Sarah Orenstein
0
0
o
o
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and Risa Waldman
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take the stage
at this year's
Shaw Festival,
which features
works- by
Above: Risa Waldman, left, in 'A Foggy Day.
J.)
Below: Sarah Orenstein in "Heartbreak House."
theater luminaries
Arthur Millen
George S. Kann
and Moss Hart,
and the Gershwins.
6)25
1999
90 Detroit Jewish News
SUZANNE CHESSLER
.
T
Special to the Jewish News
wo actresses who have performed in Michigan are
each appearing in two plays at this year's Canadian
Shaw Festival, the only theater program in the
world that specializes exclusively in the works of
Bernard Shaw and his contemporaries (1856-1950).
Sarah Orenstein, who traveled through the state in a chil-
dren's theater production for the Green Thumb Theatre, has
been cast in Shaw's Heartbreak House and Getting Married.
Risa Waldman, who came to Detroit twice with Donny
Osmond in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,
has been cast in non-Shaw plays, the Gershwin musical A
Foggy Day and Noel Coward's Easy Virtue.
"My roles are wonderful opposites to play beside each
other," says Orenstein, who has been with the festival for 10
seasons and even met her husband, actor Ric Waugh, while
working there.
"I am playing Hesione Hushabye, a Bohemian and whirl-
wind of passion, in Heartbreak House. In Getting Married, I
play Lesbia Grantham, who's not lacking in passion but is
ri- IP most self-controlled person ever written."
Orensteins passion for the theater comes from her mother,
Canadian actress Joan Orenstein. The two have appeared
together in_Mrs. Klein, which _is about_a. grouriclbreaking _child
psychologist, as well as Memories of You and Song of This Place.
"I don't remember one great epiphany of deciding to be
a performer," Orenstein, 36, says. The first time I was on
stage, I was 5 years old, and I just knew I liked it. In my
teen years, I did a few semiprofessional things and worked
behind the scenes.
Orenstein studied at the now-closed Playhouse Theatre
School in Vancouver, where only a select number of acting
students earned admission. She stayed on in Vancouver for
some five years after graduation and worked on the West
Coast before moving on to the Shaw, where she has per-
formed in The Playboy of the Western World, The Devil's
Disciple and Blithe Spirit, among many other works.
Off-season has taken her back to regional companies.
"I really enjoy the festival because I don't have to spend the
first week [of each production] getting to know the actors," says
Orenstein, who also has appeared in Canadian film, television
and radio. "I've worked with the bulk of the people in one
capacity or another, and we can go straight into the text and fig-
ure out the play. When actors come together for the first time to
do one play, they have to spend time getting to know each
other's rhythms and who they are when they're performing."
Orenstein credits her Jewish background for her strong
cultural interests. Her mother sang with a Jewish folk choir,
and her father's paintings include scenes from Jewish markets
in New York and Toronto.
Just as family brought Orenstein into theater, family takes her
away. She decided on a year off to look after her first child,
Elliot, and has to work out care arrangements with her husband.
"The hard thing about working in theater is that every
time the work is out of town, the family is split up,"
Orenstein says. "The rehearsal period was tough here
because of the long hours. Now that I'm in two shows, it's
not too bad."
Waldman, the only actress in her family, gets to use her
musical talents as she takes several roles in A Foggy Day,
which is being reprised this year because there were so many
requests for tickets for the quickly sold-out production last
year. The show jumps right into love — between a worldly
older couple, a timid younger one and another right in the
middle. The standards include "Nice Work If You Can Get
C"