 Aloha! My name is Steven Philip Katz. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist here in Honolulu and I wanted to welcome you once again to Shrink Wrap Hawaii and I am really excited because I have a fabulous actress sitting, waiting to come on right on my left side here and I saw her in a play put on by the Actors group about the one I saw was about 10 days ago and it was called Coyotes and welcome to Shrink Wrap Hawaii Rebecca Lee McCarthy. Thanks for having me. So as I was telling you before I loved the play Coyotes and you as the lead just blew me away with your interpretation of that part. Thank you. Could you be so kind as to fill our audience in give us a little thumbnail about what happens in the play? Well the play is written by a local playwright first of all his name is Eric Anderson he lives over on the Big Island and he's just a marvelous playwright we're very lucky to have had his work Grace Art Theatre really fantastic but he tells the story of a woman who is searching for love basically but our understanding of love individually and collectively is not always the same so her search takes kind of a left-hand turn and because the show is over I guess I can give you the spoiler alert she goes through many different types of love marital love she goes through this idea of romantic love this idea of I would say pure love what's the word I'm looking for altruistic love she also experiences motherly love and in the end she experiences the most amazing kind of love in a sense it's a love of freedom without judgment and that's kind of the idea of her journey is is her searching for that perfect kind of love for herself as a human being. Okay so what I saw on stage when you when it up when the play opens you're there with the character playing your husband and I got this sense of two people either the connection has died or never was but there's two people who have seemingly lived a long time together and used to each other's habits and the guy he's like a piece of wood sitting there reading the newspaper and your character is trying to connect in some way it looks like but it's being totally taken for granted ignored and it's painful to watch. Yeah it is it was a interesting scene to work on because pretty much you hit it on the nail on the head is that it's a relationship that she says later on in the play when she meets somebody who captures her heart she says that her marriage was one of convenience that and the line that was actually cut from the play during the process of rehearsal was that she had said something to the effect of it was both getting very late it was getting very late for both of them and so they decided to get married so they got along they probably could converse to some degree but I don't think that there was any spark there in that particular relationship that was clear as time goes on they just lost the ability to find interest in each other so there's another line she says at one point when she talks about her parents and they didn't like music and she says something to the effect of it's not that they thought it was sinful or anything like that they just had no interest in it as if it were bad mitten and I always thought that that was a really good description of her first marriage that it's just we're just doing it it's just bad mitten back and forth back and forth without any no passion passion any need not even really any friendship there just just going through the motions and she didn't even seem to be getting her her half of whatever it was it was like if it was a marriage of convenience it looked to be mostly his convenience like it takes him a while to realize she's gone when she leaves and then they ask the the the neighbor comes over or something and says well I know somebody asked him you know well he says she went to get my cleaning or drop off my cleaning and he didn't even know a cleaner yeah has no idea about her life or what she does to for him for him or the family but you know one could say that is you know I always thought it was partly her fault too how much has she tried to reach out in the past how much has she tried to engage it's interesting we see the husband character throughout the play he does engage with the new woman he finds the next door neighbor now they engage through food they communicate through food and story and she's a bit dominating as compared to my character right but they there is something there yeah and tell the very end and the very end there seems to he seems to go back to where he was with me so obviously something she's not able to reach him either and and of course the big question is how much did she try I'm sure she tried mm-hmm but I think for the motivation for my character is in her brain feelings is that she she tried her very very best over and over and over again and she just knows she's gonna die if she stays there mm-hmm so now that's interesting because it leads me to what I was curious about how you built this character so you what you seem to have done is you create this backstory mm-hmm right where you said your character's name is Eve Eva Eva so you've given her a life that starts before the play oh yeah yeah how do you do that you know I think it is a evolution and every actor goes through it I think a little bit differently I just start with the words and I find little bits of evidence throughout so like I told you before there was a line in there about her parents not liking music yeah and her mom telling her to stop so that was a huge clue for me and that helped us build that first scene with the husband and wife because he stops her every time she hums he makes a noise or he hits the newspaper and then other characters stop her to the only character who really doesn't stop her there's a couple characters but the one that the man she leaves her husband for yeah he sings to her and it's that moment where he sings out loud that she goes oh all right I'm gonna I'm gonna do this this is I have to do this it's that's her her little nugget right so but then the obvious question is she meets this guy in the museum who is very forward and seems to be everything her husband wasn't right and charming yeah and interested in her and wants to build a relationship and they make an agreement to meet the next day because she says oh I have to take care of get my things in order go back to her house and tell her husband I'm gone forever or whatever and then she doesn't show right so did you as the actress playing this character decide for yourself why she doesn't show oh absolutely I think it's vital all of us even if we're not terribly conscious of the fact we always have a motivation for how we behave right and if you are a performer you have to be aware of that motivation you may not play the awareness but you have to be aware of where it comes from if you will so for for my character there's a line with her new man where he tells her oh you're just so beautiful and she realizes in that moment that her beauty will only last so long to him like in my in creating my backstory my