Becoming Alma: Mary Bacon On Diving Into Williams

  Actress Mary Bacon is currently starring as Alma Winemiller in TACT's production of the Tennessee Williams masterpiece, Eccentricities of a Nightingale- the first time the production has been performed in New York in thirty years. Suppressed by her joyless father and ostracized by the community for her artistic temperament, Alma finds solace in her music — and in the secret lifelong love she has for the boy-next-door, turned handsome grown-up, Dr. John Buchanan.  Driven by her desire for truth and beauty, Alma finally confesses her longing to John and what emerges is one of the theatre's most startlingly modern and complex love stories. Here, Bacon talks to BWW about living in the world of Williams and how she embraced Alma by finding parts of herself in this facinating character.

Faetra Petillo: How did you first start acting?

Mary Bacon: I started out in high school—it's actually a really funny story—I came from a big Catholic family and there was this Catholic theater group called The Original Scene in Denver, Colorado. All of my brothers were part of it and I went to hang out with them.  The priest would say mass on stage before the show, so I was like, 'Wow! Catholicism isn't so bad!' (laughs). And then I went to this great performing arts camp called Perry Mansfield.  But that was another moment and place that I realized this is something you can work out rather then it just being fun. Then I went to Carnegie Mellon and of course, it went from there…

FP: What was the first show you did in New York?

MB: My first show out of Carnegie Mellon was Young Abe Lincoln which TheaterWorks produces now. David Beech, who just did this wonderful turn in Opus this year, was directing. Everyone in the cast was from Boston Conservatory. That's how I got my equity card. Then the second thing I got was the understudy in Arcadia (Broadway, Spring 1995). That's kind of how it started. 

FP: You just came from doing Rock N Roll by Tom Stoppard on Broadway. What do you find the advantage is in doing a show Off-Broadway?

MB: What has been really wonderful about this experience is that it is not about your recognition, it becomes purely about showing this great work. Also the director, Jenn Thomson, is fine. I've worked with great directors and not so great directors, and she is just one of the best I have ever worked with.  I'm in awe of the way she's handled this material. I know how directors approach actors and the best ones I have worked with say, "This is where I want you to go and you can absolutely go there." If that person sees it in them then they can see it in themselves and she is like that. She is very smart about this play. She would say "The words do it for you. Just say it and it will happen"

FP: How did you get involved with TACT?

MB: Between acting gigs I like to stay connected and awhile ago TACT was doing these concert performances in the style of a staged reading. You work on the play for two weeks and in some ways you can get to know it really well and then you present it with costumes and everything. They have a huge subscribership and it was really exciting. After that they asked me to be part of the company. Recently they started doing full productions and this was actually the first production I was able to be a part of.

FP: This is the later version of Summer and Smoke. Being familiar with Summer and Smoke I came into the play expecting to see something similar, only to find the characters to be totally different… did you find this to be the case?

MB: They are like two different plays. I re-read Summer and Smoke when I got this part and I thought the characters are coming from such different places. John is not a rake in this play, at best he's emotionally unavailable but you see why when you look at the society they live in. When I think about it, I really want to know who this person is outside of the town. I think he's probably his true self outside of the play when he's working in Cuba. Same thing goes for Alma, except she doesn't have the luxury of leaving the town- but once she breaks free of some of it and you see her at the end there is such a transformation. She is really a woman at the end of the play, not that she isn't grown in the beginning, but there is something very different about her in the end.  I think this version of the story is more complicated.

In Summer and Smoke she's always trying to correct him, and they are both trying to change each other. In this play once they get alone they get very real. They talk about things like God, and science, and their work. They have a real connection in this play—they are soul mates. And you don't always marry your soul mate- you don't always end up with the person who has changed you the most.  That's a very hard idea for us to accept. In fact, I would read it over and over again and I would call Jen and ask, "What is his problem? Why don't they end up together?" And she said something very interesting, she said, "She's more evolved then he is."

FP: How long did you have to rehearse?

