Listen to Henry’s Interview

By Kenn Gold, Shaun Daily, & Angela Gold

Henry Simmons (NYPD Blue/ Shark) is producing and starring in the play Betraya l, which starts July 10, 2008 for a limited run at The Matrix Theatre 7657 Melrose Ave, Los Angeles.  The play is produced along with Sophina Brown (Shark/ Numbers) and Rick Wasserman who also star, and The Playground, an actors group in the LA area.

Winner of The Drama Critics Award for Best Foreign Play and the West End Award for Best Play of the Season the story follows two men, 1 woman, 9 scenes spanning 9 years. The play begins with the meeting of Emma and Jerry whose adulterous affair of seven years ended two years earlier.  Emma’s marriage to Robert, Jerry’s best friend, is now breaking up.  During this encounter it is revealed that Robert knew of their affair for years.  Thereafter, in a series of contiguous scenes, the play moves backward in time, from the end of the Emma-Jerry affair to its beginning.

Betrayal is written by Harold Pinter, one of the most prolific playwrights of our generation.  His  timeless and proven works are both simple and complex, classic and current, comedic and  haunting. Pinter’s plays present a challenge for the actor, as well as the audience. Betrayal deals with some of our most basic and primal desires and fears- love, lust, loyalty, power, deceit, loneliness. In doing this play, we hope to 
hold a mirror up to human nature, not by spoon-feeding the audience, but by telling a full, rich story which invites them to participate and consider their own lives and relationships.

Henry recently stopped by The MediaBlvd Pop Culture Hour radio show to talk about the play, and his other projects.

MediaBlvd> Tell us about your play, Betrayal?

Henry Simmons> It’s a play by Harold Pinter.  It’s an award winning play, and I’m very excited about it.  I think this is the first time it’s ever been done like this to my knowledge.  We have a cast that is of mixed background; two people of color, and one who isn’t.  It’s a whole different dynamic.  It’s about a husband and wife, and the man has this best friend, and the best friend is sleeping with the husband’s wife.  The thing is its been happening for seven years and that’s the betrayel there.  The best friend is betraying the husband with the guys wife.  The other part of the betrayel  is that the husband knew about it.  So everyone is betraying one another, and the difference in this play is that the play starts where the affair breaks up.  And then it moves back in time to the very moment that the affair began, so it goes backwards.  It’s very different than anything I’ve ever done before. 

MediaBlvd> How is it acting in a play compared to acting in a TV show?

Henry> I don’ think the style is different, but it’s different in terms of intimacy.  When you’re working on screen or on Television, everything is extremely intimate.  The camera is right there in your face and you see everything that’s going on.  In theatre, the challenge is trying to create an intimate moment when you’re not quite as close.  But it’s different because the person is in the flesh; they’re present.  It’s actually happening in front of you, so there’s a different intimacy. 

MediaBlvd> And I guess you can’t make mistakes and get a do-over with the play

Henry> There’s no do-overs here, you’re right about that.  It’s acting without a net.  That gives me a charge.  Particularly this play.  We chose it because it’s such a challenge for all of us.  It takes place in London, and we have to speak with accents and it’s a whole different culture and ideology.  At first, it’s frightening.  You step into this world, and it’s like, “What have I gotten myself into?”  But I think we have a pretty good hold on it now.  I’m very excited.

MediaBlvd> Did you have a dialect coach to help with the accents?

Henry> Yeah, we have a dialect coach, and believe me, she’s on us.  I’m really excited.  We open up Thursday, July 10, at the Matrix Theatre.  And we run Thursday through Sunday the first week, then the following two weeks we run on the weekends Saturday and Sunday.  We run twice a day, and we had to change it because of scheduling.  In Los Angeles, you get a job and you can’t say no.  We can’t say no.

MediaBlvd> What’s the story behind The Playground, the group that is producing this?

Henry> It’s not that large of a group.  Lee Askey and one of the actors, Rick Wasserman, started it about six years ago.  And Sophina Brown, who I worked with on Shark got involved maybe three years ago.  I’m not really sure.  But Sophina and I have always had a passion for theatre, and I said, “I want to do something.”  Since we’ve been blessed with having the money to back something up, she brought me into the fold of The Playground and now we’re producing it, the three actors are producing it under the banner of The Playground.  What we want to do is to do at least one play a year.  It’s been a totally different experience, and it’s wonderful to sit down with a group of people that totally love theatre.  We hash out everything.  We go through everything with a fine tooth comb, and I hope the audience likes the end result.

MediaBlvd> What sort of message do you hope people take from seeing the play?  Henry> I want people to be disturbed.  I saw a play of Pinter’s on Broadway a few months ago called The Homecoming, and I was really disturbed by it.  I think people will come away from this play with the same feeling.  You don’t really know what to make of the characters.  You don’t understand their motivations.  That’s what I want.

MediaBlvd> Did you come into this with much theatre in your background?

