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[0:00] Matt Rodin: Hey, thanks for hitting play. Welcome to The Come Up. My name is Matt. And on this episode, a conversation with Melanie La Barrie. Originally from Trinidad, Mel was a Calypsonian and a radio DJ before she moved to London for an acting job. She booked from an open call, which spiraled into a wildly successful career on the West End. It's no surprise though. She is a generous soul, a kind spirit, a sort of magical presence. And she's currently making her Broadway debut at almost 50 years old in the new musical & Juliet, which is one of the many things that we talked about when this was recorded in late November of 2022. I'm so grateful that the podcast gave me an opportunity to learn about her life and her perspectives on new musicals, spirituality, the relationship between artists and audience, and tiny miracles. She truly is a light. So without further ado, here is Melanie La Barrie.

[1:08] Melanie La Barrie: How are you? How are you feeling? Last week was a crazy week. It was Thanksgiving. It was a lot. I mean, you know, we can have girlin schedules at Christmas time and whatever in the UK, but I think this is the first time I've ever done like because from the week before we'd done an 11 show stretch. Um, and then we had Thanksgiving, which they say is a day off, but Thanksgiving is never really a day off. And then we came back and we had like a double double and then the show on Sunday. So it was it was um a pretty grueling schedule. Um, and you you just had to like just really steal yourself and and say, okay, this is it's okay. And in the middle of all of that, we had an opening night. So, you know, there was a big party and and all the press and all the interviews and all of that.

So, you know, you really you had to be kind of like on your game as well, and you try to open a show and you try to open a Broadway show and I'm dealing with my Broadway debut and all the emotional stuff that comes with that as well so it was it's been an incredibly um challenging and beautiful and uh brand new in terms of the experience and uh wondrous and tiring and you know it it it's all those things all at once and so you really had to uh know yourself and and and be okay inside of yourself to be able to deal with all of that.

[1:55] Matt Rodin: I was gonna say like talk to me about navigating um emotionally sort of this the balance of right you've done this show for a long time you've been a part of the show for the long time so in a way it's not new but hearing what you just said in the sense of this is your Broadway debut you haven't done a show in New York this is a crazy schedule especially opening around Thanksgiving all this like how has that been keeping it new does it feel still does it still feel new even though you've done it for a long time?

[1:55] Melanie La Barrie: Well that that's the thing what there were so many new things that have happened. So like you know like I mean having a Broadway debut when you're nearly 50 years old is one thing and it's wondrous and it is magical and I remember uh Richie Ridge from Broadway well he's uh like when we were back in Toronto him saying to me just remember to take the time and really uh just look at what's going on and be present for everything that's going on because you will never have a second Broadway debut. And I took his advice to heart, and I remember taking the time. I also have the most incredible support network. My partner was here from the UK with me uh for the lead up, and then after that, and so he was able to kind of really manage all this stuff around me.

So I had my mom and my sisters visiting from out of town, and they all live here in the States. And so he was able, you know, when I needed to focus on the day. So he was able to kind of say, okay, we're gonna all go out to brunch, and we're gonna leave you to stay home and have your porridge and and really settle all of that. Um, so yes, so there was that. There was the emotions of that. Um, in terms of doing a show and keeping it fresh every day, that's part of the skill. And that I I feel very fortunate to have opened many new British musicals and to have been part of a of well fair few original casts. And so, and to be have been in long contracts and in long contracts in the West End. So for a long time I've been doing that, and so therefore, that's part of my practice skill.

My skill is being able to go on stage and to make that new and fresh every day. And so I go into my toolbox and utilize every skill that I have, and I say, okay, how what's new about today? What am I going on stage with? And you can't help but make it new every day because every day is a new day. And the people you encounter on the tube, I'm still calling it tube, I know it's a subway. The people you encounter on the tube will affect the energy that you go into the theater, you know, the meetings that you have, the phone calls you have, the you know, the the wondrous things that you find on the street when you're having a walk with your partner. Um, that will infuse you and imbue you with a certain energy, and uh uh uh that day is always new.

That day is always unique. And so you take that. I always say, use everything, take it all onto the stage. Now, if you're sad and you have to play something happy, there is a still a way to use that as well. Yeah, um, they say leave your problems at the stage door, then pick them back up when you're heading out. Uh, but also I say, sure, leave your problems there, but take everything, take the content, you know, the emotional content, take that with you because there is a way to use that to in to put it into your performance and to make it brand new for that day.

