Back to the Future: Bay City's Matriarch, Victoria Wyndham, Talks about Daytime, Then and Now:
In 1967 , Victoria Wyndham, already a broadway veteraan, joined Guiding Light in the role of Charlotte Waring Bauer. Three years later, she left the soap to raise her sons, Christian and Darian. In 1972, she was wooed back to daytime to take on the pivotal role of Rachel where she's remained ever since to the delight of Another World fans. Victoria spoke with Daytime TV about how soap operas have changed through the years as well as some of her thoughts on Daytime today
Daytime TV:When you first joined GL you performed live. What's the biggest Difference between doing Daytime live and now today with all the technological advances they've made?
Victoria Wyndham: Well, in those days they had to trust us. Also because it was live the storytelling was through dialogue not through action or plot. So going from live to tape slowly changed the way soaps were written as more and more shows got their own edit facilities. Once you have your own edit facilities everybody then pretends they're doing movies abd then all of the sudden the story telling changes a great deal. I would say it changed our show profoundly eventually. But in the live days they had to really depend on the acting ensemble to pull everythng off. And the production values had to be extremely simple. Consequently you had two people in a scene and the scenes would be very long and quiet talky. And if the actors weren't interesting enough to make that interesting to watch they they were let go. That's what Paul (Rauch, formerly AW's exec producer, now GL's) would do. He'd search around for actors who could make page after page of dialogue interesting.
Daytime TV:How about Part Scenes?
Victoria Wyndham: We would do a party scene every six months, originally it was once a year. It was very hard to rehearse that kind of scene. We'd have four cameras and we'd have to release two of them in the body of the scene to pick up the next scene seamlessly after the commercial shot. It was very difficult and it was a dream for an actor who had done theater before because it was live, just like theater is live. You didn't have the audience so you could workd and experiment with the same degree of nerves with performances much smaller, much less theatrical but much more intense. It was very interesting work. I think it's what soaps do the best-- scenes where some dialogue is happening between two characters and the stakes are high. They both have different points of view or one person has a secret. That was the kind of scene we did then.
Daytime TV:Would you want to go back to live?
Victoria Wyndham: Not the way we write the show now. I don't think it could been done well that way. I'm always surprised when I hear that ER is going live. It was amazing that they were able to pull it off, but I didn't find it the most compelling episode of ER that I've seen because they're so geared to the action part; that can't possibly be done as well if you don't stop and start. So, if we went back to live I would find it thrilling, but only if the writing served that--with three or more characters in a scene that's impossible to rehease enough to get it seamless enough to be any good. We were held to very loose strictures in those days. We were given areas of a whole set we could work in, what we would consider an enormous area today, because it was all sort of improvised. They wanted you to feel free to do what you wanted to do.
Daytime TV:The cameras would automatically follow you?
Victoria Wyndham: Yes, the camera men were very swift. You'd rehearse allday so that everyone would get familiar with approximately what you were going to do and then it was every man for himself on taping. Consequently it wasn't anything like hitting your marks. You didn't hit any marks. The lighting was unremittingly bright so whenever you walked you could be lit. There was equipment everywhere so that you could be shot and heard and within that parameter you did what you had to do to make the scene work. The scenes were domestic drama, about relationships. Pete's(Harding Lemay, AW's former Headwriter) m.o. (Modus operandi) for his scene writing was usually each character had a different secret from each other. Then they both shared a common problem. Those two secrets affected that common problem and each persoon would jockey for their position to try and convince the other person to do something.
Today, our scenes are written like somebody is doing something to somebody and somebody else is always telling them what it is they just discovered. So ours is not geared to that kind of interest. Pete's stuff was all about each character trying to find out what page the other character was on and trying to convince the other character to either get on his page or get off the page they were on. Or surreptitiously manipulate the other person to so something that they wanted to. With no production values that's a good way to do it.
Daytime TV:What do you think has been the biggest change in daytime?
Victoria Wyndham:A move away from the kind of stories that soaps used to tellto action and plot stuff. I think that was an unfortunate switch for soaps. I think that has created the attrition rate among the viewers. They were interested in psychological drama. They were interested in who was doing what to whom and why, not who was physcially doing something to someone or who had stolen something or who had hidden something. They were interested in following relationships and what would happen to relationships if some nefarious third person was trying to manipulate it in a certain way. Now there is a great deal of emphasis on tellingstory quickly. It's about telling story fully. Victor Hugo and Dickens did that beautifully. They told a story of the simplest nature and filled it up and gave it layers and characters and permutations and went off on rifts and tangents so they told it fully. We tell a lot of plot quickly, so I think it's sort of like Chinese food. You might have a lot of different courses,but five minutes later you're hungry.
Daytime TV:How would you bring the audience back?
