twi-ny talks

TWI-NY TALK: STEPHEN BELBER

Patrick Stewart, Matthew Lillard, and Carla Gugino star in Stephen Belber’s MATCH

MATCH (Stephen Belber, 2014)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St.
Through January 20
212-924-7771
www.ifccenter.com

In 2001, Stephen Belber turned his 2000 play, Tape, into a feature film starring Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman, directed by Richard Linklater. He has now adapted his 2004 Broadway debut, Match, into a feature film starring Sir Patrick Stewart, Carla Gugino, and Matthew Lillard. The beautifully told story takes place in New York City, where married couple Lisa (Gugino) and Mike (Lillard) are interviewing dance teacher and choreographer Tobi Powell (Stewart) purportedly for her thesis, but their ulterior motives bring the three of them together in uncomfortable, unexpected ways, dredging up a long-buried past. Belber’s second film as writer and director — in 2009 he made Management, a romantic comedy with Jennifer Aniston, Steve Zahn, and Woody Harrelson — is an intimate, involving tale about family and the choices we make, led by superb performances by Stewart and Gugino, who are magical together. Belber discussed the film and other aspects of his career with twi-ny shortly after it opened at the IFC Center.

twi-ny: Nearly fifteen years ago, you adapted your play Tape into a film, directed by Richard Linklater, who just won a Golden Globe for Boyhood. Now you’ve adapted your 2004 play, Match, into a film. How did the transference of the two plays onto the big screen differ? Why did you choose to direct this time around?

Stephen Belber: Up to the point when I adapted Tape, I’d written exactly one screenplay, and so I basically just put the text into final draft. (In fact, I didn’t even do that; someone else did; I’m not even sure final draft was around then) Rick Linklater and I briefly talked about breaking it out of the motel but decided it would diffuse the necessary claustrophobic feel. When I adapted Match, I’d just finished directing my first film and so I was able to approach the whole thing more globally, knowing more of what it takes to make a film, yet I also specifically wanted to reduce the scope of my next project to almost pure character interaction; I was less interested in more classic film “splendor.” That said, I did try to open up the screenplay a bit, but only when it felt justified and organic; otherwise I just doubled-down on my actors, who I was more than confident were strong enough to convey the “cinematic landscape” of emotion that I was going for. I think the reason I decided to direct was due to my memory of having watched Tape amidst a crowd at Sundance in 2001 and thinking to myself, “There is a thirst for this kind of small, ‘emotional thriller’ movie” — and wanting to try that for myself.

twi-ny: When it debuted on Broadway, Match starred Frank Langella, Ray Liotta, and Jane Adams. How did you approach casting for the film version?

Stephen Belber: Frank was attached to play the role of Tobi for a while, but when we finally found the financing, he was unavailable for our time window, so the fortune of then being able to find Patrick was immense. I couldn’t have been happier. I also knew that I wanted the movie to be different from the play. I wanted it to be more of an even three-hander; I wanted the role of Lisa to be almost the strongest of the three, in terms of her ability to force these two semi-blinded individuals together. I’d long known and admired Carla for her dominant stage work in New York, so she was an early choice of mine. Matthew I knew less well, but when I met him and perceived his rare mix of strength and vulnerability, as well as the simply excellent person that he is, I knew I’d found the type of actor I love to work with.

twi-ny: The film depicts the deep bond between Tobi and New York, echoing the bond that has clearly developed between Patrick and the city. When he and Carla go up to his Inwood rooftop, I immediately thought of the video that went viral a few summers ago of Stewart and his soon-to-be wife, Sunny Ozell, goofing around on their Brooklyn rooftop. Can you talk about that connection, and its importance to the film? You were born in DC; what are some of your favorite things about New York?

Stephen Belber: Well, to begin with, I do love New York City, but specifically, when I discovered the uniqueness and beauty of Inwood, it was one of those moments when New York reveals itself to you in a lovely and unexpected way. (Granted, the roof scene is technically Washington Heights and we shot the rest of the film in Crown Heights.) But more so, the character of Tobi, perhaps not unlike Patrick, has decamped to New York relatively late in life — and fallen in love with its excitement and ever-present vivacity. Funnily enough, my father recently moved back to NYC after forty years in DC, and he now goes on incessantly about how great a place it is to be old, and not just because of all the food delivery services. There’s something about the constant life of the city that surrounds you, ambushes and assaults you, but undeniably keeps you in the present; it fills you with a sense of aliveness, awareness, and acute feeling. It’s very different than Phoenix.

twi-ny: Stewart’s character is inspired by dancer, choreographer, and longtime Juilliard ballet teacher Alphonse Poulin, who attended the opening night of the play on Broadway. Has he seen the film? What has been his reaction to your exploration of at least part of his life, first onstage, then in the movies?

Stephen Belber: Alphy has been incredibly supportive of this entire project. I think the play made him happy, and yet it was a broader comedy than the film; it had a heightened, almost farcical reality, theatrically speaking, and I think that I, as the writer, consequently short-changed some of the complexity and humanity of the Tobi character. On film, heightened reality tends to be harder to pull off; the intimacy of a film close-up almost insists on a naturalism and dramatic “realness,” in which farce doesn’t fly. At the same time, I’d become aware of wanting a more dramatic and grounded version of this character and this story.

twi-ny: You are a Juilliard grad yourself, and the play begins at the beautiful Glorya Kaufman Dance Studio there. What was your Juilliard experience like? How has it helped shape your career?

Stephen Belber: My two years as a writer at Juilliard were vital and extremely happy ones. It’s the first time I truly took myself seriously as a writer. I feel at home there to this day. (Even if everyone else looks at me like an odd guy peering into piano rehearsal rooms.)

twi-ny: On February 6, Matthew Shepard Is a Friend of Mine is being released in theaters, in conjunction with the twenty-fifth anniversary of the passage of the Hate Crime Statistics Act, which was modified in 2009 by the Matthew Shepard & James Byrd, Jr., Hate Crimes Prevention Act. You examined the murder of Matthew Shepard in The Laramie Project Cycle, which played at BAM two years ago. What kind of progress, if any, do you think has been made in America in regard to hate crimes?

