Education Dramaturg Ted Sod spoke with Sharon D Clarke about her work on Caroline, or Change, in early 2020.
TED SOD: Why did you want to play the title role in Caroline, or Change? What do you find exciting about this role?
SHARON D CLARKE: Caroline’s a tour de force. She’s magnificent. This musical takes in the assassination of JFK and the burgeoning civil rights movement by focusing on a disenfranchised single woman. It touches on so many ideas in such a humane, natural, and yet surreal way. I love the surreal elements of the story and the way that we tell it. The washing machine, dryer, radio and other inanimate objects that Caroline sings to and has conversations with is a completely unique way to allow the audience to enter into this woman’s mind. It’s very rare that you see someone of Caroline’s stature at the center of a story being told. I wanted to be a part of that. I wanted to honor people like my mum and dad who came over from Jamaica to a completely new country to try and make their way. The things they had to go through and put up with to make a life for themselves and for me. Stories that honor that kind of human spirit are definitely something that I am on board with.
TS: I’m curious how you went about researching what was happening in America at the time.
SDC: We did a lot of research. Michael Longhurst, the director, and Ann Yee, the choreographer, brought material to us from the time period. We read about the Alabama church killings and what was happening with the civil rights movement in America circa 1963, who the main leaders of the civil rights movement were, what was happening around JFK, what that meant to society, how it affected Blacks and whites, how it changed people’s lives. We all did our backstories. We spent time looking at how old Caroline would have been when she had her kids and when her husband left. We had a very complete picture of who these people in the musical are. And then we had the added bonus of having Tony Kushner, who wrote the lyrics and libretto, come to talk to us. He spent an afternoon and we sat in a circle and he just talked to us. He told us about his experience, what the show was based on, what he had lived through, what it meant to him, what it’s like in Lake Charles, Louisiana, and how the temperature felt. We were lucky enough to be imbued with the writer’s perspective. We weren’t asked to portray characters in the way they were portrayed before. We were given the agency to do what we wanted to do with it based on the text. To have the creative freedom to find the characters in that way was a joyous process.
TS: Please give us some insight into your process of interpreting this role.
SDC: My starting point is always, “What is this character’s love? What is the love that grounds them, that propels them on, what is the love that holds them back?” Caroline has been brave enough to divorce a husband who has become abusive. But that has broken her heart. She still absolutely loves him. She has that dream state where she is thinking back to when they were young in 1943 and the love they had, bringing up the kids and how life was wonderful. She’s not stopped loving him. She’s praying to God to help her forget him, to help her let him go so that she can move on. She’s broken and she’s hurt. It’s the one time in the piece where you see what her happiness was and where her sadness comes from and why she’s closed her heart to the world.
TS: Would you talk a bit about your understanding of the relationship between Caroline and Noah? Is it true that the character of Noah is based on Tony Kushner himself?
SDC: It’s poetic license. Tony drew on truth in order to create all these characters. The stable, maternal figure in Noah’s life is Caroline. She has been their maid and she has known him all his life. So, when he has lost his mother and his father is withdrawn, he naturally goes to the one thing he knows, Caroline. They talk to each other. Caroline understands his loss, they have both lost their mothers to cancer. She understands what he’s going through. But emotionally she can’t invest in this child. She has four kids of her own. She doesn’t have any money or standing in society and she can’t emotionally afford to take on another child.
TS: How do you see Caroline’s relationship with her own daughter, Emmie?
SDC: Emmie’s a tomboy, she’s hanging out at the parking lot with her friends, dancing to the radio and she’s getting involved with this civil rights movement—which for Caroline spells trouble. Caroline’s worried about Emmie attracting trouble to her family. She is coming from a different mindset: You keep quiet and you don’t rock the boat. You don’t upset your boss. You keep your head down. Emmie is having none of that—so, of course, they are going to rub up against each other. Caroline is being a protective mom the best way she knows how, which seems harsh to Emmie. But Caroline’s doing the best she can do.
TS: I’m curious what you make of the title, Caroline, or Change? For me, it’s brilliant because of the pocket change that goes missing in the play. And then there is the larger meaning of the word change. Do you feel that Caroline changes at the end of the piece?
