The Arkansas Repertory Theatre opens its 42nd season with “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter,” adapted by Rebecca Gilman from the classic novel by Carson McCullers. The show tells the story of John Singer, a deaf man in a small mill town in 1930s Georgia, and how he forms an unlikely connection with neighbors who never knew he existed.
Before they take the stage, we sat down to learn more with Christopher Tester, who plays John Singer; Madeline Adelle Phillips, who plays Mick Kelly; Gregory Myhre, who plays Biff Brannon; Thomas DellaMonica, who plays the roles of the millworker, deputy and patient; and director John Miller-Stephany.
Opening night for “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter” is Friday, Aug. 25. The Rep is offering six American Sign Language-interpreted performances for this show, instead of its usual one performance, and is expanding the seating area for those requiring ASL. For tickets and more information, click here.
Tell us about your character and what you find most interesting about them.
Christopher Tester (interpreted by Thomas): I’m playing the role of John Singer and I’m really excited to play this role. I think one of the most interesting things about John Singer in this story is that he’s a deaf man that pops up in this small town in Georgia. He’s from Illinois. He becomes friends with these local people from different walks of life, different backgrounds, and they have nothing in common. John bridges a connection between them, and that’s the fascinating thing to me, that he’s able to build a relationship with each one of them.
Madeline Adelle Phillips: I’m playing Mick. I don’t normally get cast as a tomboy (I cut all my hair off before this), so that’s really fun and different. But what I love about her is that she’s this scrappy, young teenager that comes from this huge poor family, but she has the biggest dreams and really believes that she can achieve them. She loves music and she loves Mozart. If you were to look at her, you would never expect that. She literally sneaks into people’s bushes to hear their radios. I just admire her tenacity and I love exploring that.
Gregory Myhre: I play Biff Brannon. First off, the novel’s a masterpiece, and the play does such a great job getting across the message through a completely different medium. As actors, we find different methods that work as we prepare for different shows, but this is one I’ve never done before. With each character I play, I usually start from me and then figure out the differences between me and this character. But this character is so like me that it’s scary… I want to get across what I think the book is trying to say. It’s still open to interpretation, and the person sitting here and the person sitting there may get a different read of that. This character is very torn, he’s questioning, he’s trying to figure out what life is. He just lost his wife, meets and is fascinated by [John] and is enamored with Mick for some reason. It’s a difficult thing to play, to walk that line, but I’ve really been in love with the process.
CT: Performing as John Singer, one of the biggest challenges is that he’s a quiet thinker and observer. I’m not typically that type of guy. I like to talk, discuss and challenge people. John Singer does not do that. I have to change to fit that, to be quiet and observe. He doesn’t communicate through sign that much, instead, he writes in his notebook. It’s a different way of life.
As a deaf individual, I communicate through speaking and through American Sign Language. I live in the deaf world, I have deaf friends and I’m always a part of the community. So, trying to find that isolation, but at the same time not in a depressing way, is a challenge. He’s isolated because he chose to be. He moved to this small town. He has one close friend, another deaf guy who’s ill, but he’s satisfied with that. It’s all he needs. To find that emotional depth for John Singer is a really interesting challenge.
MP: My character is also really autobiographical for Carson McCullers. I’ve been doing research about her life, and she always considered herself a very shy person, but Mick definitely isn’t shy. She is, however, very guarded about the things that she cares about, that she only shares with certain people. It’s cool to see how she’s taken a lot of her own inner voice and put it into Mick. It’s the feistiest version of herself, which is so fun to explore.
Thomas DellaMonica: I’m playing a Millworker/Deputy/Patient in the hospital where [John’s friend Spiros Antonapoulous] is being held. What’s interesting about these characters and playing these different roles is that they’re the middle people of this society, the everyday people who fill in the spaces as the story’s weaving around the other characters. It’s fun to play the ensemble as they experience the main characters in everyday life.
John, I know you have an affinity for Southern writers, but what specifically drew you to this story as the one you wanted to tell to kick off your first true season as The Rep’s producing artistic director?
JMS: In thinking about various possibilities in terms of a Southern story, I’ve directed a number of [Tennessee Williams] productions, and I love them, but the tone didn’t seem right to me to start a season. I thought it would be really good to start with something that was somewhat unexpected, something that spoke to where we are right now as a culture.
