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Kousha Navidar: You're listening to All Of It. I'm Kousha Navidar in for Alison Stewart. Last week I saw Uncle Vanya, the classic play by Anton Chekhov. Even if you're not familiar with this specific play, you might know that Chekhov can be hard to get into, but I was struck by how accessible the play was. The intent, the humor, the grief, it was right there. If I'm being real, accessible is not the first word that comes to mind when I think of Chekhov, but I'm here to tell you the emotional wallop is there, and so is a powerhouse cast.

In no particular order and a non-comprehensive list, Alfred Molina, Alison Pill, Anika Noni Rose, Steve Carell, and my next guest, William Jackson Harper. Some of you remember William for his Emmy Award-nominated performance as Chidi in the TV show, The Good Place, or most recently for his Obie Award-winning Performance as Kenneth in the Off-Broadway production of Primary Trust last year. In Uncle Vanya, which is playing at the Lincoln Center, Will stars as Astrov. His performance has earned him a Tony nomination, and he is sitting right across the table. Hey, Will, welcome to the show.

William Jackson Harper: Hey. How are you doing?

Kousha Navidar: Good. I'm so glad to have you here. For people who aren't familiar with the story, can you give us a brief overview of the plot and the emotional themes that we're dealing with here?

William Jackson Harper: [laughs] Oh, man. I can't almost because it's Chekhov and it's rangy. I feel like it's one of those things where the central plot is amorphous in a lot of ways, but it basically deals with this man and his niece who live on a farm with his mom and the professor and his new young wife that comes to live with them and the months and weeks in between-- Well, the months and weeks of them staying there, actually, that's basically where it starts, and then it takes off in all directions after that.

Kousha Navidar: Yes. It's about the love, the grief, the unrequited dreams that you've experienced before. You play a young doctor in it. I mentioned at the top that Chekhov has always been a bit out of reach for me personally. Have you had a similar experience with him? What made this version different for you?

William Jackson Harper: Oh, yes. I totally felt a little bit-- Well, it was one of those things where I think that maybe reading it and studying it in school in my '20s is a very different experience from performing it as a 40-something guy. I think that there's something about the unrequited love, the path not taken, all of that stuff that hits differently now than it did when I was 20-something. Just seeing these people on the States bemoaning their lives, and I'm just like, "Your rent is paid. Hush." [chuckles] That's where I started with it as a young guy studying it.

One of the things I keep thinking about with this play is how much of my life is something I do because I love it and how much of my life is something I do because it's what I've always done at this point. There's, yes, this finding like, "Are you actually happy?" The collateral damage of changing your life at this stage in life is very different from the collateral damage of changing your life straight out of college.

It's expected that everything's going to turn over and you're going to try something new, and everything's going to turn on its head and then you'll land on your feet again, hopefully, but it's a different thing as you get older. I think that that theme in Chekhov is something that I'm connecting to a lot more.

Kousha Navidar: Something that came through with me in terms of accessibility as well was just the adaptation itself of the piece. It felt so much more, not just modern, but just I could go out and I could follow all of the emotional beats. Can you talk about that adaptation a little bit? What was different about it that really spoke to you?

William Jackson Harper: I think it feels really American. I feel like a lot of other versions that I've read feel very British. The ones that I've read. There's other American translations I'm sure, but I'm not really all that familiar with them. I think that with that, I think that there's an issue of class in this version that we navigate in a way that feels a little bit more familiar to us.

I think that the other versions that I've seen, there's something a little bit distancing for me where I'm just like, "I didn't grow up with that system in my brain." I feel like those translations, a lot of the class stuff in British culture gets mapped onto it a little bit more legibly than this version. This version feels very American.

Kousha Navidar: Heidi Schreck did the adaptation that we're talking about right now. Did you talk to her about that class element? Is that something explicit or something that you feel like you picked up?

