‘Contact’ Role Is a Devil in a Blue Dress

Don’t diss Neil Diamond when you’re in the room with Meg Howrey. Howrey got her start in show biz thanks to his music. At age 4, this small-town girl ran around the house in Danville, Ill., acting out “Holly Holy� and other Diamond gems.

Howrey’s still dancing with the full-throttle glee of a child, only this time the storytelling takes place on the stage of the Ahmanson Theatre, where she appears in the Tony-winning musical “Contact.�

And no, Howrey’s not the Girl in the Yellow Dress. The “Simply Irresistible� siren seen in TV ads, the character that made Deborah Yates an overnight sensation when “Contact� debuted on Broadway in 1999, the third act’s va-va-voom mystery woman-- that role belongs to Holly Cruikshank.

Howrey plays the Girl in the Blue Dress, listed in the credits simply as “Wife.� And she’s the undisputed star of “Did You Move?� a 30-minute tour de force that forms the second segment of “Contact.� Howrey plays a browbeaten Queens housewife trying to enjoy a romantic dinner with her brutish husband (Adam Dannheisser). When her mate stalks off in search of rolls, the mousy wife’s fantasies takes flight as she pirouettes around the restaurant with the strapping headwaiter to the soaring strains of Tchaikovsky, Bizet and Grieg.

The focus is on Howrey every moment of the performance. By the end, she’s spent. “When that final curtain comes down, my entire body is sweating, I’m crying, I’m shaking, I almost can’t get out of my chair,� says Howrey, 28, who’s sitting in her bare-bones dressing room in the bowels of the Ahmanson. “And it has to be that way. Anything less would be unacceptable, for the material, to myself, to the rest of the people on stage.

“The only time I struggled with this piece was when I approached the movement as a dance. But if I looked at everything as an actor, it all felt very natural.�

She may think of herself as an actress now, but her stork-lean legs, ramrod carriage (“My mother always told me you’re not fully dressed unless you have good posture�) and limpid gestures mark Howrey as someone who’s spent years toiling at the barre.

The half-hour she spends on stage, it turns out, is the easiest to deal with. “It’s weird,� she says. “You go through the week knowing that there’s 30 minutes sitting there that you have to attend to. Every day. And then I do the piece and I feel proud of myself that I actually got through it, and heartbroken at the same time. And then, after I put my heart on my sleeve, and break it, I have to go back to a rented apartment in a town that I don’t live in. When we started doing the show, in San Francisco, I’d go back to my apartment feeling really unloved. I sort of had to write a Note to Self: ‘Don’t take character home with you, go get a beer with friends after show.�’

That Howrey should be so affected by this role speaks to her acting ability, for she has just about nothing in common with the downtrodden Wife. “At first glance, there’s very little me in the wife,� Howrey agrees. “I have sat across the table from people and wished I was somewhere else, so it’s kind of a matter of degrees, of understanding that part of myself and amplifying it tenfold. But no, I’m not the kind who would stay in an abusive relationship and dream her life away.�

Hardly.

At age 3, Howrey took her first ballet lesson at a local dance school; it was love at first plie.

In her early teens, Howrey attended summer sessions at the National Academy of Art in Champaign, Ill., a boarding school for dancers run by former members of the Royal Ballet. “I was supposed to go two weeks and ended up staying 10.� She also informed her parents that she’d be staying on for the regular school year. “I was on fire,� says Howrey. “I was just completely determined and absolutely confident it would all work out the way I wanted to.�

For years, the headstrong ballerina did, in fact, get her way. She spent one year at Walnut Hill School for Performing Arts in Boston. “I hated it,� Howrey says. “The school was frequented by very wealthy kids who thought it would be cooler and hipper than public high school back at home. I had no tolerance for anything but the most serious attitude. In other words, I was arrogant and ridiculous,� she laughs, “but I was also 15, so I think I was allowed to be a little jerk. I was so certain that only I understood proper serious ballet, and how could these kids who took ski vacations understand? So ... I went to New York, which,� she laughs again, “is where everyone who is arrogant goes.�

In Manhattan, Howrey moved quickly. “I called my parents. They said, ‘You have to go back to school [at Walnut Hill],’ and I go, ‘Well, no, I have an apartment. I got into Joffrey; I got a scholarship there. And I got financial aid for Professional Children’s School so you won’t have to pay for anything. I’m gonna stay in New York.�’

