In the new play “The Seven Year Disappear,” Cynthia Nixon plays a famous performance artist named Miriam, who vanishes just as she's about to announce her next big piece.
She leaves behind her son and manager Naphtali, played by Taylor Trensch. Miriam stays away for seven years, and when she returns, she finds her son is a very different person.
Everyone Naphtali interacts with in this play — his mother, lovers and friends — is played by Nixon, who shapeshifts from character to character.
The play was written by Jordan Seavey and is staged like a performance piece, with video cameras, portraits and standing mics utilized throughout.
“All Of It” guest host Kousha Navidar spoke with Nixon, Trensch and playwright Seavey about “The Seven Year Disappear.” An edited version of their conversation is below.
Kousha Navidar: This play is about art and family. What role did art play in your life growing up?
Cynthia Nixon: So my mother had been an actress — not a successful actress — but she'd gone to Yale Drama School. Paul Newman was one of her classmates. And she studied with Uta Hagen, and then she tried really hard to be an actress for like, 15 years, and just did not have any success. She finally gave it up and decided that if she wasn't going to have that in her life, she was going to have a kid, and she had me.
So I was taken to Shakespeare in the Park from age 6 on. We were a musical comedy household, you know, Sondheim all the time, Rodgers and Hammerstein all the time. We would spend a lot of time going to plays and also seeing films and kind of dissecting them and figuring out what worked and what didn't work. So this story is very familiar to me.
Jordan, what's something you really wanted to satirize about performance art and performance artists?
Jordan Seavey: I didn't necessarily set out to satirize. I think art world satire is a bit baked in. Also, I love art and I love theater. I'm also in art and theater and it's really hard to make new art. The worlds around artists are full of huge personalities who often have to do whatever they can to make it because it's so hard to make it.
I do a lot of thinking about why we make art and why I'm pursuing it in my life and the joy of the communities that make it, and the world is a little ridiculous. So I guess I'm interested in the ridiculousness and the warmth and the love of the art world and the theater world.
Is that idea of ridiculousness, and also big personalities, what drew you to the play?
Nixon: Yes, definitely. It’s such a fascinating play. And certainly being able to play all these characters was really fascinating to me, but I feel like, in theater families, or art families, it’s the family business. It's really hard to draw the line between what is your work-slash-art and what is your personal life.
Like Nora Ephron, who was the daughter of screenwriters herself, would famously say, “everything is copy.” Everything is material for the art that you make.
Taylor and I have been connected to the play for a number of years. And when we would workshop it, I would talk a lot about Judy [Garland] and Liza [Minnelli], because I feel like it's such a prototype, wanting to pass on to your child this love of art, but also at a certain point...
Like, there's this famous story about Judy Garland and Liza Minnelli performing together as they had since Liza was very little. But Liza tells the story about how all of a sudden, Judy could feel that Liza was now giving her a run for her money.
It wasn't just like, “look at the cute kid.” It was like, “I actually have to get in front of her a little bit and sing a little louder and shine a little bigger because they aren't looking at me anymore.”
But I also think it says so many things about motherhood versus art. Can you be a mother and be an artist, or does society allow you to do that? What is going to be sacrificed?
As you said in the introduction, Taylor plays Naphtali, who is not only her son but her manager, her confidante, her whipping boy. He's everything.
So what drew you to Naphtali, Taylor?
Taylor Trensch: What drew me to the play was getting an email that said, “would you like to be in Jordan Seavey’s new play with Cynthia Nixon?” And I think any person who would say no to that should go to jail or to the hospital or something.
Then I read it and was so dazzled by what Cynthia was just talking about: this idea of what does a parent, specifically a mother, owe her child? And I think we are looking at that in a new way.
There used to be such an expectation of what a mother's role was in her child's life, and it's exciting to me that Miriam's pushing the boundaries a little bit on this idea that a mother needs to be the caretaker and the provider of love and warmth and support. I think it's really exciting that we're questioning that role in this play.
Cynthia, you have to take on so many different characters besides Miriam. From Naphtali's sort-of lover Wolfgang, to his actress friend, to art curators and hookups. What went into the process of transforming into each character?
Nixon: Well first of all, I worked with the amazing Deb Hecht, who is an incredible voice person. She was really front and center in terms of helping me figure these things out.
When you're in rehearsal for a play, you feel so fake so much of the time because you're not there yet. And so much of acting is believing in what you're doing. I found it really hard, because I'm playing eight different people. Before you have found a character, it’s just really hard to believe in what you're doing.
Wolfgang, who you mentioned, is German. So, OK, we know he has a German accent. But pretty much everybody else was up for grabs. And it was interesting. I would have thought that there would be even bigger characterizations.
But I think that Jordan and our director Scott Elliott, certainly wanted to know what the character was but not to have it be, you know, a limp and an eyepatch and a stutter. So it was very challenging, but body language is very helpful.
Not for every character, but for most characters, I have one item of clothing: a pair of glasses, or a hat, or an earring, or, in one case, a lollipop. And that helps. You start thinking about how this person sits and carries themself, and also not only what accent they might or might not have but do they speak quickly? Do they speak slowly? Are they intimidated? Are they confident?
When I saw this play, I noticed moments that were a bit disconcerting among the audience, watching Cynthia play all these characters who have sexual relationships with Naphtali, when she's also playing Naphtali's mother. Jordan, how did you want these Oedipal undertones to complicate the story? How'd you think that through?
Seavey: The origin of this play is, I had a dream that my mom was a famous performance artist who disappeared for seven years. Didn't tell anyone, including me.
And I just believe in listening to your subconscious. I think a lot of artists kind of work from that place. And so, sure, it's filled with a lot of Freudian, complicated, kind of uncomfortable-making notions. But that was the intention.
The heart of the play is a mother-son relationship and pushing the boundaries — not to a literally incestuous point but exploring the underpinnings of what that love is between a mother and son and what they owe to each other. Miriam disappears, but to Naphtali, she never fully disappears.
That's one of the conceits of the play: He sees her everywhere and in all the other people he meets. So she had to play his lover, and the audience has to sit and receive what that feels like. It's just not what we're used to.
Nixon: It's also a great metaphor for like, every relationship you have with anybody in your life. Your mother is embedded there, right? She's your first relationship. So every, every other relationship that you form after that is in some way a reaction — like seeking that relationship again, or rebelling against the things you didn't like in that relationship. So every relationship is with your mother, really.
It is a combination of great talent for a wonderful story. And we're so thankful to have you come on to talk about it.
"The Seven Year Disappear" is running now at the Pershing Square Signature Center through March 31.
