An Actor's Utopia

Behind the glittering surfaces of Tom Stoppard's epic trilogy, a cadre of actors is having the experience of a lifetime

By Jason Butler Harner

A simple enough exchange:

"It's an interesting moment."
"A moment?"
"Yes. A moment."

But this moment is orchestrated by Tom Stoppard, and set in the middle of a whirling 1835 Russian soiree filled with passionate thinkers, young and established alike. For me, it has become the echoing touchstone of this nine-month adventure of The Coast of Utopia at Lincoln Center Theater. In Voyage, Shipwreck and Salvage, Stoppard has threaded 35 years of revolutionary history and philosophy—and the Russian intellectuals and agitators who were set afire by it—into eight hours of ardent discussion and family turmoil. To be a part of such an event as the American premiere of a trilogy of plays by this esteemed playwright, running in rotating repertory, on Broadway, with a cast of 44, is an interesting moment indeed. A humbling, full-circle moment.

Growing up in suburban Virginia, I had the "luck-xury" of seeing a handful of plays at D.C.'s Arena Stage. Even at that time, the idea of being a member of an acting company, of performing multiple roles for a returning audience, set the mark for my highest measure of success and happiness. It became the beacon of what I wanted to do with my life, and, luckily enough, companies in some form or other have peppered my career. There were my training years (undergraduate at Virginia Commonwealth University, graduate at New York University); there was an apprenticeship at Actors Theatre of Louisville in Kentucky; there have been productions at incredible theatres around the country (including the American premiere of Stoppard's The Invention of Love at American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco). And there are companies like ACT and New York City's Edge Theater where I am grateful to have extended artistic homes.

But none of these are quite the same as a yearlong commitment, performing with a cast this large, through the experience of repertory—all the while sleeping in my own bed. For a slew of reasons, core acting companies don't readily function in America as they once did. Every city has its unofficial company of well-regarded local talent, but the paid and committed ones are few. A business model that makes this succeed for audience, actor and producer in this day and age is hard to come by, to say the least—most especially in New York. My goals have changed as the profession has changed since my daydreaming childhood. I had given up on the idea of the communal as a part of my acting experience.

Sitting in the Lincoln Center basement rehearsal room on Sept. 5, 2006, staring at the largest read-through table I've ever seen (and I have done some Shakespeare), was…gob-smacking. I mean: jaw open, flies swarming. "Words stagger after, trying to become the sensation," my character, the writer Ivan Turgenev, will say in Shipwreck. First days are always exciting, but this was the start of something big, and we all knew it. The 20-foot-square table filled the room, and it didn't even include the designers, the producers or the kids in the cast.

There is always a history in a read-through room. I got my Equity card acting in Central Park with Andy McGinn and Adam Dannheisser in Henry VIII in 1997. Martha Plimpton and Josh Hamilton, now playing husband and wife, played boyfriend and girlfriend years earlier in subUrbia, also at LCT. Richard Easton taught a number of the cast members at the Old Globe in San Diego. The sheer number of us dictated an astoundingly vast breadth of experience. There were seven countries of birth represented. One of us had acted opposite Laurence Olivier; another had sung alongside Dolly Parton.

Many of us had begun reading the Russian literature and philosophies produced and debated by Utopia's characters. Josh, Martha, Brían F. O'Byrne and I had returned the day before from a last-minute trip to Moscow and St. Petersburg. For all the preparation and anticipation, no one could possibly have predicted what lay before us: births, death, a rebirth, marathons, a hootenanny and more. Apart from the standard Monday and seasonal holidays, the company would not have a day free of rehearsal until Feb. 20. The original London production rehearsed for 12 weeks and opened the trilogy en masse. The current Russian production has been rehearsing since November '05 and will open the trilogy in September '07. (There's a cultural difference.) The visionary powers of this production (LCT artistic director André Bishop and executive producer Bernard Gersten, who miraculously made the whole thing possible, and Jack O'Brien, our dynamo of a stage director) decided the way to tackle the inherent challenges in the States was to open each part individually, rehearsing aggressively, but knowing that the play would not be fully realized until the first marathon run of all three sections on Feb. 24.

On that first day of rehearsal, the tough-love, glove-throwing challenge was put immediately in play by our writer and director. (I flashed back to the first day of graduate school, when Zelda Fichandler dared us with her customary quoting of "Come to the Edge.") Tom, our modern-day Shakespeare, was quick to advise that "clarity of utterance" was his chief concern of the day and reminded us that one tends to be drawn to "the sexy words," but words like if, when or since become crucial in his plays.

