Latest / Jersey Arts Podcast / Kathryn Grody's Unexpected 3rd Act

Transcript

Kathryn Grody's Unexpected 3rd Act · Jersey Arts Podcast

• 0:02
  Maddie Orton: I'm Maddie Orton, and you're listening to the Jersey Arts Podcast.
• 0:06
  Maddie Orton: It's in the third act of a three-act story structure when everything comes to a head.
• 0:11
  Maddie Orton: The plot builds to its peak, the characters demonstrate development, and the audience, the reader, the listener experiences the story's climax, and maybe even a moral.
• 0:21
  Maddie Orton: If the third act is the culmination of everything leading up to it, then the third act of Kathryn Grody's life has been a wild one.
• 0:29
  Maddie Orton: The two-time Obie Award-winning actor, mother, grandmother, and wife of actor Mandy Patinkin found new recognition in 2020 when her son posted a video of her in Patinkin that earned them a new overnight fan base.
• 0:43
  Maddie Orton: From that viral success, developed the family's "Don't Listen to Us" podcast, a TV pilot, and a one-woman show written and performed by Grody called "The Unexpected 3rd." I chatted with Grody about all of this and more in advance of "The Unexpected 3rd" coming to George Street Playhouse October 13th through November 1st.
• 1:03
  Maddie Orton: Take a listen.
• 1:05
  Maddie Orton: Kathryn, I'm so excited to talk to you.
• 1:09
  Maddie Orton: Thank you for taking the time to chat.
• 1:10
  Kathryn Grody: Well, thank you for wanting to talk.
• 1:12
  Kathryn Grody: That's always great.
• 1:13
  Kathryn Grody: My favorite thing to do.
• 1:14
  Maddie Orton: Mine too.
• 1:15
  Maddie Orton: I'm very excited.
• 1:16
  Maddie Orton: So you wrote and perform a one-woman show called The Unexpected Third, which uses the tagline, and I love this, a radical rollicking rumination on the optimism of staying alive.
• 1:28
  Maddie Orton: So tell me a little bit about what the show explores.
• 1:31
  Kathryn Grody: Well what that whole thing means.
• 1:33
  Kathryn Grody: But you know, it was funny when I started doing it.
• 1:36
  Kathryn Grody: It was like a friend of mine, uh, a director, um Michael Barakiva, where we did a workshop at Cleveland Play.
• 1:42
  Kathryn Grody: He says, What does that mean, the unexpected third?
• 1:44
  Kathryn Grody: Is the third kid?
• 1:46
  Kathryn Grody: Is it baseball?
• 1:47
  Kathryn Grody: You know, so we came up with all sorts of insane taglines, but that was the one that seemed to be mostly about what this was.
• 1:56
  Kathryn Grody: And, you know, it started out some years ago, Maddie, as just me being pissed off at the um assumptions about white-haired people and older people in this culture is so obsessed with being under 30.
• 2:09
  Kathryn Grody: And I mean the whole world is obsessed.
• 2:11
  Kathryn Grody: You know, they used to have the hair dye thing, used to be does she or doesn't she?
• 2:16
  Kathryn Grody: It was all about looking natural.
• 2:18
  Kathryn Grody: And now it's all about being so proud of how unnatural you look, right?
• 2:23
  Kathryn Grody: Sure.
• 2:23
  Kathryn Grody: Let me tell you where you too can have 55 triple F bosoms, you too can have a mouth that looks, you know, like a cartoon.
• 2:32
  Kathryn Grody: You too can have a face that doesn't move.
• 2:35
  Kathryn Grody: And in some weird way, I I sometimes wonder if that isn't, besides making the pharmaceutical and beauty company zillions of dollars, making everybody afraid of a natural process if they're lucky enough to experience it, which is called this human aging thing.
• 2:50
  Kathryn Grody: Yeah.
• 2:51
  Kathryn Grody: All things living have a process of birth and living and dying.
• 2:56
  Kathryn Grody: And if you're lucky, you get a lot of time.
• 2:59
  Kathryn Grody: Uh, you're too young, Maddie, but there you should look this up.
• 3:02
  Kathryn Grody: There is this extraordinary Twilight Zone episode with Rod Serling.
• 3:06
  Kathryn Grody: Okay.
• 3:07
  Kathryn Grody: He was so prescient.
• 3:08
  Kathryn Grody: There was this, you know, planet, and there were these people, and at 21, they all got the same pig face.
• 3:16
  Maddie Orton: Oh, yes, I absolutely have not seen it, but it's iconic and I'm aware of it.
