|
|
April 1, 2011
Production marks comeback
Kerry Sandomirsky returns to the stage in Shaw’s The Philanderer.
TOVA G. KORNFELD
Community member and well-known local actor Kerry Sandomirsky is a very brave woman. In 2008, she hit her head during a rehearsal at the Belfry Theatre in Victoria and sustained a head injury. This life-changing event took her out of the acting loop for more than two years and, she told the Jewish Independent, has led to a personal epiphany and a new perspective on life. Sandomirsky has returned to the stage, making her comeback in George Bernard Shaw’s The Philanderer, now playing at the Stanley Theatre and directed by Rachel Ditor.
I had the opportunity to sit and talk with Sandomirsky in the Green Room of the Stanley prior to the afternoon matinée. She admitted that she was somewhat nervous about her return to the thespian world.
Born and raised in Regina, the 40-something Sandomirsky knew from the age of three that she wanted to be in theatre, having regaled her grandparents with her version of selections from The Sound of Music. She had a Jewish upbringing, afternoon Hebrew school and summers at Camp B’nai B’rith in Pine Lake, Alta. Two years of undergrad at the University of Regina sparked a desire for a trek out West to go to film school. There, Sandomirsky realized she was not the technical type, so she finished a bachelor’s in theatre at the University of British Columbia and went on to a successful career in various entertainment genres. She is also a mom to nine-year-old Ben.
Her resumé is a “who’s who” of hit television shows, including Wiseguy, X-Files, The Outer Limits, The Twilight Zone, Flash Gordon, Millennium and Da Vinci’s Inquest. However, her real love is theatre, she said, “because you are so in touch with the audience. You can communicate directly with them and feed off their energy.” One of her most enjoyable shows was the innovatively staged The One That Got Away, set in the swimming pool at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver. “I loved going to ‘the J’ and just feeling that Jewish atmosphere surrounding me every time I walked into the building,” she said of that experience.
Sandomirsky was the recipient of a 2008 Jessie Award for best actress in a large theatre production for her role in The Way It Works. “I never thought I would win,” she said. “At first, I did not want to do the show when I read the script because it dealt with sexual abuse and I was not sure if I could handle the victim aspect of it, but then I realized that the story was really about survival and I embraced the role. Maybe it has something to do with my Jewish heritage as well.”
In 2004, she made her Bard on the Beach debut with Much Ado About Nothing and The Merry Wives of Windsor. There, she fell in love with Andrew Wheeler, her real-life partner today. And last summer, Sandomirsky was offered the part of Cleopatra to Wheeler’s Mark Antony.
“For about two weeks, I agonized over whether or not I could take the role. I really wanted to go back and do it, especially since I would have the support of Andrew in the male lead. It is such a great love story and I thought it would be so easy to do it with him, but the dialogue is very intensive and there is a lot of action on the stage. I still suffer from vertigo and have balance issues and a little voice inside of me said it is just not right at this time,” she explained.
Instead, she entered a writing program for playwrights at Simon Fraser University. “My dream has always been to write a one-woman show and now I feel that I have the material for one I would call Wobble, about my personal journey to regain my balance in life, both physical and spiritual.”
She is grateful for the opportunity to do this Shaw play with Ditor at the helm. She feels that local “Shavians” will delight in what promotional materials are calling “deliciously wicked and witty comedy,” first written by Shaw in 1893 and not produced until 1902 due to censorship issues. It covers myriad topics, including the battle of the sexes, the emancipation of women, the medical profession, the generation gap and theatre critics.
“It is a tricky play, with difficult syntax and [it] requires mental alertness. It is very much autobiographical of Shaw and his marital infidelities, as well as an homage to his contemporary, [Henrik] Ibsen, whom he greatly admired. The male protagonist is a philanderer and a cad, juggling the affections of two women. One is my character, the widow Grace Tranfield, and the other, a young seductress, Julia. Shaw was a feminist at a time when such ideas were not in vogue. The show gives the actors the ability to communicate sophisticated ideas about women and their place in contemporary society but in a farcical, light manner, often deriding the stereotype of the ‘manly man’ and the ‘womanly woman.’”
Asked what she has learned from the play, Sandomirsky said, “At the end of the day, what men and women truly crave from each other is a delicate balance of love and respect. Since I have lost my real balance in life and am just getting it back through rehabilitation, I have come to understand this much more. Grace is the ‘new woman’ in the play and I am a new woman, so there is synchronicity there.”
After seeing the show Saturday night, I can say that the audience might never have guessed that Sandomirsky has any health issues; her performance was flawless. The set (particularly the Ibsen Club in Act 2) is fabulous and the costumes divine – rich brocades for the women and satin waistcoats and cravats for the men. The true measure of a play’s success is the audience reaction. Based on what I observed, this show is a winner and Sandomirsky is back.
The show, the 500th production of the Arts Club Theatre Company, runs until April 17. For more information and tickets, visit artsclub.com or call 604-687-1644.
Tova G. Kornfeld is a Vancouver freelance writer and lawyer.
^TOP
|
|
