Where did you grow up and where did you get your training?

 

Benjamin Bonenfant: We moved to Colorado from Maine when I was a kid, I grew up in Colorado Springs, and I’ve been living and working in Denver for a few years now. I got my Bachelor’s in Visual and Performing Arts from the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, where my training was quite a mix—from classics to avant-garde.

 

Nemuna Ceesay: I was born and raised in Sacramento, and started acting in the 6th grade when I got cast as the title role in Annie the musical. My first true love (and still a big part of my life) was singing, so I started out doing musical theatre. I graduated with a B.A. in drama from UC Irvine, and then got my MFA in acting from American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. They put a lot of focus on the classics, making sure that we knew how to handle language before we go out into the real world. But there was an equal amount of emphasis on new work.

 

What were you doing before this? Where’s your base?

 

BB: Just two days before coming to Ashland, I was in my final performance of A Christmas Carol at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts—which, when we began rehearsals last November, kicked off a full year of Dickens for me, since Great Expectations plays through October. Colorado is my base.

 

NC: I am based in New York right now, and the last production I did was Dracula (I played Mina) with a company called Three Day Hangover. They do immersive theatre that doubles as a drinking game, so for example, instead of a blood transfusion the audience had to chug a beer with us!

 

Did you know much about OSF before coming here?

 

BB: Not a lot. I only knew that I hoped for a chance to work here, or at least to come see the shows someday. I’ve done most of my Shakespeare at the Colorado Shakespeare Festival in Boulder. The two festivals have some common history, including James Sandoe [who regularly directed at OSF between 1948 and 1968] as one of the founders and major directors, as well as other ties. Beyond that, to me it was just a fabled repertory company that plays almost all year long, which is its own kind of dream.

 

NC: I came to OSF on a school visit when I was 12, and it has been a dream of mine to work here ever since. I saw the production of Macbeth in the Thomas Theatre with the pool of blood in the middle of the stage, and Julius Caesar in the Bowmer, where I remember bodies falling from the ceiling.

 

Had you read Great Expectations before?

 

BB: Working on the adaptation has been my introduction to one of the most enjoyable and satisfying books I’ve ever read. I am taken by surprise every time I open it. With Pip, Dickens is at once elegant, incisive, uncomfortably real and actually laugh-out-loud funny. The book also happens to be deeply moving and morally illuminating.

 

NC: I think I read it in high school. But when I got the role of Estella, not too long before rehearsals started, I read it in about five days. I was shocked at how compelling and beautiful it was. But what I hadn’t remembered was how theatrical his characters are. We all remember Miss Havisham in her wedding dress, but all of the characters are that rich and complicated. I was immediately terrified and thrilled to tackle the role of Estella after re-reading the novel.

 

What did you think of your characters? Both are complex and unlikable in some ways.

 

BB: Oh, I related to Pip immensely—the poor boy just can’t see what’s right in front of him. He is helplessly in love with someone who only makes him feel terrible, he is secretly convinced he is better than everyone else and deserves to be elevated for no reason at all and he is a complete jerk to the people who care the most about him—not to mention a hypocrite. I hated things in him that I hate about myself, but I also relished every time he seemed to speak on my behalf, whether by expressing anxiety over how to become the right sort of person, his confusion about what he wants or his hilarious (sometimes scathing) observations of the people around him. I couldn’t help both loving and hating him. 

I think callow is a great word for him, though, because he just doesn’t know better yet (or doesn’t want to know), as much as we think he should. Having some delusions shattered and some expectations disappointed really does a number on him, and as he puts the pieces of his life back together, a better man comes into focus. It has been interesting to explore this in performance, considering how the book, narrated by Pip, includes the darkest and meanest thoughts that he tries to withhold from the other characters. In our adaptation, the third-person narration by other characters provides less of his inner selfishness, so I feel it is important to see it come through in the way he behaves and interacts with them.

 

NC: My first takeaway was: How am I going to play someone who is described as cold and hard and unfeeling with any degree of humanity? I was coming off of a breakup that left me feeling a lot like Estella. As terrible as that is, I was able to identify with wanting to come off as nonchalant and unaffected, while actually dealing with a lot of pain, heartbreak and love underneath. Estella is a lot like a cast-iron stove: she looks cold and hard and strong on the outside, but in the inside, she has a hot, volatile fire burning all the time.