Stephen Belber: Not enough. Certainly there’s progress, legislatively as well as in a national “moral” sense. Yet there are hundreds of thousands of Americans who continue to misunderstand why these laws are important. This, to me, implies a lack of ability to put one’s self in another person’s shoes, to truly feel what it is to be “other” in this country. We are still coming up way short in that regard.

twi-ny: Do you have any plans to bring any of your other plays to the big screen?

Stephen Belber: Myself and Matthew Lillard are discussing a screen adaptation of my 2008 play, Fault Lines. Matt would direct. I would love this to happen.

TWI-NY TALK: YANIRA CASTRO

Yanira Castro’s latest work, COURT/GARDEN, premieres October 9-11 at Danspace Project (photo by Simon Courchel)

COURT/GARDEN
Danspace Project
St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery
131 East Tenth St. between Second & Third Aves.
October 9-11, $20, 8:00
866-811-4111
www.danspaceproject.org
www.acanarytorsi.org

Since 2009, San Juan-born, Brooklyn-based choreographer Yanira Castro has been creating site-specific dance installations and participatory performances for her company, a canary torsi, in such unusual places as a bathroom in the Gershwin Hotel (Dark Horse/Black Forest) and both indoors and outdoors at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden (Paradis). Her newest piece, Court/Garden, was developed through residencies at the Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography in Tallahassee, Amherst College, and Governors Island. The work, which Castro calls “a spectacle in three acts,” premieres October 9-11 at Danspace Project at St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery, where the audience will be required to move around during the performance. Inspired by the imperial ballets that became popular during the reign of Louis XIV, who was a dancer himself, Court/Garden features Simon Courchel, Tess Dworman, Luke Miller, Pamela Vail, Darrin Wright, and Kimberly Young along with “cupids” Tony Carlson and Kirsten Schnittker. The score will be performed live by composer Stephan Moore, with video by Peter Richards. The crew also includes a “perfumer,” herbalist Jennifer Goodheart; the costumes are by Miodrag Guberinic, while Kathy Couch designed the environment.

Court/Garden was partly informed by dance historian, theorist, and choreographer Mark Franko’s “Dance and the Political: States of Exception,” published in the Summer/Winter 2006 issue of Dance Research Journal. In the article, Franko writes, “I have asked by means of choreography whether some baroque dance could deal with subjugation as an effect of representative publicness rather than only with the embodiment of representative publicness itself. In other terms, I have attempted to conjugate trauma with sovereignty.” On October 11, Castro will delve further into her creative process and “representative publicness” in Conversations without Walls, an afternoon symposium with visual artist Suzanne Bocanegra, Danspace Project Platform curator Claudia La Rocco, choreographer and video artist Jillian Peña, choreographer and dancer Will Rawls, former New York City Ballet dancer Kaitlyn Gilliland, and Franko; in addition, Melissa Toogood will perform a short piece choreographed by Pam Tanowitz. Shortly after moving all the necessary equipment from Governors Island to Danspace Project, Castro discussed location, the performer-spectator dynamic, Kickstarter, the derivation of the name of her company, and more.

twi-ny: Location is central to your work. How does space inform your work? Does space come before concept, or is it the other way around?

Yanira Castro: Concept usually comes first. All the works are interrelated for me in how the works are asking questions about how we see and participate in culture/live performance, how we read and how we form understanding. Once I understand the nature of the question we are asking in a particular work, then I can begin to consider location. For me, location is a container/a frame and also about permission; a space has to invite the relationship between audience and event that we are considering.

I usually know pretty early the kind of frame that is necessary for something — small, enclosed, intimate, public space — a public bathroom — or large, sprawling, outdoor lawn. And then I go looking for the space. In New York, that is half of the adventure.

twi-ny: You spent part of this summer in an LMCC residency on Governors Island. Did you know much about the island and its history before going there? How did it impact your creative process?

Yanira Castro: We really used our time there as studio time. We did not engage with Governors Island as a site. Creatively, it is where we put many of our conceptual ideas together for the first time. So the residency in and of itself was highly important as a point of discussion around the ideas of the work.

(Courtesy of Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography / Photo by Chris Cameron)

Dancer-choreographers Simon Courchel, Pamela Vail, Kimberly Young, Luke Miller, and Darrin Wright rehearse COURT/GARDEN (courtesy of Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography / photo by Chris Cameron)

twi-ny: Court/Garden is being presented as part of Danspace Project’s fortieth anniversary. How did the transition go from Governors Island to St. Mark’s Church?

Yanira Castro: We didn’t really work that way. We didn’t try to make it at Governors Island and so there was no transition really. We used Governors Island for more conceptual work and sketches for what would happen at Danspace.

twi-ny: Is there a dream space you’d love to work in that you haven’t yet?

Yanira Castro: Because I don’t start off with a site first, there isn’t a space I long to work in. But I love large spaces in transition. Walking by places at night that are uninhabited and have bare bulbs hanging in the space — vast structures that are left empty or in disarray, building sites, haunted houses — I am romantic that way.

twi-ny: You refer to several of your previous works as “dance installations,” and Court/Garden is “a spectacle in three acts.” Did you always have this drive to take things to a new level?

Yanira Castro: I never think of it as large. I always start saying it is going to be small. They are always intimate pieces for me. But my mind has a tendency to sprawl and find connections. Especially once I am into my research, it always starts from a small thing that then gets all kinds of information glommed on to it. And I find words difficult. Often I call the pieces something like “dance installation” because I don’t quite understand what I mean by the words or even how these pieces function in relationship to concert dance or site-specific dance. It is neither. So, I give it words for a while to see how that works — to denote that it is not this other thing, but it is always uncomfortable.

