Interview: A POWERful Hugo Armstrong Confidently SAILs Through His Theatrical Career

The Geffen west coast premieres Paul Grellong's POWER OF SAIL, already in previews. Weyni Mengesha directs the cast of Hugo Armstrong, Amy Brenneman, Bryan Cranston, Donna Simone Johnson, Tedra Millan, Seth Numrich and Brandon Scott.

I had the chance to question Hugo, a familiar face on the Los Angeles theatre stages on being in POWER and his ongoing relationship with L.A. theatre.

Thank you for taking the time for this interview, Hugo!

This is not your first time at Geffen. You did RADIANCE: THE PASSION OF MARIE CURIE in 2011 and MYSTERIOUS CIRCUMSTANCES in 2019. What is it about the Geffen that keeps you coming back to work your acting chops here?

I truly love the people there and how hard they work to make everything bloom as beautifully as possible. The Geffen also strives to produce new voices and take risks in ways that I truly admire and respect. AND the actual space reminds me, somehow, of the first theatre I ever set foot in. Four years old, my Mom was working costumes in a small theatre that had been converted from an old grain mill, complete with a revolving stage that used the mill's workings to turn it. I set foot in that little empty theatre and became entranced by the power of it. I asked what this place was and my Mom said, "A theater." and I asked her to sit down and then very, very seriously proceeded to tell her that I wanted to be a theater director when I grew up. My favorite place in the world is still an empty theater. The Geffen's space somehow reminds me very much of that first experience.

Have you worked with any of the cast or creatives of POWER OF SAIL before?

Parts of the Geffen team, yes, and I love them so much. Amy, Matt, Gil and Lizzie and the horned angels of wardrobe and crew. I had never met our incredible director Weyni before, she's so cool, just beautiful. And I haven't worked with any of the truly amazingly rad cast until now. Although Bryan and I share a connection through both of us having played LBJ in ALL THE WAY. We haven't compared our Johnsons yet. But anyone who's seen both of them would have to admit that Bryan's was bigger. I mean it was on television, for Pete's sake. They made a whole movie around his Johnson. Mine was more humble. People came to see it in person and gave it the thumbs up and I felt good about that. I was proud. Because it's not how many people have seen your Johnson. It's about how satisfied you are with the truth you told, through your Johnson.

What would your three-line pitch for POWER OF SAIL be?

Distinguished Harvard professor Charles Nichols (Emmy & Tony Award winner Bryan Cranston) finds himself in hot water after inviting an incendiary white nationalist to speak at his annual symposium. His colleagues are concerned, his students are in revolt, but Charles is undeterred in his plot to expose and academically thrash his invited guest. This profoundly relevant new play by Paul Grellong (THE BOYS, MANUSCRIPT) examines the insidiousness of hate disguised as free speech and the question of who ultimately pays the price.

If you were to submit your character Frank Marshall on an online dating site, which qualities of his would you include?

A mature Historian

Consummate "Joke-ist"

Cuts his own hair

Loves escalators

Inadvertent cleric of secular enlightenment

Free pretzels

Owns a car

What character flaws of his would you definitely omit?

Failed bagpipist

Forgets to floss

Has been involved in three separate housefires

Transfixed by dogfood commercials

Afraid of escalators

Mysterious rash

Calls all cats "Mr. Whiskers"

Under what cosmic circumstances would the three characters you've played at The Geffen (RADIANCE's Emile Borel, MYSTERIOUS' The American and POWER's Frank Marshall) converge at a common event? In line for the DMV? An after-school parents' gathering? An AA meeting?

The American commissions a time machine to be built to make world dominating investments in the past. He takes Frank along because the most valuable thing you can bring is someone who can make friends with anybody who ever existed. They travel back to the early 1900's and become stuck when some of the finer polonium-powered instruments poop-out, they have a polonium poop-out. They seek out Marie Curie for a hook-up and in doing so meet her friend Emile Borel who has many mathematical probability questions about the future. Frank decides to stay in the past where his glut of horrible jokes is considered incredibly funny and make him the toast of Europe where he meets the love of his life in the dazzling city of Paris. The American is "accidently" trampled by a group of suffragettes and Emile returns to our present day where he is currently employed at Raytheon working on the infinite probability drive.

