Local actress Rebecca Lamb stars in the Brisbane Arts Theatre’s latest production, ‘Mixed Doubles’, a play that holds up a mirror to the complexities of married life.
As the joining together of two people in marriage is the most important bond most people experience in their entire life, it’s little wonder that ‘Mixed Doubles’ comprises eight separate plays written by nine different playwrights, each with a different look at marriage in an attempt to get to the essence of the complex relationship. For Rebecca, who plays both a divorced lawyer and a reality television show director in the play, tackling a production with more than one character was an exciting challenge. “It's such a great piece for an actor because you get to play three or four characters. The opportunity to work on different characters is so good, it's a great exercise for you as an actor.”
A Brisbane native, Lamb trained at the Royal Academy of Dance before performing with the Australian Ballet and the Queensland Theatre Company. Taking her dancing abilities to the Gold Coast, Lamb has also appeared as Batgirl and Princess Fiona at Warner Brothers Movie World.
Now back home, she hopes getting involved with local theatre will stand her in good stead for her return to the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, where she studied for a semester last year. “I'm hoping to further my training at LAMDA this year. I went over there last year and did summer school where I studied Shakespeare. I really liked the school and before I left, I auditioned for them and got wait-listed for their Masters degree. I’m hoping to go back this year and do my degree there.”
For now, Lamb is excited to be back on home turf and has been enjoying rehearsals for the play, which begins its run at Brisbane Arts Theatre next month. “I'm very excited, it's the first time I've been onstage in Brisbane since 2007. ‘Mixed Doubles’ has got some really good pieces to work on and we've got a great bunch of Brisbane-based actors working together, so it's going really well."
With a play that looks at the “progress of married life from honeymoon to cemetery”, the strength of the actors involved is an important factor, and ‘Mixed Doubles’ doesn’t shy away from the more difficult areas of married life. “Some of these characters are in situations and they talk about things that are almost uncomfortable. It can make the audience think ‘Should I be listening to this?’”
The intensity of the onstage action is amplified by the series of monologues linking each section. A tricky task for any actor, Lamb has enjoyed exploring solo deliveries. “I'm really lucky, my two monologue characters are engaging with other people so I use the audience as the person that I’m speaking too. It’s very different from something like Shakespeare where you have to perform a soliloquy talking to yourself alone onstage. With ‘Mixed Doubles’, each monologue is one person talking to another, so we’re able to use the audience.”
Despite the serious-sounding monologues, ‘Mixed Doubles’ is, at its core, a comedy exploring the humorous side to married life. “We’re trying to find the humour in it ... Looking at all these different characters at different stages in marriage, it's such a unique relationship, it's probably one of the strongest relationships on earth.”
Lamb enjoyed watching numerous rom-coms while researching her two roles for ‘Mixed Doubles’. “I've watched so many movies and read so many articles trying to get information! Mainly romance films, I watched ‘Valentine’s Day’ because it had a whole bunch of different relationships and I saw there were two characters in it who were very similar to Peter and Helen from ‘Mixed Doubles’!”
