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Molly Parker in the play Harper Regan, which opens March 5.Paul Lampert

You may know Molly Parker from her current role in House of Cards, the hit Netflix series just out in its third season. Where you don't know the Canadian actress from is her work onstage. Her title role in the Simon Stephens drama Harper Regan – making its Canadian premiere at the Bluma Appel Theatre on Sunday – is just her second experience in professional theatre. We spoke to her during a break in rehearsals.

Canadian Stage is billing Harper Regan as an 'epic journey of discovery.'

Is that what they're calling it? Oh my God, I've got a lot to do then. [Laughs.]

Can you talk about what's being discovered?

Essentially this play is about a woman who has had a kind of trauma in her family. They spent a couple of years somewhat in isolation. Her father then gets ill and she needs to go home and see him. On that journey, a number of things happen to her in which she discovers some things she needs to know in order to carry on.

Is her journey a uniquely female journey?

I believe the playwright, Simon Stephens, was interviewed saying that he had originally conceived of it for a man. He was at the National Theatre at the time and they expressed that they wanted something for a woman and so he changed it. It has been my experience that if you want a project for women, you just write them for men and change the name of the characters.

Does that apply to your House of Cards character, Jackie Sharp?

She's a woman who has operated in a world in which she has had to become very comfortable holding her own with powerful men. It may not be gender-specific as much as it is a world in which vulnerability is not allowed. Because showing vulnerability leaves you open, in the House of Cards world, to be hurt. Or to losing.

Can you talk about your experience here with Harper Regan, given your limited background in theatre?

I'm having a wonderful experience. I did one professional play in my life. I've been an actor for 20 or 25 years, so it's not as though it's all brand new. But there is this other way of coming to it.

There's a line in Harper Regan about stepping outside oneself and asking, 'Am I actually doing this?' Are you having one of those moments now, with this production, in which the actors perform a few feet away from the audience?

I think that quote is about a disassociation, and I believe I'm having the opposite of that experience, which is the immediacy of the theatre. It's not at all this thing of standing outside myself. It's really about getting closer to the heart of the thing.

I should have just asked you how it's going so far.

That's okay. You're a writer. One of the things I've always loved about acting is the necessity to be in the moment. That there is nothing before and nothing after. It's just what's happening between you and another actor, and that's there whether you're working in film or in television or onstage.

But what about having the audience so close to you?

I imagine that's a very powerful relationship and creative dynamic. But we haven't opened yet. Ask me in a week if that's what it feels like.

Harper Regan, March 5 to 22 (previews begin March 1), $30 to $99. Bluma Appel Theatre, 27 Front St. E., 416-363-3110 or canadianstage.com.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

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