Henry> When I lived in New York, I worked in theatre a little bit.  I had theatre training, but to be honest, I’ve always had more film and television experience than theatre.  And that’s the whole reason why I said, “I want to put my money behind this.”  I want to do projects that casting directors and directors don’t have the courage to cast me in.  I think that’s true of all the actors here in the Playground.  We want to do things that people don’t necessarily have the courage to cast us in- things that are extremely challenging for us.  That’s why we choose these plays and from this day forward, we’re going to choose plays that frighten us.  Of course as an actor you grow with any work that you do, whether it’s film or television.  But in my experience, even in New York, and when I did a play out here a few years ago, you really grow the most as an actor I think, when you’re there on stage, and you’re acting without a net.  There are no re-dos, there are no do-overs.  It’s just you and the audience, and you see what works and what doesn’t.  You see your strengths, and your weaknesses and you work on them both each night.  That’s where the most growth happens.

MediaBlvd> How does instant feedback from the audience play into it?

Henry> The audience does not lie.  When you are in rehearsal and you’re getting a laugh on something the whole time, then you get in front of an audience and you can hear crickets when you think you’re going to get a laugh, you know you’ve got to work on something.  That’s what I love.  You can’t take anything for granted.  You can’t rely on an editor to make things sharp.  You really have to be on point all the time, every time you step on that stage. 

MediaBlvd> Any idea why they cancelled Shark?  That was such a great show, and seemed to be doing so well?

Henry> I really don’t know.  The funny thing is, the first season that we were on, and towards the last seven shows, we were in the top 15, and the top 10 at least three times.  I think they had a lot of confidence with our show, and they moved us into a time slot that was extremely challenging, and it started to falter.  The only thing I can attribute it to is the strike.  When they moved us, I think we were just starting to get our wheels on the rail.  Then the strike happened, and when we came back, we just didn’t have enough time to get it going. 

MediaBlvd> Were you surprised about the cancellation?

Henry> We were aware that it wasn’t in the last few episodes.  We were aware just simply by things we were reading in the newspaper and things like that.  It wasn’t a complete surprise to me, but to some of the fans that come up to us in the street, it was a big surprise.  Some people are like, “Yeah, I can’t wait till next season.”  I say it’s cancelled, and they ask what happened.  It’s unfortunate, but one door closes and another one opens.  I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to do  this play if Shark was still going on.  It was a wonderful experience and I learned a lot particularly working with the people that I did.  I’m using that experience in the projects I’m taking on now.

MediaBlvd> You mentioned the writers stike, and now it looks like we may be having an actors strike.  Do you think that will happen?

Henry> I hope not.  I really hope not. It doesn’t look like it from everything that I hear.  We’re desperately trying to avoid it.  That would be really crippling.  It lasted for three months, and we lost something like 2.5 billion?  That money can’t be made up. Imagine if we go into strike now.  It would be crippling, and I certainly hope it doesn’t go to that.  I hope both sides can come to some kind of understanding and try to work things out.  It’s not just the actors that will suffer.  It’s everyone.  This industry is about film and it’s about TV, and that’s how it generates money.  So many people benefit from it, and imagine how many people will suffer if we go on strike.  Let’s pray that it doesn’t happen.

MediaBlvd> What’s next for you after this play wraps?  Will you look for another series?

Henry> Honestly I don’t want to jump into another series right now.  I did NYPD Blue for six seasons.  I did Shark for two.  I think there are different things on my horizon.  I’m not opposed to doing things like recurring, maybe.  Recurring would probably be good, not every episode.  Movies are the main focus right now.  If I had my way, I’d do a little bit of TV in my life, but mostly it would be film and theatre.  If I could do film and theatre the rest of my life, I’d be one happy man. 

MediaBlvd> Did you learn anything about yourself, and will the audience learn anything from Betrayal?

Henry> I did.  I hope the audience learns something as well.  It was hard  to grasp at first.  This play seems so absurd.  If you are married and you know about an affair, and you allow things to happen and you just go on with your life like it doesn’t matter, it just seems absurd.  But if you think about, people do that.  It may not be an affair, but lets say someone is married to someone who has some kind of dependency.  You have relatives telling them that the person needs to get help, and it’s “No, they don’t have a problem, they can stop anytime they want.”  It’s that inability or not really wanting to face reality. The character made me look at my life and see what areas I’m unable or unwilling to address.  And I really hope that people that come to see this play get that message and have the same kind of thoughts that I have.

MediaBlvd> Did you have a hard time leaving the character at work?

Henry> The only time that really kind of happened was on NYPD Blue.  It was so well written and you deal with subject matter that is so tough.  You go home and I found myself carrying some of that stuff with me.  Those kinds of things happen everyday, and it disturbed me, but I think that’s what made that series a classic.  I think it affected viewers in the same way.

MediaBlvd> What is the running time for Betrayal?

Henry> It’s nine scenes, and runs for about an hour and twenty minutes.  It’s a 99 seat theatre.  I love it.  As soon as I walked into this theatre, I fell in love with it.  It’s very intimate, and this play is perfect for that.  You really are looking into the lives of these people and its so private and just very intimate.  The Matrix is a wonderful theatre.   You can go on PlaygroundForActors.com to get tickets, or just come to the theatre.  It’s on Melrose, just two blocks east of Fairfax.

Tickets available from The Playground