Kiwi’s insight into ‘mum’
Katherine Wiles stars in Sydney Opera House’s season of She talks to Hannah McKee about what it’s like to be directed by musical theatre great, Julie Andrews.
On day one of rehearsals for Opera Australia’s 2016 musical My Fair Lady, Julie Andrews asked each cast member around the circle to say their name and a bit about themselves.
Andrews hardly needs any introduction, but when it came to her, she didn’t pass or simply go on to the next task.
She didn’t introduce herself as the queen of musical theatre, a multi-Golden Globe and Emmy Award winner or Oscar winner. Heck, she didn’t even introduce herself as Julie Andrews.
With her warm, instantly recognisable voice and smile, she simply said to her new cast – ‘‘And I’m Mum’’.
Andrews, 80, is revisiting My Fair Lady, the production which kick-started her Broadway career 60 years ago.
This time, from the director’s chair.
The season has kicked off at the Sydney Opera House and will move to Brisbane and Melbourne next year.
Andrews has left big shoes for Australian actress Anna O’Byrne to fill as the lead, Eliza Doolittle, a Cockney flower girl who’s life is turned upside down when she meets an arrogant but brilliant phoneticist, Professor Higgins, played by acclaimed UK actor Alex Jennings.
The show is responsible for timeless numbers such as Wouldn’t It Be Loverly?, On The Street Where You Live, and I Could Have Danced all Night.
Andrews says her time on the original production in 1956 was the greatest learning experience of her life.
‘‘It’s a thrill and a joy to be asked to direct this beautiful production, and I think you will be thrilled with it when you see it,’’ she said at a media call at the Opera House.
‘‘It stems from the great, golden age of Broadway theatre when musicals weren’t cheap. It’s a glorious show and I think, dare say it, the stand-out show of the time.’’
Andrews says it is an honour to now be in the director’s chair, ‘‘To be able to give back some of the things I learned when I was a beginner – and I was in the show for a very long time, and to be able to pass on some of the wisdom that was handed down to me.’’
For Katherine Wiles, the cast’s only Kiwi, being directed by Andrews is a career peak that is going to be hard to top, she says.
Wiles’ colleagues at Opera Australia, where she has sung full-time for eight years, are all on a break at the moment.
But there was no way Wiles was going to pass up a dreamcome-true to work with Andrews, who inspired her to pursue a performance career.
‘‘It’s incredible, I grew up watching Julie Andrews do everything, and if someone had said to me a year ago, or when I was little, ‘you’re going to be directed by Julie Andrews’, I would have said ‘yeah, whatever’.
‘‘She’s 80, and yet her mind and spirit is still so youthful and passionate, it’s like she’s ageless in a way. She really is the most beautiful, classy person I have ever met.’’
Wiles says that even though the cast still respect their director as ‘‘Julie Andrews, the icon’’, they have been given a key to a different Julie Andrews, the ‘‘normal’’ human being.
‘‘At first, we were sort of starstruck but the whole cast has been very respectful and professional. As a director she steers the ship 100 per cent, and she’s so appreciative and gives such great notes.
‘‘But it’s also lovely to talk to her about ridiculous stuff like washing, and cats, and public transport, normal stuff.
‘‘The other night we had a family and friends night, and management put drinks on in the green room afterwards, and I sat there with her and two other girls for 15 minutes or so and we just had a great old chat. She laughed AS she told us about her scene on The Muppets with Miss Piggy where they wore the same dress.’’
Playing Mrs Boxington, as well AS a member of the ensemble, Wiles’ new role is certainly a change of pace from her opera performances, which she will return to at the season’s end.
‘‘I’ve got five costume changes with a corset, tights, a bustle, four wigs, then there’s the tap dancing, the waltzing, and jumping around, I normally don’t have to do any of that,’’ she says.
‘‘But it’s so good to get back into doing a good old knees-up piece and not worry about my voice so much.’’
Wiles has learned to have an early dinner and not eat again until after the interval.
‘‘Because you’re wearing a corset for most of the night you