‘We were kindred spirits’
Gracie Finley and Leah Pritchard draw on their close friendship to play mother and daughter at Watermark Theatre
No branch of a family tree would ever show a clan connection between Gracie Finley and Leah Pritchard.
But, after listening to the actresses talking in their dressing room, there’s a definite kinship.
There’s also warmth, appreciation and laughter.
That’s because, after working together for the past four summers, the company members have developed closeness and a bond.
“We were the only two girls in the company during her first season when she played my adopted daughter in ‘The Lion In Winter’. We shared a dressing room and quickly found we were kindred spirits in many ways,” says Finley.
Prichard agrees.
“We are interested in each other’s lives. Gracie has met my mother and the rest of my family, including my aunts and my dog. And I know her husband, Barry, all of her children and her grandchildren.”
These extended family ties are going to serve them well as they prepare for their roles as mother and daughter in two shows at The Watermark Theatre this summer.
In “Barefoot in the Park”, Finley plays Ethel Banks, a widow, who after living happily in the suburbs of New Jersey with her daughter Corie, is suddenly alone and lonely in her apartment when her daughter, played by Pritchard, marries and leaves home. Set in the 1960s, the story begins when Banks drops in unexpectedly on her daughter and new son-in-law who have been in their first apartment together for just an hour.
“It’s nice playing her daughter,” says Pritchard.
“It’s a beautiful gift to already have that affection, that closeness automatically.”
In “Mrs. Warren’s Profession”, Pritchard plays Vivie Warren, a college graduate who has come home to get acquainted with her mother for the first time in her life. That’s because her mother, a former prostitute who runs a fish shop, has not seen her daughter since her birth; farming her care out to others, sending her to a private school and university. Set in England at the turn of the last century, the play focuses on their relationship and how it changes when Vivie learns what her mother, played by Finley, does for a living. To help them develop their
characters they have drawn on their own family experiences.
For instance in “Barefoot in the Park”, Mrs. Banks adores her daughter.
“Her daughter has been her life. And, as a mother, I know how I feel about (my children), so I bring that it into her character,” says Finley.
Prichard says her storylines parallel with dramas that are happening in her personal life.
“My characters are striving as daughters to be viewed as adults and to relate to their mothers as women. And I’m just coming to an age now where, for a little while now, my mother and I have been dealing with this.”
Finley is also dealing with her “unconventional role” in “Mrs. Warren’s Profession”.
“Mrs. Warren’s relationship with her daughter is quite foreign to me in that she rejected her daughter after she was born because she had to work…. But there is still a part of her who wants to be slightly conventional because she wants her daughter to have the things she never had.”
She also realizes a universal truth about mothers.
“Most people would do almost anything for their child.”