Kandis Chappell got her Equity card 21 years ago. She uses it more often-and better-than anyone I know.
Unblushingly, she'll tell you, "Theatre is my first love. That is what I was born to do." Clearly it's true. Not only does Chappell work constantly onstage, but just as constantly she is brilliant doing it. The proof is plentiful, especially for those of us with the glorious good fortune to live on her favorite turf in Southern California. Yes, she's done Broadway (Rumors and Getting Away With Murder) and regularly touches down at premier regional theatres, but Chappell's home since age six is San Diego. So mostly she acts at the Old Globe (in fact, she stars there now in The Magic Fire through July 3), and also just up the road at South Coast Rep.
For four of her SCR shows, Kandis Chappell earned LADCC Awards for Outstanding Lead Performance. No other actor has received as many. Imagine what the number would be if San Diego also qualified for LADCC consideration. Just as remarkable is the array of plays for which she was awarded: The Crucible, Shadowlands, Woman in Mind, and Collected Stories (which she will revisit this fall at the Old Globe). Even so, these only hint at the unsurpassed range and versatility of this artist.
Wacky roles? She's conquered more than a few, including a slew in the Alan Ayckbourn canon. Sophisticated roles? Just recall her glittering diva in Hay Fever. Earthy? How about the Irish peasant Maggie in Dancing at Lughnasa. Shakespeare? Lots of it, including a recent triumph as Cleopatra in Antony and Cleopatra, a role she described as "maybe the scariest part I ever played-unless it's Blanche in Streetcar. I don't understand that woman!"
Whether prim in a costume drama like The Crucible, or brash and naked in The Extra Man, Chappell dresses every role with the utmost attention to detail. "I work outside-in," she admitted. "I'm a nuts-and-bolts actor. I want to know in rehearsal which way the handle on the teacup will be facing. If I know it'll be there, I'm that much freer to do anything else with my performance."
Her approach may be unfashionably "technical," but none can doubt the emotionally fulfilling results. One only has to think back to the utter truthfulness of her steady, warmly grounded Shadowlands performance, or her equally honest though contrastingly turbulent and wildly complex Woman in Mind. Of that dark comedy chronicling one ordinary woman's nervous breakdown, Chappell enthused, "It was thrilling to play that part and use all those acting muscles." It is a portrayal she agrees was her best and which ranks among my three favorite stage performances ever, right there with Amanda Plummer in Agnes of God and Ian McKellen in Amadeus.
So why isn't she doing much in film and television? After all, although Chappell may be that rare actor who actually makes a living onstage, it is not an especially comfortable living. Hollywood dollars are much bigger, but also more elusive, and Chappell is frank about her career dilemma.
"I'm no dummy," she said. "If they offered me a TV series today, I'd snap it right up. It's just that if I turn down plays because I have to spend my time auditioning in L.A., it would kill me that I was not acting-and I'd be poor anyway. I can't not do theatre."
And I can't not love her for it.