Alison Stewart: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. I want to preview some of the conversations coming up on the show this week. Tomorrow, we'll speak with the directors of a new PBS documentary series focusing on the intertwined relationships between the Black and Jewish communities in America throughout the decades. On Thursday, musician Jesse Malin will be here to preview his new Off-Broadway show and perform live in WNYC Studio 5. On Friday, we'll learn about the new exhibit at The Noguchi Museum. That's in the future. Let's get this hour started with the other plays. There are several plays you can see this season that take inspiration from Greek tragedy and specifically the Theban plays of Sophocles. We had on Mark Strong last week on the show to discuss his recent starring role in Oedipus on Broadway. Another Sophocles play, Antigone, has inspired two shows running in New York this winter. The first, which started performances over the weekend and it opens on Thursday, is called The Other Place. The play is a loose adaptation on the story of Antigone, who in Greek mythology is the daughter of Oedipus. That's a little bit of information that's worth keeping in mind, but this show is a modern reimagining that quickly deviates from its source material. Antigone is now Annie, played by Emma D'Arcy, who has returned to their childhood home on the anniversary of their father's death. Annie is kind of late and apparently always seems upset. Even their sister Issy admits to this. The home is now occupied by Annie's Uncle Chris and his family, who took it over after his brother's death. Tobias Menzies plays Chris.

Chris wants to scatter his brother's ashes. He has a whole event planned elsewhere, which Annie discovers and is very much against it. She wants the ashes to stay in the house and we learn why over the course of the play. The play The Other Place, is now at The Shed. It opens this Thursday and It runs through March 1st. Tobias and Emma, welcome to All Of It.

Emma D'Arcy: Thanks for having us.

Tobias Menzies: Yes, thanks for having us.

Alison Stewart: This play was written with both of you in mind, even though it's a modern adaptation. Tobias, did you reread Sophocles?

Tobias Menzies: We did. We had quite a long-- There were various development workshops in the year leading up to when we actually went into rehearsal full time. Yes, reading the original was part of that. It was also, of course, a lot of improvisation. Alex Zeldin, the writer/director, writing off the back of those improvisations as we looked for a modern language, a lot modern frame to tell this ancient story.

Alison Stewart: Emma, do you remember when you first read Antigone?

Emma D'Arcy: Yes, I do. I actually read it as a teenager. Sure. I think I was really struck even then by the vividity of siblinghood as it's drawn in that text. Then, of course, I reread it when Alex had this invitation from the National Theatre in London to consider a contemporary adaptation. Some of the early conversations I had with him were about how we can understand fate in a modern context, and like whether actually the idea of being fated can be about a traumatic history, and the way that that past plays out in the present and the future is a kind of fatalism or something.

Alison Stewart: We need to get Mark Strong in here. We can have a whole discussion about fate. Alex is Alex Zeldin, and he wrote this for you. He said he loves to write with actors in mind. Tobias, how did being involved in this play from early on help you have a unique understanding of it?

Tobias Menzies: Yes, it's a really privileged way to work. Time is expensive. Yes, to have a structure where we can take this time over the best part of a year, really, before we even hit a rehearsal room. I think it can result in very different work, hopefully deeper work, in that Alex is able to respond in a way to what his group of actors are bringing to the text, what they're responding to. I think that can really help with the particular type of performance that the play is, which is this hyper naturalism, but looking to find moments that have sort of an epic quality, that have a Greek quality, and trying to find a world in which or a language, a theater language, where those two things can exist together.

Alison Stewart: Emma, can you see in the play where Zeldin had you in mind as an actor?

Emma D'Arcy: Oh, God, it's hard to answer because, I think, at least in the Sophocles Antigone is quite difficult dramatic device to get your head around in the sense that she's like a true antagonist, an unflinching antagonist. Transposing that into a contemporary context is difficult. I don't know whether I should be flattered or not that I was the person that he thought of. I suppose it's funny, I was just listening to Tobias talk about this protracted generative process. When it first came to looking at this character of Annie and how she might function in the modern day within a domestic context, it was really challenging.

