Interview: Lizbeth Mackay Checks In to The Wayside Motor Inn

The Wayside Motor Inn, currently being staged at the Signature Theater Company, is a revival of A.R. Gurney's 1977 busy play about disparate characters inhabiting the same shabby motel room outside Boston. The 10 actors unveil parallel stories in a tacky, nondescript room decorated generically in cheap furnishings. Actors deftly cross paths but don't acknowledge one another as the play unfolds.

Lizbeth Mackay plays Jessie, half of an older couple on their way to visit a daughter and a new grandchild. If Jessie had her druthers, they would be looking for a home near the kids. Her husband, Frank (Jon DeVries), is dealing with a heart ailment, and is not so keen on relocating.

Mackay nearly turned the role down at first, she recalled. "On the page, it's not all that interesting," she said before a recent performance. "People stop and start talking depending who's 'on' at that moment and I thought, 'Gee, why are they doing this play of his?'" (referring to Gurney, known affectionately as Pete).

During one talkback after a performance, "Pete said that very thing to himself a number of times and he said the play wasn't well-received when it opened in 1977," she added.

But director Lila Neugebauer "saw something wonderful in the play at the first read," she said.

The play focuses on five pairs; one couple is the restaurant's waitress, Sharon, played by Jenn Lyon, and a traveling salesman, Ray (Quincy Dunn-Baker). The others include a father, Vince (Marc Kudisch) and son Mark (Will Pullen), who wrangle over Mark's getting into Harvard. Seems Mark wants to take a year off, and Ray is having none of it. Andy (Kelly AuCoin) and Ruth (Rebecca Henderson) are working through a divorce. Pictures get tossed around.

The actors perform a delicate dance to avoid one another and manage to steer clear of collisions. "Technically the show is difficult to do because we're taking cues from people across the stage," Mackay said.

"During one performance," Mackay said, "there was a pen on the floor and no one knew where it came from, and finally someone just picked it up without breaking character." So far, no one has tripped or been thrown off dialogue. "Jenn broke a glass the other night, but it was taken care of," she said.

Mackay has grown more affectionate toward her character with each performance. "There's something about her that reminds me of my mother," she said. "Especially with the costume. My mother used to be able to sigh in the kitchen and we'd hear it throughout the house whenever she felt put upon or sad." Not unlike Jessie's sighs of frustrations over her husband's reactions to things.

"Their relationship is very complicated," she said. "They've had a very, very deep 40 years of compromising with each other. And why is this day so different from others?" she asked. "Jessie is trying to imagine life in two different places-at home in Buffalo and here in Boston. How do you manage things like that with the person you live with? She convinced him to go to Boston and knowing he's not well, she may feel guilty about that, yet he wouldn't let her drive." Coincidentally, both Gurney and Mackay are from Buffalo.

On this particular day, Jessie is trying to navigate her new world in a down-sized apartment, from a rambling home. "They sold the house and moved to an apartment and got rid of the dog. She felt useless and lonely. She wants to make sure things are OK, but it's so hard to be an empty-nester," Mackay explained. She knits, but she'd rather spend time with her family.

"The marriage is a good one. They both love and respect and annoy each other no end, and as an actress I try to convey that. They don't talk about the marriage; they're very old-fashioned Certain decisions are his to make. It was a different time then."

The choreography was the most challenging to learn, Mackay said.
"We spent a few days around the table, and then Lila brought us in as pairs and we did our own stories separately," she said. "Then we all got on stage at the same time. The choreography is very specific and the set itself is very interesting. A large part of the audience can't see the whole scope of the set, which I think is so beautiful in the way it's lit, like a Hopper painting."

Having props placed just so also impressed her. "Our stage management is incredible. They're scurrying around putting props where they're supposed to be at any given time.

"As an actor you're sitting there in your character's life and listening to all these other lives going on around you, and you can't acknowledge any of that," Mackay said. "Your cue has to bounce off what just happened. When a conversation has to break then start up again, it's tricky, and it's done to feel like a continuous thread. You have to stay real and centered and emotional in your character and event."

A watershed moment for Jessie comes toward the end, when she is able to express something to her husband that she hadn't been able to before. "'I can do it myself'" was important to her because if her husband is losing physical independence, you're going to fight like hell to maintain and help him without smothering him," she said.

"The beauty of it is I don't feel like I'm in a separate play, and we talked about that with Pete," she said. "He talked about Verdi and how he was struck by how each instrument had their own story and when they all played together it was wonderful. He wanted to know how that would work onstage. Sometimes the same word is tossed around in each story and the energy of your character comes off of somebody else. It's a lot of fun to do and it works."

Apparently audiences agree. "What I really like is that the actors walk out through the same lobby as the audience and you can hear them discussing it. If you can send an audience home thinking about it the next day, we've done our job."

The Wayside Motor Inn is presented by Signature Theater at the Signature Center, 480 West 42nd Street through Oct. 5.