O'Connell In A Fugue State

"A woman is found wandering in Chicago, her feet blistered and bloody. Doctors at the hospital immediately recognize this as a symptom of the "fugue" state of amnesia, where the patient is literally running away from an intolerable memory. "  This is the premise of a wonderful show called FUGUE, a comedic drama written by Lee Thuna and directed by Judith Ivey at the Cherry Lane Theatre that I saw recently. FUGUE was the winner of the American Theatre Critics Award for Best Play in Regional Theatre. I talked to Judith recently, who has done a remarkable job directing this piece and now I had the opportunity to converse with one of the stars of the show, Deirdre O'Connell, who plays the woman in question. 

O'Connell has numerous theatre credits including the New York Shakespeare Festival's production of 'Tis Pity She's a Whore, numerous productions at the Los Angeles Theatre Center including Stars in the Morning Sky, for which she won a Dramalogue Award and a Los Angeles Critics Award, Three Ways Home, The Geography of Luck, Etta Jenks, for which she won a Dramalogue Award, Agnes of God with Sandy Dennis and Geraldine Page at Westport and Cape Playhouse, The Tempest at La Jolla Playhouse, Fool for Love at Trinity Repertory Company, A Lie of the Mind at Promenade Theatre, directed by Sam Shepard, Mud at the Signature Theatre; In the Blood at the New York Shakespeare Festival; and The Front Page at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre, Lincoln Center, directed by Jerry Zaks. She has appeared on television in the series The Practice, Law and Order, Chicago Hope, Sirens, Kate and Allie and the HBO film From the Earth to the Moon, among others. Her film credits include Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Hearts in Atlantis, City of Angels and State of Grace..

So, let's check in with Deidre....

TJ: First of all, I saw the show and I must say, you were amazing. I was totally mesmerized by your performance.

O'CONNELL: Thank you so much!  That's so nice of you!!

TJ: Tell our readers about the role you play in the show.

O'CONNELL:  Mary is a woman of a certain age who is suffering from a special form of amnesia called fugue, which is very rare which involves the person beginning to run away literally from what happened to them that caused them to get amnesia. It's not the type of amnesia that you get from being hit on the head.  It's the traumatic event kind of amnesia. These people either walk incessantly where they can walk from one city to another city. Sometimes they will take a train or a bus, but most often they will just walk or run. One of the tell-tale signs of fugue is that their feet are damaged because they have been walking so much.

So when we meet her, she's sort of a tabula rasa…we don't know anything about her.  I have to say that one of the things that attracted me to the character was from the very first page when I started to read it was she had a lot of moxie.  Instead of being a person who was kind of a blank, in terms of what her life had been before, she's not a blank in the terms of her personality or her capacity for having an interesting or fun time talking to people. It's a very interesting combination of things. Usually you find a character like this suffering from this type of trauma as a shut down type of person.  Leigh had written a person who was inherently kind of interesting and had a lot of moxie to her…..a lot of spirit.  She's funny.

TJ: How did you go about to prepare for this role?

O'CONNELL: I have to say that Judy was extremely in there with me and very helpful. I felt like we went kind of all over the map with it.  We tried a lot of different things and I felt like Judy was kind of putting layers in with me. So I didn't have to the brain-work of "Does this make sense if she's this kind of person or does this make sense if she's that kind of person?"  Then you always feel that anything is possible. It could be anything and it's probably something that you're not thinking of right now. So by the end when you come back to thinking about performing the character, it seems so simple. When you are working on it, it seems like something unobtainable.  Judy was helpful in moving the bar up everyday at rehearsal. Everyday, I felt like we were working on another aspect of Mary and I was coming at her from a different angle. There were a lot of questions for both of us, like what kind of person could this happen to?  We go really far down that road and then let that go. That road would be an extremely shut-down person, an extremely unavailable person.  We would follow that road for a while and then follow the road of her being an extremely sensitive person, extremely in touch with her feelings insofar as it is painful just to be alive. And then, okay, how about she's a buyer at Bergdorf's?  OK, what kind of lady could be a buyer at Bergdorf's? What kind of person could tell those ladies at Bergdorf's what to buy?  That is not a shut-down person….that's a person with a lot of spirit. We explored many, many versions of Mary and ultimately, it was kind of like layering paint.  You end up with something that you stop thinking about it . A lot of it, I just followed Judy's lead> She was probably feeling herself that she was following my lead.  I felt like we were all over the place when actually we were just layering in. When you are on the inside, you can never tell.

TJ: How difficult was this particular role for you versus other roles you have portrayed on stage?

O'CONNELL: I would say that it is difficult but not because of the nature of the part. The person is not difficult now.  She was very mysterious to me. It was difficult for me because I felt like I couldn't figure out who she was, which is sort of what the audience goes through…the mystery of who she is.  Now the difficulty is that the piece at that same time as it's got the parity kind of effortless from shifting one time to another, from age to another, and from one person that I am involved with to another  and from being extremely style-less and open and not afraid of anything to terrified. All these changes are very quicksilver in the piece and that's a technical tact.  It's got to seem and feel, while I am in the middle of it, like it's effortless. I've never found the piece to be very easy to do, although some nights are really, really fun.

TJ: As an audience member, I felt like I was on an emotional roller coaster. As an actor, what's it lik e for you at the end of the performance? Are you emotionally drained?

O'CONNELL: I am always the last one out of the theatre.  The other guys usually dress so fast. I can't understand how they got dressed that fast.  I go offstage and sit down in my chair for a lot longer than I realize, but I'm also very relieved that it's over.  I'm pretty happen when it's over but I don't move very fast. It takes me twenty minutes to get out of the theatre and everybody else is long gone by the time I wander out. That's sort of how I know how slightly in shock I am.  I actually feel pretty exhilarated and happy at the end of it because we pull it off!