• 3:20
  Maddie Orton: Yeah.
• 3:20
  Kathryn Grody: Well, it is so amazing because that's what I think of all the time.
• 3:24
  Kathryn Grody: And you know, this gorgeous one young girl didn't want a pig face, she liked her own face.
• 3:28
  Maddie Orton: Yeah.
• 3:28
  Kathryn Grody: And I think there is something so terrifying and infuriating and heart sickening about one telling everybody they have to have the same face, like we were used to and still do about the same body.
• 3:44
  Kathryn Grody: You know, we've sometimes improved on that and sometimes not.
• 3:48
  Kathryn Grody: The same face.
• 3:49
  Kathryn Grody: And I find it really frightening when faces don't move.
• 3:53
  Kathryn Grody: I mean, uh forgive me, I don't know.
• 3:56
  Maddie Orton: Well, and as an actor, I'm it's kind of important.
• 4:00
  Kathryn Grody: No, it's well, to me it is, but I'm wondering if this is what we're being trained for, is to just go like this and not, you know.
• 4:07
  Kathryn Grody: I mean, it's it's terrifying.
• 4:08
  Kathryn Grody: I cannot tell you how many old friends will tap me on the shoulder and I'll look at them and I'll jump.
• 4:14
  Kathryn Grody: And I pretend it's because I'm just surprised to see them, but I'm shocked at what I'm seeing.
• 4:19
  Kathryn Grody: It's a windswept face, you know.
• 4:22
  Kathryn Grody: Yeah, I know.
• 4:23
  Maddie Orton: I know.
• 4:23
  Kathryn Grody: It's and you know, hey, Maddie, truthfully, there's some things that aesthetically are not my favorite things in the whole world.
• 4:30
  Kathryn Grody: Sure.
• 4:31
  Kathryn Grody: I've been I'm I'm as vain as a lot of people.
• 4:34
  Kathryn Grody: I always thought, oh, I'm so lucky, you know, I got my great Aunt May's skin.
• 4:40
  Kathryn Grody: And it's not bad, you know.
• 4:42
  Kathryn Grody: I've avoided the sun because I'm terrified of it.
• 4:45
  Kathryn Grody: So that was sort of lucky.
• 4:46
  Kathryn Grody: But you know, I had these little lines around my mouth that I said to a very good friend who's an expert in this area, I said, Is there anything I can do about these?
• 4:55
  Kathryn Grody: And she said, Well, the only thing to do for those is you could have them burned off.
• 5:01
  Kathryn Grody: So I could go through a process where this layer of skin would be burnt, and then hiding for a month while a new layer of skin grew.
• 5:11
  Kathryn Grody: And you know, Maddie, I just thought, you know what?
• 5:13
  Kathryn Grody: Is it worth it?
• 5:14
  Kathryn Grody: There's there's better things to do with my money, and there's better things to focus on, and I'm glad I have a mount that still works.
• 5:22
  Kathryn Grody: Right.
• 5:23
  Kathryn Grody: You know?
• 5:23
  Kathryn Grody: Right.
• 5:24
  Kathryn Grody: So the whole thing was initially a rebuttal and just I'm just so pissed off.
• 5:30
  Kathryn Grody: And then as I've worked on it over the years, Maddie, it's just become, I must say, you know, I first did it publicly in the winter of '22, and we were still just coming out of COVID.
• 5:42
  Kathryn Grody: Sure.
• 5:43
  Kathryn Grody: And so people in the theater, everybody was amassed, and they were sort of giddy about being out together again.
• 5:50
  Kathryn Grody: And when I first did it, it was just sort of like a stand up.
• 5:53
  Kathryn Grody: I mean, it was interesting because five years ago, I really didn't feel any different than when I was 60 or 15.
• 6:02
  Kathryn Grody: And it was kind of like, oh, this aging stuff is just bullshit.
• 6:05
  Kathryn Grody: Yeah.
• 6:06
  Kathryn Grody: Five years later, Maddie, there is some there is some truth to the actuality of it.
• 6:15
  Kathryn Grody: And I have been uh forced, I felt I've been very lucky, you know.
• 6:21
  Kathryn Grody: Um, and there's a whole section in the play where I'm like really trashing my mother-in-law, you know, for never exercising and eating garbage, and I'm not gonna be like her because I take care of this body and I'm gonna depart with all my original body parts.
• 6:38
  Kathryn Grody: And then I say to people, well, in full transparency, guess what I have?
• 6:43
  Kathryn Grody: A brand new ceramic joint, otherwise known as a hip replacement, and I can't stop talking about it either, you know.
