As Denée Benton places it, the third season of “The Gilded Age” noticed the present’s “multiverse broaden.”
Benton performs Peggy Scott on the HBO drama, set in New York excessive society within the late 1800s. Season 3 noticed Benton’s Peggy discover love with Dr. William Kirkland (Jordan Donica), a lot to the chagrin of William’s snooty mom, Elizabeth (Phylicia Rashad) — who disapproves of the Scott household for a lot of causes, together with their darkish pores and skin and the truth that Peggy’s dad is a pharmacist with out generational wealth. Telling the story of the Black elite residing in Newport, R.I., and the classism and colorism inside that group was vitally necessary.
“The extra we discover what actually went on in that point, the extra we are able to make Black characters in tv, movie and theater totally three-dimensional,” says Audra McDonald, who performs Peggy’s mom, Dorothy. “After I first heard about ‘The Gilded Age,’ I used to be like, ‘Oh, what servant am I going to be requested to play? What downtrodden character?’ So the truth that they’ve been so correct, that’s been probably the most thrilling factor for me.”
Nor has colorism — together with in Hollywood — been consigned to the dustbin of historical past. “None of it has actually modified,” Benton says.
The introduction of the Scotts’ tense dynamic with the Kirkland household, which additionally contains William’s dad, Frederick (Brian Stokes Mitchell), together with different family and pals, has helped the collection keep “new and true,” in response to Benton. “If we had gone the identical previous route of interval dramas and tokenism, it will have fallen flat.”
Audra McDonald, left, and Denée Benton in “The Gilded Age.”
(Karolina Wojtasik / HBO)
A lot of Peggy’s storylines within the first two seasons centered on the truth that her father, Arthur (John Douglas Thompson), upset that Peggy had married a person he deemed beneath her, received her marriage annulled, lied to her that her child died at beginning and secretly gave her son up for adoption. Peggy and Dorothy found the reality, solely to be taught that the little boy had since died of scarlet fever. By the present’s third season, nevertheless, Peggy and Dorothy appear to have forgiven Arthur for his horrific betrayal.
“It is a time when divorce actually isn’t an possibility,” McDonald says. “So Dorothy goes to need to stay with this man for the remainder of her life, and she or he is aware of that. I feel it will have been detrimental to Peggy if Dorothy had been to have by no means forgiven Arthur. Dorothy wanted to forgive Arthur to mannequin that for Peggy.”
For Benton, Peggy’s forgiveness is “part of a wonderful legacy”: “I take into consideration how Alice Walker, Toni Morrison or August Wilson write concerning the generational trauma that would occur inside Black households. … It was a part of a extremely potent story of redemption that I feel many Black households can relate to — the best way racism and patriarchy impacts our household constructions and how one can hold reaching for one another’s humanity within the midst of all of those dehumanizing moments.”
Maybe probably the most heartbreaking scene within the third season comes when William finds out about Peggy’s previous from his meddling mom. Peggy goes from the enjoyment of anticipating William’s marriage proposal to William asking her about her previous, to a devastated Peggy in tears on the steps in her dad and mom’ home. The sequence was filmed over consecutive days in Troy, N.Y., the place the set for the Scott house is situated. “We received to carry out it such as you would a play. You bought to actually keep inside the reality,” Benton says. “I really feel prefer it served these performances.”
The resurgence of that storyline might have been a shock for viewers who thought Peggy had put her traumatic previous behind her in Season 2. “It’s the best way grief works although, proper?” Benton says. “You undergo such excessive loss and your life nonetheless goes on. There are these ways in which you compartmentalize and stick with it, after which these triggers occur and also you’re again on the ground prefer it first occurred. I believed it was actually lovely to get to see Peggy so robust within the face of actually unreasonable circumstances.”
1. Audra McDonald. 2. Denée Benton. (The Tyler Twins / For The Instances)
Though McDonald and Benton didn’t know one another earlier than the collection, they had been followers of one another’s work. When Benton was nominated for a Tony in 2017, she wrote a thank-you observe to McDonald. “I keep in mind sitting in Bryant Park and crying and being like, ‘She must know I might have by no means gotten this if it wasn’t for her.’”
McDonald says listening to Benton sing an aria from “Natasha, Pierre, and The Nice Comet of 1812” impressed her to sing it. “She sang it so superbly. And her voice was so crystalline and beautiful.”
Like Benton and McDonald, who lately earned her eleventh Tony nomination for her efficiency within the revival of “Gypsy,” many on the present come from the theater world, a incontrovertible fact that makes their set really feel like a “theater rep firm,” McDonald says.
“There’s not a language that must be realized. It’s a language we’re already all talking,” she explains. “There’s an inherent sense of belief and ease, a sacred area to know that we’re right here to do that work, and so there’s no egos.”
“I’m working with my precise heroes,” Benton says of the forged. “We are able to all choose the very first thing we noticed them in. All you must do is begin nerding out about some piece of artwork that all of us love, after which swiftly everybody’s like 12 at theater camp and the hierarchy is totally equalized.”
This season additionally noticed McDonald and Christine Baranski, who had been co-stars on “The Good Battle,” lastly share a scene when Baranski’s Agnes calls Dorothy to her home as a result of Peggy is in poor health. McDonald confesses that the pair had been a bit too giddy throughout the filming of their scenes. “We needed to hold ourselves in verify a little bit bit and remind ourselves of who we had been on this world as a result of there’s such a consolation and such a love between us.”
The third season ends on a excessive observe for Peggy as William defies his mom and publicly proposes to Peggy because the horrified Elizabeth seems to be on. “Seeing Peggy get her Cinderella second legitimized her as one of many romantic leads of the present,” Benton says. “I don’t take as a right that it will have been very easy to jot down a present the place her character by no means blossomed in that approach.”
What is going to Season 4 deliver for his or her characters? Benton says Peggy is prepared for her “Bertha period,” referring to the socially bold industrialist’s spouse, performed by Carrie Coon. “I’m excited for Peggy to grow to be one of many nice homes and simply step into her energy in that approach.”
