They’re really in LOVE
Actors who play Sophie and Sky in ABBA musical talk about their onstage and offstage relationship
Most audience members probably won’t give much consideration to the engagement ring Lucy May Barker wears as the character Sophie in Mamma Mia!, now playing at the Ed Mirvish Theatre.
After all, the show’s all about Sophie’s upcoming marriage to her boyfriend Sky.
That’s not just any prop sparkler, however, but a ring given to Barker by Phillip Ryan, the actor who plays Sky. The pair became a couple while performing the show and got engaged five weeks ago.
I met Lucy and Phillip between the matinee and evening performances of Mamma Mia! this past Thursday — the first day of the Toronto run for this international touring company.
I usually interview spectators rather than performers for the At the Theatre With ... column, but this story was too delicious to pass up. How did these colleagues become sweethearts? What is it like to not pretend to be in love for eight performances a week?
The pair are bursting with excitement about being in Toronto and for the tour’s onward journey to six locations in Asia, including Jakarta, Singapore and Hong Kong.
While young (she’s 26 and he’s 28), they’ve been leading grown-up lives for a while.
Barker, from Lincoln in the English Midlands, has been acting professionally since she played the title role in a U.K. tour of Annie as a preteen.
Ryan left Montrose, his Scottish hometown, at 16 to train as a rugby player and “fell into” acting after he suffered a sports injury and auditioned on a whim for an Edinburgh theatre school (and got in with a full scholarship).
Mamma Mia! has been “an absolute life changer,” says Barker, for reasons both professional and personal. “It’s the whole reason why we met and it’s the whole reason why our lives are where they are now.”
Theirs was not love’s young dream from the beginning, however.
They first met in October 2015 while auditioning for the show and clearly had sufficient chemistry as well as talent to land the roles.
But Barker initially “wasn’t a fan” of her co-star.
“In this industry you meet so many people who are not what they seem,” she says.
“So many people in show business spend their whole personal life also putting on a show; therefore they’re not authentic, genuine people. Phil is so lovely and so genuine that me being the cynical person that I amslash-was three years ago, I just didn’t believe it.”
Ryan has less stage time and fewer singing responsibilities than Barker does in the show.
He acknowledges that “in trying to make a friendship” with her “sometimes I pushed a little too much and thought she was being a bit standoffish, a bit cold.”
But after six months of touring, something clicked for Barker while they were having a meal with Mamma Mia! colleagues at a Chinese restaurant in Birmingham.
“I was suddenly like, he’s really cute and he’s really sweet.” Bringing her cups of green tea backstage was part of the key to her heart.
They started hanging out more and then, says Ryan, “I stayed over one night and never left.”
“We are so lucky to be working together and getting to spend as much time together as we do,” says Ryan, while acknowledging that this has a “flip side.” Their lives being so intertwined can be overwhelming.
There’s only been one time when they had to canoodle onstage while being in a real-life fight. “My parents were watching for my mum’s birthday,” remembers Barker, “and they came backstage and said, ‘Oh, it just gets better every time!’ and I said, ‘We’ve had a row.’ ”
The fact that offstage tensions didn’t show in the performance is “where the line needs to be,” says Ryan.
“Relationships happen and people get close and that’s great, but … the minute you come through the stage door that’s where it stops. That’s where it stays. You’re paid to do a job.”
This year the couple bought a house together in Margate, a seaside town in Kent.
Ryan had been planning to propose for a while, designing the ring himself and then giving it to their stage manager, Jack Chandler, to hold onto because he was worried he’d misplace it.
Finally being settled convinced him the time was right and he popped the question one evening as they sat on the beach near their new home.
They told their real-life families immediately and then let their Mamma Mia! family know on the first day of rehearsals for this tour.
“I have this image — I wish someone filmed it — of all the girls in the company screaming and running toward me,” says Barker. “That was lush. That was so nice.”
When the contracts for this tour finish next April, will this be the end of their Mamma Mia! journey?
“I never say never,” says Ryan. “I watch the second movie and I watch some of our cover runs … and you just have so much love for this show and the people doing it.”
“The only reason I would say never is because I’m 26 trying to play a 20-year-old,” says Barker. “There is an expiry date I think. Sky can be any age.”
Before the time to make that decision arrives, they are making the most of their time abroad. Job one in Toronto? Seeing Come From Away.
The pair came into town a few days early to catch the Canadian cast at the Royal Alexandra, having first seen the hit musical in New York.
“It’s one of the only shows I’ve seen where I forget I am an actor,” says Barker. “I get completely immersed in it.”
Having chatted with them for several hours along with company manager Ben Jefferson over an early dinner at the Sen- ator restaurant, I felt like I was watching friends as they sang, played and smooched on the Ed Mirvish stage that evening.
There’s little difference between these sweet young people onstage and off, except for maybe the fact that Sophie and Sky end up bailing out of their wedding whereas, for Lucy and Phillip, that rock is real. Mamma Mia! plays at the Ed Mirvish Theatre through Aug. 19. See mirvish.com or call 416-872-1212 or 1-800-461-3333. At the Theatre With … is an occasional series in which theatre critic Karen Fricker brings people with specialist perspectives to performances. Fricker is a Toronto-based theatre critic and a freelance contributor for the Star. Follow her on Twitter: @KarenFricker2