Anything Goes for Caroline
Australia’s international triple threat Caroline O’Connor has returned to star in the John Frost / Opera Australia production of Anything Goes. She spoke to Neil Litchfield ahead of rehearsals.
Caroline O’Connor’s earliest stage experience included performing imitations of Ethel Merman for her dog. Now she’s about to play one of Merman’s great roles, Reno Sweeney, in the new Australian production of Anything Goes.
Between those bookends Caroline has starred in a diverse range of musical theatre roles and musicals on stages around the globe, including Broadway to London’s West End and Paris.
Sitting in the Sydney Boardroom of the Gordon Frost Organisation, surrounded by theatrical posters reminding us of John Frost’s greatest hits, I settled in for a lively chat with our elfin, effervescent triple threat.
The vivacious all-singing, all-dancing role of Reno Sweeney, brimming with great Broadway standards to belt out, strikes me as a perfect fit for Caroline. Has it been high on her bucket list forever?
“I suppose secretly it has,” she tells me. “I’ve never really said it out loud. I never do about shows I really want to do; you jinx it a bit. Ever since doing the film De-Lovely, especially, I’ve felt the music feels like a good comfortable pair of shoes. With some roles - you don’t want to make it sound like it’s going to be easy, but you just look at it and you think, yeah, I feel good about that.
“You’ve got to be honest with yourself about roles that you’re right and wrong for, and that’s served me well so far.”
There have been so many great Renos. What is Caroline’s take on the role?
“Every production I’ve seen, including Elaine Paige and Patti Lupone, though sadly I didn’t get to see it with Ethel, the Renos are always a little bit different; they can be different ages and looks. I supposemine will be a little bit more like me, probably a little bit feisty and I’d like to have fun with it.
“Todd (McKenney) keeps telling me how funny the show is, because he’s had so much fun doing it. My intention is that I will have fun playing her, but also be guided by Dean (Bryant) as to how he wants it to go – you’ve always got to look to the captain of the ship when you’re doing a show, excuse the pun. She’s kind of spunky and fun, and a little vulnerable. At times she can come across as a little sad. She wants to be loved, and she’s putting on a bit of a front, as many of us do when you feel that way. It’s very attractive to see those inner qualities of the character on stage – not just the broad strokes – the underlying colours as well. I’d like to be able to try and find that with her, right from the get-go, rather than her just singing songs very loudly.”
Depth of characterisation isn’t something 1930s musicals were renowned for, I suggest.
“I don’t know how deep you can go, but we shall see. Also, because it’s a farce, you don’t want to be dragging the ship down … I can’t stop with all the punning – I keep saying welcome on board to people – all these things come out about the show. I thinkit’s in my subconscious.
“You don’t want to suddenly be doing Chekhov; it’s not meant to be like that. There’s just hints and nuances, little moments of her showing that she’s a sensitive person, because it’s more interesting. But it’s a farce … like the American Noises Off, on a ship, with songs. I don’t know there’ll be as much door slamming, but there’s certainly a lot of fun. I haven’t done a farce before, so I’m looking forward to it, because it’s tricky – it’s about timing.”
One variation between the various performers who’ve played Reno is whether they’ve led the tapping in big production numbers, full on from the front, I suggest.
“I can’t wait. I’m hoping I get to tap the morse code. I love tapping.
“Tap was involved in my first show in London. That was in 1984, and I didn’t tap at all, apart from a little bit of soft shoe tap in Follies and Chicago, until I was in Christmas Story on Broadway in 2012.
“So imagine, between 1984 and 2012, not tapping. You do all the training for it, and then it depends which shows come along whether you use it or not, and it’s not something I do in my cabaret – I don’t just whip on some tap shoes. But I love tapping.
“When I saw the last production on Broadway, the tapping was just so sensational. And Andrew Hallsworth (choreographer) is fantastic at tap. He did Gypsy, and we did West Side Story together as youngsters.”
How hard was getting back to tapping after all those years, I asked.
