At the press call for Terrence McNally's award-winning play Master Class, it was hardly a case of duelling divas. In the excerpts performed, Amanda Muggleton - who won Helpmann and Green Room Awards in a previous production of the play - as opera legend Maria Callas walked all over two of her fellow actors, Kala Gare and Jessica Boyd. She chewed them up and spat them out, leaving those watching in the palm of her hand.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
But that was as the script dictated at these points of the show, Muggleton and Boyd - who plays singing student Sharon Graham - pointed out afterwards.
McNally's play was inspired by the real-life master classes Callas gave at the Juilliard School in New York in the 1970s a few years before she died. At this point, her career was over, her singing voice was gone, and she had been deserted by her longtime lover, Aristotle Onassis. who married Jackie Kennedy, widow of the assassinated US president John Kennedy. The master class, at least in the play, was a chance to relive past glories, remember old rivalries and hurts, and pass on some of what she had learned in her own unique fashion.
Muggleton said the two younger singers reminded Callas of aspects of herself when she was younger.
"The first soprano, played by Kara, was like the younger me - no dress sense," Muggleton, apparently still channelling Callas, said.
"I didn't know what I was doing."
The second soprano, played by Boyd, comes to the master class overdressed and this also earns Callas's wrath in the show. But the clothes aren't really the issue.
"I'm insanely jealous of her," Muggleton said.
"It reminds me of the loss of my own beautiful voice."
Boyd - who trained at the Victorian College of the Arts and Melbourne Conservatorium of Music and has worked with Opera Australia - described her character as "quietly confident" and "adaptable", steeling herself for the challenge of Callas's cruel-to-be-kind attitude once she knew it was coming and eventually standing up to her.
"In my mind, I'm giving her what she wants," she said of her character.
But more than that, she said, her character also helped the audience see through the Callas mystique as someone who was suffering and lashing out, putting others down to make herself feel better.
Muggleton said, "I do come across as something of a b-i-t-c-h - but [Callas is] so vulnerable."
In an inspiration of the director, former Canberran Adam Spreadbury-Maher, when Boyd's character goes off to change clothes after Callas's attack, she returns in an outfit identical to one worn by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis - not realising how hurtful this will be.
Boyd said she was a fan of Callas: "There's not a note that comes out of her that doesn't have every bit of her in it."
Master Class is on at the Playhouse, Canberra Theatre Centre, until Saturday. canberratheatrecentre.com.au or 6275 2700.
