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Defiance by John Patrick Shanley is running at the Pasadena Playhouse from January 19, 2007 through February 18, 2007. It is a play that challenges the actors, the audience and given some recent events in Los Angeles, the times we live in. The lead roles of Lt. Colonel Littlefield and his wife Margaret have been awarded to seasoned actors Kevin Kilner and Jordan Baker, who not only play husband and wife - in real life they are husband and wife and so we wanted to know how this relationship affected their performance and their outlook on the play. Their reply was far more than we had expected, branching off into their early careers, their current work and their inner feelings about acting, theatre and life in general.
KK – I think it’s – well, we’ve never gone through this long of a rehearsal period together and it’s great, because you have a shorthand and you don’t necessarily have to research what it is to be a couple and the history of the marriage, because in many ways we’re using our own marriage and the way we are within that, but in other ways we have to be really respectful of each other at home, and I have to remember not to direct my wife – JB – Actually – I would say we did incredibly well; if we asked for help we would offer opinions – it was really great to have somebody in the car going to rehearsal and run lines, and I think it was also great to have someone to go to breaks with, lunch breaks, or go get a coffee together and then come back together, and it was kind of fun. I know I would do it again! RP – I heard from the publicist that the show is pretty much sold out. KK - Really? JB – We’ve been hearing that all the show are sold out, yes. RP – In fact, one of our reviewers wanted to see the show and they put him on a waiting list! JB – Oh you’re kidding! RP – No! Which is great for you, sounds like you’re getting great buzz. Let me ask both of you this, and you can take turns - - - when did you know that you wanted to make acting your life career? JB – We both have great stories – you want to start Kev? KK – You go ahead. JB – OK. Well, I didn’t know. I was a very shy person. I did some plays when I was in junior high school, you know the ones where we all had to be in the school plays? But I did no acting in high school at all, and I went to New York – I had taken ballet classes and I thought I was going to be a ballet dancer and when I got to New York I was in American Ballet Theatre and I realized that I was too tall and I was not talented enough. My mother had sent to me to an acting class – actually this in unbelievable. It was the American Academy of Dramatic Arts at the Pasadena Playhouse and I took this little six week summer course, and I was in New York and I remember saying to my parents at the time – "They told me at acting school that I had a little bit of talent. Maybe I should try that!" So I went to the American Academy in New York and after I graduated from that program – it was a two year program, I was right out of high school, and they told me that I should try secretarial school! So I told my parents, maybe I do need to go to college. So I went to college and I did not study acting. I went to college and took academics and while I was there they noticed that I had some writing ability and there’s a little school in New York for girls called Manhattan College for Girls and while I was there they helped me transfer to Smith college, which is an Ivy league school in Massachusetts. And while I was there doing academic work, I got involved doing stage plays and they submitted me in this acting competition where I did really well. And after that acting competition after the final competition, Bill Esper had taken over the graduate program at Rutgers University and he put me on scholarship and sent me there, and that’s when I knew what I was going to be doing . . . that I was on this track. He’s no longer there, I believe he retired. KK - He created a Masters of Fine Arts program at Rutgers. JB – He was Sanford Meisner’s right hand in the technique of acting; people would go to the Actor’s Studio to study Strasberg or Uta Hagen or any of the great teachers. He’s part of the Meisner techniques. So I got a Master’s degree and from that I got my agent and went to work. Kevin has an completely different track. KK – I graduated from Johns Hopkins RP – You were a banker, is that right? KK – Yes I joined a bank and was a credit analyst and was going into one of the training programs for becoming a commercial loan officer and subsequently I did work as loan officer for one of the Fortune 500 companies in the mid-Atlantic states. I was part of a large department and I was just miserable after a couple of months of a two year program. I was kind of scared and didn’t know what I was going to do, so I went back to school at night taking journalism. I took a couple of semesters of journalism – a couple of semesters of fiction writing and then I started taking an adult evening class in acting. It was a class in an adult learning center taught by a woman who had a recurring role in a soap opera in New York. She’d take the train from Baltimore to New York a couple of times a week to do her role, and I just got bitten the first night and realized, after a couple of years into working for the bank and hanging out at my day job that I wanted to this. I went to work in another company – went to Alabama and spent time in the deep South working for a mortgage company. I saved my money and moved to New York in 1985 and ended up going doing a studio program in a place owned by a woman named Katherine Gately Poole – The Gately-Poole Acting Studio in New York. JB – Katherine was also the one who taught with Bill at Rutgers. Kevin and I didn’t know each other, but we