By Johnny Vuong
Los Angeles' Arts & Entertainment Magazine Venice - Dec. 2004 / Jan. 2005

Tonya Pinkins Puts It on the Line in Tony Kushner's Smashing New Musical, "Caroline, or Change"

Add a book and lyrics by Tony Kushner with the music of Jeanine Tesori, multiply that by the force of Tonya Pinkins' voice, and you get the sensational hit, "Caroline, or Change," directed by the enormously talented with too-many-awards-to-mention, George C. Wolfe. Pinkins, who was nominated for a Tony Award for this production, originated the role on Broadway. The new musical, currently at the Ahmanson Theatre, has been garnering critical acclaim for both star and show. In the production, multiple-Tony-Award-winner Pinkins portrays Caroline Thibodeaux, the defeated maid of a Jewish family in segregation-era Lake Charles, Louisiana. The show's title has several meanings as Caroline has so much change swirling around her. Her employer, a widower named Stuart Gellman, played by David Constabile, has just remarried Rose, portrayed brilliantly by Veanne Cox. Rose is determined to befriend a less-than responsive Caroline, who has developed an uneasy yet close bond with the Gellman's young son, Noah (on the night of this writer's attendance, Noah was performed superbly by Benjamin Platt). While doing laundry in Gellman's dank basement, Caroline is continually finding the change that Noah absentmindedly leaves in his pockets. Change also comes as the Civil Rights Movement begins in the south. All of these changes confront Caroline, a single woman who must work to sustain her family. Rounding out the top-notch cast is Tony-winner Anika Noni Rose, who plays Caroline's daughter Emmie; a first-rate Doowop trio; and a terrific supporting cast. One might recognize Pinkins from her stint on "All My Children" as Livia Frye Cudahy, movies like Above the Rim, or other stage hits like "Jelly's Last Jam" and "The Wild Party." Venice recently spoke with Pinkins, a single mother herself, who has dealt with her own fair share of adversity, about her role in "Caroline, or Change" and how she can make singing such a monumental role look so easy, eight times a week.

Venice: How did you get this role?
Tonya Pinkins: George Wolfe and I were working on "The Wild Party." At the end of it he told me he was working on a piece with Tony Kushner about this maid that told this little boy that hell was a place that Jews went to when they died- and George told me that I should play that part. [laughs]

And how did you take to that?
I thought, well, okay, that's funny. A couple of months later I was brought in to do a reading of it, and that was the first time Jeanine (Tesori) was hearing it being read. We had a table read of it with no music and I thought, "Wow! This is really interesting." It was so different from anything I had ever done, and something like this had never really ever existed in the theater. [Tony Kushner] was really breaking dramatic structure and I was excited to see how we were going to do that because I knew Tony and George would do something extraordinary.

Had you met Tony Kushner before?
I was familiar with his work but I had never met him. I didn't actually meet him until we got into work-shopping the production, which was about a year and a half later than that first table read.

And once you started work-shopping it, what did Tony tell you about the character and the story?
Well, I had the opportunity to speak to Tony about all of that, but Tony really stayed out of those things and left that to George. Tony never really gave me direction about the character. I think the only place that we were most collaborative about was the beginning of Act 1, which I felt needed to be something a little different, and the pivotal number in Act 2, which we all sort of knew, though we had a beautiful number, that it wasn't quite right.

How long was the whole workshop and rehearsal process?
Oh, two and a half years. We had that first reading in 2000 and then Tony went off and did "Homebody, Kabul"; Jeanine went off and did "Thoroughly Modern Millie"; and George went off and did about ten other shows [laughs], including "Harlem Song." And then we all came back and did a three-week workshop of only Act 1. And then we went away for another year! [laughs] And came back and did a workshop of Act 2. And then we went away for another half a year and came back and put them all together.

So with all of those starts and stops, and all the time in between, how long did it take you to find that space you were in before?
This piece is very unique in that I've never had a piece that was so really perfect. The material has so much humanity in it and has so many layers in it and there were so many elements in it that were so close to my own life that it wasn't a lot of work other than showing up and being available.

Caroline is a character that's almost in despair.
She is, and she's also in total apathy, which I think is another form of despair. Where did you go to find this character? I didn't have to go anywhere because I had been there in the not too recent past. I had been living there. I had gone through a very challenging break-up and lost custody of my children, so I spent a lot of years in that place. I think it began with my becoming an advocate, and starting a women's advocacy organization, and getting a judge removed from the bench because of his bias towards women, and then realizing that even with all that, that my own personal situation didn't [change] and really reaching that point of apathy and despair myself and saying, "What is the point? I don't believe in this world that I'm living in if things like this can happen. I don't know what I can do about it." So I didn't have to work hard to find where Caroline was coming from. I knew that. Life had sort of presented me with that experience that I could bring to the piece.

Is Caroline hard to shake off at the end of the night?
No, not at all. I think in the very beginning of doing it, it was an opportunity for me to exorcise those parts that were still inside of me, and it was like, "Here I get to go on stage and I get to vent all of this." It was really quite transformational for me to do that because there were so many elements that you don't even think about. Being a maid for somebody on stage made me think about the people who have worked for me, and the ways I've treated them. I wanted to be like Rose and come down and be their friend when all they really want to do is go home. They don't want to be my friend; they don't want to talk to me! You know? [laughs] The time they talk to me is the extra time that they're at my house, and so the piece has just made me aware of so many things on so many levels, so at the end of the night I am wired. I am up for hours afterwards because of the energy that moves through me to do that piece and to sort of reach that kind of primal archetypal rage- it's still pretty high at the end of the night.

So there's a catharsis for you?
Absolutely. I think for the audience, too. I don't think there has ever been a time in the theater where a writer has dared to show this. And that was one of the beautiful things about doing this piece. There was never a question of, "Oh, how do we make her nicer? How do we make people like her?" Tony was really committed to the truth of this woman's dilemma and that it was a story that had never been told and that needed to be told, and so I guess he intuitively trusted that people would understand it and have compassion for a character who, really, for the most part, doesn't do anything for you to love her. She doesn't try to get you to like her. [laughs] But I think that the situation and the level of despair is something that, though specific to her circumstances, each of us can find those moments in our own lives. When we have gone through those experiences it's so painful to then witness somebody else lay that bare on the stage. I think that it's cathartic; so many people have told me this show has changed their lives.

"Caroline, or Change," runs through December 26 at the Ahmanson Theatre, 135 N. Grand, downtown L.A. For tickets, call 213.628.2772, or visit http://www.taperahmanson.com. Don't miss seeing this great show!