• 6:51
  Kathryn Grody: Um, stuff you have this illusion of what you're in control of.
• 6:56
  Maddie Orton: Yeah.
• 6:56
  Kathryn Grody: And then things happen.
• 6:58
  Kathryn Grody: And the impact also between what's happening in the world, which I talk about, and what is happening to your chosen kin and friends.
• 7:10
  Kathryn Grody: I mean, I'm I'm pretty much losing a couple friends a month at this point.
• 7:15
  Kathryn Grody: And if they're not dying, they're debilitated or they're having unexpected surgery.
• 7:22
  Kathryn Grody: And um, and then you contrast that with what we seem to be out of control of with the world.
• 7:28
  Kathryn Grody: You know.
• 7:29
  Kathryn Grody: I was talking to a brilliant friend of mine the other day, Dr.
• 7:34
  Kathryn Grody: Diane Meyer, who is a gerontologist and a palliative care person.
• 7:38
  Kathryn Grody: And she said, Isn't it, and I'm gonna put this in the play, Maddie.
• 7:42
  Kathryn Grody: Okay.
• 7:42
  Kathryn Grody: She said, Isn't it amazing that as individuals, at least in America, we do everything we can to live as long as possible.
• 7:51
  Kathryn Grody: We replace joints, we replace our faces with some other mask of a face that denies the age we are, we take 1,400 supplements and you don't do anything else except try and stay here and deny this aging process.
• 8:08
  Kathryn Grody: But as a species, we seem not to be able to stop inventing things that can do us in.
• 8:15
  Kathryn Grody: And I just thought that was such a brilliant observation and contrast, you know.
• 8:26
  Maddie Orton: What I'm wondering is there's so much to talk about in this area.
• 8:32
  Maddie Orton: How did you narrow this down into a one-person show and keep it under 10 hours? Because there's a lot to say about it.
• 8:41
  Kathryn Grody: That's a really good question, Maddie.
• 8:45
  Kathryn Grody: And uh the most obvious answer is I have a very strict director, Timothy Mere, who I've done.
• 8:51
  Kathryn Grody: This is my third solo show with her, and we've been working together.
• 8:54
  Kathryn Grody: We've known each other for 50 years, Maddie, which is kind of shocking.
• 8:58
  Kathryn Grody: You know, I remember I said to her recently, do you remember when I said I feel as if I've known you for 50 years when we first met, and now we really have known each other?
• 9:08
  Kathryn Grody: Yeah.
• 9:09
  Kathryn Grody: One, she's she feels very strongly.
• 9:12
  Kathryn Grody: She's very happy if the show's one hour and 20 minutes.
• 9:16
  Kathryn Grody: I feel it's fine if it's one hour and 25.
• 9:18
  Kathryn Grody: She's you know, better than that's a reasonable wiggle room.
• 9:21
  Kathryn Grody: That's not crazy.
• 9:22
  Kathryn Grody: I mean, it's an interesting process because with each iteration, I want it to be current about what is happening now.
• 9:29
  Kathryn Grody: Got it.
• 9:30
  Kathryn Grody: You know, four years ago, I didn't talk about masked fascists roaming the streets, but now we have them roaming the streets, so I put that in.
• 9:39
  Kathryn Grody: You know, four years ago I didn't have a new body part.
• 9:43
  Kathryn Grody: Now that's in.
• 9:44
  Kathryn Grody: Four years ago, I hadn't lost really important people in my life.
• 9:49
  Kathryn Grody: So I have to deal with that too.
• 9:51
  Kathryn Grody: And in some ways, I mean, part of this, part of the intention of this, Maddie, is to make young people like yourself not terrified of the aging process and not to think it's just like all 13-year-olds aren't alike, all two-year-olds aren't all alike, all 70-somethings aren't all alike.
• 10:07
  Kathryn Grody: Right.
• 10:08
  Kathryn Grody: And the aging process isn't all alike, you know?
• 10:16
  Maddie Orton: So you have written three plays.
• 10:19
  Kathryn Grody: I've written three solo shows, yeah.
• 10:21
  Maddie Orton: And between your last play and this play, you and your husband, Mandy Patinkin, and your son Gideon have really blown up in a totally new way in sort of the influencer universe.
• 10:34
  Maddie Orton: You're also coming from a different perspective now.
• 10:38
  Maddie Orton: Right.
• 10:39
  Maddie Orton: How have those two aspects of your life influenced this creative process, if they have?