William Jackson Harper: It's something that I picked up. We didn't really dwell on that so much. I feel like in this play, a lot of the class stuff is a little amorphous. We have a character Waffles who's this guy who lives/works on the farm, and also played by Jonathan Hadary, I should say, who plays him beautifully. Who lives/works on the farm, also is from the family that sold the farm.

It's like there's something interesting about how do we navigate this thing. How do we explain this guy being here and explain these folks? There's night watchmen in the original version, and it's like there's things like that which I don't connect to, and I'm not sure that a lot of audiences will connect to it in the same way. We talked about removing some of those things that don't really contribute directly to the story just to make sure that we're focused on the relationships of the people that are living in this house.

Kousha Navidar: Yes, it's a funny point. Why is Waffles there? That's-- [laughs]

William Jackson Harper: Yes. [laughs] I think he's just a really cool guy.

Kousha Navidar: It's like the accordion.

William Jackson Harper: Yes. He's a really cool guy. We all like him.

Kousha Navidar: We all like him. I love when he busts out the accordion during the play. It's really wonderful.

We're talking to William Jackson Harper who stars in Uncle Vanya, which is at the Vivian Beaumont Theater in Lincoln Center through June 16th. You mentioned that it feels American, it feels especially like rural American, right? Can you talk a little bit about that?

William Jackson Harper: Yes. Something that Heidi mentioned to us when we were doing the table work on this play was she was interested in this not being necessarily in modern times, but maybe 10 years into the future. There is a sense of things have taken a turn for the worse, [chuckles] and society's not quite what it used to be. You have these people living maybe off the grid a bit, but they're like this progressive weirdo household somewhere. It feels very New England to me in a lot of ways, and that explains why the world feels a little further away. It makes a lot of sense to me.

Also, the rural part of it, I think that figures really heavily into Astrov's track. I think the fact that he's having to travel so far to get from patient to patient and that there aren't these medical facilities readily available to him at all times. When something goes wrong, everyone winds up in one place and he's overwhelmed. That figures really heavily into the story.

That's also something that I've-- in some of the research and podcasts I listen to, in books that I've read, something that I've heard a lot of rural doctors talk about, which is just the traveling the great distances and just being stretched so thin, and how challenging that is, and how much you just can't do because you're just one person covering hundreds of miles.

Kousha Navidar: How did you research for the part?

William Jackson Harper: There was this really great article about this doctor in West Texas, and then I also read this book, My Own Country by Abraham Verghese. I want to hope I'm pronouncing that name right. It's about an Indian doctor, I think he's actually from Kenya. He lived in Tennessee during the AIDS crisis and was an epidemiologist working on all of what's going on here and trying to get to the bottom of everything that's going on and dealing with new patients and all of that that goes on.

Also, he had access to a really great facility, but there's a lot of communities around where he lived that didn't have access. Trying to get to these people and verify if this person has AIDS or HIV, and all of that was something that was a challenge for him. It's like a brand new thing, something that showed up. This all takes place in the early to mid '80s. It was still relatively new and it was something that people were watching over on the coast, and thinking this is not going to come here, but then it did show up there. He's the specialist that knows about it. He was stretched really thin.

It's a really informative book, and it really helped me try to wrap my mind around what it is to be the only person that knows what's going on somewhere and be the only person that has the access and the knowledge to possibly do something about it.

Kousha Navidar: You do that research, there's that harried of being the only expert in the room a lot of times. Can you point to choices that you make in your character of Astrov that you're like, "That's where that comes from in my performance"?

William Jackson Harper: Well, I think for me it's in the very top of the show. I think that there's a lot of other things figuring into this because I think that my take on the character is that this was not supposed to be the final stop. I was going to come out here, do this rural thing for a while, earn some money, pay off some loans, and then go back, but I wound up staying here for various reasons. I think that the exhaustion of coming out to deal with a case of gout [laughs] and there's other things going on, but then homeboy just takes off for a walk while I'm there.

Kousha Navidar: Homeboy is Alfred Molina's character.

William Jackson Harper: Homeboy is Alfred Molina, yes. It really figures in heavily there because that's the longest time that I get to talk about what my job has done to me and how it's affected me emotionally.

