Josefina Gabrielle

Josefina Gabrielle

Josefina Gabrielle is proving herself to be the very definition of a triple threat. The ballet-trained singer, dancer and actress began her professional career dancing with the National Ballet of Portugal. She came back home to make her London debut in 1992 in the dance ensemble of the revival of Carousel at the National. But it was six years later, when she starred as Laurie in Trevor Nunn’s revival of another Rodgers and Hammerstein classic, Oklahoma!, again at the National, that she made her name. She starred opposite Hugh Jackman, before he was propelled to film stardom, and she subsequently made her Broadway debut in the show when it transferred to New York in 2002—this time opposite Patrick Wilson, before films came calling for him, too. (“Kiss me and you go to Hollywood!” she quips.) Gabrielle has continued to be one of London’s leading ladies in musicals like Chicago (in which she has now done seven separate stints as Roxie Hart) and The Witches of Eastwick. She is now branching into plays—after a stint in 2006 playing all the Gertrude Lawrence roles in a bill of six Noel Coward short plays at Chichester, she is now to be found in the West End playing all the women roles in The 39 Steps. Broadway.com caught up with the stage veteran in her subterranean dressing room backstage at the Criterion Theatre.

Josefina Gabrielle as Roxie Hart

What brought you to this show?
I was asked to audition, so I came here like a shot. At the time, I was doing my seventh stint in Chicago in seven years. In all, I have done just over a year and a half in it, and I needed the change. But I do love Chicago—for so many reasons—and if I can pop in and out of it until I can’t climb up a ladder anymore, I will! It’s always enjoyable and there are always new things to find in it.

Did you know what The 39 Steps entailed at the time you auditioned?
It had been on my list to see, but I just hadn’t got around to seeing it. I’d heard how great it was, so when the audition came up, it was my chance to finally see it.

Was it always your intention to do more straight theatre?
I would love to do more straight theatre because I’ve done so many musicals. I’d love to do more television, too. I’ve done some, but I would like to expand on it and would also love to do some films. It is always nice to feel comfortable in every discipline. It takes the mystery out of it and stops it being daunting. I’m not cancelling out anything in the future, but what’s lovely is the chance to flex your muscles with different characters. If you enjoy the characters you are asked to play and you can really explore them, it can be anything!

It’s been a long journey, though, from starting off as a dancer.
I went to the Arts Educational School from the age of 10, so I trained across the board in theatre. At 16, you specialise; and since ballet is the thing you do now or never, I specialised in that, and was very lucky enough to get into a ballet company, the National Ballet of Portugal. Ballet, more than any of the other disciplines, is international, so if you want to be a ballet dancer, you can’t count on being able to perform in your own country. It just so happened that the first job I went for I got, so I didn’t even try for the English companies. I was there for about eight years in all.

Why did you leave?
I think you sort of know when you have plateaued. I enjoyed it very, very much, but I also knew that I wanted to do more than just dance. With classical ballet you know what you need to achieve, and you also know when your body is not going to go any further than its going to go. I suppose I subliminally knew that I’d got as far as I was going to go. Maybe I could have gone a bit further, but I was a soloist already, and was doing some wonderful, wonderful stuff. Also I wanted to come home and work here for a while. I had never worked in my own country, so I wanted to see what that felt like, too. And my timing was perfect: I was a

Josefina Gabrielle and Hugh Jackman in Oklahoma!

ballet dancer coming home at the time [choreographer] Kenneth MacMillan was looking for dancers for Carousel, so it was a perfect bridge to a new life. What a gift! It was so classy to land that first job as my first experience.

But it was another musical at the National that put you on the map.
Yes, Oklahoma! changed everything for me. It was the perfect job, with a phenomenal team at a wonderful place. We believed in it so much, and creating it was just perfection, really. Then I went to Broadway with it, too—you couldn’t ask any job to provide more opportunities.

And now plays…
I played Helena in an open air production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Wimbledon, which was a wonderful experience. I’d love to do more Shakespeare. But doing the Coward plays in Chichester was both exciting and terrifying. We were literally learning a play a week—we had six weeks to put on six plays.

Simon Paisley Day and Josefina Gabrielle in The 39 Steps

You’re not giving yourself an easy time now, either. You have to play several characters in The 39 Steps.
I play three—not counting a pilot, and I’m a policeman for two seconds, as well. I’m Pamela, the love interest—the Hitchcock Blonde—as well as Margaret, a shy, timid, vulnerable Scottish crofter’s wife, and Annabella, a German spy. It’s wonderful because you get to experiment with three different colours. But you do not stop for a minute. If I’m not onstage, I’m offstage changing wigs and make-up and costumes. The offstage show is as full-on as the onstage one. It’s so much fun—and it comes down at a quarter to 10, which is so civilised! With Oklahoma!, we always missed closing time at the pub.

Is it more tiring to do plays or musicals?
I love Chicago and Oklahoma!, but you feel really run out at the end of the night. You feel like you’ve used everything. That’s a wonderful feeling. There’s a fear when you do plays that you’re only going through one channel, but I’ve been lucky enough in my experience of plays is that they’ve been great stretches. With plays, you have to set your own rhythm—with a musical, you go onstage and sing an opening number and that gets you into the spirit. But once you get a play in your body, it is not as exhausting as doing a musical. And the lovely thing about comedy is that you get an instant response with it.

Then again you don’t have the chance to show off the fact that you’re a triple threat.
No, but there aren’t that many triple threat parts around, to be honest. There is always a danger when you’re thought of as one that you’re seen as being a good dancer for an actress, a good actress for a singer and a good singer for a dancer—a jack of all trades, but master of nothing. Though this is a lovely break from singing and dancing, I always sing. I still do a daily vocal warm-up, and dance is my exercise. I don’t feel comfortable if I’m not fit. So that’s my incentive for dragging myself in to class every week.