TJ:  How was it working with Judy as a director?

O'CONNELL: It was fantastic! And I'm not being nice because I'm being interviewed. It was really a lovely experience.  First of all, she is so smart. Here's somebody I felt like I could give all the brain-work to and as an actor, is was a relief because I felt like you can work better if you don't have to that dramaturgical questioning, like how would this work if I have to put this in there?  Will it make sense?  She did all that work for us. There was always this sense of falling forward all the time, I felt like I was always trying something that I didn't know how to do and trusting her instincts about it. She always had faith that if she gave me the faith and the time, I could get somewhere.  And she is so loving.  She can connect with so much sympathy to what we are going through.  As much as she pushes to you to where she thinks you can go, which is a great thing, she's always got your back. She's always holding you up.  She genuinely loves watching acting. To have someone's eye and knowing she is watching every detail and nuance in what you're doing and taking a great deal of pleasure, even when you're having a bad day, there's a pleasure in the fact that you're trying something out. You feel much more courageous than you do when you're not being watched. SO I had a great experience with her!

TJ: Was acting always in the cards for you?

O'CONNELL: From the time that I left college, let's say. Before that, I would do it a lot. I was in the community theatre productions but I never took it that seriously. My parents were wanting me to be an actor. They both loved the theatre and my mother is an actor and writer. God forbid I should do what they wanted me to do. I was not going to be an actor.  I was kicking and screaming and then, of course, I wind up being one. I think it's very common for somebody whose family is involved in it because it is so much fun.  In a way, I think it was in the cards, but I did go kicking and screaming.

TJ: Who are some of the people that have inspired you as an actor?

O'CONNELL:  Geraldine Page and Lois Smith. Those are two that I can think of right now. The first time I ever saw their work, I was shocked by the reality they brought to their work. I remember seeing Lois in FIVE EASY PIECES. It was the first time I had seen a performance where I felt like a real person had wandered into a movie. And that's a movie full of amazing performances and it was a shock of something else. It was a brighter color of a different painting when she came into the movie and I thought, "What is that? What is she doing? How did she do that?"  I remember seeing that film so vividly.  And then, I moved to New York and I've done some readings with her and know her a little bit.  I remember I was doing a theatre role and she was doing TRIP TO BOUNTIFUL and I was on the bus going across town, and thought it's not as glamorous a life as we thought it was going to be.  On that cross town bus going through Times Square, tired and not necessarily excited to do my show. When I got off my bus, she was getting off her bus from doing her show uptown and we said hi to each other. And I thought, "That's exactly where I'm supposed t to be in the world." I was wrong about that. And I just thought, "Yeah. I wanted to be getting off a bus and getting ready to do my show at the same time as her." She's a goddess!

And Geraldine is someone I got to work with too because I did a production of AGNES OF GOD with her. She and Sandy Dennis were both in it about a million years ago and they were both so kind. They were such regular people and such fun, smart women.  And I thought, "Yeah. That's the way to do it."

TJ: Did you go to school for acting?

O'CONNELL: I did not. I went to Antioch College for two years and I didn't study acting at all.  When I left, it was the early seventies and I got involved in experimental theatre, which had a lot of physical and vocal training involved with it. But it wasn't a conventional conservatory training at all, so I didn't learn how to talk for a long time. Learning how to talk on stage came late in my life. I learned piecemeal how to act over a period of time. A lot by doing.

TJ: What kind of advice would you give to the budding actor?

O'CONNELL: It sounds pretty callous but try to get into one of those schools because it will make you life so much easier whether you learn anything at them or not.  So I would go to one of those fancy schools because when you get out, you'll save a lot of time trying to get an agent or get seen for anything. It makes such a huge difference. Try to get into NYU or Yale or Julliard.  I'm not saying that if you can't get that type of training, you can't act at all.  It's just because it took me so many years of pounding on doors to get anything going in New York. There's just so many people that want it.

TJ:  OK. Now we get to find out more about you by asking you about some of your favorite things. Are you ready?

O'CONNELL: Sure. Let's do it.

TJ: What's your favorite pastime activity?

O'CONNELL: Painting. I like to paint.

TJ: That's funny. Judy's was painting as well!! You ladies have something in common.

O'CONNELL: I had read her interview with you and thought it was funny too! We had never talked about that! We were so busy talking about FUGUE. It pretty much took up all our waking hours for four weeks that we really never talked about anything else.

TJ: OK. Favorite color?

O'CONNELL: I'm gonna say red.

TJ: You seem like a red person.

O'CONNELL: Well, I'm looking at the living room I'm in and I see a lot of red.

TJ: Favorite food?

O'CONNELL: Ooh, that's a good question.  I'll say spinach pie.

TJ: And finally, your favorite time of year?

O'CONNELL: Spring.

TJ: OK. Now if you weren't an actor, what would you picture yourself doing for work?

O'CONNELL: I would be a painter.

TJ: You and Judy are so in sync.

O'CONNELL: Exactly. Who knew?

TJ: I know you have a show to do so, again, thanks so much and congratulations on the show.

O'CONNELL: Thank you. This was fun!

Well, there she is, folks. A real down to earth person who has been doing some amazing work on stage in New York. And you can still catch her in FUGUE at the Cherry Lane Theatre at 38 Commerce Street for a limited engagement through April 21st.Tickets for FUGUE are $45 and $50. FUGUE plays Tuesday at 7pm, Wednesday-Saturday at 8pm, with matinees Saturday at 2pm and Sunday at 3pm. Tickets can be purchased by calling Telecharge (212) 239-6200 or going to www.Telecharge.com. So until next time, folks, ciao and remember, theatre is my life.