Veanne Cox: A Stranger in Paradise Park
In her 20-year stage career, Veanne Cox has excelled at playing women with an edge, from her Tony-nominated performance as Amy in the 1996 revival of Company to the no-nonsense employer of Tonya Pinkins' title character in Caroline, or Change. The Virginia native is one part Southern charmer, one part urban realist, and that mix has made her an in-demand actress on stages around the country in both plays and musicals. Most recently, she starred as Amanda in Private Lives at the Guthrie. At the moment, Cox is immersing herself in the existential world of Charles Mee as part of the ensemble cast of Paradise Park at off-Broadway's Signature Theatre. A play that apparently defies description, this world premiere work is said to take place at an amusement park that opens up into all of America and beyond. Cox shared her impressions of Mee's "bizarre carnival of life," as show's press material puts it, with Broadway.com.
I came to Paradise Park by way of an audition I was unprepared for. I had not read the script, and, in the throes of getting another show opened, I'd only had time for cursory work on the audition scenes. But I threw myself into the firing line because I admire what the Signature Theatre does artistically with Jim Houghton at the helm and I had seen Charles Mee's Fetes de la Nuit at Berkeley Rep and was intrigued by the wildly imaginative and revealing worlds he creates. In the audition the playwright's words took me by surprise and moved me to an emotional place I rarely achieve under the pressure of an audition.
I get the job, I read the script, and on day one I enter the chaos of kindergarten recess. I arrive at the rehearsal room daily with a gasp: The place is strewn with lawn chairs, toy accordions, roller skates, streamers, colored lights, a cotton candy machine, a bumper car, a helium tank and balloon shards, fruit cakes, hot dogs, cheerleading outfits, pompoms, Cracker Jack boxes, Cheetos, punch, pizza, a water hose, a clown head, angel wings, condiments, stuffed objects, slingshots, a ventriloquist's dummy and a castle.
I have played plenty of funny and crazy characters in my time and, believe it or not, there are techniques involved. In Paradise Park I have given up control of those techniques. Control has proven to be unhelpful. During the first week of rehearsals our director, Daniel Fish, broke us of our need for linear explanations of our characters' inner or physical lives. We would dutifully ask for basic clarifications: where, when, who, what and, particularly heinous, why. A moment of silence would follow, as if Daniel were contemplating, and in true guru fashion seven seconds to make any decision he would declare, "It is unnecessary to know that."
But there is a method to Daniel's madness. Paradise Park reveals itself quite literally "on the words." Sometimes the more you try to dissect outside of the words, the more complicated life becomes. Hence my control is given over to the director and the playwright.
In this play, the truth as in life is illusive and interpretable, and Daniel Fish expects and challenges us to stay truthfully in this ambiguous state. He is a great collaborator. So much so that we learned not to make jokes about what our characters might do, because sure enough, the next go-around that's what we would be trying. His vision is distinct, and it has been a joy watching him and the creative designers come up with our world. It is not sincere or sentimental. It is colorful and surprising, like the play itself.