[6:18] Matt Rodin: Yeah, I've found that um being able to be present in whatever I'm in that day, wherever I am that day, it has made acting and performing so much more invigorating, um, selfishly for me, because then I I'm not like cutting myself off at the ankles, being like, Well, you can't bring like you said, you can't bring any of that with you. It's so much more um refreshing and so much more fulfilling. I've found to be able to like be in wherever I am and allow that to sort of carry into um and breathe life into whatever is happening on stage that day. It doesn't mean that the content is changing on stage, right? We're doing the same thing, but there's a different energy about it. Um, and I think that present moment awareness is powerful.

[7:11] Melanie La Barrie: Yes. Well, we always say, you know, it's new within within the parameters of the play, right? So you have the parameters at play, you have the places you have to stand and the marks you have to hit, and you know, the music that you have to follow. So you always have you have your boundaries. It's like a stage. You can't speak in after in your bed in your bedroom or in your in your dressing room. You have to do it on the stage. So your stage, uh, they are your boundaries, uh, and you have those parameters. But what happens inside of those parameters, the that's that's where you play. And we must remember that we call it a play. And we, you know, yes, we call it it's a musical, but you know, all of these things are play, and so we play.

The other thing that you can never ever, ever plan for is your audience. Your third member of the scene. And you could be on stage every day doing the same thing, and you cannot, in no way can you decide what your audience is going to do. I have audiences who are, you know, who they they some of them they know what I'm going to do, so they're already there. Audiences who know the jokes before I tell them, so they're there before even I get there. I have um audiences who are sometimes perplexed. They get there, you know. I have people who are perplexed by the fact that I use my own voice, that I speak in my own accent on stage, and have uh worked very hard to be able to use this voice because this voice is specifically mine.

And there are people who think it's a an act, and they think it's uh, you know, it's a thing. And I'm like, well, everybody else gets to speak as they are. So why can't I speak who I am? So I have people who could, you know, sometimes, you know, people could be perplexed by what I'm saying and what I'm doing. Um, there are people who may not know the form, and so they might be a little bit confused by the form. Uh so every day, and then they, you know, there are people who just they're at a party and they're just screaming at you, you don't matter what you do. And so every day you cannot plan for your audience as a collective member of your production, because I always say that the audience has a very important part in in the work that we make.

They are the other player. And so we have to do everything, not just for them, but with them. And so they become very, very important to what it is you're doing on stage. So, you know, and and they know that they know that they have a responsibility. And and and the the way that they play out this responsibility can be different on any given day. So that also is something that you can plan for, and you have to just be present for and deal with as it comes.

[9:58] Matt Rodin: Yeah, what is that? What do you think that is? That what is that exchange that happens between an audience and a performer? And I'm curious too, if that was something that you were even conscious of as like a radio DJ, if if if your if your connection to the audience was always something that you've carried with you, you've always had.

[10:18] Melanie La Barrie: I think I think my my whole life has always been for an audience. I uh I was just one of those kids where everything was was for people, uh one accepting the gift that I was trying to give, um, and two approving of it or disapproving of me. And you know, as a radio DJ, um, you make choices, you make choices about what's going to be the zeitgeist, right? You you could sometimes be in control of the culture. You decide what people want to listen to or what they're going to listen to. You decide, I remember, you know, there were times, you know, we would decide what became popular. We would, a small group of people, and that has always been art. Art has always been a decision made by a small group of people that is then promoted to a large group of people.

That's art, right? And so that's the same as radio. We decide what's going to be popular. And so you have to do it in concert with what it is you think your audience is going to feel. Um, it's that presence of mind. How I imagine you feel about what I'm doing. And we look, you know, it's a psychological phenomenon that we develop as we grow. And it becomes part of what we do as performers, as people who um work in media, as people who work in culture. We have to have a presence of mind for the populace. And we do it as actors when we make a character. I have to have a presence of mind for of the audience. And so you make decisions when you make something in all of these realms about what it is you think will be will inform, educate, entertain, and edify your audience. And so, yes, that's that's what I do. You do it and you say, I I give this to you because I think this will be good for you, but also please love it.

[12:26] Matt Rodin: Right. It has to be balance, right? Like there has to be some consciousness of who's on the receiving end. But at some point it can become too much, right? You could become, I find I can become too conscious of the audience, and then all of a sudden I'm filtering myself and I'm changing who I am because of what I'm hoping the reaction will be, rather than bringing my whole self to whatever it is that I'm doing. And I was, it's it's beautiful to hear that you know you've been able to land in a place now where like you can use your authentic voice, literally your voice voice, but also bring yourself as a whole person to the room. And listen, like you said, you've worked a lot in the UK, you know, that which is what a blessing. I'm curious how that journey has been in terms of finding the space and the confidence to be able to walk in a room and be your whole self and not need to sort of fit into a box that you think they want you to fit into.

