Constance Macy

Local actor Constance Macy plays Becky in Oxford Financial Group presents BECKY’S NEW CAR.  Making her IRT debut in 1990 and appearing in over 18 IRT productions, she is a familiar face on the IRT stage.  We caught up with Constance during rehearsals for a brief interview.

IRT:  What first attracted you to BECKY’S NEW CAR?

CM: I love the style of the play. It’s cleverly crafted, expedited story-telling. So I was attracted to that aspect of it. But I also liked Becky right away. She spoke to me. She’ll speak to you too, just wait.

IRT:  What do you like most about your character, Becky?

CM: Her humanity. She invites the audience into her story, into her perspective. And she is honest and vulnerable with the audience, more than with anyone else in the play, including herself. So as her circumstances mount up, you feel for her, hopefully root for her, because you know her.

IRT: How did you prepare for this role?

CM: Well, because I feel like Becky Foster probably lives in my subdivision, I didn’t need to do a lot of research. I did visit an auto dealership to research the job though. And, like with any role, I mined any elements of myself or other people in my life. Then, of course, daily explorations of character in rehearsal with James (Still, director), trying out different choices, exploring persectives.

IRT:  There is a lot of comedy in this play.  Does comedy come natural to you?

CM: I don’t really think of myself as a funny person, but recently I was talking to an old friend, a guy I went from first through twelfth grade with. We were talking about our kids. My son had just started kindergarten, and I was worrying about him, and I said something about my son being a “clown.” And my friend said “Yeah, well, so were you.” So maybe it does come naturally. I also love to laugh, and I’m working with six wonderful, funny actors, so that’s dangerous for me.

IRT: What do you think people will take away from this play?

CM: I think people will maybe examine their perspective. I had an epiphany at the Childrens Museum. They have this little triangular room with mirrors covering the three walls, each reflecting the others, and on and on and on until there are hundreds of you but each one reflected from a slightly different angle, a slightly different version of you. If you think back through your life and all the choices you’ve made, it could have gone a million different ways. “Fate is just the weight of circumstances.” (That’s Rush, Roll the Bones.)

IRT: One personal question. Do you remember your “aha” moment when you decided you wanted to pursue acting?

CM: I remember going to the Broad Ripple Playhouse with my mom when I was maybe 12. I don’t remember the play, sadly, I think it was probably over my head. But I remember sitting forward in my seat, just mezmorized by this actress. That was probably when I became enchanted by the idea of acting.

IRT:  Okay, now for the important question; Team Edward or Jacob?

CM: Edward. Seriously, he’s the new Mr. Darcy.

Steven Dietz is one of America’s most-produced contemporary playwrights. Since 1983, his 30-plus plays have been seen at over 100 regional theatres in the United States, as well as Off-Broadway. International productions have been seen in England, Japan, Germany, France, Australia, Sweden, Austria, Russia, Slovenia, Luxembourg, Greece, Argentina, Peru, Korea, Singapore, and South Africa. His work has been translated into eight languages.

Mr. Dietz received the Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays Award for his plays Fiction (produced Off-Broadway by the Roundabout Theatre Company) and Still Life with Iris; the 2007 Edgar Award for Best Mystery Play for Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure; the PEN USA West Award in Drama for Lonely Planet (produced Off-Broadway at Circle Rep); and the 1995 Yomuiri Shimbun Award (the Japanese “Tony”) for his adaptation of Shusaku Endo’s novel, Silence. Becky’s New Car was a finalist for the 2009 Steinberg New Play Award.

Mr. Dietz’s other plays include Last of the Boys (Pulitzer and Steinberg Award nominations), Inventing van Gogh, God’s Country, Private Eyes, The Nina Variations, Trust, Rocket Man, Halcyon Days, Ten November, and Foolin’ Around with Infinity. Mr. Dietz’s award-winning stage adaptations include Honus and Me (from Dan Gutman), Force of Nature (from Goethe), Over the Moon (from P. G. Wodehouse), The Rememberer (from Joyce Simmons Cheeka), Paragon Springs (from Ibsen), Dracula (from Bram Stoker), and, with Allison Gregory, Go Dog Go! (from P. D. Eastman).

Recent widely-produced plays include the 9/11 conspiracy thriller Yankee Tavern (which will be seen in April at the Phoenix Theatre in Indianapolis) and the romantic comedy Shooting Star. In addition, Mr. Dietz is currently at work on new plays commissioned by Steppenwolf Theatre (Chicago) and the Guthrie Theater (Minneapolis).

 A native of Denver, Mr. Dietz and his family now divide their time between Seattle and Austin, where he teaches playwriting at the University of Texas.

