Interview: Michael Esper Feels the Ghosts in Appropriate on Broadway

The marquee names in the Broadway production of Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s Appropriate are Sarah Paulson and Corey Stoll as a pair of siblings warring over their dead father’s plantation estate. And while Michael Esper may be a lesser-known actor for audience members going to see celebrities, his performance as Paulson and Stoll’s brother Franz is no less exhilarating.

Esper invests a beautiful, heartbreaking vulnerability in Franz, the black sheep of the Lafayette Family who has come back (with a much younger girlfriend named River in tow) to atone for past misdeeds. And in potentially trying to do some good, Franz keeps making a mess. It’s a performance that has only grown in depth since Lila Neugebauer’s production opened last winter at Second Stage’s Helen Hayes Theatre, and continues to grow a few avenues over now that the hit play has transferred to the Belasco. Esper really loves his character, and in his performance, you can feel that deeply.

This conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.

How’s the new theater? It’s so much bigger than the Hayes.
There’s a weird feeling of, like, coming back to your apartment and everybody’s moved all your stuff. Everything is in the same place, but is it? You know what I mean? It’s a little like that. 

In some ways, the Belasco is a creepier theater for it.
One hundred percent. That theater is creepy as fuck. I find it so weirdly unsettling. It’s weird because it’s warm and it’s cozy, but, like…something is not right.

I saw the play at Signature a decade ago and I have a very distinct recollection of not liking it. Not because of the cast or the experience; I just don’t think I really got what Branden was trying to do. And then I read the review from the Times that said that this is the kind of play that taught us how to watch contemporary plays, which I guess is true. Ultimately, I have a far greater appreciation for it now having seen this production.
Oh, I’m glad. I didn’t see that version, which I’m sort of grateful for. I wonder how it would have felt. I think I would have felt the same thing. Just culturally, with the kind of excavation and confrontation that we’ve been forced to do over the last five or 10 years, I do think we’ve learned a bit about how to watch this play.

What is it like to go through Franz’s arc night after night?
It’s hard. But there are things about it that keep it from feeling really annihilating. I do have hope for him. I think there is a lot of hope to be had for him. I think he’s really, sincerely committed to trying to be better person and different and heal himself.

It asks such an interesting question in wondering if a person should be forgiven for their past malfeasance if they’re actively trying to do better.
And what do you do then? Is forgiveness the actual goalpost, or is it just a step on the way to progress? Not that forgiveness is unimportant — I think it’s extremely important, on both sides. But real amends isn’t just about being forgiven and moving on. It’s a life project of trying to do better than you did before. I do think the play is wrestling with that, around a lot of other things.

Can you talk a little bit about building your performance, and how you’ve modulated it between Elle Fanning and Ella Beatty as River?
I think the challenge for an actor who’s in a position where someone’s coming in that you could still be [mentally] acting with the person who was there originally. Ella is doing different things, but the danger is that I’m still performing as if Elle is there. You don’t want to lose all you’ve built and the work you done, and you don’t want to scuttle the storytelling. So how do you maintain the integrity of the story you’re telling while still allowing for this new relationship? That’s the challenge.

Luckily, Ella is amazing. She’s wonderful. She’s an incredible actress. I can’t believe what she’s accomplished so fast. We did some table work together and we did talk a lot going into it. But she’s still going in with so little time, and I would never know that. She’s so confident and she’s already giving a beautiful performance. I love working with her, and it is different. Our relationship is different. I’m a little different with her. It’s fun and exciting to get to play with that and explore it over the next couple of months.

This might be a terrible question, since it is your job. But how do you not keep from laughing or having a visceral reaction when Sarah Paulson and Corey Stoll are screaming in your face on stage?
It’s very hard. I have to give a lot of credit to the other actors. While they are doing hysterically funny things, they’re also grounded in real shit. I’m grounded in real circumstances and things that have a serious impact on me. There’s not a lot of yukking it up for the hell of it, you know? Part of the miracle of what Sarah and Corey are doing is that they’re able to be both outrageously mean and hurtful, and genuinely upset and hilarious. It just lands. I can recognize that it’s like, “Oh, you’re being funny, but also, fuck you.” You know what I mean?

I do. And that’s something that really impressed me about the whole production, and your performance. There are so many different shades of how you can feel about all the characters. Franz did bad stuff, but you still hope he comes out the other side of it all.
I really love him. It’s a little hard to talk about. He’s different than his brother and sister. They’re very quick, and he’s a little slower. There’s something unconscious about Franz moving through the play. He doesn’t totally understand what he’s doing. He’s trying to catch up to where he is. I feel for him very deeply. While the scale of what he’s done wrong in the past may alienate him from people, understandably, I do think there’s room to relate to him for anybody who has regrets or done a terrible thing and wanted to be a better person and felt like they didn’t have the tools to get there. He’s trying to get better but he’s forced to come home and make this stuff right before he’s ready. He’s not ready to really make an amends, not a good amends. He doesn’t have a real sponsor, he doesn’t have enough program in him to deal with this, but his dad dies and now he has to come home and try to make it right as best he can. I have a lot of love for him doing that.

Have you seen any of the Belasco Theatre ghosts yet?
No, we haven’t. But, you know, Helen is supposed to be around the Hayes, as well. There’s a lot of lore around a lot of theaters. I love it, personally. I’m not a superstitious person, but when it comes to theaters, I can’t really get enough of it.

There’s something oddly romantic about it.
So romantic! It feeds into the sacredness of the space, the specialness of the theater.

And it works with the last section of the play, where time passes and the plantation falls into disrepair over the years.
Even during the speech at the end about going out into the woods and looking for the trees. I look into the house and there’s so much mystery out there. There’s so much depth to it. I don’t know what’s going on up there behind the balcony. Is that where David Belasco’s room was? You can feel it out there. Something in the air is fucked up. And it’s great.