All rosy in the gardenPhilip as Archie

Interview by Roger Foss in Whats On in London 21/02/2001

He’s a big Australian with a glorious singing voice, but the gentlest of men when you meet him. In musicals, however, Philip Quast seems to have a monopoly on playing torn, obsessed characters. He does male angst brilliantly. He won an Olivier Award for his portrayal of pointillist painter Georges Seurat driven to join up the dots in Sunday in The Park With George. In West End and Sydney productions of Les Misérables he made a fantastically vengeful Javert. Another Olivier ‘Best Actor in a Musical’ award followed for The Fix at the Donmar Warehouse. And last year he flew home to play a dastardly, but comic Captain Hook in a stage version of Peter Pan.

Now, after lots of film, television and ‘straight’ theatre both here and in Australia, Quast makes a long-awaited return to the West End musical stage as the reclusive Archibald Craven in the RSC’s acclaimed revival of The Secret Garden. Hunchbacked Uncle Archie is a formidable character. Mourning the death ten years ago of his young wife Lily in Misselthwaite Manor on the Yorkshire moors, Archie’s lonely mind, and the gloomy Edwardian corridors, are full of unseen ghosts. Outside the winds are wuthering. Somewhere upstairs, his sickly bedridden son Cohn cries out in pain. Nearby, a secret garden, haunted by Lily’s spirit, has been locked up and the key buried. This makes a pretty terrifying new Archie’s sour ten-year-old orphan Mary, whose parents have died in India.

Yet Quast brings a complex what in less skilled hands could easily become a one-dimensional orge. "Uncle Archie undergoes a change in the show which is difficult to balance. If dark and feel sorry for yourself, it's boring. So somehow there’s got to be the odd glimpse of humour - and yet he has to give the impression that any minute he could snap. The manor has seen wonderful times, but someone dies and no one knows what to do. It’s the same with Hamlet - there are ghosts, and no one knows how to handle the grief,” explains Quast.

At one stage during rehearsals Archie was much more physically deformed, but Quast gave him an artist tweak. “Because I was so closed off, my voice wouldn’t go past the pit. So one day I threw the hump away and suddenly the scenes came alive. I worked on the idea of Archie being merely stoopedwhen there was some angst around, but still being able to stand proud and strong. So Archie’s hump becomes a metaphor for the burdens that he is carrying."

With its other horticultural metaphor, the spooky world of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s original novel is, of course, more about hope, healing, regeneration and rejuvenation than evoking the terrors of childhood. There’s a line in Marsha Norman and Lucy Simon’s musicalisation about only being a ghost if ‘someone alive is still holding on to you’. But as Quast points out, the kids in the audience during the show’s sell-out pre-London season at Stratford-upon-Avon seemed to latch on to its metaphors and never let go.

“It’s every child’s nightmare to lose their mum and dad. I can remember very clearly at five or six having nightmares about my parents dying. But the show works so well because in all three of the main characters Archie, Mary and Colin - there’s always the potential for growth and renewal, with bulbs, seeds, the arrival of spring and red robins popping up magically in the garden.”

While the rows of children - some so tiny they had to be propped up on cushions - sat in rapt attention at Stratford, Quast believes the show also touched a deep nerve with adults. “I had lots of letters from people who have lost their spouses. And I’ve never had so many letters from men before who have been moved by the show. Someone came who does grief counselling, and as it turns out some of the music from the show has been used for grief counselling in America."

So how will West End audiences take to this unashamedly sentimental tale of loss and renewal? When The Secret Garden arrives at the Aldwych it will be up against the Royal National Theatre’s revival of My Fair Lady - a Leviathan in terms of its history and familiar music. Quast believes strongly that The Secret Garden’s simple magic will work on family audiences.

“All I can say is my own three children loved it and adults have been totally caught up as well. Because at Stratford we shared backstage with the Swan, even the actors in Henry VI would watch bits and go wow!’ But what is a family show anyway? Is it The Lion King, which is all about marketing and merchandising?

“I am so picky about musicals. The only criteria I use these days are if the show is worthwhile, and if you are working with nice people. There’s a real family feel about this company. I tend to only want to do plays and musicals now that say things - and I know that this show really does have a lot to say.”


[UPDATES] [BIOGRAPHY] [ARTICLES & INTERVIEWS ] [ STAGE ]

[ FILM & TV ][AUDIO/VIDEO ] [ LINKS] [SCRAPBOOK] [ HOME ]


© Kate McCullugh and Angela Pollard 2001. No portion of this page may be copied without permission of the author.