After Les Miz and Phantom, he swore never to commit to another giant musical. Then, he tells Richard Ouzounian, came The Pirate Queen
Catch him while you can.
When Colm Wilkinson takes the stage at Roy Thomson Hall this Friday for a concert called Some of My Best Friends are Songs, it might be the last chance Toronto will have to hear him sing for quite a while. It looks like Broadway's calling him once again.
The 61-year-old Dublin-born performer is best known for having created the role of Jean Vajean in the giant hit Les Miserables.
Now the authors of that show, Cluade-Michel Schonberg and Alain Boublil, have offered Wilkinson the male lead in their latest work, The Pirate Queen,
which is slated to open inNew York next season.
"Don't worry, " jokes Wilkinson, "I'm not playing the title role. I told them I wouldn't shave the beard off." The marquee character in the show is the larger-than-life historical figure, Grace O'Malley,who cut a swath in the history of16th century Ireland and England
with her swashbuckling activities.
"She was an amazing character." enthuses Wilkinson from his comfortable Rosedale home."At a point in time when women
were being relegated to the domestic front, she took to the sea and proved herself as bold and successful a brigand as any man
of the period."
If everything wroks out as all the parties concerned are hoping, Wilkinson will be playing O'Malley's father.
"He wasn't a plunderer himself as such," explains Wilkinson, "he was the chieftain of his clan during that when it was impossible
to rule Ireland. The forests were impassable, the sea was the highway and the bravest sailor was the obvious leader."
Hearing Wilkinson's enthusiasm for the the project, it's easy to understand how he'd put asidehis oft-stated vow "to never
again get involved with one ofthose giant musicals that devour your life."
He knows what he's talking about. After a peripetetic career that saw him doing everything from hard-driving rock'n'roll to
Andrew Lloyd Webber concept albums, he found himself in a whole new world when Les Miserables opened in 1985.
"You feel like you're carrying the show on your sholders," he recalls, "and no matter how much you enjoy the work it
eventually gets to be like banging your head againsts a well every night."
But after all those years with Les Miz in London and New York, Wilkinson still hadn't had his quota of
mega-musical stardom.
Garth Drabinsky aksed him to headline the Toronto company of the Phantom of the Opera and Wilkinson agreed to come here for
six months.
"That was 16 years ago," he laughs, " and I'm still around. Do you have doubts how much I like this city?"
After his multi-year stint in Phantom, Wilkinson tended to stay away from the stage, favouring
concert circuit instead.
He was coaxed back to play Jean Valjean on several occasiions,most notobley during the memorable 2002 Shanghai
production, but he said no to dozens of musical theatre opportunities,
including the lead role in the long-running Broadway production of Jekyll & Hyde.
"People think you're a nut if you keep turning down offers," he concedes, "but you've only got a certain amount of time in
our life and so much you want to do. You waste a year with a show you didn't really want to
do and then you think "That's 12 months I could have spent seeing the world.'"
Wilkinson's itch for travel was fanned by his brief visit to China in 2002 and he admits that "I'd like to go back there, to discover
how the people live throughout the country, not just in the cities. I'd like to visit India. So many differentcultures to see, to experience."
But despite all that, he had several strong impuluses tugging
him back into the world of musical theatre.
"The Pirate Queen is being directed and produced by the team of John McColgan and Moya Doherty, the duo who
made Riverdance such a world success. I first met them back in Ireland nearly 40 years ago, so when they asked me to take a
look at thier show, I couldn't say no."
The other powerful force was that of Boublil and Schonberg, who had provided Wilkinson
with his signature hit, "Bring Him Home."
October 24, 2005
photos by Peter Power/Toronto Star
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