Interview: Chris Hutchison And Elizabeth Bunch of MISERY at Alley Theatre

Misery is a 1987 novel by Stephen King that was turned into a 1990 movie, starring James Caan and, of course, the iconic Kathy Bates, who earned an Oscar for her portrayal of Annie. Where Misery gets confusing if you talk to theater people. In 1992, one of the screenwriters, Simon Moore, adapted it for the stage in London for Sharon Gless. Then, in 2012, the other screenwriter, William Goldman, wrote another version, which hit Broadway and earned a Tony for Laurie Metcalf. This brings us to this summer, 2026, and the Alley is mounting the Goldman version, and they have cast the only two members of their company who are married. Spouses Elizabeth Bunch and Chris Hutchinson are doing the ultimate two-hander, where they fight each other for their lives. They both recently celebrated over 100 productions with the Alley. BROADWAY WORLD writer Brett Cullum got a chance to sit down and talk with the dynamic duo who are proving that Stephen King can’t wreck a marriage, and telling Elizabeth Bunch to “break a leg” is a dangerous thing!  

Brett Cullum: First up, for anybody who’s lived in a coma between 1986 and now, can you tell me what Misery is about?

Elizabeth Bunch: Chris, what do you think?

Chris Hutchinson: About? Well, there are so many works of literature, it’s about a lot of different things. There’s Stephen King’s admission that he wrote this book to write about his addiction. Of course, there’s that sort of meta-narrative, but then there’s just this tightly constructed slowly growing horror story around a writer of popular romantic novels, and his “biggest fan,” who, through a series of, strange coincidences, happens to save him from a car accident, and professes to be wanting to nurse him back to health, but then that turns into something much darker than that. So that’s my take.

Elizabeth Bunch: This was perfect!

Chris Hutchison: Thanks!

Brett Cullum: I am a big fan of Stephen King, and I would argue that a lot of his work is about addiction, and a lot of his best stuff comes from that, but this is really the only novel that I can think of that has appeared on Broadway as an adaptation. What do you think makes the story so appealing for a stage adaptation?

Elizabeth Bunch: You know, it was interesting. I was listening to a podcast that’s about film, and these two film directors are talking about the film version of Misery, and they said, "Rob Reiner worked really hard to expand it into a movie, but the whole time you’re watching this movie, you’re thinking, this is really a play.” You’ve got the perfect setup for a play because you have minimal characters in one location. And the film worked really hard to expand that into a bigger story. Bringing in outside shots, having her go into town, doing this whole introduction story about seeing the writer finishing his book at the lodge. So they really expanded it to make it a movie, but it is so well-suited to being a play on stage. And so you get closer to the book with this version, because it’s closer to what I think his original intention was. Stephen King talks about writing two different kinds of books, innies and outies, and innies are these psychological, twisted stories where it’s really about all the internal work that’s going on for these characters. So Misery is a perfect example of that. It’s Paul Sheldon’s interior dialogue that drives the book, unlike something like The Stand, or It, where it’s an outie, it’s about the supernatural, it’s about a big, expansive world. 

Brett Cullum: Then you have The Shining, and it’s an innie and an outie at the same time, which is wild, but there you are. It’s interesting because with that adaptation of Misery, they got two playwrights to write the script! But the first thing that comes to mind for me is this. ARE YOU BOTH INSANE?!??!! DOING THIS SHOW WITH YOUR SPOUSE! How in the world does that work? How does that affect you on and off stage?

Chris Hutchison: I say it a lot. Our situation would not work for everybody, for all couples, but somehow, someway, what proves to us that we’re meant for each other is that we are together all the time. Sometimes we’re in separate shows, but we’re still in the same building, doing the same thing, and we just…  I don’t know if I could say we thrive in that environment, but we certainly have done great work in that environment, and felt free with each other, and that level of trust that we have just from sharing our entire lives together, then we go out there and do the thing that we love to do and choose to do, and to get to do it together. We both feel like we sometimes get to an even greater place, or a more expansive idea of what we can do, because we’re there supporting each other so directly.

Elizabeth Bunch: Everybody always wants to know if we’re working on stuff at home, and we’re not. That also helps.

Brett Cullum: Yeah, no, I can’t imagine carrying THIS into the home. That would be wild. I can imagine your neighbors calling the police if they heard you shouting and threatening each other. Maybe this will help me wrap my head around this. How did you two meet?

Elizabeth Bunch: We met doing a show at the Guthrie Theater. We were doing Midsummer Night’s Dream. And Chris played Bottom, and I played Hermia. We didn’t get together at that point in time. We got together a few years later when we were both back in New York. But we sort of, until we got to the Alley, we had a long history of getting cast in plays together in New York and other places, but we would play characters that would never meet, or would never play opposite each other. And so we were dating, but not engaged, when the Alley hired us to play the two leads in Proof. And so that was really kind of exciting for us, for the first time, to find out what our connection would be like on stage.  