Spectacle is super uncomfortable. But at the same time it has really freed up my imagination. I have given myself the space to bring in all these fantastical elements where I don’t usually go. It has touched on some of my personal interests in iconography. I came across the word in my research — a book by Georgia J. Cowart, The Triumph of Pleasure: Louis XIV and the Politics of Spectacle. It aptly describes the royal performances of Louis XIV’s court. But right now everything seems like a spectacle to me. It is kind of like saying the same word one hundred times. . . . It begins to lose its definition. It becomes aural. a texture. So . . . yeah . . . I end up with projects that really challenge me and my collaborators . . . in their largeness of scope. But that isn’t the intention at the start. I am really attempting to answer a question — an intimate one about culture and how and why we are in this space together to witness — and the questions lead down rabbit holes. I like getting lost and making sense of the map.

twi-ny: You also enjoy challenging the audience, to get them involved beyond the basic performer-spectator relationship, and that is true about Court/Garden as well, as the audience will have to move around during the show. Was there a “eureka” moment when you decided to start breaking down those walls?

Yanira Castro: It started because Peculiar Works Project invited me to make a piece for Judson House which was being torn down, and we could do anything we wanted with the space we were allotted because it would not exist come Monday. My collaborator, Kevin Kwan, and I decided to paint a small room five layers of glossy white. Everything in it. And then seal the room with scrim. The audience could see the dance that took place inside this hermetic situation through the scrim. But to see it, they had to crouch or peer in and get close. The dancers were sometimes obscured. I remember watching that audience have to lean in to watch and it was what I wanted, I wanted that they should engage in that way. The image of them leaning over the dance was as important as the dance itself.

It is not that I want to challenge the audience. I want to create a scenario for them and to be in conversation with them and I want them to form the picture, craft their experience. Their presence dynamically changes what is occurring. That is what “live” means for me. It is dynamic because of the people in the room.

twi-ny: What does it take to be a dancer for a canary torsi, especially given all the interactivity with the audience?

Yanira Castro: I think that would be a question for the dancers. I don’t think of “interactivity” when I am thinking about working with someone. I think about spending time with them, that I enjoy their presence and love talking to them. I have often invited people to be in work without having seen them dance or perform. And so it is every bit a discovery when we get into the studio together. And I never know what the choreography is going to look like anyway, or what it may require, until we are in it.

twi-ny: You funded part of Court/Garden through Kickstarter. How has online funding changed the game for you and dance in general?

Yanira Castro: Well, I think like anything . . . it becomes part of the machine after a while. So, it is almost expected that you will do some kind of crowdsource funding to put up a production. It has, in many ways, taken the place of traditional individual giving. You know, most of us don’t have patrons with deep pockets who can come in and save the day, so things like Kickstarter feel more democratic to me. I may not have a patron that can give $5,000, $10,000 . . . but almost anyone can give $1 or $5. And yes, it builds up and it can build a sense of camaraderie around a project, create excitement. It is really only a different way of looking at creating investment in a project . . . and one that I feel more comfortable doing than the traditional yearly benefit. I think in general crowdsource funding has been empowering for the arts, even while it has now become a cog in the machine.

twi-ny: Dare I ask where the name “a canary torsi” came from?

Yanira Castro: It is an anagram of my name. I didn’t see the work as fitting a traditional dance company model, so I couldn’t see myself as Yanira Castro Dance or Yanira Castro + Company any longer. But I also wanted to acknowledge that I didn’t work alone. I wasn’t just . . . Yanira Castro. And so I wanted a name, a name that wouldn’t limit. But names are the worst things . . . especially when you have a lifetime to live with them. And I thought about how I did not pick my birth name and yet I carry it around with me. So, I decided to create a chance structure and that the name that resulted from that . . . I would accept. After several steps involving the computer, the dice and my spouse . . . a canary torsi was the name on the page. I don’t love it. I don’t hate it. It is a name. And it has certain uses that I like — the canary was a popular social dance that began when some folks from Spain saw a dance danced by people from the Canary Islands. It was quickly appropriated and spread through most of Europe for centuries with many variations. And torsi is, of course, multiple torsos (which seems very apropos), but also it means “unfinished.” And I liked that . . . an unfinished social dance.

TWI-NY TALK: JOE WISSLER

Joe Wissler is back at the Fringe Festival in Kim Ehly’s semiautobiographical comedy, BABY GIRL

New York International Fringe Festival
The Kraine Theater
25 East Fourth St. between Second Ave. & Bowery
August 8, 10, 14, 18, 24, $18
www.joewissler.com
www.babygirltheplay.com

The first thing one notices about Joe Wissler is his size. At six-foot four, two hundred and twenty-five pounds, he usually stands out in a crowd. The next things that become quickly apparent are his gregarious nature and welcoming sense of humor. But the Manhattan-born, Brooklyn-raised character actor gets very serious when discussing the details of his chosen career. “What I love about Joe is his professionalism and dedication to his craft, which he clearly loves,” playwright and casting agent David Bellantoni says about Wissler, who was recently nominated for Best Actor at the Unchained one-act theater festival for starring as a Brian Dennehy-like tough guy in Bellantoni’s Laundry, which took the Audience Award. “Most actors, no matter where they are from, think they can pull off a New York character – accent, attitude, swagger,” Bellantoni continues, “but in performance you can almost always tell they’re from somewhere else. Joe is the real deal, the genuine article. It was a pleasure to work with him and I would do so again in a heartbeat.”

Wissler is very much the real deal. In order to start dating (and eventually marry) Grace Argentina, he had to get past her eleven not-so-friendly brothers. Grace and Joe’s son is a Suffolk County police officer, their daughter a Nassau County teacher and track coach. And Wissler continues winning better and better roles in an extremely difficult business. This week Wissler, who has appeared onstage with John Amos (Good Times, Roots) in Felony Friday at the Fringe Festival, on Law and Order: SVU on television, and in such indie films as Waiting for the Blackout and Abscond Valley, is back at the Fringe in Baby GirL, Kutumba Theatre Project artistic director Kim Ehly’s semiautobiographical comedy about adoption, coming out as a lesbian, and searching for home. In between rehearsals for the show, which runs August 8, 10, 14, 18, and 24 at the Kraine Theater, Wissler discussed his acting career, his size, his deep, profound love of his craft, and more.

twi-ny: You were last at the Fringe in 2011, when you starred with John Amos in Felony Friday. What was that experience like?

