INTERVIEW WITH ACTOR SHARON D CLARKE
Education Dramaturg Ted Sod spoke with Actor Sharon D Clarke about her work on Caroline, or Change.
Ted Sod: Why did you want to play the title role in Caroline, or Change? What do you find exciting about this role? Sharon D Clarke: Caroline’s a tour de force. She’s magnificent. This musical takes in the assassination of JFK and the burgeoning civil rights movement by focusing on a disenfranchised single woman. It touches on so many ideas in such a humane, natural, and yet surreal way. I love the surreal elements of the story and the way that we tell it. The washing machine, dryer, radio, and other inanimate objects that Caroline sings to and has conversations with are a completely unique way to allow the audience to enter into this woman’s mind. It’s very rare that you see someone of Caroline’s stature at the center of a story being told. I wanted to be a part of that. I wanted to honor people like my mum and dad who came over from Jamaica to a completely new country to try and make their way. The things they had to go through and put up with to make a life for themselves and for me. Stories that honor that kind of human spirit are definitely something that I am on board with.
TS: I’m curious how you went about researching what was happening in America at the time. SDC: We did a lot of research. Michael Longhurst, the director, and Ann Yee, the choreographer, brought material to us from the time period. We read about the Alabama church killings and what was happening with the civil rights movement in America circa 1963, who the main leaders of the civil rights movement were, what was happening around JFK, what that meant to society, how it affected Blacks and whites, how it changed people’s lives. We all did our backstories. We spent time looking at how old Caroline would have been when she had her kids and when her husband left. We had a very complete picture of who these people in the musical are. And then we had the added bonus of having Tony Kushner, who wrote the lyrics and book, come to talk to us. He spent an afternoon, and we sat in a circle, and he just talked to us. He told us about his experience, what the show was based on, what he had lived through, what it meant to him, what it’s like in Lake Charles, Louisiana, and how the temperature felt. We were lucky enough to be imbued with the writer’s perspective. We weren’t asked to portray characters in the way they were portrayed before. We were given the agency to do what we wanted to do with it based on the text. To have the creative freedom to find the characters in that way was a joyous process.
TS: Please give us some insight into your process of interpreting this role. SDC: My starting point is always, “What is this character’s love? What is the love that grounds them, that propels them on, what is the love that holds them back?” Caroline has been brave enough to divorce a husband who has become abusive. But that has broken her heart. She still absolutely loves him. She has that dream state where she is thinking back to when they were young in 1943 and the love they had, bringing up the kids and how life was wonderful. She’s not stopped loving him. She’s praying to God to help her forget him, to help her let him go so that she can move on. She’s broken, and she’s hurt. It’s the one time in the piece where you see what her happiness was and where her sadness comes from and why she’s closed her heart to the world.
10 ROUNDABOUT THEATRE COMPANY
Sharon D Clarke
TS: Would you talk a bit about your understanding of the relationship between Caroline and Noah? Is it true that the character of Noah is based on Tony Kushner himself? SDC: It’s poetic license. Tony drew on truth in order to create all these characters. The stable, maternal figure in Noah’s life is Caroline. She has been their maid, and she has known him all his life. So when he has lost his mother, and his father is withdrawn, he naturally goes to the one thing he knows, Caroline. They talk to each other. Caroline understands his loss; they have both lost their mothers to cancer. She understands what he’s going through. But emotionally she can’t invest in this child. She has four kids of her own. She doesn’t have any money or standing in society, and she can’t emotionally afford to take on another child.
TS: How do you see Caroline’s relationship with her own daughter, Emmie? SDC: Emmie’s a tomboy; she’s hanging out at the parking lot with her friends, dancing to the radio, and she’s getting involved with this civil rights movement—which for Caroline spells trouble. Caroline’s worried about Emmie attracting trouble to her family. She is coming from a different mindset: You keep quiet and you don’t rock the boat. You don’t upset your boss. You keep your head down. Emmie is having none of that—so, of course, they are going to rub up against each other. Caroline is being a protective mom the best way she knows how, which seems harsh to Emmie. But Caroline’s doing the best she can do.
TS: I’m curious what you make of the title, Caroline, or Change? For me, it’s brilliant because of the pocket change that goes missing in the play.
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