Interview: Erik Jensen Navigates the New Play Vladimir While Celebrating No Evidence of Disease

Best known for cowriting impactful docu-dramas like The Exonerated and Coal Country with wife Jessica Blank, Erik Jensen has built a reputation for tackling weighty, real-world issues through storytelling. As an actor, his diverse body of work spans TV, film, and the stage, and in Erika Sheffer’s Vladimir at Manhattan Theatre Club’s New York City Center — Stage I, he brings his experience to the role of Andrei, a Kremlin press officer contending with journalists who are digging for stories that the government doesn’t want to be released.

Here, Jensen talks about the play and also discusses his personal battle with colorectal cancer, sharing how his recovery and the support of the theater community have shaped his return to the stage. With good humor as a key tool for survival, Jensen finds parallels between his health struggles and the dark themes of the play, making his performance in Vladimir all the more poignant.

This conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Tell me about the Vladimir, which I assume is about Vladimir Putin based on the title.
Putin does not appear in the play, but his dark presence is felt throughout by a group of reporters, who are slowly feeling the squeeze and being threatened. My character’s name is Andrei, and Andrei works as the head of the Kremlin press office. He’s an antagonist. Playing an antagonist without any mustache twirling is sometimes a challenge, especially when the words are so delicious.

I don’t want to be too hyperbolic, but I think I’m in a great American play. Erika Sheffer is a phenomenally deep writer, and her teaming up with Dan Sullivan is an ideal situation for any actor to be in.

With this cast, the rehearsal room must have been a cool place to work.
It was. You’ve got many people finding their way into their character, and each one of us is different. Erin Darke has a different technique than Francesca Faridany. I have a different take than Norbert Leo Butz does.

Watching us all find each other has been an interesting process, especially because Dan has a reputation for not saying much, only what’s necessary. A lot of directors really like to talk your ear off. This is a situation where the less you hear from the director, the better. Most of us have been doing this for 30 years, but we’re instruments of his will, which is a really holy place to be as an actor. I firmly believe that, having spent so much time on the other side of the table, good actors are not a dime a dozen. He’s got a bunch of excellent actors in this show.

And I’ve made friends now with Norbert; him and I are like brothers from another mother. We only have four or five scenes together, but we love getting out there and going at each other. It’s really fun, which makes it kind of tempting to go off the path a little bit, but hewing to the path is also part of the holiness of being in a play.

You did MTC’s The Collaboration on Broadway after having a brain aneurysm, and now you’re doing Vladimir while contending with cancer. What does that mean to you as an actor, knowing that Manhattan Theatre Club so firmly has your back?
Manhattan Theatre Club has been a home for me as a performer. I was an understudy on this stage in my Corpus Christi days, with Josh Lucas and Michael C. Hall. I got to go on a bunch of times. I guess most of my writing now takes place at the Public Theater, so it’s a healthy mix of uptown and downtown.

With the health thing, I’ve been very public about my recovery. My wife and I were in the middle of making a film for me to be in with our daughter in Minneapolis. I had felt great. I was jazzed to be there directing with my wife and seeing my daughter blossom as a performer. I had some blood come out of me and I showed Jess and she was like “Huh.” We came back to New York, and two days after, I found out I had stage for colorectal cancer.

Of course, I’d missed my 50-year [colonoscopy]. Because of the pandemic, I didn’t go in for a check. They say 45 of 40 is the best time to do it now, so, not to be personal, but definitely go.

I’ve been for two already.
Hey, all right! Good. Good. I’m preaching to the choir then.

Colorectal stuff is very important to me, which is part of the reason why I wanted to talk to you. To raise awareness, and because I know you and your wife are so open about it.
It is definitely something to be afraid of. I speak lightly about it now, but that’s because I kind of have to.

My surgery was very intense and made me very aware of my body and its vulnerability. I really had to put my intention out there of being well. I didn’t want to sink into the illness. There have been studies that show that your attitude can deeply affect your recovery.

And so, I really found out in the theater community who all my friends were. They showed up and watched movies with me, brought me books, visited me in the hospital, helped out around the house.

One of my inspirations for getting better was Jerry Garcia from the Grateful Dead. In 1986, he fell into a diabetic coma and was out for like five days. He was, in my opinion, one of the greatest guitarists of the 20^th Century and he had to re-learn from the ground up to play guitar again. My situation was more drawn out than that but knowing that he had climbed up the mountain with generous help from his friends, that gave me a lot of faith that I could get back, too.

Fortunately, we had quite a bit of work to do on the movie over the time that I was recovering. We were editing, putting in music, all that stuff over the course of the last year, and now the film has been accepted to the Woodstock Film Festival and the Newport Beach Film Festival, which is exciting.

At this moment, how are you doing?
Six weeks ago, I had an ablation to chase down one last tumor on my liver that was really hanging on. But they got a good beat on it and took everything out. Four weeks ago, we got the high sign that it looked like we were clear.

I was just declared cured by my doctor. I’m called N.E.D., no evidence of disease, which is a big deal for cancer survivors. You know, hey, recurrence happens. I’m not an idiot. But for right now, I feel free, and it’s a good feeling.

That’s the best news I’ve heard all week.
Thank you. I got to tell the whole cast and there was a big, raucous group hug. It was almost to the day that we started previews that the doctor was like “Goodbye, have a great run, and I hope to never see you again.”

Tell me about getting back on stage after all this.
It’s like not having played music for a long time and becoming part of a jazz quintet. It’s nice to be playing again with a group of people who love words as much as I do, and who are so funny. This play has very serious themes, but the humor is — like, all of us cancer survivors have a dark sense of humor, which matches the Russian sensibility. There’s this kind of doom that hangs over everything, but you blow it away with a little joke and it makes everybody feel better.

Do you and Jess see a play in the struggles that you went through over the last year?
I think that that play, on one level or another, has already been done very well. Personally, everything that happens to me makes it into my work. So, maybe in a few years, if I get enough perspective on this, maybe there’s something in the offing. But for right now, I’m focused on being an actor, and it’s nice.