Joe Wissler: In a word, it was amazing. Of course, I have been a fan of John’s since I can remember. I was so glad when he came to the rehearsals ready to work like any other actor. No pretense, no attitude. We shared most of his scenes, so we rehearsed quite a bit together. I’m happy to say that we became friends and remain so to this day.

twi-ny: This year you’re appearing at the Fringe in Baby GirL. Can you tell us a little about your role and how you got the part? It’s a different kind of show for you.

JW: I actually play two roles in the show. In the first act I play Dave, adopted father to Ashley, a very traditional, head of the family, “meat and potatoes Republican” living in South Florida in the late 1960s to 1980s. I dote on Ashley, which is why she comes out to me first, that she is a lesbian. Things take a turn from that moment on. In act two, I play Henry, husband of Ashley’s biological mother. Henry is a simple man who doesn’t say too much, thanks to the nonstop talking of his wife.

I auditioned for the roles, with absolute abandon. In one flashback scene, I jump into four different scenarios in a matter of one minute. There is just no way to win a part like that unless you are willing to completely commit to that individual moment. There was no playing it safe at this audition.

twi-ny: What is it that resonated with you to make you want to work on this play?

JW: Baby GirL is a play about struggling. Ashley struggles to find her sexual identity, her birth parents, and her life. Dave and Mary struggle to conceive a child, raise a child the way they think she should be raised, and then break away from the child they don’t understand. Struggle is what creates conflict, which is what creates drama. The beautiful thing about this play is there is lots of comedy mixed in with the drama, and a fine cast that understands how to work both the comedy and the drama so it will move the audience to laughter and tears. I’m sure the audience will walk away from this show with a lot to think about and talk about. And hopefully it will help someone out there struggling with his or her own personal feelings, be that if they need to come out, accept someone who comes out, or just choose to live the life they want for themselves.

Joe Wissler stars in Florida comedy hit making New York premiere at the Fringe Festival

Joe Wissler plays two roles in Florida comedy hit making New York premiere at the Fringe Festival

twi-ny: You’re six-foot-four, two hundred twenty-five pounds, and from Brooklyn, yet you’ve appeared in a wide variety of genres on film and television and onstage. Do you think your size is a hindrance or an advantage?

JW: [laughs] My size can be both an advantage and a hindrance. Most times I find it to be an advantage. Of course, I can remember times when it worked against me. Many years ago, when I was a child, I started growing at an unbelievable rate. I can remember walking into auditions at ten years old and being taller than the man auditioning to play my father. More recently, I was being considered for a great part in a film. I was to play Jon Voight’s brother. Before production began, I was told that Jon Voight would not be doing the film. Instead, Malcolm McDowell was the new lead. Jon Voight and I are almost the same size, but I am seven inches taller than Malcolm McDowell. Apparently, size did matter. I always find a way to fit my dimensions into the skin of the character I am playing.

What about your accent?

JW: [laughs again] What accent? In my day-to-day life, my New York accent is certainly apparent. I have learned to eliminate it for professional purposes. Just listen to me say “You didn’t talk much at dinner” in Baby GirL.

twi-ny: What’s more fun – playing the cop or the mob guy?

JW: I love acting. I love the characters that I get to play. I humanize the characters by a simple yet effective method. I find myself in the character, I find the character in me and find myself as the character in the situation. With that, anything is possible. The rest just depends on the costume.

twi-ny: You were recently nominated for Best Actor in David Bellantoni’s Laundry, in which the cast really seemed to bond. You’re a gregarious fellow; what’s it like when a group of actors don’t really come together on a set?

JW: Laundry was a great experience. A set is a family. It’s very important to make it work, with everyone involved – cast, crew, writers, production, and director. We are all working toward a common goal: To do the best work we are capable of. Nothing on set or behind the scenes should distract from that goal. That being said, jealousies and insecurities are always possible. While studying at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute, I was taught that just like any other walk of life, you will meet all kinds, just more so in acting. Concentrate on your work and leave the negativity to those who need it. I only experienced that kind of situation on one project. Hopefully, never again.

twi-ny: You’ve also done stand-up comedy; do you still go back in front of that brick wall?

JW: I have not in quite a while. I am thinking about performing stand-up in L.A. on my next trip there in September.

twi-ny: What do you have coming up after Baby GirL?

JW: I will have a couple of weeks here in New York City to enjoy the rest of the summer. I am cowriting a play that I hope to finish this year. I will be traveling back and forth to the West Coast. My L.A. agent, Marlene Hartje, is amazing. I can’t wait to get back out there and see what she has waiting for me. There are a few plays being produced here in New York that I would love to finish the year out with. John Amos and I have been trying to coordinate our schedules for a couple of years, with the hopes of mounting a great two-man play a friend of his wrote. And of course, I am constantly on the hunt for a production of John Logan’s Red that is casting.

TWI-NY TALK: BRIDGET BARKAN / THE LOVE JUNKIE

Bridget Barkan plays multiple characters in THE LOVE JUNKIE, returning to Joe’s Pub on May 31

BRIDGET BARKAN IN THE LOVE JUNKIE
Joe’s Pub
425 Lafayette St.
Saturday, May 31, $15, 9:00
www.joespub.publictheater.org

Bridget Barkan is a practitioner of the healing power of music, having worked as a music therapist for special-needs children. The native New Yorker, a singer, actor, and Scissor Sisters regular who appeared on Sesame Street as a child and as an adult in such films as Sherrybaby and Everyday People and has a recurring role as a one-legged hooker on Law & Order: SVU, is doing some public healing of her own in her one-woman show, The Love Junkie. In the solo performance, returning to Joe’s Pub on May 31, the fiery redhead and self-described “douche bag magnet” — whose father, Mark, coproduced what might be the first psychedelic album, the Deep’s 1968 Psychedelic Moods: A Mind Expanding Phenomena — employs a mélange of musical styles and genres, including cover songs and originals, while portraying multiple characters to explore recovery from such intimate addictions as love and sex. Barkan, who has been busily posting short “Love Junkie Episodes” on her YouTube channel, recently discussed Times Square, the ’80s, gender roles, and hunting with twi-ny.

twi-ny: You were born and raised in New York City, where you started taking the subway by yourself to school when you were eleven. There are people today who would have your parents locked up for allowing such a thing. What was your childhood in the city like?