It was really challenging to believe it. It was challenging to believe someone with such an unflinching conviction or something. I think what I came to understand over time and part of what this improvisation work allowed for was the creation of a territory. It's actually a sort of territory war that's taking place over the past, over a history. Once I realized that the question is, what happened? It was way easier to find a plausible conviction, I think.

Alison Stewart: What's going on with Annie when the audience first meets her?

Emma D'Arcy: I think when the audience first meets Annie, I think they meet someone who is completely uningratiating, who doesn't feel the need to submit to nicety or, in fact, maybe someone who perceives nicety as a form of disguise or there's something insincere about it. I think I was thinking about it last night, actually, and we had an early preview last night, and it was before the show. I was wondering if part of Annie's job is to kill the joke. That's like the first gesture of her character.

Alison Stewart: Right, right. What's going on with Chris when we meet him?

Tobias Menzies: Chris is obviously -- he's the authority within the structure of the play. Creon in the original. I think what Alex and myself are both interested in is exploring patriarchy and possibly the shame and suppression that is baked into those structures. I think that felt like the modern lens through which to try and investigate the Sophoclean version of that. There's a decree as laid down in the play which Annie breaks, but to try and find what is the modern equivalent that can really resonate for a modern audience, I guess, without watering it down and making it too domestic.

Obviously, part of what the transposition that we've done is take it from Thebes, from a city-state to a family. That, I think, does the work of bringing it much closer to an audience, to a modern audience. The danger is you don't want to lose the scale and the stakes and there's epicness of it. That was a lot of the work of those workshops and rehearsal was to sort of find that balance.

Alison Stewart: I was going to ask you about that because there's tension right away when you're watching it, and your characters know why, but the audience maybe doesn't, but they can feel something's up and no spoilers, but they can tell there's something there. Emma, how did you work with your director on creating that tension?

Emma D'Arcy: That's a really good question. I think being super specific about the historic ground on which this contemporary meeting is taking place. I think it's that. I think, again, as Tobias says, it's a crazy privilege to be able to work slowly and methodically over weeks and months periodically. I think what it allows is for a real specificity. I hope that we're playing circumstances that feel really vivid, I think.

Tobias Menzies: I think the other thing that the show is trying to do is also work as much with what's not said as what's said. I think that's certainly Alex's instincts and ours, too, in terms of the atmosphere, the air in the room is hopefully doing a lot of work as well. I think part of the reason why we needed maybe the cooking period we had was to be able to sort of charge up the characters, the performances, the story with a lot of subtext, a lot of unspoken history.

Emma D'Arcy: Actually, it makes me think that tragedies have a mechanics, require a mechanics, I think, in order to have a tragic payoff. In a funny way, both in the Sophocles and hopefully in this transposition, the mechanism in a way is really simple. You have one character, Annie, who is driven to exhibit, to preserve the past, and you have another character, Chris, who is desperate to sever, to bury his history, and those --

Alison Stewart: He just wants to go forward. I just want to move forward, is all you say.

Emma D'Arcy: Exactly, exactly. Then you have this sort of tragic mechanism. In there, there are immediately stakes, I think.

Alison Stewart: I'm speaking to Tobias Menzies and Emma D'Arcy, who star in The Other Place at The Shed. The play opens this Thursday and runs through March 1st. The play takes -- it's held entirely in this room, in this house, Chris's former home, Annie's childhood home. How long from when Annie has been in the house?

Emma D'Arcy: 10 years. It's a 10-year gap. This marks the first return after a 10-year absence.

Alison Stewart: Why does she decide to come?

Emma D'Arcy: I suppose there are a few interpretations available, but ultimately I think she believes she's invited. The destination of her father's remains, which is the inciting incident, a desire to scatter, to memorialize him, is of profound importance to her, I think.

Alison Stewart: The house is in a transitional state. This part of the house that we see anyway, some of the walls are unfinished. There's a big glass window in the back. They comment on the window constantly. Walls hide things, windows open things. You can take that whichever way you want. What do you think we understand about the changes made to this house, Tobias, that Chris and his wife have made?

