Hamilton Spectator
article written by Stewart Brown
When Sharron Matthews was five years old, her mother took her to Hamlton Place to see song-and-dance man Lionel Blair in one of the English pantomines he headed every Christmas.
”I went up on stage with other kids and Lionel centered me out. He sat me on his knee and talked to me in front of the audience.” Matthews recalls.
”I remember looking into the wings and seeing all these dancers with their painted faces and thinking: ‘This is the coolest thing I could ever want’”.
Sharron Matthews — whi is Madame Thénardier, the innkeeper’s wife in Les Misérables these days — would return to the stage at Hamilton Place, mostly in summer musicals as a performing teenager.
But it’s on the stages of Toronto and North America where she’s made her professional mark, in musicals large and small.
Large —such as two versions of Les Misérables, including the current Toronto run with Colm Wilkinson; two years in the Harold Prince revival of Show Boat at North York’s Ford Centre, and Beauty And The Best at the Princess of Wales Theatre where she played the vivacious duster, Babette.
And small — such as a much applauded Toronto production of Falsettos at the Tarragon Theatre in which Matthews portrayed a lesbian gourmet cook, and The House of Martin Guerre by the Canadian Stage Company, in which she played the confidante of a woman whose “husband” returns from the wars drastically changed.
The result is that Matthews, 30 next month, is one of those live-theatre rarities — a professional actress who — knock wood, as is her habit — keeps busy most of the year.
This week the Hamilton native talked about her career in a reception room off the lobby of the Princess of Wales Theatre, where the only North American touring company of Les Misérables — with Wilkons repeating hi London and Boradway role of Jean Valjean and a handful of Canadians, including Matthews, in featured roles — continues to Nov. 29.
As the innkeeping team, Matthews and American J.P. Dougherty as her husband dominate the musical’s comedy spotlight, regaling the audience with the boisterous and bawdy novelty song, Master of the House.
A few hours before an evening performance, Matthews was dressed informally in blue jeans, short white top, revealing a bare midriff, and long-sleeved orange/rust shirt. She sat barefoot, cross-legged, sipping from a bottle of water, beneath a framed colour photograph of Diana, the late princess for whom the theatre is named.
Matthews reckons her penchat for comedy and character acting has a lot to do with her frequent employment.
“Everybody wants to be the ingenue in the beginning, the pretty girl singing the pretty song. But comedy is what I do best and I’ve been very lucky.”
It’s been that way since early on. Growing up in the “Birdland” area of Hamilton Mountain, where the streets are called Tanager and Bobolink and Titmouse, she cut her acting teeth in musicals at Hill Park secondary school — Guys And Dolls, The Wiz, Grease and Annie — staged by drama teacher Bill Cook.
“The stage had ruts and the backstage was covered in graffiti and I remember, like, eggs being stuck to the ceiling! But Bill Cook managed to a musical on there every single year. He made theatre so exciting.”
There’d been dance lessons (“Ballet was hateful, but I really like tap.”) And more musicals downtown at Hamilton Place, where another teacher, David Dayler, assembled promising area teens for what would turn into hi New Faces program.
It was there, in 1984, that Matthews first worked with a chunky actor named George Masswohl; 10 years later, the two would be married.
Matthews still keeps close Hamilton ties. One of her two sisters, Gwen Filice, is a secretary at Westdale secondary school. Her mother, Margaret Humphrey, works just up Longwood Road at Canco. A second sister, Kim Vitanze, is a housemom.
For Matthews, musical theatre studies at Sheridan College beckoned for three years, followed by dues-paying jobs in smaller Toronto venues. Hello Dolly, at the Limelight Dinner Theatre, got Matthews her Actor’s Equity card.
The first mega-muscial break came when she joined Les Miz as a swing performer, backing up all ensemble roles, in 1991.
“That was still my best experience on stage, in terms of pure youth and exuberance. The entire exeprience of riding the subway to the Royal Alex Theatre, of coming out and singing that music, seeing all those people ???? I did was exciting, from going into the dressing room, to them giving me a robe!”