Bridget Barkan: Well, taking the subway wasn’t such a huge deal; kids younger than me did and still do. An old man once touched my ass when I was seven and I screamed bloody murder. New York was more edgy. I spent a lot of time going to play pinball or to the movies with my dad in the dirty Times Square, not the Disney version. One time, these two guys tried to mug my dad under some scaffolding, but he was raised in Brooklyn and ended up scaring the shit out of them. It was a very sexually vibrant city and I was excited about it all. It was also oozing with creativity. Sex and art come from the same place, so it makes sense. I think growing up here has given me a real love and connection to many different cultures and sense of openness. I live on the stage of life with no fourth wall.

twi-ny: You got fired from Sesame Street when you were six. What happened?

BB: Well, the rumor is that Bert and Ernie were having a fight in between takes and I came over and tried to fix the problem like I usually did with my parents. But then Big Bird stuck his big head in and Cookie Monster lost his cool. It got pretty messy and for the sake of the show, I took the fall.

No, the truth is, I was apparently bossing the older kids around and a parent complained. I was always an actress, but directing is my real passion . . . haha.

twi-ny: You have a special fondness for the style of the ’80s. What is it about that decade that appeals to you?

Bridget Barkan is looking for love in one-woman show

BB: Well, I grew up in NYC in the ’80s. Damn, I didn’t want to reveal my age, but oh well, I’m already an old hag in this industry anyway. You gotta be twelve years old but look thirty to be of any interest. I believe the ’80s was the last era of real unique expression. Everything that has come after seems to be regurgitated from the past. The ’90s definitely had some moments too. But to me, the real metamorphosis and discovery of hip-hop was a major game changer in the ’80s.

twi-ny: You recently tweeted, “I’ve always been more of the beast than the beauty.” What did you mean by that?

BB: I talk about this in the show, feeling like I’m a hunter. It’s rare that I meet a guy who is coming for my hide with a strong and ferocious intention. I’ve always had the instinct to woo men, shower them, serenade their hearts. Could be attributed to my growing up around three big brothers, having more testosterone. I generally played the boy when playing house or I was the evil witch. Never really the damsel in distress. Maybe I was a dude in my past life or maybe our gender role ideas and concepts are really screwed up. But I’m kind of a closeted hunter. I’ve realized I’m more afraid of going after men the way I used to. I dip my toes in it but I don’t go in for the full attack. I’m like a cowardly lion.

twi-ny: You’ve noted that you’ve wanted to do a one-woman show since you saw Lily Tomlin in The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe. What was it about that show that so deeply affected you?

BB: There was this amazing web of stories. They were all connected so magically, intertwined and mirroring one another. I’ve always loved movies and books that express and highlight how we are all connected. And how a life can be this pure explosion of seeing what other stars you are connected to in your constellation. At the end of the show, this giant mirror comes down, so the audience can see themselves. I was just in tears, and it has stayed with me ever since: The power of art that opens your heart, breaks it, then heals it again.

twi-ny: What was the genesis of The Love Junkie?

BB: I started writing many different one-woman shows over the past years and they were always about heartbreak and failed love. One show started where I played every guy I was with but I could never find an ending, because I kept doing the same thing over and over again. I needed to actually change something in my life so I could write the show I wanted to. I did just that, this time around. I ended a relationship and committed to the relationship with myself.

During the last two years on tour with Scissor Sisters, I researched every artist and show that I loved. I journaled, I wrote weird songs, made tracks, improvised for hours on my computer, danced, did solo photo shoots. I also got lots of advice from [Scissor Sisters] Jake [Shears], Ana [Matronic], Del [Marquis], and Babydaddy, in different ways. Just being who they were inspired me, but they also took time to let me share with them. But it was the actual doing that got me running. I tried out a different performance art piece once a month at an art party called ArtErotica, curated by Dinna Alexanyan. I found a spiritual comedy coach named Alicia Dattner, who guided me through some healing work. She also had been going through love pain as well.

twi-ny: You play multiple characters in the show. Do you have any particular favorites?

BB: I think my favorite character to play is the Old Me, the jaded, lonely, fat, sick, dying, washed-up me. Playing her with a fat suit, cigarette, and cane is a lot of fun. On a personal level it’s like I’m exorcising that idea from my head, that I won’t ever really become her.

twi-ny: You’ll be performing The Love Junkie on May 31 at Joe’s Pub. What are the plans for the show after that?

BB: I love Joe’s Pub; it’s become a real home to me. I would like to have a consistent run of it in NYC, maybe weekly, biweekly, then take it to L.A., London, and beyond! I am looking into spaces and always looking for people to help it grow. I’m excited to let it evolve. Not every show will be the same. It’s an organism in itself. I designed it to be a journey. Maybe this show will be the first step. There could be eleven more. It is a healing experiment for me. So I will walk the road to recovery and see where it takes me.

