InDepth InterView: Richard Thomas

Today, we are featuring an exclusive conversation with one of the most accomplished and respected stage and television actors of his generation, showing solid proof that a child actor can go on to have a wildly successful career as an adult onstage and onscreen if he has the talent to go with it - the star of The Public Theater's new production of William Shakespeare's TIMON OF ATHENS, Richard Thomas. From the seventies TV smash THE WALTONS to Stephen King's IT and NIGHTMARES & DREAMSCAPES in the 90s and 00s, to Edward Albee's TINY ALICE and David Mamet‘s RACE onstage recently, we touch upon many of the memorable roles that have made Richard Thomas a household name over the course of his forty years in show business. Also, we discuss what the work of William Shakespeare means not only to Thomas and those involved with this avant garde production of the problematic play, but also the pertinent message the show carries with it in these tumultuous times we live in today and what we can learn from it. Be sure to stay tuned to BroadwayWorld because next week we will be featuring the director of this production of TIMON OF ATHENS, Mr. Barry Edelstein. This is the inaugural Public LAB SHAKESPEARE production and tickets and information are availible at the Public's official website.

Kings & Clowns

PC: So many people first became aware of you on THE WALTONS, but that was before my time. I'm 26, so the first I remember seeing you was in the miniseries version of Stephen King's IT - and I will never forget IT or you in it!

RT: Yeah! That's right! Your generation's Richard Thomas connection is definitely IT.

PC: That film has had such a terrifying impact on a whole generation - a TV film, no less. People still talk about it to this day.

RT: I loved doing that picture. It was a wonderful, wonderful experience to shoot it. A lot of us were friends already when we came together to make the picture, so I was very close to many of the cast-members - I was very close to John Ritter and Richard Masur, and I had worked with Annette O'Toole and Dennis Christopher. We were friends, so it was really terrific all-around.

PC: What's also great is that you all went back and recorded the commentary together for the DVD release a few years ago.

RT: Yeah! That's right. I'm glad you listened to it - or, someone did! (Laughs.)

PC: What was the experience like revisiting and rewatching it after a number of years - and, I'll open that up to all your past performances? I mean, do you ever watch reruns of THE WALTONS at 2 AM?

RT: Well, it's interesting to do that - to go back. I'm one of those weird people that tends to not do the extras and listen to the commentaries and stuff on movies, although I do think they are fascinating and interesting - I'm just so worried that years later I wouldn't remember anything!

PC: What is the process like creating a commentary for a DVD?

RT: They help you when you go in the room to do it, they ask you questions and they prod you and they try to help you open the can so you can almost free-associate with what is going on and what you remember while you watch the picture. (Pause.) It's very interesting to do and I'm glad I did them - I've done a few. But, with IT, that was a particular pleasure to record.

PC: Speaking of your Stephen King-related work, I thought NIGHTMARES & DREAMSCAPES was a fantastic series and your episode was particularly unforgettable.

RT: Yeah! That was a really good miniseries. Everything about that was great, except they waited until I was over-fifty to ask me to take my clothes off! (Laughs.) But, I had a really good time doing that.

PC: What did you think of the final product? Were you happy with your work in it?

RT: I thought it was excellent. I think there should be more anthology series like that on television. I think that that is a wonderful format - you know, having individual stories over a period of weeks that are thematically connected in terms of genre - there's not enough of that out there.

PC: And Stephen King has just published a new collection of short stories that have gotten some of his strongest reviews ever, so the time is right!

RT: Indeed. So, I'm sure they'll do some more!

PC: Is there a Stephen King story you'd like to do on film in the future?

RT: You know, I love the ones that I've gotten to do. I think the one I did in NIGHTMARES & DREAMSCAPES was so deliciously funny and so ghoulishly hilarious, so, all in all, I am very happy with my Stephen King work.

PC: As you should be! I hope there's a role for you in Spielberg's TV version of King's UNDER THE DOME!

RT: (Laughs.) Me, too!

PC: You have actually starred in my favorite modern play, a true obscurity - TINY ALICE by Edward Albee. I interviewed fight director BH Barry extensively for the Tony Awards last year and we discussed the production you did together at the Hartford Stage. Could you give me your impressions of the production and your feelings about the play?

