'DUST' is Good for Masur and Foster

There is one theatre in NYC where it's okay not to worry about dust. Actually, the name of the show is Dust, a new thriller starring Emmy Award nominee Richard Masur (Democracy, "All My Children") and Tony Award nominee Hunter Foster (Urinetown, Little Shop of Horrors), which opens on Thursday, December 4th at 7:00PM at the Westside Theatre. The show is written by Billy Goda and directed by Scott Zigler with a cast that also features Laura E. Campbell, Curtis McClarin and John Schiappa.

So here's the layout of the show..."Dust is a power play. One man is an executive with money and a paunch. The other is an ex-con with street smarts and a minimum-wage position. One man says "jump." The other won't say "how high," but defiantly asks "why?". What starts off as a battle of wills over who will do the dusting escalates into a war for respect, the upper hand and survival. Who will be standing when the dust settles?"

Playing the role of Martin is Richard Masur, whose Broadway and off-Broadway credits include Michael Frayne's Democracy; David Storey's The Changing Room; The New Group's 2000 Years by Mike Leigh; Playwrights Horizons a feminine ending by Sarah Treem; The Public Theater's The Ruby Sunrise and Rinne Groff; MTC's Sarah, Sarah by Daniel Goldfarb; and The Culture Project's The Exonerated. He has starred in more than 50 films including Risky Business, My Girl, Heaven's Gate, Heartburn and Under Fire; over 45 television movies, including: Adam, Fallen Angel and When The Bough Breaks, HBO's And The Band Played On, Showtime's Hiroshima, HBO's 61* and The Burning Bed, for which he received an Emmy nomination. His television credits include "Picket Fences," "Rhoda" and "One Day At A Time."

Appearing opposite Masur as Zeke is Hunter Foster. Foster has appeared on Broadway as Bobby Strong in Urinetown, for which he received an Outer Critics nomination, Leo Bloom in The Producers, Seymour in Little Shop Of Horrors, which garnered him a Tony nomination, Les Miserables, Grease, Footloose and King David. Off-Broadway credits include Modern Orthodox, Frankenstein and Urinetown. Regional: The Government Inspector and Martin Guerre, Mister Roberts, Kiss Of The Spider Woman, Lend Me A Tenor and Children Of Eden. He has toured nationally in Cats as Rum Tum Tugger and wrote the book to the off-Broadway musicals, Summer Of '42 and Bonnie And Clyde: A Folktale, and the upcoming Sleepy Hollow.

Masur and Foster took some time out to talk to me about this new drama and a few other tasty items.

TJ: So, Hunter, you are a busy guy!

FOSTER: That's what they tell me.

TJ: Normally, from what I know about you, you are more of a musical theatre performer. This is a different type of a role for you...

FOSTER: Yeah. I've done a few plays, I don't exclusively do musicals. In fact, recently, I feel like I've done more plays. This is definitely a departure from what I normally do, which is kind of cool!

TJ: How did you get involved with this project?

FOSTER: It's a very interesting story. They sent me the script and talked to me about it and I read it. I was actually upstate to see my mother-in-law, who was in a car accident (she is fine) and wanted to audition, but couldn't get back. I asked if I could put my audition on my computer and they said to do it. My wife and I stayed up all night and just did the audition on the computer, filmed it and sent it. And that's how I got the job!

TJ: The hype for this show is very intriguing. What was it that caught you interest in this piece, Richard?

MASUR: I really, really liked the material. It's a kind of classic tragedy where these two men are trapped in their own pride and their own sense of themselves, If any little moment in the course of events were to change, none of this would go down the way it does. Everybody does exactly what they have to do to end up where it ends up. If anybody had been willing to step away...back down, be less arrogant, be more resilient...however you want to put it, none of this would have had to go down the way it did. That really struck me because I think this is very much the way lots of things in life work, both on an interpersonal level and on the level of big organizations and in conflicts between institutions, conflicts between nations...they all have their similar feeling of "why do we have to the steps that seem to be prescribed for us? Why can't we stop that? Why can't we change?" That's what really attracted me to it.

