Twenty-four years ago Eric Underwood went to an acting audition at a performing arts school in Washington DC. He panicked, froze and forgot his monologue. It seemed like his career was over before it began. But now 38, Underwood has finally got his first role in a play, Bruce Norris’s Pulitzer prize-winning Clybourne Park, tackling knotty conversations about race and gentrification.
Underwood, however, has had plenty of stage time in between. On the way out of that first audition, he saw some girls getting ready for a dance tryout and, desperate not to let down his mum, asked to have a go. The school recognised his raw talent and a ballet career followed, culminating in 11 years at the Royal Ballet in London, for this charismatic, shapeshifting dancer.
Many ballet dancers are so consumed by their vocation that the idea of leaving the profession is anathema. “I’m not like that at all,” says Underwood, with characteristic radiant cheeriness. “I got everything I wanted out of it. I just felt like I needed to enrich myself outside something I knew.”
Modelling was his first move – “It was a lot easier, and more money” – and he mixed careers for a while, dashing out for a casting in the afternoon and back to Covent Garden for a 7.30pm show. “Run, jump right into costume, and hit it!” as he puts it. Did the Royal Ballet mind you living a double life? “I suppose I never asked!”
He left the Royal in 2017 and was later cast in the film version of Cats, which got him an agent, and while he was at Milan fashion week the script for Clybourne Park came through. Underwood dropped everything, locked himself in his hotel room and read the script over and over before auditioning for director Oliver Kaderbhai over Skype.
Then, as they were nearing the end of rehearsals, came Covid. The hiatus actually gained Underwood some precious preparation time. He worked with an acting coach and came back to the studio more confident. What’s most satisfying to Underwood about the shift from ballet to theatre is finding his voice, and not only on stage. “There’s a lot more dialogue in the rehearsal space,” he says. “It feels very adult. My first day here I was like, why do they keep asking me questions? Just tell me what to do! Then I realised, oh wait, I have an opinion.”
Apart from a couple of cast changes (“I now have a different wife. I think that happened to a lot of people in Covid!”), the major shift between 2020 and now has been in the world outside the theatre: the murder of George Floyd, Black Lives Matter and the changing conversation about race. “The play is even more relevant now than it was then,” says Underwood. He thinks the audience will be more receptive, “because they’ve been having those conversations outside of seeing the play”.
The first act takes place in Chicago in 1959, where a white couple are about to sell their house to a black family, to the consternation of their neighbours. The second act, 50 years later, sees the same house, now in a predominantly black neighbourhood, being sold to a white couple who want to pull it down and build a new one in its place.
“I didn’t fully understand the racial segregation there,” he says. “When black people started to move into those suburban neighbourhoods there were bombs thrown into their houses. I grew up in a 99.9% black neighbourhood and I never even thought about it. When I went to the School of American Ballet obviously things were completely different. My identity had changed from ‘Eric’ to ‘the black guy’.”
During the hiatus, Underwood was able to go back to the US where he talked to people who lived through the period of the play. “I feel like I’ve come back with so much more knowledge,” he says. “It’s really nice to do a play where you’re talking about hugely important things. Things that are incredibly uncomfortable, but at the same time it’s humorous, it’s lighthearted, and it’s offensive in the best possible way.”
In the first act, Underwood plays Albert, husband of the white couple’s maid, Francine. He found it difficult in rehearsals to see Francine (played by Aliyah Odoffin) “being talked to in a derogatory way that I, Eric, object to. But Albert has to be silent and strong and not do anything to upset the situation or he’ll be seen as threatening. I had to fight to keep ‘Eric’ away because I was going: no, no, no!”
In the second act he plays Kevin, a character closer to himself. “He’s a peacemaker. I’m chatty and friendly and don’t like to have conflicts so I’d probably behave a lot like him.” But Kevin has a bit of bite. “I like to tell a cheeky joke, say something that’s quite shocking, so that’s right up my alley.”
Underwood took British citizenship in 2007 and recognises that the story of friction between communities is not solely an American one. He’s involved in inclusivity work, teaching dance in schools – a primary school in Hackney has even run a course about him. “Dance isn’t out of my life but I feel like I need to share it more than do it,” he says.
He is also working on an idea for a dance and travel TV show. His infectious can-do self-belief stems from his mother’s constant encouragement. “We’re really close, we probably talk three times a day,” he says. “It’s that very cliched American thing, but she always said to me, you can be anything that you want to be.” Underwood has no fears about leaping into new pursuits. “Given my life experience I’ve got really thick skin,” he says. “I don’t mind being judged. It’s just important to be who I am and try my best. That’s all I can do.”
• Clybourne Park is at the Park theatre, London, 16 March-23 April.
