Christchurch actress achieves success

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32563, 24 March 1971, Page 6

Christchurch actress achieves success

When the Canterbury Theatre Trust’s ill-starred venture into professional theatre in Christchurch failed in 1967, it seemed Pam Ferris’s career might go with it.

But not so. Now the “local girl” is one of the Auckland Mercury Theatre’s leading ladies. This year she is off to Britain on a Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council grant.

At the age of 19, Miss Ferris was one of the two drama students chosen by the trust to train with the Christchurch professional theatre group. Born in Germany, and brought up in Wales, she came to New Zealand in 1963. Apart from two school plays she gained her preprofessional experience with the Canterbury Repertory Society, appearing in eight local productions. Her obsession with the theatre was almost all-con-suming, but she worked at many jobs including dress designing, and did some parttime radio acting. When the Canterbury Theatre Trust was wound up, she auditioned for the newlyformed Auckland professional theatre the Mercury Theatre and was accepted. She is now a veteran, and has been in more than 23 productions ranging from farce and musicals! she once collab- ' orated on the musical score for a Canterbury repertory production) to Shakespeare tragedy. Now she is playing Joan of Arc, in Jean Anouih’s “The Laric,” at the : Mercury. : INTERVIEW

In an interview in the “New Zealand Herald” . Miss Ferris discusses the part, and adds some advice to stage-struck youngsters. In "The Lark” Miss Ferris plays one of the bravest, and most single-minded women the world has known, and she plays her from the age of 15, on her home farm, to 24, in gaol and on trial. “We are calling her Jeanne in this production,” she said. “She was never called ‘Joan’ in her lifetime, and somehow ‘Jeanne’ makes her more feminine and she

was a very feminine person, both mentally and physically.” ’ Anouilh’s play, although telling the same story as Shaw’s “St Joan,” is completely different in style. It is a lyrical work, comic in places, warm, and eventually deeply tragic. The action is during the trial, both the informal examination and the nine-month formal trial with flashbacks to earlier periods. STUDIED HISTORY To prepare for the role Miss Ferris read a social and political history of the times, and also the transcript of the trial.

“How that woman stood up to it I’ll never know,” she said. “For nine months she was held in a dungeon, with continual nightly attempts by the English soldiers to rape her, and the days occupied with intensive forma! questioning. “Anouilh’s Jeanne differs from Shaw’s in that Shaw’s heroine is a masculine, slightly tomboyish figure, whereas Anouilh’s, although of peasant stock, is very feminine, and a complete and real person, with no peasant shamblings.”

Miss Ferris will be on stage for most of the time in “The Lark," and although she has had longer roles, she is finding this one particularly challenging because of the conversations she must have with herself, acting both Jeanne and the answering archangel, With no external impetus. “The terrible thing about the trial is that the questioners constantly lost sight of the fact that they were dealing with a human being—a sensitive woman,” she said. "Jeanne was the physical embodiment of all the things these people hated, and her personality and feelings were simply not taken into account.

“The story of Jeanne is a tragic one,” Miss Ferris added, “but ‘The Lark* delivers it as documentary evidence, with high moments, sad moments, and flashbacks. I know I’m going to be sorry when this production is over.” ADVICE Miss Ferris’s advice to stage-struck youngsters? "Do something. Get into a play—any play, with any amateur company, and don't just moon about, longing for the ‘big time.’ "Training is important, but I believe that some experience on the stage is advisable first, because until you have started translating the script into action, you don’t know the purpose of much of the training. "I was stage-struck in my teens, and determined to go on stage. In fact, the urge was so strong that if I had been unable to in this country, I would probably have gone to Britain to get a start there.

“As it is, I’ll be going to Britain with professional experience—I’ve really been very lucky.”.