Life a song and dance for actresses
THE delightful, endearing and uplifting musical Funny Girl has been running since May 18 to much acclaim.
For seven productions a week, the cast seems to get it just right, dancing, singing and entertaining with the most amazing energy that in each performance seems as fresh and zingy as the day before. There’s still time to enjoy this delightful show before the final curtain comes on June 11.
While Fanny Bryce, played by Ashleigh Harvey may take centre spotlight, her mother and her two cronies, played respectively by Kate Normington as Mrs Bryce, Diane Wilson as Mrs Strakosh and Michele Maxwell as Mrs Meeker, are the three veteran actresses who in their own way keep the thread running and the story going, providing the small narrative to the bigger picture.
Meeting the three of them in the Fugard Theatre’s foyer before the evening’s performance, the trio seem to be in perfect sync off the boards as they are in production, finishing off each others’ sentences and offering praise for their fellow actresses’ achievements. Between them they have more than 100 years of stage experience under their belts, yet each maintains a charming modesty about all the productions they have been in over the decades and the many awards and tributes they have individually garnered. Each has run the gamut of almost every type of performance you can name, and they demonstrate that whatever age you may be, maturity can, and does, equate with the consummate ability to take on a role in the world of entertainment.
Singer, actress and cabaret artist Normington, has among others, performed in Sweet Charity, Fame, Cabaret, Hair, Mamma Mia! and more recently Babes in the Wood. She has won the Vita award for Excellence in Comedy and the Fleur de Cap award for best actress for her role as Sister Mary Amnesia in Nunsense. She’s played in London’s West End and the role of Lizzie in the SABC2 comedy series On the Couch.
Maxwell’s first professional acting role was at The Space, of which she was a founding member, in 1974, acting with Bill Flynn in Tennessee Williams’ Out Cry. She is also a jazz singer of note and a highly accomplished pianist. Among others she’s also performed in Death of a Salesman, Marat Sade and Major Barbara and for the BBC in the television series The Sisters, while locally she’s been a familiar face as Bubbles in Isidingo and Bernice in Fishy Feshuns.
Diane Wilson has notched up 14 theatre awards since 1963, and starred in Shirley Valentine and Boy Friend, the Sound of Music and Mame, just to name a few, and featured more recently in Vlug na Egipte and terug na Egiptes on local TV.
As the three women sit alongside, it’s not even a question as to how well-attuned they are to the demands of their current roles.
Simply speaking, they have made and developed them into their own, and jokingly refer to themselves as the poker poodles, as on stage they sit endlessly playing cards, all the while commenting on the passing parade.
“We’re the three yentes,” comments Wilson wryly. Loosely defined, yente is a Yiddish term that derives from the word gentle or noble woman but has morphed over the years to refer to a woman who is a gossip or a busybody.
In Funny Girl, the trio’s synergy and interaction is as much the thread to the story as the sub-plot, as they pass pithy comments, sometimes laced with sarcasm, sometimes tinged with acerbic wit, and often, misdirected concern about Fanny’s bitter-sweet journey of becoming a comedienne, Broadway star and film actress.
Mrs Pryce is the meddling mother, while Mrs Meeker’s gentleness is the foil to Mrs Strakosh’s bull-headed approach to life. Maxwell says, “I don’t actually have a lot of lines on stage but my character has developed in a composite of the three of us and when we are together the other two build me up.”
She adds, “We may be so different to each other on stage but between us, in real life, there is so much warmth and respect too.”
Normington says acting as the mother of Fanny Bryce (played by Harvey), she’s become somewhat protective to the young actress. “At one stage, we lived on the same property in Joburg and Ashleigh literally saved my life one day when I got bitten by a bee and she rushed me to hospital as I had a terrible allergic reaction.
“So I feel I am beholden to her and I am kind of doting and protective towards her (much like she is in the play). “
They all agree the play needs an enormous amount of energy and Wilson, now in her seventies, says while their seamless rapport and seemingly spontaneous dialogue between the three is, in fact, well-rehearsed and scripted, it takes an enormous amount of stamina to execute.
When the show ends, they all have their own agendas – Normington to play “yet another mother” in Marc Lottering’s Auntie Merle the Musical, while Maxwell will continue mentoring others and freelancing.
Wilson says she’ll be resting. “As an older actress I never do any role until I have repeated each line over and over again – it’s constant repetition. One needs an enormous amount of stamina and I just want to put my feet up now.”
Funny Girl, directed by Matthew Wild and produced by Eric Abraham and Daniel Galloway with musical director Charl-Johan Lingenfelder and choreographer Louisa Talbot is until June 11 at The Fugard Theatre. Go to www.thefugard.com or call 021 461 4554 or book through Computicket.