Artist Spotlight: Alice Yorke & Campbell O’Hare

I know Walden was some time ago, but I have some wonderful interviews from it that I want to put up!  Alice Yorke and Campbell O’Hare did an amazing job as twin sisters Stella and Cassie, and they had a lot of interesting things to say about the show, what they did, and the characters they played.  I really feel like they provided great insight to a very beautiful and intense show.

Walden was such an intimate play, with only three actors in the cast.  Seeing these two women on stage together was mind blowing.  They took on these characters, twin sisters, with gusto and integrity.  I can’t imagine it was easy for either of them, or the interactions they shared in the play.  I wouldn’t have walked away not thinking they were who they were in the play.

So even though this is extremely late coming, I did want to share these interviews.  I think there’s still so much to learn about all of this from the actors themselves, and they’re just extremely interesting in general.  I don’t want to keep this from you all!  So here we go…straight from the girls of Walden themselves!

Alice Yorke

Stella was raised one way and is living a very different way.  How do you think she finds the balance with this?

At the time we see her in the play, I don't actually think Stella feels much balance about her life change. I think she feels comfort, but I think it's the way any big swing of the pendulum can feel comfortable for a while. It's very different from everything she previously knew but at the time of the play, I think she's going from one side of the pendulum to the other.

How does Stella go about her life while holding in so much, and keeping so much from Bryan?

Pretty easily, I'd say! I think a lot of people behave this way -- working out their problems and questions on their own in their heads, not really needing the input of others. It definitely can be a stumbling block in relationships with people who do all their problem-solving out loud and with others (like Bryan), though! But I think because she and Cassie, as twins, had the kind of relationship for so long where they didn't need to say anything (they just knew what the other was thinking), that she got used to just going along on her own.

Do you think Stella has regrets about what she left behind?

No, but I do think she has disappointments. Stella is a black-and-white thinker. She was going to be an astronaut on the moon or not at all; for her, there was never an in between, like a desk job at NASA. What she's left behind is painful for her, but I don't think there are regrets.

Stella’s relationship with Cassie is extremely complicated.  How much of that is connected to what has happened between them, and how much has Stella been stewing over through the years?

I love this question. I think Stella has learned a tremendous amount about herself in the time she's been separated from Cassie. We learn that she went to therapy, which seems like it might have been new for her. I think Stella has a lot of hurt and pain about Cassie because of what happened between them/at NASA, but I also think that Stella's time away has helped her stand on her own two feet in a way she never has before. She's realizing that she is her own person, separate from Cassie, and I don't think Cassie has had that realization yet. It's what makes their dynamic so charged.

Bryan has very much changed Cassie’s perspective on life and the world they live in.  How has this changed Stella?  Do you think it’s made her a better and happier person?

Oh definitely. I think she feels happier out in the wilderness than she ever expected to. Calmer, more peaceful, away from a high-stress life of intensity and rigor.

What’s up next?

In the late winter I'll be performing in "Can't Forget About You" at Inis Nua and in the spring I'll be reprising my role of Dr. Prentiss in Pig Iron's "Franklin's Key." Looking forward to both projects.

Campbell O’Hare

Cassie is clearly conflicted. Do you think there’s any way she could be fully confident in what she’s doing?

Cassie says in the play that her love of space was born of Stella's love of space, that she followed Stella to space camp--she followed her everywhere. Now that Stella has left NASA and found a life elsewhere, Cassie is forced to reckon for the first time with who she is and what she wants without Stella's guidance. This has shaken her confidence to the core, especially because their father (who would be such a champion of Cassie's current NASA success if he were still alive) is not there to affirm her choices. She thinks throughout the play that if she can get Stella to come back, that will give her the confidence she needs to take on this ultimate mission. Without that, she has to rely on her own instincts for the first time. Stella & Cassie's father led them in such a single-minded pursuit of greatness in their field that there wasn't space for much life outside of that. If Cassie had been given the opportunity to "have a life, to really live" as she says in the play, she would know the breadth of her options and be able to make a confident choice. Without that, I think she'll always wonder if she made the right choice.

Cassie wants something different out of Stella than Stella wants. Given the way their lives have gone, do you think it’s possible to properly reconcile?

Between the final brutal argument between the sisters in the play and their final conversation in the last scene, there have been repairs to the relationship. Stella wanted more than anything to be an astronaut, but has found a new calling in love, motherhood, and Earth advocacy. Cassie wanted more than anything to make Stella and her father proud, and she ended up a celebrated astronaut and alone. They have both suffered losses, and because their lives, work and history are so intimately, painfully intertwined, their relationship will always have a layer of complication. I think that by the end of the play, they have found a new way of being with each other. Stella gets the distance she needs from Cassie, Cassie gets to hear Stella tell her that she is proud of her and that she is doing the right thing. Stella finds her own calling and begins to heal from the trauma of leaving NASA. Cassie and Stella connect in a new way over the new little life joining their orbit. Life starts moving forward. It's a messy kind of peace, but through the events of the play, they have the reckoning required for them to move forward with more honesty between them, their twin paths split, and they are able to appreciate each other as whole and separate people, maybe for the first time.

What does Cassie want from Stella?

Cassie is desperate for connection with Stella. Their lives were completely intertwined, and once Stella was out of the field and couldn't bear to speak to Cassie, Cassie realized how alone in the world she really was. She has so few opportunities to just be a person rather than a machine and a scientist, and she loves and admires Stella more than anything. Cassie thinks that if she can get Stella to come back to NASA and work from the ground on the Walden Mars mission, then at least they will always be connected, that Cassie will not be alone on Mars for the rest of her life in the great, terrifying expanse of the universe. She will always have her sister's support from the ground. The grave error she makes is that she assumes that Cassie and Stella still want all the same things. She can't believe, or more importantly, respect, that Stella wants or needs something else out of life.

It seems like Cassie has always been the most important person in Stella’s life. How does she feel knowing that Bryan has taken over that role?

Cassie is very suspicious of Bryan at first, about how quickly their relationship has moved, about Bryan's Earth Advocate political stance, and about the fact that Bryan is drawing Stella in the exact opposite direction of where Cassie wants her to go. Cassie aches at the realization that maybe she is no longer the person who knows Stella the best and knows what is best for her. It's a horrifying realization that maybe Bryan is enough for Stella, that there are things about Stella's mind and heart that Cassie will never understand, that Cassie's presence in Stella's life is painful and possibly destructive.

Is Cassie working to make herself, Stella, or their late father happy?

Cassie is working to make Stella and her late father proud. Cassie really only knows who she is in relation to the two of them, so following in their footsteps, earning their praise, and having her life choices and accomplishments approved by them is what keeps her on track. Without that, instability sets in, Cassie becomes desperate, and things come out sideways. If she were truly to make herself happy, that might require making decisions that stray from the path their father laid out for them, which might be a risk too great for even a formidable astronaut like Cassie to take.

What’s up next?

For Cassie, I think, Mars! For me, I'll next be onstage in the Wilma Theater's production of The America Play at the end of the season!

***

These were two absolutely phenomenal women, tackling something that I can’t imagine was easy.  Their keen insight and brilliant understanding of themselves and each other made for some very unique ties.  Walden was not an easy play to see, although I very much enjoyed it, and it was completely made by these two amazing women.  It’s so wonderful to see where this show lead them, as well.