BWW Interviews: Raul Esparza - Learning How to WHISTLE

"What attracted you to Anyone Can Whistle?" I begin my conversation with Raúl Esparza, who will make his Encores! debut this week playing Hapgood in the legendary flop. He answers with a single word: "Sondheim."

Now, Esparza is no stranger to Stephen Sondheim's work. He has played George Seurat, Charley Kringas and, perhaps most notably, Bobby in the 2006 Broadway revival of Company. As such, my eyebrows raise (just a little) at his response, and I ask if there's another reason.

"Other than Sondheim?" he laughs "Can't think of any other reason to do it!" After numerous Tony nominations and reaching the highest strata of Broadway leading men, he is still eager to take part in a Sondheim musical-even just for a weekend. "I drink the Kool-Aid, where he's concerned," Esparza continues. "I feel like everything is worth playing around with. Being a part of, if you get a chance to."

Since Anyone Can Whistle never achieved the success of Sweeney Todd, Sunday in the Park with George, Company or even the cult appeal of Merrily We Roll Along, the chance to play the enigmatic Hapgood was also a rare opportunity. "He's an everyman character who's got a great sense of humor," Esparza says. "And it's very much of that era; it's very '60s [in terms of] its philosophy and its energy and tone."

Anyone Can Whistle is Esparza's Encores! debut, and the rushed process of creating the production is decidedly different from the lengthy process of creating a role for a longer run. "It's tricky with the Encores! concerts, of course, to do something with them because you come at them very quickly, and this is my frst time doing Encores! so I didn't realize how fast this whole process was," he says. "I think you make instant choices and you sort of run with it. Sometimes, you do really, really great work like that. Sometimes you really blow it. So I don't know what's going to happen on the other side. I haven't made any decisions or choices yet about it. I wanted to see what we could find together."

On the other hand, that sense of spontaneity suits his style of developing a character. "I have  found, as an actor, that I tend to think too much and...sometimes if I think less, if I just let it be, interesting things will happen. Just kind of go by instinct. I'm looking forward to seeing where that takes us as a cast, 'cause you just can't plan ahead too much." Still, before rehearsals even begin, Esparza has an idea of how he would like Hapgood to be. "I would like the character certainly to feel fun and interesting and [be] a charming leading man-and also, he's got a very wacky sort of edge to him, too, so I hope I can just live up to what's already there."

While he enjoys developing characters by instinct, Esparza also understands the value of preparing for a role. "I was an English major in school, and I love research," he says. "I would do so much work beforehand to make decisions." But after working with John Doyle on Company, he developed a different approach to developing a character. "You know the rules of the game, and you just get there and let the other actors, who are probably better than you, anyway, help you figure it out," he says, without a trace of false humility. "There's nothing I can come up that is going to be anywhere near as good as what [costars] Donna [Murphy] and Sutton [Foster] will come up with. So my job is to respond to them as much as I can."

As he has grown as an actor, learning from each production, he has found a comfortable method for creating a character. "I listen more, and I don't feel so much like I have to prove things to the audience," he says quietly, carefully choosing each word. "Some little part, some story-telling part of me wants to be sure that the audience always gets the story. You know, really landing on a moment, really landing on some energy. Tipping the scales so that it's really clear to the audience what's happening. I trust more that they'll get it. And I don't need to do much. I've always had a lot of energy going into shows and numbers and that's probably one of my strengths as an actor is that kind of passion and intensity that can come through but there's more colors than that. So I think it's led me to find passion and intensity without pushing. And it's led me to not plan quite so much, so every performance can be very different. 

"I've also been really blessed that since Company, every show I've done, I've been surrounded by some of the best actors in New York City," he adds. "You don't have to do very much when you're working with the best... So you just watch them and try to give back what they're giving you, as we do in life. It just gets you out of your head. So I think that's changed a bit. Sometimes I wish I was still doing some of that cannonball kind of stuff that I loved to do when I started here. But, I think now I find places for it instead of assuming that I have to tip the scales all the time. Everything doesn't need to be a showstopper."