RT: Absolutely! That's amazing that you know that play - let alone love it. A lot of people don't know it and a lot of people just don't get it. (Pause.) You know, we had a great experience doing it. It was one of my many wonderful experiences with Mark Lamos, who is a director I have worked with a lot; I did HAMLET for him and RICHARD III for him and PEER GYNT for him and AS YOU LIKE IT in the Park for him. I have done a lot of work with Mark. TINY ALICE was just an extraordinary thing.

PC: How did that production come about?

RT: It's a play that Edward wanted to have done again and he wondered if I would do it. I mean, I guess he felt I was just right for Brother Julian and I think he was right that it was good casting for the role. So, Mark called me and said, "Edward wants to do TINY ALICE if you'll do it." And, I said, "Well, I'll only do it if you direct it." So, that's how we got into it. It was a fabulous experience and we had a wonderful cast of actors. We did very well in Hartford and then we moved it to New York, to Second Stage, and it had a fine production there.

PC: What struck you most about the play at first?

RT: Brother Julian is just such a great role and the speeches in that play are so beautiful and the language is just extraordinary. It's Albee at his most arcane; and, yet, it's wildly entertaining. It's sort of like a metaphysical noir story, you know?

 

PC: Metaphysical is the operative term there, I think.

RT: Yes, it's very metaphysical, but it's also like a sting movie. It's like a kind of noir-ish caper film where the innocent gets trapped in a situation where his innocence basically trips him up and he is the sucker - the fall guy - for these people who are doing this dirty deal with the Church. I mean, you could look at it as a real sort of 50s caper film - you really could. It's a swindle.

PC: How did you deal with the religious aspects of it?

RT: It's absolutely a story about God and our relationship to how we make God out of our desire not to be left alone - and, also, how our parental figures play into that. It's a very, very interesting play. Then, there is Edward's personal history - although I am not one to go and look too deeply into autobiographical readings of fictional work - and how his childhood and being an adopted kid played into it. It's very much a play about being seduced and abandoned.

PC: In the destructive way only a parent could enact. What was your favorite memory doing that production?

RT: I have to say that probably the most satisfying evening doing that show was when Irene Worth came to the theater.

PC: No way - the original Alice on Broadway! What did she say?

RT: She came backstage after the show and said, "I sure wish we had seen you guys before we did our production because you made it all so clear!" (Laughs.)

PC: The original was supposedly pretty impenetrable.

RT: Also, you have to remember that the play was so shocking when it was first done. People just didn't know what to make of it. But, now that we've caught up with the play in terms of not being shocked by these things, people were able to take it a little bit less as a shocker and really get a little closer to the subject matter, I think.

PC: Did you feel any pressure taking on a role originated by the great John Gielgud?

RT: No, I never worry about that stuff at all. We talked about it. I actually wrote him a letter about it because I had worked with him in a television film called THE MASTER OF BALLANTRAE and we corresponded about it.

PC: What did he say?

RT: Well, actually, he said that he never understood it and never had any idea of what it was really about. (Big Laugh.)

PC: It's an enigma.

RT: He was very, very funny about it. And, as far as taking on one of his roles, I had already played Hamlet, which is a Gielgud role, so I figured I've already arrived on his territory, so what the hell?

PC: Did you do the gigantic, multi-page final monologue in that production of the play?

RT: Yeah, I did the whole thing!

PC: Wow! That's impressive. It's near-impossible to do perfectly.

RT: As I'm sure you know, they had cut it in the original production because Gielgud had begged them to cut it, so the full monologue as it was written by Edward was never heard on Broadway. So, I said, "I want you to do me a favor: I want you to let me do the whole thing so you can sit in the audience in the theater and see and hear it and you can experience the whole thing - and the audience's reaction to it - uncut. And, then, if you have work to do on it then don't just cut it, work on it!" So, I did the whole thing for several shows and Edward watched it and watched it and then he said, "Well, John was right - it's too long! Let me get in here and work on it."

PC: How lucky to have the author in the house.

RT: He did quite a bit of rewriting on the last monologue - not cutting, but actual rewriting. He did a bit of rewriting on the play, as well, which was very exciting, too.

PC: Oh, really? What did he change/add?

RT: It was mostly in the last act in the exchanges between the Butler and the Lawyer, and the group passages in the last part of the play. Very interesting to watch him work. It was all pacing and clarity things and he made the play even better.

