PAOLA DIONISOTTI AWARDS: For Further than the Furthest Thing (2000) Best Actress at Edinburgh Festival EVENING STANDARD Best Actress CRITICAL QUOTABLES IN HER OWN WORDS PLAYS & PLAYERS Player of the Month February 1994 FILMS AND TELEVISION: see Internet Movie Dababase THEATRE Year Theatre Company Name of Play Character . . Genesis . . Actors Company Knots . . Actors Company 'Tis Pity She's a Whore . . Actors Company Way of the World . 1994 Barbican/Ninagawa Peer Gynt Mother Aase . Bush Commitments . 1999 Bush Drink, Dance, Laugh and Die . . Criterion Theatre Can't Pay, Won't Pay . . Crucible, Sheffield Britannicus . . Drill Hall The Fourth Wall . . Edinburgh Lyceum Ghosts . . Freehold Mary, Mary . 1993 Gate Theatre, London Snow Orchid Filumena. 1991 Gate Theatre, London Women of Troy Hecuba. 1990 Gate Theatre, London Vassa .. 1986 Glasgow Citizens Company Gertrude Stein . 1976 Glasgow Citizens Company Maskerade Baroness Strahl . Glasgow Citizens Company Seven Deadly Sins . . Glasgow Citizens Company Streetcar Named Desire . . Greenwich Theatre Mary Stuart . 1984 Greenwich Theatre Way of the World Millamant 1984 Greenwich Theatre The White Devil Isabella . London Theatre Group The Trial . . Lyric, Hammersmith Crime and Punishment . 1999 New Ambassadors Holy Mothers . 1992 Orange Tree, Richmond Self-Portrait . . Royal Exchange, Manchester The Misfits . . Royal National Theatre Countrymania . 1995 Royal National Theatre Machine Wreckers Mrs.Cobbett 1995 Royal National Theatre Richard II Duchess of Gloucester, Duchess of York, First Lady 1992 Royal National Theatre Square Rounds . . Royal National Theatre The Wandering Jew . 1978 Royal ShakespeareCompany Antony and Cleopatra Charmian 1998 Royal ShakespeareCompany Camino Real Gypsy . Royal ShakespeareCompany Heresies . . Royal ShakespeareCompany The Iceman Cometh . 1978 Royal ShakespeareCompany Measure for Measure Isabella 1990 Royal ShakespeareCompany Moscow Gold Zoya . Royal ShakespeareCompany Pillars of the Community . . Royal ShakespeareCompany Sore Throats . 1978 Royal ShakespeareCompany Taming of the Shrew Katherina . Sadler's Wells On the Verge . 2001 Tricycle Theatre, London Further than the Furthest Thing . 2000 Tron Theatre, Glasgow/ Royal National Theatre Further than the Furthest Thing Mill 2003 Tron Theatre, Glasgow Two Sisters and a Piano As Director . Young Vic King Lear .

IN HER OWN WORDS Paola steps out of the shadows, by Nick Curtis, 24 May 2001

Paola Dionisotti recalls how, in her Glasgow days, while having to work extremely hard (the Close operated from Tuesday to Sunday, the main stage from Monday to Saturday, which meant most actors were rehearsing all day and often playing seven nights a week), the actors were none the less treated like stars: 'It was utterly different from anywhere else at that time. You had the whole business of the first night, the whole Noel Coward bit, with absolutely nothing tacky or fringey about it. There were bouquets everywhere, and champagne, and it didn't half go to everybody's heads, actually!'

Paola Dionisotti notes that what the Citizens were doing in the early 1970s was in direct opposition to how people were being taught to act in drama schools ('it had all become rather private, with wonderful emotional things happening behind a sofa that no one could see; we were told quite clearly, at Drama Centre, that acting was nothing to do with showing-off') but that, having been taught how to play big roles with confidence, how to enjoy 'giving it' to an audience, she rejected the idea that actors should work in isolation from each other and not in collaboration with the director.

