What makes Maria such a fabulous character in The Sound of Music

SussexWorld

The Sound of Music is at Chichester Festival Theatre this summer. Gina Beck, whose performance as Nellie Forbush in 2021’s South Pacific was also acclaimed in London and on a UK tour, returns to play Maria.

Transcript

00:00 No, dear me.

00:01 Good afternoon, my name is Phil here at Greenparks, editor for Sussex Newspapers,

00:06 and it's fabulous to be speaking to Gina Beck again, who is back at the Festival Theatre with

00:10 the absolutely huge one, the wonderful prospect of The Sound of Music from July 10th to September 3rd.

00:17 Now, Gina, what a fantastic role to be taking on that, must be so exciting.

00:21 Yes, I'm so excited about Maria. I mean, what a complex, interesting character.

00:27 She's a problem, isn't she?

00:29 Yes, she definitely is a problem. She's a problem to the nuns,

00:31 because she doesn't quite fit in at the nunnery. And yeah, it's really fun to play that sort of,

00:38 you know, wild side of her, the kind of confrontational.

00:42 She just sort of says what she thinks and doesn't have any kind of stop of herself.

00:49 And I think that's what makes, eventually makes the captain fall in love with her.

00:52 So clearly not destined to be a nun, but the lovely thing is she is just so

00:57 lovable and likeable and spirited, isn't she?

01:00 Yeah, I mean, she's got an amazing heart. Of course, she immediately loves the captain's

01:05 children. And that endears her to everybody, because, you know, taking on seven of somebody

01:11 else's children is a hard thing to do. And she just immediately wants the best for them,

01:16 which is kind of amazing.

01:17 Yeah, but talking of hard things to do, what an enormous role this is.

01:21 You barely leave the stage, do you?

01:22 Yes, exactly.

01:24 And this is your story.

01:26 A lot of songs, there's a lot of text. And when you see that I'm not on stage,

01:32 I'm basically changing my costume. Yeah, there's not a lot of downtime,

01:36 but I'm hoping that that's going to really just kind of give me loads of energy to get

01:39 through the show, because I suppose sometimes when you're in shows that a lot of time off

01:44 stage can make it kind of drag, make it harder to kind of boost yourself up again.

01:48 But hopefully I'm going to be on the show.

01:49 No downtime, is there? But does it help the fact that you were here two years ago,

01:53 also in the Rodgers and Hammond, starting the South Pacific, which was a fantastic success,

01:58 wasn't it?

01:59 Yes, it was. It was great. But luckily, I'm not going to be pregnant this time.

02:02 So hopefully it'll be a bit easier than that was, although that was a fantastic show to be part of.

02:10 And obviously one of Daniel Evans' last shows.

02:13 You did fabulously well two years ago. You went through, how many months pregnant was it?

02:19 I think it was 31 weeks, so seven months pregnant.

02:25 That's quite some achievement, isn't it? But as you say, theatre's about suspending disbelief.

02:30 They might more disbelieve that I'm a nun.

02:36 But the complication this year, of course, is that you have a one-year-old

02:42 in addition to your now six-year-old.

02:43 Exactly, yeah. So I'm not sure what's better.

02:47 I think it's nice to have my own body back for a little short time.

02:51 Well, how on earth are you going to juggle that this summer? Massive show.

02:54 Yeah, good question. Good question.

02:57 Just as you do. I mean, this is what I really love doing, being in shows. And luckily,

03:04 I've got enough friends and family around to support me doing that with two kids.

03:09 Hopefully it'll all go well.

03:10 Well, it's a lovely prospect. July the 10th, September the 3rd,

03:14 Sound of Music in Chichester. Gina, really, really lovely to speak to you. Thank you.

03:18 Thank you.

03:20 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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