One of the really helpful conversations that came up in rehearsal was the idea of nature vs. nurture. Estella’s nurture—the environment she grew up in—taught her to be guarded and cruel. As Herbert Pocket describes, Miss Havisham raised Estella to “take revenge on the whole male sex.” Miss Havisham does this not only for her own selfish reasons, but also to save Estella from the devastating fate that she fell victim to. The problem with this is that Estella’s biological parents are people full of fire and passion. So Estella’s true nature is that she genetically has strong feelings and emotions. Estella is stuck between what her true impulses are and how she’s been trained to act.

 

What was it like working with Penny and Linda in terms of discovering the depth of your characters?

 

BB: Penny and Linda were an enormous help in tracking the stages of Pip’s progression toward deeper understanding—of goodness and of himself. Having spent so much time immersed in the book, they were able to see the big picture and point me where I needed to get to by the end. Figuring out each step is the real trick, especially in condensing so much novel into a single evening of theatre where every scene, no matter how small, has an impact on the character’s development over several years. Penny was always searching for moments where Pip opens his heart a little more or recognizes something a little more clearly about the world. I loved their shared energy and passion for the story, too, but I was truly lucky to have Penny’s sensitivity and soulfulness guiding me along the way.

 

NC: It is a privilege to work with people who truly believe in what they are doing and are not just passionate about the work, but also created the work. We worked from the text like we were doing a Shakespeare play: What are we getting from the text (both in the script and in the book) that is informing the character? They were also very willing to work with our actor impulses and hear what we had to say about the situations and interactions in the play. If we wanted a line from the book that wasn’t in the script, they would be willing to let us try it on. In terms of discovering the depths of Estella in general, Penny is brilliant and sees things that would have taken me much longer to uncover. She would lead me toward things but let me find them myself; she trusted that Estella would reveal herself slowly but surely, and she was a cheerleader when I found something that worked.

 

What are you learning as the run goes on?

 

BB: I have been blown away by how much this story resonates with young people. I’ve had the privilege of speaking with a few student groups after they’ve seen the show, and their engagement with Pip’s journey is beautiful. I sometimes can feel the show hitting a sweet spot for young adults considering what their path through life is going to be, whom they are supposed to become, or how to be a moral person in a world shot through with cruelty and injustice. I’m also learning more and more the value of working with such a skilled and generous ensemble of artists. Every time I turn around onstage I am faced with an even more effortless and formidable scene partner who helps me discover something I hadn’t heard or known before. This team of masterful players (onstage and off) has been carrying me through all the uncertainties of how to move through this play, and I expect they will continue teaching me throughout the run this year.

 

NC: I have never been in a run of a show that is this long, and I am so grateful for it because there is so much to discover in a story as big as this. I am constantly playing with how much I give away as Estella. How long is too long to stare into Pip’s eyes? How much flirting is too much flirting? How cold do I have to appear in this moment? How aware am I of Pip’s feelings in this scene versus this scene? How much humor does she have? What is her body language saying in this moment versus what are her words saying? The scenes are short but they are packed with subtext and plot points, so it takes a lot of constant work and play to figure out what works and what doesn’t. I think we’ll be discovering until the very end, and even past that!

 

What’s the most challenging thing about playing Pip and Estella? Physically, vocally, emotionally? 

BB: I think the emotional challenge is the greatest. You always want to be fully present and emotionally available to your scene partner so you can respond honestly and unselfconsciously, but trying to stay aware of Pip’s journey and knowing where he needs to end up by a certain point also means modulating along the way and tempering his reactions to suit that narrative. That’s the case with any character, but it has been a unique challenge with him, perhaps due to the size of the story and the length of his arc. At some point, I have to trust in the groundwork we have done and the relationships the cast has built together and just stop thinking about it so I can play authentically with my fellow actors.

 

NC: The emotional stuff is the true challenge of playing Estella. Especially playing opposite someone like Ben, who is so open and likable, and having to continue to disappoint him over and over. It’s so hard! Also just technically, walking up and down steps and ramps in those unbelievably gorgeous but huge dresses was very difficult to master . . . and I think I touch my skirt a lot more than Penny would like. But all in all, it’s more of a joy than anything else to play this role, and the challenges just keep it interesting.

 

Great Expectations runs through October 30. For more information, click here.