{"id":190,"date":"2016-07-08T18:50:24","date_gmt":"2016-07-08T18:50:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jennifersummerfield.com\/?p=190"},"modified":"2017-11-17T18:51:17","modified_gmt":"2017-11-17T18:51:17","slug":"the-yellow-wallpaper-phindie-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jennifersummerfield.com\/index.php\/2016\/07\/08\/the-yellow-wallpaper-phindie-interview\/","title":{"rendered":"The Yellow Wallpaper — Phindie Interview"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Room with a View: Jennifer Summerfield talks THE YELLOW WALLPAPER<\/h2>\n
\n
July 8, 2016<\/span>\u00a0–\u00a0<\/span>Christopher Munden<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n

\u201cThere are things in that wallpaper that nobody knows about but me, or ever will.\u201d\u2014Charlotte Perkins Gilman, THE YELLOW WALLPAPER<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Charlotte Perkins Gilman\u2019s classic novella THE YELLOW WALLPAPER is a haunting tale of one woman\u2019s mental collapse in the suffocating world of 1890s New England. Local actor Jennifer Summerfield\u2019s staging of the complete text recently ran to\u00a0rave reviews<\/a>\u00a0and sold-out houses at the Ebenezer Maxwell Mansion in Northwest Philadelphia. She\u2019s bringing the production, directed by Josh Hitchens, to another historic home, the Physick House in Society Hill for a limited run July 10-15, 2016.\u00a0We spoke to Jennifer about the book and how and why she brought it to the \u201cstage\u201d. (Photos by Kyle Cassidy.)<\/p>\n

[Physick House, 321 S. 4th Street]\u00a0July 10-15, 2016;\u00a0philalandmarks.givezooks.com<\/a><\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"13600305_10209426480126579_7241857289008810851_n\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Phindie:\u00a0When did you first come across THE YELLOW WALLPAPER? What were your reactions?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Jennifer Summerfield:<\/strong>\u00a0I discovered the book when I was a senior in high school and I was completely mesmerized by it. As soon as I finished it, I sat on the kitchen\u00a0floor and read it aloud to my mother, just to get those images out of my head and see if they were as powerful when spoken. I\u2019d never read\u00a0anything before, except perhaps\u00a0Crime and Punishment<\/em>, that made me feel I was losing my own sense of reality so completely, and was inhabiting\u00a0the slowly unraveling mind of another.<\/span><\/p>\n

Phindie:\u00a0What inspired you to adapt this into a theatrical piece?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

JS:<\/strong>\u00a0I\u2019ve wanted to perform a one-person show for a long time; as an actor, you\u2019re so often at the mercy of other people\u2019s schedules and projects and\u00a0visions of who you are and what you\u2019re capable of. It seemed like a potentially freeing and empowering step to take in my career. Josh Hitchens\u00a0approached me about doing THE YELLOW WALLPAPER\u00a0and I jumped at it immediately, remembering the effect it had had on me at the age of 18. Josh\u00a0has performed in several brilliantly realized one-man shows over the past few years and he was the perfect person to direct this. The performance\u00a0is the complete story, as written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. It\u2019s a dramatic monologue, lending itself perfectly to a site-specific production\u00a0like this.<\/p>\n

Phindie:\u00a0What was the process like?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

JS:<\/strong>\u00a0A large part of the process, and the most grueling part, was the memorization of the story; the imagery is so strong and powerful that I was only\u00a0able to spend an hour at a time with the script before I was mentally and physically too exhausted to take anything more in. It was all too easy\u00a0to feel that I was a part of the wallpaper, trapped in the nursery. I had several moments of terror when I thought my brain might actually be\u00a0incapable of committing the whole thing to memory, but Josh assured me that it would come. Before we met for our first rehearsal, I had spent a\u00a0month memorizing at home, in coffee shops, between exits and entrances of another show, and it was a huge relief to finally speak the words to\u00a0another person and get feedback. Josh was immediately very supportive and worked with me on how best to use voice and gesture to draw the\u00a0audience in, since those were my two main tools. We met in my living room, and again, the power of the language and story were so exhausting, I\u00a0only had the strength for a run-through of the show with a few notes, before I needed a break. We then had a technical rehearsal at the Ebenezer Mansion, where lights and costume came together. For me, a large part of a character comes together when I know what she wears and what she\u00a0writes with. I met an historical costumer, Michele Schutte, who made me a wonderful, fluttering Victorian morning dress, and the pencil I use was\u00a0one I found at the Philadelphia Pen Show and is an 1890\u2032s silver combination mechanical pencil\/pen, and I love it.<\/p>\n

