(Headshot Photo credit: Laura Marie Duncan)
Loretta Ables Sayre is well-known for her jazz performance, with a voice both earthy and trained, humble and soaring, simple and deep. She made an unforgettable splash in the Broadway world in 2008 playing Bloody Mary in the sublime Lincoln Center revival of South Pacific, deftly directed by Bartlett Sher. A character that had often been cartoonish or played for comic relief came into her own, thanks to the honest work of Sayre (and garnered her critical accolades and a Tony nomination). Listen to her recording of “Happy Talk” on the 2008 cast album and you will hear not light comedy but a mother’s desperate appeal. This proud Hawaii native shares her home with her husband, David, and dog, Kaimana and seems incapable of a false note, either on the stage or in conversation.
I recently spoke with Sayre, discussing the common thread between her background in jazz and musical theater, finding the honesty in her portrayal of Bloody Mary, and how seeing Hamilton became a healing experience.
Who were your early influences?
I started my career singing jazz standards, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Dinah Washington. We had a mix of everything. I grew up loving the Beatles, early motown, and R&B. We also used to listen to Mario Lanza. That mix was my education in music. It was very eclectic.
What did you take from their musical influences?
I think what made an impact on me was their phrasing and their emotions. I remember hearing the heartbreak in the voices. I wasn’t old enough to know what they were singing about, but my heart could feel it.
There’s a song of Sarah Vaughan’s that I recorded called, “Dreamy”. The line of the song is, “Ask me why I have this smile upon my face” and you hear her smile as she says the word “smile”. Those things made such an impression on me. I made that connection that you have to feel it when you sing it so that your audience can feel it too.
Nothing bores me more to tears than to hear a singer who sings every note spot on but sings with no emotion. I would much rather hear somebody who maybe isn’t the greatest vocalist but every single phrase is filled with emotion that will bring me to my knees. Of course the best is when you find someone who can do both.
The whole idea behind performing is making that honest connection with somebody’s heart. You can’t feign that. You feel like they get me, you get me, I’m not alone and that only comes from pure honesty and passion.
The experience in theater can be so therapeutic.
Yes, I agree. I think that theater has the power to impact and change lives. I had that experience seeing Hamilton. My mother and I raised my nephew. My younger sister gave him up for adoption when he was 6 months old, so my parents adopted him. My step father was in the Navy and stationed overseas. So I helped my mom raise him. He had a really difficult life to adjust to without either of his biological parents in his life. There were questions and holes in his soul that he couldn’t quite deal with. He got involved with drugs and the wrong people. He battled with being gay and not having that accepted by my mother. I loved him like he was my own child, but even that kind of love can’t stop someone from making some really bad choices. Just as I was coming to New York (to do South Pacific) he was diagnosed with cryptococcal meningitis due to HIV. He ended up being hospitalized for 13 months and I couldn’t be with him. So while this incredible life changing professional opportunity was happening to me, the worst thing possible personally was happening to me. I was performing on Broadway and he was dying. I was torn in half emotionally. He ended up passing away in 2009. I carried the sadness and anger of his dying for years. When I saw Hamilton, and “Its Quiet Uptown” happened in the show, all of that sadness arose in me. I could barely breathe. And then the word “forgiveness” is sung and it broke my heart open. I knew I had so much forgiveness to process for my sister, my mother, my nephew and for myself.
I’ve always wanted to write Lin Manuel a letter to tell him “Thank you” because in that moment when I saw the show and they did that song, he made me feel like he wrote that song about my life. He got me in that moment, me and my soul and my heart and my very existence. His “forgiveness” allowed me to begin to forgive. He made me feel like I wasn’t alone. During that song, he held my heart in his hands.
This is what was so remarkable about your performance in South Pacific, it was an emotionally honest performance of a character who is usually played as a caricature.
That was really interesting creating her with Bart [Sher, director]. This is where being from the South Pacific really served me. I grew up with Tongans, Samoan, Filipinos, Japanese, Chinese, Hawaiian women, all survivors. I drew from all of that to play Bloody Mary. She is not a soft tender loving mother, she’s a little hard for a lot of people to understand. For her its all about survival. This island is filled with all these different men who are a glimmer of hope that her daughter could have a different life as opposed to just getting pregnant at 13 and living within those confines. Bloody Mary wants her to have a better life. When she sees Cable, he’s kind of the answer to both of their dreams. And she gets so, so close.
The version of “Happy Talk” you performed in the show was so effective, the desperation was just under the surface of her appeal.
I enjoyed singing that song so much because of that undercurrent of desperation. That song is nothing but sheer manipulation. In rehearsals, Bart and I discussed it as her last act of desperation to get him to come along. And so for me, being able to sing that song was so satisfying because I had to put every angle into it. You had to be humorous and you had to be desperate and you had to be angry and you had to manipulate.
Given that emotional journey that you went on every night, how did you care of yourself and your voice to be ready for the next performance?
You live like a monk. Really. I had nothing to prepare myself for that because I was living in Hawaii and all of a sudden I’m in New York and we’re rehearsing to open a Broadway show. The stress level was so high. At the end of every show and the end of every week, you are emotionally and physically drained. I soon realized you have to take care of yourself.
On your day off, it’s some combination of a massage and acupuncture or chiropractic, something to help relax your body and put everything back in to place again. And you’re steaming trying to live as cleanly and simply as possible. And I would try to go my Monday without speaking because my character had to scream all the time. You MUST rest.
Was it difficult transplanting from your home in Hawaii?
It was a difficult transition for me and I had to seek a therapist out there because I needed somebody to help walk me through everything. I was just turning 50 and as Bart Sher told me, life as I knew just ceased to exist. I was a stranger in a strange land and people in New York are quite different from people in Hawaii. My feet and the feet of my soul are firmly planted here in Hawaii. I was so homesick. I would get home at night and sit on Youtube and watch videos of Hawaii, videos of musician friends playing their music, videos of hula dancers, videos of drives around the island.
I had to search high and low through the city to find a areca palms for my apartment. I sewed pillows with Hawaiian fabric and had pictures of my garden that I had framed on the wall. When I walked in, there was enough of a feeling of Hawaii that I was comfortable and familiar with. It wasn’t that I disliked New York, I love New York, but it was so different and I had to learn how to deal with it.
When I would see people from Hawaii or people from Hawaii would come to the show, it would bring me to tears sometimes because it was just so lovely.Whether I knew them or not, they would bring me “omiyage” to the show, which is a Japanese word for a gift that you bring somebody from your travels. Whatever the people would send to me, I would just lay it out on the table and feed everybody in the cast and crew. So people were giving Aloha to me and I was spreading the Aloha around.
Sayre’s next appearance will be at Blue Note Hawaii on April 1st, you can order tickets at http://bluenotehawaii.com/. To find out more, you can visit her website at http://www.lorettaablessayre.com/ and you can follow her on Facebook (Loretta Ables Sayre), Twitter (@LAblesSayre), and Instragram (@lorettaablessayre).
Best,
Dr. Drama