first husband said to me oh you're beautiful and we can have a life together and so she hears it again and she thinks to herself it's not gonna be so the beginning is never enough you have to have more to continue and she doesn't want to find herself in the same place I think she doesn't trust intimacy after her husband she doesn't trust that intimacy can be sustained mm-hmm without there being a leash attached so there's a line in the second scene that you see me with the the my new gentleman Carrie yeah or Cappy called the character Cappy where she says I feel like I have a new leash on life and then she corrects herself she says lease so that's in the script it's in the script and so these are the little keys that you start to find when you are a performer I think at least that's what I do is I find those little moments and then I apply it to my backstory and then I apply it for each scene and then I try to find where the path goes through the words and with this script it was really wonderful because the author gave us several phrases that were said over and over and over again in different scenarios and different moments and these phrases became for me the anchor of my backstory mm-hmm yeah but I mean as a in my practice as a therapist mm-hmm about half the work I do is with couples and even most of the work that I do that's with individuals is about their primary relationship with their significant other boyfriend girlfriend husband wife and what you just described I think is always there the balance between intimacy and feeling like you're on a leash mm-hmm and so she opts to run because she decides it's she doesn't want to risk her freedom never right for her the moment a leash is placed on her she can't breathe yeah it's like having and and one of the things is it's interesting you always you can only use what you got as an actress right so but you have to be willing to use what you have and I have panic disorder and I also have anxiety disorder and I've had it my entire life so I capture that feeling I try to capture that feeling of what it feels like at that moment when you can't breathe when you know that the panic all the chemicals flood your body which is why I told you earlier that I think was so exhausting to do this play is that I knew I'd have to tap into it all the way through in order to be successful with this particular character because she has to go through this crazy evolution to where she goes mad at the end of the play she goes mad she separates herself from all humanity and the only being she can communicate with is a coyote and even the coyote she has some struggles with yeah yeah yeah that is very brave of you to use that and I just thought of this woman that I'm working with who in her previous relations relationship she could never get close to this guy and she was always looking for more affection more attention and that ended and now she's terrified because her new boyfriend he just wants to be with her all the time he doesn't have another life and she feels like smothered right like no I can't find a hubby yeah stuff though timing I wonder you know of people's lives and timing being right I mean I'm in a relationship right now with somebody that I we both work from home we both act we go and we work out together we are together all the time and I think any other point in time in my life I would have been the same I would have been all these much I mean it's a 300 square foot space we live in you know how long we've been together we've two two and a half years and you revealed to me that he was your husband right in the play right and we do that we are no actually we're constantly cast opposite each other we were in American dream together and we were in defiance together and I think our energies just work really well we play like from the first day we started working together on stage we just worked really well together which is odd because our technique or how we approach it is entirely different hi I'm Nicole Alexander Enos and I was born three weeks ago congratulations on being there for me for some of the few weeks of my life I'm starting a new show the Millennial Mind every Wednesday at 2 p.m. for the month of April where we'll go over some of the reasons why Millennials are some of the most anxious and frustrated people at the moment hey has your signal just been taken over or am I supposed to be here this is Andrew the security guy your co-host on Hibachi talk please join us every Friday on Think Tech Hawaii hi I'm Cheryl Crozier Garcia I'm the host of working together on Think Tech Hawaii it's a program where we discuss the impact of change on workers employers and the economy so join us every other Tuesday from 4 o'clock to 4 30 we're live in the studio on working together in Think Tech Hawaii take care see you soon bye welcome back to shrink wrap Hawaii I'm Steve Katz still with my guest Rebecca Lee McCarthy and we're talking about the crossover between art and life theater the play Coyote in this case and you were just saying you had several therapists come see the play yeah we did we did and I think it's quite the same reason that you know you you were kind of interested is the the navigating of the relationships and also how do you allow yourself to go to a place of madness and then emerge if you do it if you try to really commit to the moment of that madness what does it mean to disengage from your brain I've had a couple people ask me that and I'm not sure I have a good answer for it do you felt like that's what you did in the play oh yeah most definitely sort of dissociative disorder we call it multiple personality disorder now they call it dissociative disorder yeah it's some other people yeah I think she well I don't know she becomes a different person she just checks out like she just becomes engrossed in her own world and that world no longer really connects with the everyday world right so she can still talk to we have a UPS man who actually is kind of her soulmate in a weird way that's where the mother thing came out a little bit no that was the character before that there was a eagle the young man all right right right who she can't get rid of she can't get rid of a young boy who comes upon her house she's already beginning to go into madness when this young man shows up at her doorstep injured stabbed from being part of a drug deal right and she feels that she has to help him although she doesn't really want to right but she feels it's her responsibility and he tries to use her right to have a place to live and he even tries to tell her that he loves her and she knows she knows really angry yeah it makes her really angry because she knows she's he's lying and indeed when she calls him on it he goes God I just wanted a place to stay you know and she's like you know get out of here but that moment is her break moment so but what about the relationship with the woman before that the woman that she was working for and then the woman suggests partnership which sort of has an ambiguous meaning I think which was that intentional no