Magic Happens

“Oh yeah, what kid isn't?” Sydney singer/actor Ursula Yovich laughs down the line when quizzed if she was into the old Brothers Grimm fairy tales as a kid. “I think for me, the darker it was the more I really loved it.”

Yovich is discussing her role as the sole perfomer in the upcoming Deckchair Theatre production The Magic Hour, the latest production from playwright Vanessa Bates that examines the fairy tales we know and love, but from a much different perspective, and a very different setting. “What I really loved about it was first of all the idea of turning fairy tales up on their head and, you know, contemporising it, so it's very modern.” And set in Australia: “Yeah, it's not only contemporary but it's all the story, so there's six different women from six different fairy tales and it's all based in Australia, although they could be anywhere in Australia.”

So who exactly is Yovich playing over the course of one hour? “The first story is Little Red Riding Hood, but it's not told through the eyes of Little Red Riding Hood, rather her grandmother. She's a 48-year-old cougar who's lost her granddaugther who's gone missing again.” So far, so good. “The next one is Cinderella, told through the eyes of one of the ugly sisters Collete, who actually is ugly, not in the sense that she's ugly but she's just such an insecure person who hasn't quite grown into herself, I guess. Then there's Rosie from Rumpelstiltsken - she was a princess that the father had promised would spin the straw into gold.

“Hannah from Rapunzel, she's a dear old lady, the wicked witch from the original. And Jeanette of The Frog Prince, she's…forgotten within her own family - she's just kind of 'the other', the one who lives in the same house as the rest of them. So the stories are told through the other characters. And Jane, from Jack & The Beanstalk, the mother who throws beans out the window, she's a recovering heroin addict.”

Hold up, a heroin addict? Just what kinda dark arts does The Magic Hour get itself in to? Yovich is quick to ensure that black comedy is the real order of the day. “There's a lot of humour in it. You know, it really shows the human spirit I guess; how far you can take some people, and how some people can break, some people just disappear into another world of their own, and some people are just survivors.”

Taking on the role of multiple characters has been an interesting challenge for Yovich, who has had experience in the past with solo shows, but apart from children's theatre hasn't actually had to delve into multiple personalities. “I do love the challenge of it…to be able to take myself and my skills as an actor to another level.”

Once this run has finished however, Yovich plans on returning to her true passion for a while, and that's music. “I've been doing a lot of writing and a couple of demos, and I think finally doing what I always wanted to do, and what I set out to do when I left home at the age of 18, which was recording either an album or an EP, and getting music together and performing up there as Ursula the singer rather than a character on stage.”