BETWEEN THE LINES: A weekly look at the creative process through a literary lens.

INGE AND THE MODERN WOMAN
William Inge’s best-known plays are filled with complex female characters and the rediscovered, never-produced Off the Main Road is no exception. The drama’s three central characters (a mother, daughter, and grandmother) are vividly brought to life by Kyra Sedgwick, Mary Wiseman, and Estelle Parsons. In the early days of rehearsal, the actors sat down with WTF Literary Assistant Rachel Wiegardt-Egel to chat about their first impressions of the play, the ways they relate to their characters, and how much the world has (and has not) changed since the 1960s.

[RACHEL WIEGARDT-EGEL] What most struck you when you initially read the play?

[KYRA SEDGWICK] It has some beautiful passages in it and there’s so much about the play that’s so profound and true. It’s got great insight into humanity, and women, especially—about what drives us and what stands in our way of becoming the people that we should become or could become.

[ESTELLE PARSONS] When I think back to my first impression, I thought it was so full. It’s a terribly active play. Things keep happening on a very high emotional level.

[MARY WISEMAN] And there’s a tone in which [Inge] speaks—it almost feels like it’s not just period. You have to figure out how to say these words, and where they live in you, because it’s a little different than the day-to-day. Once you get on board, it’s like a ride. It takes you and keeps going. So, when I first encountered it, I was delighted to find this play I’d never heard of before, with this “Inge lens”—this lens through which he looked at life. It’s so lovely, and the characters are so open and always in such active discovery.

[RW] I’m curious whether you relate to your characters as they take those emotional journeys—and in what ways?

[KS] I definitely relate to Faye. I think we’ve all had moments where we didn’t have the tools to fight back and we felt somewhat taken advantage of, or abused on some level. In her past, choices were made for her or she made choices blindly. What’s interesting about the play is that this is the moment where she chooses. She’s at her saturation—something has shifted for her. She somehow was in denial or was making it okay, and then suddenly, it wasn’t okay.

[MW] I think that the monster Julia tackles in this play is about the uncertainty of love between people. In any sort of human relationship you can have, there’s no guarantee. That’s the big problem that she’s trying to solve the whole time: is there a kind of love that exists that is constant and that you can rely on? I can relate to that—to the search to find a way to live with the pain of life and the presence or absence of love in any given time.

[EP] I don’t really know who my character is yet. But I suspect—because she’s an older woman and he was writing in that particular time period—that she’s fairly stereotypical. I feel like I know a lot of women like her, superficially speaking. She says these crappy things that old ladies say—you know, to get sympathy. I cringe now at having to say those things, but I’ll soldier on with it!

[RW] The world has, of course, changed immensely for women since the play was written. Is there something in the story that most resonates for you as you think about gender roles and women today?

[KS] It definitely still resonates. I think it’s surprising how little has changed, in some ways. Certainly, there are more options now for women. But we are living in a very patriarchal society. There’s a bounty on beauty and a bounty on fame. There’s an interesting part of fame that’s explored in this play—which is surprising for an Inge play.

[EP] It’s surprising too that they’re very upper class people. It’s unusual for Inge; he writes about people in small towns who don’t have much money, and the people in this play are terribly, terribly wealthy. Even [Faye’s husband, Manny]—he’s a big celebrity. He’s left behind what he came from, and turned into what this upper class loves—celebrities, ballplayers.

[KS] That’s the other thing that’s very contemporary: we’re hearing about domestic violence with ballplayers. It’s interesting that that’s sort of timeless, and timely right now.

[MW] One thing that’s so cool about how he wrote this play is that Julia is very progressive. She is expected to get married, but she feels very strongly that she was not made to be a wife. She sees herself as a woman with a job, giving back to others, making an impact on the world. She’s a very independent thinker, and that stands in contrast with the reigning ideology of the time.

[EP] Or any time…

[RW] Do you have a sense yet of how the relationships between the women impact their choices?

[KS] I don’t think that Faye would have come to what she comes to—at the end of the play—without her daughter’s clarity of vision and clarity of purpose. Julia’s an inspiration for her. And Faye determinedly does not want to be Mrs. Bennet.

[MW] There’s a generational response sometimes, where you’re just like, “I’m not like you.”

[EP] They’re all very different in basic personality. Which is what great literature is about, right? People who are different from each other.

[RW] What do you find particularly exciting about the piece? How do you hope it will impact a modern audience?

[KS] I hope that it makes them think, and moves them. For me, one of the most humbling things about the play—and it’s very humbling—is that this is a play by one of America’s greatest playwrights that was never produced, and it was written at a time when he was really shunned by his community. There’s something about putting it up on its feet and getting it out there in the world that feels important. It is something that should be seen and it makes me sad that it wasn’t. But we’re lucky that we get to do it.

[MW] This play is full of deep empathy and love and pain and confusion and clarity and more confusion. I hope people go through that journey—as much as we’re going through it in rehearsals! I can’t imagine you could avoid it.

[EP] I can’t imagine what the audience is going to think of it. But, I never can.

[KS] I don’t think they’ll be bored.

[EP] Never bored!