What's SKINTIGHT All About? Idina Menzel & Company Explain!

Hi there, I'm Katie Lynch here at the American Airlines Theater

chatting with the cast and creative of the new Roundabout Theater Company's off-Broadway show called Skin Tight

Beginning previews on May 31st and opening June 21st. Can't wait to see what the show is all about

The last time I was at Roundabout was working on Joshua Harmon's Bad Jews, and that was such a blessed and rich experience for me

so it's really great to be back here and doubly great to be back with one of Josh's new place

We've been with the show for a little bit now. What is it about Joshua Harmon's words and his play that keeps bringing you back

He just has that way that most amazing playwrights have of saying something in a way that maybe we've heard before

but never in that particular way. And there's a wonderful rhythm to his writing that feels really natural and organic

makes our lives easier as actors. He's especially sweet. and kind and just really enjoying this whole process

It's a savage play, beautiful, strong, provocative, and I play a man at the brink

He's about to celebrate a landmark birthday, and he's achieved so much wealth, fame, notoriety

success and he's still hungry for it because of another character in this play

and it all gets challenged you give me just a little background about what the show is

and your character uh the show is about a woman going through a divorce who comes home to her wealthy father mansion and Upper West Side and he has a new 20 boyfriend and I play the

new 20-year-old boyfriend. His grandfather is a very famous fashion designer and so he

has this kind of like you know Americana world that he's created with a lot of wealth

a lot of polish and I think that Benjamin is kind of trying to find

where his history, you know, his culture identity fits into that. So I played Jeff. Jeff is the houseboy

He was once upon a time a lover of Elliot, but he's sort of aged out of that role

and now works for Elliot full-time, attending to his every need of the house

drinks, meetings, sort of helping him attend to his personal affairs. I am the Hungarian housekeeper to the star

and I think my main job is to be invisible. Yeah, it's so fun

What's it like to be working with such an amazing company like Roundabout? It's a blessing

I mean, it really is. I mean, this is my first production in New York

and to be able to come from L.A., from a film background and step into such an esteemed theater place

It's just really cool. So you're Ida's son in the show. What's it like working with her and in her first straight acting role

It's so great. She's amazing. She's so fun. You know, I was nervous because I thought, well, maybe she's a diva

I don't know. Who the hell knows? And she's not. She's the real deal

She's so talented. She so fun to work with It just we really play off each other off each other Like uh it just it kind of perfect Um and and uh I I feel a lot of real true affection for her

So that's convenient for, for playing a mother and son. I pinch myself every time I, like, look across the room and watch her, like

doing this amazing thing that she does. I mean, you know, you, when you, when you watch someone and you, like, in the minute

they open their mouth, you instantly. I understand why they are who they are

Do you know what I mean? And that she has such an incredible gift that just she looks at you

and it's just like this talent just like oozes out of it. It's incredible. The play is about aging and beauty and youth

but it's especially being in rehearsal now. It's gone much deeper for me

It's about family, reconnecting to your history. It's about Judaism. specifically my character's going through a real tough time in her life

and she's feeling really lonely and rejected and she wants to reconnect with her father

and go home and find some kind of comfort and solace and unfortunately as you may know

sometimes when we go home to our families we're not always as comforted as we think we're going to be

Josh is writing one of the things that's distinctive about Josh's writing is he's asking questions that he's genuinely trying to figure out where he stands

And so it's not presenting answers to these questions, it's just, but it is presenting a deep exploration and very divergent points of view

And one feels in the writing that Josh the urgency of Josh wrestling with these issues and I think a lot of these issues are at the center of the culture right now What do you want the audience to take from this show I want them to ask themselves the same questions that I asked myself when I read the play

which was how important is beauty and youth and sex and sexuality and everything that we sort of think about

but we're almost too scared to talk about sometimes because we don't want anyone to judge us

for being superficial or shallow. I think it's about beauty. It's about fleeting beauty

It's about how hard we try to stay vital. One of the things that's most exciting about it to me

is that there's so many things to take from it. And it's really..

It's got a lot of texture and a lot of depth. And, you know, it's not..

It's not a simple takeaway. Well, there's a great line in the play again. You don't get to choose people's words

You can speak for yourself. But we fall into the trap of we want to speak for other people

And as I get older, as this character gets older, it's like, no, you have to dare to speak your own truth

But that's not necessarily someone else's true. The way that Daniel, our director, works with us

It really comes from an organic place. and everything we find all these moments

He doesn't force anything, and he really waits to see kind of what comes naturally

And then, I mean, I'm just in the middle of it all right now, so it's hard for me to say objectively

But, yeah, I'm just excited for people to see this really unique family

and watch how their dysfunction comes out on stage