This story interested me because it takes place in a small mill town in Georgia, but there are these threads, these different stories that come together through Singer. I was intrigued by telling the story of an African American family in the ’30s and a coming of age story and all these misfits who feel marginalized. Given the fact that we see this in culture right now where we are marginalizing more and more people, characterizing them as “the other” or demonizing those who are not like us, I thought this was a really interesting story to tell.
What we see are five misfits and their longing to connect, which is a primal element of all people. Carson McCullers put it beautifully, she says the first thing you do as a human being is try to figure out who you are, which may be a lifetime process, but then at some point you try to figure out where you belong. For so many people, that’s their family or their friends or their spouse, but there are others who don’t connect in traditional ways, and yet they need to…
So you have all these various characters’ stories, and each and every one could be a complete play. Carson McCullers did a fantastic job — and Rebecca Gilman did a great job adapting it — in that we have a sense of each story, but perhaps even more remarkable is how they all gravitate to John Singer, and how John Singer becomes for them the “we of me.”
That’s a phrase Carson McCullers used in “The Member of the Wedding.” For these individuals who are having trouble finding the “we of me”, they need Singer, and in some way he becomes their “we of me.” The irony, of course, is although he’s very kind to them, — he’s a very intelligent, self-sufficient, generous person who gives of himself to a certain extent — but his “we of me” is Antonapoulous, who’s been taken away.
It’s an interesting study of both the need to connect and isolation and how the simplest act of kindness can have a profound effect on someone. I think it’s a really beautiful story to be telling now. It’s heartbreaking, but I think it will encourage not only sympathy, but more importantly a sense of empathy for those who are not like yourself, so that rather than being so divisive, maybe we can concentrate on what our similarities are.
The book was published in 1940, all these years later it gets new life as a play and the book is still making the rounds. What is it about this story that encourages retelling?
MP: I think the themes really are so universal. People can see this show and they’ll see themselves in all of the characters. We all have this need to belong and to love. With Mick, the heartbreak of her story is that many young people have huge dreams, and it’s very common that you grow up, you don’t become the thing you said you’d be and you get stuck in doing a job you hate. That’s an everyday tragedy, but this highlights that in a time when the Depression makes the stakes even higher. If you want to survive and support your family, there’s no room to have artistic aspirations that give life meaning for Mick.
I think all the characters are just struggling to belong. You see that a lot now with the demonizing of “the other.” There’s a really heartbreaking moment where two characters believe in the same ideals, but they’re unable to communicate. That’s the thing I see a lot today in all areas of life, with Facebook fights and people not dealing with each other as humans; not being able to have that empathy that we are so sorely needing; realizing that you do have commonalities, but you can’t see it because there’s a language barrier. Even though we have a language barrier with Singer, in a sense, he listens. He can’t hear, but he listens to these people, he’s there for them. A lot of that is what they project onto him, but he still helps bring meaning to these people.
CT: Like [John Miller-Stephany] said, each character has their own story, but I hope the audience leaves thinking a few things about John Singer. One is that he’s deaf, but he listens. It’s a very important concept. For deaf people, it’s assumed they can’t be a part of the world because they’re deaf, they’re outsiders. This breaks that common misunderstanding. I think for deaf members of the audience who are hopefully coming to see the show, they’ll think, wow, this is a really powerful figure on stage. To see a deaf individual on stage who is educated, has a job, who reads and writes and is willing to communicate with hearing people, that’s meaningful.
There’s a lot of overlap of different communities with this, but I think it’s really powerful for the deaf community to see this because now, even in 2017 — even though we recognize ASL as maybe the third most used language in the U.S. — we still see families of some deaf children tell them they shouldn’t sign and force them to learn English, to speak and lip read, to get a cochlear implant so they can hear. That’s still happening today. It’s this idea that hearing is the most important thing, but it’s actually more important for the deaf child to develop their own identity. That’s a huge issue for the deaf community right now.