• 10:47
  Kathryn Grody: Well, the whole social media thing, Maddie, has just been so shocking and remains so, because, and I talk about this too, that I am a living contradiction between how I feel about the form and my participation in it.
• 11:04
  Kathryn Grody: Which I was completely accidental.
• 11:07
  Kathryn Grody: I'm a digital idiot.
• 11:09
  Kathryn Grody: And I really do feel that for all the hopeful connectedness that people started out believing this technology would bring, you just didn't have any idea about the fear and the madness and the viciousness of how our species can be when we're not face to face with each other.
• 11:30
  Maddie Orton: Sure.
• 11:31
  Kathryn Grody: And, you know, this was a complete accident of COVID.
• 11:34
  Kathryn Grody: If COVID hadn't happened, we wouldn't be having this discussion.
• 11:38
  Kathryn Grody: And I would not be a known person.
• 11:41
  Kathryn Grody: You know, it's very uh interesting to have this kind of public persona at the age of, you know, 78.
• 11:50
  Kathryn Grody: And in some ways, Maddie, it's really phenomenal because, you know, for my 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s, Maddie and early 70s, uh if I was known at all, you know, outside my little bubble of off-Broadway theater, I was known as Mandy Patinkin's wife and Diane Keaton's best friend.
• 12:13
  Kathryn Grody: So that whenever anybody And you know, that was fine because I didn't want what either of them wanted.
• 12:19
  Maddie Orton: Right.
• 12:19
  Kathryn Grody: I wanted my little off-Broadway niche and to be able to have time between shows to be with my kids.
• 12:25
  Maddie Orton: Sure. And and also probably to go to the supermarket and not be harassed.
• 12:29
  Kathryn Grody: Yeah, I mean, none of that, none of that um appealed to me and I didn't need it.
• 12:36
  Kathryn Grody: You know, over the years, people would say to me, I mean, when I met Mandy, I was the more known off-Broadway person.
• 12:41
  Kathryn Grody: I'm six years older.
• 12:42
  Kathryn Grody: He was kind of the upcoming kid that was controversial, you know.
• 12:48
  Kathryn Grody: And um, I mean, people would say, How do you feel when he did a Vita about the attention?
• 12:52
  Kathryn Grody: I'd say, you know, as long as I get my 40% of attention from my little things, I'm fine.
• 12:58
  Kathryn Grody: But those two can have the 150 they need, you know.
• 13:02
  Kathryn Grody: Um but what's been interesting during COVID, Maddie, it felt like a service.
• 13:08
  Kathryn Grody: Do you know?
• 13:09
  Kathryn Grody: I mean, my son came home, he was working all across the country, but he couldn't do what he was doing.
• 13:15
  Kathryn Grody: He had to come home.
• 13:16
  Kathryn Grody: It was COVID.
• 13:17
  Kathryn Grody: And when he asked us, you know, in April of 20, and that's a little j challenging now because when I did the play in 22, it was closer to that, and now we're further away.
• 13:29
  Kathryn Grody: So I have to say, do y'all remember this?
• 13:32
  Kathryn Grody: I don't think people have really spoken enough or dealt with how tech that that pandemic impacted our social behavior, our comfort with each other, the mistrust with all the bullshit online that people fall into uh combined to make us more comfortable in this form than in person.
• 13:54
  Kathryn Grody: But he just asked us on April 16th of 2020 how we'd celebrated the anniversary of our first date, which we always celebrate.
• 14:02
  Kathryn Grody: And he had just come home, Maddie.
• 14:04
  Kathryn Grody: We were still walking six feet apart, you know.
• 14:07
  Kathryn Grody: Oh my gosh, sure.
• 14:08
  Kathryn Grody: And I said we'd had a huge fight.
• 14:11
  Kathryn Grody: And I described the fight and the resolution, and then he said, Can I post this?
• 14:17
  Kathryn Grody: I did not know what he was talking about, Maddie.
• 14:19
  Kathryn Grody: I swear to you.
• 14:20
  Kathryn Grody: And you know, our only social media at that time was a little tiny thing for the International Rescue Committee, IRC, because both of our grandparents were immigrants, so we feel very strongly about welcoming immigrants and still do.
• 14:34
  Kathryn Grody: Absolutely.
• 14:35
  Kathryn Grody: And so we're ambassadors for IRC, and Gideon was upset that it only had a couple thousand followers, you know, and he thought if he put something more personal on, that it would it would invite people to learn more about how they can support immigrants.
• 14:51
  Kathryn Grody: So I said, I don't care.
• 14:53
  Kathryn Grody: I mean, I had no idea what our talking about a fight on an anniversary was gonna appeal to anybody.
