How, as an actress, have you seen that borne out when you’re playing the part? Is it just a feeling in the air, is it that laugh lines are slightly different…?
As an actor on stage, the audience often thinks that they’re there to be entertained, but they’re a vital, active component of the evening. It’s not about laughter, necessarily; it’s quality of listening. Broadway audiences are so literate: They love theater, they love being told stories, they love a surprise. And that, coupled with the current — it’s not even a political climate, it’s like a moral climate — has meant that the play’s been attended to in a slightly different way.
I think we’re all so hyperaware of our relationships to the truth right now, and to our sense of objectivity, in every interaction we have throughout a day.
Language is incredibly powerful: the words we choose to use, and how we choose to use them. I remember ages ago, the word “evil” was purloined, and it’s been very bewildering to me watching the word “refugee” morph into the word “immigrant” morph into the word “terrorist” within the space of nine months. “Truth” is an immutable word: Something is true or it is not. Theater, actually, its currency is language.
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