Paola Dionisotti recounts how, as Madame Irma in The Balcony, she had to pour her performance, and herself, into a skirt with a ten-inch diameter at the bottom, and then cope with nine-inch heels on a stage with little steps all over it. She thinks these restrictions in fact defined her performance.

. . . trained at the Drama Centre, London . . . and came to the RSC in 1978 via radical repertory companies and the fringe. Since then she has worked primarily in mainstream theatre . . . but she continues to feel that some of the most exciting work being done today springs from alternative companies . . . 'I want a theatre that is in touch with the life around it. And I want an audience that is brave and demanding.' It is a craft rather than glamour that attracts her to the profession: 'I see myself as a jobbing actress.'

In Shakespeare 'You start with the text. And then if there are any gaps, any things you can't crack, you start asking other questions'

On costume design: . . . a costume is 'a frame to hang a performance on; it's like a cage you can tie bits on'

Re Taming of the Shrew The issues these actresses have explored in the roles identify the concerns of their decade; they hear in the plays a persistent interrogation of the forms and images that structure our daily lives. Paola sees in Petruchio's blunt wooing a potential allegory for contemporary society: 'When I look up and down the street where I live, the number of women who are married to men who hate women is staggering - it's one of the big issues of our society, and it is a story to be told. Our production tried to tell it.'

'. . . I wanted the play to be about Kate and about a woman instinctively fighting sexism. But I don't really think that's what the play is about. It's not the story of Kate; it's the story of Petruchio. He gets the soliloquies, he gets the moments of change. All the crucial moments of the story for Kate, she's off stage.'

CRITICAL QUOTABLES

FURTHER THAN THE FURTHEST THING,Tricycle Theatre, 2001

Mark Espiner, TIME OUT, 30 May 2001

. . . fine performances from all - but particularly from Dionisotti who seems born for her role and plumbs the depths of her character's soul - make this a very special theatre piece . . .

. . . Paola Dionisotti has rightly been hailed for her luminous performance as Mill, an island inhabitant whose ignorance of the "H'outside world" does not prevent her blazingly disarming charm from winning the heart of the "businessman" sent from Cape Town. . .

Further Than the Furthest Thing by Zinnie Harris boasts an acclaimed, award-winning performance by Paola Dionisotti as a feisty native on a remote volcanic island very like Tristan de Cunha . . . the material is fascinating and Miss Dionisotti graceful and compelling throughout.

On the first London viewing of Zinnie Harris's Further Than The FUrthest Thing at the Cottesloe last autumn, I prophesied that Paola Dionisotti's performance would be award-winning stuff. With a brace of awards, she and the play (a National Theatre/Tron Theatre co-production) now return to the Tricycle for a deserved further run. . . .Dionisotti's Mill Lavarello is simply one of the finest performances now on a British stage.

If you missed Paola Dionisotti's award-winning turn in Zinnie Harris's Further than the Furthest Thing last year, you can now catch it at the Tricycle Theatre. Dionisotti gives one of the most subtle, beguiling performances you're likely to see in London at the moment. . . .The sense of her dislocation, child-like charm, tenacity and stifled anguish is moving and ultimately heartbreaking when Mill reveals the community's guilty past that shows extreme places can lead to extreme measures.

What a life Irina Brown's Tron production of Zinnie Harris's Tristan da Cunha-based tale is having. Edinburgh Fringe award-winner last year, followed by a triumphant London run at the National Theatre and Best Actress of the year award for Paola Dionisotti, this revival at the Tricycle, slightly recast and restaged are the last UK performances before an international tour. . . Play, production, and Dionisotti's performance are still overwhelming and humbling . . . As Mill Lavarello, Dionisotti is still magnetic, a fluttering bird-like creature of childish innocence and granite-like pragmatism. . .

