AACTA Awards 2017
Pam attended the AACTA 2017 Awards today. She was nominated for Best Lead Actress in a Television Drama and presented an award.
Radio Triple R
Acclaimed actor Pamela Rabe joined Breakfasters to chat about her latest role in The Testament of Mary. In this performance Rabe plays a mourning and defiant Mary in a re-imagined…
Wentworth’s Joan ‘The Freak’ Ferguson actress Pamela Rabe stars as Jesus’ mother in solo show
AS JOAN “The Freak” Ferguson in hit TV series Wentworth, Pamela Rabe plays Australia’s most-hated villain.
But in her solo show, the Malthouse Theatre’s production of The Testament of Mary, the acclaimed actress takes on the controversial role of the mother of Jesus.
“They’re not that different in the end,” Rabe said.
“As an actor you’re exploring a human being, the humanity of a character and doing your best to bring that story alive for an audience.
“They’re both women. I just play the woman. The challenge is actually for the audiences to flip from one to the other.”
The play is based on award-winning Irish writer Colm Toibin’s novella, which became a Tony Award-nominated Broadway play and is frequently restaged around the word.
The Testament of Mary examines themes such as women’s roles in history being rewritten to suit dogma and dealing with the aftermath of trauma. It has found a resonance with current issues including “fake news” and religious extremism.
“This is not the depiction of a saint, this is the depiction of a human being, a mother whose son has died,” Rabe said.
“We know so little about her, and the little that is known is only from some very meagre, meagre words in the New Testament in the Bible.”
The in-demand actress, coming to the play directly from performing in Ibsen’s Ghosts in Sydney, said doing a solo show was “lonely” and she was “descending into a world of grieving mothers”.
“What I love about this piece of writing that Colm Toibin has created (is) it’s very interrogative, an imaginative exploration which invites everyone to have their own individual response to the kind of trigger that he presents,” she said. (more…)
Pamela Rabe on unpicking the knottiness of Ghosts
Following the success of her Glass Menagerie with Eamon Flack, actor Pamela Rabe reunites with the director to explore the knottiness of Ibsen’s Ghosts. By Harry Windsor.
Pamela Rabe is on the phone, the morning after opening night of the new production of Ibsen’s Ghosts at Belvoir. Without a trace of actorly effusion, she says: “I’m really looking forward to settling it in.”
The show’s previews have afforded the cast, which includes Robert Menzies alongside Rabe, opportunity to tweak the work extensively, a process she likens to “popping grapes”.
It’s a phrase she picked up from director Annabel Arden, the co-founder of British touring theatre Complicité, during rehearsals for The Art of War at the Sydney Theatre Company, where Rabe was a member of the short-lived Actors Company from 2006 to 2009.
“When a thing is starting to congeal and galvanise, suddenly the little moments that you need to attend to become really apparent,” she says. “You learn a lot about the story you’re telling collectively, and the audience is helping you tell that story.”
Ghosts is one of Ibsen’s knottiest works, one “that has no bottom”, according to Rabe. She stars as Mrs Alving, a survivor of violent abuse at the hands of an unfaithful husband, dead for 10 years when the play begins.
We meet the widow drawing up plans for an orphanage with the assistance of the doctrinaire and judgemental Pastor Manders, played by Menzies. Getting the place insured won’t be necessary, he says; it might look like faithlessness. No prizes for guessing what happens next.
Victorian Actors’ Benevolent Trust Auctions
Wentworth fans worldwide get ready!! This Sunday 1st October, 8pm AEST exclusive memorabilia will go under the hammer on eBay.com.au to raise funds for the Victorian Actors’ Benevolent Trust. The auction will stay open for 7 days, closing Sunday 8th October. A MAMMOTH thank you to the generosity of our President Sally-Anne Upton a.k.a JUICY LUCY for organising these once-off life-sized posters of Wentworth stars Pamela Rabe (The FREAK-Joan Ferguson) and Kate Atkinson (Vera Bennett- Vinegar Tits), as well as a framed and signed set of Lucy Gambaro’s tattoos! Get ready to bid – more info: vabt.com.au
Source: facebook.com
Pamela Rabe opens up about Wentworth’s tongue scene
‘I know what’s happening is horrific’: ‘The Freak’ actress Pamela Rabe explains how she steeled herself to film THAT gruesome tongue-cutting scene in prison show Wentworth
It was one of the most violent scenes in Australian television history.
Now, Wentworth actress Pamela Rabe, who portrays Joan ‘The Freak’ Ferguson has spoken about what it really took for her film the Foxtel show’s infamous tongue-cutting scene.
In an interview with KIIS FM’s Kyle & Jackie O Show on Wednesday, the 58-year-old star revealed she had to compartmentalise as she acted.
In the bloody scene, Pamela’s character screeched, ‘You’ve licked your last pussy!’ to ‘Juicy’ Lucy Gambaro before slicing off her tongue with a scalpel.
‘It’s tough isn’t it? I had to kind of separate it, because I know what’s happening is horrific,’ Pamela explained about filming the gruesome footage. (more…)
Bea’s parting gift: The Freak’s in the frame
REVENGE is sweet, but it’s not always easy to come by in Wentworth.
Foxtel’s award-winning drama, which is a contemporary reimagining of the iconic 80s series Prisoner, returns for an explosive fifth season on Tuesday.
The season premiere resumes in the days following Bea Smith’s tragic death at the hands of Joan “The Freak” Ferguson, Wentworth’s former Governor who suffered a spectacular fall from grace last season.
Emotional, psychological and professional shock waves pound Wentworth Correctional Centre’s staff and inmates, who set up a memorial for Bea.
Pamela Rabe, who plays Joan, says the reverberations of Bea’s death, for which she has seemingly successfully framed Joan, will be felt throughout the entire season.
“That’s a big change to the culture for the prison of Wentworth and for the storylines that have been dominated by Bea’s trajectory for the past four seasons,” she tells The Guide.
“It helps you realise the world of this drama is a prison where life is precarious and the struggles are monumental, epic; they are life and death. Part of the reality of this narrative is some people are going to disappear.”
In the wake of a stabbing death at her prison, Governor Vera Bennett is under fire from Corrective Services and, with Will on suspension, she is relying more on her deputy Jake, not realising he is Ferguson’s puppet. (more…)
The Devil You Know
Wentworth Season 5: Pamela Rabe reveals her life as The Freak
PAMELA RABE WALKS into a room on the Wentworth set to talk about the highly-anticipated fifth season of the series, premiering in April on showcase.
While her character Ferguson is renowned for a dagger glare so intense it can leave even a hardened criminal shaking in her shoes, the actress describes herself as “shy”, which is evident as she gazes at the floor or out the window as she ponders then answers questions.
When asked if she can relate to the late Dennis Hopper’s (Blue Velvet) quote on playing characters who plumb the darkest depths of human nature, Rabe says: “People keep asking me, ‘What evil lurks in you to play bad characters?’” Hopper said. His comeback to that was, “There’s no evil in me, I just wear tight underwear”.
Rabe shoots back, “Well, I just wore a tight bun. Keep the bun tight!”
She laughs, but it turns out there’s some truth to what she’s saying.
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