Matthews says all bifg musicals were different.
“It’s like going to a different high school every few years. The place, the layout, the management, the director, the interactions are all different. I count them all as life experiences.”
In Show Boat, Matthews played a good-time Chicago girl named Lottie, who with her girlfriend, Dottie, squired Robert Morse’s Cap’n Andy on New Year’s Eve.”
“Robert Morse has more fun on stage than any person I know. He’s a vaudeville performer. His timing is amazing. and sometimes he can find it in himself to get the dramatic stuff come across too. But mostly what he’s worried about is whether he’s going to get the laugh or not.
“Elaine Stritch, who played his wife, took cast members out in groups of eight to her favourite restaurants. She’d hire a limo, plus her own, which she got every night. she’s talk about Cole Porter and Cy Coleman and Julie Stein, but she was never pretentious about it.”
After two years in Show Boat, Matthews wanted a rest, and she planned to holiday in California while hubby Masswohl, who’d joined the show late in its North York run, continued with it in Los Angeles.
But Beauty And The Beast, which was recasting in Toronto, wanted Matthews to the man broom called Babette.
“I turned them down three times before they gave me an offer I couldn’t refuse. All I could think of was putting on my resumé: Sharron Matthews. Fork. Or Spatula.” And I didn’t know how I felt about that.”
It turns out she enjoyed the run.
“It’s by far the most glamorous role I’ve ever had, mostly for the costume.
“I even hit high-C every night. I have no idea how. I should be a soprano but I’m more like mezzo-alto with some high notes. In Les Miz, though, I’m just basically screaming!”
Matthews planned to spend this summer relaxing on Prince Edward Island, writing material for her own one-woman show while Masswohl — who was at Theatre Aquarius in Rock And Rol last season — worked in Johnny and Melinda and Anne of Green Gables at the Charlottetown Festival.
But Les Miz came calling. She joined the company seven weeks before the show opened in Toronto, playing Mobile, Tampa, and Oklahoma City before St. Paul, where Wilkinson was worked into the muscal.
“Colm raises the stakes in the show tenfold,” Matthews says. “He’s not a man who backs off. His energy is so unbelievable. He’s so committed to the piece, so committed to what he is doing.”
She’s not sure what will happen beyond the Toronto run. She can continue with the North American tour, doing 13 one-week stands but doesn’t have to make up her mind until a few weeks before the Royal Alexander closing.
For the truth is, mega-musical fame and employment are a two-sided proposition.
“It’s amazing,” Matthews notes, “especially with both George and I doing it.
“You can’t get this money anywhere else, especially with what I’m doing now; an American tour in my hometown, so that I’m getting a per-diem allowance.
“I mean, we have a car, a Honda Accord. At one point, we had two cars, but then I thought ‘Who are we? We don’t need two cars!” So we got rid of the Jeep.
“We’re planning to buy a house. We have some beautiful antiques that I know some of my friends can’t afford. I dob’t want to wear it like a badge, but I do like looking around the place.
“But there are drawbacks. I’m married, but don’t get to see my husband as much as I like.”
Matthews and Masswohl, in fact, hadn’t worked together om teenage shows at Hamilton Place until they shared three weeks in Show Boat and, the 1997 Toronto run of The _____ of Martin Guerre.
“But,” says Matthews, “I’d rather be with George and be apart for a little bit of time than be totally without him.”
Boredom also colours the long-run scene.
“After a year in a show, you really have to check your soul. You have to say; “’OK, am I doing this show because I am enjoying myself? Or am I disliking my job and only doing it for the money? I don’t think enough people ask themselves that.”
Matthews has her own personal trick to maintain interest in a show eight times a week.
“I really try to make something new for myself to work on every night. For example, I want the audience to see the difference between who Madame Thénardier is the little child, who she is with patrons at the ____, and who she is with Thénaedier.
“Or I make sure I hit all my consonants but don’t tell anybody else. I just want to put the stakes up.
“And the thing is, if I go out and don’t have a great show, I try not to beat myself up about it.”