[13:28] Melanie La Barrie: That's a big big question, with I I sadly not a succinct answer. Um, because there are so many things that have contributed to who I am as a performer and um and the career that I have. Um, I think a lot of it is an accident. The best things are, you know what I mean? I think a lot of it, look, I went to the UK in 2000 to do a play. Right. I went for this sum total of three months. And so that's all I packed was a bag for three months. While I was there, I was offered another play. And then after that, I was offered representation and uh asked to go in for auditions and then started doing musicals. Um I'd never done a musical, really. I'd never done uh, certainly not a musical theater musical.

Wow. Uh, you know, before I'd moved to the UK. So I had to learn fast and on my feet. Um, I'd also never spoke in an American accent, and my first big musical was American musical. Um, so I had to learn fast and on my feet how to do any of this. And I never went to any classes because of, but also that's how I got into theater because I am a chancer. And so I will just go, you know, I I got it to theater because there was an open audition for something, and I just called the people and I said, Look, I want to come. Will I embarrass myself? They said, come along. I did embarrass myself, but I also got the part, and that was the part that brought me to the UK. So, you know, you'd sometimes you just take you take a chance on yourself, you embarrass yourself, that's okay.

Um, but I I don't know when it happened. It started happening. Well, I think one is because I'm terrible, really terrible at British accents. I have a good RP, but I'm really terrible at like any other kind of British accent. And so I would go into auditions and people would say, Oh, could you read this in like a Trinadian accent? And uh in your accent. Sometimes they got it wrong, they didn't know that it was Trinidadian. And I would say, sure, and they would have a great laugh because I'm good at comedy in my own accent. And they would have a great laugh and they would be entertained, and then they would cry if it was seen, and then I'd never get the job. Then they would give the job to like whoever would, you know, they were gonna give the job to.

And so I kind of wondered if it was now. So going back, like the first play that I did in the UK was a Trindadian play. So I was like always talking in my own voice. And I stuck when they started to do this for all these mainstream musicals, you know, like like uh we will rock you and that sort of thing. And then it would never happen. So I started to think that people would make it fun of me. That it was, you know, they were just making jokes and just being entertained in the audition room at my expense. Uh, which was hard. Yeah. It was hard to to take. And I remember going in for my Mary Poppins audition. And uh Sir Richard Eyre. Sir Richard. And also I didn't know who these people were. So I was just like, whoever, I don't know.

I had to ask somebody to point out Cameron Macintosh to me. It like on the first day we were saying, I didn't know who's Oh my God. I didn't know. Um, so I also I love that because I never let anybody frighten me. Yeah, that's great. And um, Sir Richard came up to this stage, he walked up to the stage and he said, Would you please do this part in your own accent? And I said, No, because you're so I am just a joke. I am just here to entertain you and for you all to have an and I said, I am not doing it until you all say to me and promise to me that this is a real choice that you are possibly going to make. He was shocked, he was flabbergasted at the fact that I would speak to him like that. And he said, Yes, uh yes, I think that's why we're asking.

We would like to make it as a choice. And I did it. I had prepared my one minute of English comedy and all of that, which I never got to do. So I was furious. And I did it. And I'm also I'm a little bit belligerent in auditions anyway, so I'm always yelling at people. It's terrible. I it's be I don't know how I don't know why. I remember my first West End show. I didn't even get it the first time. Um it was rag time. I didn't get it. And then somebody dropped out, you know, for circumstances, and they called me in, you know, like come audition to like learn the show in one week. And I quarrel with those people from the back of the auditorium all the way down to the auditorium. I quarrel with them.

And then my friend who was the musical, the associate musical director, he called me and he said, You cannot behave like this in auditions. And and I said, Well, I was annoyed. If I didn't get it, why am I now good enough for it? And then the next call I got after it after that was them offering me the job. So that was my first West End job. I wasn't even in the original thing. I had to jump in and learn it in one week and then be in it. So anyway, so then I so cut to me yelling at Sir Richard Day and then getting this job, Mary Poppins. And I think it is because a lot of these uh characters that I play, they they tend to be kind of magical and kind of nurturing and kind of otherworldly. They they they have to somehow stand apart from the rest of the thing that's happening.