\"the-yellow-wallpaper-photo-by-kyle-cassidy\"<\/a>Phindie:\u00a0You\u2019ve been doing a few\u00a0Victorian-era productions recently. What attracts you to the literature of that time?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

JS:\u00a0<\/strong>Yes,\u00a0THE YELLOW WALLPAPER will be the second time I\u2019ve had a hand at producing a Victorian
\ntheatrical piece, having co-produced\u00a0Hedda Gabler<\/em>\u00a0this past December at the Physick. Josh Hitchens previously directed me in\u00a0A Doll\u2019s House<\/em>\u00a0at the Maxwell Mansion as well. The three pieces, all written in the last quarter of the 19th Century, have a central female protagonist who is\u00a0trying to find her place in the world and, in the end, is forced to question the traditional roles of women in the home and society. In all three\u00a0plays, the audience is introduced to a seemingly happy married couple, but quickly find there are fault lines running through the marriage, that\u00a0there are secrets and doubts and betrayals that threaten to destroy their lives. These are issues and questions we still have today, combined\u00a0with brilliant writing and high drama. As an actor, it\u2019s incredibly meaty and there are always new discoveries to be made in the text.<\/p>\n

Phindie:\u00a0What do you like about performing in these historic mansions?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

JS:\u00a0<\/strong>These are beautifully and lovingly preserved historic homes. Simply visiting them is like stepping back through time. When the audience, in such\u00a0close proximity to the performers, enters, they become voyeurs into the lives of these people who so easily could have inhabited this very room.\u00a0Everywhere the audience looks, they see authenticity. It\u2019s thrilling to be able to bring that experience to theatre-goers. And as a performer,\u00a0these houses have a warmth and life to them that you usually have to try to simulate on a theatrical set. What a luxury it is to be in a\u00a0perfectly decorated room you don\u2019t have to imagine into being. It\u2019s simply there for us, a beautiful part of the production. PhilaLandmarks, who\u00a0operate the Physick House, as well as three other historic homes in the Philadelphia region, have been incredibly welcoming to us and have made\u00a0this a lovely experience.<\/p>\n

Phindie:\u00a0What are some of the challenges?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

JS:\u00a0<\/strong>It is, after all, first and foremost a museum, so we can\u2019t be as casual with the space as we might be on a theater\u2019s stage. Since THE YELLOW WALLPAPER\u00a0is just me and Sam Wend, our stage manager, things are fairly simple. We\u2019ll be bringing in a set piece and some lights that Robin\u00a0Stamey, the lighting designer, will be using for dramatic effect, but since it isn\u2019t a theater, and there isn\u2019t a traditional lighting\u00a0arrangement, she\u2019ll be getting pretty creative with the design. I think it\u2019s going to be fascinating against the yellow walls of the Physick\u00a0House parlor.<\/p>\n

Phindie:\u00a0What\u2019s next for you?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

JS:\u00a0<\/strong>Actually, concurrently, I\u2019m performing at the Constitution Center, in the Bank of America Theatre, during the month of July. It\u2019s a new play\u00a0called \u201cA Republic, Madam,\u201d about the ratification of the Constitution and the friendship between George Washington and Samuel and Elizabeth\u00a0Powel. We\u2019ll be performing four times a day, six days a week, and I\u2019m working with a great group of people.<\/p>\n

Phindie:\u00a0Sounds cool! Thanks Jennifer!<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

[Physick House, 321 S. 4th Street]\u00a0July 10-15, 2016;\u00a0philalandmarks.givezooks.com<\/a><\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Room with a View: Jennifer Summerfield talks THE YELLOW WALLPAPER July 8, 2016\u00a0–\u00a0Christopher Munden \u201cThere are things in that wallpaper that nobody knows about but me, or ever will.\u201d\u2014Charlotte Perkins Gilman, THE YELLOW WALLPAPER Charlotte Perkins Gilman\u2019s classic novella THE YELLOW WALLPAPER is a haunting tale of one woman\u2019s …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interview","column","twocol"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennifersummerfield.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennifersummerfield.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennifersummerfield.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennifersummerfield.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennifersummerfield.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jennifersummerfield.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":191,"href":"https:\/\/jennifersummerfield.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190\/revisions\/191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennifersummerfield.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennifersummerfield.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennifersummerfield.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}