Q&A: Mike Farrell and Jim Parrack in Edmund White’s ‘Terre Haute’

Actors love to “stretch,” taking that out-of-my-wheelhouse part that subverts typecasting. For two TV nice guys, Mike Farrell, 71, the beloved B.J. Hunnicutt of “MASH,” and Jim Parrack, 29, who plays puppy-dog Hoyt Fortenberry on “True Blood,” the Blank Theatre Company’s production of Edmund White’s “Terre Haute” offers a daunting stretch.

The 2006 drama is based on imagined encounters between only-the-names-are-changed versions of writer Gore Vidal and Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh. Both actors’ performances topple preconceived notions about them. Farrell inhabits the skin of an effete intellectual and aged avowed bisexual; Parrack embodies the militaristic stance of a man whose unwavering convictions led to tragedy. The two characters meet on death row and form a bond from the exchange of their ideas.

During the last week of rehearsals for “Terre Haute,” which runs through Nov. 14, Farrell and Parrack sat down with The Times to talk.

What did you know about this play?

Farrell: I had never heard of it or the playwright. The thing that struck me most deeply about it was the loneliness of these two characters. The homosexuality and murderousness add layers of interesting human issues to deal with and the connection that they form is so touching. I had only one question: Why did you think of me? I can’t imagine anybody saying, “Mike Farrell should play this part.”

Parrack: Being from north Texas and not so far from Waco, where some of this happened, I thought I don’t like that guy. A few pages in I said, “Wow, this is not a crazy person, but someone who took a bigger look at things than most people do.” I don’t have a good feeling about it or agree with what he did, but you can’t call him an idiot.

Did you research Gore Vidal and Timothy McVeigh?

Farrell: I have never read one of Gore Vidal’s books. I came into this naively assuming that the author had been true to the lives of the characters, but I found out that there has been a big feud between Gore Vidal and Edmund White about the way he is portrayed in the play. So I am careful not to say I am portraying Vidal.

Parrack: We all [were] told that McVeigh was this psycho, this lunatic. I realized I knew almost nothing and found out there were a lot of qualities that I admired before he went off and did this horrible thing. He was big on being fair and looking after people who were getting bullied. And he was hardworking. As I did research, I have only gotten more curious. The moments I love are when I lose myself over to the big ideas that the character had. This play provokes me.

How do you get inside the head of these characters?

Parrack: I read the play the way that Sherlock Holmes would take a look at a crime scene: What is here, what does that suggest? When we first started rehearsing, my wife and I had a rule that I would have to cool off, go for a drive and sing some songs for about an hour before I could be around her. She said I would walk into the room and barometrically it would feel something coming off me that feels like rage. Finally we boiled it down to: This play is screwing with me some.

Farrell: I haven’t let my wife or my son or anyone who works with me to see or hear what I am doing, which has made it harder than hell to learn the lines. For me, this is more of an intellectual process than a lot of roles I have done, which is appropriate, since this man hides in his intellectual presentation. I think of finding the character as a piece of music. You find the tune and you work with it.

So, what are your characters’ tunes?

Parrack: The Texas A &M Fighting Aggies marching band playing “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”

Farrell: I haven’t found his tune. But I have found his tone, which is maybe a cross between Victor Borge and Liberace.

Q: Have either of you ever played a historic figure?

Farrell: I did two one-man shows: Playing JFK was a realization of a long-held ambition and doing a show about Clarence Darrow was a treat because of my own personal inclination about the kind of work he did.

Parrack: For me, this is it. I guess Santa Claus isn’t real, but some day, when I am little older, I want to play Santa Claus. It would be a gritty drama: He falls in love with a girl in the woods and she becomes Mrs. Claus and he gives toys to poor kids who need a little hope and people label him a weirdo and rise up against him.

What do you know about each other’s work?

Parrack: Zip. I have seen “MASH,” but I didn’t put it together until my grandfather started treating me like I was something special and that I was really doing something with this acting thing now.

Farrell: I am not a television watcher so I have not seen “True Blood.” When I say I am not a television watcher, I mean I don’t turn it on unless there is a basketball game or I want to watch a DVD.

They have “True Blood” on DVD.

Parrack: (laughs) That’s true. If all anybody has seen of me is “True Blood,” this will be very different. Before that, all I ever got brought in for was people that shot cops or beat their wives sitting around police stations saying, “No, I didn’t do it, man!” So it was refreshing to do Hoyt on “True Blood” and people who have seen that might be surprised to see this other side.

Farrell: One of the problems in the business is a lack of imagination and courage. People lock into notions about you, and it can be crippling. I know actors who have not survived being so identified with a particular character.

Do you think some people will be offended by a play that attempts to humanize a mass murderer?

Parrack: Some people are going to hate it. That’s a given. Some people will maybe love it and there will be a lot of people who will walk away and say, “Wow, I never knew that and I never thought of that.” That’s what you get when you write a play about visiting death row. If what you want is a quick and snappy and clever show, then what on earth are you doing here?

Farrell: Go and find Neil Simon.

How much does a TV star earn doing a play in a theater with less than 100 seats?

Farrell: Zero dollars and zero cents. But this is not without a payoff. There is something fitting for me playing a role like this. I have been on too many death rows and this play makes some points about the wrongheadedness of killing, both on the part of the perpetrator and on the part of society. Human beings do terrible, terrible things and there is a reason and if we can get past the repellent horror of the event, we recognize this hungry, lonely damaged soul.

Forgive me for sounding high and mighty, but sometimes when I work, people are enlightened, and there is nothing better than to feel something you have done has made a difference to somebody.

Parrack: There are actors who are artists and they have reached me. So there is a responsibility that comes with this.

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