Todd Hubler / Photo by Braden Moran
In the upcoming Children's Theater of Madison production of The Music Lesson, Colleen Madden plays Irina Batanovic, a piano teacher forced to leave war-torn Sarajevo. The play, by Tammy Ryan, is based on the true story of Augustin and Durdica Marinovic, music teachers who fled the Bosnian War and relocated in Pittsburgh. Irina struggles with Kat, a troubled American teen she teaches, while wrestling with the memory of Maja, the prodigy she left behind.
Colleen Madden is a powerhouse actor at American Players Theatre, where she has played for 14 seasons. Isthmus talked to Madden about teaching, anger and the power of Bach.
Tell me about Irina.
I think it was Shaw who said those who can't do teach, and I just don't believe that at all. Irina can do, but her real calling is teaching. She loves music, loves bringing the gift of music to children. She and her husband lived in Sarajevo in Bosnia, which was the most ethnically mixed city in former Yugoslavia, a city of real integration. Her students were Muslims and Croats.
How much do we need to know about the Bosnian War?
We talked to people who were either Bosnian or Serbian and they say 'Even we don't know how it started.' It had nothing to do with ethnicity or religion. It really had to do with a couple of people wanting power, who's controlling oil fields, cash flow. Sarajevo is a city in a valley. On both sides they had men in the mountains bombing them and they were literally trapped. Roving groups would kick the Muslims out or rape them, and there were atrocities from all sides. After Irina and her husband come to the States, he's trying to leave it behind. She can't. She's still with the people who died. She lost a lot of students and wonders if she could have saved Maja.
What are the themes of the show? How will audiences relate to the characters?
The show is focused on the subject of anger, which is tied in to almost any ill we have -- personal, psychological, or as a society. What I think is interesting is that the play focuses on female anger. Irina and Kat [the American teen] are so angry that they can barely breathe. You can relate to being angry and loss and grief, for the character of Kat. She's angry. Her family is struggling financially. Her parents are divorced, and her father abandoned them. Irina has been through the war and has every right to be angry, and wonders what right Kat has. But your own pain is your own pain.
How does Shakespeare help or hinder you in a role like Irina?
Shakespeare requires size. You have to play in a 2,000-seat theater. Shakespeare requires that you come out and bring everything on the page, and bring it in a big way, not stammering and murmuring and hiding. What's more difficult is hiding, and Irina is hiding quite a lot in the beginning of the play. She literally doesn't want to leave the apartment, wants to curl up and die; that's more challenging.
This is your first CTM show as an actor. What's that like?
I adore [director and artistic director] Roseann Sheridan. I think she is a really good director and a really good person. I'm comfortable with her. And this is my second show with Michael Herold. The young actors are [also] wonderful. I think young adult theater is actually quite challenging. It has a message, but I would love this to be as raw and ecstatic as any play.
What does Bach mean to you?
I am really not a classical person. I listen to Irish music and bluegrass, soul, gospel -- an earthy music person. I have made myself learn Bach's "Prelude in C Major." It's so meaningful. I'm gnashing my teeth that my parents didn't make me practice piano. I've been making myself listen a lot more. My ear actually hears the cello, the percussion, listening to all the different parts. I can almost feel my brain becoming sharper. The one thing that was non-negotiable for my kids was that they had to play music. When they were 6 they started piano lessons. I grew up with a lot of music. In Pittsburgh, Irish musicians would come and stay at our house. I really make my kids practice, and I've said I don't know a single adult who says, "I'm so glad I don't play."
What do you hope audiences will take away?
I hope all of us walk away and think [about how] this world is so practiced in hate. At some point you just have to forgive. It's really the people in power who are exploiting our daily frustrations. There's all sorts of reason to be angry. The bigger and more difficult thing to do is to forgive and accept someone's offer of friendship and support.
