by lisa lipsey –
For its West Coast premiere, Geffen Playhouse has reassembled the original six cast members for Joshua Harmon’s (Significant Other, Bad Jews) new comedy Skintight, which debuted at New York’s Off-Broadway Roundabout Theatre last summer.
Harmon brings neurotic family drama to the forefront, but throws in the questions: How do we age gracefully in a world obsessed with youth? And just where love fits into it all? Jodi, played by Tony Award-winner Idina Menzel (Rent, Wicked), retreats to her dad’s swanky Manhattan townhouse after her husband leaves her for a much younger woman. Rather than finding the comforts of home, she discovers that her aging father has a new 20-year-old, live-in partner named Trey, who just might not be gay, according to Jodi’s very much gay, 20-year-old son, Benjamin.
The Rage Monthly caught up with Will Brittain, who is making his Geffen Playhouse debut.
“I received an e-mail with a request for a self-tape reading for Trey in Skintight while filming a movie in Maine. They asked if I could come down to New York for a callback for the casting director, playwright and director,” said Brittain. “I saw Idina’s name affiliated and thought ‘No way I’ll get that.’ I was lucky… It’s a dream come true as an actor!”
“With a play, I love that you get to craft it over time,” continued Brittain. “With film and television, it feels new the entire time; you shoot for three to four hours a day. If it is a really long scene or there are a lot of characters, or a lot of fancy camera angles, you shoot a whole day. You are working the scenes out of order, you are putting together a jigsaw puzzle and you’re not sure it is the right piece. You hope it is and then when everyone has their say about how the puzzle comes together, you get to see if it worked. It is half hard work and half magic.”
Brittain, who does not identify as LGBTQ, notes that neither does Trey. “In Skintight, Trey is mysterious. Trey doesn’t identify directly, he doesn’t do labels. For me that’s a good challenge, getting into character means you have to listen to the play and that is your guide. To trust the play, stretch it out like a piece of dough and see what works.”
The other challenge to the role is keeping up at the gym. Per the costuming notes, Trey hangs around in just a jockstrap, and Brittain has received critical acclaim for both his acting chops… and his derrière.
When asked about an embarrassing moment on stage, Brittain mentioned an early matinee performance. “It was New York, and summertime means mosquitoes. I kept hearing this sound, like a swarm of mosquitoes, a high-pitched buzzing and I thought, ‘Man, they gotta do something, there must be a hive somewhere in the rafters of the theatre.’ I went off stage and told the stage manager who laughed and told me that isn’t mosquitoes, it is all the feedback from the hearing aids of the people in the audience.”
Like most of us, Brittain discovered theatre in high school. “First I did some oral interpretation—poetry or prose— read in theatrical way and I enjoyed it. I was in football, but I noticed there were a lot of pretty girls in theatre, so me and a couple other guys signed up and we had a blast. I was lucky to go to a small school where everyone was supportive; there was no making fun of the guy in theatre, none of that alpha machismo bull crap. It was just, he’s our linebacker, and he does theatre. After graduating I knew I was not good enough to play football for the NFL, so I thought, let’s try this acting thing out. So far so good.”
Skintight runs through Sunday, October 6 at Geffen Playhouse is Los Angeles. For tickets and more information, call 310.208.5454, or go to geffenplayhouse.org