Virgia Gay grateful for paths that led to Savage River | TV Tonight

Contents:

• VIRGIA GAY ON THE CHALLENGE OF QUEERG CYRANO: ‘I DON’T WANT A TRAGEDY RIGHT NOW’
• VIRGIA GAY FDS HER TE VOICE AS A PERFORMER
• VIRGIA GAY GRATEFUL FOR PATHS THAT LED TO SAVAGE RIVER
• MEET ’S GAY CONTTANTS
• CYRANO REVIEW – VIRGIA GAY SH THIS BOLD, QUEER REIMAGG
• ‘SHE WAS ABSOLUTELY RIGHT’: ACTOR VIRGIA GAY ON HER MOTHER’S VALUABLE ADVICE
• VIRGIA GAY: I HAVE NO TERT GETTG MARRIED UNTIL WE HAVE MARRIAGE EQUALY
• Q&A 'A NOSE BY ANY OTHER NAME' WH VIRGIA GAY
• VIRGIA IS FOR GAY LOVERS
• VIRGIA GAY

VIRGIA GAY ON THE CHALLENGE OF QUEERG CYRANO: ‘I DON’T WANT A TRAGEDY RIGHT NOW’

It’s also somethg Virgia Gay has spas, an actor who shot to natnal fame televisn shows such as All Sats and Wners & Losers, but whose pth of talent is bt experienced live on stage. “When you do whout a nose, ” Gay explas, “ be abundantly clear that this is the most tertg person on stage, but they have cid that, for some reason, they are not worthy of love” urse, when you st a woman the role, that “some reason” tak on a distctly queer ronance.

Stg the dience for the first half of the play, Gay thought: “I have to play this role. ”Virgia Gay on playg Cyrano: ‘When you do whout a nose, be abundantly clear that this is the most tertg person on stage.

I won’t be a part of a story that says, ‘kill your gays’. ” Which is not to say that gay characters n’t partake the tharsis that om high tragedy; Gay simply don’t thk that’s what dienc want the midst of a global crisis.

VIRGIA GAY FDS HER TE VOICE AS A PERFORMER

” So Gay did, surg every adaptatn (cludg unofficial film versns such as Roxanne and The Tth About Cats and Dogs) for the aspects of the story she wanted to foreground. “The first three acts of Cyrano are prototypil rom-, ” Gay says. “If you have a femist and a queer woman wrg this story, and wrg about and for a Roxane who is gasl, tfished and manipulated by another woman, ” Gay extrapolat, “then be very difficult” answer was to bolster and empower the role of Roxane, so that she be a te equal to Cyrano, able to parry and thst the war of ws.

VIRGIA GAY GRATEFUL FOR PATHS THAT LED TO SAVAGE RIVER

Goos believ the same will happen wh Gay. And Melbourne’s tentative, almost reticent return to the theatre is echoed the stcture of Gay’s adaptatn: “Six actors return to the theatre and try to remember how to put on a show, bate the rponsibili of tellg this story.

MEET ’S GAY CONTTANTS

”Gay wrote her Cyrano while sufferg om Covid Los Angel – “a tly rotten 14 days of tense pa” – and the rult is a work fed wh the sensatn of spend longg, but also of hope fulfilled. When everythg went south, Virgia Gay had already been Los Angel for a few years, tryg out managers, gog to stgs, dog those rounds.

A broken heart now?” Gay says.

It felt like somebody was tryg to prs my bra and ey out of the ont of my skull.” Her only pann was her iend’s shih tzu terrier, Gidget, who Gay says serv a -wrg cred on the new MTC productn of Cyrano.Virgia Gay and Tuuli Narkle play Cyrano and Roxanne the MTC’s productn of Gay’s genr-flipped take on the legendary play.Cred: Chris HopksBee was this scene of utter disnnectn that gave seed to Gay’s visn for a new take on Edmond Rostand’s 1897 play, Cyrano Bergerac – about a tragic hero who nobly lends his poetic talent to help a iend w over their mutual love tert.Gay’s Cyrano – whom she has genr-flipped to a gay woman – don’t have the enormo nose that blights the nfince of the origal protagonist. I radiated self-hate when I was younger, but I ma to a spectacular performance.”Virgia Gay durg rehearsals for Cyrano.Cred: Charlie KrossBack then, Gay ma herself the butt of her jok.

