Stage Door Jonny

In part two of Jonny’s chat with Chris Abbott they discuss Arthur Miller and the edge of embarrassment, Chris’s thoughts on the extraordinary final scene of Salesman and how to do it afresh each night, just saying the first line and letting go and how to be generous onstage; having an action, grabbing Nathan Lane’s face onstage, a quick shift of recording location to Chris’s bedroom, the suggestion of violence Chris brings onstage, the life he brings off the text, responding to what the NYT theatre critic wrote in praise of his performance and whether we feel free onstage; what he needs from a director, freedom in a House of Blue Leaves with Ben Stiller and in John with Annie Baker and Sam Gold, what pisses him off about the theatre, knowing “how to backstage” and his longing for the experimental.

This week's episode brings you one of America’s hottest young actors, bubbling under as a major star since Girls and now ready to pop, the man described onstage by Nathan Lane after the final performance of Death of a Salesman as “the best actor i’ve ever worked with onstage”. It's Christopher Abbott. He and Jonny discuss clearing up boxes and making a nest for the baby he was about to have with the great Aubrey Plaza; the German word that Chris has in common with the very first Willy Loman; his psychological setting that has to do with religious roots and losing them; Chris’s interest in phenomenology; his first performance as Hark (the Herald Angel), coming from a working class area in a big town, cinema as church, believing he had a knack from the beginning, how much we perform for the other actor or the audience and what Kenny Lonergan said about Jonny’s performance in Salesman; Chris’s retirements, self-confidence, his own father watching him play a tortured son and his hardscrabble beginnings in the business.

This week Jonny’s guest is one of the radical icons of American theatre: writer, essayist and actor Wallace Shawn. Surely one of the most vocally and visually recognisable actors in the world after a screen career ranging from Vizzini in The Princess Bride to Rex the Dinosaur in Toy Story to Dr Sturgis in Young Sheldon, to My Dinner With Andre as himself, Wally has been at the forefront of some of the most boundary-pushing and innovative theatre work of the last forty years. The conversation ranges from the “sexually perverse” show that began his theatregoing career (Peter Pan) to his latest onstage outing understudying a female part in his most recent play, What We Did Before Our Moth Days; the profound experience of a Christmas pageant; the influence of England and English theatre artists on his life and career; the startling controversy of his first London play (it was raided by the Vice Squad and questions were asked in Parliament); his father, legendary New Yorker editor William Shawn’s, resistance to obscenities, the runaway hit that he was deprived of by the British government; voyeurism in the theatre; Andre Gregory, Grotowski and not acting onstage- and who cries the tears: actor or character?

Part two of Jonny’s chat with actor/director Joe Mantello starts with a discussion of the response to their production of Death of a Salesman, the staging details that bothered some people, the director as dad, the award that was Joe’s professional pinnacle (and the closest he’s come to feeling like a parent), wrangling problem child like Glenda Jackson, his praising policy and how it’s changed over the course of his career, the early success that led to a reckoning with himself , how the production of a Balm in Gilead broke him open artistically, the pure experience of acting in Angels in America, the thrill of a bare stage, collaboration with Sondheim, his virtuosity with new plays and his relative lack of classics, his debt to Terence McNally, missing shows when you’re a little sad and the joys of his bonus round.

Welcome back-or welcome to- a new season of SDJ. And who tastier to kick it off than the doyen of American theatre directors and Tony-nominated actor, Joe Mantello. Joe has won the Tony for best director three times, his latest coming shortly after this chat with Jonny, for directing Death of a Salesman starring Nathan Lane and Laurie Metcalf (and Jonny Cake). Jonny had a front row seat as Joe shaped Salesman into a show that won more Tonys than any revival of the play in its storied 77 year history. Joe is the great American director of new writing (Blackbird, Vagina Monologues, The Humans, Take Me Out, Love! Valor! Compassion!) as well as the cultural behemoth that is Wicked. Joe talks about his dislike of unnecessary noise, the silence during Salesman, the concept of “sonder”, what makes Laurie Metcalf special, details of his staging that made Salesman into the tragedy of whole family, the best-lit strand of snot on Broadway, Joe’s ventriloquist doll, the secret conversation at the back of the stage in Mame and its influence on his artistic taste, his devotion to artistic restraint, shame and the influence of Miss Windsor, sex and a shift in consciousness, who’s his primary watcher and what he doesn’t need people to see after watching one of his shows.

In the second half of Jonny’s chat with Lesley Manville, Jonny recalls seeing her onstage for the first time in The Cherry Orchard with Judi Dench, what she learned from Judi, the story about working with her that she won’t repeat (but you should hear it, so here it is), why some great performers need to be on the verge of laughter, Tony Sher flashing in Tamburlaine the Great, her 13 projects with Mike Leigh, the man who influenced Lesley’s stage work maybe more than any other, playing a hamster at the Royal Court for a 10 year old, the pressure on young actors now, telling Caryl Churchill how she could improve Serious Money, breaking down the method behind Max Stafford-Clark’s rehearsal process, her response to men who take up too much space in the rehearsal room, where her confidence comes from and the magic- and pitfalls- of last shows. 

This weeks guest is a gem: Oscar nominee and two time Olivier-award winner, the magnificent Lesley Manville. In her plushly upholstered dressing room at Studio 54, Lesley and Jonny discuss him hunting her like a fox, her upcoming appearance in Marianne Eliott’s Les Liasons Dangereuses, how theatre is a time machine, ending her triumphant run as Jocasta opposite Mark Strong in Robert Icke’s Oedipus on Broadway, her fabled 15 minute monologue, getting ill and wondering whether her lifelong feeling that she didn’t take her characters home with her was really true, wondering if great actors must be private people, Sam Mendes‘s advice about lying and it’s relationship to acting and the all-conquering past that Jonny and Lesley have in common.

(CONTAINS VERY STRONG LANGUAGE) In the this week’s episode Jonny talks to celebrated theatrical disruptor Tom Morris. They talk about Tom’s most embarrassing moment in the theatre (it’s very embarrassing). His artistic directorship of Battersea Arts Centre and putting on shows without a script; how his work in alternative theatre was incorporated by Nick Hytner at the National; making Jerry Springer: The Opera; making Hytner experience Gay Shame; the genesis of the theatrical mega-hit War Horse; the two types of directors according to Simmo (spoiler: its blockers and wankers); when the floor opens up in front of a director, the paranoia sin-bin and what to do about it; why a puppet and a mirror gave Tom two of his most thrilling experiences at the theatre; why uncertainty in the theatre can provoke the perfect audience state; the creativity of an audience, setting Romeo and Juliet in a care home; what nags at him about the shows he’s done and getting older and less prophetic.