[music]

Alison Stewart: This is All Of It. I'm Alison Stewart, live from the WYNC studios in Soho. Thanks for spending part of your day with us. Whether you're listening on the radio, on the livestream, or on demand. I'm really grateful you're here and I hope to see many of you tomorrow night at 6:00 PM at the New York Public Library for our Get Lit With All Of It book club event with Marlon James to discuss his rollicking Afro sci-fi novel, Black Leopard, Red Wolf. Look, if you haven't read it yet or you won't finished, don't worry. You should come anyway. This one is about the journey, not the destination.

Our musical guest is DJ Tiger Paw, who named Marlon as one of their main creative influences. To reserve tickets or to find out how to watch the livestream, head to wnyc.org/getlit or you can go to our Instagram to find the links. On the show today, Jazz great, Christian McBride will be here as well as actor, Travante Rhodes, who was so great in Moonlight. He has a new film out called Bruiser, and in our award seasons coverage, we'll hear from the writer, director, and star of The Inspection, a film up for three Independent Spirit awards. That is the plan. Let's get this started with the new play, The Wanderers.

[music]

The Roundabout Theater Company's new production of The Wanderers explores the challenges of marriage through two interconnected couples and the forces that push them apart, some internal, some external. First, there's Abe and Sophie, two writers who grew up together and are now married and living in Brooklyn. Abe played by Eddie K. Thomas is a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer. He's one of those 30 under 30 types, and he knows it.

Sophie writes when she can, she seems to do most of the parenting of their kids. Her book about Russian oligarchs didn't really take off. She is played by Sarah Cooper. They're navigating a period of ennui in their marriage when Abe receives an email from a well-known movie star, Julia Cheever, who attended one of his readings and want to reach out to express her admiration. She's played by Katie Holmes.

Soon their email correspondent becomes more than flirty. Is Abe indulging a fantasy or committing emotional infidelity? Then there are Abe's parents, Esther and Shmuli. They're members of the Satmar Jewish community. He's quiet. She talks a lot. She thinks a lot, which causes friction because Esther can envision life beyond the restrictions of their culture, and it causes fissures in their relationship. As we watch the drama unfold between these two married couples on stage, the audience is asked to reckon with how much you can really know about another person and the consequences of investing in the idea of what could have been.

The Wanders is playing an extended run at the Laura Pels Theater through April 2nd and joining me now to discuss the production is Eddie K. Thomas. Hi, Eddie.

Eddie Kaye Thomas: Hi. Such a pleasure to be here, Alison.

Alison Stewart: Sarah Cooper, who plays Sophie. Hi, Sarah.

Sarah Cooper: Hey, Alison.

Alison Stewart: Katie Holmes, who plays Julia. Hi, Katie.

Katie Holmes: Hi, Alison.

Alison Stewart: It's so interesting you're all coming to this production from such interesting places in your careers. Eddie, you were a stage kid, obviously, went on to big TV and film success, but when you think about stage work, what are the muscles you get to use on stage that you don't get to use in film and TV?

Eddie Kaye Thomas: We get to go out there without a net every night. We get to really look at each other in the eyes and talk to each other rather than talk to a tennis ball on a C stand. Now that we're a couple of weeks into the run and we know these characters well, and we know this story so well we get to peel away an onion that you don't get to peel away on TV and film. You make a movie, you rehearse a scene for half an hour in the morning, and then you shoot it two hours later and then it's there forever. We've been working on this place since Christmas, so it's a whole different beast.

Alison Stewart: Katie, you have a lot going on. You have a film coming out in April that you co-wrote, directed, and starred along with Alan Cumming called Rare Objects. You wrote and directed a film alone together from 2022, which people can watch now on Hulu. Given you have a teenager in New York City, as a mother of a teenager in New York City I know that's a full-time job and a half, what made you decide to sign onto this project, and what does a project have to have for you to sign on?

Katie Holmes: Well, I was looking to go on stage. It's been a couple of years and I really love the process and I love being on stage every night. To Eddie's point, it's a completely different muscle. After having directed this movie that's coming out, Rare Objects, I wanted to have the experience of being an actor and just an actor for a minute. I knew about this play and the journey that the play has taken.

