John Early Is Ready to Go There

I saw who you were sitting with.

She was talking with Wallace Shawn, who was sitting behind me, and an usher told her, “Your seat is over there.” I had an extra seat, but my friend couldn’t come, so I was, like, “If you guys want to sit near each other, I can scoot over.” She was, like, “Oh, are you sure about that?” I was, like, “Am I sure I want to sit next to Julianne Moore?”

I was like, “Who’s her friend?” Then I was, like, “Wait.” I knew that you were coming, so I was, like, “Oh, my God.” That’s where I slowly put it together because I can see you-all.

I wondered whether you were actually looking at me. It’s the narcissism of being an audience member that you always think that the performers are watching you.

This is very intentional—we put light on the audience during the first two acts. It descends, and then by the third act it’s totally dark. Did you feel that?

The lighting changes?

Did you feel that you were lit a little bit and then—

Is it coming off the stage?

Yes, that is totally intentional. It’s meant as a way to replicate the intimacy of the rehearsal process. We rehearsed the play for a year and a half before the run. We would rehearse in apartments around a table or in large armchairs. The play was never in a rehearsal space. It was rehearsed for a very, very long time in this very intimate way. I would be this far away [holds hands a few feet apart] from Wallace Shawn and André Gregory and they would be, like, “O.K. Let’s start.” Then I would fucking start the fucking play and then I would just deliver it like this.

The goal, once we moved into a bigger space—which was terrifying for all of us—was to put light on the audience so we could actually look at them and genuinely tell them the story. I actually feel like I’m making direct eye contact and I have a task, a very simple task of, like, “And then this is what happened and this is what happened.” Then the mixing is really, really delicate and complex. . . . Even if you’re in the balcony, it feels like we’re right here and we’re talking like this.

As you were describing the rehearsal process, I thought, Oh, does that inoculate you against the audience? But actually it sounds like the opposite, priming you for the intimacy.

Exactly. I feel much stronger emotionally because for the first month we were, all of us, going crazy. It was so scary because every audience . . . It’s a very mysterious show, and it’s received very differently every night. To quote André, “It’s not a Neil Simon play.” There are some laughs that are pretty regular, consistent. For the most part, it hits people so differently, as you might imagine.

I did overhear Wallace Shawn saying that last night was a laughy night.

It was, in a great way, and I thought the laughs were so unexpected and smart. I felt like it was a very intelligent audience. We were getting laughs we have never gotten. I was, like, “This is a shocking audience.” They’re totally clued into this subtext and they’re looking for the kind of irony of someone saying something but trying to bury it. I was just, like, “Oh, my God.” I felt so relaxed last night.

It’s one of those things where you’re, like, “It’s funny. Should I laugh?” I had a similar experience watching “Maddie’s Secret” for the first time in a room full of raucous laughter.

I know. I know. That thrills me. Despite being so different, “Moth Days” and “Maddie’s Secret” are inherently linked to me because I was writing the movie as we were rehearsing the play. I was leaving editing to rehearse and going back into editing and post-production. So it was always, like, play, movie, play, movie. It was crazy.

Any cross-pollination there?

Working with Wally and André, the delicacy, the sensitivity, the kindness they showed me. They healed all of my acting-school wounds. They healed all of my various periods of disenchantment with theatre and acting. Working in this style with them, it’s cracked me open in a way. That might be a totally cheesy, actory thing to say, but in some ways it’s made me embrace the kind of inner cheesy actor that I’ve been running from for a very long time.