TWI-NY TALK: JAY O. SANDERS

Jay O. Sanders will present UNEXPLORED INTERIOR at Museum of Jewish Heritage on May 11 as part of twentieth anniversary commemoration of Rwandan genocide

UNEXPLORED INTERIOR
Museum of Jewish Heritage — A Living Memorial to the Holocaust
Edmond J. Safra Plaza, 36 Battery Pl.
Sunday, May 11, 12 noon, free with advance RSVP
www.mjhnyc.org
www.theflea.org

In 2004, struck by the world’s continued indifference to the 1994 Rwandan genocide, actor Jay O. Sanders attended the ten-year commemoration of the start of the mass killings in Kigali, the African nation’s capital. Moved by what he saw, Sanders, the Austin-born son of activist parents, decided to do something about it. A Shakespeare in the Park regular who has appeared in such films as JFK, The Day After Tomorrow, and Revolutionary Road and has played recurring characters on such series as True Detective, Person of Interest, and Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Sanders began writing Unexplored Interior, a fictionalized play that takes place immediately following the 1994 genocide, as a Hutu man and Tutsi woman fall in love, a Rwandan student in New York City sets out to make a film about what happened, and a UN peacekeeper contemplates his own life in the wake of the tragic events. The play will have its latest staged reading on May 11 at 12 noon at the Museum of Jewish Heritage (admission is free with advance RSVP) as part of the official Kwibuka20 events commemorating the twentieth anniversary of the Rwandan genocide, calling for people to “remember — unite — renew.” An all-star cast will be directed by James Glossman (Trouble Is My Business; Smiling, the Boy Fell Dead), and the production in New York will be broadcast live at the new outdoor amphitheater at the Kigali Genocide Memorial Center courtesy of Google+ Hangout on Air, followed by an international panel discussion and Q&A session.

twi-ny: What was the genesis of Unexplored Interior and your interest in Rwanda?

Jay O. Sanders: Let me give you the short answer. In April of 1994, my wife and I, both working actors, were cloistered in our West Village apartment with our five-week-old, first-and-only child, reflecting on what it meant to be the guardians of a life, when President Habyarimana’s plane was shot down in Kigali and the start of genocide hit. We watched the news as reports of this horrific event unfolded and repeatedly told us it was beyond our understanding. Stories began to flow of brutal, neighbor-on-neighbor mass killings and a Canadian U.N. peacekeeping commander who was calling for help but no one was being sent, and all without pictures, as no press was inside the country. Until they began to show video of hundreds and hundreds of bloated bodies floating down the rivers along the borders, caught on the rocks, going over falls. It was a mind-numbing, grotesque, and totally infuriating circus of ignorance and failure of the world to respond.

I got it in my head that if I could just see out through the peacekeeper’s eyes, as a fellow Westerner, I might at least be able to understand. I thought, I need to play him (as actors do). I watched every report I could find, yielding reports of that same man refusing to order a full withdrawal and managing to save the lives of some tens of thousands of refugees while bearing witness to the 800,000 whom he couldn’t, and finally, on returning home, attempting suicide numerous times, unable to process what he’d been through. After ten years of germination and finding myself still as ignorant as before, I was overcome with the need to find an answer I could give my son. To arm him with an understanding of this genocide of his lifetime. I felt I owed him an answer.

twi-ny: You’re a well-respected actor, familiar for your work in numerous films and plays and on television. How did your acting experience inform your writing of the play?

JOS: I started out to write a one-man show for myself as [Roméo] Dallaire, the peacekeeper. It seemed like an obvious, straightforward way to enter the story and bring it to others. So I found him in Rwanda at the ten-year commemoration, flew myself over to see for myself where all this had happened and be among those who had experienced it. I had discovered that, fortunately, he was still alive and now the author of a book about his experiences, Shake Hands with the Devil.

Again, the short version: I met him there, then spent time with him later in Quebec, and proceeded to write that play. But I soon discovered, the more I knew about what had happened, that Dallaire was actually my White Rabbit who led me into the situation, and the larger story was among the people themselves. So, I continued to study and write and emerged with a twenty-six-character play for fourteen actors which weaves many stories together, including Dallaire’s, with crossing themes on a much larger canvas.

twi-ny: How did you hook up with Google+, the Museum of Jewish Heritage, and the Kigali Genocide Memorial Center?

JOS: My wife, Maryann Plunkett, and I had done a reading down at the museum several years ago and I had noted the beauty of both this center of record for not only the Holocaust but all related genocide, as well as the beauty of the theater [Edmond J. Safra Hall] itself. When I began to think about where my play began, this was perfect. When I flew over for the ten-year commemoration in 2004, I was recognized by members of the CNN team, who invited me to join them for the week, which I did, gladly, finding myself front and center at all the major official events, including the official opening of the Aegis trust Kigali Genocide Memorial. I was there as President Kagame, General Dallaire, and many, many others witnessed the lighting of the eternal flame, above a mass grave holding 250,000 victims of the genocide.

So, when I was thinking about where I wanted to connect with our event, that, again, was obvious. Then, one of my producers, my dear friend Daniel Neiden, introduced me to Paula Gil Rodriguez, who had, herself, produced several large Google+ Hangouts on Air and knew a number of people at Google. She loved the idea of the project and she and her husband, Nick Lopez, came on board. My friend James Glossman has been my director from the moment the idea hit me to write this. It all just grew and grew.

twi-ny: Who are some of the people who will be participating in the reading?

JOS: We have a brilliant family of actors — some well known to you, others who you should know. Michael McKean, presently in All the Way on Broadway, plays Dallaire; Sharon Washington, award nominated for Wild with Happy at the Public and on Broadway with The Scottsboro Boys; Arthur French, who has been in everything and most recently of The Trip to Bountiful on Broadway; Fritz Weaver, one of the most distinguished stage and film actors of his generation; Charles Parnell, whose TV series The Last Ship premieres soon; Owiso Odera, Marlyne Barrett, Clark Jackson, Craig Alan Edwards, Irungu Mutu, Matthew Murumba, Benjamin Thys, and our youngest at thirteen, Nile Bullock, lately also of The Scottsboro Boys — all fantastic, deeply dedicated to this project, and each one a reason to see the play.

twi-ny: Is a full production of the play in the works?