PC: With an Albee play one word could change the whole meaning.

RT: Which is always the case in a language play, and, as you know, Albee is a language writer. Every word matters.

PC: Edward has approached Kathleen Turner about taking on the title role in TINY ALICE, she told me, and she would be perfect opposite you in it, I think. Would you consider it?

RT: Oh, I think Kathleen would be just wonderful. She would be so terrific in it. I think that she is very good for any Albee. A real Albee player, I think.

PC: Another participant in this column recently did a film with you - Liev Schreiber and TAKING WOODSTOCK, directed by Ang Lee. What was it like working with Liev? Had you ever done a play together before?

RT: No, we've never done a show together - just that movie - and we never knew each other before the movie. We were just sort of mutual admirers - I certainly admire him. We enjoyed being together and horsing around on the set of that movie. That was lots of fun - TAKING WOODSTOCK was just plain fun.

PC: So, it was a great vibe on set?

RT: Oh, yeah! You have to remember that I was one of the few people on that set old enough to have been eighteen years old when Woodstock happened, and, even though I wasn't there, we all feel like we were there if you were in my generation.

PC: Whether through sheer osmosis or otherwise!

RT: Right. (Laughs.)

PC: What a great cast in that film - Jonathan Groff, as well.

RT: Oh, Jonathan is so terrific and he's such a sweet, dear man.

PC: Have you seen him on GLEE?

RT: No, I actually haven't seen GLEE yet.

PC: It's the biggest theatre connection, extending nationwide, we have in entertainment these days - to millions of households each week.

RT: I know! It's so great what it has done and what it is doing for the theatre. I know all about the show, but I haven't sat down and watched it like I probably should. You know, I was doing RACE for so long and then I took a vacation and then I went up and made this movie. Then, I had my hips replaced in November and I've been kind of lying low. Now, I am in rehearsal with this huge Shakespeare part so I haven't been putting any energy into other media, really. (Laughs.)

PC: Since you mentioned RACE, tell me about doing Mamet on Broadway and what you think about that play and its ultimate meaning. You were truly marvelous in it.

RT: Thank you. It was a joy from the first day of rehearsal to the day we closed. (Pause.) I loved every single minute of doing that show. I loved the play. I loved the role. I loved being in the room with Mamet as a director - he is the most generous, funny, delightful person to work for every day. We were all a little intimidated and we didn't know what to expect because none of us had worked for him before and we didn't know what that was going to be like and he just immediately, first day, put us all at ease. It was a pleasure to be in the room with him, beginning to end. Then, we had the great satisfaction of having it, first, recoup and, then, be the longest-running new play of the season. So, it was really a complete joy.

PC: Did you find that it was too edgy or controversial for some audiences?

RT: Well, it certainly wasn't everyone's dish of tea, but, then again, that's what David is about - David is not out to please everybody.

PC: What was your favorite line to perform every night?

RT: Well, I got to say one "f*ck," so that was probably the coolest. (Laughs.) Of all my lines, I got to finally say "f*ck" in a Mamet play on Broadway, so that made me very happy.

PC: What's the line?

RT: (Laughs. Accusatory Voice.) "I don't have to f*cking defend myself to you!" I'm not sure that's the best line in the play, but it was my one Mamet "f*ck," so I'll never forget it.

PC: My favorite Mamet line is "when the fit hits the sham."

RT: (Laughs.) You know, one of my favorite things about that role was that he was the one character who didn't curse at all over the course of the play and then he just came out with this. I had such a good time doing it every night.

PC: I was so surprised to see that TIMON OF ATHENS was going to be done at the Public, it's done about as much as CORIOLANUS, written in the same year or so, which is pretty much never (the 1996 revival notwithstanding).

RT: CORIOLANUS isn't done nearly enough and neither is TIMON. They're both tough nuts to crack - they're not romantic and they are very dark and unforgiving plays, in a lot of ways. But, this is the perfect time in modern history for us to do TIMON OF ATHENS.

PC: I totally agree. Could you elaborate for those who may be less familiar with the play?