had come from the same teachers. KK – Yeah, Katherine was his assistant at Rutgers and she went off on her own subsequently and created her own program in New York City on Theatre Row at 42nd Street so I was there for a couple of years studying voice and movement, the Meisner Technique and later took many other classes with many other teachers and I did not go into an academic training program. It was more studio and more observational and self taught. When did I know it was going to be my career? I just knew I was miserable being a banker and I was so miserable with business and I asked myself – what is the thing that really captivated me? I had always been captivated by acting and movies and theatre. I remember looking at people on stage and saying to myself – "I could do that! I know I could do that!" So from that sort of naďve – very naďve impulse I sort of followed my heart. RP – Let me read you something that I found about you, Kevin. " - - - the real discovery of this production is tall and strapping and looks like a glossy male model in a 1940 magazine." Remember that? KK – Yeah, I do (laughing quietly) RP – That’s a quote from a review of "The Glass Menagerie" and you won a Theatre World Award for that performance. KK – Yeah! And Jordan won a Theatre World Award the following year - for "Suddenly Last Summer" In fact, I got to present her Theatre World Award to her. RP – You weren’t married then? KK – No. We were living together and everyone in the New York theatre community sort of knows us, and they said "Would you like to present this to your partner" and I said, Sure! RP – And that must have you feel pretty good, I imagine? KK – Ahh it was a great day! JB – Yes - It was a really great day! RP – Let me ask you both the same question . . . How did you prepare for this play called Defiance, which is sort of a heavy duty play? JB – Let me go first, because I don’t have as much as Kevin does – He has a bigger part, actually. How did I prepare for it? I think what happens is that you try to immerse yourself in their world. So it started with the period. I had to go back to re-look at what was 1970 – 1971 and then, basically the work that I do is this;, I read the script. I read it the first time through, very privately. I lock myself in a room with no phone-calls, no interruptions and I write down notes of my first impression and I put those away for later, because usually my first impression is the same one that the audience is going to get later. So if I’m curious about it, I want to make sure I make that clear as an actor when I get back to it. Then I try to go back and read through the scenes to figure out intentions – what my path is, my overall path for my character, what she wants, and when we finally get to the point where we stand up with the text, my real work is picking out my lights and the space which I am in. So, I tend to be one of those actors who loves my prop man. I need them to develop the pieces of life that are in my space that cause me to act. In this particular case, there is a woman in the home and so it’s developing the home life and her relationship with the other characters. I kind of just go that way, piece by piece by piece – I’m extremely detail oriented and I really do think through every small piece of business until it becomes almost – improvisational. So that’s the work that I did – Of course, you always have to learn the lines, which is the worst part of the job! (laughing). KK – Also, her character is what the reader, so Jordan read all those books that she read – Alvin Toffler – Future Shock – JB – Conrad on Aggression, which I must be honest, I couldn’t get through. But then I told myself - the character doesn’t get through it either, so that’s OK. RP – So then that way, you are in character.
RP – I read someplace that Shanley does not allow anyone to change a single word in his scripts. JB – Playwrights do not. In television and film things are a little looser with the dialog, but in plays you actually must say every word that they write. You cannot re-write the words. Stage managers will correct you when you say a line wrong. I’m also very precise about punctuation, which was driving everyone in the cast nuts, because I would say – "you know, there’s actually two commas there!" But I learned that from Edward Albee – I was in a play called Three Tall Women for which Albee won the Pulitzer in ’94, and I remember he would come to my dressing room and say – "You know – on page four, that line has a comma after . . . " That’s where I learned – I really learned that. Bill Esper would talk about the fact that playwrights like Neal Simon think about every single period – comma – dash - dot - dot - dot; all of that has a very specific meaning for them, and if you don’t know that as well as you know the words, then you really don’t know what they intended in the first place. You have to listen carefully to what that is, so I learned – I notate that when I’m learning my lines. RP – That’s a lot of work – JB – Yeah, and then trying to play with whatever meaning I came up with for that. KK – And as far as what I did, was I guess I read the script three times before we began. I think every word in every sentence brings up the questions - Who – what – when – where – why, and it’s like being a good detective and analyzing the script over and over again and tracking the truth of it in every situation. I also read James Brady’s book on the Korean war called, The Scariest Place in the World, because my character was first bloodied and almost died in Korea then he goes of to Viet Nam and I had already read Fields of Fire, Rooms of War, Patches, all books about the Viet Nam war and I also immersed myself in films. I watched Tiger Land, I’ve seen Apocalypse Now many times and I then contacted my