http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/Anthony Warlow from behind the mask
By Brett Debritz
August 26, 2007 12:00am..........PRETTY RECENT STUFF, HEY?!!!!
ANTHONY Warlow is amused when Queenslanders tell him how much they are looking forward to see him reprise the title role in The Phantom of the Opera.
"When I was up here with Pirates of Penzance recently, I came out of the stage door and people said, 'Oh we can't wait to see you again. We saw you in '97.'
"I said, 'No you didn't.' "
The fact is that Brisbane audiences saw Rob Guest as the Phantom when the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical played a record-breaking 23-week run at the QPAC Lyric Theatre a decade ago.
Warlow quit the show 12 months after it opened in Melbourne in 1990, and two years later he was forced to pull out of a production of Jesus Christ Superstar when he was diagnosed with cancer.
Now, Warlow is fighting fit and has reclaimed the lead role in a new production of Phantom of the Opera, which opened in Melbourne last month and will play a three-month season in Brisbane early next year.
He says he decided to return to the character partly for the sake of his 12-year-old daughter, Phoebe, who had seen the film version of Phantom – with Gerard Butler, of 300 fame, in the title role – but not the stage show.
"I wanted Phoebe to see it," he says. "And, being her father, I wanted her to see me do it."
Although Warlow says his return was "a bit like riding a bike". He feels he can give much more of himself to the show now than he could 17 years ago.
"The instincts are the same but the vocal and physical investment is so much more," he says.
"Maybe it's my age now. I'm 45 and there's a gravity to this performance now; there's a sexuality that can only come with age.
"I'm more confident with it. It is mine now. I feel so much more involved.
"When we did it originally, that wasn't the case. I wasn't allowed to feel involved because of the way it was meant to be set."
Warlow says the first Australian Phantom was very much set to a template established in the original London production, which is still running to capacity houses after 20 years.
He was not encouraged to innovate beyond the benchmark established by Michael Crawford.
"I have to say in the early days it was a little like Disney – you throw on a couple of costumes, then they throw you on," Warlow says.
"Sometimes I felt like I was on roller skates. You'd be pushed on, do your bit and you'd be off again.
"I'm a very gregarious person and I do not like to be shut away and then pulled out to do my bit and then be pushed back into the box."
This time around, he says, from the very first day of rehearsal, it was "buoyant and fun" – albeit a lot of hard work.
But the opening night at Melbourne's Princess Theatre on July 28 was not without drama behind the scenes.
Along with five other cast members, Warlow had succumbed to the flu and his big moment almost didn't arrive at the appointed time.
"I was crook as a dog," he recalls. "I woke up on the Saturday morning and I literally couldn't get out of bed.
"I rang the producers and said, 'I can't even drive myself to the doctor'.
"I couldn't feel my feet in the morning when I fell out of bed – it was like the circulation had gone. It was bizarre. I was in the shower and had the hot water going to try to get the circulation going.
"We went to a couple of ear-nose-throat specialists and they said, 'Look, the chords are not damaged. They're not healthy because they've got a virus around them, but if you feel that you can do this, it won't do you any damage.' That was my big fear.
"So I went home, had a bit of a sleep, woke up and the voice seemed to be there. It was a bit fluffy but the notes were there. When I got to the theatre, it was 6.30pm and the voice was splitting.
"So I rang the producer, John Frost, and said, 'I can't do tonight'. My body was saying: you can't do this.
"Then there was a wonderful moment when the American director, Artie Masella, who is a great director and friend, came into the room and said, 'Anthony, there are two things we can do; you can go home, although the audience will be disappointed, get well and come back when you can do it. Or in your inimitable spirit, you can get out there and give it a go'. "
Along with the other sick cast members, Warlow decided the show must go on – and the result was a sustained standing ovation.
The prolonged applause has continued night after night since, and the feedback confirms that audiences have really taken to the character of the Phantom – a disfigured genius named Erik who falls in love with his young singing student Christine, loses her to his dashing rival Raoul, and then wreaks havoc in the theatre.
"It's spoilt us," Warlow says of the standing ovations, "but in a lovely way.
"We work very hard, so that three minutes at the end of the night, when you know the audience has been with you from the word go, is palpable.
"I want people to think that, as much as Raoul's a lovely fellow, there's so much more that Erik could give her. People have said to me that they don't understand why she goes off with Raoul."
Despite all the theatrical gimmicks and the undeniable spectacle of Phantom when the show is in full flight, Warlow sees it as a simple but powerful love story played in an intimate way.
He says the trick for him is to win over the audience – at least to a certain point in the show – with the Phantom's stage antics.
"It's a very complex beast, as is he," he says both of the show and his character.
"The persona of the Phantom is that he can not only play with the elements on stage physically, which he does – he murders people – but he's playful as well, in a sinister manner. I think the audience picks that up."
The only thing Warlow hasn't achieved in the theatre is to open in a new big musical written especially for him. And he confirms that he and John Frost are discussing the possibility of doing just that after his run in Phantom finishes at the end of next year.
But for now he's concentrating on staying well and doing the job at hand.
"I've been almost to the other side and I've been given the greatest gift, which is a second chance at life, and I embrace it."