Trying not to be a showstopper would probably work well in a piece like Anyone Can Whistle. "I think the show has so many points to make, which may have been one of the reasons why it didn't sort of do so well," he says diplomatically, pointing out all the different angles and aspects of the musical. "When they wrote this, I think they were showing off a little bit. It is so, like, 'And look what I can do.' And there's, like, 30 different scenes going on at once." Some of those scenes have to do with the arms race. Some of it has to do with economic depression, and some of it has to do with unemployment. "Some of it has to do with looking for a leader to guide you out of hopelessness, and that everything will change now that this leader is here. Some of it has to do with politicians who are losers and liars and totally corrupt, but nobody sees through it. Some of it has to do with the way that politics will find a scapegoat, even though that's not the reason things went wrong. Some of it even has to do with spirituality and religion. And I think that all of those things are kind of buzzing in our zeitgeist these days-I've never used that word in a sentence," he adds, and quickly gets back to the point. "-Just kind of buzzing around us in this atmosphere right now."

Even with such a complicated musical comedy, Esparza feels that Anyone Can Whistle can work in new millennium. "I think these things will kind of vibrate all by themselves, if we just do the show clean and funny. I don't think we can make all 30 points," he acknowledges. "It's so much of its era that a lot of that stuff, you assume people are not going to relate to." But, he says, aspects of the script evoke contemporary concerns and issues. "I think trying to be relevant with any kind of show is an ugly word to me," he adds. "I feel like shows speak for themselves, and if you do them well, you let the audience figure it out and they'll make the connection...But it is, you know, a very confusing script. It really doesn't make a lot of sense. And the songs are really funny and beautiful, but the script is really weird. I can't say what will come out the other end. I just hope we're entertaining. But it's a weird one. It's still like a '60s happening, like, 'Whoa! Okay dude.' This is pretty strange."

Being of its time, however, is one thing makes Anyone Can Whistle special-not only as symbolic of the 1960s, but as the beginning of a new era in Sondheim's career. The show premiered in 1964, the same year Beatlemania hit America and ushered in a new era not only of music, but of seeing the world. Coincidentally, or perhaps not, Sondheim's next solo musical after Anyone Can Whistle was in the year the Beatles broke up, when Company solidified his status as a major force of the American musical theater. "He wrote this, it was a flop, and then he wrote Company," Esparza points out. "The Beatles came in, and everything changed. But he doesn't, really; he doesn't write during that period on Broadway. He comes in at the end of it and ushers in something else with Company. It's really interesting. So this is the edge of what's starting the buzz in the '60s. Kennedy's just been shot a few months earlier. Everything's beginning to change, and the play's boiling over with all of that energy. And then he doesn't write about it. But he writes about the other side of it once Company starts. It's really interesting, and this couldn't be more different from A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum he wrote just before this. And here it's like a totally different man is writing in a completely original voice. I think that's the greatest thing audiences will see. This is a great score. And it's full-fledged Sondheim, full of all kinds of..." He breaks off, thinking of the right words. "It's a little messier than what we're used to from Sondheim. There's so much going on, and I think that's great. Very lush, emotional music, too. Beautiful, beautiful stuff, and then really complicated stuff, too. It's like, it's all there. He just hasn't wrapped up the package yet. He hasn't polished it the way he does later. And I think that's one of the best things about hearing the score in Encores!, is that you get to hear him raw, working it out. That has value, especially for people who love his music."

Esparza has become famous for giving fresh life to iconic theatrical roles, from Seurat to Bobby to the Emcee to Duke Orsino in Twelfth Night to Charlie Fox in Speed-the-Plow. Recreating a role, he says, has different challenges from creating a character from scratch. "When you're recreating a role, there's a blueprint that you can refer to, which in a way makes it slightly easier. Because someone's been there before, so you have a sense of where you're headed with it. It also makes it difficult as well, because someone's been there before, so you have to live up to something," he adds. "If the role is particularly associated with an actor or is famous for some reason, you assume it will be because it's being revived for some reason. And I've been blessed to do some pretty good stuff. But I do try to treat a revival the way I would a new piece, in that I don't go watch other people's performances and I don't try to read too much about what other people have done."

