Author's Note: Back in October, there was an entry about Jan Maxwell, a theater actress, written mostly in first person as the blog writer's 'discovery' of her. As a theater nerd, I love hearing when other people first saw other actors and actresses. But for Ms. Maxwell, I wanted to come back and write a more complete entry about her career.
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Jan Maxwell jokes that she 'found religion' in order to make it to New York.
Having grown up in Fargo, North Dakota, she attended community theater performances with her father, but wanted to see work produced in New York, so when she saw a campus ministries flier posted at her university about a trip to New York for fifty dollars, she jumped at the chance.
Her self-education in the New York theater scene drew her back east a few years later. One class away from graduating, Maxwell took the money her parents gave her for enrollment and used it move instead. According to her American Theatre Wing Downstage Center interview, Maxwell said: “I came out here blind.” She stayed with a friend, bought Backstage, and went to auditions. For a girl from North Dakota, she says the culture shock was very intense.
Maxwell was an understudy in the Broadway musical, City of Angels, and she eventually took over dual roles of Alaura and Carla, which were originated by Dee Hoty. She was also part of the American cast that replaced the original Irish cast in Dancing at Lughnasa. And in 1997, she played Kristine, the best friend of Janet McTeer's Nora in A Doll's House.
But as with most actresses featured on this blog, her career didn't really take off until she was in her 40s. She received her first Tony Award nomination (Best Featured Actress in a Musical) for her role of Baroness Bomburst in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. This role seemed to allow her a lot of creative input, as she came up with a couple comic moments for her character that weren't in the original script. In one scene, the Baroness is polishing a gun, and Maxwell had the idea for it to go off and accidentally kill someone, after which she declared, “Oopsy daisy.”
The characters she embodies are often darker: the Baroness in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, a child trafficker in Coram Boy (which earned her a second Tony nod), even Kath in Entertaining Mr. Sloane is hardly an easy character to empathize with, but Maxwell enjoys the challenge and seems to delight in it. “I enjoy being the salt in all that sugar,” she stated in her Downstage Center interview.
Even in plays not as well received by the critics, Maxwell is often praised. In Sixteen Wounded, a short-lived production (Maxwell jokingly refers to it as 'Sixteen Performaces'), in which she played Sonya, a Russian prostitute, The New York Times critic Ben Brantley credited her performance with: “an inkling of complexity in her character....But it's an idea that registers fully only when Ms. Maxwell is around” (The New York Times, April 16, 2004).
In 2010, she became only the fourth actor to receive two Tony nominations in the same season. One for Best Actress in a Play for her role as Julie Cavendish in The Royal Family and another as Best Featured Actress in a Play for Maria in Lend Me a Tenor.
Maxwell often speaks of how great an experience The Royal Family was. Rosemary Harris, who played the role of Julie in the 1975 version, moved up to the family matriarch role as Fanny in the 2009 version. Maxwell stepped into the role of Julie, but says Harris never told her how the role should be done and let Maxwell make it her own.
“I think for me, one out of ten theatrical experiences is fulfilling,” Maxwell said.
Even if that's the case, Maxwell looks as if she's enjoying herself on stage, especially in her most recent role as Phyllis Rogers Stone in Stephen Sondheim's Follies.
Although Maxwell jokes about her musical ability: “If they want someone with a five note range who is more of an actress, they call me”, if Follies earns Maxwell a fifth Tony nomination for her performance, she will be the second woman (after Angela Lansbury) to have been nominated in all four of the Tony actor categories.
Regardless of whether this milestone occurs or not, it sounds like Maxwell will be on the stage for a long time to come.
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Source: American Theatre Wing Downstage Center podcast (Jan Maxwell, November 2008)
