritable ‘acting lab' every night."

David Furr's involvement in THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST came about in the most traditional way. "An audition came up," he explains. "This was the first time I'd auditioned for The Roundabout and I don't know if they'd seen me in EQUIVOCATION or anything I'd done before which would have that put me more firmly on their map or something.....anyhow, the audition came up and I'd auditioned for various productions of this play loads of times in my first years here. I either came really close or people weren't at all interested. I got to the point where I didn't want to audition for this particular show anymore," he adds with a laugh. "This one, however, was one to audition for. It went well, as did the call-back. In fact, in the room for the call-backs I looked around and saw all the guys preparing for Algernon and no one seemed to be preparing for Jack and I took that as a good sign. That's how it came up."

One of the most marvelous scenes in this production of EARNEST comes at the end of Act One when Furr's character of Jack is playing opposite Lady Bracknell, who is brilliantly portrayed by the show's director, Brian Bedford. The two actors play off each other marvelously to make their time together on stage a polished gem. Quite frankly, the art of acting doesn't get much better than the moments when Furr and Bedford verbally spar in this play.

"In the rehearsal hall, Brian's a very nice man," Furr recalls. "He has a wonderful understudy named Sandra Shipely and I've acted with her before. I would work with Sandra while Brian watched. Eventually he would step in to play Lady Bracknell and if there was any nervousness on my part, it was certainly something that could be well used in the scene."

"Now here's something I've said in other interviews," Furr continues: "Lady Bracknell is always disapproving of Jack and in the earlier parts of our rehearsals it was difficult for me to know whether it was Lady Bracknell who was being disapproving or the director doing so. I think generally it was Lady Bracknell. Other than that, acting opposite the director is just like performing opposite any other good actor. The difference here is that your scene partner can give you notes!"

When asked how the audience reaction has been to the play, Furr enthusiastically responds, "It's been great! We have audiences coming to this theater who are so charmed by the show even if they know it and the laughs come easily every night. Those crowds really give back an energy that indicates they are having a really good time. It's been a real pleasure to do this show. The material is extraordinarily good and the cast is having such a good time that it's the most fun thing you can imagine to performing in this play and with this cast. The costumes are wonderful. The sets are wonderful. The words are wonderful. The cast is wonderful. It's just been a wonderful experience from the very beginning."

The Roundabout's production of this Oscar Wilde classic has been filmed for theatrical release. "Starting June 2nd," the actor explains, "the film has started being shown in various locations. I had some family members who saw it in North Carolina a week or two ago and loved it. I think it's being shown throughout the month of June in various locations around the world."

Will this eventually be released on DVD? "I don't think that's part of the current plan," he responds. "They have to deal with both Equity and SAG contracts as well as other matters, but I do know there's interest in getting a DVD release for this because people have talked to me about it already. I honestly don't want to see the film version of this until after the show's done, but certainly I would like to have a copy of it for my kids and grandkids to see. At the moment I don't think it's in the current plan; I'm hoping that they're considering some sort of limited release. You know of all the IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST recordings that are out there, many of them are just ‘movie versions' that have been brought down just for the camera. That's so different than the live play. I think there's something to be said about having a version out there that captures the live theater experience with a live audience. That's going to be a lot different than what you see from things like the recent Colin Firth movie. Delivery's different, the energy is different and there's no audience reaction."

These comments reveal how dedicated David Furr is to the craft of acting as well as the artistry he dedicates his professional career to. Yet there's another side of him that the audience may not be fully aware of: he is a skilled photographer. "I've been interest in photography for many years," he states. "My Dad gave me his old 35mm camera years, years ago and even before that I had one of those ‘point and shoot' things. I would be interested in it and then let it go; maybe take a class here and there-or something like that. A few years ago I got a nice 35mm-style digital SLR camera where you have a lot of control over the settings. I think part of photography's appeal to me is that it captures moments in time. It has some inherent drama in it, I guess. Plus, I always wanted to be able to paint but I can't paint. Acting is artistic but you can't hang it on your wall, so photography is a form of creativity that is visual and can be hung on a wall. And of course now I've done headshots for actors, which I really enjoy because of course I always have so much in common with them; we wander around having a good time and shoot a few headshots for them."

Furr admits that he's never done his own headshots. "I've done a few things with the self-timer and a tripod in order to provide a magazine article with something, but I've never done my own headshots-yet."

One thing the actor enjoys doing is using his photographic skills to capture backstage moments: "I've enjoyed taking backstage photos because I have access to these wonderful moments, locations and people. As my roles have gotten bigger and bigger in New York, my free time to goof off with my camera backstage during rehearsals has diminished so I haven't done as much in the last several shows because I've been busy and have just tried to stay focused."

Audiences will have the opportunity to see David Furr's acting skills in THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST until June 26th. "Yes, we had been originally scheduled to extend until July 3, but due to scheduling conflicts with me doing a movie in Italy and with others, The Roundabout decided to close the show 1 week early, on June 26th." The movie Furr will be shooting is untitled as of this writing but will require the actor to deliver all of his dialogue in Italian-a language he doesn't speak and is taking a crash course in learning. He does, however, speak English well and with great resonance. This production not only allows him to do so to great advantage, but provides him with one of the most famous curtain lines in the English-speaking theater--with only "Eliza, where the devil are my slippers?" achieving more recognition!

To view some of David Furr's photographs go to www.davidfurr.zenfolio.com.
To order tickets for THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST go to www.roundabouttheatre.org.