“I’ve been working on the script since I first read it two weeks before the auditions. I was instantly sure I wanted to play Mick and knew that even if I wasn’t cast, that I’d probably audition with one of his monologues in the future. I found the staccato, cheeky language to be right up my alley. I mean, it isn’t me at all really, but perhaps a bit like I’d like to be.

I’m a naturally introverted person and acting has always been an opportunity for me to be my alter ego in some way. It’s like wearing Red Kryptonite. Mick is a loud-mouthed, pushy, verbally-fencing bully. He’s also very loyal to and protective of his disadvantaged brother. He isn’t a villain by any means; he has negative attributes and he has positive ones — but he is unquestionably antagonistic in the script as a whole.

The process of creating Mick has been largely technical so far. The South London dialect is tricky. For an American it requires a lot of lip and tongue movement that isn’t natural. And Mick is a fast-talker. I’ve been doing a lot of tongue twisters in the dialect, listening to dialect samples, and I even went to see a speech pathologist for pointers. She gave me techniques for relaxing the tongue and throat and exercises aiding dexerity.

I also have been returning to acting basics in order to cut through the (seemingly) thick undergrowth of Pinter. By ‘basics’ I mean discovering what the character most wants in each scene or section of a scene. John, our director, has been an enormous asset to me in helping me make each line specific in terms of tactics.

So the project has been stretching me in two different directions: on the one hand I’m working very hard in an exterior way, and on the other I’m striving to ‘undress’ my performance by being as intellectually unaffected as I can.

I work a full-time job and am tinkering with a children’s book and have two other playwriting projects in the early stages still I’m rehearsing for THE CARETAKER. The play has definitely taken the lion’s share of my energy, but I’m not resentful about it in the least. Acting always helps me write better because it revivifies the way I think about character. I’m reminded that it isn’t an abstract, that what I put on the page will be interpreted (hopefully) by many different people with different life experience and approaches to acting. It reminds me that broad strokes are usually more important than details — or that the details are meaningless if there aren’t bold strokes.

The only real fear I have around playing Mick is connected to figuring out when he’s putting people on and when he’s dead serious and unaffected. As an actor it’s very tempting to be theatrical, but Mick can’t be 100% theatrical, even being a vivacious, manipulative, ‘actorly’ character. The director is steering me a lot in this and I’m very grateful for it. And, of course, my fellow actors are so earnest that they serve as constant benchmarks for me. Whenever I’m too outlandish, I only have to take them in and listen to them and I certainly see how theatrical I’ve gotten.”