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Exclusive: Erbe & Pankow Talk TACT's NATURAL AFFECTION
Nov 10, 2022
TACT/The Actors Company Theatre presents Natural Affection by William Inge, the first production of the company's 21st Season. Directed by TACT Co-Artistic Director Jenn Thompson. BroadwayWorld's Richard Ridge just chatted with cast members Kathryn Erbe and John Pankow about the productionand you can check out what they had to say below!
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Hello, I'm Richard Ridge for Broadway World
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Tacked, the Actress Company Theater has kicked off their 21st season with the William Inge play Natural Affection
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Under the direction of Jen Thompson, stage and screen stars, Catherine Irby and John Panko, headline this new revival
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This is the first time the play has been seen in a major production in New York City since it originally opened on Broadway in 1963
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And I caught up with the show's two stars here at the Beckett Theater before a performance
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Tell me how this play came about for you. Well, this spring I was working with Stephen Cuncan
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in a play at Lincoln Center called Nicolai and the Others, Richard Nelson Play
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And Stephen is married to the incredible Jen Thompson. And she is a co-artistic director of this theater company
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TACT. And one night, towards the end of our run, Stephen sent me a text saying
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Jen wants you to do this play and I think you could kill it
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would you read it and let us know so I said sure and I read it
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and I first thing I thought was oh my God this is terrifying
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and the next thing I thought was I guess I should probably say yes
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Let's talk about the play without giving anything away this is so different from anything
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William Inge ever wrote It sure is It sure is This play is, he, oh, it's, I think it's his only urban drama, like truly urban drama, set in Chicago, 1962
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It talks a lot about our obsession with things, with objects and clothes and the appearance of things as opposed to the substance and what's underneath and inside of people
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all these characters are in a lot of pain and a lot of need
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So it's, I mean, I think that all his plays have that
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but the urban setting and the real violence at the end, I think, make it very unique
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Let's talk about this cast, beautifully cast play. Talk about working with John, your fellow cast members
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Well, you know, I didn't know anybody in the cast except for John
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John and I go way back. We've been at many dinner parties together over the years, but never worked together
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And so I was thrilled when he decided to do this. And I was so excited to see how he interpreted Vince
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and it's just amazing to watch him every night and difficult because I have a hard time
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keeping a straight face when he trying to dance with me and doing all these crazy antics jumping on the furniture knocking over the couch things like that It just a wonderful group Jen assembled quite a cast
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Everybody is really perfect for their roles, and we all, you know, we have to go to such a raw place emotionally
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We really couldn't do it if we didn't feel so safe. Let's talk about Jen
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Jen is one of the finest directors. Talk about the room she set up in the rehearsal room and what it was like, you know
3:11
finding these people. It was, Jen, you know, I really feel like this play could not have been directed by anyone other than a mother, first of all
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But Jen lived it for a year. She had it incubating in her being for a year before we started rehearsals
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And we all went into it with, you know, a lot of people say, this is a place to try things and fail and no judgment whatsoever
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And that's, they may say it, but it's not always true. And in this instance, it really was
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We found it all together. And we tried things, and then they didn't work
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and we risked failing in front of each other. We risked failing in front of the audience during previews
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And really, really found the play, I'd say, only in the past, like, week and a half
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after everybody left all the critics. And including Jen, you know, we had to take it for ourselves
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and get everybody's voices out of our heads and just live in it
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And it's really a wild ride now. I'm very lucky to say there are some Law & Order super fans
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who have come to see the show, who come to see everything. One came from Germany with her mom just to see it
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And it's so great. It feels really good to have people, you know, be that supportive
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You work in film and television, but you always come back to the theater. Why? I love it. I love doing plays. I love how hard they are. I love how immediate they are. I love the shared experience with the audience
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So take me back to the beginning. How did this play come about for you? This play came about. Strangely, I was at one of my favorite Chinese restaurants in Chinatown
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And great New York noodle town. Can't plug it enough. Anyway, left there, and I was on Bayhart
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headed toward the subway, and I bumped into Jen Thompson, and I said, and we hadn't seen it
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We knew each other to say hello, and we just had a great little rendezvous
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meeting in front of this little ice cream shop on Bayard. And she got the aside
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She said, you know, we have to work together. We have to work together. And the next thing I knew, she was giving me a call saying