cousin who is a Lieutenant Colonel at Camp Lejune and he got me some research material. He put me in touch with the librarian for the US Marine Corps and I got some historical articles about the problems between Black and White marines in the early ‘70’s in this country, in Vietnam, in Okinawa and in Camp Lejune where there were fights and fratricide was going on and he hooked me up with a Lieutenant Colonel down in Camp Pendleton and I went down and spend some time with him. I asked questions that were highly specific about the script to understand everything I needed to know about the Marine Corps in order to portray a Marine Lieutenant Colonel. RP – About the role of Captain Lee King – do you feel that by the end this character has made any impact on Colonel Littlefield? KK – Oh yes – he does. It’s when the student teaches the teacher finally. There’s no doubt its refreshing that everybody has an agenda, and this Black Captain’s agenda is amorphous. It’s not clear what his agenda is at the beginning of the play. His agenda is sort of pulled out from him – it’s honed because of what my character wants him to do – the circumstances of what the chaplain thrusts upon him – the circumstances of his relationship with the character Jordan plays – my wife, who becomes his friends. You know, birds of a feather – they both think alike and enjoy each other’s company, and for many reasons he becomes a real leader in this play and he does the most difficult thing of all, and he also creates this bar which he will not allow this Colonel to sink below. RP – So does he set the lead for the play where the other characters follow him? KK – Well, I would say that my character is the engine or the motor that sort of propels and puts things into motion. There are these murders and rapes and fights between Black and White Marines and he is told that its his responsibility to help solve these problems and he takes it upon himself to do almost much more than he is called to do. He steps off the base and sends everybody dome action. Everybody is reacting to what Littlefield wants. The Black captain reacts to what he wants – the Chaplain reacts to what he wants, and when you light a fuse then the fuse has a life of its own as it runs the course. JB – Can I add something here? I think that what Shanley was writing about was truth. About the courage and the sacrifice that it takes to be truthful. This Colonel Littlefield, I feel, is completely off his moral center. He has this thing he wants – this moment in time, where he will be a hero and he’s off his track. I feel that each of these character, in his own way, is trying to get him back on track. And it all comes down to truth. Captain King is incapable of lying, otherwise he would have covered for Littlefield, and the Chaplain, he also had a sense of truth . . . KK – He’s an ideologue. JB – Yeah, his sense of truth is so sacrificial in some ways. As far as the wife, she keeps referring to that diamond in his eye – you know, that pure, crystal clear center. And he’s so off, and I know that’s what I’m working for. In the beginning of the plays he’s lost his son who’s going to Canada, he’s using this Black officer in heading for the thing that he wants, and I’m not sure why we have to have this, and it’s all not adding up. So finally, by the end of play we’re waiting to see - can he get back on track? I haven’t spoken to Mr. Shanley, but I do believe that there are definite echoes of the Clinton Administration where he’s asking the question – "What would have happened if President Clinton had told the truth? Because when you’re able to tell the truth – no matter how painful it may be and no matter what you’ve done, the powers around you fall away. Had Clinton said, "Yes I slept with that woman and my wife and I are working on it" all the power that was working against him would have gone away. RP – Would you say that is also true of President Nixon and the Watergate scandal? JB – I can’t really speak to that because I was a child, but yes. He should have told the truth then. We lost total confidence in our president at that point, and that was the beginning, wasn’t it? When we say that, "Yes our presidents can lie to us!" KK – But the chaplain has a line that says – "Presidents, Popes – Kings have had a dalliance. What’s a Lieutenant Colonel?" The thing is, that is the surprise to the audience. They don’t know that’s coming until three quarters of the way through the play. JB – That’s just the icing on the cake, of everything else this man has been doing. That’s why the wife at the end, is not ripped up by the fact that he slept with some girl. It’s just part of a larger dishonesty at the core of this person and it was the final straw that broke the camel’s back. Using Captain King to get this thing that he wanted - all his principles are shifted in the wrong direction over this lust for power, so that’s what I work with. At the center of this is Littlefield, and we’re all trying to get him back on the right side. RP - It sounds like this is very deep and you guys have done a great deal of work and preparation. KK – I think that Mr. Shanley is one of our most important playwrights and even when he is flawed, as he has been accused of being with Doubt and some of his other plays, he is so far head and shoulders over the other playwrights it’s not even close. The complexity of the ideas he has taken on here, about leadership and race – these are huge themes and even if his reach is not as far as he would like to grasp, he’s such an important American playwright. JB – You know, Kevin and I are both members of a theatre group in Venice called Pacific Resident Theatre, and I produce a series there called "The Company Reading Series" where we bring in many playwrights and I have plays that are submitted to