BWW Interviews: Denver Center's Judith Hawking on Her Talented Career and Who in Her Mind is THE MOST DESERVING

Where's home for you?

I'm Canadian, but most recently became a new a proud citizen of America also. Right now, I live in New York. My husband and I have a home in Westchester. My husband and I met on Fire Island - true story - Cherry Grove. That's not gay at all. No, not gay at all. In fact, it was super cool, because I became friends with the divas who came and they would do my makeup for me. I know how to line my lips because of Miss Jessica, who's like the prettiest tranny I've ever seen in my entire life, and I said "I love your lips," and she's like "Girl, let me do them for you." So we lived in New York for five years and I had already lived there for a while. I went to school in Canada - did classics. Went to Cal Arts because that was about the most 180 you could do if you wanted to get a Master's degree was go to Cal Arts. I came to New York, lived there, met my husband 12 years ago, he lasted 5 years in New York - there were just too many people. He's actually from South Carolina, he's a dolll. He's like "There are too many people," and I'm like "There's nothing I can do about that." So then we got a house in upstate New York, which is beautiful, it works out really well.

Lovely, when was the last time you were here in Denver?

I've been here twice now. Once was last February when I did the CO New Play Summit, and the time before that was when I was the best man at my friend's Doug's wedding, when he and Rex got married. I was his best man in a dress.

What draws you to the roles you decide to play? What appeals to you?

Humor. And my mission statement is to show women a possibility. And that means show women in the audience there are different possible ways to be women, but also to show women in theatre there are possibilities. Look, I did classical theatre for a long time. I remember it was a huge deal when I did Suicide by Erdman. It's a Russian play. It was written in 1920 and I thought I was going to die because I didn't have to wear a corset. So I did tons of classical work, and when I moved to the states, that put me in good standing because I did lots of classical work, because it's needed, and if you can do accents and if you know how to use a fan and you don't run into furniture... And then I started doing new plays, and what I super appreciate about the new playwrights now is they have what the playwrights in the 30s, 40s, 50s had for women. They're multifaceted. You weren't just the sweet girl next door, or you weren't just the doting wife. You were...I mean, think of all the roles that Joan Crawford did with Myrna Loy and Bette Davis. That's when those were being written. There's really few and far between, those roles now, except in theatre, I think it's popping up because there are way more women writers. So for whatever reason, the universe has said, the women who are writing these roles, you guys will find each other. For example, Carson Kreitzer- she's an incredible playwright, but she wrote a play called The Love Song of J. Robert Oppenheimer, and her other antihero is Lilith, primordial woman, the first one, who is funny, and acerbic, and cheeky, and foul-mouthed, and completely righteous. How cool to put those things together. I think the thing that attracts me is to find intelligence, humor, some sort of self awareness, and then some sort of blinding either ambition or need or appetite. I think it's so yummy. What's cool is those aren't being written for the ingénues. I was never an ingénue. At 20, I didn't do Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, I did Lady Capulet, and I was 5 years younger than the Juliet was. What's interesting now is a lot of the roles are mature women. The whole bullshit about 40 is the new 30, and now 50 is the new 30, and so on. For me, what's really exciting is women are really allowed to show many more colors.

So what is your role in this show?

First of all, I think Catherine Trieschmann, who wrote it, is so gifted at nuance. So nothing's on the nose. Everything you come around a corner to see it. And I find that stuff really exciting, too. So, my role is the head of an Arts Council. It's taken her ten years to get this Arts Council money. They finally have a grant of $20,000, which is exponentially bigger than anything they've ever had. So the question becomes, who gets the money. If it was just Jolene Atkinson, we know who would get the money. And I had this really long discussion just last night about what being politic means. I think being politic just means that you make the choices that are the most expedient to get you what you want. I don't think it's necessarily a bad word. I think it is if you damage someone else or you discredit someone else. Being politic, I think, in our era, means being savvy. She's super savvy and the problem is when someone else comes on the Arts Council who is going to try to challenge her. So what's super fun about the role is that there's nothing that she won't do in order to get her way, whether it's intimidation, using her sexuality, blackmailing, I mean all of it's good, all of it's fair because it's war. Because if she does not win what she wants to win, then her status will go, and if her status goes, she is nothing. I think it's really interesting. And it's really funny. I read the script and I laughed out loud. I am just so proud to be a part of this new and amazing play, and work at one of the premiere theatres here in North America!

