“Do you think…?” one wife asked her husband, who offered a long “Nooooo” in reply.Five years ago this month, Michele Pawk clutched her new Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a play as an alcoholic mother in "Hollywood Arms."
Starting tonight, she plays another mother in "The Fall to Earth" at Stony Point's Penguin Rep in a production that runs through July 20.
Pawk plays Fay Schorsch, a role created by Rondi Reed, who was this year's Best Featured Actress in a play for her work in "August: Osage County." Both plays began life at Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago.
In Joel Drake Johnson's "The Fall to Earth," Fay checks into "a typical chain motel in a small American town" with her daughter, Rachel.
It's not clear why they're here. It is clear that Fay is a nervous wreck. She speaks constantly in rapid-fire fashion, her daughter offering monosyllabic answers.
Rapid-fire she can handle, Pawk says.
"The thing about the memorization process for this play is the total non sequiturs," she says. "That's what's hard to remember. Her brain makes left turns.
"This is a woman who's deathly afraid of any silence or stillness," Pawk adds. "If she has to sit still for a moment, she might start thinking about the events" that brought her to this typical chain motel in this small American town.
There's a reason mother and daughter are here. There's a reason their relationship is strained. As events unfold in this single-act play, a police officer joins the action and the mystery unravels.
The three-person cast includes Pawk as Fay, Laura Heisler ("Coram Boy") as Rachel and Amelia Campbell as the cop. Campbell, a Tony nominee for "Our Country's Good," has worked with Penguin director Joe Brancato before, in "Tryst" Off-Broadway.
To Pawk, it's no mystery why she'll be in Rockland for a month this summer.
Fay drew her in.
"Joe sent me the script," she says. "We've been trying to do something together for a few years.
"He sent me the script and I fell in love with it - I don't know if love is the right word at this moment - but she's such a complicated, wonderful woman."
Fay is in mourning and is unpredictable.
"It's an interesting place to tap into, where you lose it completely," Pawk says. "The button for her that switches from on to off is really quick and obviously without any forethought or plan. It seems almost chemical when happens. That's been interesting to find."
The journey is a roller coaster of emotions, slights and rage that can take its toll on an actress.
