Lisa McCune: Leading Lady
In her former life as a TV script producer, Coral Drouyn once had Lisa McCune killed off (or at least her TV alter ego). As the multiple Gold Logie winner prepares for The King and I in 2014, the star and the screenwriter caught up for a chat.
It would be fair to say that, in 1999, there would have been few people who saw Lisa McCune as Australia’s next first lady of Musical Theatre. She was the darling of the TV viewing masses, winning a staggering fourteen major awards for the role of Senior Constable Maggie Doyle in the hit series Blue Heelers, including four Gold Logies as Australia’s most popular actress.
When Maggie Doyle was killed trying to save her soulmate PJ, all of Australia wept and I received death threats. You see, I was heading the script department of “Heelers” at the time, and I created the eight week story and wrote the actual episode where she died. Lisa, a fabulous actress, needed to move on, wanted to get married, had to leave Maggie behind…but at the time she was not happy about being killed. Fortunately, she has forgiven me.
There were some who may have thought that was the end for Lisa in terms of stardom; and some like myself, who knew her depth and talent, who held their breath wondering what new challenge she would look for. Would it be movies, another TV series perhaps? Before her death scene actually hit our screens, we knew the answer; she was going to make playsuits out of curtains for the Von Trapp children.
“I know people were surprised when The Sound of Music was announced,” Lisa tells me when we catch up, “but that’s because they don’t know my background. I’ve always been a musical theatre person, pretty much since I learned how to walk. I was incredibly lucky with television – I was in the right place at the right time - but Musical Theatre was what I aspired to…it was my first love.”
Lisa has always been in the right place at the right time it seems. Her dad was in the navy and, although Lisa was born in Sydney, the family was soon posted to Perth, Western Australia. Both her parents loved music and Lisa was already a lover of musicals before she hit her teens. She made her Musical Theatre debut at age 15, playing Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz at the Limelight Theatre, Wanneroo. And at age 16 she was accepted into the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts to study classical singing and Music Theatre. In the last 10 years or so WAAPA has been responsible for nurturing some of the best talents in the country. Lucy Durack is a graduate, so are Susie Mathers, Tim Minchin and Eddie Perfect. But back in 1987 it was only 7 years old and Lisa was the youngest student there, and one of the most fiercely determined.
“I was a sponge,” she says, “Quite obsessive in some ways. I wanted to know everything.” It obviously paid off, because when Lisa graduated at age 19 she was immediately signed by one of the top agents in the country and went straight to work. Though it was only a chorus role, she landed the musical production of Great Expectations, and then a series of TV commercials before that big break, a starring role in a TV series at age 22, occurred.
Even during the “Heelers” years, Lisa never stopped singing. “I have to sing, it’s as important as breathing,” she says. “When I got a chance to do supporting roles in A Little Night Music and Into The Woods, I jumped at them. It was Director Roger Hodgman who talked me into them, even though it meant 18 hours days because we were shooting “Heelers” at the time.Television is a funny creature. In some ways it provides you with more opportunities to hone your craft, but the price you pay is the lack of audience feedback and the spontaneity of reaction. That’s why those Gold Logies are so important to me. They’re voted by the people who let me come into their lounge rooms. They’re the viewers’ way of saying ‘we like what you do.’ It’s the only chance to really connect with them. So I thought long and hard before accepting that it really was time for me to go. ‘Fame or notoriety is very seductive. You have to keep your feet on the ground and find normality outside the work.” But while Lisa was planning her departure from the hit series, another man entered her life to entice her back to Musical Theatre.
John Frost is a jovial and appealing entrepreneur known in Music Theatre circles as Frosty…or Frosty the Showman. It was he who persuaded Lisa that the perfect role for her was Maria in The Sound of Music. “I really wasn’t sure. I mean, it’s an iconic role. I don’t know how many times I saw the movie as a kid. But every time I came up with a reason why I couldn’t…he had five reasons why I could and MUST. And of course one of those was that I would kick myself if I didn’t challenge myself in front of a live audience, in a lead role. He was right. That feeling you get when you make a connection with the audience, and everything then seems to move in slow motion. It’s magic…nothing else compares to it. More than that, it’s addictive and I love it. Every time I stepped on that stage as Maria, I forgot who Lisa was.”