SDC: She doesn’t have the capacity to change, In fact, she says “changin’s a danger for a woman like me.” For me, she thinks as long as she can get her kids through their lives, that’s going to have to be enough. She feels it’s too late for her to change. She looks at her friend Dotty going to college and mixing with a new crew and she knows she doesn’t have the money to do that for herself. Dotty has a boyfriend, she doesn’t have any kids, she doesn’t have any dependents. Dotty has a completely different lifestyle from Caroline. Caroline does try to move herself forward because by the time we get to the second act, she’s found out where Vietnam is. She had someone show her on a map, so now she knows where her son is serving. I think there are these myriad worries that don’t allow her to change in the same way others in her community do. As you said, the word “Change” in the title is multi-faceted: There’s the change Noah goes through growing up and letting go, there is change in the household with Noah’s father getting remarried, there is change politically—JFK has been assassinated—the civil rights movement is forcing change. The whole world is changing around her in a way that Caroline just can’t. So, for me, she’s the one character that doesn’t change.
TS: What do you look for from a director, choreographer and musical director when you are working on a musical role, whether it’s a new musical or a revival?
SDC: If they allow openness, honesty, and truth in the room, then the creative process is not stifled and you are free to try things. You are allowed to fail. You are allowed to discover.
TS: Can we talk a little bit about where you were born and educated and if you had any teachers who had a profound influence on your work as an artist?
SDC: I am London-born of Jamaican parents who grew up together in Morgans Forest in the parish of Clarendon, Jamaica, where they were next-door neighbors and childhood sweethearts and came over to Britain in the 1950s. They weren’t on the Windrush, but they were part of the Windrush generation. They made lives for themselves here and gave me a wonderful opportunity. I have been able to do what I love by being in London and being in the heart of theatre. It’s such an absolute blessing.
I went to a normal, comprehensive school, very mixed, all kinds of creeds, colors, religious denominations. Lunchtimes were a thing of beauty because we would all just exchange food. We started tasting all sorts of food—from India and Greece. As that generation, we didn’t stick to separate groups because our schools were so mixed. And I went to the Anna Scher Drama School in Islington. Anna Scher was an English teacher who saw kids just being kids on the street or hanging around in school and not really doing anything and she started drama classes which dealt mainly in improv. We would look at classic pieces and plays, or play out different scenarios and themes but we would then improv them.
I went to North London College to do a social work course because I knew that the acting industry could be precarious and I wanted to have qualifications in something that I would love doing as much as acting. While I was waiting for my results from the social work college, I was in the common room and there was a copy of The Stage lying about. I picked it up and they were advertising for a job at the Battersea Arts Centre. I went along to the auditions and got that job and I have been an actor and a singer ever since.
TS: What inspires you as an artist?
SDC: What inspires me is the people I work with. I have been very fortunate to work with some incredible people. People who are gifted, talented, creative and generous with their time and their wisdom and gifts. That’s the directors I work with, the designers, actors, backstage crew and on and on. When I am able to be in a room with them and watch their creative genius flow—that’s what inspires me.
TS: What is one of the most challenging experiences you had in your career? And what did you take away from it?
SDC: All roles are challenging for different reasons—that’s why I like doing them—because they are going to teach me something about myself and my craft and how I can move forward. It can be challenging dealing with “foolishness.” There was an instance where I was working on a show and the writer asked if I could be more Black. And, I said, “You may not have noticed, but I am Black” And he said, “Well, I know Black people.” He meant for me to be more of a caricature, more stereotypical. And a director once asked me, a girl from Tottenham, London, “How does one pick cotton?” Like it would just be embedded in my DNA. It’s those kinds of requests that I find challenging. Within the work, challenge is almost always a joy because it’s always going to stretch me. No matter how afraid I might have been of something, there is always a reason why I have done it and it has taught me something. I love challenges. They lift me.
TS: Do you have any advice for a young person who says they want a career as an actor?
SDC: It’s always about the craft. If you want to become an actor because you think you’re going to get famous—then it’s not for you. So few actors are famous. You have to want to tell the stories. In order to tell those stories, you have to be part of a team. You have to be a team player. Find your family, your community. I also say go and usher. Ushering is fantastic because you can see craft happen nightly. You can get a nightly masterclass where you can watch a different actor each night and you see how they deal with the audience. Are they generous on stage, do they upstage people? What is it about that performance that makes you lean in, what is it about it that makes you lean back or become disinterested? There’s so much that you can learn from ushering and you’ll be getting paid a little bit of money, too.