me on a weekly basis. I read a lot of plays. When you get to read the work of our finest writers, the challenge of that and the depth of their ability in a literary sense . . . it’s such a wonderful opportunity to attach this kind of material, as an actor KK – There’s poetry in it. It's just amazing. JB – When writers really know what they’re doing with language – with an idea, they really can go very far down with it. And you can’t find it without reading it a hundred times to find everything that’s in there; the thing is to know that the playwright knows it’s all there – nothing was put there casually – there is nothing casual about any piece of the writing. Those are the great playwrights. KK - And he’s definitely in that class. He’s a classical, or as our director said, a classicist. He’s so well rounded in the Bible, in the Greeks, in Shakespeare, in history – it’s just stunning. JB – And it is hard to attack a contemporary theme, but he seems to rise above it and make a larger statement based in truth and a topical issue from that period. RP – Jordan, may I ask you about a different project? Little Red JB – Little Red? Oh yes, Little Red! Clay Valenti is a dear friend of mine. I met him through Kevin and he stayed with us while transitioning from Maryland to California and at the time I was doing a television series. Clay had an idea for a film project, and since I had a little money in the bank and he wanted to take what was a short film at the time and extend it to a full length, so I helped him produce that. I gave him some money and then eventually was purchased I believe by Blockbuster. It’s an extraordinary movie, based on a poem that a child had written. Clay had a friend who was a teacher, and he said to him "I want you to hear some of these poems written by the kids". And he read one to Clay and Clay took that poem and made it into a film. RP – That’s a great story JB – It’s a story of urban Baltimore and about a district where kids are involved in drugs and how they rise above that situation. RP - Kevin, let me ask you about Hidden Palms – that is your next project coming up soon? KK - Well, the pilot is. I think it airs the next month or so for the CW. I was told that I would do a recurring role in that, but so far I haven’t gone back. Also on One Tree Hill, I just got a call to go back in March or April of this year. I’m working on the CW a lot. RP – I’ve seen you many times, and you always seem to be the hero or the good guy. JB – He is a good guy RP - Of course, but have you ever been a villain or a bad guy? KK – Oh yeah – I have. JB – Oh – talk about Point Last Seen – we all believe that was the most evil we’ve ever seen. It was the most frightening. Who were you playing with? KK – Linda Hamilton = JB - She plays your wife in that – KK – She’s my wife in the sense that a younger actress played her in flashback with me. It’s based on a novel about a woman who is a professional tracker and is looking for a girl that’s lost in the desert and she only has so much time to reach her or else she’s going to die. As she’s tracking her at the same time simultaneously she tracks back through her life into what went wrong with her marriage and her very abusive ex-husband. It turns out that the nice guy next door is actually socio-pathic. JB – It was really an unbelievable performance. He was just frightening. KK – But there’s a lot of other things I’ve done. I’m trying to think of some – I played a villain in CSI Miami where I played someone who kills in cold blood. I’ve been cast as a heavy when they want me to look a certain way. I also did a movie with John Ritter - JB – With Polly Draper. – Heartbeat. KK – Yeah – Polly and I were husband and wife and we had a deal that we were going to bea couple and wouldn’t have children, but when we get married she changes her entire life and decides to have the baby so I leave her. JB – It now runs on cable late in the night. When Kevin and I were living in New York, women would come down the street and stop and say to him "How could you!" That’ when we would realize that it must be playing again on TV. RP – Do you get that a lot? Where people on the street stop you and identify you with the character you play? KK- I don’t think I get that a lot – some. It’s more like people recognize your face as having been on TV. Jordan and I are now 20 years or so into the business, so it’s an accumulation of roles that make you recognizable. JB – I’m always surprised if someone recognizes me and when someone does, I’m always taken aback. I remember I playeded Willow’s mom for one episode in "Buffy, The Vampire Slayer" , and the next morning I went out and I think I was in a baseball cap and sunglasses and a coat, and a woman comes up to me all excited and says "You’re Willow’s mother!" I thought, how can any one possibly see through that? But there are fans for certain shows that are very astute. I’m always taken aback. RP – Does anybody ever call you "Mrs. Belt" on the street? JB – That is very funny – I have had a couple of people come up and say – "Hi! You’re Mrs. Belt!" Ed note: Mrs. Belt is a recurring role Jordan plays on the New Adventures of Old Christine. RP – Now, last week you appeared in an episode of Medium, is that right? JB – Was it last week? I think so. That was wonderful! RP – Yeah it was a good show. JB – That was a tough job. I had never done what they call "squibbing". You know, when I was shot, they had all these things that explode on your body. Some actors do a lot of that kind of work, I’m not that type. I’ve done some gun work on a few things, but that’s about it. It was quite a challenge and an achievement for me, but I did it. I was shot six times so there were six of these things that kept exploding. KK – I didn’t like it! (laughter) JB – It was a lot of fun