TONYS 2008 Q&A: Maria Aitken

Maria Aitken is committing all sorts of sinister crimes eight times a week on the stage of the Cort Theatre, and people can't stop laughing about it! The witty and engaging Aitken is making her U.S. directorial debut with her work on The 39 Steps, she's also well known back home in Great Britain as an accomplished actress, having graced the stages of The National Theatre and West End. Film audiences will remember her as "Wendy" in the comedy classic, A Fish Called Wanda. But it's her directing that's getting accolades here, when the 2008 Tony nominations were read the other morning her name was among those honored for Best Direction of a Play.

The 39 Steps, is at once a hilarious whodunit, part espionage thriller and part slapstick comedy, adapted for the stage from the famous Alfred Hitchcock film and John Buchan novel. The show has been a runaway hit in London and the winner of the 2007 Olivier Award for Best New Comedy. It recently made the move from the American Airlines Theatre to its new home at the Cort. I was excited to have the chance to chat briefly with her about the show and her nomination.

Eddie Varley: What a joyful theatrical jigsaw puzzle you've created, it's a true gift of a show.

Maria Aitken: You can imagine how much more of a jigsaw puzzle it is backstage. There's definitely sort of a ballet going on back there as well as in front.

Eddie Varley: How did you hear of the news of the nomination?

Maria Aitken: Well in England if you're nominated you just give a smirk and get on with your cornflakes, but it's just different here. I'm absolutely enchanted by all the fuss that's going on, it's just wonderful. It really does mean something. And there's a real community here that's engaged with it all. I'm terribly flattered and absolutely delighted to be part of it this year.

Eddie Varley: It's such an inventive production, so specific as far as the structure, but so manic in it's comic energy, is it constantly evolving as performances continue?

Maria Aitken: Yes, I've directed it in Australia, right after the Roundabout opening and before moving to the Cort, and it's always different, because you have different performers. And so I'm always tweaking and twitching, in fact I came back and put in a few things that I discovered in Australia. According to the people who saw it in Boston (at the Huntington Theatre Company) it's very different, I'm not really aware of that, and nor are the performers, but apparently it is, it's much more refined. And I hope funnier.

Eddie Varley: Well when I saw it the audience got every joke, they were with it from the very start. I think what the genius is about the production, I say genius not just because I'm sitting here with you but…

Maria Aitken: Oh, I love it (laughs).

Eddie Varley: (laughs) What I think is so special about the show for an audience member is how wonderfully it rewards on so many levels. You have this comically absurd espionage tale performed by an absolutely gifted cast who at times seem to be playing 100 characters at once. Yet at the same time you are watching a true master class of theatricality. You see the high wire work being done by the actors in telling the story, but that aspect of it never for a moment pulls you out of it or makes you stop caring about the characters and what happens next.

Maria Aitken: I think that's the old Vaudevillian mantra, "Tell them what you're going to do, do it, tell them what you've done". And when the audience sees the process, the difficulty of playing six people at once, they enjoy it more than if we were cleverer and faster. In fact I sometimes slowed things down, so the audience can actually share in the process.

Eddie Varley: And I imagine much work went into balancing that and pacing it so it moves at the perfect speed.

 

Maria Aitken: If they're too brilliant, the audience won't have the same kind of interest or enjoyment, but this way they understand the theatricality, they understand the magician's trick. And I think that was the right decision.

Eddie Varley: It's true, I cared about the characters, I embraced the story and its many twists, its turns and its comic dangers.

Maria Aitken: That's good, that's so good.

Eddie Varley: Regarding casting, this production must prove daunting.

Maria Aitken: It's an ongoing nightmare (Laughs). I have the most wonderful cast here, and I have somebody wonderful coming in to relieve Charles Edwards, I don't think I can announce it yet. I'm constantly looking, to build a team of people who are capable of doing it. It's exactly the same in England, it's exactly the same in Australia, and we just keep hunting. One of the wonderful things from the very beginning was that I said, "I can't do this with very well known names, I have to find these people with these skills". And the producers said, "Never mind, do it with unknowns, and just do it right".

 

Eddie Varley: How wonderful that they understood that need, I know while watching since I wasn't familiar with the actors on stage, I was completely engrossed by their performances. It allowed me to surrender to the lunacy taking place in the story.

 

Maria Aitken: That's actually wonderful to hear, because it doesn't happen often does it, going into the dark watching these people who you've not heard of telling a story.

Eddie Varley: No, which was so refreshing to see, the show delighted me, it inspired me!

Maria Aitken: Oh, I'm so glad, I'm thrilled, I'm really thrilled, and I'll tell them that you said that, they'll be delighted too. I wish that the actor's had been nominated as well.

Eddie Varley: Well you're carrying the torch for all of them!

Maria Aitken: Exactly.

Photo by Walter McBride/Retna Ltd.