200 years of experience, and still learning onstage
NEW YORK — “I am rarely cast as an ingenue anymore,” Lois Smith was saying. It was a joke, obviously, and her fellow actresses — Estelle Parsons, 92, and Vinie Burrows, who recently turned 95 but rounds that up to 96 — burst into laughter.
At 89, Smith was the baby of this bunch. Among them, they have more than 200 years of performance experience, including the film Lady Bird and the title role in Marjorie Prime (Smith), the movie Bonnie and Clyde and the sitcom Roseanne (Parsons), the American premiere of Jean Genet’s The Blacks and experimental work with director Rachel Chavkin (Burrows).
They’re still busy adding to their resumes: Parsons at the Public Theater in Tony Kushner’s A Bright Room Called Day, as a character whose name translates to “The Old One”; Smith on Broadway, with a talky role in Matthew Lopez’s The Inheritance; Burrows back off-Broadway next month in Chekhov/Tolstoy: Love Stories, at the Mint Theater Company.
In the room with them, you’d never guess their ages from their appearance, only from the discussion’s vintage details — as when Burrows and Smith tried to figure out what they might have worked on together, and the closest they got was a play each of them did on Broadway with Helen Hayes. (Burrows was in the original 1950 production of The Wisteria Trees, Smith in the 1955 revival.)
The shyest of the group was Burrows, while Parsons and Smith had the comfort of old acquaintance. Gathered around a table in a restaurant, they spoke about perseverance, longevity and improving with age.
Q: So many people count down to retirement. Was that ever a goal for any of you?
A: Lois Smith: Not me! Estelle Parsons: I don’t think people in the theater are like that. Edward Albee said the reason we live so long is because we never retire.
Vinie Burrows: The work satisfies us, recharges our batteries.
Parsons: Also, when you’re an actor, you’re like retired a lot of the time because you’re waiting for the jobs to come along. They’re always talking about women have jobs when they’re young and then there’s this trough.
Burrows: It was slightly different with me because as a young black actress, I didn’t have the quality or the quantity of roles that I wanted, so I created my own one-woman show, had a New York Times review that said I was “a magnificent performer.” It was in the ’60s. I went on the college market. More than 6,000 performances, booking them myself.
Q: And you started as a child actor?
Burrows: On radio. Parsons: Were there parts for black people on radio? Burrows: No, no. Parsons: Nobody could see you, so —
Burrows: Nobody could see, so.
Parsons: I didn’t start acting till I was 32. Well, I was one of eight people who started the Today show. Back in the ’50s.
Q: But you were also on Broadway in the ’50s. You all were.
Parsons: My first thing with Ethel Merman, yeah, after I left the Today show — because I didn’t want to go to the Grace
Kelly wedding. I hated interviewing people. (laughter)
Smith: My first professional job was in a Broadway play that ran all season, in 1952. Time Out for Ginger. And Melvyn Douglas was my father. It was a nice way to begin.
Q: What’s gotten easier and what’s gotten harder about acting?
Parsons: What has gotten easier for me is that when you start out, your work is kind of erratic. Now my work is of a standard. It’s not wonderful one night and terrible the next night. Listen, I’m 92, but I feel (laughs) that I’m finally in command of my work.
Burrows: I’m 96, and I feel as if I’m better now than I ever was.
Smith: What’s harder is my body is not as agile as it used to be. I’m very grateful that I’m mobile and can do it. It’s true I get bed parts sometimes, or wheelchair parts — oh, boy! — but I also get standing-up-all-the-time parts, like I have right now.
Parsons: I don’t like parts where people are self-pitying old. I don’t take those.
Smith: (laughs) I know what you mean. Probably 15, 20 years ago, I began to find I was getting all these offers to do play readings where the memory was gone. And I thought, “Not yet!”
Parsons: I don’t really get a lot of offers, though, do I? Do you get as many offers as you did when you were younger?
Smith: At least. Maybe more.
Burrows: I don’t have an agent, so when I hear of something, I go, but then they don’t want to see you. I don’t belabor what is; I go out and find.
Q: How is it learning lines?
Smith: It’s about the same. I’ve changed methods along the way. I grew up learning my lines in rehearsal, on my feet. And I began to think I wanted to learn it ahead of time. I’ve really enjoyed it, the time with myself and the script alone.
Parsons: In my late 70s and 80s, I began to worry about whether I could really do it anymore. I was doing this play down at La MaMa. I’d gone offstage at the wrong time. I’d have an experience like that, or where I’d forget a line, and I would blow it up into a very big thing. As I got toward my 90s (laughs), I got my confidence back. People say, “Oh, I want to be just like you,” and I think, “I’ve never been different from anybody else. I just keep on going.” That’s just luck.
Q: Luck plays a part, but so does perseverance.
Smith: There’s another thing, I think: that we get to do it together. That means a lot to me. It seems to me that’s a good part of the production of longevity. Burrows: Community. Smith: And a constant exchange. It’s growthful.
Q: What difference might a level playing field have made in your careers?
Burrows: Oh-ho-ho. It’s not level.
Parsons: It’s never level for women. I don’t think men and critics think of women as artists. I mean, everybody thinks of men as artists, men actors. And look at the jobs men actors have. I don’t even want to think about that.
Burrows: Well, they are definitely privileged. I should be able to use my talents more. And I can say that at 96 I should have been able to use them more when I was 20 or 25 or 35 or 45 or 65 or 75. There were limitations. There are still limitations. But I do my work. When I can. And I support every baby born having the opportunity to develop to his or her potential.
Q: When you think about having a long career, what’s your greatest wisdom to offer?
Burrows: Gratitude. Gratitude for the chance to work and develop.
Parsons: I’m amazed that more people aren’t interested in our wisdom. It’s a funny thing, because we are wise in so many ways. Even solace that we could give to some people on the long journey. There are some, like probably us, who persevere. And there are some who don’t.
Smith: Maybe some of these people say, “I don’t want to do that anymore.”
Burrows: I cannot imagine myself saying that. Give me the chance, I’ll leap at it!
Parsons: I’m worried about staying on longer than I should. I had a time in our rehearsal period here where I thought, “Maybe I should get out, maybe I should understand when is my time to get out.” You know what I mean?
Smith: I guess I do. I also feel that in just about every rehearsal process there are times where you think, “Well, this is impossible. It isn’t going to work.”
Q: Is there anything you want to know from one another?
Burrows: (to Parsons and Smith) Where do you get your strength from?
Smith: I do get it from working, partly. I’m stronger if I’m working.
Parsons: I just said to my husband yesterday, when I do a really good performance, or (laughs) what I think is a really good performance, I feel so fulfilled and confident and all those good things, the way you want to feel.
Q: Vinie, what’s your answer to that question?
Burrows: My strength comes from those who came before me, as a black person. Those who survived that Middle Passage, across the Atlantic, some who died in the holds of the ship. It definitely comes from that human experience that belonged to my great-grandparents, men and women, kidnapped from their home. Their struggle gives me my strength.