First of all, a quick hello to all present and future readers (yes, I have faith you’re actually out there) from the other half of No Pen, No Ink, No Inclination, the resident music and theatre junkie. Second, bear with the length here. I promise all my entries won’t be quite so long-winded! Now, on to today’s discussion…As someone who’s been involved in theatre the vast majority of her life, I would estimate I’ve seen at least several hundred shows over the course of the past decade. Of course, the nature of the theatre business dictates that the average theatregoer will most likely see certain shows from the theatrical “canon” multiple times, a fact that rings especially true in regard to musical theatre. The relative familiarity of the material means that the standards by which great performances are defined in critiquing established works become different, in some ways, from what we use to define “greatness” in new film and theatrical works. A good majority of the performances I’ve seen which have stuck with me the most vividly over the years are the ones that fall into the category of the reimagining: the ability of an actor to take a well-known character and subvert expectations in such a way that he or she reveals something new about the character, and, as a result, reveals a different perspective on the show as a whole. I would cite my personal measure of the mark of a great actor as the ability of an actor to portray their role in such a way that their reconstruction, however subtle, becomes the new “standard” for at least one audience member.
This past week, I attended the national tour of “Wicked” at the Aronoff Center, which marks the third time I’ve seen the production. Even though it’s only been four years since the Broadway production premiered, most of the main characters in the show have already begun to develop stock portrayals, due both to the familiar source material and the emergence of the musical as a cultural phenomenon. (I assume that, even if you’ve never seen a musical in your life, you probably have at least a passing recollection of the premise of the novel or play as an extensive reworking of the story of the witches of Oz.) This is perhaps most true in the case of Galinda/Glinda. The most basic arc for Glinda to follow reads as such: she begins the show as a shallow, self-centered character, she begins to change as a result of her interactions with Elphaba (the woman who will eventually become the Wicked Witch of the West), is forced to wizen due to the events of the show, and in the end, is able to ascend to the leadership role she is thrust into because of what she learned from her friendship with Elphaba. Often, the actresses in this role do not stray too far from this interpretation, playing the role for laughs throughout much of the first act, and going for the stock heartwarming change of Glinda “learning the meaning of friendship” in the latter part of the show.
Katie Clarke’s portrayal of Glinda in the current national tour casts a completely new perspective on the familiar role, however, while keeping. I had the pleasure of seeing Clarke in the Broadway production of “The Light in the Piazza,” in which she embodied the mentally handicapped Clara masterfully. Clarke carries a great deal of Clara’s childlike air and awkward mannerisms with her into this role, particularly in the first act, which takes place a handful of years before any of the well-known Ozian events begin to occur. In her hands, the audience experiences a revelation somewhere during the course of Galinda’s early interactions with Elphaba and Madame Morrible, the headmistress of the school where the two young women meet. The audience realizes that the journey of Clarke’s Glinda is not one of emotional change and growth, at least not in the sense of a developed character inspired to become someone different through the events of the story, but a journey of actual growth. Clarke’s Galinda does not behave the way she does because shallowness is ingrained into her personality; instead, her often-shallow behavior seems to be the result of her emotional and psychological immaturity in comparison to her peers. We begin to entertain the possibility of Galinda being younger (whether in actual years or only in internal development) than Elphaba and the other students of Shiz University, a completely different interpretation of the character than we are used to seeing. This changes the motivation behind many of Glinda’s early actions. For instance, we normally view the scene where the character changes the spelling of her name “out of solidarity to Doctor Dillamond” as an act of jealousy, a conscious attempt to regain favor with Fiyero by imitating the activism which he finds attractive in Elphaba. With Clarke’s Glinda, though, we view this in much the same way we see a child acting out in order to gain attention—not even Fiyero’s attention, necessarily, but a cry for attention and favor in reaction to Elphaba’s summons to the Emerald City. In this sense, the musical becomes as much, if not more, of a literal coming-of-age tale for Glinda as it is a vehicle to explore the social repercussions of the clash between personal convictions and public image through Elphaba’s storyline.
Clarke’s character choice echoes in the way she approaches the role’s humorous moments. Too often, the humor for Galinda’s character slants toward the stereotypical “dumb blonde” portrayal, taking the role into borderline caricature territory. What differentiates Clarke’s performance of “Popular” (hers is one of the best renditions I’ve encountered via stage or recording), to highlight one notable example, is the way she approaches the song’s humor in relation to her character’s youthfulness. While she retains the central punch lines, she brings an almost sympathetic touch to the song as well. The moments of improvised dance become more like the whims of a child than the over-the-top jokes many actresses resort to; her interactions with Elphaba are less unwanted guest and more kid sister. As in all of the bits of humor that fall back on Galinda, the audience sees that her frivolous actions here are the best ways the character knows to react at this point in her maturation.