• 15:00
  Kathryn Grody: And two days later, Maddie, he came and said, Well, this is really interesting.
• 15:04
  Kathryn Grody: I said, What?
• 15:05
  Kathryn Grody: He said, Well, you had 400,000 views.
• 15:08
  Kathryn Grody: Oh my gosh.
• 15:09
  Kathryn Grody: And I said, of what?
• 15:12
  Kathryn Grody: Of what?
• 15:13
  Kathryn Grody: You know, and then he explained this, and then we just went for there.
• 15:17
  Kathryn Grody: And I will tell you truthfully, during COVID, it felt very good to do anything we could to make people feel in a community, feel less afraid, feel hopeful.
• 15:27
  Kathryn Grody: And then it felt very good to work for the election.
• 15:30
  Kathryn Grody: Right.
• 15:31
  Kathryn Grody: Um, I would do anything.
• 15:33
  Kathryn Grody: I did the most embarrassing things to get 18-year-olds to vote.
• 15:38
  Kathryn Grody: I mean, you know, TikTok made Twitter look like Shakespeare at that time.
• 15:42
  Kathryn Grody: I just couldn't be believed what I was asked to do.
• 15:45
  Kathryn Grody: That's great.
• 15:46
  Kathryn Grody: But we did it and we felt, you know, wow, we've recovered, and then of course, here we are again.
• 15:51
  Kathryn Grody: Um, but I think it's really interesting.
• 15:56
  Kathryn Grody: I think fame is so unhealthy for children and other living things.
• 16:02
  Kathryn Grody: Maddie.
• 16:03
  Maddie Orton: Are you experiencing that in a way?
• 16:05
  Maddie Orton: Well, how does that feel for you now?
• 16:07
  Maddie Orton: And how does that interact with the show itself?
• 16:10
  Maddie Orton: Like I assume there's a totally different audience coming to see you in addition to the audience that would normally see.
• 16:16
  Kathryn Grody: Well, it's funny, I don't think I would have had as significant of an audience without social media.
• 16:22
  Maddie Orton: Huh.
• 16:22
  Kathryn Grody: You know.
• 16:23
  Kathryn Grody: Um, and it was interesting when we posted at the solo festival at New York Theater Workshop, which was kind of a festival, just very impromptually organized.
• 16:33
  Kathryn Grody: What got people in was when we said there's a talk back afterwards.
• 16:38
  Kathryn Grody: And suddenly we had to get to have the experience, to interact.
• 16:42
  Kathryn Grody: And I live in a state of, you know, sort of semi-terror.
• 16:46
  Kathryn Grody: If I see somebody and they act like they know me, and I think, oh my God, is it a cousin or is it somebody from high school or college that I don't remember?
• 16:54
  Kathryn Grody: And then they say, Oh, no, no, I just know you from social media.
• 16:57
  Kathryn Grody: And I feel very wonderful when somebody says, Thank you for getting me through the pandemic.
• 17:01
  Kathryn Grody: That's great.
• 17:02
  Kathryn Grody: And I feel wonderful when people talk about politics.
• 17:05
  Kathryn Grody: Do you know?
• 17:06
  Maddie Orton: Mm-hmm.
• 17:06
  Kathryn Grody: When it's just, you know, sort of being ridiculous.
• 17:11
  Maddie Orton: Okay.
• 17:12
  Kathryn Grody: I don't know what I feel to tell you the truth, Maddie.
• 17:14
  Kathryn Grody: It is, I'll tell you the dangerous thing.
• 17:17
  Kathryn Grody: I think for young people, this is why, you know, I met Diane before "Annie Hall."
• 17:23
  Maddie Orton: Okay.
• 17:24
  Maddie Orton: Oh, so you saw that.
• 17:25
  Kathryn Grody: And any celebrity will tell you the people they met before that, before celebrity and after, the ones before celebrity are the ones you really trust, no matter what good friends you make.
• 17:37
  Kathryn Grody: Because it's just they see you for who you are and not all that.
• 17:40
  Kathryn Grody: Fancy shit.
• 17:42
  Kathryn Grody: And um I have a strong definition of who I am.
• 17:47
  Kathryn Grody: You know, it doesn't come from the outside, and it certainly did in the beginning, you know, I think.
• 17:54
  Maddie Orton: I mean, for an actor, that's it's difficult, you know.
• 17:58
  Maddie Orton: It's weird looks are so tied to the product that is you.
• 18:03
  Kathryn Grody: Yeah, but I was always a character actress, Maddie.
