Listen to Katrina Lenk (Bobbie), Cynthia Nixon and the Company cast discuss switching the gender of the character of Bobbie, and how it opened the door to switch other roles in the cast as well.
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TRANSCRIPT
it's not so unusual for a woman to be like a people-pleasing um what person do you need me to be right now i will be that person what's bobby's purpose in your relationship who does what character does she need to play for you guys how about sweet and sour shrimp how about sweet and sour anything okay now what character is she for this married couple and that felt very familiar well still it takes two to make a happy divorce and god knows it's working i mean i think you two are great i see what she's thinking but i see as a woman she sort of censors herself and doesn't say it and doesn't call people on their lies or their rudeness or but you you know whereas the original bobby seems sort of midwestern in his affability and slightly cluelessness whereas what katrina does she's clocking everything but she you know you see all the subtext but as a woman she doesn't speak it she's kind of an invisible character in certain ways she's a screen on which the couples project their anxiety about coupling if you marry your life has a a point to it you know a bottom i mean i have everything except freedom i think once marianne had decided that bobby should be a woman all sorts of other things were up for grabs there are couples where the man's lines from 1970 are now spoken by the woman and vice versa i'm playing david who was originally jenny and she's jenny who is originally david david so the lions have swapped so the lines is swapped there's something really badass about just being a powerful woman in the relationship and being able to say i got the control in this the part i play is probably written for like a kind of ditzy dithering stereotype of a woman you know and it's fun to play this kind of softer man as well as this afternoon you can play with those things in a classic and it's fine and it still makes sense it still has the same heart same um intensity the same uh it's just as funny just as revealing this is where we are in the world now we weren't there in the 70s