Tobias Menzies: The big drive of Chris within the play is about, as you said, I use this phrase, I just want to move on. Obviously, underneath that is the desire to erase, to forget. The amnesia of the makeover, of gentrification, of these ways that seem benign but actually can have violence in them. I think thematically the play is scratching at that idea as well, again, as a modern way of communicating what that old play was trying to do. Obviously, at the heart of Sophocles is a dispute around burial rites.

I feel like tiling over stuff, plastering over stuff, does the same job in a way, it speaks to the same desire, which is, should we look at this stuff or should we try and forget it?

Alison Stewart: There's this moment when Annie tries to hide the ashes, and Chris searches for them, and things happen. On one hand, sometimes it's funny, and on the other hand, it's really shocking and violent. The tone switches rapidly between these two events. First of all, what is that experience like for you on stage, to have the tone switch so quickly?

Emma D'Arcy: I suppose, for my taste, I find it really thrilling. It's definitely thrilling to perform because in a way it's super technical, I think, and I certainly -- well, when we played in London, it was like a really vivid show to perform, not least, in terms of audience response. You got visceral feedback. I think part of that is about that rapid --

Alison Stewart: From the audience?

Emma D'Arcy: Yes, from the audience.

Alison Stewart: Oh, that's interesting.

Tobias Menzies: They don't like it when you mess with ashes. They don't like it. Do not touch the ashes.

Alison Stewart: Especially the way you touch the ashes. How do you deal with the tonal shift as an actor when you're going from something that's funny to not funny?

Tobias Menzies: It's what I like. It's what I like to watch myself. It's partly why I was interested, I guess, having seen some of Alex's work. He seems like he was interested in the same kind of -- where, I guess, you don't resolve it for an audience. The audience have to work out. They have to do a bit of work about what's okay. I think that can be very electrifying to watch. I like it when, yes, there's a bit of jeopardy. You're like, "Is that?" There are definitely moments it feels like when it works; this production is at times where it feels genuinely a little bit sacrilegious. There aren't that many spaces really left where you're allowed to do that. Hopefully, the theater is still one of those.

Alison Stewart: How does the audience react? There's at this point when he's going in your clothing to retrieve the ashes. How does the audience react? Have you noticed?

Tobias Menzies: There's just really thumbs up from everyone, really, isn't it? They're like, "This is great. This is great behavior." No, I'm joking. Again, it's a lot of shock. What's exciting about it is that we live in a very permissive society, so in a way, it's hard to find things that genuinely exercise people. The ashes do that. The attack does that.

Emma D'Arcy: The hope, I think, is that an audience are prevented from a passive seat. For better or for worse. They're quite implicated in quite a profound way, I think.

Alison Stewart: You told Variety, this is a quote, "There were lots of times when we were genuinely ahead of the audience, and that's an increasingly hard thing to do because audiences are very story literate." Tobias, how do you think this play stays ahead of the audience a little bit?

Tobias Menzies: By restricting information. [laughs] It's a pretty spare text. Again, a lot is being unsaid. Hopefully, I think partly what you're demanding of an audience is them to fill in the gaps. In that way, hopefully, yes, we can keep ahead of them just about.

Alison Stewart: Emma, you've only done it a couple of times in front of New York audiences. You played it, obviously, in London. What have you noticed is the difference between American audiences and British audiences?

Emma D'Arcy: To be totally honest, I'm not sure that we have-- I'm in the flow of the show enough to have a clear answer for that yet.

Tobias Menzies: You have a small sample size.

Emma D'Arcy: Yes, yes, yes, yes. I don't know how accurate my feedback would be, but I do --

Alison Stewart: Is there a difference at all?

Tobias Menzies: They have been quieter.

Emma D'Arcy: Yes.

Tobias Menzies: Thus far. It's only two shows in, but --

Alison Stewart: Oh, that's interesting.

