October 12, 2008The play in question was Howard Barker’s “Scenes From an Execution,” a Potomac Theater Project production that had an Off Broadway run in July. In it she played a 15th-century painter who clashes with the Venetian government over her depiction of a famous battle. Next she will play Maria Tura, half of the comically narcissistic Polish theater couple who foil the Nazis in “To Be or Not to Be,” opening Tuesday at the Samuel J. Friedman Theater.
Though statuesque and blond, Ms. Maxwell, by her own account, has never “played the ingénue,” not even in high school productions back in West Fargo, N.D. Her two Tony nominations were for the blithely evil, child-hating Baroness of Vulgaria in “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” and a coldly conniving child trafficker in “Coram Boy.”
“One of my son Will’s school friends hides from me,” said Ms. Maxwell, who is married to the actor Robert Emmet Lunney. “I was in ‘Chitty’ and I killed kids. I was in ‘Coram Boy’ and I killed kids. She’s terrified of me.”
What frightens tots, however, has impressed critics, who have regularly singled Ms. Maxwell out for encomiums, even when they haven’t cared for the play. “I think she can make you believe anything,” said Casey Nicholaw, director of “To Be or Not to Be.” “She makes very brave choices. I saw her in ‘Chitty,’ and when she was polishing the gun and it went off, I knew I wanted to work with her.” Mr. Nicholaw referred to a moment when the baroness utters, “Oopsy-daisy” after accidentally shooting a man — a moment of Ms. Maxwell’s own invention.
Ms. Maxwell said she had never seen the 1942 Ernst Lubitsch film on which “To Be or Not to Be” is based, in which Carole Lombard played Maria Tura, or the 1983 Mel Brooks remake starring Anne Bancroft in the role. “I don’t know what it would do for me; let’s face it, Carole Lombard was fat, ugly and old,” she said and laughed. Then, serious again: “I’m just not in it to copy something.”
Ms. Maxwell’s modest, small-town origins might come as a surprise to anyone who has seen one of her performances, which have a textured, almost European worldliness to them. She grew up not knowing “there was a word called Juilliard,” the fifth of six children in a family of “British Isle mutts.” Her mother was a lawyer for the Environmental Protection Agency, her father a district judge who dabbled in community theater and playwriting. (Her younger brother is the avant-garde playwright and director Richard Maxwell.)
She attended college across the Red River from Fargo at Moorhead State University in Minnesota. One class short of graduating, Ms. Maxwell said, she used $2,000 from her parents to move to New York.
Ms. Maxwell’s career began to take off when she was in her early 40s, a time when many actresses’ options dwindle. She etched scene-stealing supporting turns in the 1997 revival of “A Doll’s House” and the 2000 run of Neil Simon’s “Dinner Party” on Broadway, and in Alan Ayckbourn’s “House” and “Garden” Off-Broadway.
Now 51, she approaches her profession with a mix of practicality and idealism. She recognizes the need to take jobs to “put the peanut butter on the table” but says she has never once been tempted by the television pilot season and its promise of fame and money, though she has appeared several times on “Law & Order” and “All My Children.” “I’m so hopeless,” she said in mock lament, “I pick up a television script and think: ‘If this were a play, I wouldn’t be interested. Why do it?’ ”
The plays that do interest her get her full attention. “I’m like a pit bull on the pant leg of the play,” she said. “I want to give it it’s shot. There’s no point to be there if it’s going to be a mediocre venture. We’re all there for the play, and I think that egos have to go somewhere else.”
That demand for straightforward professionalism (and dislike of egos) possibly fed what, for the nontheatergoing public, is the most notorious episode of her career. In 2006 she starred with Alec Baldwin in a Roundabout Theater Company production of Joe Orton’s black comedy “Entertaining Mr. Sloane.” She got the tabloid treatment when a personal e-mail message complaining about Mr. Baldwin’s backstage behavior — including punching his fist into a wall — found its way into the press. Ms Maxwell departed the show with a month left in the run. While her career has continued to thrive, the incident has had a long shelf life. In a profile of Mr. Baldwin in a recent issue of The New Yorker, he and Scott Ellis, who directed “Entertaining Mr. Sloane” and has worked on Mr. Baldwin’s sitcom “30 Rock,” offered fresh disparagement of Ms. Maxwell.