So what do you hope that audiences take from this production as a whole?

God bless you, I don't know what the hell to say about that. I hope they take flowers and chocolate, I mean, I don't know. They'll definitely be entertained. Brecht's big axiom was entertain first, educate second. And The V Effect was all about, if you distance yourself, people will get it. If you put something in Berlin in 1920, people in Berlin in 1920 aren't going to find that particularly effective. They can't because they're watching themselves. If you place it somewhere else, then it allows them to be a little more removed. And in being removed and being entertained, I think that any sort of snippet of challenge can come in that way. And I think that's what Catherine's done really beautifully, is we all have our opinion of what people represent to us. And what she does beautifully is she shifts it a bit. I think first and foremost, they'll be wildly entertained, and if we do our job well, there'll be some discussions about who should have got the grant. I remember when I first read the play and I had an entirely different view than when I actually started interviewing people in galleries, and my opinion changed. What's interesting to me is that we all have our prejudices and how we think the world should work, and then someone sits you down and says okay, well if we give "A" the money, then that says that we are this, and if we say that we are this, then these people won't give us any more money. So do we then accept that loss and then look somewhere else for money? And what's really cool then is being from Canada, I do a lot of research on where I do the play at. I spent a whole afternoon where I could not stop laughing while researching Ellis County, because it's 96.8% white. The whole county has 26,000 people in it. So if you know those facts, you know that if someone's going to pull their money from you, they're probably the only game in town. And if that dries up, then do you let a whole generation of children not have art classes in your gallery? You know what I'm saying? It's more complicated than people think.

So in your experience, in the arts, have you come across a medium, or an unsung hero that you find is most deserving that's never gotten that respect?

Do you mean like an actor or theatre company?

Yeah, any sort of art medium you've come across.

Sure. I can name you ten brilliant actors in New York that aren't nationally known and you just have no idea why. Or, for instance, the Washington D.C. theatre scene, I'd just go to show after show - I just was blown away by the level of talent there. And then my sister lived in Chicago, so I saw a lot of theatre in Chicago, and theatre in Chicago is amazing. It was really good, and I thought, well why don't people talk about Washington in the same breath that they talk about Chicago? It just gets so overshadowed by New York. Yeah, I could give at least 50 names of artists, writers, companies, actors that are remarkable, but it's all the choices, too, that we make along the way. Sometimes you choose to have the family over moving to Hollywood. Or you choose to actually marry someone you like, and would want to hang out with - maybe even love, what a crazy idea that is. I mean, I'm totally enamored with my husband so I can actually say this. But if you do that, you don't just marry the investment banker who could just buy you your theatre company. I think the best any of us can do is be true to ourselves, and if we do that, I do believe the work comes, and I do believe the good work you see, I just think that's true. That's been my experience, anyway.

I have a couple questions I always act my actors - If you weren't doing theatre, in a parallel universe, what would you be doing?

Here's the deal, everybody asks this, and it's a ridiculous question. If I was being operated on by a neurosurgeon, and somebody asked them, if you could be doing something else, what would you do, and she said "You know, I've always wanted to bake bread," and I'd say "Motherfucker, you're not working on my brain." I want that to be your passion. So I think that all the artists that I know that are masters of what they do, you have chosen this. It's not like you fell off a truck, hit your head one morning, decided you wanted to be a plumber. You choose to be a plumber or you choose to be whatever you are, and I think there's great beauty in that. That's the answer.

So is there a play that you absolutely adore and would go back to over and over again, just to be in the show?

