Victoria Clark Taps Into Her Inner Adolescent
Songwriters
Performers
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“It was like being thrown from a speeding car,” Clark recalls. “It was pedal to the metal to get the show ready, and we had just finished our first run-through.”
Like so many in the industry, she hoped theatres would only be closed for a month or two. But as the crisis continued, her next project, starring in the new musical Kimberly Akimbo, was also put on hold indefinitely.
“Everything was up in the air,” she says. “I won’t mince words: It was a devastating time—for our industry and for me personally.”
How did she research being a teen again? “I kind of just pulled from my own memories,” says Clark. “I also watched a lot of teens getting on and off subways, or anytime I saw a group gathered, I studied their behavior.” The way she inhabits the character physically is uncanny—she has perfected the adolescent slouch and eyeroll (my 16-year-old daughter who saw the show with me confirms this). Authenticity was Clark’s goal, but it took her many weeks of experimenting to find Kimberly. “I didn’t realize how shut down I had become during the pandemic until I got back into the rehearsal room,” she says. “It was really hard to find my footing again, and I had mostly been directing for the last few years. I had to really dig down to find this character. Early on, sometimes she felt like she was five, and sometimes she felt like she was my age. I have to truly, truly believe I’m 16 for the audience to believe it, and that takes a lot of focus and concentration.”
The performers playing Kimberly’s classmates are much closer to their high school years, especially Justin Cooley, who portrays her anagram-obsessed, tuba-playing crush Seth. A 2021 Jimmy Awards finalist and college freshman majoring in musical theatre at Texas Christian University, Cooley is making an impressive professional debut opposite Clark and the two have remarkable chemistry.
“We know we do!” says Clark. “We noticed that we felt it the first time we met and it’s beautiful.” Still, given the disparity in their ages and experience, they trod lightly. “We talked about it a lot,” she says. “I’ve been in the business nearly 40 years; he’s just starting out. We’re at opposite ends of our careers really. And we worked with an intimacy coach who spoke to us about the power dynamics of any physical exchanges we had.” Despite all that, “I don’t think of him as my younger colleague. I think of him as a peer. That’s really, really important. I never for one second thought about our relationship as odd. Because, again, on stage I believe that I am this 16-year-old girl.”
Clark doesn’t know what’s next after Kimberly Akimbo (“I’ve stopped trying to plan out my career—every time I do it switches), but she has some hopes. She hopes Love Life will happen eventually. She hopes she’ll direct more. And she hopes that Kimberly Akimbo has a future after the twice-extended Atlantic run wraps up on January 15, 2022. (“That’s up to the powers that be, luckily, that’s not me.”)
For the moment, she says she’s and focusing on “tenderness and kindness, they’re really everything right now” in our pandemic-rattled world. “A lot of this journey for me has been turning some of that kindness inward and learning from this character how to overcome obstacles. Part of what is challenging for me is remembering that this is a show about living, not dying. It’s a piece about fortitude. Kimberly has taught me a lot about that.”
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Top image: Victoria Clark in Kimberly Akimbo at the Atlantic Theater Company. Photo by Ahron R. Foster.
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