I brag all too much about playing Ruth from Pirates of Penzance; I know that, but for me it’s still a triumph. Though, I also just finished being in a production of Little Women as Marmee. There are trends to the characters I’ve played. Though there have been some outliers, when I play principles they are often old and generally maternal.
I know I have that vibe about me, and my vocal range is more reflective of those roles than if I were an ingenue. Yet, I’d be incredibly naive if I claimed my body-type had no effect on casting. I’m fat and perfectly content with both the way I look and the roles I’ve played. As I just mentioned, I’m still especially proud of the opportunity I had to play Ruth.
Yet, in the case of her, another factor came along regarding my appearance. She is meant to be ugly. In some cases, she is portrayed as what TV Tropes calls “Christmas Cake”, in that she’s lovely, but people are turned off by her age. I regard Angela Lansbury’s performance in that category, because she is Angela Lansbury!
Still, with most productions Ruth is seen as all-out-ugly by societal standards, though there are mentions of her past beauty.
Frederic: …Are you—beautiful?
Ruth: I have been told so, dear master!
Frederic: Ah, but… recently?
Ruth: Oh, no! Years and years ago…
I had no qualms with those lines- she thinks she’s gorgeous, and in my mind that’s all that matters.
Still there is quite a bit of mockery at her expense by the Pirate King and crew. Having the wonderful director I did, he wound up talking to the guy who played the pirate king, stressing that Ruth was once beautiful.
My director was/is a very verbose person and wound up elaborating into a flowery description about what Ruth must have looked like in her youth. To my surprise he wound up describing me!
It was shocking to me, because usually when a character is described as once being young and beautiful and happens to be presently older and chubbier, it is often stressed how thin they were in the past.
I’ve found that to be the case in both Fan-Art and “Real” Media alike.
Some cases I’ve seen are: Sophie and Vlad (from Anastasia), Molly Weasley (from Harry Potter), Ursula (from The Little Mermaid), Miss Spink and Forcible (from Coraline), Nell (Victor’s Mum from Corpse Bride), The Queen of Hearts (from Alice and Wonderland),
For a while, I was impressionable/dumb enough to think, “If these fictional fat characters were skinny as teenagers, if I’m not skinny as a teenager, I’ll be completely hopeless!
It never really hit me, though until then, with one of young Ruth’s characteristics being described as “full-figured” how consistently youth is equated to thinness.
Of course there’s nothing wrong with that, but I found it endearing that the teenage version of me would be something old Ruth would be brag about once being.
I’ve had body issues in the past, and thankfully was able to climb out of that rut, but things like that make me really happy.
And going off that, I think it would be nice for something canon to do that: Have an older person speak of their past beauty, and show a picture or describe themselves not as a black-and-white bombshell, but someone who looks like myself or any other teenager who is cast as roles like Ruth and Marmee since she’s not seen as the quintessential teenage beauty.
As for Marmee, I had a line that went, “I wore that very same dress to my first ball, and it didn’t look half as good as me!” while talking to my eldest daughter.
That line gives hints to what I was eluding to before, about an older woman speaking of her youth and not referring to herself as a bombshell, so to speak.
Yet, when the dress in question is a third of my size, it still gives hints at the ideal of “I was young and beautiful… and by young and beautiful I mean thin!”
Still, it makes sense that I play mothers quite often, considering how in order to birth a healthy baby, it is assumed that one must gain a bit of weight. Marmee birthed four, so it’s imagined that Marmee had a bit of meat on her bones.
Archetypes exist for a reason. I appreciate my appearance and am eternally thankful for the roles and opportunities I’ve been given!
But I just find it interesting that the teenage version of many characters I’ve played are meant to look far more conventionally pretty than the real teenage version of me.
As a writer, it makes me want to do what I said, and stress that the young and beautiful applies to all shapes and sizes (as cliché as that may be) and that there’s nothing wrong with being the teenager who plays the 47 year old nursery maid, or mother of four.
I guess that was my stand on the soapbox for today!
P.S. Cool digression- in my searching for an appropriate picture, I found out that Ruth from Pirates of Penzance is sometimes played by a drag-queen! Cool, Huh?
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