Chloe Webb’s ‘Fat Suit’ Lends Weight to a Hefty Part at LATC

Chloe Webb is not fat. Or Jewish. Or schizophrenic. But she becomes all of those things in Donald Margulies’ “The Model Apartment” at Los Angeles Theatre Center.

With the help of a specially constructed “fat suit,” frizzy wig and thick glasses, Webb transforms herself into Debby, a 300-pound raving lunatic.

The story focuses on Holocaust survivors Max and Lola--and the legacy they’ve instilled in their adult daughter. “The play makes you understand what it would be like to live in Debby’s world, be in Debby’s mind,” Webb explained. “What really attracted me was to be in the world of the completely disenfranchised: by your parents, society--that level of culturally induced paranoia. But there’s a little bit of Debby in everyone.”

What isn’t there emotionally, Webb creates cosmetically. “It is a fabulous fat suit,” she grinned, eyeing the enormous lump of padding and clothing that turns her into Debby. “I’m pretty much of a lightweight physically, so I wear weights on my arms to get that feeling of heft. I do feel really fat when I put it on. And people definitely look at you differently. One time, during previews, (co-star) Zero Hubbard and I were fooling around in the lobby and the guard asked us to leave. He thought we were right off the street.”

Before she began assembling the outside, however, Webb had gone to work on Debby from the inside. “I watched everything I could find on the Holocaust,” she said, “so that when Debby’s talking, those films are running in my head. I think that’s part of the playwright’s intent: to give a new view on the films we’ve all seen--not to make you watch the footage again, but to show you how those scenes are burned into someone’s mind.

“I am not Jewish, and I know for the director and playwright this was a very personal statement. But I do have a particular empathy for the disenfranchised. I like speaking for people who don’t normally get a voice, trying to get someone who’d ordinarily pass them by to understand something about them.”

In person, the bright, unaffected actress bears little resemblance to some of the “tragic outsider roles” she’s played--including her first movie role as the ill-fated, drugged-out Nancy Spungeon in Alex Cox’s 1986 “Sid & Nancy” (for which Webb was voted best actress by the National Society of Film Critics). New York-born, she credits her training (at the Boston Conservatory of Music, plus studies with Uta Hagen and Jose Quintero) for establishing solid work habits.

“It’s funny how you can put one part of your brain on the details--like knowing where your cue is, where to stand, when to do this--while you unleash the other side. I’ve been doing it since I was 15, so I guess it’s pretty instinctive. The good part of technique is that you don’t have to think about it. You don’t have to think about projecting, or supporting your diaphragm when you scream so you don’t lose your voice. It just clicks in.”

She recalls the initial lures of acting as externals: “The dressing room, opening nights, lights dimming--that used to send a shiver up my spine. And sure, applause. I think the work I like to do now probably has more to do with sports than glamour. The same way you see grown men groveling around in the mud, slamming into each other, and loving it so much--well, it’s that way for me too. I’m just like a pig in mud.”

The actress has reason to be happy. The past year she’s been unemployed a total of nine days--with projects on the stage (Bunny in “House of Blue Leaves” at the Pasadena Playhouse), television (chipper USO singer Laurette on ABC’s “China Beach”) and film (Danny De Vito’s girlfriend in the hit comedy “Twins.”)

Although she’s thrilled to be working so much, the pace can be draining. For this role, the actress notes in her raspy voice: “I need to take a nap between the matinee and evening performance--and when I get up, I pretend it’s a new day.” For major psychic refueling, Webb takes to the great outdoors.

“I think of what I do as input/output. So for input I usually go off somewhere in the mountains (with husband Tom Gelder), skiing or riding or hiking. I read a lot, look at the sky, build campfires, try to figure out where Orion is. It’s the best (remedy) for being so concerned with the minutiae of acting. “I’d like some vegetables, some fruits, and a little ice cream. I want my career to be like those (zigzagging) airline maps. Maybe you lose a little recognizability by jumping around so much,” she shrugged, “but you can’t really say what you get out of things. I don’t know what my next role is. And I don’t know if it’ll benefit from my having played a 300-pound schizophrenic. But I think it will.”

She’s also convinced of the value of risk-taking. “There’s something good about trying, putting yourself out there,” Webb stressed. “I read a book of essays by older people who were asked, ‘What would you have done differently with your life?’ No one said: ‘I wish I’d made more money’ or ‘I wish I’d been more famous.’ They all said things like ‘I wish I’d had ice cream for breakfast.’ When I read that, I thought: ‘If that’s what everyone wishes they’d done, why not do it now? What have I got to lose?’ ”