And my voice helps me do that. And if I have to be magical, um, then I don't have to be worrying about trying to do another voice. I could just be magical from in here. Yeah. So that contribute. Oh, it's I told you it wasn't going to be succinct. No, I'm thrilled it wasn't. I'm thrilled it wasn't succinct. Are you are you a magical person? Do you do you have that otherworldliness inside you? Do you feel that? Are you spiritual? Like, is that something that you carry around into the world with you, like in the way that you interact with people, or are you like cut and dry, you know? I'm curious. I mean, I cannot say if I'm magical because somebody else has to say that. You know, it's like calling yourself a diva.

If you call yourself a diva, you are not a diva. Other people have to call you a diva. And in the same way this is, other people have to call me magical, right? So I can't call myself magical. However, I think I'm both. Um boy. I have had trauma in my past, which I I'm not broken by, you know. I my trauma is private. I don't mind saying that I have trauma, but my trauma is private, so therefore it's not I'm not gonna be like, oh, this happened and this has made me into who I am. It always does, everything makes you into who you are, it's not a special thing, yeah. But it my trauma has informed me. The way that I live is that I always want to make I always want people to feel better when they leave me than before they came to me.

So there is that. Um to oh gosh, I have been so lucky and so fortunate to have all these opportunities and to make all these beautiful things, and now to come here, I don't even think it never occurred to me to come to Broadway. Never. Never. I am in the UK, like making all these brand new shows, workshopping all these brand new shows that you know that are now coming to fruition, which I love to see. I love new musicals, love them. Oh, yeah. I think if my if you had to strip my soul and see what my soul was made of, it would be made of new musicals. I also love young people's work. I love when young people like cut. I mean, older people, yes, we there, we establish, and we normally have more people with money behind us, but young people trying putting stuff together.

I'm always like, call me, I will do it, I'll do it for free. I don't care. It was the same thing when and Juliet came and Luke Shepherd, who was my baby director in Matilda 12 years ago, and he called me in 2017 and he said, Come and read this for me. I can't tell you what it is. I said, Okay, I'm coming. So all these young people, I'm like, call me. Mel will come. So I love new musicals, and so I I was in the UK doing that and doing new things and you know, workshopping stuff and making new stuff and getting offered some also. The thing about it is that I am at a point now in the UK. I don't know, they might forget about me now that I'm away, but I'm at a point now in the UK where people just offer me things, you know.

I don't have to, I can't. That's a blessed place to be in. That's a blessed place to be in, okay. So I don't I haven't sung, you know, my own song, one up temper, one ballad. I haven't done that for a long time, so I have to go and get my repertoire. I know what to for Broadway. But you know, so there was there was no part of me that said, I wanted to go to a place, to a new place where there are so many talented people. So many talented people. And fight up and you know, start from the bottom again. I was like, I am good. I you know, I have a good career. So I never thought about Broadway. So I am present for all of these opportunities as well. So that's my magic side. But I am also cut and dry.

I always say to people, you know, I it's so nice, you know. People in the UK, they call me one of the nicest people in showbiz, and that's so nice. But I said it have people who know that I will. We have a word in Trinidad, we call it buff, which is when you're telling somebody off, and I will buff you. You know, if you're not doing what you're supposed to do, or if you harass me, or if you annoy me, I will say. So I am also very cut and dry. And like to think that I am honest, I'm not hurtful, I never try to be hurtful, but also I am exacting in my work. I like things to be a particular way in my work. Um, but I have a lot of time for people. Also to, I am so my master's is in organizational psychology.

I also have done a fair bit of therapy training. So I yeah, that'll make you magical, real quick. Yeah. So I am very much uh it's always important to me to how people function, how people function at work, people's working identities, their their own personal identities, how people make their way in this world and how I can be there to make that journey easier so that to me is very important so it's not just me swanning about singing songs and trying to dance and no there's more yeah there's more yeah because we spend so much of our of our time at work and we spend so much of our time with other people so what can we do? We want to make that journey nicer for other people and that makes it nicer for me.

It's no wonder people want you in rooms of new shows you know that can be such a such a high stakes high stress confusing environment um and to have a presence of somebody who has an understanding of organizational psychology or human psychology period um and has uh the the sort of um honestness that that you need you know you need to have be candid in those kinds of rooms but also the warmth um it's like I said it's no surprise what is it about new musicals for you like what is it about that thing that get like what when you started talking about it you like lit up so I'm so curious like what is it that gets you like that I just think that people are so smart they are so smart I know there are people in this world who feel they could do everything you know I am a you know duck of all traits I am uh I'm a writer and director and actor and blah blah blah I am not. I cannot. I am an actor. And I'm a good person. But I can't write a musical. And these kids who come with these ideas and they write these beautiful songs.