Lisa, newly married, needed a break after The Sound Of Music, but Frost is a businessman, and a very smart producer, and he knows the value of the old adage “bums on seats”. It’s a rare thing to find a TV actor who is a household name but is also a dynamic and triple threat star on stage. It’s a guarantee of good box office, provided the production is as good as the star. So while Lisa was giving birth to her first child, Frost was looking for the next star vehicle. Sally Bowles in Cabaret was an even more un-nerving prospect for her.
“I have this goody-goody image,” Lisa says with a laugh. “Maybe it’s a hangover from Maggie Doyle, but honestly I have never thought of myself as straitlaced. I knew that it was a difficult show, and that there would be a backlash against me flashing my legs and performing raunchy songs. But most people forget that Sally is meant to be a fake; a fairly talentless girl hiding behind this naughty façade she has created for herself. That’s the Sally I wanted to portray.”
The show won Lisa a swag of nominations and awards, in fact every time she sets foot on a stage, or appears on our screens, Lisa is nominated for something. I can’t think of another Australian actress who has received so many awards and accolades in such diverse areas. She is unique.
Somehow Lisa managed to fit in five series of Sea Patrol on television, plus two other series and guest roles in such acclaimed shows as Rake. She also had two more children, and is immensely proud of them. But onstage she has been even more prolific. Urinetown, 25th Annual Putnam Spelling Bee, Guys and Dolls, and even Eddie Perfect’s wife in Shane Warne The Musical… (“I actively canvassed for that one,” she confesses.) But if ever a role seemed tailor made for Lisa it was Nellie Forbush in South Pacific, which she is still playing, currently in her home town of Perth.
It’s amazing then to consider that she will go straight from Nellie into playing Mrs Anna in The King and I, the two roles are so different.
“I really did plan on taking a break,” Lisa says, “but John knows exactly how to tempt me. Anna was perhaps the one role he knew I would jump at. He is always very supportive and kind towards me, and when I said teasingly I really wanted a huge red dress, he said yes immediately.”
At the launch for The King and I – which Lisa flew in from Perth to attend – our Leading Lady played games with the kids…the little Siamese Princes and Princesses…backstage, and was filled with excitement. “I get to work with Teddy (Tahu Rhodes) again, but as different people. And then there’s the added gift of working with Jason Scott Lee in the Melbourne season. We’ve never worked together before, so we have to find a performing language that works for us. Every on-stage relationship has a different language because the characters are different and I have to build everything on character. It’s not just how I was trained, it’s how I feel. I wouldn’t be comfortable just giving a performance as myself. And I know some people might think that’s a bit….well, maybe pretentious…but the most important thing for me is balancing art and popularity. Of course popularity is wonderful….but not if it comes at the expense of truth.”
Frost mentioned that there are only two great shows left for Lisa to do….Oklahoma! and Carousel, but Lisa is rueful. “I wish I had done them when I was younger, but the truth is I’m not in the right age bracket any more. Besides, The King and I will take me right through 2014 and I will be truly ready for a break then.”
And after that? Does she see more television in the future, or is stage her permanent home now?
“I love both,” she says honestly. “I can’t choose. It really is about the role, the story, not the medium. I think I learn something new with every part, whether it’s on stage or screen. And I want to produce. I’ve been working on a feature film with producer Gus Howard, and that would be another amazing experience, and the kids are growing so fast and I do need time out with them.” So does she have a timeline, a date for giving up that Leading Lady crown?
“I guess it will be when there are no more challenges, no more roles that I can bring anything to. Hopefully I will know when that is and I’ll be happy to pass the crown. But until then, I’m living the magic. I can’t ask for more than that.”
The King and I plays at QPAC in Brisbane from April 15, the Princess Theatre, Melbourne from June 10 and the Sydney Opera House from September 9, 2014.
Images: (top) Lisa McCune as Anna Leonowens with children at Melbourne Groups Launch of The King and I (Photographer: Jim Lee), Lisa McCune and Lisa McCune and Teddy Tahu Rhodes.
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Article originally published in the January / February 2014 edition of Stage Whispers.
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