. . . Paola Dionisotti dominates this classy evening with her rightly admired performance as the aunt fighting to keep the past a secret and to get her island back and Niki Turner's evocative set, when lit by Neil Austin, is a masterpiece

FURTHER THAN THE FURTHEST THING,Tron Theatre, Glasgow /Royal National Theatre, 2000

On November 27, 2000, the Evening Standard Award for Best Actress was presented to Paola Dionisotti:

This was a strong field in what Paul Taylor called "a very good year for actresses" . . . But the judges were unanimous about the winner. Paola Dionisotti's performance as a woman from the remote island of Tristan da Cunha in Further Than the Furthest Thing "presented us with a woman we would never have met in our closed theatre lives," marvelled Nicholas de Jongh. "I think she's one of the five best actresses in the country," said Paul Taylor. The other judges agreed.

"Lovers of acting should see Zinnie Harris's Further Than the Furthest Thing at the Traverse Theatre, the Fringe's most prestigious venue simply to see Paola Dionisotti. One of Britain's most splendid and moving actresses, she has a career and reputation less high-flying than her immense talent deserves.

Here, as a resident of the remote Atlantic and volcanic island of Tristan de Cunha, she speaks in a wonderful pidgin English; an English that muddles its plurals and singulars, and adds initial Hs to words like "egg" . . .

At first, Further than the Furthest Thing seems to be a tale of innocence lost; the innocence of island life is threatened and lost again and again. Dionisotti plays Mill, who first loses her adored nephew to the big city, then loses her island life to the volcano, then loses her husband Bill. Late in the play, however, she tells a tale of grief that reveals how long ago innocence was lost on her island and what dark knowledge lies buried beneath a nonetheless innocent life.

Dionisotti's blend of fragility and toughness, of trust and scepticism, of bravery and timidity, is riveting, and it is she who, of a cast of five, best reveals the metric qualities of Harris's lines. . .

" . . . Irina Brown's atmospheric production, . . . boasts a first-rate performance by one of Britain's most under-sung actresses, Paola Dionisotti. She manages to suggest both the stubborn tenacity and exiled loneliness of someone fiercely attached to a lonely rock at the earth's end. She is well supported by Kevin McMonagle as her guilt-ridden husband and Darrell D'Silva as a Capetown businessman. But Dionisotti is the emotional centre. . . . "

" . . . The plight of the community is told through just one family, but the small cast bear the load with ease; in particular Paola Dionisotti whose performance carries the play like a tireless packhorse . . . "

" . . . It's not often that I wax lyrical in this way, but this play has that effect. One critic described it as epic, and whilst it doesn't really fit that description, I know exactly why he said it.

And it is worth seeing for the performance of Paola Dionisotti alone. She dominates the stage: her every word, expression and movement is controlled and directed to produce exactly the right response from the spell-bound audience. From the island, where she is the great matriarch, to the factory in England where, in spite of her distress and sense of loss, she assumes the leadership of the little group of islanders, she is never less than totally convincing. The only performance I have seen in recent years which compares is Maggie Smith's in The Lady in the Van.

Ms Donisotti's performance notwithstanding, this is also a fine ensemble piece. . .

"For a few moments I thought the Traverse had discovered a lost episode of Monty Python. There were Paola Dionisotti and Kevin McGonagle, both dressed for an adaptation of one of Thomas Hardy's trademark exercises in dour pastoral, both speaking a peculiarly stilted variety of Mummerset, both very worried about the fate of three large penguins' eggs or, as they insisted on calling them, heggs.

Splat! Impervious to McGonagle's insistence that eating penguins' eggs was ill-fated, Dionisotti dropped one of them on to the jet-black shingle that was scattered over a shiny black stage. "I is not seeing how they is bad luck," she said defensively. "They is only an hegg." Splat! A second egg or hegg cracked accidentally open on the ground, leaving me, for one, certain that the late Graham Chapman would enter from the side and tell both performers they were getting too silly to continue.