[26:30] Melanie La Barrie: And they make all these wondrous things. Oh gosh. You're like, I could never do that in my life. And I want to be there to celebrate when they do that, when they make that. Because I just think it's wondrous. I think it's like that is magic.

[26:56] Matt Rodin: I imagine your sort of understanding of creativity and music and art has to have been informed by all these experiences that you've had and all these people that you've met. And I'm curious, like how it's shifted, you know, like where are you at now in sort of your understanding of what creativity is to you.

[27:21] Melanie La Barrie: Oh, good question. I started jumping up on tables and singing since I was three. I started singing professionally when I was eight. Well, I say singing professionally, competitions and singing for money, basically. And carried on, and I was singing calypso, and again, I didn't write anything, didn't write a thing, wasn't for me. I can't write nothing. I am inherently musical without knowing anything about music. I love musical theater and I love music, but I don't like singing. I don't like to hear myself sing. I think I have a terrible voice. I don't know why people keep asking me to do things. As a matter of fact, I spent a long time being the only non-singing character in musicals. For a long, long time.

Not a bad track. Not a bad, not a bad spot to be in. Yeah, I don't like the sound of my voice, but I love music. I think music is inside of me. I have, and I have no, so I really understand it. I get it. I can hear it. And I know what it's gonna do next. And it's a real part of my body, and I have no skill to make it. I just know it.

[28:45] Matt Rodin: You feel it?

[28:46] Melanie La Barrie: I know music. And the way Trinidad is, because Trinidadian is the land of calypso, it's the land of steel band. You know, like they probably only were probably not anymore, but it was late, like the only instrument invented in the 20th century, you know, in the 21st century or something. Um, 20th century. You know, the steel pan, and they probably invented all kinds of things since then. But for a long time it was that, and we are inherently musical people, you know. We have that proud tradition of drums, we have that proud tradition of carnival, and where it's all about making things, it's about making beautiful things, it's about making challenging things, it's about not just glitter and sequins.

Sometimes it's ugly and macabre and frightening. We have a great tradition of folklore and storytelling and the oral tradition where we pass things down from one generation to the next. We have that great tradition. So all of that is part of my DNA. It's inside of me. I always knew I was going to be on stage. I didn't know in what capacity, but I always knew I was going to be on stage. And so I started singing calypso, knowing full well I wanted to be an actor, but not knowing how to get into acting in Trinidad and Tobago.

[30:07] Matt Rodin: Interesting.

[30:08] Melanie La Barrie: Because at the time it was a closed shop. And it was only a handful of people who got to do theater in Trinidad. It wasn't easy. And I wasn't part of those circles. I was, you know, it was like very different circles where they were quite elite. And I was in calypso, which was like a kind of everyman tradition. I didn't know how to make that transition. But those art things, it's like inside, and also it's such a multicultural island that you're not just hearing one thing, you know, we have the tassa drums and Bollywood music, and we have the ancient Chinese traditions and double ten and all of those things. You know, all of that is such a big part, and we celebrate everything, huh? Like, well, we could have a holiday.

We have Emancipation Day, East Indian Arrival Day with the like literally every holiday, we will celebrate it. And we will do the whole thing, we will dress up, we will. So we teach it in school as part of our social studies. So the different melting pot of cultures and the artistic traditions of all of these things were a part of what made me me. And I was weirdly shy and a nerd, and didn't have many friends, and in fact, I was kind of bullied at school anyway. And so art was where I found my solace. And it's so weird, you know, you had like nobody like you, so what you're gonna do is go up on stage and make everybody watch you. That's what we do, that's what we do. We like, oh, nobody likes me, I'm on, go on stage.

I'm gonna make you like me. You know, and I couldn't be personable. I didn't know how to make friends, I didn't know how to make people like me because I was weird and you know, and I liked things that other people didn't like, and you know, I was listening to like Shirley Bassey and Billie Holiday when I was seven because that informed me. But also, you know, listening to Grandmaster Flash and you know, all of those things as well, and that American culture that was coming down the Caribbean chain straight to us as well. So all of those things just kind of like went inside of my body, and I just kind of kept it, but I had no real skill for making music, but what I could do was tell a story, tell a story, you know.