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you know what I have this plaque And I would really like you to think about doing it And she sent it to I said let me read it And I read it and I thought well this is a terrifying part you know
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because this guy who I play comes, he comes into this dinner scene, this Christmas
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a party scene, it's Christmas Eve. And he kind of, he's kind of an SS20 IBM missile
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Shum, and he just, and he, He just takes over the party
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He's pretty drunk when he arrives, and then he just gets drunker in the course of not a real long span of time
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It's only about 10 minutes. And then culminating in a raging kind of thing and passing out
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And I thought, well, how do you do that? How do you do that
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And I thought, that's kind of scary. The notion of can I, could I pull that off
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Beautifully cast. Talk about working with your fellow actors, including Catherine. Oh, working with Catherine
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and working with all this, this whole cast is remarkable. They're just, and one of the things I love about this cast among many
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is that here we are in week three of the run, guarantee you tonight is going to be, you know, it just keeps
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this thing keeps growing. I listen to it on the squawk box and I just, I get chills
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It's just because everybody brings their game. No one's coasting at all
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And I think that's just a, no one's, we've never talked about it
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But it's just, it's just, actors get that from one another. If they see that everybody's bringing their game every night and still, still exploring, still in that exploratory mode, stuff doesn't get, it's, no one's letting it get static or just no one is settling
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You work in film and television all the time, but you always come back to the theater. Why
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Well, you know, this is what I do. The theater is what I do
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First of all, it's a control-free stream, right? Because you're the storyteller, you know, in film and television, the editor or the director
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that you facilitate the telling of the story. But you're not the storyteller
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You give them choices so when they get into their sandbox, they can create, they can tell
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the story and use that take or this take or this. No. If you, we're doing a play, every night we go out, nobody's saying cut, nobody, we are
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going and it all depends on you know what we bring on that given day what the
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audience is bringing in and we tell stories together and that to me is the joy of
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it if you said to me you're never going to do a film or television thing again I
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was it would miss it it would be tough it would but if you said you're never
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going to do a play again I don know what I do I would be lost you know to millions of fans for the things you do like episodes Wild Wild show You having fun doing that Oh episodes Jeffrey Clarek and David Crane
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are extraordinary. And one of the things about episodes that's so great is that it's just them
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You know, every other television thing I've ever been involved. There's been a team of writers, 11
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writers, 14 writer producers. It's just these guys. It's just one director
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We shoot it like a movie. You know, you do the whole season. And, you know
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you can shoot on any given, on any given day you could shoot an episode from, you could shoot scenes from episodes one through nine
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get whatever, one of the seasons was only seven episodes, but it's fun, great actors, great time
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man, and I think that's a special show. What's interesting to me is a lot of the people who do go
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for that show, it's not for everybody, just like that. Nothing is for everybody. I mean
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that's not the nature of what we do. But for the people who do go for it, they have a kind of
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a zealous response to it. They're mad for it. They'll stop you on the street
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Oh my God. When is it on again? You know, all that. It's fun
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It's fun. And it's a good group. It's a really good group. It's a menchy
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group of people. So I've been very blessed. You know, think of this play
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where everybody comes to work. We have a grand time. You know, same thing with episodes
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Great. Great people. If you could sum up the best experience, with working on this play? What is it for you, John
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For this play? The best experience of working on this play? Well, that's hard because there are so many great things about it
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Starting with the ensemble, starting with my fellow actors. That's the greatest thing about it
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is being able to come to work and tell this story with this group. secondly
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I have such a fondness for this character that I'm playing and I feel honored
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really to play this character because his struggle is such a universal struggle
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and I feel like it's I feel like it's a gift and a responsibility
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that I've been handed to try and get this guy right And I, and I, the desire to get that right every night is, is challenging, but extraordinarily rewarding when it's working
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So, and frustrating when it's not. But more, I have to, I'm happy to report that most of the time it's working
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And it's, that that's a great joy
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