INTERVIEW WITH ACTOR CHARLOTTE PARRY


Education Dramaturg Ted Sod spoke with actor Charlotte Parry about her role as Kay in Time and the Conways.


Ted Sod: Where were you born and educated? How and when did you realize you wanted to become an actress? Charlotte Parry: I was born in Birmingham, England, to a British father and American mother. I mostly grew up there, but we bounced about during my childhood a little–so I spent kindergarten in Massachusetts (no one understood me with my English accent, added to which I was terribly shy!) and several years at an International school in Vienna, Austria. We then moved to Oxford, where I completed high school, and then I went off to the University of East Anglia, studying drama with creative writing, followed by Drama School at LAMDA in London. I had spent most of my childhood making up little plays and trying to make people laugh, but I'm not sure I really decided to be an actress until 15, when I did National Youth Theatre and National Youth Music Theatre in London. Art was also a huge part of my life, so it was actress or artist. Prior to that it was midwife, gymnast, pole vaulter or diver. Now it's patisserie chef or psychologist. We shall see...


TS: Why did you choose to play the role of Kay in J.B. Priestley’s play Time and the Conways? What do you think the play is about? Does the play have personal resonance for you? CP: I had done a reading of the play with Rebecca, our director, several years ago and fell in love with the play and character of Kay at that point, so I was thrilled to be asked to do the full production. Kay really resonates with me in her acute sensitivity (I'm always being told I'm too sensitive...but I think that's a good thing in many ways) and also in her desire to create something different, something true, something sincere. I find the world we live in now so insincere so often, and that can be very alienating. I think the play is about so many things, which makes it so brilliant—the endless possibility of youth, the reality of ageing, the disappointments and failures and “accidents” of life, how we survive them, grief and loss and how that takes shape in us, family and sibling rivalries and love, the list goes on… The play absolutely has a personal resonance for me...for all of the above reasons. I feel very similar to Kay in many ways—both when I was younger and as I am now.


TS: Can you give us some insight into your process as an actress? Did you do any specific research about the time period? What are the challenges in doing a period play in 2017? CP: I usually try to get on top of the first stage of line learning before rehearsals start—this has always been my process, as I feel so much freer in playing around and trying things when I haven't got my head stuck in a script. Having said that, there's stages of “knowing” the lines —and they only truly go in fully, and feel completely natural, when we are deep into rehearsal and I've figured out why I'm saying what I do, and what's going on around me. Ideally, I know about my next job a good month beforehand and can just be thinking about the character for that period of time, and the world of the play, while learning the lines. I might do research online or read certain articles or books to help myself over the course of rehearsals, and when I'm feeling creative or stuck I sometimes write “diary entries” for them. I learned this at University as an exercise in creative writing and it always helps me to pad out a character that I'm having trouble relating to. If I decide on


12 ROUNDABOUT THEATRE COMPANY


little details about them, as obscure as “where was their first bee sting?” or “have they ever flown first class?” it starts making a distant character on a page human, suddenly. Funnily enough, I'm not someone who can ever sit down and learn lines. I have to be moving, so I'll walk around Manhattan or London or the English countryside when I visit my family, talking out loud to myself with the script in one hand. Usually, no one bats an eyelid, as most city dwellers are slightly bonkers anyway! Maybe the cows do. Regarding this being a period piece, to be honest, at least half of my work over the last twenty-five years has been classical, period pieces, so I'm very used to whipping on a corset and transporting myself to bygone eras...I love it. We are bringing to life characters that on paper may seem foreign to us as they lived so long ago, speak and dress differently, and perhaps aren't as sophisticated as we are today, but basically humanity never really changes much, and as soon as I start delving into the characters I find how “modern” they usually are. This will be my third show in the last few years set during the First World War—gorgeous costumes, usually!


TS: How do you understand the relationship between Kay and her brother Alan? CP: The relationship between Kay and Alan is really sweet—I think she feels the closest to him of any of her siblings. They share similar traits in their sensitivity and honesty, and they really seem to care for each other and accept each other unconditionally in a way that their mother certainly doesn't. They also really seem to look out for and protect one another—both against Mrs. Conway, their other siblings, and the pain of the world around them. Alan is four years older than Kay and the


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24