From A to Zoe: Remembering Zoe Caldwell
Each of us has a handful of performers whose effect on us is so great, we feel forever changed by them. The actress, Zoe Caldwell is among mine.
Caldwell as Maria Callas in Terrence McNally’s Master Class (1995)
Reading that the four-time Tony winner died February 16th at age 86, I find myself reflecting on just how complicated and deep that effect was. On my notions around creativity and connection. On how I view talent. On my understanding of the relationship between artist and audience.
I was 19, and at the dawning of my life as an adult theatergoer, when I first saw her play Medea in1982 (though “playing” can’t begin to describe what I witnessed). In Euripides’ tragedy, husband Jason abandons Medea and their two children for the daughter of King Creon (in the hopes of advancing his station). Fearing Medea’s vengeance, Creon banishes her and her children from Corinth—fueling a plot that ends with Medea murdering Jason's new wife and her own children. It’s the kind of role that makes histrionics seem unavoidable. But Caldwell’s performance couldn’t have been more real. Seething with the dueling emotions of lust and revenge—she was mortal, mythic, monstrous and maternal all at the same time. Thirteen years later, as Maria Callas in Terrence McNally’s Master Class (1995), Caldwell did it again— breathing life into an arrogant, infuriating sometimes girlish diva that one still believed could seduce Aristotle Onassis (if not the world).
The kinship she created with her audience trickled into my everyday life. I would occasionally see her in the west 50s, warmed by the fact that we were neighbors—and was delighted to find her behind me in a checkout line one day and able to say, "After you, Ms. Caldwell”.
Coincidentally, I recently read Caldwell’s charming recounting of how the daughter of a plumber in Depression-era Australia grew up to play Cleopatra.
Just how lasting is her effect on me? Sitting in the audience at Broadway’s Bernhardt/Hamlet a year and a half ago—and thinking that its lead actress, while gifted, lacked the carnal edge central to Sarah Bernhardt’s inner conflicts—I found myself again and again imagining Zoe Caldwell in the role. Her voice, “Husky yet feminine and full of longing,”* displaying a sensual depth this Bernhardt sorely lacked. While easily half a foot shorter than the actress on stage, Caldwell towers in my memory. How extraordinary that she should come to me so resonant after more than two decades.
Thornton Wilder regarded the theatre as the greatest of all art forms, calling it, “the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being.” Caldwell made that act of sharing feel profoundly personal—her talent the difference between being transfixed and being transformed. Her command, commitment and generosity as an artist becoming part of my intellectual and creative DNA.
I will forever have Medea and Master Class in my memory. And Zoe Caldwell in my heart.
* From The New York Times’ review of Medea