{"id":43773,"date":"2015-02-28T23:16:39","date_gmt":"2015-02-28T15:16:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=43773"},"modified":"2015-02-28T22:32:03","modified_gmt":"2015-02-28T14:32:03","slug":"molly-parker-of-house-of-cards-takes-on-unusual-stage-role-in-harper-regan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2015\/02\/28\/molly-parker-of-house-of-cards-takes-on-unusual-stage-role-in-harper-regan\/","title":{"rendered":"Molly Parker of \u2018House of Cards\u2019 takes on \u2018unusual\u2019 stage role in \u2018Harper Regan\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Molly<\/a>
Molly Parker al Toronto International Film Festival. Josh Jensen<\/a> \/ Flickr.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

TORONTO\u2014She\u2019s played a necrophiliac in the film \u201cKissed,\u201d a rabbi on the series \u201cSix Feet Under,\u201d and a congresswoman on \u201cHouse of Cards.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, as Vancouver native Molly Parker takes on the role of a devoted wife and mother who goes on a soul-seeking journey in the play \u201cHarper Regan,\u201d she admits it\u2019s an unusual part for her\u2014because it\u2019s not so unusual.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn many ways, Harper is a character who is a kind of everywoman\u2014she\u2019s a very unremarkable woman who does this very remarkable thing in this play,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe challenge of that is really one of the reasons I wanted to do this play.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have been interested in my life or in my career … in women or characters who are on the verge of some kind of rebirth, and in that sense this is also that story.\u201d<\/p>\n

Written by Olivier Award winner Simon Stephens and directed by Matthew Jocelyn, \u201cHarper Regan\u201d makes its Canadian premiere at Toronto\u2019s Bluma Appel Theatre on Sunday and runs through March 22.<\/p>\n

Parker plays the eponymous character, who learns at the start of the play that her father is in a coma.<\/p>\n

Despite protestations from her husband (Alex Poch-Goldin) and teenage daughter (Vivien Endicott-Douglas), she leaves their suburban London home to see her dad and ends up on a journey in which she encounters some wild and bizarre characters.<\/p>\n

The cast also includes Lynne Griffin, Hardee T. Lineham, Philip Riccio, and Izaak Smith.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s dealing with this kind of family curse, this sort of sins-of-the-father-type theme,\u201d says Parker.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe doesn\u2019t know how to do it, but she goes into a number of situations which frighten her in order to change something so that she can have this experience and go home again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Parker says the story explores long-term relationships, and while it has Greek tragedy themes, \u201cit\u2019s oddly funny.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEven though there\u2019s heavy themes going on, there\u2019s just that self-deprecating humour of the Brits that comes through in this play.\u201d<\/p>\n

Parker hasn\u2019t acted onstage since she did a professional play at the Arts Club Theatre Company in Vancouver 18 years ago.<\/p>\n

She says theatre was never really part of her career when she got her start as an actress, first in film and then television, and she\u2019s been wanting to do a play \u201cfor a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn some ways it\u2019s very new to me,\u201d she says of theatre acting.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn other ways, it\u2019s acting and it\u2019s storytelling and it\u2019s something that I\u2019ve done for 25 years, so I am finding my way through the differences.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TORONTO\u2014She\u2019s played a necrophiliac in the film \u201cKissed,\u201d a rabbi on the series \u201cSix Feet Under,\u201d and a congresswoman on …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":43774,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-hollywood","mauthors-victoria-ahearn","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43773"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43773\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}