TONYS 2008 Q&A: Raul Esparza

The brilliant ensemble work of Daniel Sullivan's production of Harold Pinter's The Homecoming was one of the true rewards of this theater season. The cast brought Pinter's razor sharp classic to revelatory life, along with instilling it with a delicious dose of black humor that proved both accessible and heart breaking. The company of actors included Ian McShane, Michael McKean, Eve Best, this year's Tony nominee for Best Actress in a Play, James Frain, Gareth Saxe and Raúl Esparza, himself an honoree this year for Best Featured Actor.

Raúl Esparza burst onto Broadway with his 2000 debut as Riff-Raff in the cult hit revival of The Rocky Horror Show, but he quickly made the trip from Transsexual Transylvania to become what many consider to be the best actor of his generation. Broadway audiences found him definitively interpreting the music of Stephen Sondheim in his Tony nominated role of Bobby in Company. His inspired work in the 2005 Broadway production of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang showed he was just as comfortable playing the musical comedy lead as he was essaying a serious and wrenching role as he did in the Public's The Normal Heart. Before that he was earning the same accolades as well as the Drama Desk Award and his first Tony Award nomination performing in the Boy George musical creation Taboo, his talent also found him bringing rich emotional life to the Off Broadway production of Jonathan Larson's, tick, tick…BOOM! These are only a few of his varied credits, he displays limitless versatility in his acting and has one of the most expressive and emotional voices to be found on a stage today.

He can also be seen on television in ABC's Pushing Daisies.

BroadwayWorld.com chatted with the ever-evolving actor as he shared the surprise of being nominated this year and a small but thrilling peek at Leap of Faith, the upcoming Alan Menken musical based on the Steve Martin film about an evangelist con man that just had a workshop period where Esparza essayed the leading role.

Eddie Varley: So congratulations on your third Tony nomination.

 

Raúl Esparza: Thanks. It's a little strange, it's a little bit of an out of body experience, I didn't expect this one at all.

 

Eddie Varley: Really.

 

Raúl Esparza: Yeah, really, I don't know, uh, last year with Company I really kind of felt like it was coming, you know? And I knew, you just kind of feel it in the air and in the water, I didn't feel that at all, at all this year.

Eddie Varley: The Homecoming was such a powerful work, you all were so connected, even when no words were spoken.

Raúl Esparza: This show has gotten, we've won Outstanding Revival at the Outer Critics and we won Best Ensemble, I think for the Drama Desk, and that's the award it deserves. Six people made this show happen, and I couldn't say who really starred in it, Lenny's not really a featured role, is it Max's show? It's strange really, my performance had more to do with Eve Best or with Ian than it had to do with anything I was doing. That play, it was really such a symbiotic experience.

Eddie Varley: The play itself has such a symbiotic nature to it, how those characters are melded to each other, it's at the very core of the piece.

Raúl Esparza: Yeah, I always compare us to a school of fish, I've never worked with a group of actors where one person would just make a little adjustment and everybody would "go", but no one would talk about it. We never talked about it. To me it was one of, or maybe THE happiest professional experience I had on the stage. I loved going to work every day, no drama, no gossip, nothing but joy. I wasn't aware of the audience, and that's a new one to me. We were just in this great play, with amazing actors and you couldn't wait to see what each would bring to it, particularly Ian, you could never wait to see what Ian McShane was going to try and explore. Of course sometimes it was just because he forgot his lines, (Laughs) one day he went off on a speech about a donut, we don't know where that came from!

 

Eddie Varley: (Laughs) I wish I had seen that!

Raúl Esparza: Just trying to keep a straight face, that's another thing too, were always trying to make each other laugh. Because you can't do Pinter and not try to make each other laugh because it's (affects a grand thespian voice) "Soooo serious, it's terribly important".

 

Eddie Varley: Was that connective energy there between all of you early in the rehearsal process, did you feel it?

 

Raúl Esparza: Yeah, we were surprised by it, but Dan Sullivan managed to pull together a really great team, and we kind of felt like we worked together before, even though we hadn't. The smartest thing Dan did was we did not do any table work, we read the play twice and we got up. We didn't talk about it, we didn't analyze it, we didn't try to write a term paper about it. I was sent an essay about it late in the run, that I read, and it really screwed me up, because it's a play that you could easily go off on some sort of esoteric road on. Really all you can play is, "I'm a pimp and I'm trying, to like screw my brother's wife, you know, or I wanna make her my woman." Or you can play like, "I hate my dad". You can't play it like, "I'm the king of the forest of rape or perversion" or whatever some scholar has written.

Eddie Varley: What an inspired impulse to have so early on regarding getting it on its feet.

 

Raúl Esparza: Yes, very smart thing, because it kept us out of our heads. And the other thing that we all, we all found the play very funny. There were a lot of comics in the room, with McKean, you know, you can't, and making him laugh is such a joy. So, we all thought it was funny, and the audience, you know it seems to be what a lot of people talked about.

Eddie Varley: That humor was always apparent to me; it was always there as I watched it.

Raúl Esparza: Pinter's thing is, he'd say, "Play it, play it sharp, and there's a couple good jokes in there", and that was really like his one, his note.

 

Eddie Varley: You just surrender to that, you can't go wrong.

Raúl Esparza: And you just do that.

Eddie Varley: You've worked on classic plays and musicals, as well as created parts in bold new works, what's different about the process, or is similar as far as doing the work in some respects?

Raúl Esparza: With a piece like The Homecoming you know you have to live up to something, because there's been great actors performing it before and there a sense of what came before you. With a new piece it's intimidating because you can go anywhere and what if you miss the turn off? But, it's also very freeing because it's never existed before, and you know you're inventing. Leap of Faith in particular has some of the best music I have ever come across, I think Alan (Menken) is at the top of his game, I don't know, it's like this shaman , some Gospel man from the South, I don't know what, I don't know what he's doing but it's not Menken! You can't get to the end of the show without weeping, in joy. And joy is not something that's generally a part of life; I mean exploding joy, real joy, earned joy. I don't think I've ever played it. That kind of happiness that we all want in our lives, and that's what this thing ends up being. And it's got this sort of 'To Kill A Mockingbird' thing in there, this sort of sense of American kinda size and loss and belief and hope. And it just kinda creeps in there and it just pulls your heart and goes "Urrrrh!" And that's new for him. To do a show that's entirely about and faith, particularly the way the country is right now….

Eddie Varley: I was just going to say, perfect timing!

 

Raúl Esparza: Yeah, totally!

 

Eddie Varley: What's the next step for you and Leap of Faith?

 

Raúl Esparza: We go out of town with it, but that's not till the end of the year, not sure what city yet, possibly San Francisco or Chicago.

Eddie Varley: That's exciting news.

Raúl Esparza: I'm starting a film with Wes Craven, I play a killer, for five weeks, then in July I go back to Pushing Daisies.

 

Eddie Varley: So it's a very busy time for you, that's a great thing.

Raúl Esparza: It's very busy, and very wonderful.

 

Eddie Varley: Congratulations again, take care.

Raúl Esparza: Thank you so much.

Photo By Walter McBride/ Retna Ltd.