It was in San Diego and it was supposed to come to New York before the pandemic and I always really loved this play and I love Anna's writing. I was really excited to work with Barry who I've admired. The time was great. I was really excited to be a part of it. [inaudible 00:05:44] I found out [unintelligible 00:05:53].

Alison Stewart: Katie's connection's going in and out. We're going to see if we can fix that audio a little bit, Sarah--

Katie Holmes: Oh no.

Alison Stewart: I did do the Sarah Cooper. Is it Sarah Cooper? It's Sarah Cooper. When I saw your name.

Sarah Cooper: I think it's Sarah Cooper. No, I'm just kidding. It's Sarah Cooper. You're right.

Alison Stewart: It is Sarah Cooper. People can tell you have a sense of humor. You got a lot of us through the pandemic, through your TikTok of lip-syncing to Donald Trump, your comedy special. With stage, when did you know you wanted to do stage work? Was that always the plan and the short-term video stuff arrived first?

Sarah Cooper: I knew I wanted to do stage since I played Pig Pen in You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown in the fourth grade. Actually, it might've been sixth grade. I missed my cue. I was like, "This is very exciting." They put baby powder all over me so that I could tap myself in all this cloud of smoke because Pig Pen. I was very in love with theater from a very young age, but I got sidetracked because I have immigrant parents who told me that I should get a degree in business, which is not very useful for me right now because I suck at money.

This is me going back to what I've always wanted to do is be on stage. I've been on stage as a standup comedian, but when you're with a fine group of actors such as these and you're telling a story and you're having to connect with people and keep in mind the audience as well, it's just a whole different-- I feel like I'm using every single part of my brain.

Alison Stewart: Let's dig into the story a little bit. It all begins when Abe sees Julia Cheever the superstar to reading for his new books. Then he's really excited because he gets this email from her and they start this correspondence and it gets more and more flirtatious. Let's listen to a moment in the play. This is one of Julia's emails and Sophie and Abe are reacting to it. The first voice you'll hear is Katie as Julia Cheever.

[play recording]

Katie Holmes: Dear Abe, can I call you Abe? I hope it's not wrong of me to write or presumptuous, but I heard you read last week and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it. James, my husband is one of your biggest fans and I admit he dragged me along with him. I don't usually go to book readings. As you can imagine, I can't go anywhere in public without a hassle.

Sophie: Seriously, she can't go anywhere without a hassle. Come on.

Abe: Well, it's probably true also.

Sophie: It is presumptuous, don't you think, to write to you out of the blue?

Abe: Except she's not wrong. I was thrilled to hear from her.

Sophie: You really think she's that pretty?

Abe: Oh, luminous.

Sophie: Please, don't hold back on my account.

Alison Stewart: That is from The wanderers. Eddie, for Abe, what is it that leads him down this road of betrayal? Is it Julia? Is it that she's a big star? Is it that he's got a big ego? Is it something more?

Eddie Kaye Thomas: I think it's all of those things. I think it's the challenges of being a middle-aged man, parent of two children whose dreams have come true as a writer. He's a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and I think he goes to these amazing events and he's lauded in the New York Times and blah, blah, blah. Then he comes home and he has to change a diaper and he thinks there's something somewhere that he's missing.

Our director talked a lot about the pebble in the shoe, that there's just something wrong. Something is missing in my life. There's an itch and I don't even know where to scratch. Then the world's most beautiful, biggest movie star shows up in his inbox and that seems like a nice place to scratch.

Alison Stewart: Sarah, your character is [unintelligible 00:09:48] and a little annoyed that Abe is so into this idea of this gorgeous star approaching him. When you think about where Sarah is in her life is she more, I'm sorry, when you think about for your character, Sophie, is she more annoyed as a spouse or as a writer?