JOS: We are still looking for a production. I’m hoping this presentation grabs the imagination of some brave producer or producers!

twi-ny: As opposed to last year’s presentation, this one will use social media in a fascinating way. What’s your personal experience with social media? Are you a Facebook/Twitter/Google+ junkie?

JOS: My personal experience is everyday. I use Facebook regularly as an international bulletin board and have just recently ventured over to Google+ as well, because of this project. I have a Twitter account but am not very fluent with it yet. These online forums have afforded me connections beyond anything I might have come upon otherwise — people out of my past, which included a lot of traveling, so that reaches a very long way, and those I’m just now meeting with common friends and/or common interests. Also, I regularly give master classes out at my alma mater, SUNY Purchase, and social media is a place we can all stay in touch for mutual news, project updates, and personal encouragement. It has been a godsend.

twi-ny: At any given moment, there is some kind of brutal civil war or genocide going on somewhere in the world, and more often than not, the U.S. government opts not to get involved. What can we as individual, peace-loving Americans do to try to change things?

JOS: Learn. Understand as much as you can. It’s always evolving — it requires regular effort — but there are ways to make a difference through awareness, voting, challenging the machine, humanizing world issues, applying compassion in your own life. Kindness begins with each one of us, at home, at work, in our communities, with the homeless, in our voices lifted against apathy — it ripples out and grows from those seeds into and across the world.

TWI-NY TALK: LIZA JOHNSON

Kristen Wiig gives a breakout dramatic performance in Liza Johnson’s HATESHIP LOVESHIP

HATESHIP LOVESHIP (Liza Johnson, 2013)
Opens Friday, April 11
www.ifcfilms.com
www.lizajohnson.wordpress.com

Writer, director, teacher, artist, journalist, and filmmaker Liza Johnson has followed up her debut feature, 2011’s Return, with Hateship Loveship, a subtly beguiling and intimate drama based on a short story by Nobel Prize winner Alice Munro. In the film, Kristen Wiig gives a career-redefining performance as Johanna Parry, an odd, lonely caregiver hired by a widower (Nick Nolte) as a housekeeper for him and his granddaughter, Sabitha (Hailee Steinfeld), whose father, Ken (Guy Pearce), is trying to put his life back together after having served time for the accident that killed his wife. Johanna is misled by Sabitha and her best friend, Edith (Sami Gayle), into thinking she is having a romantic correspondence with Ken, as the two girls take advantage of Johanna’s innocence and simplicity.

An associate professor of art at Williams College, Johnson has been making short films for more than fifteen years, including several works (Good Sister / Bad Sister, South of Ten, In the Air that have been shown at prestigious international film festivals and in art museums. Hateship Loveship, which, like Return, is powerfully realistic, opens April 11 in theaters and on VOD.

twi-ny:. You’ve gone from making experimental short films that have included nonprofessional actors to now two feature films with impressive casts, including Linda Cardellini, Michael Shannon, and John Slattery in Return and Kristen Wiig, Guy Pearce, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Nick Nolte, and Christine Lahti in Hateship Loveship. What has that transition been like?

Liza Johnson: The biggest change really just has to do with the way the production runs. I made those short films in worlds where people lived extremely precarious, contingent lives — Mississippi after Katrina, the deindustrialized town I grew up in, indigenous Northern Australia. (Thematically this is also true of the characters in the features.) But within those real-world contexts, and working with almost zero money on the productions, it’s very hard to have a story that has cause and effect, because people can’t be absolutely certain that they can come back to perform for a second or third or sixth day. Even though Hateship/Loveship is a very small independent film, it still has a full crew and unionized actors who are all in a position to return to finish out the whole story!

I love working with nonprofessional actors, and it’s also a great thrill to work with people who have an incredibly trained sense of the craft of acting. It’s just a very different way of working.

twi-ny: In the 2008 Hugo Boss Prize catalog, you wrote about Patty Chang’s Flotsam Jetsam (which is currently on view at MoMA, where your work has also been shown), “The visual style of Flotsam Jetsam suggests a documentary relation to the real at the same time as revealing the conventions we use to produce ‘realness.’” In many ways, a similar thing might be said of Hateship Loveship, which has a very realistic feel to it, especially in regard to camera movement and the lead performances. Would you agree?

Liza Johnson: You are an amazing researcher! Patty Chang has been a close friend and a sustaining confidante for a long time, and I’m sure we influence each other even if we’re working in pretty different styles.

And yes, when I first met with Kristen on the project we talked about how important it was for the world of the film to feel real, and to be shot in the style of realism — which is definitely a style and not just how the world inherently looks! I had a great time working with Kasper Tuxen, the cinematographer, and we watched a lot of movies that use available light when we were preparing. He’s pretty amazing, and we really went to great lengths to use available light whenever possible, or to just supplement it if necessary. The production designer, Hannah Beachler, was also really supportive of my idea to try to build a world that is not overdesigned, and tries to maintain the feeling of accident and surprise that come with locations, even though she redesigned and reordered every surface that you see in the film.

twi-ny: Hateship/Loveship is based on a short story by Alice Munro, who just won the Nobel Prize. Her work has also been adapted by such directors as Sarah Polley, Anne Wheeler, and, next, Jane Campion. How familiar were you with Munro’s writing prior to making the film? Are you concerned at all about being branded as a woman director who makes “women’s films”? You’ve previously explored a more radical side of feminism in Good Sister / Bad Sister.

Artist, writer, teacher, and filmmaker Liza Johnson’s sophomore feature, HATESHIP LOVESHIP, opens April 11

Liza Johnson: I have loved Alice Munro’s writing for as long as I can remember. I was pretty thrilled when Mark Poirer brought his script to me. The story that the film is based on is an almost perfect story, and a very literary one filled with internal monologue and close, shifting points of view. The movie is inherently different from the story, because Munro is so brilliant at writing the inner life of characters in ways that sometimes can’t be photographed. (If you filmed the end of her story literally, you would see a picture of a teenage girl just standing there, whereas in the story it unfolds amazing revelations within her mind.) The film is truly a translation into another medium, and hopefully one that honors the tone of the original, which is unsentimental, non melodramatic, and really committed to the beautiful and complicated choices of its characters.