So I said, okay, I'm gonna find a way to tell a story with this music and with the skills that I have, with the voice that I have, and that's the other thing about my singing voice is that I don't think it's beautiful, but it's mine, and I will deploy it in, you know, I don't mind making an ugly noise on stage because it means something. It starts, the root of the sound that I make starts from meaning. So you know, that's how so that's changed over time, you know. It's like all I keep doing is just stuffing more musical influences, and I know nothing as well, so I don't, you know, like I don't go research nothing. I would people say, you know this play, you know this musical. I was like, if I have not been in it, I do not know it. Unless I am in it, unless there's a part in it for me, or unless I'm gonna be in it.

[34:12] Matt Rodin: You don't know.

[34:12] Melanie La Barrie: I do not know it. Nope. I also didn't go to drama school, so I didn't get to study all these things.

[34:21] Matt Rodin: Mm-hmm. But still you've been able to, you know, show up in spaces and be welcomed, you know.

[34:31] Melanie La Barrie: Lucky.

[34:31] Matt Rodin: Um because yeah, certainly. And I'm and that's what I actually was gonna ask you. Like, what role does gratitude play in all this? Because you keep saying you feel lucky, you know, and that's obviously wonderful, sort of on a surface level, in the sense of like appreciating, but I'm curious like what role gratitude has played in your life overall.

[34:49] Melanie La Barrie: No, oh gosh, no whole thing. It's my, it's the very fiber of my being. You know, I don't like it. I almost don't talk about it. You know, like how you don't talk about your skeleton. Right? You never talk about your bones unless it's hurting you, unless there's something wrong, unless there's a deficiency, you never talk about can you, never talk about your liver. You know, it's like those things work. They work because you get up every day. I am fortunate to have health and fortunate to have mobility. And I recognize that that puts me in a very privileged space. Because those things work. Gratitude is like that. Gratitude is my skeleton. Gratitude is the foundation on which the entire structure Melanie La Barrie is built.

The entire gratitude is my soul. It's a thing that pops out this skin suit every day. It's I don't talk about it because it is the air that I breathe. It is the thing that keeps me alive. Because I have so much to be grateful for. So much. You know, I can't even like I remember my struggle, and I remember, you know, when I struggled, and when things were hard, and when I couldn't pay my credit card bill, and you know, or when the creditors were chasing me, and the managing company were taking me to court, and I couldn't go to court because I was up in Stratford-upon-Avon making Matilda the musical. All of these things, you know, when you're successful, quote unquote, successful in the background is other horrible, horrendous, horrific life things taking place.

And you're grateful for all of those things because it didn't kill me. It didn't kill me, it didn't finish me, and it didn't win. So I'm grateful that I could get through all of that. So now when anything happened, I'm like, you know, the gratitude is like literally, it is the seat of my soul.

[37:17] Matt Rodin: Yeah. I don't know if you're religious, but it sounds like how a lot of people talk about God. And like and where that comes from, um, and how it's just a part of them, right? It's just, it's their soul.

[37:29] Melanie La Barrie: I have a complicated relationship with religion, which I think is healthy. I think everybody should have a complicated relationship with religion.

[37:41] Matt Rodin: I agree, right?

[37:42] Melanie La Barrie: Which doesn't mean you have to have a complicated relationship with whoever you believe in. I grew up the staunchest of Catholics, right? Because you can't not be in that when you come from a tiny Caribbean nation, you have to have, you had to be inside some religion. When you're growing up because that is it. I was at Roman Catholic school, I went to Albertan High School. I, you know, I was in the church, I was in every choir, I was in the Saturday night choir, I was in this early Sunday morning, like high mass choir and the regular Sunday choir. I was in there. So now growing up, the way that I talk about God is it's just a natural part of my language. As to my belief, it is complicated. It is complicated, but I believe in existence.

I believe in the fact that we are here on this tiny planet floating around in wonder. I also believe in science. And it's wondrous that we are here. We are, when you talk about being magical, we are all magical beings because woo. What it takes to make life, it was almost virtually impossible. The creation of the universe was almost virtually impossible. Just it's so hard to even fathom.

[39:12] Matt Rodin: Yeah.

[39:12] Melanie La Barrie: And people use religion to try to fathom it, and people, some people use science to try to fathom it, and I say, why not both? But I don't know. Again, so I have, you know, there are some days where I could be the staunchest of atheists as well, you know. Oh boy. And I'm okay. I'm okay with being one thing one day and then telling everybody and that I'm not gonna get sick because I wash by the blood of the lamb. But I think that's so I agree with you wholeheartedly, and I really agree with the sentiment that it can change day to day in the same way that we were talking about how the way that what you bring on stage is gonna change in the day to day, right?

