WASHINGTON — She steamed up the screen with William Hurt in “Body Heat” (1981), Michael Douglas in “Romancing the Stone” (1984), Jack Nicholson in “Prizzi’s Honor” (1985) and Bob Hoskins in “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” (1988).
But it’s not the wooing of a lover but rather the grief of losing one that fuels Kathleen Turner’s one-woman performance in “The Year of Magical Thinking” playing at Arena Stage from Oct. 7-Nov. 20.
“One of our national traits is very much to say, ‘No, no, no, I don’t want to talk about this. It’s not going to happen to me or anyone I care for,’ and that kind of denial doesn’t add anything to your life or to others’ [lives],” Turner told WTOP. “Her words, her choices are so exquisite, truly, that it gives you an understanding but at the same time makes it accessible without it being frightening or oppressive.”
Based on Joan Didion’s 2005 memoir, the play chronicles Didion’s grief over her husband’s death.
“I started on this journey when I lost my mom last year,” Turner said. “I had her for 92 years. … I miss her so much. So that started me looking into this world, and this is the best material that exists on it.”
The acclaimed book was a Pulitzer Prize finalist that won the National Book Award for Nonfiction.
“Putting it in play form was such a smart move,” director Gaye Taylor (G.T.) Upchurch said. “There’s something about a live audience coming together, particularly with Kathleen saying her words, that puts us all in this position of being able to approach this big subject of grief that we hardly ever talk about. She does it in a way that’s funny, honest, revealing and is really ultimately life-affirming.”
Growing up in Jackson, Mississippi, Upchurch dabbled in literature, teaching, painting and dance before finding theater at the North Carolina School of the Arts. Upon graduation, she moved to New York City to direct various off-Broadway productions, including “Bethany” starring America Ferrera, before becoming associate director at “The Bridge Project” with Sam Mendes (“American Beauty”).
“I got to tour the world with a Shakespearean and Chekhov play with amazing actors. That was really my M.F.A.,” Upchurch said. “He’s a great mentor and has such a way of putting productions together.”
Now, Upchurch makes her much anticipated Arena Stage debut.
“When I was trying to find a director I wanted to work with, I wanted it to be a woman,” Turner explained. “I really felt very strongly that this material — and me — needed to work with a woman. G.T.’s name came up several times with some wonderful people, so that kind of cleared the decks!”
“I love seeing where Joan and Kathleen intersect,” Upchurch said. “I think they’re both very forthright and honest and very funny. They have a very sly sense of humor. So being in the room and seeing where both the text and what Kathleen’s bringing to it come together, that’s very special to me.”
Of course, the one-woman show presents its own unique challenges — but none Turner can’t handle.
“It’s another one of these 75-80 minute monologues! Why do I keep doing this?!?” Turner joked. “Next year, 2017, will be my 40th anniversary as a professional actor, so I’m gonna have a party.”
That 40-year run kicked off with collegiate performances at both Missouri State University and the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) — just up the road from Arena Stage.
“I was at UMBC under Herbert Blau,” Turner said. “He had been given the entire art department and he saw me in a play in St. Louis and asked me if I would come work with his company. In that year, we created the first new experimental theater festival in the country — all of it happening at UMBC.”
Upon graduation, she didn’t waste any time moving to Broadway.
“Oh, I did not wait,” Turner said. “I said, ‘Send my mother the diploma, the car is packed.'”
After making her Broadway debut across Danny Aiello in “Gemini” (1977) and her TV debut on the NBC soap opera “The Doctors” (1977), Turner’s career skyrocketed with her unforgettable role across William Hurt in the erotic thriller “Body Heat” (1981). The film earned Turner her first Golden Globe nomination and marked the directorial debut of Lawrence Kasdan, who had written “Empire Strikes Back” (1980) for George Lucas and “Raiders of the Lost Ark” (1981) for Steven Spielberg.
“He had been writing, but he wrote and wanted to direct ‘Body Heat,'” Turner said of Kasdan before helming “The Big Chill” (1983) and “Grand Canyon” (1991). “I found out later that it was Lucas’ support — because of his work with Larry — that really pushed this project through with me and Bill.”
Boasting steamy sex scenes and Turner’s signature deep voice à la Lauren Bacall, the neo-noir echoes “Double Indemnity” (1944) as her femme fatale seduces Hurt into a plot to murder her husband.
“It was definitely the film noir that Larry was going for,” Turner said. “It was pretty scary!”
The following year, she starred across Michael Douglas in Robert Zemeckis’ comedy adventure “Romancing the Stone” (1984), playing a romance author who heads to Colombia to ransom her kidnapped sister. The film won Golden Globes for Best Picture: Comedy and Best Actress: Comedy for Turner, marking the first time Upchurch remembers watching Turner on screen as a kid.
“I remember it was ‘Romancing the Stone,’ which was my favorite movie,” Upchurch said. “I admitted this to Kathleen, there was a year of my life I think I watched it every weekend. I loved it so much.”
