“you might imagine them in bed together.”
“You feel this erotic and emotional connection very strongly,” he adds.
Brandon Uranowitz (Falsettos) and David Furr (Noises Off) round out the cast.
Credit: Danielle Levitt
The director finally gets to sink his teeth into the Pulitzer winner with a star-studded cast.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY:Let’s start with this photograph it’s quite sensual.
Can you tell me more about the chemistry between Keri Russell and Adam Driver?
MICHAEL MAYER:We’re about a week into rehearsals now.
Even from the very beginning, the two of them have a wonderful ease with each other.
They look fantastic with each other, and they have got clearly great affection for each other already.
You couple that with the highly charged, emotional sexual tension of the scenes in the play.
They’re acting out one of those in that picture a little bit.
There’s something very epic about the emotional life of the play that I find very compelling.
I do feel like this was Lanford’s AIDS play.
A young dancer dies at 24 and that is what generates the events of the play.
This is the first time it’s been revived since it debuted in the 1980s.
Why do you think its taken so long and why is now the right time?
We’re just really lucky in this particular moment to have an actor like Adam Driver.
And to have Keri Russell play Anna, that’s reason enough to do this play.
Adam has this explosive, dangerous, unpredictable animal quality that really is this character Pale.
And then you’ve got Keri, who is sensitive but sensible.
Both Joan Allen and John Malkovich were heralded for their work in the original production.
Have you reached out to them at all?
No, you know, I haven’t.
It’s not an overly theatrical piece.
It’s a very naturalistic piece of writing.
It’s not flashy.
It doesn’t have a lot of tricks up its sleeve really at all.
It’s four human beings in one room over the course of a few months.
There’s no big video cues; there’s no razzle dazzle to it.
The razzle dazzle is watching four superb actors play out this drama in front of us in a room.
Maybe after we do it, and it’s up and running, then that might be interesting.
I saw that production when it was first on Broadway and they were fantastic.
I just feel like we have a direct line to the lineage of it through her.
Can you tell me a bit more about how the rehearsal process has been so far?
What we’re doing is a real luxury in the theater.
And why do you think you’re someone who has a deft hand with it?
It’s the history of drama to have this catharsis.
Ever since the Greeks.
There are casualties always.
