Laurie Metcalf is in her dressing room. Walking into her re-decorated space at Broadway鈥檚 Golden Theatre, the taupe walls and neutral furniture, accented with pops of color from a seafoam and gold throw pillow and a brilliant purple orchid (a gift from Betty Buckley), bathe the actor in calm鈥攍ike sitting on the inside of an ornamental topiary. 鈥淵ou feel very pampered here,鈥� Metcalf says. There鈥檚 a puzzle partially complete on a card table, her rippled and worn script to Edward Albee鈥檚 Three Tall Women on the counter. Like Metcalf herself, this place is about focus and the work.
It鈥檚 4:45 PM before a 7 PM Tuesday evening performance and she鈥檚 not just early for an interview. Metcalf and her castmates, Tony nominee Glenda Jackson and Alison Pill, meet at 5:15 every Tuesday to run their lines of the show in its entirety, a 鈥渨arm-up鈥� after their day off, before stepping onstage to do the real thing. (For all other performances鈥攅ven on a two-show day鈥攖hey 鈥渙nly鈥� run the first 15 pages.)
You had said on opening night that the play wasn鈥檛 necessarily clear on the page, that it was a harder one to find. What made it that way?
Laurie Metcalf: It was really hard, and I don鈥檛 know if that鈥檚 indicative of all of Albee鈥攂ecause this is my first Edward Albee play鈥攁nd the fact that it鈥檚 very nonlinear. It鈥檚 ideas. It鈥檚 relationships, but there鈥檚 no business. There鈥檚 very little stage direction, and the ones that are in here are small pause, shrug, smiles tolerantly, gentle proud, emotional things. So the first act was really difficult for me. I needed a lot of help from [director] Joe [Mantello] to find what the business was going to be, and I didn鈥檛 know what form it was going to take until we got to previews, and the audience helped me find also a lot of the humor in the caretaker part of the first act because I went down a wrong path for quite a while thinking, 鈥淲ell, I am paid to be attentive to her.鈥� But if you play the reality of the room, it鈥檚 tedious and it鈥檚 maddening, and there are times when they want to kill each other and times when A is totally dependent on B and appreciates her and probably doesn鈥檛 even know what she鈥檇 do without her, although she鈥檇 never admit it. That spectrum was fun to find.
Once I loosened up and started looking for ways to create the reality of the room, whether it鈥檚 zoning out during something that I鈥檝e heard a million times to playing cards to putting on slippers because it鈥檚 a certain time of day, none of it鈥檚 in here. I found it fun but daunting.
In terms of 鈥渇inding鈥� it, how does that manifest in a rehearsal room, in a preview period? What are some of the things that you鈥檙e trying and then that you鈥檙e feeling the reaction to that guides you?
LM: When the audience came in, they spotted a lot of the humor that I had missed. The second act was more understandable from the beginning. We are the same person of different ages, and that discovery was making sure that each of us鈥攖hat I didn鈥檛 accidentally play that I already knew some information from the future that I wouldn鈥檛 have had. It鈥檚 all 100 percent autobiographical鈥攅very reference became more and more alive when we realized that everything in it he lived or observed.
You mentioned how influential director Joe Mantello is鈥�
LM: When you see his productions mounted, every part of it makes sense: the music, the lights, all the performances, the set, definitely. All of the people that he works with, and he always has a hand so it's of a piece.
What does he bring out in you specifically, not just the piece?
LM: I rely on his eye. He's, you know, that's the director鈥檚 job, to sit out and see, tell you what you can't see and then also keep track of the full story. From day one of working with him years ago, I trusted his instincts and his taste, and I know that he knows how to speak to actors and it seems simplistic, but it's really rare. I trust him completely, I don't have to put up any barriers, I don't have to question anything. If he tells me something in the rehearsal room, I know that it's true. We're both from Illinois, and we have kind of a similar work ethic, and we love to be in the rehearsal room.
I like going to work in a rehearsal room and bringing a lot of ideas when I know that that's what the director is bringing in too. Neither one of us will walk away from something until we're both satisfied. I think we both like to think outside the box also. Surprising choices. Finding humor where there probably isn't any and finding the heart where there isn't or where it's not apparent.
What have you learned from Alison and Glenda鈥攚hat they're doing that has brought out a certain aspect in your character?
LM: We're co-dependent on each other and especially when things are clicking along and we're overlapping and the dialogue is very glib to begin with, it's not unlike Doll's House. The ideas come fast and furious in sections, but then it's broken up with monologues. We go down and meet in Glenda's room and we run the first 15 pages at a clip. I like to do it no matter what so even if the company wasn't doing it, I would do it by myself. I run the whole thing by myself.
What's the thing that you wanted to make strong in your B? She's foot-forward with what aspect of her?
LM: She's in the prime of her life. The wheels haven't come off yet. She's got a drink in one hand and the cigarette, the image of that, in the other. She and her husband have worked out whatever their relationship is. She's at her strongest when we're seeing her in that decade that I represent鈥攁t her most solid and maybe happiest. Fulfilled in the ways that she wants. I wanted her to be strong. In the rehearsal room, I remember that I was having a lot of anger come out and Joe said, 鈥淣o, you don't need it because you're鈥攖hat's not where you are at, you know, in your life right now. You've got the drink in the hand.鈥� In my monologue I had moments where I was very angry in it. He said, 鈥淵ou like to come at a part wearing boxing gloves.鈥� And he said, 鈥淏ut in this role, you have to fight with razor blades.鈥� I said, 鈥淥h, okay. That鈥檚 different.鈥�
The boxing gloves especially brings to mind Doll's House, where we had the set as a metaphoric boxing ring. Misery saw you onstage and you were wrestling that literally...
LM: Wrestler, boxer, and now I'm some sort of鈥encer.
Aside from A Doll鈥檚 House, you also had wild success with LadyBird. Is this all just coincidental timing?
LM: It's coincidental that I got flooded with all this great terrific writing at the same time. Coming off of these two, two-and-a-half years, just so bountiful of the parts that I was asked to interpret and material that I got to work. And the directors and the, you know, the ensembles I got to be in. Each project was just the A-Team.