Victoria Wyndham: Go back to basics. Go back to full storytelling. It doesn't have to move at a snail's pace, but we assiduously tend to avoid the payoff storytelling. We cut to each plot point and give up all the steps that led to it. Consequently the plot points don't pack the punch they used to because we haven't built up to it. When you tell a story fully you have a lot of little arcs and everybody keeps going, "Oh, my God, is that what is going to happen?" And then you surprise them again. It's like the trail of the switchback. You keep turning it, suprise angles and then when you get there everyone goes, "Oh, my God." That's what you want You want the great payoff, but you can't get that if you go from little payoff to little payoff to little payoff. You have to lead up to your payoff. I think Chris (Goutman, AW's exec producer) is trying to go back to the basics now. If I was queen for a day I'd say lets concentrate on the people in the story. Let's examine them more fully. Let's really tease the audience and lead them up to it.
Daytime TV:What kinds of stories would you tell?
Victoria Wyndham: Human interest stories, relationship stories. The same kinds of stories we tell now. The stories our show is telling are really good ones. The Lumpy, bumpy story (the Jordan Stark storyline), that's my name for it, would be a gang buster story if we were allowed to tell it as fully. Our show has so much story. So what happens, a lot of the acillary stories get cut and we go from plot point to plot point. I'd rack back to a slightly slower story telling and make it fuller and more interesting daily. If you do little arcs, then all those little arcs build up to a big arc and the big arc has a bang for it's buck. When we did the killing of Janice in the pool that was a story that was laid in for a whole year. It was a whole year of tiny arcs that led up to that. That's why everybody remembers it. The lead up to the marriage of mac and rachel went on for two years, with endless little arcs. Would Iris be able to ruin this love affair? Would rachel ruin it instead? Would Mac ruin it instead? Or would somebody come out of the blue like Steve Frame? There were thousands of arcs that were explored fully before they finally got married. Chris is trying to get back to that kind of storytelling.
Daytime TV:What's it like having Matt Crane (matt)and Sandy Ferguson (Amanda) back?
Victoria Wyndham: It's lovely to have them back. And Anna Holbrook (Sharlene) and Alice (Barrett-Mitchell, Anne), but it would be nice to have some of the men back.
Daytime TV:Would you like Charles Keating (ex-carl) to return?
Victoria Wyndham:Well of course.
Daytime TV: Is that a possibility?
Victoria Wyndham: I won't even allow myself to go there. I think that's a big hole in our canvas. I would like to see David Forsyth (ex-John) come back. I'd love for Anna to stay. We had a terrific ensemble. I'd like to see Anna Stuart (Donna) work more. I'd like to see another generation beyond mine on the show. I'd like to see Loretta back and Bridget. I'd like to see real stories written for our African American actors. I'd like to see Orientals on our show with real stories. I'd like to see some grandparents on the show , not the 50's age group, but the group beyond that because people live a long time these days. I'd like to reflect society as it really is.
Daytime TV:How much has Rachel changed?
Victoria Wyndham: She's gotten less airtime. She's grown up. She's developed as a person and more tolerant now than she ever was because she's had so many hard knocks and so many disappointments, so many situations that haven't worked for her. She's not as willful as she used to be. A lot of people say, "Oh, I want to see the old Rachel." Excuse me, you don't go backwards in life unless you're a sociopath. The fact that she's survived means that she's chosen to grow up and you can't go backwards. Would there be something to make her act antisocial again? Yeah, take all of her children away from her.
Daytime TV:Is she ready to love again?
Victoria Wyndham: Well, would you be in a year if you lost a baby? Well, losing a husband that you desparately love is the same thing as losing a baby. My experience has been that it takes about six years to get over something like that.
Daytime TV:When Douglass died in real life they brought in Lewis Arlt fairly soon as Ken.
Victoria Wyndham: It was two years and she was younger. She desparately needed that relationship or she never would have come out of her depression. And the storyline took a year to tell also. And on soaps they always truncate how long these things take. But once it happens twice, to have another great love of her life, that makes you pretty leery. And she's that much older. The older you get the pickier you are and the harder it is to get more interested in people. You're more discriminating. You're very clear on who you are and what you are looking for. And it's hard to find those qualities.
Daytime TV:We haven't really seen Rachel dealing with Carl's death. The previous execs said Rachel would have a storyline and we're still waiting.
Victoria Wyndham: The rachel I've developed wouldn't be siitting around trying to unsnarl her children's life. Sghe'd be doing something on her own. So it would be nice to see her with the twins. It would be nice to see her in her sculpture studio or at work. And I think it would be nice to see her not coping very well or not be so capable with some of her kids.
Daytime TV:How about Another World's future?
Victoria Wyndham: I think we have the most terrific executive producer that we have had since Rauch. And if anybody can turn this around, Chris can. And so I think our show has a better shot than it's had in the last ten years.
Daytime TV:What is it about Chris?
Victoria Wyndham: He has a great eye and great taste. And he's a very decisive executive who doesn't take forever to make decisions. He knows what he wants and what he wants to see. He's very decisive and yet open to suggestion, but he'll quickly say yes, no, no yes. He knows where he wants to take the show. He has a vision for it. He's still working with the writing team, but he's quiet supportive of them. He is really genuinely gifted at this job. He's probably the most gifted person I've seen since Rauch and we've needed somebody like this at the helm since Rauch. And God knows, he's not giving up. He doesn't know the meaning of no. He's going fullsteam ahead. In one week he pulled the whole machine together so that we felt like we had a leader. It's been extraordinary.
Written by Anne Marie Allocca