BODY AWARENESS Closes Pygmalion's 2021-22 Season in May

Pygmalion Theatre Company will conclude its 2021/2022 season with "Body Awareness" by Annie Baker, directed by Morag Shepherd, from May 6 to May 21 at the Rose Wagner Center for Performing Arts located at 138 West Broadway in downtown Salt Lake City.

The show features Teresa Sanderson, Brenda Hattingh Peatross, Tom Cowan, and Tom Roche.

It's Body Awareness Week on a Vermont college campus and Phyllis, the organizer, played by Hattingh Peatross, and her partner, Joyce, played by Sanderson, are hosting one of the guest artists in their home; Frank, played by Cowan, a photographer famous for his female nude portraits. Both his presence in the home and his chosen subject instigate tension. Joyce's son from a previous marriage, Jared, meanwhile, displays some symptoms of Asperger's syndrome but refuses to be examined by a therapist. The show is an examination of a modern family as they struggle with issues of communication, expression and the perception of the female body.

"Body Awareness" was first presented Off-Broadway by the Atlantic Theater Company in New York City in May 2008.

The staging of this show has been a long journey for Pygmalion.

Sanderson explained that it was originally scheduled to be performed by the company in 2020; it would have begun rehearsals in April and opened in May of that year.

"I have been cast in this show since the before times," she said. "This is the show that we were starting rehearsals for when the whole world shut down."

Sanderson said that though she has directed a couple of shows, including "Tragedy Averted" for Pygmalion, since theaters reopened, this will be her first time back onstage since the pandemic began.

She added: "We have gone through several casting changes in the last two years. I feel like we have landed a solid cast that is devoted to the work. I can't wait to actually get it open. Really looking forward to treading the boards again."

Cowan said he is also making a return to the boards after an absence.

"I am making sort of a comeback to stage acting," he said. "I stopped stage acting over thirty years ago to focus on my career with the Air Force, I was a civilian. And my career as a Coast Guard reservist. I also raised my family and all that is required with that endeavor. Teresa heard that I was interested in doing something on stage and asked if I would like to audition. I was interested and I auditioned. Morag had the incredible wisdom or was just foolish enough to cast me. We'll know if it was wisdom or foolishness soon."

Cowan only joined the cast recently. "My journey is different from some who have prepared for 'Body Awareness' for over two years," he said. "I was cast about a month-and-a-half ago. However, since I am just getting back into stage acting I am working to reawaken long dormant acting muscles. I haven't had to memorize a script this length for a long time. I also need to learn how to play the recorder and sing a Jewish prayer. I am not a musician or a singer. These are two of the reasons I decided 35 years ago to focus on other career choices. I will say that after such a long break my motivations for acting have matured. I want to go beyond memorizing lines and truly learn my character and bring him to life on stage. I am anxious to see if I can bring my new mature acting ideals to reality."

Joining the cast even more recently is Hattingh Peatross, who stepped in this past weekend, as Allison Belnap, who was originally cast as Joyce, had to drop out due to a medical situation.

She talked to us about what it was like to join the show at this stage.

"I am absolutely thrilled! This is my third or fourth time working with Pygmalion and I have yet to have a bad experience with this company," she said. "I've been in a show with Teresa before, but I've never really worked a solid scene with her one-on-one. It's a dream to get to work with her on the show. She's one of those actors that makes you a better actor.

"Morag is one of my closest friends and she is so talented in so many areas. I've only performed in her beautiful plays, so working with her as a director is fantastic. She's intuitive and she trusts her actors to follow their intuition, which makes for an amazing flow of energy throughout the rehearsal process. The only two people I haven't worked with are the two men in the play. I've had one rehearsal and I can already tell that they are incredibly well cast and great to work with. So yeah, short answer is that I just feel super lucky to have fallen into this amazing role and that I get to work with all these wonderful people. Also the script is just incredible. I can't wait to share this show with audiences!"

She explained that during the pandemic, last fall, she understudied three roles for "Four Women Talking About The Man Under The Sheet" by Elaine Jarvik at Salt Lake Acting Company. "I attended rehearsals and performed one show," she said. "But that was a different kind of experience from being in the main cast and really exploring and developing the scenes as a cast. That working and exploring is in many ways my favorite part of the process and I'm so excited to do that with this show."

Hattingh Peatross also spoke about why she thinks "Body Awareness" is an important show for the present moment.

"First of all the script is absolutely delightful," she said. "The characters are so real and flawed. Secondly, I think we've all seen each other at our best and worst with the stress we've experienced in the last couple of years.

"This play is about people dealing with some very personal situations and kind of getting a grip on things, when suddenly a wrench is thrown in the works. I think that was pre-pandemic for many of us. And when the pandemic hit, everything was turned upside down. Everything we thought we knew about ourselves and our relationships was wrong in so many ways. It forced us to look at those things in a way we may not have done before. I think many of us dug down to a deeper truth. Many people questioned where they were at in life and if it was where they were meant to be. I wonder if subconsciously, audience members might have a deeper understanding of the emotions in this play when things get up-ended for the characters.

"The play also deals with autism in a very real way. It is something that we as a culture have only just come to understand better in the past decade or so. I have several family members on the autism spectrum and learning to understand them while also watching them learn different ways to cope with stress and relate to their loved ones, is lovely."

Shepherd spoke about why she wanted to direct the show. "The reason I initially wanted to direct 'Body Awareness' is because I read it and laughed my head off," she said. "Annie Baker has written this gem of a play that's actually quite rebellious and heartfelt at the same time."

She added: "Baker raises a whole slew of questions in this script about image ownership, the female body, and the autism spectrum, to name a few, but one of the reasons this script appeals to me so much is because you have these very real and flawed characters who are just trying to do what they think is right. The problem is, what is 'right' is in continual flux, and changes over and over again depending on what is in vogue at the moment, and that is something that I find to be terribly relatable."

Shepherd also touched upon whether the show is likely to play differently than it would have at the beginning of the pandemic.

She said: "Before the plague hit in 2020, I think that maybe we might have all had a little more energy to burn things down that weren't working in society, but now, when I come back to this play, I am more interested in the parts where Baker defends holding onto some things despite our progressive ideologies: family, religious traditions, eating around a table, and caring about others' insignificant ailments."

She also spoke about the relevance of the play in 2022: "I think between the time that 'Body Awareness' premiered in 2008 until now, our notions of the female body have evolved to the point that now we have a whole social media movement dedicated to reclaiming the female body. In fact, just the other day I turned on Lizzo's show 'Watch Out For The Big Grrrls' where fat bodies are celebrated and the standards of beauty are changing before our eyes. But I think one thing that remains the same is the question of how to do this in a way where we are not just objectifying ourselves by imposing the male gaze, or image ownership, on each other. Baker raises the question, but doesn't answer it."

Who: Pygmalion Productions Theatre Company

What: "Body Awareness" by Annie Baker

When: May 6-May 21, Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m., Sunday at 2 p.m. with an extra matinee final Saturday at 2 p.m.

Where: Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center, Black Box Theatre, 138 W. 300 South

Tickets: $15-$22.50 from (801) 355.ARTS (2787) or saltlakeacountyarts.org

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