In 2010, Nina Arianda emerged out of nowhere to win acclaim for her turn as the mercurial actress in the off-Broadway premiere of David Ives’s “Venus in Fur” not long after graduating from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. She turned heads again when she was cast as the smart-like-a-fox blonde in a revival of “Born Yesterday,” for which she received a Tony nomination. And when “Venus in Fur” transferred to Broadway a year later, she copped theater’s top prize. In short order, she was anointed as heir to Meryl Streep for her ability to deliver such electrifying performances.The public can judge again whether she has earned those bonafides this fall when the revival of “Fool for Love,” Sam Shepard’s febrile 1983 drama, opens on Broadway. While Arianda has snuck in some brief film appearances — Woody Allen’s “Midnight in Paris” — her growing reputation as a brilliant creature of the stage was given yet another boost when she and Sam Rockwell were last-minute replacements in this revival, directed by Daniel Aukin, which premiered at the Williamstown Theatre Festival last summer. Charles Isherwood called their explosive pas-de-deux a “knockout,” adding, “Ever since she dazzled New York with her breakout performance as a gamut-running actress in ‘Venus in Fur,’ Ms. Arianda has been seeking a part that would similarly tap her emotional expansiveness. She’s found it in [the character of] May.”Indeed, the actor says that “Fool for Love” was on her “bucket list” ever since she read the play at the age of twelve, hell-bent even then on being an actor. Her immigrant Ukrainian parents, Lesia, a painter and teacher, and Peter, who works for the Department of Defense, encouraged their only child in that goal, taking her to auditions in New York from their home in Clifton, New Jersey. Blessed with a mutable Slavic beauty, Arianda was often told that she was “too ethnic looking” and so she bided her time in performing arts schools until her star-making turn in “Venus in Fur.”Arianda spoke recently with ARTINFO about her passion for Shepard’s characters, whose possibly incestuous relationship in a motel on the outskirts of the Mojave Desert is the stuff of Greek myth.What was the appeal of “Fool for Love”? I think everyone is to a certain extent in the play on the quest for identity, and that’s a fascinating thing to explore. You can never run out of things to search for.How does May find her own identity? That’s the trouble. Isn’t that kind of what happens when you fall in love? That’s a double-edged sword and this takes it into the extreme. It’s a pleasure to intertwine yourself with someone else, emotionally, spiritually, whatever, but within that, it’s kind of holding onto to your own identity and not necessarily having it fade into one thing. Losing yourself?Right. And when you have to rely on someone else to really kind of a confirm your actions and thoughts then you’re lost. But that’s also where incredible romance lies. There’s that French thing: folie a deux. Madness shared by two, and I feel like this is kind of about that in a way.Have you had a folie a deux in your own life? I think I have a folie a deux every two weeks. Sure. Yes. Shepard seems to be saying that love is impossible. Do you agree? I think it is difficult. But if you’re somebody who feels that you’re worthy of love, then it’s easy to love. But it’s not necessarily easy to receive love. That’s the dance. What’s exciting about it is if you make it about the other person and you feel that makes you a better person, then it’s a good thing. If you make it about yourself, you’re never going to win.Is that Eddie and May’s conundrum? Their relationship is incredibly cyclical. And for me, personally, medically, scientifically, spiritually, they’re unable to be without each other — if they’re apart for a certain period of time, that’s a problem, codependency to the highest degree. It’s unhealthy. But it’s also extremely sexy and romantic.Is their relationship post-coital in the beginning? In this motel room are there twisted sheets on the bed? The way we did it in Williamstown, the bed was well made. So either May is incredibly neat after sex or not so much coital. We never looked at it that way. But now you’ve given me some food for thought. If I’m breathless at the top of the show at MTC, you’ll get the answer.What’s interesting about its Western setting for a New Jersey girl? Is it universal whether it’s a motel in the Mojave or one in Passaic? God forbid in Passaic, but I understand what you mean, sure. That’s what great about Shepard. The agony and the ecstasy interchange every five minutes. You can experience these extremes of feelings and it’s okay.
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