Asked whether she would handle the situation differently if given the chance, she fell silent. “It’s like opening a huge can of worms each time,” she finally said. “I don’t have the finances or the arsenal of publicists and minions to tell my side of the story. I just have to know that I did the right thing.” She added with a sigh: “The air that I’m breathing in talking about it now seems to be a waste for me. I don’t think they’re worth the time.”
The fracas hasn’t dimmed her passion for theater, she said. Neither has the view that, by her count, only 1 in 10 stage jobs leads to a fulfilling experience.
“I feel very lucky to be an actress,” she said. “I have no other talents whatsoever. I’m actually kind of worried about that, to tell the truth. I’m such a theater bitch that if there’s a hole in the ceiling I’ll just put duct tape over it and say, ‘Wonder how long that’s going to hold?’ ”
Minnesota
State University Moorhead will present alumni awards to six of its
graduates during Homecoming celebration Oct. 3-4. Receiving an award
is MSUM Theatre Arts alum, Bill Hulstrom.
Ricky
Greenwell and MSUM theatre tech students will be traveling to the
University of Northern Iowa September 12-14 to attend The USITT
Northern Boundary Section Fall Workshop. The fall workshop offers
students the opportunity to learn about technical theatre by
participating in designs competitions such as cover the walls, learn
more about regional theatre by taking tours and speaking with local
technical staff at the regional theatres and attending workshops in
various areas in technical theatre. Ricky will be one of the presenters
for the Mask and Mask-making workshop. Ricky serves as Member at Large
Northwest for the USITT Northern Boundary Section. 
The
Theatre Arts Department will be heading to the twin cities for its
annual Theatre Field Trip September 12th and 13th. Departmental
faculty and students will attend productions at Chanhassen Dinner
Theatre and The Guthrie. For more information, please contact Dr.
David Wheeler at 
Theatre
Arts Department is pleased to open its season with two plays in rep:
YOU’RE A GOOD MAN CHARLIE BROWN and DOG SEES GOD. Both plays revolve
around Charles Schultz’s Peanuts Gang; however, they are very
different! Come join the fun. For more information, including tickets
and plot synopsis, please refer to 
Artist We Love: Natalie Novacek
The
MSUM Theatre Arts Department is pleased to welcome Shelly Gaza as a new
faculty member in performance. Shelly Gaza is an actor, director, and
theatre teacher. For the past four years, Shelly has been a member of
the acting company at The Utah Shakespearean Festival (USF) where she
has appeared in King Lear, Twelfth Night, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Love’s Labours Lost, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Taming of the Shrew,
and others. She was the recipient of USF’s 2006 Finlayson Acting
Award. Shelly has also appeared at theatres across the country,
including The Hilberry Repertory Theatre in Detroit where she received
the 2003 Oscar Wilde Award for Favorite Actress in a Drama for her work
in A Streetcar Named Desire. She has also appeared in the Regional Premiers of John Patrick Shanley’s plays Dirty Story (The JET, Detroit) and Sailor’s Song
(Paragon Theatre, Denver). As a director, Shelly has worked with
Backstage Theatre in Colorado and the Actor’s Training Program in
Utah. She has taught at many schools and training programs including
Wayne State University, Southern Utah University (in conjunction with
USF), The Colorado Academy for the Performing Arts, and Flint Youth
Theatre. Shelly studied acting at the Moscow Art Theatre School in
Russia, received an MFA in Theatre from Wayne State University, and a
BFA in Theatre from Millikin University. Shelly is a member of Actor’s
Equity Association.
Ms.
Lindsay Fischer, Theatre Arts, has been accepted into the highly
competitive Dell’Arte training program. One of 20 students selected
from across the world, Ms. Fischer will begin studying with Dell’Arte
this fall. A spring 2008 MSUM Theatre Arts graduate, Ms. Fischer will
be seen onstage this summer during the 45th anniversary season of The
Straw Hat Players and is currently serving as the assistant director
for THE LAST DAYS OF JUDAS ISCARIOT.