Melanie La Barrie is having the time of her life in 'Mary Page Marlowe'

After delighting audiences in shows like & Juliet, Hadestown, and Matilda The Musical, Melanie La Barrie is helping to tell the story of one woman’s life in Mary Page Marlowe.

Summary

• Melanie La Barrie is starring in Tracy Letts’s time-jumping which spans 70 years of one woman's life
• She appears in the show with Susan Sarandon and Andrea Riseborough
• La Barrie has starred in other hits shows like Wicked Les Miserables and Hadestown

“It’s been a mystery to us as well,” says Melanie La Barrie of Pulitzer Prize winner Tracy Letts’s time-jumping play Mary Page Marlowe, which is making its UK premiere at The Old Vic. The show teases out the ordinary yet fascinatingly examined life of accountant Mary, spanning 70 years from mid-century America to the present, in a mosaic of non-linear scenes. When I speak to La Barrie, the cast has just put the whole thing together for the first time, “so we got to see what everyone else has been up to. I’ve spent all my time with Susan [Sarandon].”

The Thelma & Louise star is one of several actresses, including Andrea Riseborough, playing Mary at different ages – not unlike in recent West End hit The Years, which also used a talented ensemble to follow one woman’s life.

La Barrie plays a nurse who has a pivotal encounter with Mary. “She’s the coolest,” enthuses La Barrie of Sarandon. “It’s been wonderful getting to share a stage with her, and see how someone so accomplished can also be a regular, lovely person. Everything we do as actors, whether we’re playing gods or men, we’re a mirror to human experiences. Susan is very accessible – she lets you in. I feel like I’ve got the best seat in the house.”

Their scene together, says La Barrie, “doesn’t have big fireworks. Sometimes, if you’ve gone through a lot of pain or trauma in your life, you can have a quiet conversation with a stranger where you simply recognise what you’ve experienced, and that you’ve survived.”

Speaking of acclaimed playwright Letts, whose plays Bug, Killer Joe, and August: Osage County have also been produced in London, La Barrie says: “Tracy is so adept at showing how profound moments can come in ordinary ways. This play is like mindfulness in motion. It invites an audience to come sit with us, to just be present with another human being.”

La Barrie tries to live her own life mindfully. “I never want anything to pass me by,” she says. “I’ve had so many extraordinary experiences. I try to savour each moment.” Her adventure began early: she started singing Calypso professionally aged eight in her native Trinidad, had a hit single at 16, and hosted a radio programme and TV talent shows.

“I came to theatre late, in my 20s,” she recalls. “I always wanted to be an actor but I didn’t know how – I didn’t go to drama school. But there was an open audition for a play, so I thought ‘Why not?’. I went up for this super-glamorous part, and instead they asked me to play a mum! But I’m very grateful because it brought me to London, and now my whole life and career is here.”

La Barrie has since remained open to opportunities. “When I did my first musical, Fame, I had no idea how musicals worked. But you have to be brave and take chances.” That attitude has certainly paid off: La Barrie has originated several significant roles, including beloved librarian Mrs Phelps in Matilda The Musical.

She’s now enjoying a Matilda reunion thanks to Mary Page Marlowe: with director Matthew Warchus, and castmates Lauren Ward (the original Miss Honey) and Eleanor Worthington-Cox (Matilda). Worthington-Cox recently reminded La Barrie that when she was crying because she was leaving the show, “I said to her ‘Don’t be sad, we’ll be on stage together again’. And now here we are.”

La Barrie is also looking forward to doing a concert of musical The Book Thief in October. She plays Death, narrating this resonant story of resistance set in Nazi Germany. La Barrie notes wryly: “I’ve been playing women older than me all my life. Now, in this show and Hadestown, I’ve graduated to immortal characters.”

Her phenomenal Hermes in Hadestown was, notably, ungendered. That decision was inspired, she explains, partly by her vision of the character as an ephemeral spirit, and partly by doing the role in her natural accent. “With that comes a culture. We wouldn’t say ‘Missus Hermes’. Standing on a West End stage, as a Trinidadian storyteller, bringing my ancestors and my history with me, was very special.”

She also went on an incredible seven-year journey with & Juliet, from the first workshop to West End and Broadway. La Barrie is proud that her character Nurse Angelique had her own love story “and that her agency grew and grew. The writers were in the room with us, and they wrote some things because of my personality and the way I speak – it was a true collaboration.”

La Barrie has joined established musicals too, playing Madame Morrible in Wicked and Madame Thénardier in Les Misérables. “I loved doing those shows because they have such legacy.” Yet she also blazed a trail in those roles as a Black actress. “I’m very proud of that,” she says. “If I can do it, it shows the people who come after me that anything’s possible.”

One big role on her bucket list is Mama Rose in Gypsy: La Barrie performed in a concert version in 2022. But, she insists, “I’ve never had a plan. I never thought I’d make my Broadway debut at 48. I honestly can’t believe my luck. Now I’m acting with Susan Sarandon in this beautiful play. I just hope audiences love it as much as we do.”

Book Mary Page Marlowe tickets on LondonTheatre.co.uk

This article first appeared in the October 2025 issue of London Theatre Magazine.

Photo credit: Melanie La Barrie. (Courtesy of production). Inset: in rehearsals for Mary Page Marlowe, with Eleanor Worthington-Cox in Matilda, in & Juliet. (Photos by Manuel Harlan and courtesy of production)