This innocence colors the rest of the show and forces us to reexamine our perceived truths about the character. The turning point of Act One closer “Defying Gravity,” which is perhaps the turning point of the entire show, comes when Glinda rejects Elphaba’s offer to join forces, and the friends make the decision to follow the separate paths that will lead them to the personas they will become known for. We as audience members assume that this pivotal choice Glinda makes enacts a number of repercussions in the fates of both women. The key operative here, though, is the word choice. With Clarke’s portrayal, Glinda’s refusal to go with Elphaba is not a choice at all, or rather, is the only possible choice for an outcome in the situation. Viewing Glinda as considerably younger, in a mental and emotional sense, than Elphaba, we see that she has no choice but to stay in the Emerald City, because she is incapable of understanding the full impact of Elphaba’s choice or the implications that choosing to join her would present. Of course, we see a number of moments during the second act where Clarke’s Glinda does grow up, beginning with her rendition of “I Couldn’t Be Happier,” and at the end of the story, she ascends to her place as the iconic woman we have come to equate with the character of Glinda the Good, but the Act 1 and early Act 2 Glinda is by far the most fascinating character in this production of the show.
Certainly, Clarke recreates Glinda in such a way that the entire impact of the musical is reconstructed. However, I want to return for a moment to my opening assertions about defining theatrical greatness. In some ways, I have to question myself about labeling the ability to successfully recreate the well-known role as “the mark” of a great actor. Now, I don’t mean to insinuate that a solid, supported character reinvention is not a work of greatness, but perhaps it’s best to look at the question from a different perspective: if reinvention is the mark of the great actor, then is a “standard” but extraordinary performance automatically unable to be deemed great? It only makes logical sense that, often, the performances we remember the most vividly are those that take the greatest risks—drastic differences stand out more at first glance than subtle ones. One of the greatest performances I’ve seen falls into this category, where an actress took an instantly-recognizable role—Miss Hannigan in “Annie”—and subverted every stereotype the character is known for, transforming her from the harried comic caricature we typically see into a younger-but-world-weary, desperate, and desperately real woman on the brink of emotional collapse. While on paper, this seems like it might never work, my recollection of this performance ensures that I’ll never view the role of Miss Hannigan in quite the same way. Yet other performances I rank equally among my all-time favorites are far less adventurous. One that comes to mind is an instance where an actress didn’t necessarily change the conventions of her role in any specific way, but simply embodied the role to such a degree that actor and character became one entity; in another instance, where an actor’s rendition of a particular song won such an ovation that he actually stopped the show for several minutes, the only qualifiers that come to mind are vague terms like “charisma” and “magic.” Under the reinvention theory, are these last two examples somehow less spectacular than the first two because those actors stayed within the conventions of their roles?
I suppose one possible answer to this question is found in the language I use to describe the above examples—“real,” actor and character as “one entity.” Perhaps we have to first redefine what qualifies as theatrical reinvention before we decide what constitutes it and what doesn’t. The stock portrayal of a theatre character includes a set list of traits and motivations that we associate with that person, and—this is important—assumes that the actor follows that conservative list and does not break through beyond it. In this sense, the reinvention of a stock character doesn’t necessarily require that the actor alters these traits and motivations in a marked way, but instead, the very act of breakthrough which thrusts the role beyond the realm of “list” and into the realm of “person” is sufficient enough to constitute reinvention. It is through this embodiment—the actor and character becoming one entity—that character reinventions such as Clarke’s are possible. The similarities between Clarke’s Clara and her Glinda suggest that certain qualities of her characters are less conscious decisions than traces of her own identity coming to life within the character. As much as we might be tempted to spin this character-acting blurring as either a deficiency on the actor’s part (the actor “playing themselves”) or our own part (a theatrical version of the biographical fallacy?), it may be that this blurring is precisely the mark of a great actor. After all, the actor’s job is to bring the unreal, the fictional, into the world of the real, and the blurring of the actor and character into one entity is the ultimate marriage of the real and unreal. As a result, the responsibility of the actor is not to overhaul every character they portray in hopes of uncovering a new truth about the character, but to achieve such a unity with the character that they allow their own unique truths to present themselves to the audience.
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