Our Press Officer Steve Pratt caught up with Caroline Gruber who is playing Aunt March in our upcoming production of Little Women.
Caroline Gruber feels a connection with York in general and the Theatre Royal in particular. She has fond memories as both have played key roles in her life and career.
She was last seen at the Theatre Royal eight years ago in the stage premiere of H M Forster’s short story The Machine Stops, directed by Juliet Forster who now directs her in this season’s production of Little Women (21 September-12 October).
Her first appearance at the Theatre Royal came in 2003 in a production of Kate Atkinson’s play Abandonment, directed by the-then Theatre Royal’s artistic director Damian Cruden. Not only did he want to cast her but also made sure her personal circumstances didn’t stop her from taking the role.
“I was a fairly new single mother with two children and at the audition Damian asked ‘have you any questions?’ I said ‘yes, how child friendly are you because rehearsals fall over the school holidays and I need to bring my children up,” recalls Caroline.
“I remember him saying – and this was 2003 don’t forget – ‘I want mothers to work in my theatre’. The theatre had a list of chaperones for children in pantomime and Damian arranged for my children, who were eight and six at the time to come into the theatre with me and a chaperone would look after them.
They were given one of the dressing rooms. They’d come on stage and do the warm-up with us and the wonderful David Leonard used to teach them naughty songs.”
One of those children – her daughter Marisa Abela – found herself in the spotlight this year when she played singer Amy Winehouse in the movie biopic Back to Black. Caroline’s son Jack Abela is also on stage as a stand-up comedian.
Caroline was also in York when Marisa phoned to say she’d been accepted at RADA – another key moment in Caroline’s life when York was central.
The production of The Machine Stops saw her seated the entire performance as actors slithered around the metalwork surrounding “a swollen lump of flesh” as the script referred to the character.
“The great thing about story is that when I first read it at school it was science fiction. Imagine the telephone hadn’t been invented when it was written and here’s Forster talking about people interacting on screens. Now I think it’s even more relevant because of AI. Our dependence on AI and what happens when it goes down has become even more relevant.
“What was difficult was acting sitting down all the time. I’d come back after having quite a long break from acting, from the theatre. I was talking non-stop and used to get quite nervous but I loved it.”
She’s still in touch with another of The Machine Stops actors Karl Queensborough and that friendship led to Caroline returning to acting after a break. At the time she didn’t have an agent but the casting people for Tom Stoppard’s play Leopoldstadt found her thanks to Karl. “I had a phone call from Karl saying they were looking for me. They had rung Karl’s agent asking if he was still in touch with me,” she says.
“Because of appearing with Karl in The Machine Stops I got this amazing job in the West End. So I feel quite a strong connection to York. The whole thing of being in York again has a lot of significance. I love coming here.”
In Little Women she’s playing Aunt March, a character who pops up from time to time to deliver scene-stealing lines. “It’s a gift,” Caroline says of the role. “It’s a wonderful part and she’s hilarious although there’s an underlying warmth there. She’s not there to give the sisters money but point them in the right direction. It’s quite nice to come on and make an impact.”
I point out that Meryl Streep played Aunt March in the most recent movie version. “If it’s good enough for Meryl, the great Meryl Streep …” says Caroline, leaving me to finish the sentence.
Little Women: York Theatre Royal, 21 September to 12 October.
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