London Star Tracie Bennett on Going to the End of the Rainbow as Judy Garland

She’s the winner of two Olivier Awards, and now Tracie Bennett is taking on what many people would consider the ultimate challenge: playing Judy Garland onstage. As Bennett herself admits, channeling Garland—particularly the troubled, late 1960s Garland portrayed in Peter Quilter’s new play End of the Rainbow—is a daunting assignment. But if anyone can do it, Bennett, the award-winning star of She Loves Me (as Ilona) and Hairspray (as Velma von Tussle) can. Most recently seen as Jacqueline in the West End transfer of La Cage aux Folles, she’ll be starring in End of the Rainbow through March 5, 2011, at the Trafalgar Studios. She recently chatted about Garland and her own much-rewarded stage career with Broadway.com.

She Loves Me, Hairspray, La Cage…and now Judy Garland: What a lineup!
I know, but can we make clear first off that this is a woman who just happens to be Judy? Otherwise, I would freak, because you can’t be everybody’s Judy—the Dorothy woman and Easter Parade and Vicki Lester [from A Star Is Born]. What I have to do in this play is hone in on how Judy was at this point in time, when it wasn’t good for her and she was highly addictive and nervous and contrary. I can’t please everybody’s idea of what they think Judy is, so I’m going from what [Peter Quilter] wrote.

You say “this point in time.” When was that?
The play focuses on a point in Judy’s life during her famous London concerts at the Talk of the Town in 1969, not long before she died. She was confused during this period, and so I’ve had to be very careful, studying the erratic mood swings and insecurities of someone who is confused and yet aware, who is a diva, and behind all that is also a drug addict. There are a lot of layers, and those are just some of them!

It sounds first and foremost an acting opportunity.
As I see it, I’m playing a human being, someone who is studying the price of fame at that level and what it can lead to: the erratic-ness and pressure of being a legend. I mean, how the hell would I know about that? [Laughs.] I have to serve the subtext of what’s written, and only that. I can’t play what I know about Judy and yet, of course, all of that is in my head; I have done my research.

A lot of YouTube?
What’s interesting is that you can’t get the woman from that, but you can get the performer. I’ve also read every book going and tried to do my best at understanding, with what little knowledge I have, what it must have been like to be somebody who was performing from when they were two years old.

But what about the Judy sound?
I actually have a bootleg tape that somebody did of Judy at the Talk of the Town itself, and I’ve been doing the best I can to listen to her breathing. But I’ve certainly never allowed myself to impersonate Judy or do an impression. I mean, nobody can be Judy to me but Judy. I’ve seen the guys do it—Jim Bailey is brilliant—but I’m doing the acting, really, and what she went through at the time. What delights me are the different moods in the play that are like acting pieces. There’s the shy, unassuming Judy, elegant to the audience; then the nice, happy Judy; then a drunk Judy singing “The Man That Got Away”; and then there’s off-her-face Judy. All these vignettes of “Oh my god, she’s losing it” that progress throughout the play.

Sounds like award-worthy material for someone who is no stranger to awards!
Thank you, but I find it difficult to talk about awards because I don’t aspire to them. There’s always that shock where I’m thinking, “What do you see?” I’m ever so grateful and proud of them, on the one hand, because when you’re growing up, you don’t think they are ever going to happen. And you certainly never think for a second that you’re going to be playing Judy Garlandl! [Laughs.] But I can never work out if it’s [because I'm playing] a great part or I’ve just been lucky with the [voting] panel. Sometimes, it’s a gift of encouragement that you’re on the right track, and so you want to do even better because you’ve been given that gift.

It’s fascinating how steeped you are in Broadway musicals, though as far as I am aware, you have never performed on Broadway.
I haven’t, and, you know what? I don’t even particularly follow what’s happening on Broadway. I have a big life here outside the industry with family and friends; my father has been very ill for about eight years, so that’s kind of where I am going in my head, obviously. But it’s interesting what you say about the shows I’ve done: When I was training in a musical theater course, I remember them saying, “You’re kind of an American/Broadway type of person.” At that time, all the Andrew Lloyd Webber stuff was coming in, and it’s like now I’m getting my own back!

Absolutely: It’s payback time!
Well, I think what happened is I went round the reps [regional repertory theaters across England] and learned my stuff slowly over the years, then went down the TV route for ages, and then when I did She Loves Me, they were like, “Oh my god, you can dance.” And I was like, “Yeah, I have trained!”

People were intrigued several seasons ago when you left Hairspray, for which you’d won the Olivier, to go into La Cage.
Terry [Johnson, the Tony-winning director of La Cage as well as End of the Rainbow] was adamant when the show went into the West End that I play Jacqueline, the café owner. I said, “I can’t. I’m still doing Hairspray, and anyway, it’s like 15 lines and I might be bored.’ He said, “Since when have 15 lines ever affected you?” And I thought, of course—it’s not about how big the part is, and I was ready to meet a different kind of musical genre. Also, La Cage was, I think, Terry’s first musical. He wanted me to do this, and he had done me a favor a long time ago putting me into his play, Dead Funny, when nothing was happening for me. It’s always good when someone wants to work with you. It’s better than chasing your ass begging to do something [laughs].

Terry Johnson, with good reason, is popular at the moment in New York. Might that, coupled with the Judy factor, get this latest show of yours to Broadway?
Oh god, I don’t know. People say things, but we’ve heard that before, haven’t we? In the end, that’s the producers’ call.