Beth Wilmurt goes `Boating’ in Berkeley

You've heard about monsters being unleashed and wreaking havoc in New York? Well, Beth Wilmurt was just such a monster.

The San Francisco-based actor played a ferocious dragon in the final scenes of Beowulf: A Thousand Years of Baggage, the Shotgun Players/Banana Bag & Bodice musical that headed to New York after its award-winning birth in Berkeley.

Wilmurt replaced Cameron Galloway, who plays a starchy academic for most of the play then, at the end, turns into a dragon for one final battle scene with the warrior Beowulf. This was Wilmurt's first New York performance experience, and she describes it as "a super-positive experience."

"It felt like the best possible circumstances to be in New York," she says. "I was there for about five weeks with one thing to concentrate on, this wonderful artistic experience. I had my days free during the run of the show, and during rehearsal I could go out at night and see shows. I saw a ton of theater and ran into a lot of people missing the Bay Area."

Once she got home, Wilmurt didn't have much time to dawdle before she was back in the rehearsal room, this time for the Bay Area premiere of Bob Glaudini's Jack Goes Boating, a four-person romantic comedy that begins performances this week at Berkeley's Aurora Theatre Company. The play, directed by Joy Carlin, is about two couples, one more established, played by Amanda Duarte and Gabriel Marin, and one just forming, played by Wilmurt and Danny Wolohan.

The 2007 play was originally part of the LAByrinth Theater Company season starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, who will direct the upcoming film version.

Wilmurt describes her character, Connie, as somewhat troubled. "I think she might even have some sort of diagnosed problem, though it's never specified," she says. "She's dealing with issues, and Danny's character, Jack, clearly has some, too. Here are two people in their late 30s/early 40s, and they're facing a long-term relationship for the first time. Why hasn't that happened thus far? There isn't a lot of plot in the play, but there are obstacles. The obstacles are simple seeming, but they represent bigger obstacles for the individual."

The role of Connie is somewhat similar to a role Wilmurt played in a previous Aurora outing, John Guare's Bosoms and Neglect (seen above, with Wilmurt and Cassidy Brown), which Carlin also directed.

"Joy is an amazing actor, right? So it's no surprise that she's a really good director when it comes to getting inside a moment," Wilmurt says. "She senses when a moment isn't fully embodied and senses what the rhythm should be. She can get inside these micro-moments and help figure out the timing and depth of them. She can speak from the outside in, and she's a great comedic actress."

Wilmurt is no slouch herself. The Bay Area native grew up in Dublin (in the Tri-Valley area, not Ireland) and began her performing career at the Willows Theatre in Concord and has worked consistently since doing musicals, musical revues, plays and productions of her own creation.

With her partner, Mark Jackson, she founded Art Street Theatre in 1995, which produced a show a year for about 10 years. Ask Wilmurt about her favorite theatrical memories –her time in Germany studying, creating and performing in theater and dance gets a shout out, but Art Street is at the top of the list.

"I have a ridiculous amount of great memories from Art Street," she says. "We worked with a lot of the same people, and everyone had such amazing energy and enthusiasm. I certainly loved doing Io, Princess of Argos. I had an idea and started talking to Mark about combining Greek mythology and cabaret. We got Marcy Karr involved and just started writing it. We wrote the show and 15 songs in about four months. We didn't preview it or workshop it. We just did it, whatever, flaws and all. Art Street was like our own little school because we were just moving forward and not worrying how things were received."

Though completely immersed in Jack Goes Boating (and anticipating her next Shotgun show, Marcus Gardley and Molly Holm's a cappella musical This World in a Woman's Hands in the fall), Wilmurt is feeling that old Art Street itch to create new works.

"I'm really attracted to brand-new work," she says. "I like the problem-solving aspect, the figuring out how it's all going to work. I've worked with so many great companies and choreographers and directors, and I like all kinds of performance—musicals, plays, fringe, cabaret, dance – and I'm getting these ideas for plays. Should I be in them? Should I pitch them? Direct them? It's that Art Street energy: gotta create a show!"

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Bob Glaudini's Jack Goes Boating performs June 12-July 19 at the Aurora Theatre Company, 2081 Addison St., Berkeley. Tickets are $28-$42. Call 510-843-4822 or visit www.auroratheatre.org for information.