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The Jester Interview: Karina Arroyave & Gary Hilborn
By Michael & Gabi Shashoua
A
few years ago, actress Karina Arroyave presented “Wonder Woman Wears
Raggedy Ann Pajamas,” a play in which she played versions of herself and her mother.
The show was a dramatic piece
that still contained bits of dark comedy in the dialogue from the
characterizations. Now Arroyave is back with a new, full-length play
that further develops and broadens the mother character, Chula, from
the first piece, and has a more natural comedy feel to it, entitled
“The
Love
Junkies of Hell’s Kitchen.” Arroyave is directing and appearing
with actor Gary Hilborn in the
production at Theater for the New City, 155 1st Ave., New
York, on Aug. 23, 26, 28 and 31, and Sept. 2. Jester’s Michael &
Gabi Shashoua spoke with Arroyave and Hilborn about the production
after a recent rehearsal.
MS: What’s happened between the first piece
[“Wonder Woman”] and this one [“Love Junkies”]?
KA: I’ve
started seven different plays. I was maybe close to finishing at
least one of them and halfway finished with another one and they
just weren’t right. I was starting to feel like I was never going to
finish another play again, and it was very depressing to feel that
way. Finally, it was that I really wanted to write about this
character again, Chula, and in the other plays that I started, I
hadn’t gone back to her. I was scared or something. But this was a
story I really wanted to tell, writing Chula again, and that was
finally the thing that did it.
MS: So you reached the point where you were
satisfied with this particular work?
KA: I started to write it as a short play and then
it turned out to be a full-length play. I really didn’t mean to
write a full-length play. I really wanted to write a short play and
that’s what helped me finish it. It was just the first one that I
finished, so it was, ‘Alright, we’re going with this one.’
But I like this play much better than the first play and this is a
revamped version of the character. Her core is the same as in the
last play, but she was a lot more dysfunctional. She didn’t work and
she was agoraphobic. I didn’t want to write about the
mother-daughter relationship because I had already done that. So I
wanted to write about her & what’s really going on in her life –
Chula’s life.
MS: What’s the basic premise or situation that
she’s in now?
KA: This is a two character play. The premise of it
is that Chula has a best friend, Mickey Maloney, and she starts this
reality show in her apartment called “Yakety-Yak and a Bottle of
Jack.” Her first guest is Mickey. On the surface, it’s them trying
to do this reality show, but by the end of it, reality really does
come forth -- the reality that both characters aren’t quite facing.
MS: Gary, how did you join the production?
GH: I was cast. I fell in love with the character
and fell in love with the show – with both of the characters. But I
really understood Mickey, so it was great. Mickey is … a little
rough around the edges, an Irish guy from Staten Island who lives in
Hells Kitchen. He and Chula are neighbors; they’re best friends.
Deep down he’s got a heart of gold and he’s just looking for
somebody to share that with. That’s him. Just a regular guy.
MS: Are there parts to this that have developed in
rehearsal beyond what you originally wrote?
KA: I think so – from rehearsing it with someone
instead of me doing it alone in my apartment and envisioning what
the other character might do. One
of the biggest lessons I’ve learned directing is that I can’t put my
idea of something from my head over the other person’s actual
process. I wanted to try to let Gary find Mickey. Slowly I started
to back away a little bit and give him room to breathe and find
things.
GH: But I understand it’s a difficult process – we
had this conversation – usually, as a writer, you have a little bit
of a distance. It’s a forced distance. You hand it over to a
director and actors and they do their thing with it. She took on a
big task here by being in it, directing it and having written it,
which I totally think was the best way to go, especially given the
limited amount of time we had to prepare. It’s like sending Mickey
off to college to become his own man.
KA: Dropping him off.
GH: It’s like letting go of your kids. There’s a
point. I knew that was difficult, but I would say she did it really
well. She gave me Mickey and let me work with Mickey. I understand
it’s a difficult thing. KA: And he came up with things that honestly are just brilliant -- things that I never would have come up with in my head writing them. … In my character breakdown, one of the things I sought was that Mickey ‘must have good comedic timing.’ What Gary brings into rehearsal is just so funny. He has great comedic timing so I lucked out with that.
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Feedback? Email shashouamedia@gmail.com or michael.shashoua@jesterjournal.com
© 2005-2018 Michael Shashoua