THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
Marisha, Guys and Dolls opens March 3rd, and you look amazing in the red dress that you've been photographed in, as Miss Adelaide! [see below] The show is an immersive production, which sounds a little bit different. What does that involve?
Yes, it's fully immersive. If you have immersive tickets you're standing the whole time, and there's going to be hosts dressed like New York City cops pushing you around the action so you go down into the sewer, you're in the Hot Box club. If you don't want to be that close to the action there's regular seating all around. It's gonna feel really intimate even if you're seated. It's just gonna be a big party! And I'm playing opposite Daniel Mays, as Nathan Detroit, who is incredible – he's a beloved UK film and TV actor, but not everyone knows he can sing really well too. Everyone is so good in the show, and the show itself is so good.
The Bridge Theatre is really inventive, and it's a great new venue.
It is, and it's really nice to work with Nicholas Hytner, who used to run the National Theatre for many years. He's always looking for something outside of the box, something that's going to push the envelope and something that's going to change what we know as theater. Because we have to change, we're competing against Netflix, we're competing against people being at home, so what's gonna make them want to leave their home, get dressed up, go out to dinner, and come see a show? So you have to change how you're going to present a show. People want to be in the action, and that's what we're gonna give them - they're going to be right in it.
Miss Adelaide gets some of the great songs, doesn't she?
Oh, my God, I sing seven songs in the show! I am back to my Effie White days [from Dreamgirls], singing for two and a half hours. But I love the role and I don't think there's been a black Adelaide, ever, which I think is great. And it's also nice as a black actress to not do a show that's about race, just 'to be'. What I love the most about this part, I just get to be a woman that is three dimensional, who has problems just like every other woman. It's not about 'struggle', it's just about life. She gets to be funny, she gets to be sexy, I dance, I sing, it's great! And just the glamour of it all. In the '50s we had a lot of like film stars that were black and beautiful like Dorothy Dandridge, Lena Horne, Pearl Bailey, so I'm excited to bring that to a musical, that Hollywood glamour of those beautiful black women who were funny and powerful.
That's an interesting point. Even in Britain you had Lena Horne, Eartha Kitt was another, and lots of big singing stars who were black, but they tended to be singers, not in musicals. And why wouldn't miss Adelaide be black?
I know, why not? And when you dive into the music in Guys and Dolls, it's so jazz. So I've put in some Ella Fitzgerald - Ella sounds like one of the best musical theater voices I've ever heard, some Billie Holiday, as well as the classic musical theater styles of people like Ethel Merman - there's so much that you can put in to it when you come from a different cultural background. It just adds another layer to it.
Rehearsals went well by the sound of it?
Really, really good. It was already exciting watching scenes, with no costumes, just in our regular street clothes, and no lights. That's when you know you've got something amazing, because when all the rest of the pieces come in it takes it to the next level. It feels like a new musical. And we want it to make the relationships really real. Sometimes, when I've seen this show, it feels like a cartoon. But if you can make it real it hits in a different way. The script was so well written. There's no fat in it, it's literally trimmed to the meat. If you say the words exactly as they're written you get a really cool thing, and it's really cool how you can interpret it.
One final question - what's the best thing about being Marisha Wallace?
All you can ask for in this life is to be able to do what you love. The biggest blessing of my life is that I get to actually do what I love, every single day.
To find out a lot more about Marisha's North Carolina childhood, her start in music, vocal surgery, her angels and more, subscribe to The American magazine here.
For tickets and information for Goys and Dolls go to https://bridgetheatre.co.uk/whats-on/guys-and-dolls/
