When I cast her as Hamlet, it was large part for her particular strengths. Rejecting the stereotypical whining, bloodless Hamlet that so many people picture, I wanted a passionate, explosive man that could vibrate with madness, roil with restless energy, seethe with anger. Frances can portray gathering intensity like no one else I know-- brooding anger, mental turmoil, unraveling sanity, these things, so difficult to believe from most actors, play so naturally on her. She has this incredible way of suggesting that there is something going on inside her that you cannot comprehend and should probably fear. She gets a look in her eye, a title to her head, a slightly off position to her body-- you believe that she is containing demons.
Her physicality is amazing. What for some actors like Jared is one of the most difficult parts of embodying a character, Frances's talent is unique and unforgettable. You look at her and you can see the strength in her, in the way she moves and just the definition of her form. It gives her an enormous advantage when she needs to seem unlike herself, that she is able to move herself and position herself in ways that are markedly different from the norm. The first way this manifests is that she can make herself seem inhuman, otherwordly. It's no small wonder she has been cast in roles like Gollum, Caliban, and Puck. But it was also this that made her believable as the violent, intimidating force of nature that was Hamlet. Frances, short, pretty, sweet-faced and soft-eyed, needs only but to channel her energy into her body in all its force to reshape herself into something of a very different power. You forgot you were looking at this small, cute girl and saw only the raw intensity. By this means she can become powerful, imposing, dangerous.
In Hamlet we utilized this talent of hers as a means of transgression. Hamlet wanted to make everyone around him feel uncomfortable and thrown off, and some of the ways he did it was by invading personal space, violating conventions like how people moved and sat, and having outbursts of violence. A person who climbs on things, jumps on tables, swings around swords, crawls on the ground, twists themselves up, and gets up in your face is very unsettling, and Frances made you believe it because of her physicality. It's a lot to demand of someone who also has to emote and speak page after page of lines, but she brought it all together exactly right.
These are what, in my humble opinion, Frances excels at, the things she does onstage without effort, and these are the things for which she gets the most credit and recognition. But I think people, directors in particular, tend to see her as a collection of certain modalities (intense, mad, physical, strange, otherwordly, etc) that play very well onstage and they think of them in terms of how those modalities can be used in their show. It's a natural instinct, particularly for young directors; they want their show to be the best it can be, so they cast everyone according to their obvious strengths, and ask them to do what they do best.
But as much as I wanted her to use her talents for my show, I needed her to do things that were very much outside those spheres as well. I wanted a bipolar Hamlet, whose pain was expressed not only in violent restless mania but also in the empty nothingness of depression. One of the things we spent the most time working on was achieving a hollowed-out Hamlet who did not cope with his pain by transmuting it into anger. But even though it's not her most natural inclination on stage, I believe Frances is totally capable of anything you could possibly want in a character. She has a definite comfort zone, that is for sure. She is so good at the intense spectrum that she has a tendency to default back to it when she isn't sure what else to do, or if she isn't confident treading ground that feels less natural to her. But when she's aware of it, and when she stretches, she can reach places on the emotional range that blow you away.
One of the scenes I was most proud of her in was "to be or not to be." The way we set it up had Hamlet in the chapel listening fitfully to the storm outside, seething with rage. Finally, with the last crash of thunder, he stands up and just screams. But the act seems to vent all the angry energy right out of him, and he collasped back down in a depression for "to be or not to be." That was definitely Hamlet in a downswing, contemplating suicide. Here Frances could not twitch and vibrate. She needed to cut bowstrings, not just contain the energy but let it drain out of her. Hamlet had been mostly covering up these feelings previously with rage, but here was a moment to explore the simple sadness that was the actual cause that had been pushing him to all the self-destruction actions he takes in the play. And in this moment, Frances was not mad. She was subdued, ponderous, tragic, aching, vulnerable. It didn't come naturally to her, and I don't think it came easily. But she did it, and she did it beautifully, because she is not a selection of modalities but an actress.
Poor Hamlet. Wonderful Frances.
One of the reasons I cast her as Andromeda in particular in To Think of Nothing is because it's against her type. This character is the exact opposite of Hamlet, whose one constant was a profound discomfort with his existence, discomfort inside his own skin. Andromeda, by contrast, must be perfectly serene. She is the mental impression of a person that the main character adores. In order to reflect Cassander's view of her, she must be totally at peace, limitlessly kind, but righteous, and unafraid to tell him when she feels he has done wrong. Requires a lot of subtle acting to balance the endlessly forgiving quality with the force of bringing someone back to the right thing. And of course, it's no small task to basically embody the perfect woman. :-) She's also a noticeably feminine character, another thing Frances is not known for playing.
But I know Frances, and I know how talented she is. I'm really excited to work with her to try something that might not be her strongest suit but that she definitely has the ability to do. I'm looking forward to her wowing everyone in a role nobody would expect from her, and I'm really happy that it's going to be in my show. :-)
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