Kousha Navidar: There's another part that I wanted to point out in terms of acting choices that really spoke to me watching you. There's this scene where your character's quite drunk, and you're playing it pretty well. While I was watching, I was thinking acting tips from Will. How do you play drunk? [laughs]

William Jackson Harper: Oh, man, carefully. That's something that I'm calibrating all the time. There's moments where I think earlier on, I was probably drunker. I'm not sure when you saw it, but--

Kousha Navidar: Just last week.

William Jackson Harper: Oh, last week, right, you said that. There's moments where I've definitely been drunker, and it became less about me connecting with my partner, and more about trying to make sure the physicality is right, and that put me in my head in a weird way. I think that there's something about the complete word vomit that my character has in that scene, which does a lot of the work for me.

I was talking to my partner about how do I do this? I don't know if I'm doing this right at all. She was like, "Whenever you have had a couple, there is a different swagger. There is a different way of moving, and you're mischievous."

Kousha Navidar: You, Will, are mischievous.

William Jackson Harper: I'm mischievous, yes. I'm a little bit of a trickster when I've had a few. It's like, "Okay, so what is that feeling?" She says that there's a smirk on my face and I'm about to do something real dumb, and I'm like, "Okay, so let's lean into that and also just take the filter off when it comes to being emotionally raw and open with Sonia, with Alison Pill. That's a big part of it. Just not filtering the thoughts at all and just letting them come as they come and just saying them.

Kousha Navidar: And a playfulness, a little bit.

William Jackson Harper: And a playful-- oh, yes, absolutely. Because part of it is, I do want to joke, I do want to have a good time even if I am being really raw. I think that's something that is very present in Heidi's translation too, which is she gives us a lot of opportunities to play and to flirt and to joke and to tease. She told us to lean into that stuff as much as we could.

Kousha Navidar: I'm so excited you brought that up and that you brought up Alison Pill because that was a part-- that tenderness between you two playing with each other that really does come through. It's part of what made it so accessible, for me at least while I was watching. How does Alison support you when you're on stage?

William Jackson Harper: Alison is a treasure. She's so emotionally available, open, live, and I can't say enough good things about her. It's really easy to just let it all out with her because it feels safe. She's also an incredibly smart actor, and she's very meticulous about timeline and all of these things, but then when it comes down to just being in the moment, she's very good at just being in the moment in a way that I really, really admire. It's really easy to just be emotionally available and open with her on stage.

Kousha Navidar: You obviously do try to do the same with that. How does that come through for you when you're on stage trying to be a good scene partner?

William Jackson Harper: Just listening. That's the biggest thing. And I feel like whenever something is taking me away from listening, that's something I need to probably trim away from whatever my interpretation is. That's something that definitely we're calibrating still.

This is a play that gets really-- There's so much there. It's so dense that we're always calibrating and recalibrating things from night to night. Looking for the moments and the ways in which we can really connect with each other, and make sure that the scene is existing between all of us on stage and not us on stage, trying to make sure that we're getting this point across to the audience. We want to make sure that we're getting our point across to each other and affecting each other as people in the scene.

Kousha Navidar: Well, speaking of the stage, and I don't want to ruin anything, but there's a part where there's a lot of water. I'll just put that out there. It's a lot of water on the stage at one part. Number one, how do you stop from slipping, but then also does the water itself ground you? Did you have to get around it at a certain point just put out the back of your mind so you're not out of your head? Talk to me about that a little bit.

William Jackson Harper: Oh. Well, I've definitely slipped [laughs] a few times.

Kousha Navidar: Because your character's drunk now.

William Jackson Harper: Yes. Also, I'm clumsy, but I've definitely slipped a few times. I honestly just don't even think about it. It's just like, that's the reality of the world. There's water on stage, and so it's like you play with it like it's the thing that it is. I think I try not to twist my ankle or knee or anything like that. I'm as careful as a person would be on said surface, but yes, I don't really think about it all that much.

