A few days after her diagnosis, Kathleen Brady thought she was undaunted.
Then the Denver Center Theatre Company’s most veteran actor found herself frozen behind the wheel of her car, stopping herself halfway through a right turn in a familiar intersection near her home.
For a long time, she could see the car heading straight for her, and still, she said, “I couldn’t move.”
That’s when Brady knew she was not undaunted by breast cancer. Not by a long shot.
“It was nuts, what I did. I mean, I just let this lady plow into the side of my new car,” said Brady, thankful neither driver was hurt.
That’s also when Denver Center stage manager Lyle Raper, herself a 12-year cancer survivor, told Brady last November, “You’re in the bubble.”
Brady was in shock.
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This slideshow focuses on Denver Center Theatre Company veteran actor Kathleen Brady, who returns from chemotherapy to star in the 2008 season-opening “The Trip to Bountiful.” The gallery includes candid shots from friends, “Bountiful” production shots and a look back at Brady’s career through the years. Photos by Terry Shapiro, Cyrus McCrimmon (The Denver Post) and courtesy Jamie Horton and Kathleen Brady.
Hugs from the “family”
Brady, 57, is a big, buxom woman, with a belly laugh to match. For 22 years, she’s wended her way from Denver Center stages into the hearts of thousands. She came to Denver in 1986 pregnant with a son who’s now 6-foot-7 and in May graduated from college in Michigan.
In between, the ever-rotating denizens of the Denver Center Theatre Company have become this single mom’s family. So even though it was just Brady and her cats at home when she was diagnosed in November, she was never alone.
Brady broke the news during the company’s run of “Pride and Prejudice,” and they responded as any family would. Raper went with Brady to every doctor’s appointment, including six rounds of chemo and 33 blasts of radiation. Others provided meals, rides and the one thing Brady needed most.
“I told the company, ‘Anytime you want to give me a hug, that would be great,’ ” said Brady. “And I tell you, I got more dang hugs . . . People would just come up out of the blue. And that’s the healthiest thing you can do, I can tell you that.”
Brady’s every quote may as well follow with the words, “she said . . . with a hearty laugh.” Her humor is her bedrock, and her survival skill.
It was when she was about to be put under anesthesia for her first surgery that it kicked in fully — and it started something of a movement.
“I remember having to wait several hours because my surgeon was busy, and so I just started quoting Chuckles the Clown from “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” she said. “I kept singing, ‘A little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants,’ over and over.”
When the surgeon finally walked in, she had a sad look on her face, burdened by more serious cases. Brady knew it was time for everyone to lighten up. So when she came back for a second surgery the next week, Brady brought along a red clown nose — “and I brought my surgeon one, too,” she said.
“We both walked into the operating room with our noses on, and that started this whole thing where, ever since then, all my doctors, nurses and friends have put on red noses and had their pictures taken.”
They sent the photos to Brady to cheer her through her physically debilitating rounds of chemo. She’s gotten more than 50 of them to date, from as far away as New Zealand.
Chuckles the Clown would have gotten a chuckle out of that.
“I just think humor is an invaluable weapon against cancer,” Brady said. “The red noses represent that it’s as plain as the nose on your face that you have cancer — and it’s a way of thumbing your nose at it at the same time.
“I mean, ‘Screw you, cancer,’ ” she said, followed by, yes, a ferocious laugh.
“Classic Kathy Brady,” said Dartmouth professor Jamie Horton, who had been the DCTC’s most senior actor before ceding the title to Brady. His entire family — including the family dog — was snapped wearing red noses, and the multicolored hats Brady had long before knitted for them as gifts.
“Kathy has dealt with this disease with the same unflagging sense of humor that has been her trademark in everything she does,” Horton said, “a sense of humor that may cover pain, but is ultimately all about optimism and hope.”
Joyful journey
Brady’s signature size has helped her get dozens of plum (and plump)character parts over the past 30 years. Roles like Maryjohnny in “A Skull in Connemara.” Domina in “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.” Mistress Quickly in her comeback role, April’s “The Merry Wives of Windsor.”
What’s amazing to her, she says, “is that something as small as a lump can bring down an organism as big as I am.” Brady had her fifth round of chemo during “Merry Wives,” and it knocked her out of the show.
Six months later, she can’t imagine a better way to return to the stage than to play Carrie Watts in Horton Foote’s “The Trip to Bountiful,” which opens the DCTC’s 30th season Thursday at the Stage Theatre.
Carrie is an old, dying woman who yearns to return to her rural childhood home one last time. While Brady’s present path is toward health, and her character is facing her inevitable death, Brady sees their journeys as largely the same.
“That little town represents actually being bountiful,” she said. “This woman is going back to find strength and dignity, and that’s exactly what I’m looking for right now.”
That she’s now been a member of the DCTC longer than anyone is an opportunity for reflection and gratitude.
“All I’ve ever wanted since I was a little girl was to work in a company like this one,” she said. “I don’t like looking for work. I just like working.”
As a character actor, Brady has played a lot of elderly roles, like Carrie, before her time. “The difference is that, now, when they put the gray wig on my head, it happens to match my own hair,” she said. But at present, she has only a half-inch that’s grown back since chemo. Not much, but a telltale sign of recovery.
Though it will be five years before Brady can say with authority that she’s beaten cancer, her present struggle is a compromised immune system that will leave her vulnerable for at least another year.
She’s undaunted by the trip.
“Cancer happens. It’s life,” she said. “We’re all going to die. Nobody escapes that. But you can take whatever journey you want to take getting there. You can take a sad journey or you can take a joyful journey.
“That’s up to you.”
John Moore: 303-954-1056 or jmoore@denverpost.com
“The Trip to Bountiful”
Drama. Presented by the Denver Center Theatre Company at the Space Theatre, Denver Performing Arts Complex. Written by Horton Foote. Directed by Penny Metropulos. Starring Kathleen Brady, Larry Bull and Sara Kathryn Bakker. Through Oct. 25. 6:30 p.m. Mondays-Thursdays; 7:30 p.m. Fridays; 1:30 and 7:30 p.m. Saturdays. $34-$51. 303-893-4100, King Soopers or