 A new show, however, has so many possibilities. "You don't know what the show is, you don't know what it will be, you don't know who this person will turn out to be until it's done," he says eagerly, picking up speed. "It just keeps changing, and you are bringing more and more of yourself every time to it, and offering up ideas and those ideas kind of bubble together and create the whole thing and no one's ever done it before and it has a life that goes on. And that's thrilling. I would say in that case, I tend to really burst with ideas about possibilities and bring them in every day and try anything and everything." He is still up for experimenting with a revival, of course: "There were things I did in the first preview of Speed-the-Plow, for instance, that were never seen in front of an audience again, because I knew what this guy needed to be. With a new play, however, that stuff may live a little longer, and you'll find ways to finesse it and it'll become part of the character...or not. You can just throw it away later. So that's the difference, I think: Using that blueprint to guide you can be both exciting and also a little handcuff-y, whereas in a new piece, you don't have that at all. Which also means you can totally blow it and it'll all be your fault."

I ask Esparza what he feels his greatest challenge as an actor has been, and he pauses again for a long moment before answering. "I think the greatest challenge as an actor is believing you can do it, even when people say you can't," he muses. "There's a lot of criticism that comes our way, and a lot of painful nonsense that gets thrown at you. And you're aware of it all the time, whether it's from other professionals or from critics or from whatever sources. Online is like a wasp's nest sometimes. And over the years, I've found you have to take that stuff in and you have to figure out a way to survive it. And it becomes, sometimes, very difficult [to believe] that you're going to be okay and that you're going to make it and that anybody is going to give you an opportunity. That's the hardest thing about it.

"I think the greatest challenge for me is not losing faith in myself, finding some way to trust that my best will be good enough," he continues. "And up or down, you just keep going, don't sit back, don't rest on your success and don't assume that if things aren't going well-or you haven't succeeded at something-that it will always be like that. I think it's true of all actors that a great deal of success in this career comes from listening to your own voice, that own little tiny voice that you have inside, which I'm sure is true of everybody in every career is to try to succeed that says, 'Yeah, yeah everybody says blah, blah, blah,' or 'I suck,' or this, or that, and things aren't going to work out, but I believe in myself. It's going to be okay."

In other words-everybody says "don't?"

He laughs. "Yeah, everybody says don't, exactly. And I say do. But, you know, it's really hard, because... I don't about you, but people who try to be creative or write or act or anything, we assume for a while that everybody else knows better. Because it seems almost arrogant to put ourselves out there with these things we've created. You know, what right do we have? So somebody comes along and says, 'You're junk.' That's easier to believe than when someone comes along and says, 'You're great.' So you assume that might not be the case. So, I think that might have been my greatest challenge, is taking all of that in and learning how to process it and still keeping going, in the most general way. And I would say that overcoming that is probably the greatest triumph.

"But the other thing I think I've really been blessed with is the ability to be an actor who gets to do all kinds of things here, that I've been able to get through the fear and do a play," he adds. "Get through the fear and do a small musical off-Broadway. Get through the fear and do a great big musical or whatever it is on Broadway, or get through that and be on a TV series. And that every character I've played has been so different from the last one. That even though I thought when I start each new thing, I think, 'Boy, I suck,' and with the first reading of every show, I'm like, 'They're going to fire me by the end of today.' But I know that most actors feel that way." By the end of rehearsals, though, the feeling is 180 degrees away from that insecurity. "They've all been so different, and even though I was afraid at first that I had no idea what I was doing, by the end I got to do something so different from the thing I just did...And that's been such a huge blessing because it doesn't generally happen. I don't know a lot of actors who get that opportunity. I feel so grateful for that, in the big scheme of things here. To have been allowed to play so many different kinds of roles and to have been able to do it in both plays and musicals. I think that's incredible and I don't take that for granted. You could easily get pigeon-holed here."

Photo Credit (top): Joan Marcus