Mother knows best: Jennifer Casler of LAB’s dark thriller
Norman Bates and his overbearing mother got nothing on the dysfunctional duo that forms the centerpiece of PER, the Donald Loftus drama onstage now at LAB Theatre Project.
Based on real events, the drama is about teenaged Per Nilsson, who was accused in 19th Century Sweden of conspiring with his own mother to commit murder.
Widow Anna Mansdotter, and her strangely close relationship with her son Per, is the subject of town gossip. The young man (Blake Boles) is nervous and fidgety, he doesn’t go to school and he has no friends. He defers everything to Mother.
The LAB production features Jennifer Casler as Anna, who rules the household – her son too – with an iron fist. It’s the first psychological thriller for Casler, who’s been appearing on stages in Tampa and St. Pete with equal measure since 2014. Most recently, she was a dancing Phantom in Jobsite’s Rocky Horror Show.
Still, “I love dramas, and I love twisted,” she says. “Theater is literally my favorite thing to do in the entire world. I could do theater every day, as tiring as it is!”
Anna’s slow, measured monotone is miles away from Casler’s own mile-a-minute speech patterns. Similarly, Casler’s normally bright, animated face becomes a dour, emotionless mask as Anna first manipulates Per into marrying the innocent Hannah (Elliana Gorecki) and, when she becomes pregnant, killing her.
It’s revealed in the first few minutes that Anna will be executed for the role she played. But what of Per?
For the audience, the creep factor is ramped up with each passing scene. “We had a couple of nights where I got audible gasps on some of the stuff that I say,” Casler explains. During one scene, while she’s taking Hannah apart verbally, “I thought someone was going to reach out and slap my face.”
Mission accomplished.
“One of the most fun things as an actor is knowing that you’ve affected the audience in some way,” she says. “To get that sort of audible reaction – or physical, because I can see the audience, too – is cool. To know that I’ve creeped you out enough, or made you uncomfortable, or shocked and angry.
“It’s just as much fun as being funny. If I can make an entire room cry, I love it.”
Casler with her parents outside Jobsite Theater, during the summer run of “The Rocky Horror Show.” Photo: Facebook.
Growing up in Orange Park, in Northeast Florida, Casler had never considered acting. She graduated from the University of Florida in 2010 with a degree in in Chinese Language and Culture, and moved to the bay area the following year.
Her first St. Pete job was as a body paint model at ARTPool Gallery, where a painter happened to tell her he was part of the Rocky Horror Picture Show shadow cast at the Beach Theatre. She’d always been a fan, and soon joined the cast for Friday and Saturday night time warps.
When another friend suggested she audition for a show at Gulfport Community Playhouse show, Stepping Out, she told him she was far too nervous.
“I know that sounds super-weird, but with body paint I could be goofy and just sort of dance around. The physical part of it – being painted up – for whatever reason – took the nervousness out of it. The first time I ever did Rocky Horror, I was literally shaking. I was playing ‘Dinner Scene Brad,’ and you could see me shaking onstage.”
But she auditioned, and got the part, and spent the better part of the subsequent decade working in community (amateur) and professional (paid) theater.
Along the way, something happened that she hadn’t seen coming: She became a good actress.
Prior to Rocky Horror, she’d appeared in 1984 and The Threepenny Opera with Jobsite, which is a professional company. LAB, where she’s appearing in Per, is also professional.
She likes to go where the mood, and the work, take her.
“If there’s a show that I happen to resonate with, if it’s professional or not, or a character that I feel the overwhelming need to play, I’m going to after it regardless,” Casler says.
“I would also like to have the opportunity to learn, and practice, as much as possible. I don’t want to sit around not doing anything, just because they are not going to pay me for it. That’s always been my reasoning.”
PER is onstage through Sept. 22. Find tickets here.