MB: We rehearsed a good five weeks, which was great, but it wasn't always full days, usually only four to six hours a day. But having that amount of time was good. I was terrified when I looked at the script I thought 'how am I going to learn this?' and I never worry about lines usually. I think once you figure out what you are doing it falls into place, but she has so many outbursts. In fact, I called Jen and said, 'This isn't me. You've made a mistake'. (Laughs).  She said,  'No look again'.  Then I read it out loud for the first time at the callbacks with Todd Gearhart  and I had never read it out loud before. Suddenly instead of it seeming like someone hyperventilating or seeming artificial—which she even gets told she seems artificial by father—it doesn't seem like she's gilding the lily. It is how she really feels  and she wants to express herself in a poetic manner. So is that gilding the lily or is that just an artistic soul? I think Tennessee Williams saw her as an artistic soul. Instead of seeming like exclamation points it just seems like she's so interested in this and that and that too!  And she has to calm herself down sometimes just to take it all in.

FP: What part of Alma did you identify with the most?

MB: I think something that is very universal really for anyone in the arts is that sense of being ostracized or being made to feel ashamed for your natural expression or for liking something.  A majority of people I know in the arts have said they were a complete nerd in high school, and I certainly felt like that. There are times when I just felt wrong.  Alma walks into it. She knows she's going to get egg on her face but she just goes ahead because she's so brave. She's much braver then I am. She's brave enough to just say what she really thinks and how she really feels.
Even in the early part of the play she's very defensive of her singing, but everything she says is right. And when she does finally sing, it's not ridiculous, it doesn't sound horrible. She isn't that over the top, that is just how people see her because she's different. I have done plays in small towns where they just don't understand something and I think she is viewed in that same way. We can't know since we can't ask Tennessee, but we tried having her sing totally over the top and sounding horrible but it just didn't feel right.

The thing I love about her is that she is totally from the heart. And sometimes when I get overwhelmed I calm down by just taking the observations she makes- like the poetry of science- and I realize that is where she is coming from. 

FP: There's such a drastic change in Alma in the last scene, and there are so many possibilities about what has happened to her in those years from when the rest of play takes place and the last scene- how many years do you think pass and what do you imagine has happened to her when doing that last scene?

MB: It doesn't say in the script, but Jen has said it is probably about six years later. This takes plays right before WWI. A lot of the young men from the town could be gone.  John could be gone or even killed in battle.

She says she is going to make a lifetime of that last hour between her and John and I think she really does.  I think some people once they love once, they decide that is it, and I think things are that way for Alma.  I think she's taken her circumstances and made the best of it. I think she has sexual desire in a big way and I think she's able to admit that in the end. That's what she really wants from John in that last moment we see between them.  I think Alma feels good about Alma in the last scene. 

FP: Do you find the expression 'You don't act in a Williams play, you become a Williams play' is true for your experience with Alma?

MB: Yes. This sounds weird to say, but this has been the most honest I've ever had to be. You can't push it and have it come out great. You have to step back and let it play you. I'm getting better at that.  It's such a great challenge as an actor, I remember being scared of it. There's so much reverse psychology and so much inside of the words—that is what makes the play so wonderful.  To be a great playwright, I think, is to say what is complicated and not give an answer and show people in their ugliest moments. He's an amazing writer.

It's so weird when the playwright isn't around. I was thinking that if Williams was around and he was doing this play, we would know that this production was his vision of the play. But we don't know that and we're just taking what we can from his material and making our own decisions and conclusions based on it. I think we are making the right ones though, because something about it just feels right.  We've been in a cocoon for so long it feels good finally letting it out.

The Eccentricities of a Nightingale began April 27, opened May 5 through May 24, 2008. Show times are Monday, Thursday & Friday at 7:30Pm; Saturday at 2PM & 8PM; and Sunday at 8PM.  The Clurman Theatre is located at 410 West 42nd Street. Tickets are $20 via Ticket Central by phone 212 279 4200 or online at www.ticketcentral.com. For more information on this production or TACT please visit www.tactnyc.org.  

 Photos By Stephen Kunken

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