The movie was such a box office hit — the No. 8 top grosser of 1984 — that it inspired a successful sequel, “The Jewel of the Nile” (1985), reuniting Turner with Douglas for the No. 7 grosser of 1985.
While Zemeckis skipped the sequel to direct “Back to the Future” (1985), Turner was busy winning her second Golden Globe in “Prizzi’s Honor” (1985), which made director John Huston the first to direct his father (Walter Huston) and daughter (Anjelica Huston) to Oscars over his long career.
“John was grand,” Turner said. “We used to play backgammon because he was a major gambler. … I would be beating the pants off him and then he’d start rolling double sixes. So for Christmas, I got him some silver dice that I knew were not loaded. Didn’t make any difference! … ‘Prizzi’s Honor’ was his last real total film. His emphysema was so terrible that he could go nowhere without an oxygen tank. He would literally count the steps he’d have to take before he would get up from the [directing] chair.”
While Huston’s health was tragic, it allowed for extra creative input by Turner and Jack Nicholson.
“Consequently, he left a lot of the blocking up to Jack and me, which I thought was great fun,” Turner said. “You’ll see one scene that starts with our getting up from the arm of a sofa. That was Jack’s idea [to] have me thrown over the arm of a sofa. Then the bedroom scene where we’re rolling, we called it ‘Who’s On Top?’ and we fall off the foot of the bed? That was my [idea]. So I got to really participate.”
The next year, she worked with another legendary filmmaker in Francis Ford Coppola, earning an Oscar nomination across Nicolas Cage in the fantasy comedy “Peggy Sue Got Married” (1986). She plays a 43-year-old housewife on the verge of divorce who attends her high school reunion, where she suddenly passes out, enters a time warp and awakens in her 17-year-old body back in 1960.
“He’s wonderful,” Turner said of Coppola. “His design team he used over and over. We didn’t use any effects to change between past and present. I didn’t do any makeup to change from [age] 42 to 16, it was all literally in the acting. In the past, his design team would spray the street with a purple wash, the sidewalks had a yellow tint, and the lawns had a spray. So everything was sort of hand painted.”
On top of the set design, she also admires his creative camera moves.
“At the very top of the film, you’ll see Peggy Sue looking into the mirror getting ready,” Turner said with awe-struck excitement. “The camera pulls through the mirror to the back of a body double who’s doing the same thing. So you’re seeing the front and back of this woman at the same time, which is not physically possible! But if you accept it, then you’ve agreed to go on this magic tour, you know?”
Speaking of magic, she reunited with Zemeckis in “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” (1988) as animated Jessica Rabbit (“I’m not bad, I’m just drawn that way”) alongside live-action actors like Bob Hoskins.
“I always loved his response. She says, ‘You don’t know how hard it is being a woman looking the way I look,’ and he says, ‘You have no idea how hard it is looking at a woman looking the way you [look]!'”
Upon noting similarities between Toon Town and “Chinatown” (1974), Turner burst out laughing.
“I suppose! The Red Car line!” Turner said, admitting certain similarities between the corrupt Cloverleaf highway system in “Roger Rabbit” and the water and power scandal in “Chinatown.”
Plenty of other gems followed, including Kasdan’s “The Accidental Tourist” (1988), a fifth Globe nomination for Danny DeVito’s “The War of the Roses” (1989) and Sofia Coppola’s “The Virgin Suicides” (1999), not to mention playing Chandler Bing’s cross-dressing father in TV’s “Friends.”
“He still calls me Dad,” Turner joked.
But more and more these days, she keeps returning to the stage — her initial love from UMBC.
“The Year of Magical Thinking” marks her fourth appearance at Arena Stage, her first coming in the early 1980s when she did back flips into a pool in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” More recently, she’s starred in “Red Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins” and “Mother Courage & Her Children.”
In addition to Arena Stage, Turner has also made quite the name for herself on Broadway, earning Tony nominations in a pair of roles that Elizabeth Taylor made famous on the silver screen: Tennessee Williams’ “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” and Edward Albee’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” Turner told WTOP she was saddened to learn of the legendary Albee’s passing last month at the age of 88.
“I’m going to miss him very much,” Turner said. “He was very dear to me. Edward was not always the kindest man, you could say, but we had a wonderful relationship. I have something I will always, always treasure. The closing night on Broadway, he left an envelope on my desk, of his stationary, a handwritten note that said, ‘You’re the reason I’m a playwright.’ I’m keeping that one, boy!”
But while Albee is gone, Turner helps us transcend death in Didion’s “The Year of Magical Thinking.”
“The glory, the wonder of theater is that you sit next to a perfect stranger, perhaps, and if the show is good, you start to breathe together and you hold your breath and you laugh at the same instant and you become part of something greater than alone. And this would be the show to go to for that, boy!”
Click here for more info. Hear the full conversation with Kathleen Turner and Gaye Taylor Upchurch below:
