Interview- Part 1 with Paul Anninos

What interested you in auditioning for this play?

I haven’t acted in a production since 2006. Much of this was due my wife, Missy, and I becoming parents to our daughter, Alexis. During those 4 years, I’ve dabbled in other art forms but was unable to satisfactorily scratch that creative itch, so I made the decision to put my big toe in the water again as an actor. I wasn’t aware that when I auditioned for this production, and subsequently cast as Uncle Peck, a lot more than my big toe was going to get wet.

How will you make character decisions for your role in this play?

I’ll begin with the play itself and see if I can’t find what Paula Vogel wants to say through Uncle Peck. Ultimately, I’m looking forward to collaborating with Rod and my fellow actors on finding the appropriate emotional content and translating that into visual actions and behaviors that will best exhibit Ms. Vogel’s and Rod’s intentions.

I do think that in order for the character and the relationship he has with Lil’ Bit to be accepted as believable, there has to be some kind of balance in the character of Uncle Peck. Yes, he commits the most heinous of abuses (potentially more egregious than murder), but there must be some elements of Peck’s character and the relationship that appeals to Lil’ Bit.

Will there be anything difficult in preparing for this role?

It’s very difficult to delve into the subject of sexual child abuse and the role of Uncle Peck requires that I explore both sides of the issue: as a victim of and, in the context of the play, as an abuser. Ironically, I think that part of Vogel’s intent is call attention to the fact that our inability to confront this kind of abuse individually, within a family unit or as a culture, on some level, propagates the abuse.

There are explicit examples of the abuse that Lil’ Bit endures throughout the play, but with Uncle Peck the only specific indication that the audience gets of his own sexual abuse is at play’s end when Lil’ Bit plainly asks when it happened to him. That required me to enlist my imagination to construct episodes of sexual child abuse that my character undergoes. The experience of imagining such things, knowing that they have and do happen and realizing that they may not, in actuality, be so far outside our lives is chilling and demoralizing.

Stay tuned for Part 2 next week.