Now at Williamstown Theatre Festival, tucked away in the northwest corner of Massachusetts, Broadway royalty and celebrity couple, Audra McDonald and Will Swenson are exploring a new kind of relationship in Eugene O'Neill's final masterpiece--the sequel to Long Day's Journey Into Night--A Moon For The Misbegotten. Both highly acclaimed performers, McDonald a six-time Tony Award winner and Swenson a Tony Award nominee, they're known too for being highly professional, but still common knowledge often says not to work with a loved one.
Their first time performing together in a full-fledged production since meeting in Broadway's 110 in the Shade (2007), I caught up with the couple a few weeks ago to hear about the rehearsal process leading up to this landmark play directed by Gordon Edelstein, with sets by famed designer Ming Cho Lee, and the transition from their home to the stage.
"It's a really quick process up in Williamstown," McDonald said, "but I think the [rehearsals are] going well." But, as used to this process as McDonald and Swenson may be individually, it's unique because it is happening side-by-side between one of Broadway's most high profile couples. But, Swenson joked that although it's been a long time since 110 in the Shade (and just one workshop they did together since), they still perform together in a smaller venue: "We put on A Chorus Line in our living room three times a week, but that's just for us."
In fact, where many couples would pick their partner last from a long list of possible coworkers, largely due to work styles and work personas, sometimes unexpected things can happen in surprising situations.
At the core of A Moon for the Misbegotten is itself an unexpected connection, between Josie (McDonald) and Jamie (Swenson). When Josie's father, Phil Hogan, a tenant farmer fears he'll lose his property, he sends Josie to seduce Jamie, but what results between two lost souls, "assures us of the heart's capacity for infinite love and forgiveness." Similarly, while McDonald and Swenson's connection has much more positive roots, unique--possibly daring--experiences like this can shed new light and deepen love and appreciation in any relationship.
In fact, Swenson says he is learning more about his wife as an artist having the opportunity to work with her on a show from its early genesis through the run. "Because I've never really worked up a show with Audra I feel like I'm learning things about her that I had no idea about," he told me. "We've been together for years and years. You think you know somebody pretty intimately but there's this huge part of Audra that I haven't ever really got to experience," he added. "When we did [110 in the Shade], I was in the ensemble and so I didn't get to work up scenes with her, I got to observe it from afar a little bit, [but this is] a whole new experience."
It's incredible to hear the respect he and McDonald have for one another as people as well as artists, as Swenson adds, "it's been thrilling, actually because... I say this not just because she's my wife... but it's been amazing. I feel like I'm learning something every day the way that she is this truth-seeking missile who will absolutely mine a moment within an inch of its life to find the truthfulness in it and the way that that has a ripple effect throughout the coming moments."
Swenson then humbly added in a way that only a truly confident actor and loving partner would be willing to reveal to an interviewer: "If she doesn't believe something, I would... I think, because I'm a lesser actor... just kind of glance over it. But she's like, 'wait, this isn't making sense to me, let's talk this out, let's make sure this works.' The way that feeds into what's coming up, it just keeps everything grounded in truth instead of having these little puddles of non-truths that could really trip you up. I'm just learning a lot from working with her."
McDonald then added that she would say the same about her husband. "It's been great to see that we do have very similar thoughts actually on creating," she interjected, "and that we are both in a place where what's most important is the creative process. It would have been awful if we had found out, 'you're a real goof off in rehearsal', or that I'm terrible at getting my lines learned or something like that," she said. "[It might have] made it really hard on our marriage, but it's been a bit of relief that we're both very similar in the way that we work and are after the creative process for the creative process' sake, and for the work, and that we both go into rehearsal every day very determined."
In addition to being famous as a couple, they also famously speak out for equal rights, themselves a multiracial family. Therefore, when exploring unexpected connections on stage--like the one between Josie and Jamie, set in the 1920s--I wondered if they felt it added an a special nuance having them in the roles; known their relationship would have been considered taboo in that time period. On this, McDonald chimed in to share that, "there's something that our director, Gordon Edelstein, said the other day in rehearsal that is quite true. Because we are now in the twenty-first century I think the differences between Irish Catholics and English Protestants in Connecticut [as it was originally intended] and what that was in the 1920's isn't something that is as resonant with a twenty-first century audience like seeing an African American family versus a Caucasian landowner who's their tenant," she remarked. "That is something that's more resonant than if it's [that] they're Irish Catholic and they're slightly poorer than he is. In some ways casting it this way gives it more depth and reference to the twenty-first century."
We don't just learn about this couple, however, but finally about Jamie's fate, a featured character in the preceding play, Long Day's Journey Into Night. Interestingly, the night will soon become day once again, as it was announced recently that Long Day's... will be revived on Broadway next spring starring Jessica Lange, Gabriel Byrne, and Michael Shannon. So, while it's a smaller pool, there are audience members who will have the opportunity to see these both in a short window, and I wondered if McDonald or Swenson felt it would give new perspective on this eventually ill-fated character. "It's interesting," McDonald said. "Because I know a lot of people joke that A Moon for the Misbegotten... that the alternate title should have been 'Long Night's Journey Into Day'. It's socially opposite is what's happening. I think it's great to see that these two plays will be in somewhat the same area [regionally] so close to each other. Illuminating also who [Jamie] Tyrone is in Long Day's Journey Into Night, versus who we see him become in Moon for the Misbegotten, his journey." "Seeing them backwards, it might make Long Day's Journey Into Night a little more heartbreaking," Swenson added. "Just knowing that 'oh my god' I'm seeing the beginnings of where this poor bastard is headed."
A Moon for the Misbegotten will play the Williamstown Theatre Festival through August 23.
Steve Schonberg is the editor-in-chief of www.centerontheaisle.com and the theater expert for NBC "Weekend Today in New York."