But, no, he didn't, and I am grateful he was so self-denying. . . .Very soon even the weird singulars, plurals, aspirates and double negatives come to seem not only acceptable but positively necessary. How else is Harris to evoke a culture so distant, so cut-off that it makes our own Matthew Parris's Desolation Island seem like Manhattan?

But with a movingly earnest McGonagle and a wonderfully doughty, plain-speaking Dionisotti at the head of Irina Brown's fine cast, such dangers are avoided throughout. Indeed, Harris can introduce what comes across as genuine magic into the dramatic equation without loss of plausibility. You feel that, yes, maybe there are dead siblings and cousins who haunt the land and cause strange currents in the sea, warning the living of cataclysm to come. Altogether, this is a piece well worth catching, if not in Edinburgh, then at Glasgow's Tron next month and the National's Cottesloe in October.

". . . there is an especially moving performance from Paola Dionisotti as an anguished islander . . ."

". . . Playing Mill, the wife of the island's self-appointed chaplain, Paola Dionisotti breaks your heart in the scenes of badly housed Southampton exile as she clings to her hard-won dignity, struggles to make sense of a baffling new country and battles for the right to send a group of islanders back to check out their homeland. . ."

RICHARD II , Royal National Theatre, 1995

Tom Hunsinger, Plays & Players, July 1995

" . . . There are so many good things to be found such as Michael Bryant's heart-felt Duke of York. If ever there was a lesson in simple, direct verse speaking Mr. Bryant would be the model by which others should be judged. Such a delight. Paola Dionisotti is another. She uses the text to perfection. There is not a wasted gesture or vocal tecnhique that is not employed to illustrate what she means and feels. In fact she seems incapable of lying. She and Mr. Bryant lift the play onto another level whenever they appear. . . "

" . . . Paola Dionisotti is outstanding in three separate roles - as the Duchess of York, as a lady-in-waiting, and as the grieving duchess of Gloucester, a whole world of sorrow rasped out in her lament for the destruction of a "most royal root"

PEER GYNT, Ninagawa at Barbican Theatre, 1994

Kate Kellaway, OBSERVER, 6 March, 1994

" . . . Paola Dionisotti does splendidly as Peer's mother, raddled, witchy and, like her son, full of shabby energy."

" . . . Paola Dionisotti movingly captures the mixture of exasperation and fierce love of Peer's mother."

SNOW ORCHID, Gate Theatre, 1993

Alastair Macauley, FINANCIAL TIMES, 1 March 1993

" . . . The linchpin of the Gate staging is Paola Dionisotti as Filumena. Her Italian accent is flawless, even in its incipient Americanisms; and the aggressive fury that has always made her remarkable is given a fresh spark by enacting a Mediterranean temperament. Here, as in Vassa Zheleznova (same theatre, 1990), she is playing a minor latterday Clytemnestra; how about reviving Mourning Becomes Electra for her?"

" . . . Paola Dionisotti is transfixingly good as this volatile, prayer-babbling, agoraphobic matriarch . . ."

" . . . Paola Dionisotti's materfamilias touchingly and convincingly shows how histrionics sometimes mask vulnerability and desolation. . ."

" . . . An impressive cast is headed by the wonderful Paola Dionisotti . . ."

" . . . notably well acted, especially by Ms. Dionisotti, who evokes a world of sighs and marital despair in every spot-on corrupted Italian vowel she utters."

WAY OF THE WORLD, "Citizens Season at Greenwich", 1984

Michael Billington, GUARDIAN, 17 March, 1984

" . . . Paola Dionisotti's Millamant is no languid posturer but a brisk, skittish, whimsically determined woman who, like the Mounties, gets her man and who reads out her marital demands from a pre-arranged list. What is more she chuckles with delight when Mirabell offers counter-proposals. This dazzling Millamant belongs to a world in which love is both a contractual and emotional bargain. . . . "

" . . . Millamant's acceptance of Mirabell's marriage proposal is beautifully done by Paola Dionisotti, her final undertaking to "dwindle into a wife" spoken with a proper understanding of the consciously artificial words. . . . "