Life and ageing in The Best
Two stalwarts of New Zealand’s theatre industry discuss breaking stereotypes and the art of growing older ahead of their Wellington shows.
“My character says, ‘some people think that we’re waiting to die but I’m just starting to live’, well, I think I’ve lived all my life, but ... I would never have predicted that in my 70s suddenly, I’d been getting lots and lots of acting work.”
Annie Ruth
India means different things to different people with its colour, vibrancy and chaos.
It can be a place for soul searching, for feeling alive. It’s a place of great beauty but also huge cultural difference, some of its cities aren’t for the faint of heart. It’s confronting and challenging, extremely spiritual and overwhelming.
There’s perhaps no better setting, then, for a story about a motley group of Brits in their twilight years who’ve grown disillusioned with their own country and are looking for love, lust and everything in between.
Many will be familiar with The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel from the 2011 film starring Judi Dench, Dev Patel, Bill Nighy and Maggie Smith, but since April a stage adaptation starring Coronation Street’s Rula Lenska has been showing at Auckland’s The Civic, and it makes its way to Wellington next week before travelling to Christchurch in mid May.
The lost pensioners, in desperate need of finding new meaning to their lives, move to a retirement hotel in Bangalore (in the film, it’s in Jaipur), run by a young and eager Indian local. Half of them are widowed and the story follows the characters as they start again abroad and move on from former loves while dealing with new ones.
Atypically for Hollywood and even the arts in a broader sense, the story puts the lives of older people centre stage – presenting them as complex, needy, emotional people.
Two Wellington actors audiences will be familiar with – Annie Ruth and Kate JasonSmith – are part of the production, with Ruth playing the role of Muriel Donnelly (Maggie Smith in the film), a xenophobic, racist termagant and retired housekeeper in need of a hip replacement; while JasonSmith is the understudy for four different female roles, so if any actor becomes unwell, she swings into action. This also means she has the most lines to learn.
In an interview with The Post, the pair, who have both worked in the industry for decades (35 years for Ruth, 55 years for JasonSmith), reflected on being older actors.
“I am totally shocked that at this stage in my career, suddenly as I hit my 70s I've been working non stop. Like Kate, I've got a solo show that I've toured around New Zealand, but also I just was in Circa Theatre at The Secret Lives of Extremely Old People and a film that the wonderful James Ashcroft has made called The Rule of Jenny Pen. It's amazing,” Ruth said.
“My character says, ‘some people think that we’re waiting to die but I'm just starting to live’, well, I think I’ve lived all my life, but ... I would never have predicted that in my 70s suddenly, I’d been getting lots and lots of acting work.”
JasonSmith added, (quoting one of her characters), that the cast was not particularly old, “we’ve just been young for a very long time”.
“Keep in mind that the people who go to the theatre tend to be older. I put on a theatre show two years ago now or a year and a half, something like that, called The Older The Better. It's a variety show that I also emceed, and in order to be in it, you had to be over 70, and the three main actors were in their 90s. And the people who came were, of course, all older. And when I pitched the show to Circa [Theatre] they said, ‘oh, I dunno, who will come to see that?’, and I said, ‘look at your audiences now’,” JasonSmith said.
“So you're playing to your audience in a way. And of course, because when you get older, there's not much on the stage that reflects you. People love to see themselves reflected on the stage . ... That's what theatre should be. It should be telling us stuff about ourselves. And when you get to be over 70, that's what we're doing,” she laughs.
The pair both, separately, have ties to India – JasonSmith’s father was born there, while Ruth directed a play in New Delhi years ago.
The show’s set by Colin Richmond is striking and presents inside and outside spaces at the run-down colonial home turned hotel. Inside, passageways and staircases surround a central reception area, while outside, lush green plants and delicate fairy lights create an oasis of old world Indian charm in a courtyard garden.
Sounds including the hum of traffic and the echoing call of prayer in the distance have been incorporated for an immersive experience. The show is presented by the Stetson Group in association with Ben McDonald Presents.
Ruth, quoting Rachel McAlpine who wrote The Secret Lives of Extremely Old People,