RT: The subject matter of this play has so much to say to the times that we live in - in terms of society and money and what money does for you; and, what it doesn't do for you, and what it's like when you have it and what it's like when you lose it; and, what your position in society is going to be vis-à-vis your wealth and how interpersonal relationships are effected by the flow of cash. It's a very, very interesting play to do right now. I know Oskar Eustis and Barry Edelstein wanted to do it for many of those reasons. Barry is a real Shakespearean and he really, really knows his stuff so I am in great hands with him.

PC: Which is necessary to do a successful production of this problematic play. Tell me about working with Barry on this production and honing - and owning - the material in rehearsal.

RT: Well, you and I know the textual issues around TIMON - we know that it may be unfinished and it may have never been performed at the Globe and it may have even been abandoned. I mean, what was Shakespeare's relationship to John Middleton and how much did he actually contribute to it?

PC: It was written to entertain at inns, originally, I believe.

RT: Right. It's a real anomaly of a play in a lot of senses.

PC: What does the play mean to you? How would you compare it to other Shakespeare?

RT: Oh, for me, the play has so much power in it and so much beautiful language. It is so different from other Shakespeare plays, and it's so stark. It's akin to LEAR and AS YOU LIKE IT, in that you have people who leave the city. In LEAR, you have someone who is sort of pushed out into the world, out of the city and into nature, and in TIMON you have someone who exiles himself - so there were major connections between LEAR and TIMON.

PC: It's almost like a proto-type - or a post-type.

RT: Definitely. But, TIMON is even bleaker than LEAR. There is no resolution in TIMON as there is in LEAR with Cordelia. There is no familial story - everyone is alone in this play. At first, you get the feeling that everyone is held together, but then you discover they are just held together by money; everyone is fundamentally alone. It has a lot of qualities that echo in a lot of twentieth century plays like Beckett and it can be a very alienating play, but I don't think that is the way we are doing it in this production.

PC: Brecht cited TIMON as his favorite Shakespeare play, I've read.

RT: They love it, those modernists! You know, this is only the third production in New York in forty years. They do it in Europe all the time! They love it in Europe.

PC: Why do you think that is?

RT: Because of precisely what we are talking about: Timon is an alienating character. He is also an alienated character. There is a difference.

PC: Huge difference - especially in this play.

RT: It's very unlike any other Shakespeare. I frankly think that the Middleton collaboration is brilliant in this play. The city scenes and the social scenes have such satire. I think it's one of Shakespeare's best collaborations.

PC: It's so interesting to hear you give credit where credit is due, since so often people, even actors and directors, forget that TIMON - like PERICLES - has two authors. Middleton wrote at least ¼ of it.

RT: And the Middleton writing is very good. What Barry's done is he has created a wonderful new version of the play - he hasn't done any damage or changed what happens in the play, but he's given it a more compelling and clear through line and reordered and restructured some things. All of that makes it a hell of a lot easier for me, because, you know, the thing that every actor faces with TIMON is, "Oh my God. If I go out there and just play a series of lags, they are just not going to give a sh*t after twenty minutes. How do I keep the audience's sensibilities connected to the play but still convey all the negative stuff that this character has to convey?" Furthermore, how do you do that without it being one-note and just yelling your way through it? These are the challenges an actor faces when taking on this particular part.

PC: What do you think the Biblical allusions of the play are and what do they represent? There's certainly a last supper scene.

RT: Totally. There is a lot of stuff in TIMON that resonates. He is very much a sacrificial character. You know, in his first banquet scene he says things about the man sitting next to him tonight being the most likely to kill him tomorrow - which is clearly a reference to Judas at the last supper. And, the idea of "I've never seen so many men dipping their meat in one man's blood." Then, there's the whole sacrificial thing when he has been accosted by his debtors and he says, "Cut my heart and tell out my blood. Tear me, take me...." I mean, "Tear me, take me?" If that's not mass, I don't know what is. He offers himself sacrificially.

PC: What about the structure of the piece? It's mind-blowing if you really analyze it, I've found.

RT: One of the really fascinating things about that is I found that in the second half of the play almost every scene is a darker inversion of a scene from the first half. There are lots of examples of that. There are also lots of moments of a contaminated version of sacred rights that has come out of the materialism and greed of these people. It's also very much a play about men. There is no romance and there aren't even any women of significance in the play besides Mother Earth in the second half of the play.

PC: Why do you think that is? What were Shakespeare and Middleton trying to say?