CYRANO REVIEW – VIRGIA GAY SH THIS BOLD, QUEER REIMAGG

“The thgs that are takg up my md right now is how we metabolise trma,” Gay says.“Everyone has a different way of dog but Cyrano’s way is to take that pa, swallow and then turn himself to the most tertg person any room, a sparklg mirror ball. I had cid that I would always be the wacky bt iend, but never the love tert.”Gay, who’s 39 now, says her 30s have been glor but revisg her old self-beliefs, through the mouths of other actors, has been unfortable. Words have f---g power – that’s the absolute tth of .”Virgia Gay her much-loved take on Calamy Jane.Cred: John McRaeWhen we meet, the six-strong st is nng through the mil numbers, wrten by Gay and mil director Xani Kolac.

‘SHE WAS ABSOLUTELY RIGHT’: ACTOR VIRGIA GAY ON HER MOTHER’S VALUABLE ADVICE

Gay’s Cyrano has a happy endg and is a “joy bomb”, much the manner of her last major Atralian outg 2018, as the tular Calamy Jane.Comg out of 112 days of lockdown last year, the entire script sound like a love letter to life, says Tuuli Narkle, who plays Cyrano’s love tert, Roxanne. Here, Roxanne is a fully round character who is aware of her own flaws, as opposed to beg the manic pixie dream girl of Cyrano’s life.”The problem that Gay had when nsirg genr-flippg Cyrano was that the send half of the origal play, “everyone go off to war – bee they’re French – and Roxanne be eher a nun or a whore”.

VIRGIA GAY: I HAVE NO TERT GETTG MARRIED UNTIL WE HAVE MARRIAGE EQUALY

“I don’t want to tell a story that glorifi gaslightg and tfishg.”The urage that tak to actually reach for someone is now 20 tim more tense.Virgia GayIt was important to Gay that Roxanne be played by a woman of lour orr to nont Cyrano’s self-absorptn his own tragedy, and that Roxanne would nstantly challenge Cyrano’s ethics. In 2019, two major Brish productns of The Tamg of the Shrew were genr-flipped, one reworked by trans playwright Jo Clifford, and both set a matriarchal society to unrsre the misogyny of the origal play, which our sensibili may have bee dulled to over time.“When society chang, those rol have to shift to accurately engage wh that change,” says Gay.

Q&A 'A NOSE BY ANY OTHER NAME' WH VIRGIA GAY

Gay’s Cyrano is self-aware theatre, wh the characters queryg each other’s motiv. The chos – played by Holly At, Rob Goldsworthy and Milo Hartill – was signed to facilate that playfulns wh s faial bickerg havg a direct impact on the philosophi of the lead characters, such as Cl Jabbour’s Yan.Dpe rehearsals now swchg to Zoom, Gay is nfint that the fished productn will provi the sense of nnectn that others have been cravg as much as her.Loadg“One of the thgs I’ve been thkg about is the move away om isolatn – which kept safe, but kept lonely – to the ms of livg aga,” Gay says.

VIRGIA IS FOR GAY LOVERS

VIRGINIA Gay is talkg loudly over the 're the on her head, the middle of the night, that tell her she's not betiful enough, or size 8 enough, or sweet-voiced enough, to succeed as an yet here she is. "The days, Gay, an somniac, is g the voic as wicked artistic fodr and her latt self-penned baret show, yet to be seen Melbourne, is lled Songs To Self-Dtct To. Reviews om an Alai n earlier this year scribed Gay as "mmerisg" and at her "sexy, hypnotilly, crazily, hysterilly funny bt".

Suffice to say, the rt of the world is wild disagreement wh those Gay, 31, is back the rehearsal room at the MTC (she shone last year's two-hanr On The Productn Of Monsters), where she is one of seven actors performg Eddie Perfect's mastage but The Melbourne Ftival -productn is Perfect's first straight-up-and-down play, havg prevly penned and posed mils (Shane Warne the Mil) and edy (Misanthropology) and starred top-ratg TV show says Perfect stacks up "pretty damn well" as a playwright and is a light to have the rehearsal room. "The thgs that e out of his mouth are not only hilar, they're geni, " Gay says.

VIRGIA GAY

"Gay says dienc should be "repelled and attracted" equal measure, as well as fdg - sometim shamefully - somethg of themselv the says the rehearsal room has bee surprisgly nfsnal wh the actors admtg to dog their private liv some of what they're actg out on 's stmat are Tom Budge (her on-stage hband), Travis Cotton, Sheridan Harbridge, Hamish Michael, Kate Mulvany and Hayn Spencer, but the surprise star of the show may be the beast, which is yet to be revealed.