though, I have to admit. Those people are great. RP – Right now you’re in post for "Childless"? JB – I think they’re just finishing it up this week – my understanding is that they are trying to get to the Berlin Film Festival – they were not ready for Sundance, so that didn’t happen. That was one of the best experiences I’ve had. It was by Graham Leader, who did "In the Bedroom". I play Joe Mantegna’s ex-wife, an Barbara Hershey’s in it, and Diane Fenora plays his new love interest. It’s a little group and we made this little independent movie and it’s just an extraordinary piece – I can’t wait to see the whole thing! RP – You guys open January 19 at the Pasadena Playhouse – KK – Friday, yes. There are a couple of more previews Wednesday and Thursday night – RP – But you’ve got the thing nailed – you’re ready to go, right? JB – So far we’ve had some wonderful shows – and the audiences, they talk to us! They talk to us! RP – While you’re on stage they talk to you? KK – You’ll never hear me say we have it nailed – (chuckling) JB – He has a lot of work on his plate – KK – It’s still evolving JB – But I do love that sometimes on stage I’ll say things to him and there’ll be women in the audience who say – " Uhu – That’s right" RP – Well, it definitely shows that you’re getting through. JB – They brought a whole group of children from Joshua Tree; their parents live on the base at 20 Palms and for many of them it was their first theatre experience, and they just loved it! They had the best time, and I was really thrilled – so it’s one of those things that students will get a lot from when seeing it. I think they do get it. RP – Do you think the opening of the play coincides with Black History month? JB – I don’t know if Sheldon Epps planned it, or maybe it was just the way the schedule went. KK- I don’t think that was it – I think this is the start of the season, and I believe they wanted to start with a strong play. JB – I think the Pasadena Playhouse is doing a great job. There is a good size African American population in Pasadena, and they are bringing in works that attract every group, including the African Americans. KK – Fences was fantastic. Sheldon Epps has done a magnificent job – you have to give a lot of credit to Sheldon for his work. It’s quite a coup for him to get John Patrick Shanley over the Mark Taper – over the Geffen. He’s really working hard. August Wilson plays – Shanley plays , he’s bringing in the most important playwrights. JB – And the Pasadena Playhouse is such a historic theatre. It actually needs some help – they need funding to do some renovations there – but it’s great how they have saved that building. KK – Since 1917 it’s been there – its has a long history. JB – I have a friend from Oklahoma who has a play involving an all African American audience, and when she came to see us the other day she looked around and said "I could do my play here!" She could not believe that there was a place that had a developed audience for African Americans. KK – I think that when Sheldon took the job I can tell you categorically that there was no African American audience coming. And so for him to do the incredible balancing act of developing an African American audience that comes regularly – buying season tickets, without alienating the theatre based subscribers that were already a part of the Playhouse is wonderful. He’s going to get it from both sides – all sides, and it’s not fair I think because he’s doing a great balancing act – mixing musicals with dramas and comedies. This is something that everyone can appreciate. I think that they don’t give him enough credit - he’s doing a wonderful job. JB – And he’s also a very loving and generous person in his spirit, which makes it really wonderful for actors – not to feel judged. And he’s very supportive. RP – So let me ask you both in closing. What would you like to say for people to remember in regards to Defiance – or anything else if you wish. JB- Well, I’d like to say that while television and the internet are exciting effigies, I highly recommend that people support their local theatre and that they get their kids out there to see a live experience. KK – All I’ll say is that I’m at my happiest when I’m on stage because it is the actor’s medium. And as I said before, this play and roles for each of us will continue to evolve until the night we close and they just tell us we can’t come back any more. It never stops. There’s nothing better for any human being than to be filled with work that give you joy insight and a mystery and an enigma in the sense that you’re not quite sure what it will be on any given night. I will agree with Jordan – there’s no greater communal experience than going out to the theatre. It’s where I’ve had my deepest and most seminal moments as a person and as an actor, not only on the stage, but as an audience member as well. I remember exactly where I was the first time I saw August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, and the first time I saw a great Hamlet production. I know exactly those moments when I was just riveted when I say Steppenwolf’s Orphans in New York. I couldn’t leave my seat because it was just an extraordinary experience. It’s something wonderful that can only happen with live theatre in the dark that can’t happen with television or film, so I do encourage everyone to go out and support their local theatre. RP – Thank you both very much. It’s been a pleasure talking with both of you. I can’t go opening night, but I’ll be reviewing the play the following week. KK – I don’t want to know when you’ll be there – (laughing) RP – You’ll know! I’m usually the one in the first row, scribbling furiously, making sure the actors see me!" JB Oh – NO! (Laughter)
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