Meet Lee: Margaret Ann Brady on her role in ‘Chosen Child’

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L-R: Margaret Ann Brady as Lee and Lee Mikeska Gardner as Claudia Photo: Kalman Zabarsky

What is your role in ‘Chosen Child’?

I play Lee Bailey, the stepmother. Some would say, the evil stepmother.

What have you learned while creating this role?

Wow. I wish I even had words to say. I think I could more readily say I’ve grown, than learned, but I’ve definitely learned as well. I am easily intimidated, and so doing a wicked dramatic role with such luminaries as Lee Mikeska Gardner, Debra Wise, Lewis Wheeler, and Melissa Jesser made me feel certain that I’d finally be exposed as the fraud I am. They, like, have college degrees in acting, whereas I dropped out in 1979 to perfect my joint-rolling technique. I learned that for each of these actors there was a wholly separate approach to creating a role and an ensemble and that there was room for mine as well.

How did you approach and play your character? Have there been any surprising discoveries about Lee during the rehearsal process?


All the discoveries were surprising because they were all new. I myself am the product of good Midwestern clamped-down Depression era upbringing, so I felt kinship but I didn’t have any preconceptions about why Lee is who she is or does what she does. Megan is magnificent at creating an environment for actors to explore and build relationship — she trusts actors to do their imaginative work, while shaping it into an integrated piece. I discovered at the very first rehearsal, before we were even working with text, that Lee had a rift with God — that she, like so many people who want God but cannot find their way to a faith that works, sees God as the cosmic Santa or scorekeeper, and as long as she follows the rules (in this case, of Catholicism), she has a reasonable expectation of getting what she wants. When she has to confront the fact that despite being a good little girl and not going down the path of tight skirts and red lipstick, God will still not grant her the baby she craves, her devotion turns into a bitter resentment turned against the bad girls who seemingly get to do whatever they like — and schadenfreude when she sees Claudia getting what she believes is Gods comeuppance.

As an actor, what are the unique challenges of working on a new play?

When you start working on a published play, the text is the one thing that’s not moving. In this process, though, everything was fluid. The bones of the story was in place, but there was a collaboration happening. Monica and Megan were watching for how the text would change as humans started to inhabit the words. It’s exciting, and the two of them were a perfect team for this kind of process — Monica was pretty much open to any changes that made sense to the actors. One difficulty I encountered was, I am a visual learner and sometimes when there would be a radical revision, especially changing the order of lines, I would find myself having a hard time “picturing” the order of what I was saying. I learn text quickly, but then it can take a while for the text to come completely off the page — to fully become an idea rather than a “line” — and until that happens, it was rather nerve-racking.

What else inspires you artistically?

I go to a lot of theater. I’m particularly devoted to the smaller fringe theaters. We have an outstanding scene here, and that kind of energy really turns me on.

What’s next for you?

I’m having a knee replacement on December 12. Everyone’s tired of hearing me talk about it, but it is looming rather large. I am in denial to the extent that I’m picturing it as an extended vacation of narcotics and binge watching The Simpsons, but I understand the physical recovery is actually rather grueling.

 

Don’t miss Monica Bauer’s ‘Chosen Child,’ which closes this Saturday, November 22.  Tickets