You've acted in a lot of Los Angeles theatres (Geffen, Mark Taper, Sacred Fools, Theatre of Note, Ahmanson Theatre, LA Theatre Works, The Echo, Kirk Douglas Theatre, RedCat, Walt Disney Concert Hall, Boston Court) over the years. What changes have you seen in the L.A. Theatre community in all the years you've been a part of it?

The union's change to the 99-seat plan decimated what was the most vibrant and beautiful theater ecosystems on the planet. There was nothing like it and it grew organically out of a genuine love for the art and a desire to experiment and push the boundaries of what anyone thought possible. And at the roots of this incredible wonderland were the small theatres churning out a seemingly exponential expanse of new species, rhythms and worlds of theatre culture. It was the most exciting place in the world.

Ostensibly the change was to encourage small theatres to become medium-sized Equity ones and protect actors' rights and safety, but because the time wasn't spent to truly understand how to preserve what had been so uniquely created in Los Angeles and negotiate a plan that included the preservation of that native biosphere, an entire community was needlessly brought to its knees.

Most of the surviving smaller theaters were member-based, and managed to limp along until the passing of AB5 which, though a well-meaning bill, had a devastating effect of scooping small theatres along with it, forcing the closure of some and effectively paralyzing others. Even with the passing of SB 805 "Save the Performing Arts Act of 2021", a more comprehensive solution to preserve California's small theatre community is desperately needed. The cycles of revitalization that the art receives through the smaller theatre communities must be supported. I salute all the medium and larger theatres like the Geffen that take on a more active role in nourishing new voices, especially those of traditionally marginalized communities, but they can't be expected to do the same amount of work that was once done by hundreds of theatres a fraction of their size, especially when it comes to exceptional diversity that makes Los Angeles so unique. Add the effects of the pandemic and there's never been a more critical time to help ensure the preservation of smaller theatres. It's where so many of us first fell in love with it all and had the opportunity to create for the first time. The ecosystem of theatre creation must be restored in California, or every theatre will suffer under the neglect.

Was it challenging to find the humanity in the Nazi commandant you played in BENT at the Mark Taper Forum in 2015?

Moisés Kaufman's process is mind-bendingly inclusive and open. He makes everyone's opinions and input his top priority and creates a space of safety people are willing to risk in. So the time spent exploring the different mindsets of the time, from many cultural angles, gave everyone a considerable basis to draw from. One book on the research table was called The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich and became the basis for a lot of other research I did. Creating a clear path of circumstance from childhood into a man whose fear and pride could be taken advantage of by those seeking power is written in the stories of so many families' histories of the time, and unfortunately our own. From there it's an easy jump into the boots of someone who believes they have moral and genetic superiority over others. Some of these same patterns are echoed in the discussions within POWER OF SAIL. It can be difficult to face the conversations surrounding these things and I can only hope that the play helps to create them in a positive way.

Besides theatrical outings, you work steadily in TV and film. If financial compensation were not a factor, which medium would you prefer to exercise your acting muscles?

Plays, baby! Nothin' like it in the whole wide world. It's stuck around for a reason. We can discuss and analyze and ponder and speculate but at the end of the day, if it's hitting the mark, that beauty annihilates our ability to even describe it. That's the space theater animates in us. It's also, quite frequently, utterly terrifying to do. I'm far more comfortable on a movie set, maybe because it's more akin to a high stakes dress rehearsal and the director can always just ask for another take. But I can't help it, I am addictively drawn to the theatre. With the audience there, it's this wild collective phantasmagorical happening that has no equal under any other circumstance. But I would also like to live in a house, so I'm perfectly willing to split the difference.

What's in the near future for Hugo Armstrong?

In late March there's a nice recur on a Bosch spin-off called Bosch: Legacy. Yes, Titus is as cool as you think. April (4/20 to be exact) launches an Audible podcast series called Blood Weed with Maria Bakalova. Continuing to shoot with my bud Jim Byrkit for his TV series Shatter Belt. And also gearing up to direct a sci-fi short that's been knocking around my head a few years. Time to make that happen. Turns out life rolls quicker than I thought, so as Mike D sez, "No time like the present to work s**t out."

Thank you again, Hugo! I look forward to meeting your Frank Marshall at The Geffen.

For tickets to the live performances of POWER OF SAIL through March 13, 2022; log onto www.geffenplayhouse.org

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