A mid-40’s mom accepts her husband’s invite to an open marriage and some wild shit happens. Pascale Roger-McKeever’s new one-woman show, Finger & Spoons, is a funny and horny journey of what I just said — a tale of self-exploration and vulnerability. I’m generalizing so let’s get to the Q&A. Under the direction of Tony Award nominee Austin Pendleton, Pascale explores the ins and outs of an open marriage. The show opened last Thursday, May 2, at the SoHo Playhouse in NYC.
How long did it take you to put your thoughts together and develop it to where it is now?
The thing about this piece is that I never set out to write a play. I was only responding to a friend’s dare to write down the details of a hot sexual experience! A year later, I had a 750-page manuscript. A couple years after that, in 2018, an opportunity arose to perform a 40-minute solo at the famous San Francisco Marsh Theatre. I pulled out my favorite chapter from my beast manuscript and created a show called A Peek at a 21st Century Love Affair. And what do you know that work was a winner of that year’s Marsh Madness Competition. As a result, I was inspired to develop it further, and nine months later, had a new 90-minute version with a new title, The Ins and Outs of Fingers, Spoons, and an Open Marriage. This version I performed in regional theaters and private salons, all the while continuing to rework the script, and to this very day as well – yes, we have many new scenes, cuts, edits, it’s a bit daunting to think we start previews next week, but this is what playwriting is like! And same with the new title, Fingers & Spoons! Oh, did I say I began collaborating with Austin on the play in 2019 and it’s been a trip, and continues to be a trip, like the piece itself which Austin calls ‘a rollercoaster!’
We all know what Austin Pendleton brings to the table, but working with him literally now, what does he bring to the table?
His depth of understanding of the human experience. He’s almost twice my age, I consider myself to have been around the block once or twice, but he really has. And then, there is that special something that happens when one is gotten and seen by a fellow artist who you admire.
Can you describe the sensation of exposing yourself to an audience from the first night versus the last night?
That’s a good question, which no one has asked yet. Okay, so, here’s the deal with this piece: working on the 40-minute version, about two weeks before the performance date, I heard myself say to a mentor, ‘You know, the only way I can perform this piece is if I give myself permission not to!’ I had just booked a comedic role in a pilot in L.A. and thought I could always tell my audience that I had to go shoot this pilot, and naturally, they would understand. I was terrified to perform it. Not that I hadn’t performed my writing before, I had, on many occasions, and some pretty gutsy work too, but this piece felt different… Anyway, the “Me-Too” movement was in full swing with many humans daring to speak up about this or that and somehow that helped me be less scared – I felt supported and protected by the movement. I performed and got a standing ovation. Today, I just am terrified of not having the best show I can have on any given night!
As an artist, where does this work compare – though I realize this question is unfair – to past works?
Like I said, it is nothing I ever thought I would realize, so in that sense, it doesn’t compare in the least to any past works. I am not sure I understand the question, but I will give it a stab. What I can say is that in some ways, it is my most evolved (oh my that word! oh well, it’s the right one here) and mature work to date. It represents decades of inner and outer work (as a writer and a performer), decades of life, reflection, drama, meditation, healing. It was not written overnight. It is very much a fruition piece. As a performer it is different from say another solo show I wrote and performed in New York City back in the late 90s, in so far as I am playing many characters! Where it is the same however is that as with all of my works, I start with something I know (some call that ‘the truth’), and then I go wild.
As a former New Yorker, why did you decide to premiere your show here?
Because that is where it all started, and for that you have to come see the show!