Sarah Cooper: I think it annoys her on all levels because Sophie is biracial. She's half-Jewish, half-Black, and so she is a woman of color married to Abe who's Jewish. I've been in many interracial relationships. You do feel a sense of like, "Is there an imbalance here?" I think on that level, this woman, this movie star is what Jewish people call a shiksa. She's this beautiful gorgeous woman who seems out of reach for him. Abe is sitting there, wants to know everything about this gorgeous superstar, and yet he has this woman at home raising his children he doesn't seem to pay as much attention or seem to want to invest as much in her.

I think it's very frustrating on all levels. Whenever you feel like you're being shortchanged in a relationship, you're not being given as much attention or given as much appreciation as you should, you feel that way, but then she gets it thrown in her face when she sees, "Oh, he can pay attention to someone, it's just not me."

Alison Stewart: Katie, without spoiling or giving too much away, let's say there's some ambiguity about what the truth is in this relationship between Julia and Abe, who's a reliable narrator here. How did you want to lean into that ambiguity, and how did it inform how you approach Julia Cheever?

Katie Holmes: It's been a challenging approach. I found that the connection between Julia and Abe is very grounding in the approach to playing her. That they find this connection in their perceived rarefied air, and both are seeking some understanding from someone out there that they're not getting, or they think they're not getting from the people closest to them. Abe to Julia is a source of support and appreciation and admiration that is intimate, even though she receives it in a grander scale.

I think for Abe it is that admiration as well and that source of-- well, I don't want to speak for that, but I feel like it's that excitement that you can reach someone, and they're going through the same thing, and things that perhaps have surpassed your own inner circle and your own relationship with your partner. I think Julia has that pebble in her shoe of, "I have everything, everybody knows everything about me, but who really sees me?" I think being seen is one of the themes of the play. Everyone's searching to be seen, so I think that she really feels that.

Alison Stewart: We're talking about the play The Wanderers, which is at Laura Pels Theater through April 2nd. My guests are Sarah Cooper, Katie Holmes, and Eddie Kaye Thomas. Sarah, we know from the opening, I'm not giving anything away, that Sophie's going to leave her husband, eventually. She's going to make that decision. What did you think when you read the script that the audience gets that information upfront?

Sarah Cooper: I loved that because it is interesting that she leaves her husband, but what's more interesting is why and how. I love stories that tell you, "Hey, this is what's going to happen," but you have no idea how it's going to happen, and it gets you interested in watching the how of it. The play is just extraordinary in that when you read it, it's like a puzzle. Everything fits together and comes together, but for a while, you're not really sure how. I think that little piece of information at the beginning, it just piqued my interest, and I think for audiences, it does that as well.

Alison Stewart: As we get to know Abe, Eddie, he is just always surrounded by words, words he's written, quotes from other writers. He's just drowning in words. What do you think he's using? Why is he using all these words all the time? Is he using to avoid thinking? Is it to flex? I was just very curious about the amount of words in Eddie's mouth.

Eddie Kaye Thomas: I hope this is okay to say, but I think one of the reasons is because our playwright Anna Ziegler is just a poet. She has a way with words unlike most writers, most people, and so I'm so glad she created the character of a writer who could be that. Any excuse for her to just flex her poetic muscle is great. As an actor, I think there's-- Abe, a lot of my dialogue in the show talks about the duality in life, that things are this and that. My wife supports me and then she doesn't support me. I hate what happened to me in my childhood, and I love my parents.

All those things are true, and they're just these great themes in life that are circling around this man's head, that you need a skill with language that frankly, I don't have, and that's, I think, why we're drawn to words. I think why we're drawn to radio, why we're drawn to books because words and sounds have a power when isolated that stimulate the imagination in a way that I think visuals take away from. Whether we're reading or writing getting lost in that world, it's just a different way of living than with our eyes open.

Alison Stewart: A lot of the play is about writing, and the power of writing, and books. The whole stage is like, there's just the back wall covered in books and pages. There are stacks of books on the stage, even though it's pretty simply staged. Katie, what do you think is explored about the power of writing because your character does a lot of writing as well?

