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DIVA TALK: Chatting with Hairspray's Darlene Love Plus News of Buckley, Cook and Salonga
By Andrew Gans
12 Aug 2005
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Darlene Love
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News, views and reviews about the multi-talented women of the musical theatre and the concert/cabaret stage.
DARLENE LOVE
It seems only natural that Darlene Love — best known for her string of sixties hits and as the voice of the "Girl Group" sound — should join the cast of Hairspray, which is set in the sixties (1962 Baltimore to be exact) and whose rousing score was inspired by the sounds of that era. Love recently succeeded Mary Bond Davis in the role of Motormouth Maybelle and has been thrilling audiences nightly at the Neil Simon Theatre with her powerful and soulful renditions of "Big, Blonde & Beautiful" and the show's most moving anthem, "I Know Where I've Been." Love, whose previous Broadway credits include Leader of the Pack, the revival of Grease! and the cult classic Carrie, recently spoke to me about her latest Broadway role, her annual stint on "The David Letterman Show" and, of course, the ill-fated musical Carrie. That brief interview with the upbeat Love follows:
Question: How did the role of Motormouth Maybelle come about for you?
Darlene Love: Well, I tried to get in this play three years ago! [Laughs.] Because I know Marc Shaiman — I've known Marc and Scott [Wittman] for years. When I heard they were doing this project, I went, "Wow, this would be a great project for me!" I called and talked to Marc, and Marc [said], "Darlene, you're not fat enough!" [Laughs.] So, guess what the joke is? I wear a fat suit now! [Laughs.]
Q: How have performances been going so far?
Love: They have been great. The audiences have been recognizing me, and I get applause when I come out on the stage. I think that has a lot to do with the publicity I've been getting, too. And, it's so much fun playing this role because I tell everybody that this role is my life. This is stuff that I've been through over the last 40-plus years in this business. The interracial thing with my son in the play. I had an interracial relationship with Bill Medley, one of the Righteous Brothers. And, there was a television show that I did called "Shindig!" with the Blossoms back in the sixties that they didn't want black people on. So, here I am now playing my life actually onstage — everything that I've been through.
Q: And, you also have those great two solo numbers in the show.
Love: I think they're the best songs in the show. I hate to say that, but . . . [Laughs.]
Q: What's it like performing those songs every night?
Love: Well, firstly, "I Know Where I've Been" — I have to control myself not to get too emotionally caught up in the song. I've changed it a little bit since Mary [Bond Davis has] gone. I really sing it from what I'm feeling over the years — what I've been through — and telling the children — not children, but I call them children — onstage, "I've been through this. Now, you guys, if you want to fight for something, you're gonna have to go through it." So, a lot of times, I think about all the things that I have gone through over the years of being in this business and what I've had to put up [with]. Sometimes the emotion gets really gone with me, but I keep it under control.
Q: And, you also get to do "Big, Blonde & Beautiful" in the first act.
Love: That number is so much fun because I get to do it with Edna [Bruce Vilanch]. And, it's so much fun working with her — working with him! It's just a joy being able to be onstage and do things that you really love and be in such a great play.
Q: Hairspray tackles so many issues. What do you think it's main message is or what is it's main message to you?
Love: I think the main message, not just to me but to everybody, is that there is no difference in us. Some are black, some are white, some are red, some are whatever, but still there's a man and there's a woman. There's only two types of human beings on the earth — man and a woman. We're all different colors, different cultures, but we can get along. Tracy is a heavyset girl in the play, [and] society looks on her [and says], "Oh, you're fat, you cannot do . . . " They look on me, "[You're] black, you cannot do. . ." So, in all total, the play says, "Yes, you can, and you can have fun doing it!"
Q: We have to talk a little bit about Carrie. Unfortunately I didn't get to see it, but the some of the music I've heard from it is really beautiful.
Love: The songs that I sang to Carrie as Miss Gardner, the gym teacher, [were] beautiful songs — trying to help a person get along in life even though she's different. And I loved Carrie. We did Carrie in England for six months, and they loved it. And then we came to America. [Laughs.] And the critics hated it.
Q: Had the show changed at all?
Love: I don't think it really changed that much when we came to Broadway. We brought it just about the same way it was. It's just the critics didn't like the idea probably of Carrie being on Broadway with the blood and dying onstage. It was a little hard to reproduce something like that, but we did it the best way we could without killing one another. [Laughs.]
Q: When you were in rehearsals in New York, did you have any idea that it might not be received well? What was the feeling among the cast?
Love: Well, I didn't know because it was received so well in London. I'd never been in a show before where it opened one day and closed the same day. I'd never heard of that before. I ended up being in that show Carrie that that happened to. I was just so surprised. I said, "They can't do that. We just opened!" [Laughs.]
Q: That's got to be very disheartening . . .
Love: Yeah, and it is, especially [after] so much work. I think we did two or three weeks of previews, and then we opened. And, then they put the notice up that day and said we would not be having a show tomorrow. I think a lot of times about all the work that the actors put in, all the money that is spent for the show, and then it closes. . . . It was something to do, and I'm really glad I was a part of it, just to be able to do something different.
Q: Every year you sing on the "David Letterman Show" at holiday time. How did that tradition begin?
Love: That actually started for me [when I was] doing a show at the Bottom Line, Leader of the Pack, the first show I went to Broadway with. They took it from the Bottom Line and really changed it once they brought it to Broadway. They should have left it the way it was when it was at the Bottom Line. Paul Shaffer played Phil Spector at the Bottom Line, and he talked David Letterman into coming to see the show. And, David Letterman heard me sing "Christmas Baby Please Come Home," and he really loved that song. I guess a couple of weeks after he saw the show, he was talking to Paul during the TV show and said, "You know the girl that sings that Christmas song in that play, we have to get her on the show. It's a great song." And, from that day till this day I've been singing "Christmas Baby Please Come Home" on David's show. [Laughs.] Last year was 20 years. . . Continued...
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