Laura Breckenridge is an unusual 20-year-old. She is a sophomore at Princeton University majoring in the classics, has appeared on Broadway in "The Crucible," and is currently the star of a new Off-Broadway hit, "The Moonlight Room," by Tristine Skyler. The play looks at emotionally disenfranchised teenagers growing up in single-parent homes, virtually rootless. It opened at the Tribeca Playhouse, Mon., Nov. 3.
Specifically, "The Moonlight Room" tells the story of two middle-class adolescents, Sal (Breckenridge) and Josh (Brandon Sexton III), sitting in a hospital waiting room in the middle of the night while their friend undergoes a stomach pumping following a drug overdose. Throughout the ordeal, other characters arrive, including Josh's stepbrother (Mark Rosenthal), a pedantic prig, and Sal's disheveled mom (Kathryn Layng), an unhappily divorced woman, awash in frustration and disappointment.
"The big challenge was playing a 16-year-old," says the affable and articulate Breckenridge during a phone interview. "There's a big jump between 16 and 20. I also have to capture the feeling of not being comfortable in my own body. Sal is physically awkward in a way that I wasn't. I was a dancer. But, most important, I have to bottom in to her sense of fear. Sal doesn't know if her friend will live or die. And she's also worried about being at home in time for her curfew. She's in conflict. She wants to be independent, but she's not ready to be fully independent. And, she's in conflict about Josh. She's in love with him, but doesn't have the confidence to tell him."
Playing Sal is a delicate balancing act, continues Breckenridge, a Chestnut Hill, Penn. native. "I don't want to turn Sal into a bratty, rebellious teenager. She is rebellious, but that rebellion comes out of not being understood. And she's hurt. She loves her mother, but feels her mother could do better. She could clean the apartment and wash her hair. And she resents her mother always badmouthing her [Sal's] father. We decided that Sal looked like her father. Sal and her father are both dark, unlike Sal's mother, who is blonde. When she looks at me, she sees him. When she is badmouthing him, she is badmouthing me."
Breckenridge, who has several movie credits under her belt in addition to a stint in "God of Vengeance" at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, admits she enjoys researching a character. "For 'Moonlight Room,' I spent a lot of time trying to understand what it must be like to be a child of divorce, to grow up in New York City, and to be raised by a single mom.
"At the end of the play, Sal gets lost wandering around the city, searching for Josh, who has disappeared. I tried to recreate that experience for myself by walking on those same streets and imagining what it would be like to suddenly get lost on familiar streets."
Still, Breckenridge notes that there is much in Sal that she can relate to, like "being shy with a boy she thinks is cute. Josh is everything that Sal isn't. He's confident and funny. He seems to have a handle on everything. Sal feels so cool when she's with Josh, yet she believes she has nothing to offer him."
Breckenridge says that Sal is both a departure from and extension of her previous roles. "I've done a lot of sheltered girls coming into their own. In that way it's similar. But the other characters have to find their strength. Sal is already strong, but she has to learn how to show it."
A Medical Family
Breckenridge comes from a medical family. Her father, a radiologist, is chairman of the radiology department at Abington Memorial Hospital in Abington, Penn., and her mother is a professor of nursing at the Abington Nursing School and the University of Pennsylvania. Breckenridge, however, had her sights set on a theatre career early on, and started acting professionally as a youngster, appearing in, among other things, the Radio City Christmas Spectacular.
But Breckenridge was demonstrating other abilities as well. Consider this: In the summer between eighth and ninth grades, she formed an arts outreach program, managed to get funding, and met with National Endowment for the Arts Chairman Bill Ivey to discuss ways of implementing the program. Within short order she was travelling to schools in 16 states, talking to kids, introducing them to and encouraging their interest in the arts.
In ninth grade, she transferred to the Professional Children's School in New York City, although she and her family were still based in the Philadelphia area. "I went to the school full-time, but lived half the week at home and commuted," Breckenridge recalls. "When I was in New York, either my mother or grandmother accompanied me."
As noted, Breckenridge is currently a student at Princeton University (between acting gigs), where she is majoring in classical studies. "I'm majoring in classics because I'm interested in studying the origins of theatre and contrasting modern and ancient theatrical traditions. But, when I graduate, I'm thinking of going to a conservatory of acting."
Breckenridge's ideal career, she reflects, would be "a balance between film and theatre. I'd love to play Isabella in 'Measure for Measure,' anything by Pinter, and, of course, Juliet."
Right now, undoubtedly, she has her work cut out for her in "The Moonlight Room," and is hopeful that the play provokes some serious thought about the complex problems facing contemporary families suffering from fragmentation and chaos, and the teens that emerge from them.
"The play suggests that there are many reasons for the problems of youth, without pinpointing blame," remarks Breckenridge. "I hope viewers leave the theatre appreciating the fact that they can't repair the mistakes they've already made with their children, but they can confront those mistakes and move forward from there!"