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8/22
2003
62
It's Good To Be King
Stratford Festival's Victor Talmadge muses on
learning, drama, etcetera, etcetera.
DIANA LIEBERMAN
Staff Writer
V
Most obviously, the show is staged at
the Festival Theatre, whose thrust stage
leaves no place to hide. "You're wit-
nessed almost 360 degrees by the audi-
ence," Talmadge says.
He enjoys the challenge of playing
opposite Lucy Peacock (as teacher Anna
Leonowens), whom he calls "a wonder-
ful actress, very keyed in to what she
does at every moment." And director
Susan Schulman's direction is clear,
lucid and intelligent.
Although he knows most people asso-
ciate the role of the king with one actor,
the legendary Yul Brynner, who also
had Jewish roots — according to the
Web site Jewhoo.com, "one of his
ictor Talmadge, star of the •
Stratford Festival of Canada's
production of The King and
I, has also starred in the musi-
cal's Broadway touring company pro-
duction, co-authored a successful play,
founded a theater company and acted in
numerous movie and television roles.
But, until recently, his mother was
still saying she'd be willing to pay for
him to go to law school.
Talmadge, one of only six American
actors and fewer than a dozen Jewish
personnel at the Canadian theater festi-
val this year, estimates that he's
played the King of Siam for
more than a million people so
far. And the show, Stratford's
most popular offering for the
2003 season, has just been
extended through Nov. 23.
Talmadge calls The King and I
"an amazing musical."
"It's a very sophisticated love
story, in that the characters' love
for each other is based not on
sexual desire, but rather on
mutual respect," he says.
Unlike other musicals by
Richard Rodgers and Oscar
Hammerstein II, the two leads
never actually kiss, he points out.
Instead, the scene in which the
two dance together — Talmadge
and co-star Lucy Peacock take
Victor Talmadge: "I'm still finding diffirent
the polka at an exhilaratingly fast
elements
to the character," says the actor of his
clip — is "a metaphysical coming
role
in
"The
King and I."
together."
"I'm still finding different ele-
Russian grandparents was a Jew who
ments to the character," says the 48-
converted away" — Talmadge says he's
year-old actor. "It's perhaps
Hammerstein's most brilliant characteri- not intimidated by the role, or by
efforts to compare him to his predeces-
zation. Where the character has to go,
sor, who did more than 4,000 perform-
from A to B, is established. How I get
ances over four decades on stage and
there, emotionally and psychologically,
screen.
is different every night.
"I made a strong effort when I first
"My character not only learns to take
tackled the role to be true to the text," he
advice from another human being, but
says. 'Any role is a marriage of the text to
from a woman. It's completely alien to
what
you're bringing to the character.
his upbringing and his culture, and it's a
"I've
done Hamlet, and there obvi-
credit to him as a human being that he's
ously
have
been many legendary actors
able to do it."
associated with that part as well."
Although he starred in the show's
Talmadge is the product of a "mixed"
national tour in 1997-98, Talmadge
marriage. His father, born in the United
says the Stratford production is
States, was a leader in New York's secu-
"organically fresh."
lar Jewish socialist community. His
mother, an Orthodox Jew, left Poland
four months before Jews were forced
into the Warsaw Ghetto, with an exit
visa provided by Japanese diplomat
Chiune Sugihara, who rescued many
Jews without the sanction — or even
the knowledge — of his home country.
"Their families were very worried
about the marriage," says their son, who
was given a choice about the extent of
his religious upbringing.
Talmadge became bar mitzvah
"because I wanted to be," and contin-
ued to be active in United Synagogue
Youth in high school.
He was raised in Poughkeepsie, N.Y.,
about an hour north of New York City,
where he acted in community theater.
At that time, his parents, both psy-
chotherapists, encouraged his acting.
"But, when I decided to become a
performer, they had their doubts," he
says.
The offer to pay for law school was
left hanging, and, eventually, his parents
came to appreciate their son's choice of
career.
"They told me, 'What you're doing is
more important than what we do. You
give people pleasure."'
After high school, Talmadge went on
to Cornell University, where he received
a bachelor's degree in psychology in
1977.
"I was started out as a pre-med major.
I was also doing theater," he remembers.
"I took a year off to act, and I realized I
didn't want to wake up at 50 years old,
not having done what I wanted."
He went on to earn a master of fine
arts degree from the California
Institute of the Arts in 1980. A nine-
year marriage to a costume designer he
met while at graduate school ended in
divorce. The couple had no children.
Back in New York, Talmadge acted in
Off-Broadway and avant-garde groups,
co-founded and served as literary direc-
tor for the award-winning New York
theater company the Empire Stage
Players and served as adjunct assistant
professor of English for City University
of New York. He also has taught play-
writing for Johns Hopkins University in
Baltimore.
Now a California resident, Talmadge
has acted at Berkeley Repertory
Theatre, American Conservatory