• 18:05
  Kathryn Grody: I was never, you know, a looks actress.
• 18:07
  Kathryn Grody: And I was a theater person and not a movie person.
• 18:10
  Kathryn Grody: Right.
• 18:10
  Kathryn Grody: You know, I understand that.
• 18:12
  Kathryn Grody: I mean, uh, there's this whole thing that Howard Hawkes once said about film that people that love being photographed emit a kind of chemistry that the the camera picks up.
• 18:24
  Kathryn Grody: And I'm one of those people, I look at that cameraman and I think I turn into flat Stanley.
• 18:30
  Kathryn Grody: I don't know if you know those children's books.
• 18:32
  Kathryn Grody: I mean, it's like I'm looking for the audience, do you know?
• 18:37
  Kathryn Grody: Interesting.
• 18:38
  Kathryn Grody: The audience, the people is what makes sense to me.
• 18:41
  Kathryn Grody: I have huge respect for people that do gorgeous work in movies and television, and I'm grateful that my husband has learned that form because I find it exhausting, Maddie.
• 18:54
  Kathryn Grody: I mean, when we did our pilot, you know, I didn't remember that my my ears were connected to my son and his fellow director, you and Wright.
• 19:04
  Kathryn Grody: Oh.
• 19:05
  Kathryn Grody: And I would always go, why are we doing this again?
• 19:10
  Maddie Orton: And then they'd come.
• 19:11
  Maddie Orton: Then he would go, hot mic, hot mic.
• 19:13
  Kathryn Grody: Hot mic, hot mic, and they'd come, they'd come running and say, Well, there was a mic, or there was a boom, or there was a shadow.
• 19:19
  Kathryn Grody: And I go, Oh, right, you know, but well, I'm in this in this form.
• 19:23
  Kathryn Grody: It's just me and the people in the audience, do you know?
• 19:26
  Kathryn Grody: And it's a little scary.
• 19:27
  Kathryn Grody: Maddie, this is the biggest theater I've done.
• 19:30
  Maddie Orton: Oh, wonderful.
• 19:32
  Kathryn Grody: It is the biggest theater.
• 19:33
  Kathryn Grody: With this show.
• 19:35
  Kathryn Grody: With this show, it's the biggest theater.
• 19:37
  Kathryn Grody: And I have to do, we're re-staging it because when I did it at the solo fest at New York Theater Workshop, we had a more portable set.
• 19:45
  Kathryn Grody: So we restaged it for Marin Shakespeare, where we did it in March, and then we had that production for the Solo Fest at New York Theater Workshop in May and June.
• 19:54
  Kathryn Grody: And now it's been July, August, September, three enormous months, which may not seem long, but I got pneumonia.
• 20:02
  Kathryn Grody: And I haven't done my workout routine.
• 20:05
  Kathryn Grody: And I just did a little dancing for two minutes before this interview and was huffing and frigging puffing.
• 20:10
  Kathryn Grody: And you know.
• 20:11
  Kathryn Grody: And you're the only one on stage.
• 20:13
  Kathryn Grody: That's uh, everyone on stage.
• 20:16
  Maddie Orton: Yeah.
• 20:17
  Maddie Orton: What is the takeaway for you about the idea of your unexpected third act?
• 20:28
  Kathryn Grody: I have a line about adapting, not surrendering to the new realities.
• 20:34
  Kathryn Grody: Do you know?
• 20:34
  Kathryn Grody: And I feel that the message, um, you know, uh, one of my great surprises with this show, Maddie, I thought people over 50 would relate, you know.
• 20:45
  Kathryn Grody: But I've been surprised by the people in their 20s, 30s, and 40s.
• 20:49
  Kathryn Grody: Because a beautiful 36-year-old woman came up to me.
• 20:52
  Kathryn Grody: I wish I'd gotten her name.
• 20:54
  Kathryn Grody: She said, Catherine, it's my 36th birthday, and the gift you gave me as you made getting older look exciting.
• 20:59
  Kathryn Grody: That's amazing.
• 21:00
  Kathryn Grody: And that's just amazing.
• 21:02
  Kathryn Grody: Or a young woman, 45, came up to me and said, I have to tell you the impact.
• 21:07
  Kathryn Grody: I canceled my first Botox appointment tomorrow.
• 21:10
  Kathryn Grody: Isn't that amazing?
• 21:13
  Maddie Orton: You know, what's funny to me is I I was looking at this and it reminded me of something that my grandmother told me once, which I was visiting her and she was hanging with a friend of hers.
