Hugh Jackman and Shuler Hensley join Lynda Trapnell of Musical Stages
magazine for a light supper before the show. Issue 17 SPRING 1999

The two actors, one Australian and one American, have got to know each other well during Oklahoma!'s two runs, firstly at the National Theatre and currently at the Lyceum Theatre. They have become good friends with a shared sense of the absurd and a habit of chucking hilarious insults at each other. Well, Nick Davies, Oklahoma!'s MD, who was also with us taking photographs, warned me. Furthermore, I hardly need to ask any questions since Hugh conducts his own interview with Shuler as well!

Once we've established our group in a quiet corner of Joe Allen's restaurant - quiet except for an intermittent drill, that is - I ask what led up to each man's arrival in London.

'To put it all in perspective', says Hugh, 'both my parents are English. My mother and five out of us six kids live here and I've been over about ten times in the past few years. I was playing Joe Gillis in Sunset Boulevard, which Trevor directed, in Australia. The National Theatre has always been a dream for me so I asked if there was any chance of getting an audition. His response was "Great - it'll be lovely to see you!" I came over on holiday and he told me to come in and bring a Shakespeare monologue and sing 'Oh What a Beautiful Morning'. I hadn't done any Shakespeare since drama school, so I crammed a speech of Hotspur's.'

'My liege!' interrupts Shuler.

'Excuse me, what's a liege?' demands Hugh.

They sit quoting out-of-context and therefore nonsensical Shakespearean phrases, ending with 'Lame, lame, lame!' in chorus. We return to Hugh's audition.

In addition to Trevor Nunn, Hugh found about eight people waiting for him, but the entire panel joined in the second chorus of OWABM and he was offered the role of Curly.

'Just like that?' I ask, 'No call-backs at all?'

'No, none!'

So we have Hugh's story. Shuler pretends to wake up from a deep, bored slumber.

'What? What! Oh, my turn. Well, I was in Germany doing Phantom and I have a British wife.....'

The drill starts whining in the background.

'....all right honey,' says Shuler 'I'll be there in a minute! We came over here to see my wife's family,' he continues. 'I heard they were doing Oklahoma! at the National, got an agent and sort of forced my way in! I met Trevor and the rest of the guys and had about four or five call-backs.'

'Really?' asks Hugh.

'Hello! Who's doing this interview?' responds Shuler, continuing, 'Because I was new here, the call-backs were more of a chance for Trevor to get to know me. And Susan Stroman had to check whether I could move - that kind of thing. Still, I was told quite early on that I had the role'.

Hugh is back in my chair. 'Did you do monologues?' he asks Shuler.

'Actually', Shuler says, 'I like doing monologues from movies 'cos they're never done.' (That's a good tip, readers!) 'I did one from The Hustler, basically the same type of character. It was such a cool experience. Trevor faced me to a wall and suggested imagine I'm talking to a hostage rather than a girlfriend. I guess he wanted to see how I was with direction.'

'So when you hit him, it didn't bother him?' asks Hugh.

'No', drawls Shuler with a big grin. 'We kissed and made up!'

It's great fun sitting between these two keenly intelligent, humorous men. Hugh with his rangy build and wide smile is a dramatically good contrast to Shuler's broad-shouldered, powerful presence and unexpectedly sweet expression. Hugh's voice, despite his English parents, is pure Australian and he speaks quickly and expressively. Shuler's voice is slower, deep and resonant with a touch of the South in his American accent.

'Brilliant rehearsal period', says Hugh. 'We didn't sing for about five weeks!'

'Well, we all knew I could sing!' Shuler puts in.

'What you had was what we were going to get', says Hugh. 'So they might as well save it....'

Was the move to the Lyceum popular with them? The show seemed so very at home in the Olivier Theatre where the thrust stage and available depth leant itself perfectly to the great sweep of the landscape. At the Lyceum, it seems to be a little cramped by comparison.

'It's really only a matter of about four feet,' Hugh explains. 'There are elements at the Lyceum I really enjoy. It has a great natural acoustic and you can hear back, which you can't at the National. But the National has the best sound department in the world! Although I miss having the conductor at the front.'

The orchestra is still on stage behind a scrim. I tell them that I know their current conductor would rather be in the pit.

'Really?' says Shuler. 'I've heard he's a bit of a hothead! But he's Welsh. And vegetarian.'

The three of them then digress into a discussion about the upcoming rugby match and I have to force them back into the interview by reminding Nick that he's the photographer!

'I think,' says Hugh, 'that both of us feel we would not have been so quick to jump in again if a lot of the original cast had changed. Particularly for me,' indicating Shuler, 'this guy here. Trevor, in rehearsals, gives a fantastic feeling of freedom to everybody - we did the scene in the smokehouse about four different ways.'

'In my role,' Shuler adds, 'I don't relate to many of the people on stage, so if Hugh and those others had not stayed, neither would I. The National creates a great community of actors and we had that foundation of being born and rehearsed and nurtured there. But it has been like three different shows. The National, then the film which is completely different - more detailed and the sets were more enclosed - then the Lyceum, different again.'

