Interview: Actress Emjoy Gavino
Emjoy Gavino is a new face on Court’s stage. Artistic Administrator Jack Tamburri caught her during a rehearsal break to chat about her first Court Theatre show and the unique challenges of playing a blind character.
You’re not a Chicago native—what brought you to our city?
I grew up in Seattle. In fact, I spent my entire life there until three years ago, when I came out here. My first year I didn’t work much, then I started performing with [educational theater company] Barrel of Monkeys, and that opened a bunch of doors for me, just through the connections within that company. I did a few readings with Chicago Children’s Theater and the work picked up from there.
But you’d been acting before you came to town.
I started acting professionally in college, in Seattle. There weren’t roles for me in school, so I had to get out and do professional theater.
No roles?
I was the only ethnic minority in the drama program and they didn’t know what to do with me. I was getting antsy—I needed to be on stage, and luckily Seattle theater was a really open community for that. And once that seemed like it was running its course, I started looking at Chicago. I never wanted to go to New York, I always wanted to come to Chicago. So when my husband got a job at Northlight Theater, it became a wonderful opportunity for me to start over and learn a new scene.
Take us through your early process of discovering this character.
I got the script—I was cast 4 or 5 months in advance of rehearsals. I got the script and I wanted to know her. So, she was Susy before the accident—she’s only been blind for a year and a half. That informed a lot about how I play a blind person—for someone who’s been born blind the psychological effect is different. So I started there, and got to know her: Susy likes that she can depend on people, she wants everyone to do everything for her, at first. She’s a little lazy about going through the world and learning how to adjust to this new situation. And I read a lot about blindness and the experiences of blind people, and Susy’s attitude mirrors directly what I learned—in her first year, she’s still in denial that her life is going to be this way from now on, forever. So that’s what [playwright] Frederick Knott was tapping into. And that way she has this really fun, complex arc in the show, as she learns that she doesn’t have to depend on everybody, and in fact she can’t. Aside from a little girl in her building, all she has is herself. At the beginning she’s not aware of how strong she really is, and that’s a rewarding journey to go on, for an actor. It’s a great thing to get to discover about yourself.
Do you see yourself in any of Susy’s behavior?
Sure, I like being the damsel in distress sometimes. I like depending on other people even though I know very well I could do things on my own; there’s pleasure in that. And through playing the character I get to remind myself of the trap that that sort of dependence can be, and I get to live this awakening through her.
What sort of research have you been doing to prepare for the role?
I’ve started volunteering at Chicago Lighthouse [a private education and rehabilitation facility for the blind], to surround myself physically with blindness, but before I started there I’d been reading memoirs of people who were blinded partway through life, to get a sense of where Susy is in the process of learning to live blind. I met Beth Finke, a blind writer who is a consultant on the production, and what she’s told me has been hugely helpful. I’m actually going over to Beth’s house to observe how she moves in her own space. It was most important for me that I didn’t play it as a stereotype, so I’m not gonna bump into every wall. Susy knows basically where things are and just moves more cautiously than clumsily.
Now that you’re in rehearsal, how has your approach developed?
We started with two or three days of tablework, during which we discussed all our relationships among the characters and emotionally and psychologically where each one of us is at each point, and that informed how Susy’s going to move with her husband, how she moves with Mike, how she moves with Gloria, and who she is with each of them. So once we got on our feet, I had to take a few steps back and relearn who Susy is, and throw out some of my preconceptions because I hadn’t yet walked her walk. And for those first couple of weeks she changed every day, she was somebody different at the beginning of each rehearsal.
At first, in the auditions, Ron [OJ Parson, the director] had to ask me “You know she’s blind, right?” Because I was making her—on the stage, I wasn’t looking at people in the eye, but I was still basically facing them. That doesn’t really read, so I had to change it. So when we started blocking, I went way too far in the other direction, and I wasn’t facing remotely in the right area, which is when people in the blind community would accuse me of playing a stereotype. A blind person can tell where you are in a room, she can hear you. So it’s been a process of marrying the two ideas, the technical requirement of “I’m on stage and I need to look like I’m blind,” but also respecting what it really is and how I would realistically respond. And it’s still something I’m struggling with. But I’m meeting blind people who will, I’m sure, enhance and enrich my understanding. There are as many was of playing blind as there are of playing Asian; everybody’s different. For example, some people look up, sort of put their faces in the air, while some blind people have been taught to face down and keep their hands out. I’ve even—in daily life my friend and family have started complaining that I don’t look people in the eye anymore! I’m experiencing conversations as Susy, which is just part of the process. I’m learning what “tells” people have in their voices. Sight distracts you from not hearing everything that somebody’s giving you with their voice or their breath.
That sounds like a really useful challenge for an actor.
t’s going to help me with anything I do from this point. Being able to feel with my other senses, hear things differently, focus
–Jack Tamburri