Katie Holmes: I agree what Eddie is saying. He said it so much better. I have found in this process of rehearsal and putting the play up, our director, he kept telling us, "Trust the words. You don't have to work so hard at this point, and say the words and let it come out like music." When we did that, it was like, "Oh, my God, when you have beautiful words like Anna's words, it all connects. You're simply saying the puzzle.

She's done it so intentionally that it's all right there. I think, to Eddie's point, it does something when you're just listening and it's all sonic. Our stages is very simple that you're allowed to have these insights and reflections as an audience. I think that is something that I think is really beautiful about the play and the fact that it is about writers or two writers.

Alison Stewart: Are you a big reader, Sarah?

Sarah Cooper: Me?

Alison Stewart: Yes. Are you reading?

Sarah Cooper: No.

Alison Stewart: No.

Sarah Cooper: I'm really not which is weird because I write books, but I don't read a lot of books. I have a lot of books. I've [unintelligible 00:18:33] many of them.

Alison Stewart: How about you Eddie? What are you reading right now?

Eddie Kaye Thomas: Not a lot of time to read right now, but like Abe says, I make it through an issue of The New Yorker thanks to my WNYC subscription and my annual New Yorker.

Sarah Cooper: Eddie is so excited to meet you, Alison. He didn't say that, but he's been talking about it all day.

Eddie Kaye Thomas: Super excited to be on this show.

Alison Stewart: Thank you.

Eddie Kaye Thomas: I fall asleep too and take in a little bit of The New Yorker each night. Philip Roth is a big presence in our play, so I'm slowly making my way through Sabbath's Theater and Portnoy's Complaint right now. Our director advised us that it wouldn't hurt to read at least a page of Roth every day.

Alison Stewart: Katie, what are you reading currently, or what have you read that you'd like to recommend?

Katie Holmes: I was up last night. I'm late to the game, but I was up for four hours reading Fleischman is In Trouble.

Alison Stewart: So good.

Katie Holmes: It's so good. Then I was trying to figure out what's going to happen, and then I had to calm down, and I almost overslept. Also Black Women Writers at Work and a little bit of Victor Hugo. My daughter is always saying I buy too many books.

Sarah Cooper: [unintelligible 00:19:54] is always sending us poetry from books. She reads poetry a lot, so she's a very, very well. She read to us from Maya Angelou the other day. Katie's very-- she loves reading. She's my hero.

Katie Holmes: I like that. I do like it. Sarah, I do.

Alison Stewart: My guests are Sarah Cooper, Katie Holmes, and Eddie Kaye Thomas. We're discussing books and The Wanderers, which is at the Laura Pels Theater. We'll have more after a quick break. This is All Of It.

[music]

This is All Of It. I'm Alison Stewart. My guests are Sarah Cooper, Katie Holmes, and Eddie Kaye Thomas. We're discussing the play The Wanderers, which runs at the Laura Pels Theater through April 2nd. Some of very moving scenes in the play come from flashbacks of Abe's parents, Esther Shmuli, they're Satmar Jews living in Williamsburg. Eddie, the more we learn about Abe, the more we start to understand that he is haunted by that relationship of his parents. How do you think Eddie's feelings about his parents and about his parents not being together have bled into his marriage to Sophie?

Eddie Kaye Thomas: Well, I like that you made the mistake calling the character Eddie, because there is a-- No, no I'm actually really appreciative that you did it because there's a universality about this very specific story that I think makes the play work. I didn't know if it was personal to me, but now that people have been seeing the show and talking to me about it, I think it is true that-- I think even the person with the greatest parents in the world will be haunted by something from their childhood.

This story of a man whose parents were Satmar, Hasidic Jews in Brooklyn is a story about a man who could have been an alien in his own city. All of a sudden is now not only a member of the community dressed like everybody else but "a thriving member" lauded in literary journals and making money and being a success. At the heart of it, there's an alienation in his soul that he comes from, the story of the Hasidic Jews. I think anyone in New York we see this group of people living in the middle of Williamsburg the most vibrant hit place in the world. They're just don't seem to be participating in what everybody else is participating in.