we talked about it a lot about that possibility of it being romantic as well as kind of a business partnership we decided against it because there wasn't any text really in the scenes to entirely support that type of relationship but romantic romantic but intimate certainly yes sisters I want to be sisters with you so for that character she has a very spiritual bent and even as Eva goes into interview with a job the job is with for your for your viewers my character goes in for a job at wellsprings which is a clinic or a organization that helps women who are in a bad place right and the head of the organization is very spiritual I'd say she's even she imagines herself as a nun so there's that type of intimacy between sisters between nuns that is probably just as intense as it is for people who have a romantic but even that is too scary for it for Eva I think what it is is this idea that she is going to all of a sudden save everybody there's you know we're gonna build one wellspring then we'll build another wellspring is a suggestion that's made by the other character and that will be sisters and every time she says we're sisters my character Eva says no no Marcia we aren't sisters don't please please don't because she doesn't feel comfortable with that and I think mostly for Eva she feels like it's a lie she can't trust anybody well it's not only that she can't trust anybody but to pretend that she's going to be able to make a huge difference in the world is to her a lie and Eva's somebody who who likes to imagine things but she's probably not very comfortable with living a life that can she considered to be a lie word but that's pressing I mean is that I mean that sounds like somebody who is really kind of depressed to me somebody who doesn't believe that a person can make a difference in the world yeah I think that she is at that place though yeah because she doesn't necessarily believe in herself any more than she believes that she's able to go out and have these little mini successes after she runs away from her marriage yeah but she doesn't want to commit to the success she just wants to I think she just wants to find a solution where she feels like she can breathe and and the only solution by herself yeah just to cloister herself off from society and from society's expectations but then she goes off with the coyote and freezes to death yeah but it is happy for her I mean I think she finds what she's looking for so but that's the interesting dichotomy between the the actor and the character right so if I'm talking as the character yeah I probably wouldn't be sitting here but if I'm talking to maybe just once she definitely finds what she's looking for she is she holds the one thing that would never allow her to hold a coyote the coyote I've decided at the end it actually comes to her she falls in the snow probably hurts herself it's a blizzard and the coyote doesn't run off though the coyote comes to her and lays on her and then dies with her so there is so as a therapist I would say she gets close by finally making herself vulnerable yeah and I would say that's exactly it so I mean this can have ramifications like in Honolulu when you see somebody who is what we would call mad you know somebody living off by themselves in the forest on the pulley or in a box somewhere I mean there's a big debate you know the ACLU says leave these people alone they deserve freedom and then you know other people feel like these people need help they really are ill and that they need even though they they might not tell you they need help it's our humane responsibility to help them and but I wonder about this woman because she takes care of herself she meets her basic needs right she has food and shelter until she doesn't right but that's the that's the rub until she doesn't until she doesn't well I think the the question is what kind of help who's who's to say that a certain form of help is the right form of help you know so the postman at the very end of the play wants to take care of her there's no common there's this there's that yeah and she's she even looks at him because I've never been better that's the last line she has to another human being in the play basically well she she has to sign for a package but that's the last serious line and she absolutely believes she has never been better she I imagine by the time she gets to that part of the play her anxiety is gone she's not dealing with it day to day she is living life on her own is it though that's how it ends up she dies I don't think she wants to die I think that she just slipped and fell I think she slipped and fell yeah and but she lives out in the middle of nowhere so there was nobody there to give her any help the big mistake for Eva is that she didn't know from snow so that's one of the things she says is you know he goes there got a storm coming I'm a little worried about you and she goes I know from snow and she doesn't right but I mean the whole idea that can a person be truly happy by themselves I mean because they say like prisoners who would put in isolation will tell you that that's the worst torture of all yeah is to be isolated without anybody else because we are by our nature in social animals yeah oh you think she was really happy I do I think the guy if the coyote wasn't there I think there'd be a different Eva but I think the coyote gives her all the socialization she really needs so that was that was her relationship that was her relationship yeah well yeah I mean there's certainly plenty of people that have a pet a dog or cat whatever I guess that's enough for her I mean that's that's the way I played it that's the way I you know ultimately came to the conclusion of for that character for myself I think it would be horrible for most of us yeah yeah I don't need a lot of people but just one or two real good ones they're very very helpful you know I just so fascinated talking about the plan never got to ask you anything where did you grow up oh I grew up in Arizona and how did you come to the stage the theater I have always done it since little kid time since I was a little kid yeah so I got into theater when I was very very young and did commercials and live theater in Arizona growing up why what's the hook for you I don't know I mean it's a real good question I guess I just always wanted to be one of the people in the TV box originally and then at a certain point in time I thought I wanted to be famous but as I pursued it what I realized was I was just interested in people's motivations why people do what they do so my other degrees are I have a degree in sociology rhetoric and philosophy and each one of those areas is really just about exploring why people do what they do because I'm fascinated by the choices we make in life and I'm fascinated and sometimes dumbfounded by some of those choices and so I like to find I like to find that motivation I gotta wrap us up they're telling me we're done and I agree with you why do people do what they do but I'm really glad you came today thank you very much for having me