Janet Gigliotti doesn’t play the Judy Garland we want to remember, she embodies the troubled side of the actress in her elusive search for happiness at the end of the rainbow.
“I do worry about people coming and expecting just a happy show about Dorothy and it’s not,” says Gigliotti. “I still think there’s a lot of hope in it. I think she’s (Garland) really somebody who had hope herself.”
Gigliotti is reprising her role as Garland, at the twilight of Garland’s career and what was widely considered to be her comeback, in First Impressions Theatre’s gritty presentation of End of the Rainbow.
The musical drama is set just after Christmas and chronicles one of Garland’s last live appearances, a six-week engagement at Talk of the Town in London in 1969. Gigliotti will portray Garland six months before she dies from an overdose and three months before she marries her fifth husband, who she had just met. And she’s addicted. And she drinks a lot.
“She’s in big trouble,” says Gigliotti.
Garland was under the influence of many substances, not to mention massive pressure, all the while trying to put on a show night after night in London.
“She really had some days when she was at that show where she was mesmerizing and bang-on and then other days where she just didn’t show up,” explains Gigliotti, who says she did a lot of research on Garland for this role.
Gigliotti says she was fascinated and saddened by what she learned about Garland.
“How controlled she was by the studios and the people in her life and how much they shaped her and, I think, hurt her. They worked those kids to death.”
Garland was heavily medicated during the filming of The Wizard of Oz, to help her wake up or go to sleep on command, so she could work around the studio’s schedule. Gigliotti also learned studio bosses thought Garland was too fat so they put her on diet pills.
“She was taking unbelievable amounts of drugs since she was 13 years old,” says Gigliotti.
By the time Garland was 47 years old and on that stage in London she was spent. And the weariness and the exhaustion can’t be covered up.
“Her voice wasn’t perfect at the end,” says Gigliotti. “She smoked a lot. She drank a lot. She didn’t sleep really. She wasn’t really eating by that point either. She just wasn’t healthy and that was reflected in her voice.”
And even though it’s not the voice of that 17-year-old Dorothy that millions of people around the world had come to love, “it was still a mesmerizing voice,” says Gigliotti.
The first time Gigliotti saw The Wizard of Oz she was in the basement with her sisters and her parents, hiding her eyes from the flying monkeys. She would watch the iconic movie again over the years.
Gigliotti wasn’t born to play Garland, but rather grew into her singing voice.
The Ladner native took a backwards route to the stage.
“All through high school I would arrange it so that I didn’t have to audition,” recalls Gigliotti. “I would just be busy and make sure that I could come at another time when there would be nobody else around because I didn’t want to sing in front of people.”
Gigliotti didn’t start taking singing seriously until her final year of high school when a friend dragged her to a voice lesson.
While her singing career was still gestating, Gigliotti went to university and earned an undergrad degree in speech sciences. She worked in education and taught high school for a number of years.
At the same time, she started moonlighting as an actress. Gigliotti got some roles through Uncle Randy Productions, which has its roots on the North Shore.
“It was the first time that I was spending that kind of time with people who are that enamoured with theatre, knowledgeable and just so excited by it,” says Gigliotti.
In 2000 she took a leave of absence from teaching to pursue acting further and never looked back, taking on roles in musical theatre productions across the country.
The Vancouver-based actress and singer does corporate voiceover work during the day, including pre-recording sound bites announcing nominees and winners for award shows. Gigliotti also lends her voice to company training modules.
And for the last decade Gigliotti has been the voice of the Harmony Arts Festival, recording site announcements played throughout the event to welcome guests.
Asked why she makes a good voiceover artist, Gigliotti says she has a warm, calming voice that people trust. Before this interview, she voiced a doctor.
Directed by Claude A. Giroux, End of the Rainbow is a remounting after a three-month run across Western Canada in the spring.
The actors, including Gigliotti, are getting reacquainted with their characters. Gigliotti says she missed playing Garland.
“I love this show because I love Judy. Because she is so interesting,” says Gigliotti, adding there are not a lot of female roles as interesting as this one.
Gigliotti, who sings 11 songs and is backed by a four-piece band, says she is thankful for her fellow actors working on this show, which she describes as a roller coaster of emotions.
Jeffery Hoffman plays Garland’s fiancé Mickey Deans, Gordon Roberts is her piano accompanist, and Matthew Simmons plays a series of other characters including a BBC interviewer, a porter at the hotel and a stage manager.
“They’re amazing because this is a heavy show and everyone is really supportive of each other,” says Gigliotti.
First Impressions Theatre presents End of the Rainbow, an account of the last comeback of Judy Garland at the twilight of her career, Aug. 31 to Sept. 16, Wednesdays through Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. at Deep Cove Shaw Theatre, 4360 Gallant Ave., North Vancouver. Tickets: firstimpressionstheatre.com or 604-929-9456.
