Jeff Hyslop Articles

Jeff Hyslop's many happy returns
CHRIS DAFOE

You would think it would be old-hat for Jeff Hyslop by now, this triumphant homecoming business. After all, Hyslop has played the local-boy-makes-good role in Vancouver countless times before.

He's been onstage since he was a kid, studying dance with noted teacher Grace MacDonald when he was five and passing up a contract with the Bolshoi Ballet when he was 16. The triumphant homecomings started while he was still in his teens, as Hyslop came home triumphant from three years of performances in Anne of Green Gables at the Charlottetown Festival. A few years later, he came back as a star again, this time from working with Norman Jewison on the movie Jesus Christ Superstar, released in 1973. Then there was the homecoming that followed his performance in A Chorus Line in the late 1970s and, of course, most recently and spectacularly, when he returned to Vancouver to star in a record-set-ting 5 � -month run of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera.

But when he arrives for an interview after his opening night performance as Molina in Kiss of the Spider Woman, looking casually elegant in linen and dark glasses, the first thing Hyslop mentions is opening-night nerves. "It's really hard to come home because of the expectations," says Hyslop, who shares the stage with Chita Rivera and John Dossett in the three-week Vancouver run of the musical. "You think people will think, 'He's gone away and he's done this and now his head's going to be swelled.' So I'm nervous. It was worse doing Phantom because people had this notion of what they wanted the Phantom to be: this big, monstrous creature. That's not how I played him at all."

Indeed, it's hard to imagine the 44-year-old actor, singer and dancer playing anything big and monstrous. He's lean and trim � he's still got a dancer's body � and while there are flecks of grey in his sideburns, he retains the wide-eyed boyish good looks that made him a natural for both his role as Mike in A Chorus Line and for his gig as the host of the TVOntario kids TV show. Today's Special, that put food on the table in the early 1980s, before the current boom in musical theatre made him a hot property.

It's easier to see him as Molina, the gay window-dresser who shares a cell with the macho political prisoner Valentin in Kiss of the Spider Woman, John Kander, Fred Ebb and Terrence McNally's musical version of Manuel Puig's novel. Hyslop followed his friend Brent Carver in the role, playing Molina in London when Carver took the role to New York and then moving to Broadway when Carver, who won a Tony award for his performance, decided he'd had enough. "I saw Brent do the role in Toronto, while they were still working on the show and I was doing Phantom." Hyslop says. "And I went back and told him, 'I'm so glad you're doing this role.' But then (Kiss and Phantom direc-tor) Hal Prince came into my dressing room and said, 'You've got to play Molina.' That planted the seed."

Hyslop describes following Carver in the role as "a very loving experience. I got two wonderful validations. One from [director] Robin Phillips and the other from Brent. We were doing a put-in rehearsal, with a whole new company. And Brent didn't have to come," Hyslop says, "but he came as a friend and totally validated what I was doing."

Molina is a demanding role � Hyslop describes it as being like playing Hamlet with music � but in some ways, he says, it is less difficult than his other mega-musical experience. "With Phantom, you're on stage for 32 minutes, although everybody talks about you. With Molina, you're on for 2 1/2 hours � but in a way, that makes it easier. Phantom was difficult because in four out of eight performances I'd take him home. I wasn't finished with him. This is so definite and it's so physically draining, you've got nothing left. Your adrenaline kicks in and you aren't waiting backstage for some special effect or getting strapped into a harness. It's unbroken. You're up there in bare feet, pants and a T-shirt and it all comes down to your craft. That's for me."

If anything, Hyslop likes to bring more of his craft to the role. Rivera, who stars as Aurora, the hero-ine of the movies that Molina de-scribes to help Valentin escape the Horror and degradation of prison life, handles most of the dancing in Kiss and Hyslop admits to casting the occasional envious glance toward the 62-year-old star as she high-kicks across the stage. "Oh, I do. I do! I look at her and think, 'I want to do that'" he says. "I think if I'd originated the role, I would have pushed for more dance numbers. But at least I get to tango with her every night."

There will be a good deal more dancing in Hyslop's next show, a one-man revue called Feet First. It's a project Hyslop has been working on with his wife, actor Ruth Nichol, since the couple returned to Vancouver following Hyslop's final performances as the Phantom last September.

"After four years of doing the two shows, I wanted to do something for myself and get back to my dance roots," says Hyslop of Feet First, which will open in Vancouver in October and then tour Victoria and Kelowna. "So I found a wonderful businessman, an angel type of person, and Ruth and I raised about $340,000 to mount this show. It's a two-hour evening of song and dance, with all the music that's touched my life in 34 years in the business, with some anec-dotal stuff layered on top and the choreographic stuff layered on top of that. It's really a summation and I think it will help me focus on what I want to do next."

Not that he's ruling out a return to the stage as either Phantom or Molina.

"With Garth [Kiss producer Drabinsky], you never say never," Hyslop says. "I can't say anything officially, but I have a feeling there's life after this guest spot."

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