Rachael Hunt finds grown-up success in a child’s world

Jin-ah Kim

These days, Rachael Hunt is joyful.

For the past month, the 22-year-old Boston native has commanded the BCA Plaza Theatre’s stage as the lead in Company One’s critically acclaimed production of “Mr. Marmalade,” running through Saturday. The play centers on the interaction between Lucy, Hunt’s four-year-old alter ego, and her imaginary friend Mr. Marmalade, a tuxedoed flunky addicted to violence, pornography and cocaine. But while all the other characters, including Mr. Marmalade, periodically come and go over the course of the play, Lucy stays on stage for the entire production, which runs about 90 minutes.

A recent Bard College graduate with curly brown hair and gray-green eyes, Hunt said that she has had so much fun playing the energetic Lucy that staying in the center of the play from start to finish is not as challenging as it looks.

“Before the play, I do a lot of stretching. I definitely warm up my body,” she said. “But once the music comes on in the very beginning of the show, every time, it really gets me into it. I start jumping up and down, and I am ready to go.”

On the stage, Hunt’s performance has received raves from the local media. The Boston Globe said Hunt “knocks it out of the park,” portraying Lucy “without a hint of sentimentalizing or exaggerating the emotions of childhood.” Stage manager Amy Weissenstein said many audience members have agreed, noting that the most popular comment she hears from viewers is, “It’s insane how much [Hunt] acts and looks like an actual four-year-old.”

Of course, sometimes acting like a toddler requires an adult’s professionalism. Case in point: during one recent show, in a scene where Lucy and her five-year-old friend Larry (played by 25-year-old Greg Maraio) feed each other, Hunt’s counterpart chewed up more than just scenery.

“I put an Oreo in his mouth, and [Maraio] bit my finger really hard. Ah-ah-ah!” Hunt recalled, mimicking her yell. “I tried to make it [seem] as if I was having so much fun.”

The reaction was par for the course for Hunt, according to Company One’s Mark VanDerzee, who said the young actress “has a strong presence and brings tons of energy.”

“You wouldn’t expect that level of professionalism, skill and technique. You wouldn’t expect that kind of maturity from someone at that age,” said VanDerzee, who has been directing and acting with Company One for the last eight years. “She really is something else.”

Since elementary school, Hunt has performed in plays, musicals and choruses in addition to learning gymnastics and studying a variety of dance disciplines, including modern, ballet, tap and flamenco. During her sophomore year of high school, she transferred from Newton North High School to Boston Arts Academy, where she became a member of the school’s second graduating class.

After taking intensive daily five-hour classes and performing several plays at the academy, Hunt decided to take a different path in college and study anthropology, but she remained extensively involved in theater.

“I couldn’t stop acting. I just loved it,” she said. And though it may seem to be unrelated to her chosen profession, Hunt said that studying anthropology improved her ability to understand human relations and cultural diversity, which has proven helpful in her acting.

While researching for her role as Lucy, Hunt looked through her old photo albums to see what she was like at four years old, drawing inspiration from her own childhood.

“The pictures were hilarious. Some are really ridiculous,” she said, trying to replicate the face she found in the albums. “I think I’ve been always that expressive with my face.”

Like Lucy’s Mr. Marmalade, as a little girl Hunt had an imaginary house with a courtyard and hundreds of rooms, drawn from the fantasies and fairy tales she read as a child, each room holding its own world based on a different culture.

“I was an Indian princess, a Chinese princess, and a Russian princess,” she said with a big smile. “It was all about princesses, friends and animals.”

It was also all about changing the scenery. Until the age of 11, Hunt was a competitive gymnast, spending large chunks of time in the family car moving back and forth to practices and competitions with her older brother, who was also a gymnast until he was 13 years old. Between her brother and her imaginary house, Hunt said, she “didn’t need imaginary friends like Lucy.”

Soon, the scenery will change again — Hunt has had about 20 chances to live as Lucy since mid-July, and only four more performances remain. But even within the context of spending 90 minutes on stage in one role night after night, Hunt noted that on this particular production, nothing stays the same for long.

“It is different every night — just little things,” she said. “My mom saw the show at opening night, and she saw it again last Saturday. She told me it was completely different, and asked me, ‘When did you put in all those changes?’”

Some of those changes include certain little physical poses that Hunt says have “evolved” since opening night.

“After Mr. Marmalade kisses me, I didn’t always do that sexy little pose [as if to say], ‘Yes, I do like it,’” she said, making the four-year-old’s face and gesture. “It just came out at the first or second show. I kept doing it because it was so fun and people seemed to like it.”

When her time on “Mr. Marmalade” comes to an end this weekend, Hunt will stay busy. She will appear in “Waiting,” a short play written by John King, as part of next month’s New England Fringe Festival, and she plans to remain in Boston for the next few years and pursue theater.

“What I love about the theater is that sort of wild things happen in a controlled space,” she said. “You have all the lines and blockings, but there is so much room for changes.”

“Mr. Marmalade” runs through Aug. 11 at the BCA Plaza Theatre at the Boston Center for the Arts. For tickets, visit www.bostontheatrescene.com or call 617-933-8600.