Kousha Navidar: Having that water there-- because there's a part where Alison actually lays down on the ground and you see the wetness on her shorts, and that really grounds me at least as an audience member of like, "Oh, wow, this is really real." Does it have any effect for you when you're on stage?

William Jackson Harper: Sure. Well, you know how sometimes when everything has been ruined, there's nothing to do but just stand there and look at it. I think that if there is any effect of that sort that I think that you're describing, I come out on stage, candles have been rained out. There's bottles of wine on a table that are just soaking wet. There's all these medications in a basket that are just damp. There is something about that which is like, now it's a real thing. I don't have to pretend that this moment happened.

This moment happened and now it's just like, okay, well I'm going to deal with this as it is rather than having to manufacture or pretend as if something else is going on.

Kousha Navidar: We just got an unsolicited text come through from a listener that I want to read. It says, "We went to see Uncle Vanya last week. Three impressions. The ensemble cast was uniformly excellent. The play is much more powerful on stage than on paper, and its existential nature really comes through," which I thought was such a lovely thing to say. Thanks to the listener that sent that in.

We're talking with William Jackson Harper who's an actor, a star in Uncle Vanya, which is at the Vivian Beaumont Theater in Lincoln Center through June 16th. Will, while I was watching it, another thing that really came out for me was how into it the audience was and how much we were laughing together. It made me wonder, are there any times that the audience is laughing, and in your head you're like, "That wasn't intended to be funny, but I'll go with it."

William Jackson Harper: Oh, goodness. The first preview, you never feel like you're ready, and I described it as white-hot terror [laughs] because it's like, "Oh my God, we're about to do this. I feel like there's so many things that I'm still questioning here." That first preview was-- There were so many laughs that surprised us.

We thought things were moderately funny to each other. There's so many things that are meant to make the other character laugh as a character or jokes that are meant to-- We're flirting and we're teasing and we're doing all of that with each other. There's so many of those things that we thought were funny-ish, but weren't going to get a laugh. When 1,100 people just embrace you with this huge wave of laughter when you don't expect it, it's-- I just had no idea. I had no idea the amount of laughs that we had in the show.

Kousha Navidar: You know what it makes me think of as well and I really would love to hear, as an actor who's evolving and becoming better and better known as just such a powerful comedic actor, does it ever feel like that reputation creates situations where people assume everything you do is supposed to be funny and it gets in the way a little bit?

William Jackson Harper: I don't know. I don't mind any laughing ever, honestly, as long as I'm not chasing it. It's one thing to be doing something to make sure the audience gets a chuckle out of this. It's another thing when it's in the scene and it's just meant to-- it just happens to come out in a way that the audience finds funny. It doesn't ever really get in the way for me. I feel like laughing has its place.

I bristle at the idea of theater as church. I think that whatever your reaction is, is a reaction that you have and it's valid. If something is really funny to you and no one else thinks so, that's the beauty of it, is that you're bringing your own experience to it and reacting in a way that feels true to you. You're reacting to something that I don't even understand, but it's only for you. That's fun for me.

Kousha Navidar: We're wrapping up here. In the last minute or so, you talk about the roads that you've traveled and doing this in your 40s. As you leave this in your last run of the show, what do you hope you take from having played Astrov in your own life?

William Jackson Harper: Well, I'm honestly just-- I'm over the moon that I got to do this at all. I didn't really-- The thing is, Heidi and Lila are two of my favorite creators in the city. Chekhov is something that's one of those things that I've had a hard time wrapping my mind around. To get the opportunity to dive into something that is a little bit scary and that I'm not sure if I can do it, and to sit down and do the read-through and have certain things affect me in a way that I wasn't expecting, and then to actually go through that whole process, that was great. I think that honestly, the thing that I'm going to take away from this is that I have a challenge. I completed a challenge that I'm really excited about.

Kousha Navidar: We'll have to pause it there. Will, thank you so much for joining us.

William Jackson Harper: All right. Thank you.

[00:23:54] [END OF AUDIO]

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