Hesitant to helm the one-woman show, “My Name is Lucy Barton”, seasoned actress Julie-Anne McDowell eventually agreed to it and has since been showered with praise for her stellar performance during the recent Cape Town run.
In a recent chat with McDowell, she recalled how the project came about.
“Charmaine Weir-Smith, who is the director, had come to me with this script about 18 months ago and said, ‘Julia, I want you to think about this. It is a mother and daughter story, it would be a lovely piece for you.’
“She put the script on the coffee table. I’m a big fan of Elizabeth Strout, the novelist who wrote ‘My Name is Lucy Barton’. I said, this is a book, not a play, I’ve read the book and she said: ‘No, no, it’s been adapted to a play in London.”
Rona Munro is credited with writing the theatre adaptation.
Meanwhile, McDowell still wasn’t convinced.
She shared: “I didn’t think that’s really something I would be interested in. I read the book years ago and the story resonated with me so deeply and I was very moved by it.
“And I kept coming back to the story. Charmaine and I would often meet for coffee or whatever and we kept circling back to the story.”
Eventually, McDowell decided that she wanted to be the person to tell the story.
Channelling the braveness of the character Lucy, she delved into the production, playing myriad characters, the most notable being Lucy and her mother.
The play opens with Lucy awakening from surgery to find her estranged mother by her bedside. Lucy recounts her troubled childhood in comparison to her current life in New York City. Her mother holds steadfast to her painful memories as well.
As such, the union is strained as the two grapple with moving forward from it.
McDowell added: “Although the context is different, I know how Lucy feels and the story resonates with me. Although I was terrified of doing a one-woman show, I felt I had to be brave and grab life by the horns.”
For artistic reasons, she steers clear of reading reviews of the theatre production. That said, she admitted to it being warmly received based on the audience feedback after each run.
She added: “From what I can gather, it’s been positive. The story is so inspiring. Ultimately, they leave feeling hopeful and inspired by her. That is really what kept bringing me back to the story. Honestly, I feel so lucky to be the one to tell it.”
McDowell added: “There are several characters in the play. The moment that Lucy goes back to tell her story is when she is hospital and her mother comes to visit. The two main characters are Lucy and her mother.
“Both of them have experienced trauma in their childhood. But they were each formed in a different way. So my first port of call was to understand trauma and how it affects people.
“And how some people seem to have the resilience to move forward and how other people disassociate and block it.
“Lucy transcends the difficult moments in her life and finds feelings in sharing her story but her mother isn’t.
“I’ve gone to a psychologist to talk a lot about trauma, how it sits in the body and how it affects people, their outlook, and how it affects them physically.”
In gaining a greater understanding of the consequences of trauma, she was able to channel the nuances of Lucy and her mother.
The seasoned actress added: “WIth Lucy, she’s mobile, she’s got warm tones in her voice, she’s expressive and wants connection.
“The mother is very closed off and her tonality reflects that. She’s quite brittle, her voice is harder, it’s positioned differently in the body, and she sits differently.
“The two characters are very clearly defined, not just in terms of what they are saying and what their story is but in how they are and how they talk. It’s been such a lovely journey as an actor to explore that.”
On working under the guidance of Weir-Smith, she praised the director.
“She understands storytelling, she is very clear in her vision of how to deliver a story. She’s unrelenting in getting what she needs from her actor and what the concept of the whole production will be.
“I also feel like this is quite a feminine story so, for me, it was important that it be a female director. I trusted her implicitly in terms of her insight and her vision and I knew that with her, I had a chance of delivering this story in an authentic way.”
Where: Theatre on the Square.
When: October 9 until 26, 7.30pm. Times on the weekend vary.
Cost: R230 per person. No under-12s allowed. Tickets can be purchased through Computicket.