Interview: Karen Allen Directs a Gritty ASHVILLE

Karen Allen, the actress known for her blue-eyed wholesomeness in films like RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, STARMAN and ANIMAL HOUSE, is also an accomplished director, and she has turned her sights on ASHVILLE, a gritty coming-of-age play.

ASHVILLE, the second in the five-part cycle THE HILL TOWN PLAYS, written by Lucy Thurber, traces the childhood, adolescence and young adulthood of a girl trying desperately to throw off the toxic reins of her mother and free herself from the other unsavory characters who populate her life. Sixteen-year-old Celia (Mia Vallet) is determined to launch herself out of her western Massachusetts orbit in order to find a better life.

Allen distills the desperate yearnings of Celia to escape her suffocating life. Surrounded by dysfunctional adults, Celia is battered and abused both emotionally and physically by her mother (Tasha Lawrence) and her mother's boyfriend. Despite her malevolent family and neighbors, who smoke incessantly (cigarettes and joints) and pop the occasional pill, Celia remains determined to further her education and leave a dead-end town.

"It's the idea of a girl coming of age in a very, very difficult situation," said Allen. "She sees just enough beyond that world and needs to escape in order to find out who she is. It's a very universal experience in a lot of ways. I know a lot of people who have done that."

Allen cited colleagues who have relocated to New York in order to live unconventional lives. "I think in New York, especially in the art world, people have come here to become who they really are," she said.

The challenges in staging ASHVILLE included conquering the physical space as well as presenting the emotional arc, Allen said. "The initial challenge was how do we make three apartments on this New York stage? The lovely John McDermott stepped in and created these three apartments with light and a little magic that works brilliantly," she said, mentioning the production's set designer. "We have three different families in different worlds and they intersect wonderfully.

"The apartments are almost like a jigsaw puzzle the way they interact. And it was wonderful having Lucy here with us so we got the stories of those families right. We were able to ask her questions and pretty much got to know the history of the cycle - where the real dysfunction and sadness and gladness and joy and silliness and alcoholism took place," she said of the plays, which are based on Thurber's life.

"Celia is a 16-year-old girl whose mother drinks, brings men home from bars and physically fights her child," she said. "To some extent Celia learns how to protect herself, and she becomes more the parent than her mother. She's always trying to be reasonable and tries to get her mother to behave reasonably in the world so they don't get thrown out of this apartment."

Celia's determination to further her education is challenged when her 22-year-old boyfriend (Joe Tippett) urgently proposes. Her mother, of course, is in favor of the union, but Celia realizes she has to escape.

"Celia knows that she has to get out and get an education, that's the only light at the end of the tunnel," Allen said. "I have many friends who grew up in alcoholic families and I do have a clear understanding of the kind of co-dependency that goes on."

Allen had nothing but admiration and praise for the play's author and the team. "It's really, really good writing," she said. "We have wonderful actors who are happy about acting in the play.

"There's a beautiful scene where Celia is coming home and wants to do her homework and her mother keeps grabbing her things - she's compulsively needy - and she forces Celia to call a male friend. Then it escalates where her mother picks a fight.

"It's written in such a way you can see the complexity of a parent who wants to be different but is incapable," Allen said. "It's a loop of behavior - she wants to be helpful then becomes very critical. At the end of the play, Celia finally finds something that's her own. Families can be fantastic and very, very difficult. We all have a yearning to have close ties."

The dramatic fight scenes have been carefully choreographed by the fight directors (David Anzuelo and Jesse Geguzis). "Lucy feels strongly that this was the world she grew up in, and she didn't want to back away from the level of violence that was her life. She wants to keep people startled," Allen explained.

Each of the plays are unique. "It's not necessary to see them in sequence, although some people take great pleasure in seeing them that way," Allen said. "Others see the plays backwards, from the end to the beginning.

"For me, they stand on their own; they're all very different plays with themes and layers through which the plays connect with one another," she said. "I like plays that get you thinking, and I think audiences get a profound understanding of the world through these plays."

THE HILL TOWN PLAYS are being presented simultaneously across stages in Greenwich Village, under the umbrella of The Rattlestick Playwright's Theater.

ASHVILLE runs through Sept. 28 at the Cherry Lane Theatre, 38 Commerce St., Greenwich Village.

Photo Credit: Walter McBride / WM Photos