Hugh takes over. 'I think very few actors could honestly say they loved doing anything for twelve months. But at the end of three months, I felt I wouldn't mind doing some more. Usually, at that point, it becomes hard work. And I love the smokehouse. It's exciting because I never know what's going to happen!'

Shuler joins in. 'There's a huge trust between Hugh and me in that scene so I've never been worried. We seem to be connected in such a way that there's always a reason for what we do with it.'

'I have to tell that story now,' interrupts Hugh.

'Uh-oh, here we go!' says Shuler.

'There was one time,' Hugh begins, 'when the house didn't revolve, so the smokehouse was facing stage left and you couldn't see a thing. I'm basically stuck and the music has got to where I knock at the door. Shuler is on stage, looking through at me and wondering what to do.'

'So Hugh started clucking like a chicken,' adds Shuler.

'And I start yelling at him to come outside, but I don't know what I'm going to say when he does - but I've made my bed and I've got to run with it. Shuler comes out and I start saying things like "You goin' to the dance with Laurey?"

Shuler takes over his part. 'Yup!'

'Then I said, "Any chance I could have a dance with her? Or maybe with you?" I was just burbling, saying anything!'

'I watched him in amazement,' Shuler says, 'as he dug himself deeper and deeper in!'

'Then what did you say?' asks Hugh.

'I said "You wanna play a game of cards?" ' purrs Shuler.

'And I said, "Yes, yes"!'

'But we couldn't get back to the script so we couldn't sing Poor Jud Is Dead!' Shuler explains.

The run at the Lyceum ends on 26 June and bookings are pretty solid. Then there will be the film. Or video, surely?

'It is getting  a release of sorts,' Hugh says, 'and it was negotiated with us on a film contract, so there will be a cinema release somewhere. Wagga Wagga maybe.'

'Welcome to Wagga Wagga,' begins Shuler, 'where every night, Oklahoma! will be shown as a prelude to....'

'.....Armageddon!' finishes Hugh.

The first time Hugh can remember performing is standing on a box, singing songs from Camelot at age five. Then he did school plays and eventually went to drama college. During that time, he worked in a service station and has fond memories of being the only petrol pump attendant who couldn't put oil in cars. He acts it out for us.

"Excuse me, can you help me? My car needs some oil."

'Sorry Ma'am, but for security reasons....'

Shuler also acts out his spare time job at a drive-in burger bar, giving an excellent imitation of the static preceding the scripted dialogue.

'Zzzzhhh! Would you like fries with that? Zzzzhhh! What about a coke?'

Shuler went to classical music school first. His mother, a ballet director, used him in her productions of The Nutcracker when he was four or five and had always said that ballet and classical training was the best. That's what he did, but he was at college on a baseball scholarship. This news excites Hugh.

'A baseball scholarship. Really? Does that mean you were hand-picked for a possible professional baseball career?'

'Well, I was actually recruited out of high school for the pros for baseball. But I didn't do it. I went to New York and did the whole opera thing.'

'Did you see a lot of opera as a kid?' Hugh is still in interviewing mode.

'I never saw any opera until I was 18 or so, I guess,' says Shuler. 'And I thought it was somewhat boring, but studying it is different. The whole concept of sitting in a huge hall with no mikes and having to project your voice with a fifty-piece orchestra - it's pretty overwhelming.'

So will Shuler go into opera at some point?

'I didn't enjoy the whole concept of opera-acting per se. Opera singers seem only to be worried about the notes sounding good, but it should be so much more than that. So I got out of it to do some straight stuff and the musical theatre. Working with Trevor was perfect because it came from the acting point of view.'

Both men have loved being in the UK. 'Australia has a healthy appetite for theatre and the standard is very high,' says Hugh. 'But it's kind of mind-blowing, coming to a place where the entertainment listings are as big as the employment listings back home. There's a lot going on, but it's nothing compared with here, which is a huge community. I've met some interesting people and found the conversation not always dominated by talk of acting. This show has been the most satisfying work and the most fun I've had on stage. I love the fact that Shuler and I are from opposite sides of the world and can come together in the same show. His way of approaching the work is a mixture of his big heart and an intellectual take.'

'The show makes the world smaller,' Shuler takes over. 'Hugh's and my paths have never crossed before, yet we have all these things in common. Trevor put together a small town in Oklahoma and made it real by using people from all over the world! It's the most rewarding experience.'

The drill has started up again and anyway, it's time for all three of my companions to get across the road into the theatre for the evening performance. Hugh and Shuler offer to pay the bill. I wouldn't hear of it - they were worth every penny!

©  Lynda Trapnell, 1999

Original interview published in Musical Stages Magazine, the only UK glossy solely devoted to musical theatre. It appears here by kind permission of the Editor, Lynda Trapnell. At the time of compiling this page (August 2001) copies of Issue 17 were still available. Contact Musical Stages at the link below to enquire about current availability.

The magazine's pictures of Shuler and Hugh are in the Gallery »

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