“Life upon the wicked stage ain’t ever what a girl supposes,” goes the lyric from the musical “Show Boat.”
And it’s no bed of roses for a woman, either, especially when girlhood fades and an actress ages, as we all must. The struggles of movie actresses in their middle years and beyond are the stuff of perennial complaint. Such outstanding talents as Meryl Streep, Sissy Spacek and Diane Keaton face much bigger obstacles finding parts than the likes of Harrison Ford, Gene Hackman and Robert Redford.
The theater may be kinder, but women of a certain age still have to fight to survive.
“It is harder for women as they age,” said Mary Ann Thebus, who has been working on Chicago stages for 20 years. “I think society accepts aging men better than they do women. Most of the playwrights and directors are male, and there’s something about aging women that makes people nervous. I don’t know if it’s that we lose our sexuality, and that bothers them, or that we don’t lose it and they want us to. But it’s definitely an issue.”
Aging brings challenges
“It’s challenging,” agreed Linda Kimbrough, who has played various classical and contemporary roles in her long Chicago career. “The number of parts starts to fall off when you reach 40 or 45. Look at the literature. There aren’t nearly as many parts for older women in Shakespeare or other classics as there are for men.
“True, there’s an attrition, with people leaving the business or town,” she added. “But it’s still very competitive.”
There are plenty of middle-aged men in Shakespeare, capped by King Lear, an elderly role that’s one of the greatest of them all. For women, there’s Lady Bracknell in Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest” and two excellent roles for older women in “Richard III.” But even Lady Macbeth is often cast as a young woman, and Blanche DuBois in “A Streetcar Named Desire,” the archetypal role about aging women, is only in her late 30s.
“There’s the lead in Tennessee Williams’ `Sweet Bird of Youth,’ but you have to be in incredible shape for it,” Kimbrough said. And often when those rare, famous parts arise, companies look for what Kimbrough called a marquee name. “When they take on `Death of a Salesman’ or `Long Day’s Journey,’ they don’t call me.”
But don’t think these women are bitter.
“I’ve been very lucky,” Kimbrough said, a sentiment echoed by Thebus and two other outstanding area character actresses, Irma P. Hall and Ann Whitney. Hard as it may be to find work, these women manage.
“I don’t have much trouble,” Hall said. “Maybe it’s the type of characters I do. I’ve been fortunate to do some roles on film that caught people’s attention.”
These women are very good at what they do. Hall, for instance, who appeared with Thebus in “Waiting to be Invited,” a drama about the civil rights movement that played January through early March at Victory Gardens Theater, often blows people away on stage. See her once and you never forget her. She has done “A Raisin in the Sun” at the Goodman Theatre, Cheryl West’s “Jar the Floor” on Broadway, and “Time for Burning” at Steppenwolf Theatre.
She has performed in the movies “Soul Food,” “A Family Thing” and “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil,” among others. “People just notice me”–especially after “Soul Food” and “Family Thing”–“and I’m very, very character. Not that many of us have come to the attention of people who hire, so once you do, you get to work a lot.”
Skills lend advantage
Special talents help. “I do a lot of dialogues and accents, like West Indian, South African and Nigerian,” Hall said.
Thebus performed in “Painting Churches” in its Chicago-area premiere in 1985, and she recently played the older woman in the three-character play again for Organic Theater Company in Evanston.
“I was a little too young the first time,” she said. “But that’s a benefit of being a character actor. You can wiggle into parts that are both younger and older at times. Now, as I get older myself, it irritates me when I see women playing parts I think they’re too young for. `Hey, hire me, I’m more in that age range,’ I think. If you’re the right age for a part, it’s something to use in your favor.”
Thebus’ latest efforts include “Amy’s View” at Organic in fall 2000, “The Ordinary Yearning of Miriam Buddwing” in Steppenwolf’s studio last winter and “Painting Churches” in December.
Whitney played Henry Higgins’ mother in “Pygmalion” at Apple Tree Theatre in the fall, and future plans include “The Trip to Bountiful” at the American Theatre Company (directed by her daughter, Sarah) and “On Golden Pond” at Drury Lane Oakbrook. Currently, she’s playing a nun in “Over the Tavern” at the Mercury Theater.
“It’s my second nun,” she said, referring to an earlier role in “Do Black Patent Leather Shoes Really Reflect Up?”
She is more upbeat than most about her career. “I’ve been lucky, and I’ve worked a lot. Last spring I shared the stage with Julie Harris [in `Fossils’ at Victory Gardens], and it was thrilling,” Whitney said.
Physical condition crucial
But she mentioned one major challenge: Actors have to stay in shape.
“You have to do a lot of physical stuff in this business, and you need to stay healthy and strong,” she said. “In `Arsenic and Old Lace’ a year ago, I had to go up and down a long flight of stairs 15 times a show. A lot of women my age avoid that.”
Whitney, 72, and Hall, 66, don’t mind revealing their ages, but Kimbrough and Thebus decline–and not out of personal coyness.
“If casting agents get the idea you’re a certain age, they won’t consider you for any other,” Kimbrough said. Or, as Whitney put it, “I’m not ancient, but I can play it.”
To some extent, these women are late bloomers.
Hall, who lived both here and in Texas, taught school for 27 years. Whitney studied theater while in college at Northwestern University, but stayed here to raise a family rather than hustle in New York, about the only professional theater metropolis at the time. Thebus spent years overseas as a psychiatric social worker before dabbling in theater, playing Blanche with an international theater company in Iran.
“I also teach because I keep thinking the roles will dry up, and I want something theatrical as a backup,” Thebus said. “So far, I keep getting cast.”
Why not forever?
“One time I played in `Tobacco Road’ at Barat College, and there was a woman in the cast who was 100,” Whitney said. “She had no lines, but she was constantly on stage, this great hovering presence.
“And I thought, `By God, there will be parts for me even when I’m 100.'”