“I thought those days were over, I thought I could put my tap shoes away, safe and sound, and start playing the old lady roles, but I was an Irish dancer from the age of four, and my muscle memory is good, so it’s just there. The other day I went to try on some new shoes for rehearsal, and as soon as I put them on I couldn’t stop tapping. I’d forgotten how much fun it is.
“Prior to Christmas Story I did have to do a little bit more practice because I hadn’t touched tap for years. I was doing Assassins in Milwaukee when I got the call, so I went to the wardrobe department and said, ‘you don’t have a pair of tap shoes in here in size 6 by any chance?’ They went out the back and they did. Then I went to the props department and said could you whip me up a tap board I can put in my dressing room? They made me a round board out of wood, so I used to come in to work early every day and tap before the show, just to start getting ready and get my rhythms.
“Thenone of the guys in Assassins said, you wouldn’t teach me tap would you? And we started having tap classes before the show at night, doing Assassins, which is really heavy, and doing a 42nd Street in the dressing room.”
There has been talk that Anything Goes seems like something of a stretch for Opera Australia, I suggested.
“Many opera companies overseas do musicals. Maybe Anything Goes isn’t one you’d expect, but I’ve done Street Scene and On the Town with the English National Opera. At the Châteletin Paris we did On The Town, and Sweeney Todd, which is possibly more operatic. But they certainly do musicals. This year they’re doing Singin’ in the Rain at the Châtelet.
“The difference is that they use their opera chorus in them, sometimes in leading roles. So perhaps in the future they might marry the two companies together here – it makes the production even grander, of course.
“It didn’t seem incongruous when I did Showboat with a combined musical theatre and opera company at Leeds Opera, then at Stratford Upon Avon for the Royal Shakespeare Company. It works because of the demands of the singing. Of course the only people that did eight shows a week were the musical theatre performers.
“I was Ellie Mae Shipley, so I would sing it every night, but the opera singers playing the leads were only doing four performances a week. I was a replacement doing Showboat, for someone who had a nervous breakdown.
“So I’m sitting in the dressing room, and I’ve got my costume on. I only had four days to learn the show, and it was the three act version too. I was young in those days and very fast. So I’m sitting there and I’ve got my stocking cap on, my wig ready, completely dressed, and I’m waiting and waiting for the sound people. I’m sharing a dressing room with Fiona Kimm, a wonderful opera singer, and I said to her, when are the sound people coming, it’s only about ten minutes till curtain. She said, ‘Darling, there are no sound people, we’re just singing it live.’
“I said, ‘Are you kidding? Over that huge orchestra?’ So I whipped the wig on and went on. I couldn’t believe it. But then they’d do what they did in the old days. They would take the music down when you speak, and they would swell the music when the chorus came in. They did exactly what the composer intended. It was incredible, and the audience could hear every word we said.”
In the end, the impetus for this production of Anything Goes came, not from Opera Australia, but from one of the musical theatre stars.
“Todd (McKenney) is responsible. I’ll keep saying it, because he admits it himself. He did the show for The Production Company a few years back, and he said that the audience loved it. Because he’s been working with John Frost recently, he said to him, I really think it’s due. Todd has incredible instincts, so, fingers crossed.
“I was just so delighted when I got the call from John asking if I wanted to do the show. The timing wasn’t great at the time, so we had to put it off a little while. But now it’s just worked out, and I hope the timing is right. Now the opera company is on board, which is exciting, and gives us more support.”
As Momma Rose in Gypsy for The Production Company, another great Ethel Merman role, and Caroline O’Connor’s most recent Australian performance, she shared the limelight with a small pet dog, Chowsie, and now in Anything Goes a Pomeranian called Cheeky provides a gag or five.
So much for W.C. Field’s most famous quote ‘Never work with children or animals,’ as it relates, or not, to the shared paths great musical theatre divas.
Originally published in the May / June 2015 edition of Stage Whispers - more details
Image: Caroline O'Connor leads the cast in the title number of of Anything Goes and Caroline O'Connor and Alex Rathgeber (Photographer: Jeff Busby), and Caroline with the May / June edition of Stage Whispers.
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