Fresh out of high school, in 1990, Howrey joined the Joffrey Ballet, performing in the second company and traveling with the troupe’s national touring company. She at last had her dream job. Then came the letdown. “In my mind, I’m going, y’know, ‘I’m dancing with the Joffrey, I’ve been to Europe--that’s about as good as it gets. Hmmm. I thought it would be a little more exciting than it is.’ I couldn’t figure out why I wasn’t more happy.�

During a performance of “Romeo and Juliet,� Howrey had an epiphany of sorts. “I remember standing in the wings while the overture for ‘Romeo and Juliet’ was playing, thinking to myself, ‘I think the words are better. I think I’d rather say the words.�’

When the financially struggling Joffrey downsized and moved to Chicago, Howrey stayed in New York. One day she tagged along with a friend to an acting class. This , she decided instantly, was her true calling. A few weeks later, Howrey put her pointe shoes away and began studying acting with characteristic tunnel vision.

In 1995, Howrey appeared as one of the three leads in Lincoln Center Theater’s production of James Lapine’s “12 Dreams.� A few years later, she joined the Assembly, a collective of designers, writers, directors and actors, for whom she’s written a play of her own.

When the call came last spring to audition for “Contact,� Howrey hadn’t danced in years. She hurried over to watch the Broadway production, which featured Tony Award winner Karen Ziemba as the Wife. “There’s a simplicity about the work, but also sophistication, a great balance between respecting the audience and entertaining them,� Howrey says.

Howrey read, danced and “babbled like an idiot� during the “informal chat� with the dozen or so producers. “I was really nervous because by then I realized I might actually get this part,� she says.

Susan Stroman, who earned a Tony for “Contact’s� choreography, remembers being bowled over. “When Meg came to audition for me, I did not know her--and I know most of the dancers in New York,� Stroman says from her home in New York. “So here was this woman standing in front of me, and I was watching her dance, and I couldn’t believe what a strong technical ballet dancer she was. Then I thought to myself, ‘Well, I’ll probably get one thing or the other--either a great actress or a great dancer.’ And then Meg read the scene, and she gave me goose bumps on my arms, because she has that vulnerability that you need to have the audience feel for the wife.�

“Did You Move?� relies on Howrey’s ability to remain believable as the usually meek wife, even as she’s executing extravagantly accomplished balletic maneuvers, Stroman explains. “If someone tells you, ‘Don’t smile at the busboy, don’t smile at the waiter, don’t move,’ the most rebellious thing you could do when they leave the room, the most extreme movement, would be classic ballet,� she says. “To sort of make the joke of it work, I needed someone who had great technique, who at the same time never leaves the character of the wife. Meg’s able to have the wife dance with great abandon and great joy, which is really what that story’s about. Dance equals liberation.�

During five weeks of rehearsal in April before the “Contact� touring company hit the road, Howrey began to fully appreciate the nuances of Stroman’s choreography. “She hears rhythms and counter-rhythms,� Howrey says, “and on the 20th listening, you go, oh my God, there’s a trumpet there. Oh!�

But it’s the story that drives the piece for Howrey. “I’m never just doing steps--it’s a step because I see this, or that just happened, or the music is now really going nuts so everybody goes nuts. Every single thing has a reason, so there’s never a point where I’m left without an absolutely clear idea of why I’m doing what I’m doing. There’s a very well-made-out map on the stage, and I just follow it.�

Well, it’s a little more than a map. There’s also Gary Franco, who plays Wife’s love interest. “Every single time I see Gary, who’s so incredibly gorgeous, and you know he’s going to whip me up in the air and make me look fantastic and give me that smile, and I run at him like a kid in a candy store--that’s one of my favorite things.�

After the manic highs and deflating lows of her half-hour psychodrama, Howrey retires to the dressing room, pops an Advil and waits for the company curtain call that comes about an hour later.

“The nice thing about it is, even though it’s a weird, drained emptiness that you get, I put my feet up, Gary comes by, we tell each other how good we were. Then it’s nice to have this little dancing bow at the end, so the evening ends on this upbeat feeling. Talk to me in eight months. But right now I’m more than willing to hang out for 45 minutes.�

“Contact� at the Ahmanson Theatre, 135 N. Grand Ave., downtown Los Angeles. Tue.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sat.-Sun., 2 p.m. Also Aug. 26 at 7:30 p.m.; Aug. 16, 30 at 2 p.m.; and Aug. 27, 8 p.m. Ends Sept. 1. $25-$75. (213) 628-2772.