Opening this week: actor Philip Quast on South Pacific
Interview with London Theatre Guide December 2001
Australian actor Philip Quast, one of the industry's most respected musical performers (and lauded by many as their favourite Javert), might never have made it onto the stage, owing to an avid passion for archaeology and palaeontology: "Even now I have fantasies of giving it all up and disappearing into the outback on field trips and expeditions". Thanks to director Trevor Nunn, and the National's revival of the classic musical, South Pacific, he won't be rushing off just yet as, for the next few months, the Olivier stage becomes his home:
"This will be my first Rodgers and Hammerstein. I play Emile de Becque, the French Planter who falls in love with Nellie Forbush, an American Navy nurse. He not only has to deal with Nellie's racism when she finds out he has two children from a now deceased Polynesian wife, but ends up facing a moral dilemma when the American Navy ask him to be a spotter against the Japanese. I was actually offered the same role in Australia a number of years ago, but I thought I was too young, and so much of what I do depends on my age, which means I tend to take each day (and year) as it comes. I'll be doing the Diva season at the Donmar in August and, although all the parts I've played in the past are special to me in some way (as they reflect where I was at the time, what country I was in, how old my children were, how long I have been married), most of the songs will be original rather than the old favourites. Again, it will be very much a product of the time.
"I actually got involved with South Pacific after Trevor Nunn asked me to come in and meet up. We talked, worked through some of the songs, discussed the French thing… And then, just before I flew to Australia to do Corridors of Power, he offered me the part, and I had to decide whether or not I would stay in Oz to do a movie until Christmas, or come back and be with the family and do the show. I decided on the latter. We have actually worked together before. He directed me in Les Mis back in 1987 in Australia and then, about three years later, I came to England to work with him on Sunday In The Park With George at the National. Trevor is always a draw. Some of the best musical productions I've been involved in have had directors with experience in the classics. In fact, Shakespeare and musicals feel so similar to perform, it's not funny. Even though the critics seem to despise any art form which has mass appeal, musicals are the most difficult of all stage performances to pull off. They require all of one's skills - acting, singing, the fusion of movement and dance. No one could understand this correlation more than Trevor. He is brilliant at it."
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