Jack's first-day director's speech was worthy of St. Crispin's Day. He would deliver fresh sermons of its ilk throughout the process, each with a turn of phrase or gesture that could send you away inspired, in hysterical laughter or, when he was really on, both. Credos such as "Passion should be written on your foreheads" and "I want the astonishment of real, fixed thought on the stage all the time, and then they will not know what hit them…other than the clash of humanity," were the Jack gems I jotted down on day one. "I needed the A-Team," he said, "and I got it." These are things that even the most cynical of actors, equipped with a necessary thick skin, cannot help but smile at, if only for a moment. And so we set to work.

The four-week rehearsal for Voyage seems like an indulgence now, compared to the 12-day rehearsal periods for Shipwreck and Salvage. Tom's consistent presence was invaluable to the company—particularly for me. I recognized distinct similarities between the astutely aware Turgenev and Stoppard himself, which helped me find Turgenev's voice. For the four of us playing the same person in all three plays and attempting to plot character development without the benefit of rehearsal, this was like being in a new hybrid of film and theatre. Josh Hamilton, who plays poet and radical Nicholas Ogarev, and I have relatively small stage time in the first play, but knew we would develop later on. We were planting the seeds of character, hoping they would provide fruit months later, but fully aware that we would need to modify our performances as each segment taught more. Voyage became my study hall. I devoured Turgenev's writing (his letters were most inspiring) in a corner while the Bakunin family rehearsed itself into existence.

At one point, early in the rehearsal process, Billy Crudup, who plays literary critic Vissarion Belinsky, was away for a pre-planned family reunion. Another actor got up to do his scene with Belinsky's three-page monologue—an unquestionable highlight of the trilogy. It's packed with rhythm and humor and extensively developed thought—including a debate of where and what art is, in a way that can only be delivered by our writer. Realizing Billy was gone, I remembered a little about his understudy, never having seen him perform but having investigated a little (yes, I Google): Chicago actor; talented; new to New York. The scene began and he delivered this mammoth monologue so seamlessly, while channeling the foundations of what Billy had created, that when he finished, not only did the entire company give him a standing ovation, but Jack said simply, "Ladies and gentlemen—Scott Parkinson."

These are moments a company can have only by virtue of such size, skill and focus, as mandated by great material and coupled with a respectful contract in support of its creation. "We few, we happy few," indeed. Though it was clear to me that this group of knowing heavyweights shared a passion and talent for the theatre—many have chosen the stage over more lucrative screen work—this was the moment when it was documented that that hunched-over serf moving that chair, who had gone to that training program and starred in this production in that city, has depths of talent which he was now banking with the investment firm of Coast and Utopia.

In a company spanning generations, the fresh newcomer paying his dues is a good storyline (and one I've lived through), but it is the seasoned, respected professional who sets aside ego to become integral to the whole that awes me. This humility is consistently impressive. The reality in this Utopia is that the entire stage is filled with disciplined, talented actors, but only 15 or so have sustained time and depth on stage. There was a given that we'd all accepted: This group experience would be greater than the individual. But we are human—and we are actors—and nine months provide both an opportunity and a challenge of epic proportions.

In the middle of the second preview, looking up from the vom and about to make my first entrance, I watched Richard Easton as Father Bakunin deliver his verbal assault on his son (played by Ethan Hawke), with only Martha Plimpton as onstage witness. His work always sets the bar for the company, but Richard was on fire that night. The audience was laughing and listening at the same time. His speech ends, "That is my last word!" The coast of our utopia suddenly reconfigured. Richard collapsed—on his exit and in full view of the audience. Contrary to maxim, the show did not go on that night.

Five weeks later, when Richard returned for his put-in rehearsal, having survived heart arrhythmia and broken ribs from the onstage CPR, the cast sat scattered around the Beaumont in the beatific way that always happens during tech. Amidst the tables with glowing monitors were sprawled actor and designer pairings of twos and threes in random seat sections, or, in my case, an island of one: Seat H207 (donated by a mysterious Mrs. J. Seidman) called to me that day. There was the variety of costuming, universally inspired by fatigue, grabbed from screaming piles of laundry. Everyone sat with deflective façade in place, respectfully nonchalant to the man of the hour, physically separate but quietly, electrically connected.

This time as the speech ended—with many a silent, grateful tear in the house—Jack, Richard's friend of 40 years and our leader of three months, said simply, "Well, thank God we got through that. That was hard to see again." Without stopping and in true Eastonian fashion, en route to stage right for his next entrance, Richard tossed, "I wouldn't know," over his shoulder and kept going. Huge laughter erupted—a moment.

It's saccharine and sentimental, I know, but as I looked around at this array of loving actors (complete with their idiosyncrasies), I thought, "This is a calling." An actor's work is both highly undervalued and frequently overrated nowadays, but here with these actors in this shared, sacred space, I felt proud and part of an accredited, courageous community.

