Actor Emma Messenger is an Artist to the Core
And Also a Force of Nature
Photo courtesy of Emma Messenger
Onstage or off, Emma Messenger is a force of nature, and this weekend she appears as Annie Wilkes in William Golding's Misery at Miners Alley Performing Arts Center in Golden. She's working with director Warren Sherrill, one of the best around and who has just been announced the company's associate artistic director, along with two fine actors, Mark Collins and Torsten Hillhouse.
Misery is based on Stephen King's novel about a fan who takes her favorite author home to tend, having found him badly injured on a deserted road after a car accident. At first he appreciates her apparently kind nurturance but by degrees and over time he--and those of us in the audience--discover that Annie, his Number One Fan, is stark raving mad, and when she finds out that his current work in progress doesn't suit her tastes, her revenge is terrible.
Emma has played the role once before, at the Edge Theatre, with Warren Sherrill directing as now and Rick Yaconis as her petrified victim. I noted then that she was thunder and lightning as Annie, a terrifying monster. But Emma is also capable of complexity and here's what I wrote for Westword: "Messenger deploys her entire, powerful arsenal as an actor to communicate Annie’s deceptive softness and the steely will behind it, her volatile mix of helplessness, vindictiveness and fear."
"It's an absolute blessing to have a second go at this role," Emma says in an interview. And, she adds, to be working again with Sherrill.
"He does not allow you to get indulgent. I feel very safe with him. He allows a lot of exploration and he'll pull me back if something has gone too far."
She continues, "Warren and I are building on what we had before. I'm older. We've all been through covid, isolation and feeling trapped."
Emma is also delighted to be acting with Torsten Hillhouse, who she describes as one of the most authentic actors she's known and with the talented Mark Collins in the role of sheriff.
"I re-read the book very recently," she says, "and that added a lot to the story, made me aware of where the script is different. I love Stephen King; he's really a quality writer.
"The book is very much from Paul's point of view, Annie is an outside force. But in the play you get to see the logic behind the things she does. It's a very skewed lonely place, Annie's brain, but there's a certain logic to it, you can see where she's coming from. Misery is basically a love story between a fan and the artist she has a crush on. There's this aspirational romance heroine Annie is in love with and wants to be, and she's completely failed in every way. This is the ghost haunting this cabin in the mountains.
"The play touches on how artists have a responsibility to their fans, and art and fans can take over. That triangle gets out of balance sometimes.
"If Annie was a dog she'd be my rottweiler," Emma concludes. "We all have the monsters we live with."
I told you Emma goes deep into her art. We'll get back to the rottweiler later.
I ask Emma to tell me a little about her background. She says she grew up in Texas with very British parents who were "horrified they were raising Americans. It gives you a different perspective on the world to be an outsider."
There was also a time in her life when she was very poor, living as a single mother in Los Angeles. "I felt trapped and unfulfilled. Now I have a lovely husband who is my number one fan. He comes to every show. He's also very intelligent and it's good to have someone you can talk things over with and who puts you back in balance. I'm so lucky to have him."
Some years back, Rich Messenger got a job in Aurora and the couple moved to Colorado. "I thought I'd never act again," Emma says. "Little did I know there's a wonderful thriving theatre community here."
It took a while to break into that community, but eventually some excellent roles came Emma's way. Unhappily, they were followed by the covid years.
"The thing about being an actor is you have to wait to be invited to do your art," she comments. "And after covid there was a real and necessary push to open up theatre to marginalized groups and there were fewer roles for a middle-aged white woman. I think I just fell through the cracks."
Still, Emma's artistry couldn't be contained, and she began making quilts at home, beautiful, complex creations that had people clamoring to buy them. As well as answering these requests and asking for little more payment than needed for materials, Emma also made sure some of the money went to the Denver Actors Fund, set up by John Moore to help support members of the community in need.
"Making the quilts was a way of reconnecting," Emma says. "Sort of putting your own taste aside for somebody else's is like taking a character on for a short period of time and looking through their eyes. Making a piece of art for somebody is a way of connecting with them on a deep level.
"I like making art and like making it for someone else."
She has also experimented with resin and now, in the cold season, Emma's busy making warm hats. If you check out your favorite theatre artist on Faceback, that person is likely to be wearing one of her creations.
Now on to the rottweiler, Beatrice, who Emma took on when the dog became too difficult for her mother to handle. These days Emma's Facebook page is filled with photos of Beatrice destroying something, making trouble, digging up plants, being generally out of control. In fact at first there seemed to be some question about Emma keeping "this hundred and ten pounds of pure muscle and huge teeth" at all.
That question has faded.
"She's a real personality," Emma says. "I've had dogs all my life and there's been no one like Beatrice. Some might say she's psycho, but I think she just believes deeply that she's the queen of the world and as long as everybody agrees, we're fine. She's wild, but she has a beautiful heart. She is so intelligent, and like any intelligent being if you don't keep her entertained she's going to get into trouble.
"I feel I have a toddler again."
Things are settling inside the theatre world and in March Emma will be playing Amanda Wingfield in Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie at the Vintage Theatre in Aurora.
"Slumps come to every career and I hope this little rest is over," Emma says. "But it was okay. There were plenty of other things to do and life quickly fills up. You make your own creative place."
In fact what Emma has done is shape a swirl of color and warmth that brightens not only her own creative place, but the places of others who know her.
And of Beatrice.
Misery plays from January 19 to February 11 at 1100 Miners Alley, Golden. For times and prices: 303-935-3044. mail@minersalley.com