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lead
at the
Fringe

TRACY HOLMES’ first per-
formance as a jead actor did
not end with a standing ova-
tion, cheers cf encore and a
garland of roses.

instead the 27-year-old North
Shore native spent her finale clut-
ching her side in agony, lying flat
out on a St. Paul’s hospital
under the white lights of an
emergency examining room.

EVELYN

spotlight feature

“We had just done a week of
the French farce A Flea in Her Ear
at Freddy Wood Theatre in which
| played the lead role of
Raymonde,’’ explains Holmes.
“Just before Thursday's show |
got this pain in my gut and 1 jok-
ingly said to the cast, has anyone
had their appendix out?

“1 did the show ard felt 0.':.,
but then at 5 a.m. | woke up in
excruciating pain. A friend took
me to St. Paul’s Hospital and | sat
in emergency for 10 hours, with
my hair still in a french braid and
makeup on. It turned out that !
had a kidney stone and that |
would have to check into the
hospital. Then | remembered the
show. | started telling the doctors
that | was an actress and that | had
a show that evening, but they
thought !| was delirious because |
had checked in as a student. :

“An actress?’ they said, ‘sure
thing.’ They thought I was babbi-
ing.” ~

Her illness threw UBC’s theatre
department for a loop, but as they
say, the show did go on, but
without Holmes. Assistant director
Bruce Dow came to the rescue,
grabbing Holmes’ wig and purse,
making an impromptu appearance
in the leading role.

Once again Holmes, who first
trod the boards in Grade 4 as Little

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34 - Wednesday, September 13, 1969 — North Shere News

spotlight aun

Buttercup in HMS Pinafore, has
earned the lead in a play. This
time she appears as Lady Audley
in the Adelphi Screamers’ Lady
Audley’s Secret, part of the Van-
couver Fringe Festival.

Holmes explains that she was in-
itially hesitant about accepting the
role,

“Martin Millerchip (the direc-
tor) had seen me in Zastrozzi in
which | played a bleached blonde
who gets strangled to death. He
told me he was directing a Vic-
torian melodrama and that he had
me in mind for the part of Lady
Audley.

“He described the role and |
thought, oh my God, I’ve been
typecast — I'm going to be blonde
fer the rest of my life. But then he
told me that she was a villain and |
immediately became intrigued
with the part.”

Lady Audley is the innocent,
lovely wife of 70-year-old wealthy
Sir Michael Audley, played by An-
thony Holland. Her ‘‘secret” is a
previous marriage. ‘‘Poverty
wasn’t to her liking so she woos
this old man,” says Holmes.
“She's basically a bigamist but J
like to think that she’s not entirely
black-hearted. in melodrama
things are always two dimen-
sional.”

Holmes also has a second
dimersion in the world of theatre
directing.

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TRACY HOLMES is currentiy playing the lead role of Lady Audley
in Lady Auciey’s Secrei, featured at Vancouver’s Fringe Festival. °

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She has been involved on and
off again with local community
theatre. In 1985, she directed and
starred in Talking With, which was
selected io go to the Provincial
Drama Festival the same year in
Kelowna.

She took the same play to -
Halifax’s Neptune Theatre in what
was to be her first professional
theatre job.

“That got me my equity card
and gave me a nanie as a direc-
tor,’ she says. ,

This summer she directed
Suspect, a comedy and improv
show still running at the Back
Alley Theatre.

After graduating from UBC this
spring with a B.A. in theatre,
Holmes directed the university's
first summer stock show, Murder
On the Nile.

But Holmes doesn’t just work in
theatre — she works for theatre
too. She has been doing publici-
ty this summer for Street Access, a
local entertainment p.r. firm.

With Lady Audley’s Secret clos-
ing tomorrow and her contract
with Street Access expiring in Oc-
tober, there wiil be an intermission
in Holmes’ career. But she fully
expects to be back with another

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act.

“It will be a clear slate for me. |
like the idea of piays always clos-
ing. Hike going from project to
project.’

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