[39:54] Melanie La Barrie: The expectation that we are gonna stay consistent or that anything is gonna stay the same is for not. It doesn't, it's it's because that's not reality. The one constant is change. That's it. But I also will say that this is not a prescription. The way that I live and the way that I believe is not a prescription for anybody else. And it's not something I I don't suggest it. Not that, you know, I I have no suggestions to make about how people live and how people believe. Um, I have nothing to say to anyone to say how you believe and how you live is incorrect or correct or that you should. This is just what I do. That is for me. Right. And that works for me. And it means that I could wake up in the morning and go through my day and have the best time because it works for me.

So, you know, just be able to before anybody starts to like write into your radio program to say, Whoa, I'm making the distinction. It's how I live. It don't have to be the way that anybody else does. To me, that's like really high consciousness to be able to be like, this is the way this is for me. This the way that I live is mine. And I'm not trying to force it upon anybody. I'm not trying to make anyone feel any differently than they are where they're at in that day. You know, something that I talk about with my friends a lot is and my partner a lot is when someone's in a bad mood or or they're going through something, my impulse, I think just because I'm a human is to make them feel better.

Find a solution, which I ultimately think is actually rooted in my own discomfort. So it's me not wanting to hand deal with whatever's going on there. The harder choice is to just say, okay, you are you are where you're at, you know. And if you need help, I'm you ask me, I'm here. But to just hold space for for where people are at and allow them to be who they are and make their discoveries in their own time and get to wherever they need to get to. Right is challenging, but I feel uh maybe one of the most important things that I've come to find in the last you know few years, um, and really freeing too, not needing to like fix and force everybody around me to be a certain way so that I can be okay, you know.

But it's a hard thing to ask people to do to hold space, to learn how to do that. You know, people study for years to be able to do that for other people, you know. You go to class and you have your own other people in space for you, and you know what I mean? So to ask like regular Jew to to have that consciousness and to have that that is hard. Yeah, and well done, you for being all for being able to do that and attempting to do that, but it's hard. So recognize that it is a hard thing to do. It is difficult. And also there is nothing wrong with once it didn't try to make people feel better. Of course. Of course, right? That impulse is so human, right? Of course, we want that. We're we're we want, I think ultimately, I mean, I I believe personally that I do think we want joy and happiness and love.

That's what we're after all the time. Um, and that's partially why I I love the arts, is because I do think there is this sense that we in whatever space we're in, whether it's a concert or uh a museum or at the ballet or the opera or at the theater, that us sharing uh a moment in time together, witnessing humans on stage. I I say this all the time, but literally the audience is applauding the people on stage, and the people on stage are bowing for the audience. We're both saying thank you. To me, that's a return to love. That's what that is. It's it's us getting back to this feeling that we have. Like you were saying before, it's a feeling, it's not something I can really understand. It's something I feel. Um, that is I I feel like I'm a part of something greater than myself. That is love for me.

[44:01] Melanie La Barrie: You just reminded me of something, because Luke, our director has been trying to teach us how to bow. Because we have this thing sometimes as after that. We love come out and we um and we like, oh, you know, we do the I'm so humbled by your appreciation of me. It's kind and he's like, will you all please just come out and enjoy and say thank you, and also say I receive your thanks, you know, in a kind of joyous way, because and it's it's kind of the way that I think about like when when somebody gives you a compliment or says something nice to you, and you go, Oh no, no, no, no, don't oh, not me, I'm not really looking nice. So, oh, don't say that I'm pretty or good, these eyes or whatever. And I always say that you are dishonoring the person who is giving you something of themselves when you refuse to accept it, or when you accept it in a kind of uh resistant way, if not for yourself, for the giver, receive it with the fullness of your heart, because you are dishonoring the person who is trying to give you something, and that is what Luke, and that is what you're saying that it is a return to love.

That if somebody is giving you love and you are saying thank you for your love, that you should receive it fully and with the most open heart and with the most joy that you can receive it because you are honoring the audience by doing that. That's why me, I like run out there and the mouth is wide, the hands are lifted. I love my audience so much as well. Uh, like literally, I love every single person who comes in there, even the ones who are perplexed by me. Um, and so I am like because I I am there to I am taking that love. Yeah. I'm taking and I'm laughing on them right back. Oh, otherwise you're cutting it off, right? Otherwise, you're you're if it's coming towards you and you cut it off by saying, Oh no, no, you're you've stopped the motion, you stopped the flow of energy.

