Joyful collaboration results in sensitive new show

By permission of author

MARTHA TOWNS

CURRENTS, Chagrin Falls, Ohio, May 21, 1998

This is not a story for those who believe only in what they can see and touch; this is a story for those who believe in magic and in the power of love.

Though Jacques Brel, once Europe's favorite troubador, has been dead for 20 years now, his spirit is very much alive in his work and in the life of the woman with whom he shared the last seven years of his life.

She is Maddly Bamy and she was in Cleveland for a month to prepare for Jacques and Maddly, the story of their life together on the South Pacific island of Hiva Oa, in the Marquises. We talked on a rainy, foggy Saturday morning in her apartment on the 18th floor of the Chesterfield, about as far away from the sand and sun of Hiva Oa as one could imagine.

Since Jacques died, Maddly has written three books. It was Pour Le Jour qui Revient, For the Day That Returns, which David Frazier read and which led him and Joe Garry to Paris to find Maddly and that's where part of the magic came in. David had actually been working on the piece for a year, together with Ann Morifee, before they met Maddly.

"Maddly had ten songs she had written, with Jacques' help, before he died. 'Someday someone will come for these,' he told her,'and you are here,' and she handed them to us," Joe told the opening night crowd at Kennedy's at Playhouse Square. Not only did she give them those songs but opened all of her papers, books, films and photographs to them.

It was meant to be and this is how you know that: 25 years ago, this year, Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and living in Paris opened at Playhouse Square, ran for two years, and galvanized the restoration of the whole complex. Joe Garry directed that show and David Frazier starred in it along with Terry Piteo, Providence Hollander and Cliff Bemis, all of whom came together in Cleveland for the 25th anniversary celebration which included some of the songs from Jacques and Maddly sung by the cast: Maddly Bamy, Ann Mortifee, David Frazier and Joseph Neal.

 

Jacques Brel's music took Cleveland by storm and turned this city around in more ways than one. It is magic to walk into the exquisite State Theater Lobby today and remember what it looked like 25 years ago. Maddly Bamy, born in Guadaloupe in the French West Indies, came to Paris with her family as a child. She was a singer, dancer and actress when she met Jacques Brel.

Jacques and Maddly met on the set of a movie when he drew her name out of a hat. "Our eyes met and from that moment we were never separated." Her career, until he died, was Jacques Brel. Already a sailor and a pilot, Jacques took more sailing lessons, Maddly too, until both were qualified for ocean sailing. They set out in a 20 meter yawl for the voyage of a lifetime. Traveling only by wind, they spent 59 days going through the Panama Canal.

Three years into the voyage, it was discovered that Jacques had lung cancer and so the two settled on Hiva Oa, the island where Paul Gauguin is buried and now, too, Jacques Brel. There they lived, and loved and waited for his death. Out of that experience has come Jacques and Maddly. "We must earn our presence here," said Jacques and so the couple helped with native life as much as they could. "It was island life; it might take a whole day to do something," said Maddly. They did their island-hopping in a little plane, Jacques was an accomplished pilot, and one touching song in the show is called "A Plane".

After Jacques' death, Maddly stayed on the island until, "they got electricity and they didn't need me anymore. There was nothing for me to do."

In the years since, Maddly has continued to write, many more songs and three books. She says, simply, "Jacques helped me." When more songs were needed for the new show, she wrote six in one week.

Now home in Paris (she also has a house in the south of France) she plans to shoot a documentary in the Marquises with "two Flemish boys", and is planning a show to honor "20 years of the departure of Jacques".

"He was such a powerful, good spirit. He said pay attention to your own life, give love and forget the bad. He taught me how to live, knowing that life doesn't end at death. His death taught me life, showed me how to live better and better. His death is a gift," said this lovely woman who radiates an inner beauty to match the outer.

Until they arrived in Cleveland, Maddly and Ann Mortifee had never met. This fact is made even more extraordinary when you know that nine of the songs in the show were written by Ann and they fit flawlessly with Maddly's. Joseph Neal, the fourth member of the new cast, is considered to be the foremost interpreter of Brel's music and was a member of the original cast of Jacques Brel.

A star in Canada, Ann Mortifee was last seen in Cleveland in An Arabian Knight, the stunning musical about Sir Richard Burton, which Joe Garry produced ten years ago at the Cleveland Play House. Blessed with a four-octave range, her incredible voice is yet another bit of magic. We talked in her fifth floor apart ment at the Chesterfield. With her earth mother beauty and her voice, Ann brings great depth to her performances, particularly this one. She plays Woman, Maddly's Inner Voice; Maddly is herself; Joe Neal is Man, Maddly's memory of Jacques, and David O. Frazier plays Gauguin.

Ann brought from her island home "three ferry rides and seven hours" from Vancouver, accoutrements of natural life, the beads, bones and other relics she carries with her wherever she goes. She is deeply spiritual as is Maddly, and the women were amazed to discover they both do a great deal of work with people who are dying. Ann, has been profoundly moved, as she has performed songs from the show, to find how strongly members of the audience are touched. "All the threads of my true passions are coming together in this piece," she said. "Life is a sacred journey; death is a sacred journey,"

She talks of the "passion for our ancestors and reconnecting with the land and our sacred and spiritual traditions however we find them. Mv passion for the theatre is a way of ritualizing and making a statement, putting it in a way that stirs the soul."

Thrilled to be back in Cleveland, she is touched by "an extraordinary support from the community of patrons and patronesses. I feel free to do what I'm here to do. I feel so upheld and supported.

"There's something at work here that's bigger than any of the pieces. Our country hungers for intimacy and this is a very intimate piece. Everyone has been touched by death or will be."

While we talked, Dwayne Rourke, the man who shares Ann's island life on Cortes with her son, Devon, 11, tapped away on his laptop in the background. He is a silversmith, a painter and astrologer.

Tying all of this music and talent together is David Gooding whose skills as pianist and arranger are brilliantly used in Jacques and Maddly.

After a week of work-shopping, Maddly and Ann and Joe Neal have all gone home now. The magic they brought to Cleveland will not soon be forgotten by those who were fortunate enough to share in it.

Musicals Index|||||Writings|||||Ann Mortifee Home Page