Nyree Dawn Porter, 1983 — a decade after playing Irene in ‘Forsyte Saga’
“I’d like to get away from suffering women for a bit. “They say I’ve cornered the market on victims of fate or misunderstanding, women disturbed in some way,” says Nyree Dawn Porter.
Nobody looks less like a suffering woman than the New Zealandborn actress. She has a few more wrinkles than she had as Irene in the blockbusting 8.8. C. production of the “Forsyte Saga” made more than 10 years ago, but she still has the creamy skin, slim figure, and long fair hair of Irene.
Dressed in a honey-coloured leather jacket and a black wool trouser outfit, she is the picture of a sophisticated actress whose life is based on balance — the balance of a fine career and of a home in south London with her husband, Robin, and a young daughter, “plus two dogs, a hamster, and a phone that rings all the time.” “I suppose it’s rather odd that I play tortured women because my private life is so normal. I’m a very normal Kiwi,” Nyree says. She has just been playing Sarah Radford in a Canadian production of “Conduct Unbecoming.” “Only on the surface is she a nice, bright housewife. But I do like playing complex women. The first complex woman I ever played was Madame Bovary, a victim of fate but a rich character.
“People say you’re supposed to be able to play the extremes of
From
DIANA DEKKER,
in London
your spectrum. Shy people can sometimes play villains. “In a way I see these characters through the other side of the mirror. I always think I’m very down to earth. In New Zealand, having your feet on the ground is bred into you.”
One of the “victim of circumstance” roles New Zealanders saw Miss Porter in was “From Maddie with Love,” a television drama in which she starred with lan Hendry. She played a woman dying of cancer.
“It was a superb script and a subject very dear to me,” she says. “The three big bogies in our lives are cancer, euthanasia, and death. All of us have to know about them.
“Yet I would like a change of pace — some comedy, perhaps. I do have this rather delicious thing coming up but I won’t talk about it in case it doesn’t happen.
“I find it difficult to talk about myself at all,” she adds. “I love to pretend. I love to get inside the heads of other women.
“This is a very rewarding but a very exhausting profession. I’m waiting for the time when I am offered cameo roles, so I can just creak on and off. I wait for the roles to get smaller and smaller, but they don’t?’
Miss Porter’s longing for smaller roles is only momentary. She could not really imagine herself fading into an obscure old age spent mostly away from the footlights. “Sometimes I can’t believe my ' luck,” she reflects. “I count myself privileged to be able to entertain and I hope it goes on. “I see actors as being like a mixture of entertainers, doctors, and social workers. You must heal, amuse, and entertain when you are performing. “Most of all you create magic. You fly. You’re high. You’re aware of moving through the character with the audience.
“I know when it’s happening. I get high. But I’m not stagestruck.” Miss Porter still carries a New Zealand passport and is “terribly proud” of being a New Zealander. She describes herself as “a happy schizophrenic” — a New Zealander who enjoys living in London. “I would like to go back and work there but no-one asks me,” she says. “I’m proud of my country and I’d like to be part of its development and growth.
“It would have to be an interesting project and worth while. I’d love to play a rich character for New Zealand television, or else do
a film. I wouldn't be interested in a theatre play. “I feel I should have a sign saying: “Have makeup box, will travel.’ My family is still there.
“I do miss the climate. I do miss the sun. When it’s gray and depressing I long for home. It’s that dampness. It’s sort of like the sky crying. I do miss the sea.” However, it was in London she made her name. “It was 25 years ago that I woke up on my birthday — don’t publish my age; it's like sex and politics and is nobody’s business — and found myself famous.” That was in a production called “Look Who’s Here.” Since then she has been constantly in demand. “I haven’t had a holiday in three years.” Memorable roles include playing Irene in the “Forsyte Saga.” “Obviously I enjoyed that. It was the first of the mammoth serials. It was the dream of one man, the head of 8.8. C. drama then, Donald Wilson. Everybody was handpicked for it. He had seen a clip of me playing Madame Bovary.”
Latterly she has been playing in a Francis Durbridge thriller in Guildford. The play is currently being rewritten for a West End season.
She has no rigid plan for the next few years. “I don’t plan things ahead. I’d hate that. Work is a holiday,” she says.
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