The actress S. Epatha Merkerson, who stars in MTC’s upcoming revival of William Inge’s Come Back, Little Sheba, is perhaps best known for playing Lt. Anita van Buren on the long running television drama Law & Order. Despite this formidable television commitment, she has been able to turn her attention to a diverse array of other projects: in 2005 she won an Emmy Award, a Golden Globe and an Independent Spirit Award for her work on the HBO-produced television adaptation of Ruben Santiago-Hudson’s play Lackawanna Blues, which was directed by George C. Wolfe. She won an Obie Award in 2005 for her performance in Cheryl L West’s Birdie Blue and was nominated for the same award in 2003 for her work on Suzan-Lori Park’s Fuckin A at The Public. In 1990, she received a Tony Award nomination for her work on August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson. MTC’s Literary Manager Raphael Martin spoke to Epatha about her upcoming appearance in Sheba, her love affair with the stage and working with the great August Wilson.

RM: The first thing I’m curious about is what attracted you to Inge’s play and how did you get to be involved with this production?

EM: Michael Pressman, the director of Come Back, Little Sheba, and I were filming a “Law & Order” episode together. Between lighting set-ups one day we started talking about theater. I told him I try to do a play or something every hiatus so that I can keep my “chops” going. Michael mentioned that he had the rights to Come Back, Little Sheba and I told him it was one of my favorite movies but I had never seen the play. We finish shooting the episode and about a week later I get this long, drawn out email from Michael asking ‘Would I possibly think about doing Lola’…and all the reasons why he thought I should. My e-mailed answer to him in sixteen point font was “HELL YEAH.” So that’s how it started.

RM: And so what are the differences between working with Michael on television and on theater?

EM: Television is not very collaborative. It’s a kind of producer/director -led way of working. But Michael is very collaborative and appreciates actors. He’s very thorough no matter where he works and he’s filled with questions and he’s got great answers for the questions you ask. He’s a man full of humanity and joy; he’s curious and funny. I think the difference really is the pace of the work. In theatre you have a longer period of rehearsal. In television you do the rehearsal and then about an hour later you do the shot. So really it’s the time period.

RM: Lola is a part that’s so identified with Shirley Booth who starred in both the original Broadway production and the subsequent movie. How does an actor go about re-interpreting such an iconic part?

EM: You know fortunately for me I hadn’t seen the film in many years and so I could disassociate myself with it. I wouldn’t say that I’m re-interpreting the part; rather, I’m putting myself in it. That means all fifty-five years of what I’ve lived and what I know: as a woman, as a woman who was married in a not very swell marriage [laughs], as a woman who knows loneliness and depression and menopause. So there are a lot of things about Lola that I can reach out and touch and also that I can pull from myself. So the answer to your question is that the “re-interpretation” is from my point of view, as a woman in this world and as an African-American woman.

RM: And will that add resonance do you feel?

RM: Yes. The play still resonates because all the things that are spoken of in it we still talk about now. In the fifties those topics weren’t discussed: young women having sex and getting pregnant was taboo; it still is today, but it doesn’t destroy lives now as it did back then. We talk about depression, we talk about menopause, and we talk about alcoholism. I think it will be a new perspective on issues we already know about and I believe the audience will see something they understand.

RM: So what you’re saying is that it is both contemporary and a period piece…

EM: It really is! As an MTC colleague said to me, my being in Sheba makes it very contemporary. Our 21 st century eye is used to seeing inter-racial couples and this contemporizes the story. The play resonates with this new perspective.

RM: It’s rare as an actor to get a second crack at performing the same production of a play. This production premiered at Center Theatre Group in Los Angeles where you first played Lola. How does it feel to do it again?

EM: To be able to do the play and find out what it means, how to navigate it and then to expand what you’ve learned is extraordinary. That has so much to do with Michael Ritchie [ Artistic Director, Center Theatre Group] who allowed the play to be done in the first place out in Los Angeles. I’m very pleased and appreciative and grateful. Also, New York is home for me and I haven’t been on Broadway for over seventeen years. So I’m very grateful to the Manhattan Theatre Club for giving us this opportunity. So it’s a “Thank You” to Michael Ritchie and a “Thank You” to MTC. I’m totally psyched! Zoe [Kazan who pays Marie] says “stoked”. I guess that’s the word!

RM: Let’s talk about when you were last on Broadway. It was August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson in 1990, which MTC co- produced. August is one of the great writers in the American theatrical canon. Would you mind speaking a bit about working with him and on that play?

EM: The experience of working with August and Lloyd [Richards, the director] is impossible to put into words. I got cast nine days before we were to go to the Goodman Theater in Chicago so I didn’t have time to think about what working on this monumental production meant and with all these incredible actors. Once we got into the run of it, I started to realize what an opportunity I had been given.

RM: And what was August like?

EM: August was incredibly shy, even painfully shy. I think he was more comfortable around men than women. But I think he liked me! He would say to me: “I’m gonna make some changes on that” about a particular speech or something and funny the next day there would appear these incredible words that would connect the characters so completely. He was such an amazing writer! You really can’t paraphrase great writers. Every word is there for a reason and if you take a word out it destroys the cadence of the speech. I remember one specific performance [of The Piano Lesson] at The Goodman and an actor was late for an entrance. The guys on stage were trying to fill the space and it was probably the funniest thing I’ve heard. That’s when we realized that you can’t ad-lib August Wilson.

Photo by Jason O'Dell