It’s a great honour to have a play written especially for a particular actor and no one is more deserving than the wonderful Maggie Blinco.
Maggie who is now in her nineth decade, played the title role in Noel Hodda’s new play Manda which was presented in a rehearsed reading at The Old Fitz as a special tribute to Maggie.
Billed as a reading of a work in progress, it is based on a real-life encounter between ninety-year-old actor Manda Bjorling, famous for being the first Swedish Miss Julie in Strindberg’s play of that name and Amanda Nielsen, a young actress about to play the role herself. Set in 1966 in the nursing home near Stockholm, the visit causes Manda’s memories to come to life, as she re-lives the fraught rehearsals leading up to a special performance of the play.
A writers note says that the play is based on true events, but liberties have been taken and it is those liberties that made Manda such an enjoyable experience for the audience.
Hodda’s play moves between memories of the past and Manda’s present reflections as the characters are layered and interchange in an almost surreal world.
A capricious Strindberg spars with Manda over the interpretation of her role, he argues with his mistress also in the cast and Manda recalls the frustration her fellow players created for her during rehearsal.
These memories intertwine with rehearsals for the new production in which the contemporary director is hell bent on making Miss Julie relevant to a new audience by setting the production in a glass box.
Maggie’s delightfully wry performance captured Manda’s dry wit and irreverence as she exposed the pretentions of the world of theatre then and now.
This is not the first time a piece has been written especially for Maggie. She starred in the 2022 warm-hearted film A Stitch In Time written for her and directed by Sasha Hadden. Loosely based on Maggie’s life, it was the story of a former dressmaker who leaves her abusive marriage of 50 years and starts a new life as a fashion designer in partnership with a hip young Chinese would be entrepreneur. Maggie was in fact a fashion designer back in her early years, and built quite a reputation with the clothes she designed, made and sold at the Paddington Market.
But it is as an actor Maggie Blinco is celebrated. Her film and television credits include both Crocodile Dundee movies and the award winning The Nightingale among numerous others. Her stage credits date back to the early 1970s and include every major Sydney theatre company. In 2019 Maggie was the recipient of the Actors Benevolent Fund Lifetime Achievement Award at the Sydney Theatre Awards.
Noel Hodda the playwright, is an established actor, director and dramaturg. He has written several plays the most recent being In This Light which was staged to acclaim in 2022 at the Flight Path Theatre. He wrote Manda for Maggie Blinco as a special gift.
The reading of Manda was directed by Aarne Neeme with Stuart Robinson, Talia Benatar, Merridy Eastman, Glenn Hazeldine and Julie Hudspeth in the cast.
It is hoped that a full production of Manda will happen in the near future. Although Maggie says she is too old to appear in eight performances a week on stage we can only wish that Maggie will be able to star in it. In the meantime those who saw the reading had a very special experience with a much loved and admired actor.