And I love that that that analogy that you make about the flow, because to me, then it's like then you start a cyclone. You start a lovely little thing, and it carries on and it carries on, and then it's kind of like never ending, and what a way to live in the kind of never ending, and that is that you say, Look, I am a basic existentialist, right? Where I kind of believe I love my little philosophy as well. I always understand it, but I love my little philosophy, and I'm a basic existentialist. Whereas I believe that look, life is it not good, right? I'm not gonna swear on anything, but life is that's it, that's the reality. It's always that, and so our work, our life's work is to exist inside of it.

And how are we going to do that? We're just going to wake up every day and be like, oh gosh, it's horrible. I just couldn't, or you're going to find the pockets of joy and it and and dive into the flow of things, a beautiful, wonderful, wondrous things that are happening, into the flow of tiny miracles happening in small corners every day. You're not going to jump into that and say, Well, this life won't be hard up until the end, but I will live joyously in it. It's not gonna, you're not gonna find those miracles the whole time. Look in a small corner. And we get to experience that every day. When the audience is uploading, we get to experience that. That small miracle of connection that we made.

You know, those young kids who come and see Justin on there, and it makes them courageous to live in the way that they can fully express themselves because they see somebody that they recognize. Little young baby girls who come to me and they say, Oh my gosh, you are my favorite because you remind me of my nanny. What a lovely experience. That they had an older lady looking after them, that they experience love from somebody outside of their family, and they are reminded of that on stage. That's beautiful.

[48:25] Melanie La Barrie: I love that. People who come and they see Betsy and Stark beautifully portraying a relationship that is okay on the surface, but hard underneath. And finding not a neatly wrapped up solution, but saying, okay, let's see where we go from here. And then we jump up and we have a little dance. But you know that too. You know, and they say they might recognize that. You know, young girls come into the show, you know, young women, all women come into the show to see Miss Lorna being like with the weight, the weight of that shoe on her shoulders and just expressing herself, opening her mouth and letting her whole soul fall out for you all, and going through it as a young person. Just a young person going through it and saying, okay, I'm gonna try my best to love myself, and these young people getting to come into the theater and see that and say for one or two, somebody might say, Maybe I will try to love myself tomorrow, even though life is hard.

I say that is a good way to spend two and a half hours on a day with other people, don't you? I think that's a pretty good job that you got. I would say that's a t as you say, that's maybe maybe bigger than a tiny miracle. That might be that might be a pretty big miracle, and I'm yeah, and I'm I'm happy to hear that you're in that, that you're in it right now, you know, feeling the wholeness of that. Um, that it is hard and it is a job, and you did have a crazy weekend of shows, and you did open and it's been a blitz, and you're getting that you get to do the thank you at the end, right? You get to you get to feel the miracle um that is the thing that you're doing right now, which really could be anything, right? You could be grocery shopping, you could be, but finding the gratitude for whatever that thing is. That's to me where that tiny miracle comes from.

[50:46] Melanie La Barrie: Exactly. Exactly. And it's a little too. Because it's hard too. My partner's not, you know, has to spend his time in between the UK and the US, you know. Um, and I miss him when he's not here, he's always with me. You know, he goes everywhere with me and uh, you know, but things are different here. And you know, so when he's not here, you know, that is like you know, and and so going to work, you know, you kind of go, well, okay, well I could do this. I could do this. Not just to give joy to other people, but to give myself some joy too. I can do this. And that is what we have to do, you know. We wake up every day and we say what can I do? Life, you know, I always say, you know, it's not we don't just have to be a human being, but we have to be a human doing sometimes what can I do to give myself a modicum of joy on this day?

Because life is going through it. Life is gonna come and you'll be like, oh you know, just trying with your little Wonder Woman bracelet, trying to like and shield yourself from life. And then you say okay it can't just be the fight there must be something that I can do where I experience life. Not big Little O little life inside of me that says yes I exist. I'm gonna stand on my little square patch of earth my patch of earth where I am is the piece of earth on which I belong and I'm gonna stand on that and say okay what am I going to do? How am I going to be a human doing today that I can find the little bit of life in myself that holds my head up and gives me my inner light, my inner joy, my inner peace, my inner sanctuary. That gives me the strength to wake up again tomorrow. That's what we have to do.