The Characters

“I [connected] with [Rick’s] family life. Not that everything is perfect … but he had a mom and a dad. He was married with a baby. Not that I have a child, but I have gotten that the basic drive for this guy was to provide for his family.”

“To successfully engage with these issues, you have to play fair with the arguments. So it was very important, from the beginning of the play, to do that, to put myself in each of the characters, their perspective, their position and to try and give them the best argument possible of why they believe in what they believe in. There’s a lot at stake. The stakes couldn’t be any higher. Both of them come in with their own preconceived notions. Both of them lie. Both of them withhold. And both of them learn things about each other and about themselves that they had no idea. There is surprise and discovery. That’s very important.”

“Racism is talked about within the context of the play. And [Gloria] shares an early experience in her life with Rick … about her first encounter with racism when she was a child. As a black woman, I can certainly connect to that and the fact that she’s in the room with this man who has been accused of doing something atrocious and a lot of it has something to do with a group of people being the ‘other.’ So I can relate to that on those grounds — being outcast, being different — than the majority culture of those in power.”

GEORGE SCHIAVONE/COURTESY Karen Stephens and Gregg Weiner in “Building The Wall.”