• 21:23
  Maddie Orton: They were probably both in there early to like early mid 80s at the time.
• 21:28
  Maddie Orton: And I remember them talking about the age that they felt.
• 21:32
  Kathryn Grody: Yeah.
• 21:33
  Maddie Orton: And it was really interesting to me because I was probably in my early 20s, and my grandmother was a very unorthodox person in many ways.
• 21:41
  Maddie Orton: But she and her friend basically said, Well, I'm still 16.
• 21:45
  Maddie Orton: And I went, Wow, that's really interesting.
• 21:49
  Maddie Orton: And as I get older, I feel the same way.
• 21:53
  Maddie Orton: I think it's so funny that that person called me ma'am because I'm 16.
• 21:56
  Maddie Orton: That's so weird.
• 21:58
  Kathryn Grody: Well, just wait.
• 21:59
  Kathryn Grody: Maddie, but um you know Norman Lear said my favorite thing when he was ninety-five, somebody asked him how old he felt.
• 22:08
  Kathryn Grody: And he thought about it for a minute and he said, I feel the same age as whoever I'm talking to.
• 22:15
  Kathryn Grody: Interesting.
• 22:16
  Kathryn Grody: And you know, it is it's a very funny thing, Maddie.
• 22:20
  Kathryn Grody: I will tell you, uh, you have a flash bulletin on this.
• 22:25
  Kathryn Grody: The last birthday that I was freaked out about was my 50th.
• 22:29
  Maddie Orton: Okay.
• 22:30
  Kathryn Grody: I was freaked out.
• 22:31
  Kathryn Grody: I talk about it in the play.
• 22:33
  Kathryn Grody: I just couldn't imagine being that old.
• 22:35
  Kathryn Grody: You know, I haven't thought about, you know, 60, 65, 70, 75.
• 22:42
  Kathryn Grody: I don't feel any different.
• 22:44
  Kathryn Grody: This upcoming birthday has staggered me.
• 22:48
  Kathryn Grody: The number of eight zero is I mean, there is a reality about the limited amount of time, do you know, that I can't sort of be vague about anymore.
• 23:03
  Kathryn Grody: But I don't want to focus.
• 23:05
  Kathryn Grody: I don't want to, if I've got five years left or ten years, I don't want to be afraid of the quality of those years, and I don't want to be focused on it.
• 23:12
  Kathryn Grody: But something weird has happened, and I think it's my attitude, which I've got to get back into being into not mattering of what number you are, because suddenly I'm in cabs in New York City, and when I get out, four times the drivers have run out to help me out.
• 23:32
  Kathryn Grody: And I'm like, that's a version of your ma'am, you know?
• 23:36
  Kathryn Grody: It's like, what the hell has happened that three months ago did not happen at all.
• 23:41
  Kathryn Grody: That didn't happen to me once when I was doing the play four times a week for six weeks.
• 23:46
  Kathryn Grody: Not at all.
• 23:47
  Kathryn Grody: So do you think it's the aura you're giving on?
• 23:49
  Kathryn Grody: I think there might be some aura I'm giving out, or maybe a weird way I'm getting into the cab, or the fact that I'm, you know, haven't done my usual whatevers, you know.
• 23:59
  Kathryn Grody: But I think um my takeaway that you asked is I love the idea, Maddie, of being forever unfinished.
• 24:08
  Kathryn Grody: I'm in a constant state of evolution.
• 24:10
  Kathryn Grody: Who, you know, who I was 50 years ago is not who I was, you know, who you are 20, 30, 40, it's all different.
• 24:17
  Kathryn Grody: It's like that thing that you all your all your skin cells change every seven years or something.
• 24:23
  Kathryn Grody: Right.
• 24:24
  Kathryn Grody: I don't see why that should stop.
• 24:26
  Kathryn Grody: You know, I want to surprise myself, I want to have new experiences.
• 24:31
  Kathryn Grody: I, and believe me, I think part of what has changed as I lose friends, as I have more physical challenges or the world, I want to acknowledge that.
• 24:42
  Kathryn Grody: This is not a friggin' Hallmark card, you know.
• 24:45
  Kathryn Grody: But I want also to put the darkness and the fear, okay, yeah.
• 24:50
  Kathryn Grody: You know, I mean, the other day, for the first time in my entire life, I used my hands to get at my arms to get out of a chair.
• 24:58
  Kathryn Grody: And I went, when the hell did that happen?
• 25:02
  Kathryn Grody: Well, so it happened that moment.
• 25:04
  Kathryn Grody: It was a very low chair.