We see John Singer in his most natural state, who he wants to be, and he’s decided not to speak. His decision is to write to communicate. That’s a very powerful choice. Often that choice is taken away from deaf children today, and that’s the biggest part of that story for me. I hope that’s the way it’s communicated. It’s not that I want people walking away feeling bad for the deaf, but that John Singer’s a powerful man, a positive figure. Even though the story is tragic, at the same time, it’s beautiful.
MG: I love that John Miller-Stephany chose this play because I think that art is getting away from imitating reality. Now it’s just imitating fantasy, things that kids want to see as opposed to what’s happening in daily life. As far as I know, everybody else’s life is awesome, and I’m struggling with my stuff. It’s important for us to realize that everybody is struggling with something. Everybody has a challenge every day.
We have to connect, and it’s important to do a play like this now for that exact reason. A lot of times, something like this will allow someone to realize for the very first time that everyone’s dealing with their issues at the same time.
We’re talking a lot about empathy. Can you really put yourself in someone else’s shoes? This play gives examples of both successes and failures in that. It’s a nice reminder of how life is messy and ugly. We just have to get through the tough times and be grateful for the good times.
Small-town Georgia in the 1930s, that’s a character in and of itself. Tell me about that and how it affects this story.
JMS: Carson McCullers, if I’m not mistaken, begins the majority of her works with the description of a place. Place is very important to Carson McCullers. Most of her work is about the South, but she actually chose not to live there. She lived in New York and every once in a while would have to travel down to get reinspired. She had a love-hate relationship with the South – she identified with it, but she found it overpowering. But it’s so much the root of her world…
The 1930s were a desperate time, especially in terms of this isolated, deeply racist community. The world is incredibly important to the specifics of the story, though I would say that in the specific lies the universal. The message is very universal, but the actual time and place deeply informs how the characters live and how they relate.
GM: Any location affects your character in a specific way. It must. They also brought in some dialect work in our process, which was extremely helpful. There are certain things in the writing because of where it takes place that you have to take into consideration, culturally speaking. It takes place in almost an infamous South. It’s important for us not to fall into cliche, but to be very specific about why these things are happening.
MP: As far as the dialect, I’m from New England. I speak very fast. As I’m playing a character who is in love with music and has no idea how to perform or play, but is fiercely trying to write a symphony, I’m discovering the rhythm and poetry of the language and how that taps into everything…
One thing I specifically think of in this timeframe is that my character sort of stumbles into her sexuality and has had no preparation at all. It’s interesting to find the things that are and are not discussed in this time and place. Today we’re in an environment where people share and overshare a lot. These characters rarely talk about their dreams, hopes, nightmares, so when they do share, it’s a deliberate choice. Sharing has become almost casual for us, but knowing there had to be a personal connection makes it more meaningful during that timeframe.
JMS: Christopher sent me an email early on after being cast. He mentioned that it was very painful for him to read in the script references to a “deaf-mute,” which then was an accepted thing to say, and which now, of course, is known to be insulting. We need to be accurate in terms of the time and place in this story, even though it rubs against current sensibilities.
CT: It’s an interesting part of the process for building John Singer. All the labels that we use to refer to deaf people — deaf and dumb, dummy, deaf-mute — those are all mostly offensive today. Now, to call myself a deaf-mute, that’s really something I grew up in the deaf community fighting against. I need to remember that back then, for deaf people, that’s how we referred to ourselves. Some of the schools were called schools for the deaf and dumb, some still are. Dumb meant that they didn’t speak, it doesn’t mean stupid, but the word evolved to stupid. The word is not what it means today.
Another challenge with the time period and trying to figure out John’s background, for some reason, Carson McCullers did not really give a history to John. There’s nothing. The only things that we know are that he’s from Chicago, he went to a deaf school, he’s an orphan and that he’s had his best friend Antonapoulous for 10 years. That’s all we know.
I have to research to find out what deaf people were doing in the 1930s. Back then, many people went to deaf school and were really good writers, often writing for hearing people because they got a better education than a hearing child, especially if they were poor.
Today, we have more access with the internet and social media. I think technically it’s really improved for a deaf person’s life, but there’s even more of a disconnect between deaf and hearing communities. Today, deaf people don’t need hearing people. I text, I FaceTime my friends and sign. I don’t need an interpreter, I can communicate by myself. I can choose to stay within my own deaf world and be successful. Personally, I don’t do that, but many deaf people do and it’s easy for them. You don’t have to connect.
