Meet Claudia: Lee Mikeska Gardner on her role in ‘Chosen Child’

Tomorrow begins the third week of performances of Monica Bauer’s Chosen Child. Today…a little Q&A with actor Lee Mikeska Gardner, who is the new artistic director of The Nora Theatre in Cambridge.
What is your role in ‘Chosen Child’?
I play Claudia, the mother who gave up one child and kept her second. I, as Claudia, was also abandoned by my birth mother, who had a mental illness and was taken away when I was 10, and then later as well (but I won’t go into that as it’s a bit of a spoiler). Pops, who is mentioned in the play but never seen, was of those distant fathers who love their children in an abstract way, so I had to grow up on my own.
What have you learned while creating this role?
Growing up in a dysfunctional family and having people in my life who have given up children or have been adopted, the material was very familiar – but I am always heartened by the resiliency of people when they open their minds and hearts, when they realize the way they are living isn’t working and actively change. So many people don’t and they either perpetuate cycles of abuse or are lost to us in their own struggles. One of the things theatre does on its best day is give people permission to transform in some way, large or small.
That’s one reason why I like to play damaged and/or unsympathetic characters. I don’t fear the dark side of human nature and I find it very rewarding to play flawed human beings that just might resonate with someone who knows someone like that or use to be someone like that, or still is and struggling to find a better way.
Which leads to —
How did you approach and play your character? Have there been any surprising discoveries about Claudia during the rehearsal process?
As with all roles, I take my first clues from the text and then build on that. The fact that Claudia is based on a real person is only important in what Monica, the playwright, chose to include in the text. On a first read of Chosen Child, Claudia seems like an angry and desperate person, selfish and a bit unstable. But we learn that she raised a son as a single mother, cared for him as he developed schizophrenia and is leaving him in the best care possible when she dies. She’s a survivor, who started out with the deck stacked against her, and, to mix metaphors, with every wall she comes to, finds a way over it or around it.
The emotional reasons behind her behavior were always very clear to me – what was lovely was to discover that she is an innate optimist. She has to be or she would have not been able to turn her life around and care for her son. After four scenes of hearing about how evil Claudia is, we first see her dancing and singing – (The Champs’ “Tequila”) in a great mood, moving her life forward – she thinks. At the end of that story strand, which takes place on Halloween and which is presented non-linearly, we see Claudia making a different choice – and still moving her life forward.
Her choice to give her daughter up was, with the information she had at the time, the best thing for the baby. The fact that she distances herself from this incredible pain is not surprising and something with which I wholly identify.
The tragedy in the play comes not from the decisions the characters make, but from the lies they tell. When the truth does come out, in vengeful ways, the damage is far worse than if they had acknowledged and lived with the hardest decisions. It always is. It is hardest for Donna, Claudia’s daughter, who is caught in the middle at the age of 15 and reacts horribly and childishly – as to be expected. But her actions prevent any reconciliation and the family is estranged for another 45 years. Fear and lies rule the day.
And yet — at the end of the play, each character has grown and we see a damaging cycle coming to an end. At some point, in a scene we don’t see, Claudia forgives herself and lives her life. We do see Donna’s act of forgiveness on stage and the potential for moving forward is palpable.
As an actor, what are the unique challenges of working on a new play?
The biggest challenge is to be ready for anything: script changes which might mean re-thinking your character; being willing to articulate what you get from the page – is it going in the direction the playwright intended or are there mixed messages?; owning that we are all there for the play – not the playwright, not the director, not ourselves – the play. The sum of the parts is greater than any ego and being willing to check ego at the door is key.
In Chosen Child there was another challenge given that the play jumps around in time. Besides the fun of transforming from age 34 to 19 to 80 to 12, I wanted to make sure Claudia’s voice – her language and grammar and sensibilities tracked, so that if you strung the scenes together in chronological order one could see her evolution. The script is very spare right now, so each word and moment needs to add to that journey and as full a person as possible. That work will continue until the day we close the show. In each performance I find another nuance or get to recalibrate a moment. And since all the cast is doing the same thing, we are finding the show together.
What else inspires you artistically?
I love bold and fearless characters and language. I love human stories told in a non-realistic way. I love subversive writing that acknowledges we are intelligent people who don’t need our hands to be held and can laugh at our flawed selves. I love a good musical. I love dance and I don’t see enough of it. I love fearless actors who don’t judge the characters they play, but embrace the messiness of who we are. I love plays that accord us the respect to not be nice, but to look at an unvarnished truth unflinchingly. With humor. I love plays that are written for the stage and are not a screenplay in disguise – and I especially love the playwrights who are not afraid of any of the above.
You’re new to Boston. What else would you like us to know about you?
I’m far less serious than this blog would indicate.
Maybe not.
What’s next for you (and The Nora)?
The next show I’m doing is Grounded at The Nora in which I have the supreme pleasure and honor to direct Celeste Oliva in the role of The Pilot. I’ve started working a great team, including Steve Royal, our Resident Set Designer this season, Wen-Ling Liao (Lighting Designer), Kathryn Lieber on Projections, Dewey Delay, Sound and Caitlin Lowens assisting me. It’s sort of the perfect Nora show – an amazing play centered on a woman who could be any soldier adjusting to a new kind of warfare and utilizing a mix of seasoned and emerging artists. Gender parity: 6 women in key positions; 3 men. Woot-woot.
Don’t miss Monica Bauer’s ‘Chosen Child,’ now through November 22. Tickets