Tobias Menzies: There was an attentiveness, and it ended up being a lot more raucous in Lyttelton around some of the ashes and the more, as I say, more so sacrilegious stuff. There was a willingness to take that.

Alison Stewart: Oh, that's really interesting.

Tobias Menzies: I think there was a little more shock, I think, in the room.

Emma D'Arcy: I think so.

Alison Stewart: No, that's interesting. Or maybe they're paying very close attention to you as well.

Tobias Menzies: I hope so. Or they're asleep. One of the two.

Emma D'Arcy: The other thing to say, not only have we changed site and continent, but it's also we performed this show in autumn of 2024 in London, and inevitably, we are in a different political, social climate. I don't have anything smart to say about that right now, but I imagine it must have implications.

Alison Stewart: It has to.

Emma D'Arcy: Yes.

Alison Stewart: Have you noticed that your performance has changed at all because of the timing?

Emma D'Arcy: I don't know whether it's -- Yes, I think I'm going to say yes. Yes, I think it has. We obviously, in remounting the work, have wanted to refresh and reinvestigate, and I think it's been nice. It's been an opportunity to seek a slightly more nuanced path, possibly. I don't doubt that that is, in part, influenced by the scale of the moment that we're living through. I actually think that it's funny you said that Mark Strong was here recently, and I can't help but notice this resurgence of interest in Greek text.

I wonder if a part of that, at least, is like the scale that the Greeks achieve within domestic and familial space. There is a verticality that maybe feels appropriate for an extreme moment.

Alison Stewart: Do you have any thoughts on why there seems to be this reemergence of Greek tragedy in theater in New York?

Tobias Menzies: Yes, I think it's because we're reaching for bigger tools. We need a bigger boat to overextend the metaphor, ride these sorts of waves. We're in pretty challenging times. Obviously, what's going on with ICE on American streets. Inevitably, I think culture then reaches for, hopefully, stories that can speak to it more directly. I think Greeks can help us with that.

Emma D'Arcy: I don't know if this resonates with you, but sometimes, when I read the Greek texts, there's a degree of unintelligibility. I don't read them and go like, "Great, I get it." I understand what's happening, but I have to really interrogate what the resonance is, and it can be quite so headache-inducing, but I also don't find the current moment wholly legible. I wonder if there's also something there about giving us the tools with which to at least like, sit with, and try to understand what we're currently living through.

Alison Stewart: What do you like about theater?

Emma D'Arcy: I like that real things can take place in rooms. I like that people can have a shared experience in real time. I like that once you sit in a theater, you're not setting the program. I think that's powerful too. There's-- I hate myself. There's a Chekhov quote that I can't fully remember, and I'm going to butcher it. He approximately says something about art doesn't need to provide the answer. It just has to present the problem fully in a way that doesn't hide or disguise anything.

I suppose at its best, I think that it has the capacity to do that, to show us our reality in a full way, and allow us to reflect on it. I don't know that there are that many spaces in which that's possible now.

Alison Stewart: How about for you, Tobias?

Tobias Menzies: I think I love the analog quality of theater increasingly, obviously, in a very digitalized world. I just think, yes, it's just fundamentally harder to manipulate in a theater in some way. Therefore, I think, necessarily, there's this greater transparency and greater honesty occurs with this art form, just more easily. Yes, you can put some music on and stuff, but fundamentally, you can't control where people are looking. They're physically in the room with that actor's body, and so they're picking up a load of info from that. It's just much harder to control. You can't harvest the data. In that way, it just feels baggier, less controllable. I like that.

Alison Stewart: I've been speaking with Tobias Menzies and Emma D'Arcy, who star in The Other Place at The Shed. The play opens this Thursday, and it runs through March 1st. Thanks for spending some time with us.

Tobias Menzies: We've also got shows tomorrow and Wednesday as well.

Alison Stewart: Okay.

Tobias Menzies: Just in case you want to come before the reviews are in. They can just come. They can come.

Alison Stewart: Yes. Come on down.

Tobias Menzies: Come on down.

Emma D'Arcy: Thank you.

Tobias Menzies: Get in your lane, Menzies.