I think that’s a big part of the 1930s for John Singer. His education allows him to become more successful than the average hearing person because the system was set up for deaf children to more easily get an education and eventually find work.
JMS: There is a poetic reason why Carson McCullers didn’t give a background on John. He says, “Nothing before I met Antonapoulous was real.” From his perspective, life didn’t begin until he made this connection with Antonapoulous. He was free of obligations with that friend, they had their own world. John’s lived in this town for years without anyone noticing him. He’s been completely under the radar in this society.
It sounds like there’s kind of this rub between the need to connect, but also the comfortability of retreat. Is that a fair assessment?
GM: I think that a lot of times, for some reason, our brains are wired that if we feel lonely, we isolate ourselves, which is obviously not the way to go about solving the problem. At least with Singer, Biff, Mick and the others, with every one of these stories, we’re seeing some form of isolation and a desire to reach back out and reconnect. It’s a tricky thing, it’s heartbreaking. That longing to connect with somebody, that’s love. It doesn’t have to be romantic, but we’ve all lost something, and we’re looking to get love back in our lives.
JMS: I don’t think any of the characters want to be alone. I think they are eager to make a connection, although some of them don’t know how to.
CT: A big part of John Singer is that he makes a connection, but doesn’t care about each of these characters’ different identities. He’s happy to communicate with them and be there to provide support, but at the same time, we find out that he holds that deep, emotional part of himself for Antonapoulous. What makes it more sad or touching is that Antonapoulous can’t respond because he’s in the hospital. John Singer is writing these letters to him, but they’re his way of fully expressing himself. Now that Antonapoulous is gone, he has friends, but he doesn’t tell these friends his deep feelings. He puts those in the letters, which is a beautiful way of sharing himself, but it’s still a little sad. The letters are really for himself, not for anyone else.
MP: It also made me think of something that John Miller-Stephany said on our first day of rehearsals about loving versus being the beloved. With Antonapoulous, is the beloved, and John Singer is loving him. I think for all of the other characters who gravitate toward Singer, he’s their beloved. The act of loving itself is the most important.
On loneliness, Mick has this huge family, but she talks about in the book how you can be in a house full of people but feel totally alone. She has this concept of an inside room and an outside room. The outside room is where she can’t really think or be herself, but the inside room is where she can be free and explore. She says Singer is in both the inside room and the outside room.
JMS: A theme that’s very common in Carson McCullers’s work is the importance of loving even if you’re not loved back. Obviously, one wants to love and be loved back equally and simultaneously. Anyone who has genuinely been in love realizes that that rarely happens. At any given moment you are either loving or being loved. For Carson McCullers, the more life-affirming and necessary role is the role of being a lover, rather than being beloved.
MP: And where things unravel in the show is when people lose the object of their love and don’t know what to do next.
So at the end of the play, what is the core message that you hope this 2017 audience walks out with?
GM: I put in my two cents about that earlier, but I do want to say that the sign of an intelligent, artistic community is one that supports a theater like The Rep. It doesn’t happen much anymore. I can’t speak for everyone, but I think it’s very important to say that the community supporting a theater like this and a show like this is a mark of tremendous artistic appreciation, and it’s a rarity.
MP: I think the message goes back to the idea of simple acts of kindness and how everything has a ripple effect. You don’t realize how something small to you can be the world to someone else; the same goes for small cruelties. This show really emphasizes how powerful these little things are and how they all add up and can really feed someone. I hope they leave with the mindfulness that you are a presence in the world, no matter who you are.
CT: I want the audience to really think about the assumptions we have of other people and how to look beyond those assumptions and really listen. That’s the point. Part of the tragedy is that people aren’t really listening to each other. Each have their own struggles — they struggle to communicate with one another and the message doesn’t get across — but even they have assumptions of John Singer. They assume John Singer is their best friend. Part of the tragedy is that that’s not true, and they don’t realize it. So how can we become better listeners? Not based on our assumptions. Whether it’s race, whether it’s religion, the list is long of assumptions we make about other people.
GM: And maybe if we’re lucky, people will leave recognizing these things are still happening and wondering what they can do about it.