RT: I think it is very clear that this is a world that men have created. All references to women are as prostitutes - and, in our production, we don't have them onstage. It's an all-male production. I mean, there would have been a riot in Shakespeare's time if he didn't get the boy actors onstage, but this is now. (Laughs.) It's very much a world created by men, and women have been contaminated by them. Because women have no power in that world, they have a venality that seems to be the only way they can survive based on the way this world has been set up by the men. It's very clearly the most male of all his plays.

PC: Brecht's A MAN'S A MAN actually references TIMON in this sense - and with good reason. Interesting.

RT: This production will make those connections even more clear.

PC: It's sort of like Shakespeare's GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS, then, in this production.

RT: (Laughs.) Very much so. It really is. It's all about transactions - very much like in David's plays.

PC: What Shakespeare roles are in your future? THE WINTER'S TALE?

RT: Well, I have five daughters - three biological - so a man with that many daughters just has to play Lear.

PC: Of course. Others?

RT: Having had teenage daughters, I really need to play Prospero [in THE TEMPEST]. I'd love to do Leontes [in THE WINTER'S TALE]. (Pause.) You know, I always wanted to play Iago [in OTHELLO], but what it comes down to is whether there is a director who thinks that that is right for me. I look forward to talking to Barry about parts and working with him. I'd love to know what he feels - he's said to me that I am a natural Brutus [in JULIUS CAESER] and I should play him. The nice thing about it is that at my age I am getting older but I am still right for most of the great parts - I am still right for Timon and Leontes and Brutus - and, then, looking ahead, there are some great older characters that I'd love to do.

PC: CORIOLANUS has two great male leads, as well.

RT: That's true, but Iago is the one that I really want to do before it's too late. I'll have time for the others later.

PC: What about Falstaff someday?

RT: Well, you know, that's just such a fabulous, great part. I freaking love Falstaff.

PC: Which play that he appears in would you want to do?

RT: Well, I'm sure I have the comic gifts for his part in MERRY WIVES, but certainly the HENRYs are great.

PC: What's next?

RT: (Laughs.) I don't know! I have a movie coming out on the Hallmark Channel in March called NOW & THEN. So, that's happening, but besides that and TIMON - who knows? Prudential keeps me pretty busy.

PC: That's your voice on all those Prudential commercials?

RT: That's me! (Pause.) You know, I never know what will pop up. I knew in September I was going to do this now. It's the actor's life - you never know what tomorrow will bring.

PC: You've done Stephen King, Mamet, Shakespeare and Albee all in the last five years. You've run the gamut!

RT: It's crazy, right? I feel very lucky about all that. I've been able to do work of a lot of writers and playwrights that I really love, living and dead - in addition to those you mentioned, Terrance McNally is another playwright whose work I love doing. To have worked with Lanford Wilson and Terrance and David and also all the dead guys - I'm really lucky.

PC: You've been at it for a long time - almost fifty years!

RT: Since I was a zygote, it seems. (Laughs.)

PC: What authors do you want to do in the future?

RT: I haven't done enough Chekov. I've only done one Chekov, but now at my age there are a lot of interesting roles of his to play. I don't know why more Chekov hasn't really come my way, but I am conscious that he has kind of been missing from my career.

PC: The new THREE SISTERS with Maggie Gyllenhaal is quite revolutionary and amazing.

RT: Oh, that's just great. Austin Pendleton [the director] can be very, very good.

PC: Define collaboration.

RT: (Pause.) Well, collaboration is, essentially, working together. If people work together in an open way with porous boundaries - that is, if they listen to each other and really talk to each other - then they are bound to trade ideas that are mutual to each other and be influenced by each other. That mutual influence and open system of working creates collaboration. You know, we all collaborate daily on getting through life. If one person is a closed system and not open, then collaboration is difficult; when people are open and there is a free exchange, then collaboration is inevitable.

PC: If you are considering roles in the future, Albee's newest play ME, MYSELF & I has a fabulous role in it called The Man, played by Brian Murray in the off-Broadway production.

RT: I actually don't know that play yet, but Brian [Murray] and I have done Shakespeare together. I will definitely check it out now, though!

PC: I so appreciate this today, Richard. You always do amazing work and I can't wait to see what you do next!

RT: You were seriously prepared, kiddo, and I really respect that! This will really help us out and we all appreciate it! Have a great one. Take care!