B l u e P a r a d e - A S a r a h S l e a n F a n s i t e
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Angela Pacienza, Canadian Press
TORONTO (CP) - Sarah Slean has always been a showboat.
In concert and in her videos, the singer flirts with audiences while belting out her cabaret-tinged pop songs.
Yet she admits to feeling timid and unsure of herself while filming Black Widow, airing Jan. 19 at 8 p.m. ET on CBC's Opening Night.
"I thought 'What do I do with my hands?' " the pianist recalled during a recent interview alongside director David Mortin.
"It was a vulnerability that I'd never ever come across, and I'm on stage for a living so you'd think I wouldn't feel that way."
A singer-songwriter, poet and occasional painter, Slean hadn't really ever considered acting before Mortin came calling in the fall of 2004 asking her to play the lead in his new musical, Black Widow.
Told in film noir style, it's loosely based on real-life femme fatale Evelyn Dick, a Hamilton woman accused in 1946 of killing and dismembering her husband.
"I picked up one of (Slean's) albums in the early stages of casting. Just listening to her music, some of the dark corners, I just immediately heard the right sort of sound," said Mortin.
"I knew she hadn't acted beyond videos, but I saw in her videos this natural theatrical talent in the way that she takes on characters when she sings."
The rest of the cast was also plucked from the country's alternative music scene. Martin Tielli of the Rheostatics plays the unfortunate husband, John Dick, whose limbs are chopped off. Singer Mary Margaret O'Hara plays Evelyn Dick's sinister mother.
Originally from Pickering, Ont., Slean studied classical musical before starting as a recording artist. She's released four albums to date, her most recent, Day One, in the fall of 2004. She's also published a pocket-sized poetry anthology, Ravens. Next month she'll unveil an exhibit of her paintings, entitled Bleak House, at a Toronto gallery.
"I'm glad there was music in the film because when I was singing I really, really felt inside the story . . . when I wasn't, it was a real uphill climb," said Slean.
The film's dependency on 40s-era music, with songs like Cole Porter's Love for Sale and Mel Torme's Born To Be Blue, was a perfect fit for her fanciful style, she added.
"I love that music," gushed Slean, who donned dainty dresses and a voluminous wig for her debut film role. "It was a real treat to get inside that character of that voice. Sometimes I hear that creep up in my own stuff because I listened to Judy Garland and Marlene Dietrich for years."
The film was shot over 11 days in December 2004, in and around Dick's hometown of Hamilton.
Mortin, who co-wrote the script, says he's always been intrigued by the gruesome murder case, which started when a group of children stumbled upon the torso of John Dick.
His head and limbs had been sawed off, said to have been burned by his wife in furnace of their home.
"It's like folklore to me," said Mortin, who was raised in Toronto. "It's a story I've always known."
Dick was sentenced to hang for her husband's murder but then won on appeal and was eventually acquitted. Police later discovered decayed remains of her baby son in her home leading to an 11-year prison term.
She was released from prison in 1958. She's believed to have remarried and moved to Western Canada. If she's still alive she'd be 85.
"Evelyn Dick, the name, is dead. Whoever she's become could still be out there which is a fun thing to think about," said Mortin.
The film doesn't stick too closely to the facts, salacious as they are. In Black Widow, Dick is motivated to off her husband after he figures out she's killed their baby.
"I just saw it as something that belonged to the film noir genre, suitable for a fun treatment as a musical," said Mortin.
And to keep with Mortin's altered reality, Slean didn't delve into the history books.
"I didn't want to soak myself too much. I didn't want to have something too calculated," she said. "I wanted her to still look very 'Everything's fine. I'm just wearing pretty dresses.' I had to concoct a story that made her evil make sense to me so that I could do it and believe what I was saying."
So would Slean do it again given her insecurities?
"Absolutely, hands down yes!" she said, wide-eyed.
"It was really difficult and challenging. And I liked that."
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