Yes, for sure, this she does, and vigorously, as enacted
by Sheila Tousey in the New York production directed by Joseph Chaikin. But how is this
improvement? While the character possesses authentic spiritual ways and means, the extent
of her action is to affect the life by effectuating the death of drunkard Henry Moss. Who
she is other than an exotic person named Conchalla, and what she needs for her destiny, no
one in the play or the audience ever discovers.
Some American playwright must learn to write roles for women. Where is
our 21st century Ibsen, Strindberg or Chekhov? I’m teaching Script
Interpretation to aspiring actors, and what American drama do I have to offer the young
women? Needless to say, most characters in most plays are men. Mary Tyrone, Amanda
Wingfield, and Linda Loman are older women. When I turn with appreciation to Tina Howe or
Wendy Wasserstein, I come up against two-dimensionality. I can summon Tennessee Williams
and Eugene O’Neill but who else? In respect of August Wilson, I wish that a white man
would write complex roles for women; and that white women would write more deeply.
Otherwise, our actresses become fairly superfluous in the theatre.
Sam Shepard has a stock of juicy roles for men, though less so in THE
LATE HENRY MOSS. Still, respectable actors wanted to perform the play. In San Francisco,
the cast included Sean Penn, Nick Nolte and Woody Harrelson. In New York it’s been
Ethan Hawke in the role that Sean Penn originated, Henry Moss’s younger son Ray.
Ethan Hawke is a likeable actor, except that he plays himself or a variation thereof. A
couple of years ago I saw him as Kilroy in CAMINO REAL at Williamstown and more recently
of course as Hamlet in the movie. He limits his voice and body. In HENRY MOSS he has
difficulty finding a middle range. His expression veers from quiet intensity to boisterous
intensity. More troubling than his effort on stage was his appearance in the lobby after
the show.
I would like to recommend that any actor who plays himself on stage not
mix with the audience. Let any actor who plays himself go out a back door or go out in
disguise. Otherwise, he perverts the illusion theatre intends to create: that characters,
distinct from the actors who embody them, inhabit the given circumstances of a play. As
for the actor who plays through character, by all means, let him mix with the audience. A
character actor can leave the character in the dressing room and freely mingle. An actor
playing himself has only a costume to leave in the dressing room.
So why not just characterize? I wish Ethan Hawke would. And I wish Sam
Shepard would write a play about a woman.