If you’re going to compare me to Sarah Polley and Jane Campion, that is a ghetto I’m more than happy to be a part of! But no, I’m not afraid of being branded as someone who makes “women’s films.” A lot of male directors that I like have also made beautiful movies with female protagonists. Personally I would want to invite John Cassavettes, William Wyler, Robert Altman, and Todd Haynes into the neighborhood.

I also think that Hateship is not just a movie for women. There’s no question that Kristen’s character is the spine of the story, but it also showcases performances by Guy Pearce and Nick Nolte, who are both powerhouse actors delivering complicated male characters.

twi-ny: In certain ways, Johanna, the character Kristen Wiig plays in Hateship Loveship, reminds me of Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman, maybe without quite so much doom and gloom. Is that way off base, or is there a direct or indirect influence there?

Liza Johnson: Direct! Kristen and I watched Jeanne Dielman when we were working on her character and thinking about domestic work. In both the story and the screenplay, her work as a caregiver and as a cleaner is really important to the way she sees the world and the way she reacts to everything. So of course we tried to look at whatever precedents we could find for the cinematic treatment of this kind of occupation. Obviously Akerman is making a different kind of sustained conceptual gesture there, one that I would be proud to have made, but my movie is more classical in its forms than the ones that she uses in the amazing, extreme experiment of her film.

twi-ny: You also teach art at Williams College. Has your relationship with your students changed at all now that you have two well-received feature films under your belt?

Liza Johnson: I don’t think so. They’re pretty engaged and attentive, but that was also true before. It’s really good to be the film professor — you get a lot more enthusiasm than when people are just taking your class to fulfill their premed requirements.

twi-ny: With Hateship Loveship only just opening theatrically, is it too early to ask what your next film project might be?

Liza Johnson: I’m writing something that I really like that is a drama about some unexpected things that happen to a group of teenage girls. And I also have a new project coming up with Michael Shannon, who is an incredible talent. (That is a movie about men, by the way, in case you are worried for me about the women thing!)

TWI-NY TALK: LiV WARFIELD

LiV WARFIELD & THE NPG HORNZ
B. B. King Blues Club & Grill
237 West 42nd St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Sunday, April 6, $35-$65, 8:00
212-997-4144
www.bbkingblues.com
www.livwarfieldmusic.com

Last August, Prince protégées LiV Warfield and Shelby J. tore up City Winery with a week of hot shows with the New Power Generation and the NPG Hornz, including one extremely late night in which they joined their mentor for a rip-roaring set. More recently, Warfield has been making a name for herself on the talk-show circuit in support of her brand-new solo record, The Unexpected (Kobalt, February 2014), knockin’ ’em dead performing “Why Do You Lie?” on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, “Soul Lifted” on The Arsenio Hall Show, and “BlackBird” on Sway’s Universe. (She’s also scheduled to appear on Late Show with David Letterman on April 4.) The Peoria-born singer takes a giant step forward with the explosive new album, the follow-up to her soulful, intimate 2006 debut, Embrace Me, the horn section lifting her to new levels on ten songs bookended by brief instrumentals. On the title track, which was written for her by His Most Royal Purpleness — Prince also cowrote the seven-minute “Your Show” with his former backup singer and serves as the album’s executive producer — Warfield and the NPG Hornz channel Janis Joplin and Big Brother and the Holding Company; the record is also highlighted by the bold hooks of “Why Do You Lie?,” the foot-stomping blues of “BlackBird,” the pure funk of “Lena Blue,” and the jazzy grandeur of “Freedom.” Warfield will be headlining B. B. King’s on April 6 with the NPG Hornz in what promises to be an electrifying evening. She’ll also be sticking around after the show to meet fans and sign copies of her CD.

twi-ny: You were born and raised in Peoria, went to college and recorded Embrace Me in Portland, Oregon, and are now based in New York City. How has place made a difference in your life and career?

LiV Warfield: Every place that I have been has been so instrumental in who I am as an artist. Peoria provoked interest in music but Portland allowed me to free my talent and discover who I was musically. Now that I live in New York it has opened up so many doors for me and people have welcomed my music and artistry.

Prince protégée LiV Warfield steps out on her own with electrifying new album and tour

twi-ny: It’s been eight years between your first solo record, Embrace Me, and The Unexpected. Why so long?

LW: What took so long is that I had to learn a lot. I was given the opportunity to work with Prince not long after Embrace Me and he has taught me so much. I learned how to write, arrange, and really become a better artist. The wait was worth it to me and I honestly wouldn’t change a thing.

twi-ny: How has it been going from backup singer to being the central attraction again?

LW: Going from a background singer to the central attraction is definitely a different experience but I am now better prepared for what’s to come.

twi-ny: You have a justly celebrated powerhouse voice; why do you open the new record with an instrumental? Is that just a tease?

LW: I wanted to do something unexpected with the open and close. I also wanted it to be very musical and allow you to go on a journey with me.

twi-ny: In “Fly,” you sing, “People don’t define me / I need to be who I need to be.” As your career takes off, has it been difficult to break out of conventional categorizations, especially since your music embraces so many different genres?

LW: Yes, it has been difficult because people do want to box you in. I want to make good music for all to enjoy. I understand that people need categories but my hope is that people will be open and just enjoy it. There is something for everyone on The Unexpected.

twi-ny: What’s the coolest thing about working with and getting to know Prince?

LW: The coolest thing about working with Prince is that I can call him my mentor and I can talk to him whenever I want. I am so thankful for him and sometimes it’s hard to believe.

twi-ny: Is there a specific meaning behind why you capitalize the “V” in your first name (LiV)?

LW: There is significance to it. I work with an amazing group of musicians and I am part of a collective unit. It’s not just about me . . . it’s about the unit. The small “i” reminds me to keep things in perspective.