Kate Valk, The Wooster Group

The Wooster Group’s Version of Tennessee Williams’ Vieux Carré will run February 2nd—27th at the Baryshnikov Arts Center. Riveting performer Kate Valk has been working with the ensemble for most of its history (she's credited as Assistant Director for many of their productions, which are all helmed by the Group's co-founder Elizabeth LeCompte). We recently spoke with her at The Performing Garage on Wooster Street about this production and her singular career.

How did the decision to produce this particular play come about? We had done a fundraising campaign and asked people who sent in money to make suggestions. A lot of people suggested Williams. And then our cineturg, Dennis Dermody—he's a film reviewer—he said we should do this one, because it isn't done very often.

Were you familiar with it? No.

So you hadn't seen the Broadway production. No. What year was that?

'77 Yeah, I was in New York, but I didn't see it.

Has anybody who's working on this seen that production? No, nobody working on this, but a friend of mine has described it to me.

So that doesn't really have any bearing on what you're doing? Because I know the Wooster Group sometimes incorporates... No.

So what are some of the ideas and inspirations? Well, a kind of a '70s cinema verité romanticism and naturalism. Even though the play is set in 1938, it's a memory play and it's one of the last plays he wrote; he wrote it in the late '70s. So it's got that in it too.

I haven't read it. For people who are unfamiliar with it, how would you describe the play itself? Like all Tennessee Williams, it has a lot of humor in it, and there are really big characters, and it's all at a boarding house. And so it's not a family. People are getting away from their families, so the situation is rife for confrontation. It all takes place at a seedy boarding house in New Orleans, 1938.

And what you're doing, as I understand it, draws somewhat from Tennessee Williams' journals? I don't think anything literally is drawn. I think most everybody [in the cast] read them, but I don't think anything literally is drawn. Except that it's all sex, and so is this play. Nothing is couched in metaphor; there are sexual acts on stage. There were homosexual acts, and I think that's one of the last plays he was able to write that in. So I would say that's the difference between Vieux Carre and other, earlier Williams, where the sex is couched in metaphor. And in this one it's on stage.

Ari Fliakos in Vieux Carré (Franck Beloncle)

What parts do you play? Jane, a failed fashion designer with a terminal disease, and Mrs. Wire, the proprietress of the boarding house.

What went into the creation of those roles? Well, somebody else played Mrs. Wire for a long time and then had to leave, so I took on someone else's role with a big mask, and so it can happen really fast. And I'm wired. I'm receiving the lines in my ear, so I'm on a track. It can just happen. I'm kind of channeling. That's perfect for her because she makes gumbo. She's in touch with the mojo. And so I literally have that, receiving the information with the receiver.

Whose voice is coming through the receiver? The stage manager reading the lines, just so I don't have to worry about them. I can just be there, now. I mean, I do all the coloring.

Is that because you're stepping into the role without enough time? Yeah, and also because it suits me, to be able to take it on and not have it be work. We had to open in LA. It couldn't be a disaster; it had to happen. You don't want to see somebody work that hard. It's a nice balance between the two, and playing Mrs. Wire helped me with Jane. And also, Scott Shepherd plays Nightingale and Tye, he's the homosexual tubercular painter dying who seduces the young writer, who's Williams as a young man, when he first went to New Orleans. He knew all these people. It's from an early story, The Angel in the Alcove, and Scott Shepherd plays Nightingale and he also plays Tye, the guy Jane's shacked up with, who's shooting up, he discovers. So Scott's playing two roles, and he was from the beginning. So now it all comes through The Writer, Ari Fliakos. So it's all about The Writer. All these characters are called up by him, and then he has Mrs. Wire, who is based on the real woman who ran the boarding house.

Has this become something that you would continue to do in future productions, with the earpiece? Oh, we've done it in many productions in many ways. We've been using it since about '96. We've been using these methods. When we did Gertrude Stein House/Lights, Hans Peter Kuhn read the whole thing, and I received it in my ear and then my voice was pitched up, so it was a little cartoony voice, and there was a whole physical score that went on. We used it in To You, The Birdie!. Liz, the director, spoke to us from the back of house, and that's how we'd turn our heads at the same time. "Hold, hold, hold, hold, go!" You know, she was like coaching us, directing us, during that show. I mean, she didn't call everything, but she called dynamics and those faults, the sharp turns with the head.

Scott Shepherd in Vieux Carré (Franck Beloncle)

And since the later part of the '90s we've been using the TVs for the physical information, and so in To You, the Birdie! it was the late Martha Graham, the early Merce Cunningham, and so this is a little bit different because, like in Hamlet, we did the Burton production, we invoked that as a ghost, and really used those performances, edited back into iambic pentameter, which gave us the physical herky-jerky style. And in this we're listening to different sources, and we're saying the Williams lines from memory. So you have to be influenced by something but still play the scene. So that's been the challenge in the different way that we've been working on this in this particular production.

