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Publication:Standard Examiner;
Date:Aug 3, 2008;
Section:Life;
Page Number:1D
Life’s ambition
Former Roy High School student Marilyn Caskey lands on Broadway in ‘Gypsy’
By NANCY VAN VALKENBURG Standard-Examiner staff nvan@standard.net Broadway veteran Marilyn Caskey found herself getting solemn recently, after being asked to write down her most magical memory. It came in about 1970, in Hooper, Caskey recalled. She was a Roy High School student marching as a Royalaire with the school’s marching band during an openair rehearsal. The vibrant music cut through the silent landscape. “I lingered in the open field as they marched away,” Caskey read, from her notes. “The whole universe was fi lled with their brassy musical joy. The sky was a canopy of fl uffy clouds that were pink from the sunrise. The Rockies were pink with the reflection. I felt pure joy and exhilaration at the beauty.” Caskey paused from her reading. “Wait a minute. Why was I standing alone in the fi eld?” she asked, suddenly confused. “The drill team was still marching with the band. I was marching to the tune of the same drummer, but I was going in a different direction !” She laughed out loud. Yep, that about sums it up for Caskey, who was active, involved, and seemed to be in step with her friends at Roy High, but who ended up in a very different place from her classmates. She took her talents a whole other direction, but still counts as close friends many Utah friends who shared her teen years in Weber County. “I grew up in Utah, and its beauty is part of my soul,” said Caskey, in a phone interview before her evening call for “Gypsy” in New York City. The show may star 2008 Tony Award winner Patti LuPone, but Caskey has been singled out for her show-stopping presence. The musical, of course, is based on the vaudeville childhood of Gypsy Rose Lee, who became a burlesque stripper known for her wit, elegance and restraint. Caskey portrays a burned-out stripper named Electra, known for her lone gimmick: bumping and grinding minimally while wearing a fl ashing electrifi ed bra-and-panty outfi t. New York Post columnist Liz Smith had this to say: “And now I want to add something about the single most hilarious performance seen all season. That is Marilyn Caskey as the stripper Electra, seen only in the fi nal moments of the show. She is there every performance, stealing the entire scene.... “Marilyn moves about the stage gingerly, as if she has already received too many accidental jolts of electricity in her time. She is so obviously stoned out of her mind that when I saw the actual actress offstage after the opening night, I was shocked to realize that she was perfectly sober. It’s a sheer performance.” Smith bemoaned the fact that the role had not won its actress offi cial accolades. “Ms. Caskey’s name came up in many awards groups, but she did not snag a nomination. The role is just not big enough, not long enough. As she tries to ‘electrify’ herself, stumbling around, Ms. Caskey gives the neat and succinct performance of a lifetime.” Electra is the polar opposite of Caskey’s last Broadway character, ballet mistress Madame Giry in “Phantom of the Opera.” “Madame Giry is a strict ballet mistress, imposing and stern, complicated,” said Caskey. “The other extreme is Electra. She speaks for herself. I love that I got two so different roles.” Early years Caskey grew up in Roy, the daughter of a Hill Air Force Base lieutenant colonel and a supportive, funloving mother who worked on base but had plenty of time for her son and daughter. Caskey remains close to a neighbor she grew up with, Melody Code Vandenberg. “We have videotape of her dancing around and singing, like all kids do,” said Vandenberg, of Layton. “She really threw herself into it. She had charisma. We always used to dress up and run up and down the street. We had a neighbor with a porch that had a few steps on it, and that was our stage.” Caskey can recall the instant she found her calling. “When the bug hit me to do theater, I was just a child,” she said. “I was looking at a hatbox my mother had, decorated like a travel box, with stickers that said ‘London,’ ‘Paris,’ ‘New York,’ ‘Broadway.’ I asked my mother where Broadway was, and she told me that was where people did plays. I think a sort of light went off in my head that Broadway was where I was going to be. I found it at that moment. It was very clear, and it was a bit spiritual. I think I was 8.” Vandenberg remembers talking about that early dream. “She told me from the time she was little that she was going to be an actress. I told her I wanted to put my family first. She said you had to put acting first.” Vandenberg has flown out to see Caskey on Broadway about six times now, and also caught her friend’s vocal act in New York City’s Rainbow Room. “I always thought she would stick with it, and she did,” Vandenberg said. “She had that kind of personality. She was determined. I got my family, and I have a preschool. I would still choose my path, and I don’t think Marilyn would change who she is.” Caskey acted in plays through grade school and on, Vandenberg said. In her junior year, Caskey and another girl alternated in the “Camelot” role of Guinevere. Michele Bingham, a Roy High grad who lives in Ogden, remembers Caskey as a talented teen. “She was darling and wonderful,” Bingham said. “She got the lead in all the plays, and she sang in the chamber choir, which was our top vocal group. Everybody loved her. She used to drive this old Oldsmobile with fins, a big tank of a car we all called the Batmobile.” A custom career Caskey graduated in 1971 and headed to the University of Utah, where she earned a degree in theater arts. Next, she sought out regional theater work, to add to her experience and range. “I was doing Shakespeare and Chekov,” she said. “I became a member of the Arena Stage, in Washington, D.C., and am proud I was part of that. It was a flagship for American regional theater.” Caskey worked with actors, directors and choreographers who have gone on to celebrated careers, she said. She still works with her old friends from time to time, but now it’s on Broadway. Caskey played a variety of roles, but became concerned when she wasn’t cast as tragic dramatic leads. “Actors think the pinnacle is huge, dramatic, tragic roles,” Caskey said. “A director who didn’t cast me helped me see that I actually had more fun singing and doing comedy. It’s a happier career for me, and I am more satisfied doing it.” Caskey has spent decades working in regional theater, and has taken shows on tour. She gained experiences and friendships she still cherishes, and she was doing work she loved. Still, she became a little weary of life on the road. “I made the decision at one point that I wanted to stay put. I wanted to work on Broadway,” Caskey said. “I decided I would give up theater if I did not get into ‘Phantom of the Opera.’ I did positive visualizations of getting on Broadway, and I took a job as a paralegal so I didn’t have to travel. I worked the graveyard shift.” On Broadway Caskey was cast in 1988 as Carlotta Guidicelli, a “Phantom” character with a major singing role, who also provides some comic relief. Caskey played the role for four years, then left for five years, returning to play Madame Giry from 2001 until earlier this year, when she was cast in “Gypsy.” “Visualization does work,” Caskey said. “I am really lucky to experience the success I have. I feel very blessed, yet I want more. I do not want to stop here. I still yearn for more.” Caskey said she loves the friendships that come with being a part of the Broadway community. She loves being an artist, and working with other top-caliber artists who have given their lives to the theatrical arts. “There’s a huge sense of pride in being able to be a disciplined and skilled performer,” she said. “Although we love the audience recognition and the success of a show, I aspire most to feel the respect of my peers and colleagues. It’s fun being around other actors, getting to know each other. You’ve got to be mighty disciplined, physically and mentally, to do a show eight times a week. There are no slouches here.” From time to time, Caskey thinks about sacrifices she made for her career, and about roads not taken, she said. Still, there’s not much she would change, she said. And she still feels the same about acting as she did as a teenager in Roy. “To me, it feels extremely spiritual, the pursuit of acting, or singing with an orchestra, or even practicing by myself,” she said. “It’s exhilarating. I like the communication with the audience. When you’re really on the mark, the experience feels so exhilarating and spiritual, I love it. I just love it.”
Joan Marcus photo