By Tom Nondorf
01 Jun 2007

LAW & ORDER: WTF
I spoke to B. D. Wong via phone, as he was on his way in to work in L.A. filming scenes for "Law & Order: SVU" on which he plays forensic psychiatrist Dr. George Huang. Upon completing the current shooting episode, he will begin rehearsals in New Jersey for Herringbone, the one-of-a-kind, one-man, multi-character, vaudeville, murder musical that opens up this year's Williamstown Theatre Festival in Williamstown, MA. Williamstown is a long way from L.A., or New York for that matter, but it attracts first-rate folks like Wong because it's that mythic place that comes to vibrant life each year, where everyone is living and breathing theatre for the duration. Herringbone, with book by Tom Cone and direction by Festival artistic director Roger Rees, will run from June 14–24. The show represents a bit of unfinished business for Wong.

Question: Are you looking forward to being in Williamstown?
B.D. Wong: I was up there less than ten years ago doing a John Guare play called Chaucer in Rome and loved it. It is a great place to work, kind of a theatre-loving place, so it's really fun. Over the years it has developed its own audience as well as the ability to attract talented people. A win-win situation for the actors as well as the audience.

Q: You performed Herringbone before, 15 years ago at the American Music Theater Festival in Philadelphia. What brings you back to it?
Wong: I never got what I wanted out of that production. The itch wasn't fully scratched. I wasn't completely satisfied with my work in it and the production itself, and so I've always wanted to try and get it right. I've been working for quite a few years on getting someone interested in doing it, and the Festival was the perfect place for it.

Q: What will you do differently?
Wong: The play is so tricky that it really does require wall-to-wall discussions of acting as a foundation for all of it. You can't kind of just do it. You have to talk about every second of it and say, "Are the director and the actor on the same page as to what's really supposed to be happening, and how we can achieve that?" I didn't have the luxury of that discussion in the previous production. I have in this production a really great sense of that with the choreographer and the director, and it really is helping a great deal. It really needs to be fleshed out completely; it can't just happen. A lot of times you can do a rather standard play, and you can just do it because it's kind of right all up front. The characters are saying what they're saying; take it at face value. All you have to do is kind of polish it and don't bump into the furniture. This is not one of those don't-bump-into-the-furniture kind of plays.

Q: So you have long been a champion of the piece. What drew you to it originally?
Wong: Initially, the original performance of the play at Playwright's Horizons with David Rounds was not to be matched and completely mesmerizing, so as a very, very, young actor I was really inspired by that. It was incredible. Not that that could ever be re-created, but his mastery of the piece and his ability to mesmerize the audience was really intoxicating. That was one thing. The other thing was I have always liked multi-character work that crosses gender. That's kind of my thing. There are very few plays, very few roles that offer the opportunity to explore that — really interesting, different kinds of speech patterns, physicalities, and all of that. That's all here in this, and I found that really interesting and well-suited to me when I saw it many years ago.

Q: I have not been lucky enough to catch one of the incarnations of Herringbone, with Rounds, you, or Joel Grey… but I have to say it sounds incredibly unique and cool.
Wong: It is, of all things, cool. I think it is one of the coolest things ever. And, I really have always liked it because in many ways it is a very traditionally written musical. We have the two acts and 16 songs and a great, interesting plot, and the finale of the first act is very interesting, what's going to happen and all that. It is very traditional, and yet the whole thing is kind of subverted by the way it is performed. It's actually written kind of straight, like you could theoretically get 11 people to perform it. It wouldn't resonate the same way because the whole point is that one person does it, but the story would be told the same way, and so that's what's kind of odd and interesting about it.

Q: The pressure on the actor in a show like this must be immense.
Wong: I can't deny it. I feel a constant pressure. There's no relying on anything but you once you're out there, and also the demand of it. There's no understudy. And, I don't want the audience working to try and understand it. I want to have to do that, and that creates a whole lot of pressure. There's no such thing as a role that doesn't create one kind of pressure or another, so that's part and parcel of taking the job on. I'm not complaining about it at all, but I do feel that pressure.

Q: How does the music fit in to the show?
Wong: I love the music. The one thing that attracts me to any piece is the intelligence of the composer and the lyricist to writing for character and writing something that is appropriate for any given moment in the piece, not just a kind of music-for-the-sake-of-music thing. There are a lot of talented composers who write very wonderful music, but how that music actually has anything to do with any given moment in a musical is not always aesthetically present. Skip Kennon [music] and Ellen Fitzhugh [lyrics]'s creative marriage on this project is a really good fit. They really always write appropriate to the moment and the driving of the plot, so the score is wonderful. It's a wonderful kind of unknown score.

Q:Will you continue to balance your successful TV career with stage and song opportunities?
Wong: It is always, always, always one of the harder things to do for me. I remain on "SVU" because it is an incredible opportunity. It affords me also the additional opportunity of doing just this very kind of thing. I am really grateful for the opportunity to do that because it's pretty rare I think, and I also choose to live in New York, and it's been really great that way. This particular gig worked out to be something that fit perfectly, and "SVU" is very generous to me about working these things out. That's part of my deal with them. . . . I'll probably take an episode or two off to do the actual run of the show and then come back to the show when I am done in Williamstown.

(For tickets to Herringbone or other Williamstown Theatre Festival productions, call (413) 597-3400 or visit wtfestival.org.)

HITHER AND YON
B.D. Wong won his Tony in 1988 for Best Featured Actor in a Play for his role as Song Liling in M. Butterfly. A more arcane bit of trivia: I'm sure this will be commonplace in a matter of months, but Wong is the first person I've known to have an ringback in his phone. That is, when one calls him, instead of hearing rings, one hears the Emotions singing "Best of My Love." "I love it. It confuses people," he says . . . . Early June, the 4th to be exact, at 8:30 PM, cabaret sensation and two-time MAC Award winner Brandon Cutrell will be celebrating the release of his new self-titled CD with a performance at Feinstein's at Loews Regency. For ticket info call (212) 339-4095 or visit feinsteinsattheregency.com. . . . On June 17 Cutrell will be a part of David Gurland's pride-celebrating show at the Laurie Beechman Theatre featuring songs made famous by Judy Garland. Gurland's other guests include Rob Maitner and Brian Farley. Ray Fellman music directs. That's at 7 PM. Call (212) 695-6909 for reservations or learn more at www.westbankcafe.com or www.davidgurland.com. . . . Jordan Gelber — of Avenue Q fame — is among the cast of the new Doug Grissom play Elvis People opening at New World Stages June 21, with previews beginning June 6. For tickets visit Telecharge.com or call (212) 239-6200; for more information go to www.elvispeople.com…Also in June: The American Theatre Wing's Tony Awards! June 10. Enjoy!

Tom Nondorf is an associate publications editor for Playbill. He can be reached by e-mail at tnondorf@playbill.com.