TJ: Richard, tell me about your character, Martin.

MASUR: Well, Martin Stone is a wealthy man, self-made, who came from humble beginnings. He's used to getting what he wants when he wants it. These two men have a tremendous amount in common for very different reasons. Martin is clearly a workaholic...clearly compulsive about many things in his life just as Zeke has issues with drugs and anger. Both of them insist that anything that gets in the way of what they want be moved out of the way as expeditiously as possible. And that's where they bang into each other over nothing. He's not used to getting "no" for an answer...he's not used to being disobeyed. And he feels entitled to behave the way he does. And hopefully, by the end of the piece, you will have gone through this journey and realize that he has moments of clarity where he understands that perhaps he's not doing the right thing but he can't seem to unwind from it because every time he thinks about unwinding from it, Zeke does exactly the wrong thing. That's what makes it so tragic.

TJ: Same question to you Hunter. Tell me about your character in the show.

FOSTER: Well, Zeke is pretty complex. He's an ex-con but he didn't come from the street. He's a good guy who played baseball in high school and had everything. He had a girlfriend and friends. Then he got too messed up and into drugs, which got him busted and sent to prison. He's has kind of lost everything, Now, he has gotten out of prison and is trying to get his life back together but he still has the addiction. It's still there and he's been clean for about a year and a half. He meets up with Martin and the circumstances blow up into this huge mano-y-mano confrontation between these two men. It's kind of like a battle of wills between these two men. I think for this character, it's like he's battling not only this other man, but also his addiction. It's also about addiction, not necessarily to drugs, but having an addictive personality and the problems that are inherent from having one.

TJ: What was it about the role of Zeke that attracted you?

FOSTER: Obviously, it's something different for me. There's also this kind of wounded man struggling to put his life back together. Then suddenly something inconsequential comes along and just wrecks it...I thought it was a very interesting journey. How frustrating that can be for someone who has had problems, dealt with these problems and then something, revealed in the first scene, comes along and spins his life out of control again.

TJ: Was it easy for you to identify with this character of Zeke or did you have to do a little research?

FOSTER: You have to do research because he's and ex-con and a drug addict and it required me to look into addiction and the drugs like crystal meth. That was the main part of my research ...understanding why people take the drugs and why it calls them back. How addiction takes over your life when you take the drugs. And you talk to people and there's lot of information online. There was just a lot of information out there which I was blown away by...specifically how that drug affects people. How crystal meth destroys their lives in such a quick manner. I actually found it frightening to find out that this isn't something that takes years to destroy your life...it can screw you up in a small amount of time.

TJ: Richard, would you call this a thriller?

MASUR: Most definitely a thriller. There's a tension that builds throughout this. There are many moments in the piece where you're not sure where something's going to go and you think it's going to go badly and then, it kind of eases off. Then, it cranks up again and then, it sort of slips to the side. So, yes, a thriller definitely. And like I said, a tragedy in the Greek sense of the word, not in the sense that we kind of abuse it.

TJ: When was the last time you were on stage in New York?

MASUR: Last March. I was just finishing up a run of at the New Group of a Mike Leigh play called 2000 Years directed by Scott Ellis. That was a wonderful production, also!

TJ: So, are you New York based or LA based?

MASUR: I was out in Los Angeles for twenty six years and I've been back here for about seven. While I was out in LA, I didn't do a whole lot of theatre. One of the reasons I wanted to come back to New York was to do more theatre and I've done at least one play a year since I have come back.

Thanks to Richard and Hunter for their time and you won't want to miss this dynamic duo on stage in Dust, a new thriller, begins performances at The Westside Theatre (407 West 43rd Street, between 9th & 10th Aves.). Opening night is Thursday, December 4th at 7:00PM. Performances are Tuesday through Saturday at 8:00PM and Sunday at 7:00PM with matinees on Saturday and Sunday at 3:00PM. Tickets are $65. Call Telecharge.com at 212-239-6200. As always, ciao and remember, theatre is my life.

 

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