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Gus Birney and Constance Shulman have had a pretty special summer.
The mother-daughter duo is performing in the world-premiere production of Drew Larimore’s The Cannibals of McGower County, a Southern Gothic thriller playing at TheaterWorks Hartford through Sunday, August 30.
It’s not the first time that Birney, 27, has performed alongside her mother, 68 — but this time feels different.
“Having this experience together, rehearsing something and being out of town — we’re literally living together — has been so special and collaborative,” Birney exclusively tells BroadwayWorld. “I’m seeing her in a different way than I’ve ever got to experience her because it’s more as a colleague and an artist.”
Shulman, who shares Birney and son Ephraim Birney with husband Reed Birney, was busy being a full-time mom for most of her daughter’s life. After a 15-year hiatus, Shulman was cast as Yoga Jones in Netflix’s Orange Is the New Black in 2013 and has been busy ever since.
“I really had to get my footing back pretty quickly,” Shulman tells BroadwayWorld. “But taking all that time away made me a smarter, wiser, better person.”
And it definitely shines through in the rehearsal room. In The Cannibals of McGower County (without giving too much away), Shulman plays a Texas scavenger who is poking around an abandoned restaurant when Birney’s character comes in — and “in this one evening,” Shulman says, “the s**t hit the fan.”
Onstage, Shulman and Birney don’t interact too much; however, the experience has given them both a chance to observe how they are as actors and colleagues throughout the creative process.
“It’s interesting because I feel like I’m getting an opportunity to look back at how I was in a rehearsal situation 40 years ago,” Shulman says, adding that she’s impressed by her daughter’s instincts and how she’s “really listening” to everything going on around her.
For Birney, watching her mother at work has been inspiring. “She strikes an amazing balance of being direct and saying how she feels about something because she doesn’t hold back,” Birney explains. “When she has an opinion, she’s going to say it, and she’s going to say it kind of unfiltered. But she’s never disrespectful or a diva — there’s a directness that she handles with so much grace.”
“I’m always scared to be unfiltered, in a way, and to say my opinion because I’m scared of offending someone or coming off like I’m difficult to work with. And my mom has such a good balance,” Birney adds. “I’ve been really impressed by that. And [it’s] something I’m trying to learn for myself as I move through this world — just not being afraid to actually speak your mind when there’s a problem.”
When the curtain comes down, Birney and Shulman occasionally give each other notes or advice, but they’re really just enjoying spending time together. Being a working actor is “a family business,” Shulman explains, so getting to do it alongside one another has been gratifying.
“Clearly there is a lot of joy,” Shulman says of the work that her family does. However, because her children got to see the ups and downs of the business through the eyes of their dad — Reed, who won a Tony Award for his performance in The Humans — it has kept them grounded.
“Neither of my parents were movie stars, and she took a really long time off, which I respect tremendously because I don’t think my brother and I would be who we are without having her be there in the way she was as we grew up,” Birney says of her mother. “My dad definitely struggled and had periods of real darkness around his career, and I actually think that was really important for us to see because we don’t have rose-colored glasses.”
The goal, Birney says, “isn’t to be a movie star; it’s to be proud of the work that we do and be consistent.”
Shulman says she’s really proud of the work her daughter is doing in this new play, which they both hope has life beyond TheaterWorks Hartford.
“It takes a lot of courage to go out on a stage. It’s very scary, and you are free-falling in front of people,” Shulman says. “And I’m watching her be really brave every night going out there, and that’s what you want to give your kids — courage to live their life because it’s scary out there. And then when you’re doing it in front of people, that gets heightened. So that’s what I would say I’m most proud of.”
