12:15pm Monday 8th February 2010
Steve Pratt talks to an actress who has learned to combine a tragic role with road tours, Elvis-style.
NINA KRISTOFFERSON laughs a lot, a deep throaty laugh, during our phone chat. Was it something I said? Or perhaps it’s the relief of being able to be happy after spending 90 minutes a night playing one of literature’s darkest, tragic women.
She plays the title role in Medea in poet Tom Paulin’s new version for Northern Broadsides, which can be seen Richmond and Scarborough over coming weeks. As the label Greek tragedy implies, this is not a barrel of laughs as a woman (and mother) scorned unleashes a horrific vengeance on her enemies.
The production, directed by Broadsides boss Barrie Rutter, has not been without its off-stage dramas, with the departure of leading man Kurinder Ghir during rehearsals.
He’s been replaced by Andrew Pollard as Jason, Medea’s straying husband. “It was a bit of a shock, but Andrew is brilliant as Jason,”
says Kristofferson, making her debut with Yorkshire-based Northern Broadsides.
She wonders if her one-woman show in which she played singer Billie Holiday may have had something to do with being approached to play Medea. Both women were, shall we say, troubled souls. But her CV also includes everything from opera to pantomime by way of singing in the Sweet Inspiration group in an Elvis show tour.
“With Medea, you understand her being upset when her husband betrays her with another woman. You can empathise with that. Everyone has been there. But it’s how she goes about easing her soul, her consciousness to move herself forward.
What she does is so extreme, using her children to avenge herself.”
The production is played straight through, without an interval, for 90 minutes.
“It’s very intense and calls for a huge amount of concentration and energy because she’s full of hate and anger and frustration and pain.
Every emotion,” she says, laughing again and adding, “We’re world’s apart, thank goodness.”
The production pays homage to the old Greek style, yet the language is very accessible, very modern. She talks of using some African movement and of a blues influence.
Music has played a big part in the Birmingham-born actress’s career.
Indeed she credits her operatic roles as helping her find the concentration needed to play someone like Billie Holiday. She trained as both a singer and an actress. “I’d always wanted to act since I was a kid,” she says. “I went to what is now Birmingham Conservatoire and wanted to go to drama school but the entrance exam involved singing and dancing.
“We all messed around in lessons, but the teacher who owned the school could hear something in my voice and said, ‘if you don’t sort yourself out, I’m chucking you out’.
I got really scared, did lots of practice and my voice blossomed.”
After drama school, she studied at university in the US but didn’t complete the course because she ran out of money, as she was paying for it herself.
She now studies with Mary Hammond at the Royal Academy of Music.
On a different musical note, she “dips in and out” of the Elvis tour singing in the Sweet Inspiration backing group, something she enjoys because “it’s like being on the road with the family”.
She’s one of the few non-Yorkshire/ Northern members of Broadsides and, talking to her, you can’t detect any of her original accent despite her saying that “I’m a Brummie lass at heart”.
“With all the singing and classical work you tend to work on the vowels and it cleans up all your enunciation.
So I don’t sound regional at all,” she explains.
■ Medea is at Georgian Theatre Royal, Richmond, February 16 to 20 (box office 01748-825252) and Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, March 16 to 20 (01723-370541 or sjt.uk.com)
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