Interview: Patrick Vaill Taps Into His Inner Matthew Modine as Dr. Brenner in Stranger Things: The First Shadow

After years — if not decades — inhabiting the insular world of Jud Fry in Daniel Fish’s sexy and scary revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! (in college, off-Broadway, on Broadway, in London), Patrick Vaill was looking for a change. He found his complete 180, “from tormented to tormentor,” as he put it, in the Upside Down.

In the West End world premiere production of Stranger Things: The First Shadow, Kate Trefry’s prequel to the much-loved Netflix series (from a story by Trefry, Jack Thorne, and the Duffer Brothers), Vaill plays a younger version of Dr. Martin Brenner (the elder TV counterpart is played by Matthew Modine), who is tasked with minding a young man with psychokinetic abilities named Henry Creel. He won’t go into much more detail than that (he “happily” signed an “ironclad NDA”), except to say that the experience has been a great gift — one that’s bringing new audiences to the West End. And he doesn’t take it for granted.

This conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.

It’s so interesting to compare the bells and whistles of this production to Oklahoma!, which was just some plywood and picnic tables.
I joke that the big effect in Oklahoma! was that we turned out all the lights. This play is technical on so many levels. The first act is so rapid fire. Literally everything is spinning around. We have three revolves on the stage and the plot is hurtling forward. Suddenly, in Act 2, there are two people alone on a nearly empty stage taking to each other. The great gift is that I get to be in this sort of strange two-hander amid this.

Tech was an endurance test for everybody, not only physically, but emotionally. What’s been amazing is that, for something that is so technologically advanced and feels like such a behemoth, a colossal piece of entertainment, it’s an old-fashioned trunk show. We have these huge illusions and great moments of stage magic, but without giving anything away, they’re quite simple. At the end of the day, we are a company of players and everyone really cares about each other and we’re all really excited to be telling this story every night for people that are excited to hear it.

This role is obviously linked to Matthew Modine in the series. How much leeway did they give you in terms of building your own version of the character, versus asking you to be Patrick Vaill as Matthew Modine as Dr. Brenner?
That was never explicitly asked of me in any way. Probably in terms of my even being considered, there was a question of ballpark resemblance to him. I observed the physical and vocal skeleton of what he did in the series, especially vocal, and anything that wasn’t useful I threw away. I had no interest in an act of mimicry. That would be such a disservice to the show, but also, where’s the fun in that? What he’s done is so indelible, and I feel very lucky that there’s a lot of room to play. What he shows in the series is a fully formed person, and the Dr. Brenner we meet in The First Shadow is not as elegant, and quite unhinged at times, delightfully.

What was it like when you finally met him on opening night?
First of all, I was struck by him because he’s just so handsome. That’s the first thing, this enormous handsome man in front of me. I’m a fan of his work, not just Stranger Things. Full Metal Jacket. He did this movie called Private School with Phoebe Cates that a bunch of us watched during a slumber party. It was a real thrill to meet him. He’s an actor who I admire in terms of his work and his decency as a human. It was a big deal for me.

He was seated right in the front of the theater. Luckily, I didn’t realize it was him, because I thought surely, they wouldn’t put him in the third row. He was so lovely. I can’t imagine what it would be like to watch somebody else play a different version of something you’ve already built. I was very bashful about having shown him my performance. He was startled by the fact that I wear a wig in the show. What I look like onstage is very different than what I look like when I come out. He really loves Stranger Things. That’s one of the powers this property has. Everybody who works on it has a deep love of it.

One of the things that surprised me…I went to a Friday matinee in the middle of February. I was wondering who goes to see a West End show at one o’clock on a Friday in the middle of winter. The theater was packed with all ages, and everyone was really into it. In New York, we’re sort of trained to expect that the crowd skews far older for matinees, and they’re not well-attended.
It’s very different in London. People see more theater here. It’s more accessible. People are introduced to theater at an earlier age and it’s extraordinarily inviting for new audiences. Therefore, there is a habit of going to the theater in this country that not only breeds experimentation from the artists, but from the audiences.

I really have loved being here for that. At Oklahoma!, certainly, we got a lot of people who were deeply startled by what they saw, and a lot of people who came thinking it was “eat your vegetables” theater and found themselves galvanized by what we were doing. Stranger Things has a built-in, wonderfully dedicated audience of fans who love the story and material, which is a huge gift. But when you’re telling people a story that they’ve never heard before, they’re dying to know what’s going to happen. As an actor, that moment when you know the story is good and the audience is listening, there’s nothing better than that. You feel that suspension in the whole room, the collective holding of breath. But you also get people who are like, “I’ve heard this was good, so I’m gonna go see the Stranger Things play” and they have no knowledge of it. They’re experimenting and seeing if they like it.

One of the statistics I read…I believe that this is the first West End show for 55 percent of our audiences. It’s extraordinary. As someone who, as a kid who ended up going into theater, it was seeing something like this that got me there. We might possibly be the gateway drug or someone who ends up being in this field. It’s huge, and it feels really good that we’re being the first experience for people.