#lost abs

Interview with Michael Emerson, 2017 Lucille Lortel Award Nominee for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Play (Wakey, Wakey, Written by Will Eno, Signature Theatre)

Q: So, Wakey Wakey… it’s a dark show.

M: It’s good fun for a while, strange fun. Then it gets very sad.

Q: How was the rehearsal process for you?

M: It was pretty smooth. We all kind of knew what needed to get done from the get-go. And the play is short enough, that every time you rehearse, you did the whole play. It wasn’t like you could chop it up into scenes, like “Let’s do the funny bit for a while, and then the sad bit”…. cause once we got going, we would always run through to the grim end.

Q: What was something in the character and the world of Wakey, Wakey , that drew you into the project?

M: I think the language  was so indirect, kind of a fractured poetry, of a sort… that makes sense in a way, alchemically, after you’ve listened to it. Or after you’ve read and thought about it for a bit… Nothing in it is normal…but he (Will Eno, playwright of Wakey, Wakey) puts that stuff out there, and later on you find that it’s gotten to you, and it adds up to something unexpected.