Award-winner Rory is on a roll
HE recipient of the Mercury Durban Theatre Award for Personality of the Year in 2010, Rory Booth, is a singeractor with a busy schedule these days.
Not only has he had a lot of theatre work lined up, but he has released a single, Make You Happy, which has become popular on East Coast Radio and Lotus FM, and a music video shoot is in the final stages.
“We can expect a release on all major music channels by the end of October… and I am now recording my next radio single, Dance With Me, which is aimed at the dance floor,” he says.
On the radio front, Booth is playing two lead characters in Lotus FM’s radio drama, The Deal, and is voicing the character of Deena Murugan in the radio station’s latest daily soapie, Sunshine Mall.
In addition, Booth has been performing in recent months as Boesman in a production of Athol Fugard’s Boesman and Lena, alongside Caitlin Kilburn. The play, directed by Daisy Spencer, was most recently performed at the Hilton Arts Festival at Hilton College.
Booth is in rehearsals for a short run of Popcom, a stage work by Ashwin Singh that is headed for Durban’s Playhouse soon, and then will go straight into rehearsals for his role in KickstArt’s festiveseason production of the sumptuous Disney musical Beauty and the Beast, which will be presented at Durban’s Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre.
The 24-year-old speaks excitedly about performing in Beauty and the Beast, which will run from November 29 to January 6.
“I cannot wait. I will be playing the role of Gaston’s bumbling sidekick Lefou,” he says, referring to the comical character who is like a lapdog for the vain and muscled Gaston, who pursues Beauty.
Booth has also been seen on television, his debut performance in a film called White Gold having aired on SABC3 on September 15.
Songwriting is also a talent, Booth having penned the title track for the film.
“White Gold tells the story of the history of Indians in South Africa. I played the role of Ramsamy Nagaraj in the film, which ran for nine weeks when it was first released in Ster-Kinekor cinemas,” he adds.
Booth was also a finalist on Eastern Mosaic’s recent Generation Next presenter search on SABC2.
The amiable performer, who is studying communications part-time through Unisa, has chalked up a wealth of stage experience as an actor and a singer.
His children’s theatre productions have included Fun with Bob & Rob and The Princess and the Pea, while he has also dabbled in Shakespeare, having appeared in productions of Hamlet and A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
On the musical theatre front, he has featured in Oliver andThe Guitar That Rocked the World, and has starred in music revues such as Celebration, Motown Forever, Southern Soul, Buccaneers and Carnival Time.
Booth also featured in the landmark Indian play, Spice ’n Stuff, which was staged in Durban and Joburg and marked his first role in a straight play.
“I have also co-written several productions and played the role of JuniorJunior in Lotus FM’s Lollipop Lane for two years,” he says, pointing out that he does regular voice-over work for Ukhozi FM, East Coast Radio and Lotus FM.
Although busy, Booth also finds time to pursue his interest in dance.
“I love classical Indian dance so I’m studying kathak with my guru, Manesh Maharaj.”
On a more personal note, he loves animals – “all creatures, great and small”– and labels himself as “a thrill seeker, always game to try something new: be it skydiving, bungee jumping or eating exotic foods”.
Keeping fit, he says, is a way of life: “I’m at the gym six days a week.” Dreams and aspirations? “I feel that I am blessed and privileged to be living my dreams and aspirations. Being a performer is what I love.
“Using my craft to move an audience is very rewarding. I am, however, looking forward to doing more film work. Being SA’s first Bollywood star would be something really worth aspiring to.
“I also hope to record a full studio album once my single is released. I strongly believe that nothing is impossible,” he says. I FOUND this pretentious comedy of manners tedious in the extreme, but I accept that writerdirector Whit Stillman is largely a matter of taste, and perhaps of mood as well, so there is room for another view.
Damsels in Distress is only Stillman’s fourth film in 20 years, following his elegant Metropolitan (1990), Barcelona (1994) and Last Days of Disco (1998).
I remember greatly enjoying Metropolitan, a cryptic, amusing take on a group of upper middleclass students circling Manhattan during the debutante season.
Stillman’s films are all about what a character in Metropolitan described as the “urban haute bourgeoisie”. He certainly knows his target market well. The Harvard graduate’s parents were well connected, with his mother coming from a distinguished Philadelphia family, while his father served in the John F Kennedy administration.
Perhaps I’ve become increasingly less impressed over time by well-heeled American “Wasps”, or perhaps in this era of excessive capitalist greed Stillman’s creations have lost their allure.
At any rate, I found there was little merriment or Great Gatsby- ish charm to be found in his latest bunch of characters.
This time they’re a closely knit group of young women at an east coast university, led by Violet (played by flavour-of-the-moment actress Greta Gerwig). Their main purpose in life is to raise the consciousness of their fellow students, particularly the men, whose minds certainly need improving.
The vehicle they choose is the varsity’s Suicide Prevention Centre, where they hand out doughnuts and advice to students whom they deem to be in danger of self-extinction.
Violet, whose arrogance and self-righteousness are exacerbated by her conviction that her motives are morally impeccable, is consumed by an ambition to start a new dance craze that will cheer up students tempted to jump off high buildings.
The path of love is rarely a straight and uncomplicated one and the damsels in question soon find themselves in distress, as defined by the boys they take a shine to.
Some of the dialogue is clever in a PG Wodehouse kind of way, but it’s hard to recognise life as we know it in this artificial, contrived film, which features characters who look like they’ve wandered in from a 1930s Fred Astaire movie.
If I’d bumped into Violet and her style police during my first year at university I would have run the proverbial mile.