Brett Cullum: Well, it begs the question also, what plays have you done across from each other, like, apart from the ones that you’re tangential to each other.

Elizabeth Bunch: We’ve gotten lucky at this point. Orlando and Rosalind and As You Like It, we did Constellations, which was just a two-person show that was all about the genesis through the demise of a relationship that was a beautiful love story. We’ve done crazy things like Death on the Nile! We’ve played Mr. and Mrs. Cratchit with our own son as Tiny Tim. That’s a big one. A bunch of times, and with both kids.

Brett Cullum: It’s a family affair. We’ve established that. What’s the biggest challenge of this piece? Misery is pretty intense.

Chris Hutchison: When you get in front of an audience, that’s when you really figure out, okay, what is it gonna take for the next 35 performances to deliver the way we want to every night? The play is turning out to be really fun. There’s this mix of people who you can feel know the movie, maybe pretty well, or the book, and they get to enjoy revisiting it, and then there’s also people who are experiencing it for the first time. And it’s a real rollercoaster ride, and that’s fun. The biggest challenge is when those lights come up at the beginning, you are pushing a boulder up a hill. You gotta come flying out of there, but also it’s got to be this steady climb, and so I just think gauging how to build that thing! And being able to just keep something in the tank, because the play just gets crazier and crazier as you go along.

Brett Cullum: Now, Elizabeth, this is a role that, obviously, it’s won Tonys for Lori, Oscars for Kathy. So, how do you even approach this? Because it’s one of those things where so many people have this image of Kathy Bates in their mind. So, how do you approach it, and how do you make it your own?

Elizabeth Bunch: It’s very tricky as an actor. I’ve lived through this before. I’ll always remember a review that I got for a show that I did, where there’s also a film, and in the review, they said she’s doing an imitation of the film instead of her own character, which I really was like, “Thanks for saying that, I’ve never seen the film, so there’s no way I’m doing it!”  But this is so iconic, of course, I’ve seen the film. I’ve really looked at the film. I’ve done as much research on Kathy Bates as I have on Annie Wilkes in some ways, because she was a theater actress who came to this. She’s someone I so respect. I didn’t see Laurie Metcalf do it, but I’ve read a lot about it. You know, I watched the Castle Rock series when we saw Lizzie Kaplan play Annie Wilkes. I felt like I needed to arm myself with as much knowledge as anybody else who’s coming in to see the play has. And I don’t feel trapped by what I’ve learned about how other people have approached this role. I feel lifted up by that because I am my own version of Annie Wilkes, influenced by what other people have found in her, but I find her psychology so interesting, truthful, and captivating. It is just that she’s sort of at 11 all the time. I’m not doing an imitation of Kathy Bates, but I’m not ignoring choices that she made that were great, because they’re already in my vocabulary. I guess the audience will be the judge of whether I’m doing it justice, but I will say I am having the time of my life figuring it out and playing it.

Brett Cullum: As an actor, whenever I approach a show, there’s always some of it that’s me. It’s the only thing you have to work with. So, I was gonna ask, are there any parts in these two characters that mirror you two? Is there any chance that you draw on personal stuff to get the other one going, as you ramp each other up in this play?

Chris Hutchison: The way I approach working is always really trying to build off of, from me, and my experiences, and the facets of my character. You just turn up the dial on certain parts of you to help find that linking bond with the character that you’re playing. I love that Paul Sheldon is an artist because it’s really fun. I think some of my favorite parts of the show are when in spite of the terrible, dire situation he’s in, he’s still a writer, and she doesn’t like this new book he’s written. She thinks it’s trash, and she’s his biggest fan! It’s so enjoyable to feel wounded. I’m in this terrible situation, but I feel hurt that this psychopath doesn’t like my book. That’s very much, sort of how we roll, through life as artists. We’re very sensitive, and criticism hurts, and you want what you put out there to be loved as much as you love it. That’s just one of many things. I’m really finding him a real joy to play, and finding kind of a lot of connections with Paul Sheldon.

Elizabeth Bunch: I’m afraid to answer the question.

Brett Cullum: [shifting uncomfortably as Elizabeth glares] Well, I’m excited to see the two of you in it. I just wish they had made it your 100th show together, but I know the timing doesn’t always work and all that, so I’m considering this the celebration. A celebration of your marriage and career with one of you torturing the other in every way imaginable! Break legs. Wait.. am I allowed to say that for this one?  

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