At 40, She’s Setting the Stage for a Career Uprising

Kandis Chappell isn’t a household name--yet.

But in her performance as the resilient Eugenia in Stephen Poliakoff’s “Breaking the Silence” (at the Pasadena Playhouse through April 17), the San Diego-based actress is making her mark on local audiences.

The trouble is that people tend to think she’s older than she is. “I don’t smile a lot and that ages my face,” Chappell said in a recent interview. “In the old days, 40 was like over the hill. I am 40 now, and I figure my life’s practically just beginning.”

Part of that enthusiasm has to do with her current play, a highly charged piece about an aristocratic Russian family swept up in the Bolshevik Revolution. Chappell plays the wife of a man intent on finding a way to put sound on the silent screen.

“The idea is that not only does the husband want to ‘break the silence’ by putting sound on film,” said the warm and vivacious actress, “but that the characters break the silence in their lives.”

In Eugenia’s case, the break comes in a climactic confrontation with her husband (played by Ken Ruta). “It’s a difficult scene to do,” she said. “I really think of myself as a comedienne. It’s only lately that I’ve been doing these heavier roles. I’m not very good at showing emotion on stage; I’m not good at showing emotion in real life. So if it’s hard for Kandis to say things like that, it’s absolutely essential that Eugenia says them--and to find a throughline that brings her to the point where she can.”

Chappell also gives credit to director Warner Shook--and some necessary physical business.

“I tend to start with the physical, because it’s easier for me,” she said. “With this show, the costumer and I talked a lot. For instance, for Eugenia’s first dress, I wanted a corset under it, because there’s nothing more restrictive. It doesn’t make you thinner; it just makes you sit differently, move differently. You can’t relax.” Although it was concluded that corsets were historically incorrect, “The dress has enough structure that I’m aware of it. It’s symbolic of what happens to Eugenia. At first, she’s very stiff, formal. Later she’s in a sweater and skirt and boots: She’s free .”

Contemporary audiences, Chappell noted, are often intimidated by the perception of serious work.

“A lot of people don’t want to expose themselves to emotion. They want to see a musical, be entertained, not have to deal with things. They may also think this is a play about Russians in the Russian Revolution and that there’s nothing to relate to--whereas in reality the theme is very universal and touching. And it’s certainly something that’s relevant now: a woman coming into her own.”

There are some personal parallels. Reared in San Diego, Chappell worked for five years in the San Francisco Bay Area and also spent time in Minneapolis and Seattle. “But I never had the guts to come to New York or L.A.; I was always too afraid. You really have to have enough faith in yourself so that when the doors are slammed in your face over and over. . . . I’ve been building a career (on stage), so that doors are not slammed in my face very often anymore. It’s not that I’m not willing to take risks--I am. It’s just been a very slow, cautious climb.”

A self-professed “late bloomer,” Chappell majored in drama in college, waited on a lot of tables--but didn’t begin fully supporting herself with acting until 1984. That came with her return to San Diego and a reaffiliation with the Old Globe, where she started out 22 years ago as a prop girl. “I became a leading lady away from the Globe, then when I came back, I had to start over with the supporting and character roles, convince them that I could do the leading lady stuff.”

It paid off. Last year she became an associate artist at the theater.

Now, she feels, it’s time to spread her wings. “I’d like to do TV and film, because I have no background in that,” she said. “I feel very confident on a stage. Actors have pretty strong egos; otherwise we wouldn’t go up there and do it. And I’m always driving people crazy, saying ‘I can act anything. I can play any part on stage.’ (Old Globe credits include “Night of the Iguana,” “Holiday,” and “Intimate Exchanges.”) But in TV and films, I don’t know anything at all.”

Another slight complication has been her romantic relationship with South Coast Repertory artistic co-director Martin Benson.

“I don’t think there’s any reason people shouldn’t know about it,” she smiled. “He’s in a tough position, tougher than I am. The funny thing is, it’s really become reverse nepotism. I should’ve been working at the theater, and I haven’t. When we started going together two years ago, we decided it wouldn’t be a very good idea for his new girlfriend to be bopping into the theater in a leading role. So we avoided it. But I’d like to work with Martin--I hear he’s a wonderful director. Someday it’ll happen.”

Meanwhile, Chappell isn’t fretting. Reviews for the play have been excellent; audiences too. She’s hoping to follow up on the positive feedback with some local career networking. “Except that two weeks after I finish here, I start working at the Globe for the summer. So I don’t have a lot of time.”

Chappell is also a bit short on money--something, she adds bemusedly, that her lawyer brother is not. “It’s difficult when I go home and I’m thrown in a family situation,” she conceded. “I adore my brother; he just happens to make money. And really, it’s only once in a while that it gets to me. I mean, it’s the nature of the business. Some days I sit around complaining and moaning and saying, ‘It’s not fair’--but other days I think, ‘I am so lucky, doing what I do. The people I admire respect my work.’ ”

And yet . . . “When I go on stage in ‘Breaking the Silence,’ no one knows who I am. If I did a commercial for a toilet bowl cleaner, people would know me--and I’d be making a lot of money. Now, there’s something wrong with this picture. And I’m at a point in my life where I think, ‘ Why am I driving a 21-year-old Volkswagen bug? Why don’t I own a home? Why don’t I have things? Why can’t I have a comfortable life?’ ”

In spite of this precariousness, “I know in my heart I’m not a failure. It’s just that the route I’ve chosen for myself isn’t the most lucrative.” Still, she wouldn’t be averse to a touch of commercialism. “Being an actor is so humiliating sometimes. We’ll do anything to act. And I’m at a point where I’d do commercials for laxatives and hemorrhoids; I’m not proud. But yes, it would be nice to become rich and famous without doing hemorrhoid commercials.”