The Musical Actor to Know Before the Tony Award Nominations
Part of the reason I keep going back to see Daniel Fish’s Oklahoma! is to see if Jud Fry can make me cry. And he does. Every single time. Actor Patrick Vaill is the one responsible for this heartbreak. Watch him closely when you go see it-and do go see this-and you will witness Jud’s glimmer of hope, glimpse an American dream, and watch that descend into darkness. Pay particular attention as he listens to the details of his own funeral as the theater goes dark and you will never sing or think about “Poor Jud Fry is Dead” the same way again. Though that hasn’t stopped people from reciting those lyrics when they greet Vaill post show.
“Oh yes sometimes people sing it when they see me, “ says Vaill, a New Yorker who originated the role when he was a senior at Bard Collection. “Or they’ll say “Well, look, poor Jud is alive! It’s completely fascinating. There are really two camps in the audience. The ‘You were so scary and I hated you’ camp and the people that get it, the ones that say ‘I never realized this was a tragedy.’” On the morning he was nominated for a Drama Desk Award-Oklahoma! led with 12 nominations-and just a few days before voting for the Tony Awards closes, Vaill took some time after a two-show day to talk Cowboy and the Farmer, the cornbread at intermission, dream ballets, and Carrie at the prom.
HE HAD NOT BEEN IN OKLAHOMA BEFORE.
My first exposure to it, really, was watching the Hugh Jackman version of it on PBS. But the first time it really gut punched me was when I was in college, probably a sophomore, in someone’s dorm room during the early days of YouTube and we watched the Agnes de Mille dream ballet and I thought, 'What is this?' And then when I was a senior at Bard word went around that a cool downtown director named Daniel Fish was going to do the spring show. [Renowned stage director and former Bard professor] JoAnne Akalaitis said it’s was going to be Oklahoma!, and we had auditions before winter break. All these people came out of the woodwork-I think everyone auditioned. I sang “If Ever I Would Leave you” from Camelot. I got a call back for all the main roles. I was 21 years old, and I wanted to be the person who would get cast as Curly. But in the Jud scenes during the audition I thought, 'This feels more right.'
I was shocked when I was cast as Jud. I didn’t think it was me; it had never had been played by someone who looked like me. And it shocked me that someone saw me this way I thought I had to be “this kind of actor” in order to do this. Daniel Fish guided me very slowly away from that, guiding me to relax and do the material like no one had. Gradually it became the most rewarding experience of myself as an artist. It became this high water mark. And when I heard Daniel was doing it again I contacted him. Luckily he had already given my name to casting.
BUT HE HAD BEEN TO OKLAHOMA.
I’ve been a few times. I love it out there. I actually spent the winter break after my first Oklahoma! audition at Bard in Oklahoma.
“AND TWO BITS” IS A QUARTER.
It took me a while to get this, but it’s a quarter, a dollar is split into eights. Jud has so little money and as he is bidding for Laurie's hamper he is just trying to get his little bit more. He's trying to say “I’m just as reckless as Curly”
WHAT HAPPENED IN THE SMOKEHOUSE?
I understood Jud most when I thought about the scene in the smokehouse in the dark. What if you play something, instead of a cruel laugh, what if you are sincerely affected by the song? “Poor Jud is dead.” What if you imagine your own funeral?
This is a person susceptible to fantasy who later in his song has a beautiful and tender dream. He is accused of a possessive love of Laurie but it’s a tender and deep one. It drives him to a manic place, but the root of it is a deep and abiding love. The jumping off part for me is what if he was truly in love with her and what if he truly imagined dying? In the second act he’s in a pinball machine; the second act you are this raw nerve.
IS THE LAND WE BELONG TO GRAND?
I think the end of the play is quite dark. For Jud, I am thinking of all of the people who are laughed at, whose deaths are mocked, who are looked at as outsiders. This production feels like an Oklahoma! of outsiders. At the core of our production is the question of, 'What makes a community and what makes someone a part of that or not.' Jud is singing a song of community while being forcibly outside of it. I feel a tremendous amount of grief at the end. We are often forced to beat the drum in the face of its violence towards us...I feel it as a gay person. I’ve been through three presidencies with this play. As the show has progressed, America has moved along with it, it seems to carry with it the rage.
JUD AT THE DANCE
When Jud is dancing at the Box Social I think it’s like Carrie at the prom. That moment when she’s slow dancing with Jon Travolta before they drop the blood on her. He feels for a bit, 'I might actually get what I want.' He might actually get to be part of the community, or so he thinks.
PRE-THEATER SNACKS
We ate the cornbread all the time at St Ann’s Warehouse and regretted it by the end. I ate the chili for the first time only last week. I had them save it for me. It's so good!
FUTURE DENIM JEAN CAMPAIGNS IN HIS FUTURE?
No one has asked yet but I am ready and available.
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