Kate Sutton-Johnson  Scenic Designer
The staging dynamics for Becky’s New Car drove the set concept and early environmental decisions more than any other style choice. The pace at which Becky’s story unfolds and the undeniable sense that the various locations in her life overlap and occupy a shared space were departure points from which the set was conceived. The repeating doorways provide quick surprise entrances, while their overall effect is one of theatricality and whimsy. The set attempts to capture a contemporary, somewhat pedestrian look, while at the same time providing a highly presentational and theatrical space: 1950s rambler meets Shakespeare’s Globe.

Nan Zabriskie  Costume Designer
Steven Dietz has given us a play full of truths, full of personal journeys, full of humor, and full of depth. As we looked at the rhythm and structure of the play, we knew we needed seamless, simple, and fast transitions to capture both the melodrama and the poignantly serious aspects of Becky’s journey. Clothes would need to be changed, but not too many, and not too often. Simplicity became our watchword. “What do we really need to tell help our characters tell their stories?” became our guiding question. Establishing location (a city like Seattle), establishing time period (the present), establishing season (summer), and most importantly establishing personalities and relationships. One of my favorite parts of the design process is when the director and designers dig deeply into the script to find our interpretations. Ideas fly, images are presented, and together we create a world. We have to satisfy the logistics of the play while finding (in my case) the item of clothing that most effectively illuminates the character. Where does she shop? How does she feel about her body? What colors does she like? What colors establish the right balance with the other characters in the scene? What class of society is she in? Do we want her to look good in this scene? Becky Foster has many transitions from wife to worker to mother to 40-year-old woman who may want a new life. While it is not our intention to realistically depict each transition, some transitions (such as her on-stage change to a party dress) must be quite specific and realistic, while others may not even involve a clothing change. As Becky’s life gets more complicated, she cannot quite keep up with the pace of the play. Realism is supplanted by theatricality, as clothes do not get changed in accordance with time and locale. Becky’s story is one of seven in the play, and each has provided James Still and me with lots of fun and sometimes incredibly geeky discussion. The final story will be told by the actors who take our ideas add their own, bringing to life the full characters you will live with for an evening.

Michael Lincoln Lighting Designer
Built into the script of Becky’s New Car is the necessity to shift instantly from one location to the next. As the play picks up momentum in the second act, the collision of those separate realities becomes part of the humor of the play. The lighting design is the key to providing those instant shifts, so establishing them clearly and distinctly in the first act is critical. To this end, the director, the set designer, and I have collaborated to build light sources into the set, which motivate those changes. One simple example is a desk lamp that has two different bulbs on separate circuits, so that when Becky is home it’s warm and inviting but when the scene pops into her cubicle at work, the lamplight is a fluorescent source that is harsher. There are many other examples; see if you notice them!

LIBERATION

by James Still, Director

What if Cinderella goes to the ball and stays past midnight?

I have liked, admired, and followed Steven Dietz’s work as a playwright for 20 years, so it’s especially sweet to find myself directing Becky’s New Car. As a student of other writers, there’s nothing like directing a play to unlock its secrets of construction, to observe and marvel at the craft of that writer’s work. I like how smart Mr. Dietz is as a craftsman, and I admire that his body of work reflects a restless curiosity, a love for the theatre, and characters who aren’t always what they seem and might even bare a little heart in the process.

I had the great pleasure of seeing the world premiere of Becky’s New Car at ACT/Seattle in a wonderful production. The next morning I called Janet and said, “I saw a new Steven Dietz play and you’re going to want to read this one.” It’s not unusual for me to see work at theatres around the country and to report my experience to Janet. In fact, I view that as part of my job, part of what I contribute to the artistic conversation that’s ongoing at the IRT. As an audience member, I immediately liked Becky’s New Car because it is direct and funny. I was also struck by its use of a unique dramatic structure to tell a good story without a bit of self-consciousness. This play requires all of us—director, designers, and actors, as well as the audience—to embrace a kind of theatrical verve at its heart. The playwright makes his intentions clear in a preface to the play: “The play will move without transition between four primary locations…. Simply. It is not necessary, nor is it desirable, to fully depict any of the play’s locales.” Our production is a response to the playwright’s liberating wishes.

Liberation (as Becky confronts in the play) is probably never as easy as it looks; and a production (like life) is an accumulation of details and choices. Becky’s New Car has its own vocabulary and ways of telling a story, a kind of free-wheeling fast-moving comic spin that isn’t afraid to be funny any more than it’s afraid of having true heart. Mr. Dietz may be one of the few American playwrights who knows that sentiment isn’t a bad thing, especially when there’s something real at stake for the characters who risk it. Feeling and yearning turn out not to be liabilities but a wake-up call. What begins as a question gnawing at midlife (“Is this all there is?”) might finally be answered with another question: “Maybe … and isn’t that wonderful?” Sometimes the best adventure of all turns out to be our own messy, tender, funny lives. By the end, it isn’t just Becky’s car that’s new.

For me what makes Becky’s New Car so winning (and so deceptively simple) is that it is a play about people—knowable characters who can also surprise you. And make you laugh. I’m glad to have spent time with them, and I hope you will be too.