Around January, in the hasty and dog-tired rehearsal days of Salvage, morale probably reached its nadir. The time spent waiting was taxing (knitting circle, Scrabble table and poker club be damned). Someone was always good for a perfectly timed joke to keep spirits up (our company is blessed with a bevy of comic geniuses), but craft was definitely battling inspiration more and more frequently. We discovered how hard it can be to communicate while collaborating. Spending 12 hours a day for 5 months with any family is a lot to adjust to. (Most people barely make it through Christmas with sanity preserved.) With the pressure of limited rehearsal time for dense material, as well as this being the third and final installment—well, you have an idea of the mood in the halls. Pre-performance doubt crept in, now for the third time. The word "extension" had unexpectedly heightened the tension. "Wanna drive an actor crazy? Give him a job"—so the joke goes, but negotiating this lengthy an engagement was new to most of us. "Inspiration comes on a holiday," a teacher once said, "so you had better load your arsenal."

Celebrity sightings gave us bursts of intrigue and energy. Yes, even Meryl came to a marathon. A visit from the great-great-granddaughter of Alexander Herzen reminded us of the responsibility of playing historic figures. One night, an ovation erupted mid-intermission of Shipwreck, drawing us all to the wings. Suddenly the echo of such first-act lines as "The piled-up dead have exposed the republican lie" and the pending examination of an adulterous love triangle in the second act became especially palpable. Bill Clinton was in the house.

When we finally staked the summit on Feb. 24, it was like a baby being born. A number of the young fathers in the cast sheepishly admitted to having placed the marathon (particularly its curtain call) on their lists of unforgettable lifetime moments—firmly behind wedding days and the birth of children, of course. (Josh Hamilton had a particularly good month; his son Horatio had made his debut two weeks earlier.) We had all entered the theatre with the sun on high and would return to the world in the dark of night. Gassed up on coffee and cat-napping when necessary, we made it through three plays—only to discover that we were in one.

The brilliance of Tom's creation is clearest on marathon days. The reverberations and fractals he has masterminded are more easily recognizable. Objects like penknives and words like "storm" have heightened meaning. An elder character warns Herzen around noon that someday someone will say to him, "Get out of the way, you're behind the times." The prophesy is realized at 10:40 p.m., real time (30 years in Utopia time).

There is only one curtain call on marathon days. It is a special piece of O'Brien choreography, set to a crescendo of gorgeous music by Mark Bennett, where the company bows in waves (another recurring image) that then fold in on themselves. After the initial tiers of bent knees and curtsies, the full company comes downstage, bows to house right, pivots for house left, and then kneels to center with bowed heads and hands on heart—a hold of five, then stand and applaud the audience. To say we were nervous about it is an understatement. Was it hokey? Would we remember it, having done it once, a week ago? A last-minute rehearsal was scheduled for 7:15 p.m. No fears were allayed.

In the moment before the curtain call, we were sandwiched between a sea of black duvetyn and the spectacular finale scenic backdrop of The Ninth Wave (Ivan Aivazovsky's 1850 painting that adorns all of the artwork for the production). It was like being in high school after doing your first musical—only the desire to scream for joy was now in a heated battle with the Broadway professional. Forty-four beaming actors knew they had stood the test. The remarkable thing was that the audience knew it, too. They went ballistic, in the good way—on their feet and roaring after 12 hours.

On the walk downstage, I had a split second of crystallization. Time stopped. White noise. I inhaled. A profoundly calm, communal moment happened in a hair's breadth…the moment so sought after by the creative spirit and so frequently avoided. The unwavering fervor of the audience pulled me back. And then came the real gift of staring into the eyes of specific strangers and thanking them. The reciprocal strength demanded and garnered in locking eyes and sharing a silent "thank you" and "we made it" leaves one speechless. I will never experience anything like it my lifetime again.

The Utopians then celebrated into the wee hours singing rounds of "The Tsar is dead!" in a Midtown bar.

Some kind ink has been spilled complimenting the commitment and talent of both the company and the theatre. There has been talk about the power of marathon theatre for a modern-day audience. In a time when technology truncates communication and art entertains through distraction more frequently than it enlightens, an experience that demands attention and effort is revelatory. A generation of theatregoers has been awakened to a new experience—one it may never see again. Perhaps a new form of repertory company can rise up from this success and become feasible to produce. There is certainly the potential for illumination. We know, of course, as Herzen and Bakunin and Ogarev and Turgenev—et Russian al.—discovered: Utopias don't exist. Yet there is value in aspiring to them. Tom puts it better (when does he not?): "But there is no such place and Utopia is its name…. Our meaning is in how we live in an imperfect world, in our time. We have no other."

It's a moment.

Jason Butler Harner has performed recently in The Glass Menagerie at the Kennedy Center, Hedda Gabler at New York Theatre Workshop, and Orange Flower Water with Edge Theatre. The Coast of Utopia runs through May 13.