• 25:06
  Kathryn Grody: Um and I went, so what?
• 25:08
  Kathryn Grody: I'm upright.
• 25:09
  Maddie Orton: Right.
• 25:09
  Kathryn Grody: I'm upright and I'm walking on my own, you know?
• 25:12
  Kathryn Grody: I mean, I think that like your grandmother, the image that you have of yourself, the shocking thing is you experience yourself very differently than how people on the outside.
• 25:23
  Kathryn Grody: Somebody took a video of my son, took a video of me playing soccer with my four-year-old grandchild.
• 25:29
  Kathryn Grody: And I I imagined myself really, but I was kind of hunchy.
• 25:36
  Kathryn Grody: And it shocked the shit out of me, you know.
• 25:39
  Kathryn Grody: Um and you know, the the effort to proceed with curiosity and enthusiasm and what I say in here, exuberance.
• 25:50
  Kathryn Grody: And and if you're having a bad day, you know, okay.
• 25:54
  Kathryn Grody: I friggin' hate, I am so shocked that I have hearing things.
• 25:58
  Kathryn Grody: I didn't listen to one rock concert.
• 26:00
  Kathryn Grody: I never listened to friggin' music.
• 26:02
  Kathryn Grody: I cannot believe this.
• 26:04
  Kathryn Grody: I don't like it.
• 26:05
  Kathryn Grody: It's one of the few things I'm embarrassed about.
• 26:07
  Kathryn Grody: If it's public, kind of, you know, my poor husband said, Do you have uh your hearing aids?
• 26:13
  Kathryn Grody: And I said they're accessories.
• 26:15
  Kathryn Grody: They're freaking accessories.
• 26:16
  Kathryn Grody: And that's my business.
• 26:18
  Kathryn Grody: And it's nobody, you know, and you know what, Maddie?
• 26:20
  Kathryn Grody: Now I say in public in the show, hey, right, instead of thinking of these as a humiliation, think of this as an announcement.
• 26:27
  Kathryn Grody: I'm not opting out of the common conversation.
• 26:30
  Kathryn Grody: Right.
• 26:31
  Kathryn Grody: I'm not gonna absolve myself of it.
• 26:33
  Kathryn Grody: I have things to say and I have things to learn.
• 26:36
  Kathryn Grody: You know?
• 26:37
  Maddie Orton: It sounds to me like so much of what your perspective is and your show is about focuses on viewpoint, on realigning your perspective and re-sort of defining what each of these aspects of aging is creating.
• 26:56
  Kathryn Grody: Yeah.
• 26:56
  Kathryn Grody: And that you can define it for yourself and your own circumstances.
• 27:00
  Kathryn Grody: Do you know?
• 27:01
  Maddie Orton: Yeah, I love that.
• 27:02
  Kathryn Grody: And I feel that I just want to encourage everybody to evolve at any age and not assume that they should do something, do you know, because of a number that they are or that they are limited by that number.
• 27:20
  Kathryn Grody: You know, and and whatever limitations there are, then you adapt.
• 27:25
  Maddie Orton: Thank you so much for doing this interview.
• 27:27
  Maddie Orton: It was great to talk to you, and I'm so excited for your show.
• 27:31
  Kathryn Grody: Thank you, Maddie.
• 27:32
  Kathryn Grody: I hope you can come and please come backstage and say hi, or wherever they have me say hi.
• 27:38
  Maddie Orton: Kathryn Grody will perform "The Unexpected 3rd" from October 13th through November 1st at George Street Playhouse.
• 27:45
  Maddie Orton: For more information, visit GeorgeStreetPlayhouse.org.
• 27:48
  Maddie Orton: If you like this episode, be sure to give us a review, subscribe, and tell your friends.
• 27:52
  Maddie Orton: A transcript of this podcast, as well as links to related content and more about the arts in New Jersey, can be found on jerseyarts.com.
• 28:00
  Maddie Orton: The Jersey Arts Podcast is presented by Art Pride New Jersey, advancing a state of creativity since 1986.
• 28:07
  Maddie Orton: The show is co-founded by and currently supported by funds from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts.
• 28:13
  Maddie Orton: This episode was hosted, produced, and edited by yours truly, Maddie Orton.
• 28:17
  Maddie Orton: Executive producer is Jim Atkinson.
• 28:20
  Maddie Orton: Special thanks to Kathryn Grody and George Street Playhouse.
• 28:23
  Maddie Orton: I'm Maddie Orton for the Jersey Arts Podcast.
• 28:26
  Maddie Orton: Thanks for listening.