I was just reading about the play and about how, unlike some of his plays or some of the other plays at the time, it really departs from narrative. Does that make it a good match for The Wooster Group? Yeah. That's true. But it's not abstract. I mean there's a story there, with the writer. But it's more of a dilation around the boarding house instead of linear. Things happen but it almost seems like it happens in little chapters. There are 12 scenes, and each scene almost feels like it could be a chapter or installment in some magazine story. See, I have to get the story for each part and make the arc. Sometimes it felt unwieldy. There are so many different stories going on because of all the different characters.

What else do you have going on right now in addition to this project? We're doing a smaller version of Hamlet, and so we're revisiting that. And that's it for now. That's a lot.

I really loved The Emperor Jones, that was really enthralling. That's the thing I forgot! We're going back to O'Neill, the sea plays. The really early short plays. The Wooster Group is going to collaborate with Richard Maxwell and New York City Players on that. So that's the other project for this year. We haven't heard the first reading yet but it's coming up next month.

You've been with The Wooster Group for 32 years. What's the secret to your longevity? It just seems like a unique career because you're been with this one company the whole time—not many actors have that kind of career. Why does this work for you still after this long? Well, look at where we are. I can be anything and everything. It's all here. I work with great people and I always have. People have died and committed suicide and gone crazy and divorced and grown up and made their own work, but it's always kinetic. There's always a lot of life, and Liz LeCompte is amazing. So look at me, I get to work on Williams and Shakespeare and O'Neill. I'm pretty lucky. So I guess the secret is a bit of luck and tenacity.

And not much film work, although someone will watch Manchurian Candidate and there you are. And there's Paul Lazar. I've always wondered about how that came about, because I don't see you in many movies or on TV much. Well, Jonathan Demme is a friend, and he was very sweet to write that part in for me. That was super fun.

There tend to be a lot of film elements in The Wooster Group's productions. But you're not interested in working in movies so much? I guess I'm getting more interested in it, the more cameras there are around here and we do film shoots for their work, but it would have to be pretty incredible to get me away from work that I have so much influence on here, and I can really feel myself here, in the work, in the day to day collaboration. So it would take... For me to feel that with another director in another situation, it would have to be pretty incredible. So I'm not saying that it couldn't happen or that I wouldn't be interested, but also it's a different medium too, out there. When we work with live cameras or we do films, we're still using all the same methods, impulsing off of sources outside of us, copying, quoting, appropriating, stealing, all these great things that great art is made on. So, I don't know, for me to go out and seek that, I don't really have the skills. So if it happens it's because there's some interface with here.

Have you been to New Orleans? Yeah, a couple of times.

Where this takes place, is that an actual place? Yes, an actual address. 722 Toulouse. That's the actual place where he lived as a young man.

Do you feel like your visits or your experience in New Orleans influenced your creative process? Yeah. It's an amazing place. I don't know if it was absolutely necessary in terms of doing the play, but I can't separate it now. We had amazing times over there. To go to all the restaurants that Nightingale mentions. To get the idea of what Garden District might mean in terms of class, yeah, it was good. I'm glad we get to do stuff like that.

Any advice for young actors starting out? Because, like I said, you're having a great career. You have a unique career, which I don't think anyone can plan. Just keep looking. Keep cooking, keep looking, and find what really turns you on. Find where it's kinetic. You have to find work that you love, that you want to serve.

How did you first get involved with The Wooster Group? I went to NYU, and The Wooster Group were the guest teachers for half a semester at the newly formed Experimental Theatre Wing. So I met them and I started assisting Liz in stage managing and running the shows, and then performing.

Do you still see a lot of theater? I've always seen a lot of performance. When I was younger I didn't go to theater, I went to music. And when I found The Wooster Group it was because I was still looking for something. I'd see plays at school; I went to Stella Adler for two years at NYU. And I think plays, they seemed false to me. Like the clothes were wearing them. And then I saw Rumstick Road, Point Judith, and it was like, "I want to serve this work! I want to serve the people that make this work." And I said to Liz, "What do you need?" and she said, "What can you do?" I can sew, I was working as a seamstress, so I started making things for her, and then she started letting me help her make things, and we were editing scripts. She gives me a lot of credit. She gives me Assistant Director credit a lot of times. Because as years have gone by, I'm close to her in that way. Like even if I wouldn't be performing in a show, I think I'd still be working on it.

Have you seen anything in terms of performance recently that you've liked? I liked Sarah Michelson's dance performance that's going on right now at The Kitchen. That's very exciting. And, what else have I seen? I haven't seen a lot of theater lately because my father just died, so I haven't been out to a lot; I've missed a lot. There were a lot of performances in New York recently in APAP. People were talking a lot about the Australians at P.S. 122. I also wanted to see the Free Theater of Belarus. I might try to go to that benefit. But I do like to go see theater now. I used to like Broadway, I was looking for the experimental venue. But now some people I came up with are on Broadway, so I'll see a lot of stuff and I'll always enjoy it. I just saw La Bête. Let me think of what I went to at the end of last year. I went to La Bête, which I love, Mark Rylance is amazing. I went to see John Gabriel Borkman, Fiona Shaw, got to meet her. She comes to see the shows, and I love her, she's amazing. And I love Nature Theater of Oklahoma, they're great. I can't wait to see The Life and Times.

Romeo and Julietwas one of the funniest shows I saw last year. Oh, I loved it, so good.