Loose Lips

SHRINK RAP
Portia is no stranger to intense experiences, having starred in such high-octane dramas as Our Lady of 121st Street, McReele, and most recently, the Hartford Stage production of Frankie & Johnny in the Clair de Lune. But playing a military psychiatrist out to get the truth from a traumatized solider — played by film and TV star Dylan McDermott — in Eve Ensler‘s two-hander
The Treatment at the Culture Project is a new level of stress. “Even though it’s only 70 minutes, Dylan and I feel like we’ve been through a war,” she says. “I have to lie down right after. Early on in the rehearsal process, I found it really hard to disengage, and wondered how I was going to do this every night. I felt the same way about being naked in Frankie & Johnny, but once you realize it’s going to happen, you just go with it.”

Working with McDermott — who is also Ensler’s adopted son — has been an eye-opening experience. “I was afraid it could be a little bit of a struggle, since we come from different places, but he works so hard that it’s kind of frightening,” she says. “He seems very at home being surrounded by women — even our director is a woman, Leigh Silverman — and maybe that’s because he has a wife and two kids. Right now, the most incredible part of this show for me is just to be able to look at him on stage and feel hooked in to the moment. We feed off of each other. I know I’m very lucky to work with someone who’s so enjoyable and so smart.”

Portia is particularly pleased that this role, like Frankie, wasn’t written for a person of color. “Earlier this year, I had made a comment that I didn’t want to do the traditional Black woman role any more — anyone will be Black because I play it — so it was great to open this script and see the character was just a woman,” she says. And while the play clearly is meant to comment on the current war in Iraq, she also notes “It’s not specific to this time period. Depending on when and where it’s played, it could be 19-something.”

Tackling the role caused the actress to do some very unusual preparation. “I’ve had surgery on my back and my shoulder, so the physicality of having to stand straight all the time was difficult. But now I have the best posture I’ve ever had,” she says. “As for the psychology part, a friend’s mom is a counselor and I was able to sit with her and work with her. She really had to teach me the difference between sympathy and empathy. It was great to be able to do research without having to read some book.” And now that she’s accustomed to the two-hander form, Portia says she’s almost addicted to the lack of co-stars. “I’m starting to get used to this. If I had to be part of a cast of 12 again, like in Our Lady, I’d be thinking about what to do for the five scenes I’m not on stage.”

TURNING THE PAGE
Having previously played Eleanor Roosevelt in the original production of First Lady Suite and Pat Nixon in the opera Nixon in China, Carolann Page was a logical choice to take on the title role in the York Theatre Company’s ASYLUM: The Strange Case of Mary Todd Lincoln. The new musical takes place during the period when she was committed to the loony bin by her son Robert, and, not surprisingly, Page is finding playing this iconic woman to be a fascinating experience. “She was supposed to be crazy,” she says. “But at the time the play takes place, she’s 56, and she’s seen her husband assassinated, lost three sons — and her mother died when she was six. I think there was just this huge accumulation of grief.”

Page, who was most recently on the New York stage in Menopause The Musical, has considered some other explanations for Lincoln’s behavior. “She was a menopausal woman, and in those days, they overmedicated women so much and it resulted in these major mood swings,” she notes. “Plus, she was highly educated — she spoke three languages — and she was very into fashion, even buying dozens of gloves in one shopping spree. That was unusual for that time, so people didn’t know how to deal with her. I think in the end she wasn’t really crazy, but probably just eccentric.”

Fortunately, Page has a much better relationship with her own son, Broadway star Alexander Gemignani, who is soon to play Jean Valjean in Les Misérables. “I’m so proud of him. I think his career is progressing very well,” says Page. “We’re not just each other’s biggest fans, we’re each other’s best ears. Whenever either of us has an audition, we sing for each other, and we go see everything the other one does. I guess that given his genetics (his father is conductor Paul Gemignani), he was always going to love music — or hate it.”

MAGIC AND MYTHS
The amazing Eric Walton will show off his prestidigitation skills in his new show Esoterica, starting September 9 at the DR2; comedienne Rita Rudner, who starred on Broadway in The Magic Show, will appear at the Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center on September 9; The Milk Can Theatre Company will present Charles L. Mee‘s The Trojan Women 2.0 at the Michael Weller Theater, September 9-20; famed voice coach-director Patsy Rodenburg will helm a one-performance-only production of The Tempest at England’s Stratford-on-Avon on September 11; former Monkee Mickey Dolenz, currently starring as King Charlemagne in Pippin at the Goodspeed Opera House will be signing his books, Gakky Two-Feet and Mickey Dolenz Rock ‘n’ Rollin’ Trivia, at Borders Books & Music in nearby Waterford, Connecticut on September 12; The National Theatre of Greece will bring its production of The Persians to City Center, September 16-20; Maria Dizzia will take on the title role in Sarah Ruhl’s Eurydice at Yale Rep, starting September 22; Carl Hancock Rux‘s multi-media Mycenaean, based in part on the myth of Hyppolutus, will be seen as part of BAM’s Next Wave Festival, October 10-14; and Tony Award winner Mary Zimmerman will serve up the world premiere of Argonautika, October 18-December 23 at Chicago’s Lookingglass Theatre.

FIT FOR A QUEEN

Five years ago, Claude Michel-Schönberg and Alain Boublil certainly didn’t expect to have two Broadway shows on this season. True, their mega-hit Les Misérables was still running at that time, so there was no concept of the soon-to-arrive revival of the show. Moreover, they originally turned down the chance to write the now Broadway-bound musical The Pirate Queen despite a lovely letter from the show’s producers, Moya Doherty and John McColgan of Riverdance fame, asking for their participation.

But time plays funny tricks. The original Les Miz closed up shop in May, 2003. And, as the pair told a gathering of press and friends at the Rainbow Room late last month, they found themselves entranced by the chance to tell the story of Irish pirate Grace O’Malley, an archenemy of Queen Elizabeth I. In fact, Schönberg — who was the original naysayer — actually wrote the first 20 minutes of the show without even telling Boublil!

The cast members — including Broadway veterans Stephanie J. Block, Linda Balgord, William Youmans, Jeff McCarthy, and temporarily transplanted Brit Hadley Fraser — have a lot to say about the show, which is set to begin performances at Chicago’s Cadillac Palace Theatre on October 3. You can hear their thoughts on the live “castcom” that will begin broadcasting from the Cadillac Palace on September 12. To check it out, visit www.thepiratequeen.com/castcom.