I think there's a part of all of us that feels that. That we're all trying to be active current members of society, but deep down there's am I an imposter? I don't think I belong. They don't really understand me. The profound metaphor of being a Hasidic Jew in New York City, I think there's a little bit of that in all of us. Hopefully is something that the play will touch on in people that as alone and isolated as we can all feel, we all feel alone and isolated. We're together in our aloneness.

Alison Stewart: Katie, your character does not-- and these four characters are all interconnected, but your character is not at all with Esther and Shmuli. I'm curious for you as a stand-in audience member, you get to watch this part of the play. What is it about that part of the play that is moving to you, about the interaction between those two characters, Esther and Shmuli?

Katie Holmes: I think their story is heartbreaking and it's specific. Also, something that is very relatable to Eddie's point. I think it's one of these themes of the play, which is Esther says, how do we-- I'm going to get it wrong, but how do we really know when we're happy? I think everyone is trying to find that space. Everyone does have a pebble in their shoe and their experience is quite dramatic. It is quite heartbreaking, but it is something that fulfills this theme.

Esther makes a decision and she individuates and she goes on a journey by herself that isn't all laid out for her. She raises a wonderful son. I think that's one of the things that I think a lot of audience members can connect to, where's the obligation versus what I want in my life? Obviously, this is a much-heightened circumstance, but yes, it's a very dramatic heartbreaking journey to watch.

Alison Stewart: Sarah, I want to play a clip from the play Sophie's Jewish, but comes from a totally different perspective. As you said. She's a biracial woman whose mom left Judaism and married a Black man. This is a little bit from The Wanderers, a bit of a discussion between Sophie and Abe about Judaism.

[play recording]

Sophie: I wish you would see a therapist, you know that.

Abe: I already lead the most examined life of anyone I know. I don't think I could take much more.

Sophie: Oh, the dreams and the fights you had with your mom and the dreams about the fights you had with your mom and religion was loaded for her. It's loaded for you I get it. But right now, there's nothing actually holding you to it. Just believe or don't believe, it doesn't have to be such a big deal.

Abe: Of course, you think that you're not Jewish.

Sophie: I'm half Jewish Abe.

Abe: You don't think of yourself as Jewish. You weren't brought up that way.

Sophie: Unitarian is kind of like Jewish.

[laughter]

Abe: Our children wouldn't know from Jewish if it weren't for me.

Sophie: I will never understand why you want to raise our kids in a religion you hate.

Abe: Because that's what Jews do.

Alison Stewart: That is from The Wanderers. When you think about Sophie, Sarah, how do you think her relationship to Judaism is different from her husband's and what is it doing in their marriage?

Sarah Cooper: I think Sophie's just so confused about her identity in so many ways because her mother escaped the Satmar and married a Black man for love. She took the biggest risk, really leaving and being cut off from her whole family because of love. She has a Black father, and they formally a Hasidic Jewish mother. She's now raised Unitarian. She's seen as African American, but she's also Jewish. She's married to a Jewish, she's raising her kids as Jewish, but her kids are also Black. It's all very confusing. I think I relate to that a lot because I was born in Jamaica, I'm an immigrant, but you come here and you're like, you're African American. I am, but am I? You have all these confusing identities.

It's supposed to fit into one, but you just feel like you don't. I think for Sophie, it's really hard for her to talk to Abe about this stuff because she just has this more open perspective of just like, life is, and your beliefs are what you made them. You can actually choose. You can actually choose and you don't have to be constrained by what your parents did or didn't do. You can make the choice for yourself, believe or don't believe. Whereas Abe really feels like he's stuck to what his mom wanted for him, for what his dad wanted for him. It's really this fight between like Sophie saying, "Hey, we have free Will." Abe saying, "No, no we don't." We have to do what our parents wanted us to do. They have that disagreement.

Alison Stewart: The play is called The Wanderers. It's at Laura Pel's Theater through April 2nd. My guests have been Sarah Cooper, Katie Holmes, and Eddie Kayye Thomas. Thank you so much for being with us. We appreciate you.

Eddie Kaye Thomas: Thank you, Alison. It's a pleasure to be here.

 

Copyright © 2023 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.