There's so many new yummy plays, that I think everything you do makes you better. Is there something I'd come to over and over again? No. Are there plays that I haven't done yet that I would like to do? Absolutely. Hedda Gabler is one that came up and I couldn't do it, so that's one. Camille, and I would make it the funniest Camille in the universe, and then at the end, people wouldn't be able to stop weeping because this lovely force of light would have been snuffed. I just actually re-watched it. A friend and I are working on an adaptation, and we're different generations, and he's comment is "No, Camille, eh..." And I defended with "Have you ever seen Garbo do Camille?" And he says no, but he's seen a lot of drag queens do Garbo doing Camille, and I got really pissed off at him and I said "you have to see it, you have to watch it." And it's really funny because it's so camp to us now but it changed a whole movie-going audience. I mean, they had to stack the showings later because people were weeping so much. Women were fainting, I mean, oh my God, so Camille, Hedda Gabler, I did Mother Courage young, I would go back to that one, because who wouldn't. But there are so many great roles out there. Back in the day, you were known for a role. You were the great Camille, or Medea, or Medusa. But I think that was more when there wasn't as much communication, so you had to know that it was a proven commodity before you could sell it to the provinces, as it were. That's not the case anymore. I think what's really cool, too, is momma's not 22, that ship has sailed, but there's something really beautiful about being able to be where you are and do these roles. You don't have to apologize for not being 28 anymore. I think what's really beautiful is that there are different doors that open at different time. Also, for me, growing up in Canada was a huge advantage, because all my aunts were incredibly beautiful into their 80s. These stunning women who were really bright, who were artists, did this really cool stuff. So in our family, the idea of aging was about getting wiser, it was becoming a master, rather than my boobs are dropping, I don't know where my ass is, and will anyone whistle at me again?

So what is next for you after this?

Right after this, I go to Manitoba. My father had a bad fall this year. He has rheumatoid arthritis, and he shattered a hip, so he was supposed to walk in September and is still having difficulties. So I'm flying there, and there's no way I can do justice to how awesome and how stunningly horrible this is going to be. I'm driving him 1500 miles home to Vancouver Island and he's in a wheelchair. That's a road trip. That's the ultimate Canadian road trip. I mean, seriously, I don't even drink hard alcohol, and I'm gonna learn to just for this trip. I won't be driving (laughs). So I'm doing that, and then I'll be home for a couple of weeks, and then Southern Rep - another fantastic new playwright Peter Sinn Nachtrieb has written a play called The Totalitarian, that I did at NNPF, National New Play Festival. They've picked it up and they're gonna do it in a rolling premiere in New Orleans. I'm very blessed to work, but I come from a long line of socially conscious people, and I do it with my art. So once a year, I do something that will serve a specific community. So after 9/11, I did Christmas Carol at the McCarter, because that community was devastated by 9/11 - the amount of fathers that they lost was unbelievable. It was amazing, and I learned so much. And I met the community and met the kids. I am doing the same thing in New Orleans which has an amazing artistic community, and my friend runs that theatre. She asked if I would come down for this specific slot, and I said yeah. Then I have a project pending for the spring, and so we'll see. And then I have a couple that are floating around, as one is apt to do when one has projects floating around. I've been very blessed. One thing I do, my gift, is to give a workshop -ethics, auditioning, whatever. And the thing that I try to stress to young women is you cannot be about one thing. If you look at the actresses, the ones I really think are amazing, like Francis Conroy, Kathy Baker, Kathy Bates, Frances McDormand, Jessica Lange, those women play so many different types of things. So the more things you do, the more you'll work, and the more you work, the better you get. So I think that when we're 21 we all think we're going to be this or we're going to be that, and there's nothing wrong with that, I think you just kindof fly your freak flag as often as you can, because that will give you a wider depth of what you can do.

The world premiere of Catherine Treischmann's THE MOST DESERVING plays in The Ricketson Theatre of the Denver Center now until November 17th. For tickets or more information, contact the box office at 303-893-4100 or online at www.denvercenter.org.

PHOTO CREDIT: Jennifer M Koskinen (above), Michael Mulhern (below)

Michael Mulhern and Judith Hawking

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