‘Misery’ coming to Theatre C.R. studio stage

CEDAR RAPIDS — When fan turns fanatic, “Misery” ensues.

The play based on the movie based on the Stephen King novel is rolling from screen to stage, opening Theatre Cedar Rapids’ 2022-23 season with a nightmare from Friday, Oct. 14, to Halloween eve, Oct. 30.

Adding to the creep factor, this drama won’t unfold on the main stage, where the audience can keep a safe distance. No, this one will play out in the Grandon Studio, a subterranean black-box theater.

The audience will barely be at arm’s length as obsessed fan and former nurse Annie Wilkes brings bestselling romance writer Paul Sheldon into her remote residence, after finding him badly battered in a car crash. Proclaiming herself Sheldon’s “Number One Fan,” she becomes enraged when she discovers he killed off her favorite character, Misery Chastain, in the latest book in his “Misery” series.

Setting a typewriter in front of him, Annie forces him to write a new Misery story, and in her quest to keep him subdued and at task, his personal misery spirals ever downward.

“I think the Grandon is a great space for this, because (audience members) are going to be in it with Paul, a lot more than if they were just watching it on stage,” said Carrie Pozdol, 45, of Cedar Rapids, who plays Annie. “And they are going to be very close to us. It’s going to be a tense night for everybody.”

“They are in for just a wild, psychological thriller,” said her co-star, Matthew James, 44, of Iowa City, who portrays Paul. “It will make them feel like they are in the room with us.”

“All the torture, all the screams,” Pozdol added with evil glee.

“This is scary,” she said, but not in the same way “Dracula” created fright nights when James sank his teeth into that title role in the Grandon in 2019.

“Dracula is scary, but Dracula is also not a real thing. This potentially could be a real thing that happened to somebody,” Pozdol said. “Potentially.”

Defining characters

She describes Annie as “a passionate woman.”

“She is a determined woman, as she says. She lives heavily in a fantasy world. She found this character of Misery Chastain, and I think she sees a lot of her own struggles in Misery’s struggles, but Misery is living the life that Annie kind of wishes she could live,” Pozdol said.

“But I think it’s interesting, because Annie also is very religious and conservative, and Misery is (in) romance novels, so it’s very much like this slightly sexier side that Annie doesn’t dare go into in real life.”

Paul, on the other hand, “is a man who has crashed and burned and thinks he has become the Phoenix, only to find himself in a bird cage — a very dark and disturbing bird cage,” James said. “But I think it’s also a cage that he created — not just the allegory of addiction … but also the ‘Misery’ books and pursuing so many of those, too.

“We’ve talked a lot about how the (King novel) definitely goes into that, but just how writing itself is part of his addiction,” James said. “I think he’s so desperate for change, but his past comes looking for him.”

Journeys into darkness

Both Annie and Paul travel journeys filled with physical and psychological demons.

“I think that Annie starts in a very hopeful place. She’s excited and can’t believe her luck, in a way, at finding him,” Pozdol said. “It’s just such a codependent relationship. …

“I think she starts to grow her own sense of importance throughout the whole thing. She thinks there’s this connection that has been created that makes her special now.”

As the action unfolds, “I think she fancies herself a muse — and she might be — but she certainly thinks that she is. So that takes her on this journey where she feels like Paul owes her something,” Pozdol said. “And she lets herself believe, in a lot of moments, that he does feel stronger feelings for her than he does.”

In Paul’s journey, “he comes face to face with his reflection in the shadows,” James said. “And I think it forces him to start the process of recovery, rehabilitation, integration of his self. Obviously, he’s physically broken, but I think as much as he feels like maybe he is on top of the world, when he finishes … he’s really mentally shattered and this experience forces him to come to terms with that.”

Finding their own paths

Both actors have seen the movie — James saw it in his youth, and Pozdol watched it when she was thinking of auditioning for the play.

With iconic portrayals from Kathy Bates and James Caan in the lead cinematic roles, Pozdol and James recognize the importance of bringing their own character interpretations to the play.

“I'd be lying if I didn’t say I sometimes think about (the movie),” Pozdol said. “But what works for me is to really think about who Annie is, as a character and as a person, and go from there and just think about the language, think about how she moves, and just try and base it like with any other character that I would have. I tried to interpret it from what’s in the script that I have, and extrapolate from there.

“And then also, because Matthew is not James Caan, and has given me something different, I try to actually be in the moment and play off of that, too, because I definitely don’t want to do a Kathy.”

“I would echo that very much, very closely,” James said. “This is a theater in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in 2022, and that was a movie set in 1990. So just that alone is totally different. But it is hard to … not have that James Caan in my head. But exactly what (Pozdol) said, it’s just about reacting to what we’re presented with, the reality we have here, and connecting and building a relationship between us.”

The show also is giving veteran actor James a new challenge.

“I’ve never done a show where I was lying bed for most, or at least half, of it,” he said. “It just feels really odd to be like, ‘Well, I’m just lying here.’ ”

And Pozdol has never played a villain.

Setting boundaries

“It’s been really fun to have those moments where I can really go there. I feel like there’s not much that’s too over-the-top for Annie,” she said. “It’s really fun to play a bad guy — to be the menacing one, because I don’t get to do that much — ever — because of my sweet face.”

That face turns dark as Annie falls deeper into her obsession, so Pozdol wears another hat with the play, employing her specified training to serve as the show’s intimacy director, as she has done with other TCR productions.

“Matthew and I ran through what’s called a vulnerability practice, so that we could work on building our ability to be vulnerable with each other, because this is the first time we’ve ever worked together,” she said. "It’s really just about building and maintaining a consent-based work environment.

“And especially with something like this, using a trauma-informed practice,” she said, “ … understanding that everybody probably has some form of trauma, and we never know when that might come up. And even we, ourselves, might not know when we might be shaken by something. So it’s just knowing that boundaries can change.

“Boundaries are helpful, actually. Some people think that boundaries prohibit creativity, but they really don't. Having parameters really helps grow the creativity,” she said.

“Also, something that I’m hoping to start building is ‘tapping in’ and ‘tapping out,’ where we say to each other, ‘OK, we’re here now — we’re walking into this world,’ and then at the end, ‘OK, we’re leaving that behind,’ so we don’t keep that with us.”

No point in taking misery home.

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