The Guild Theatre Presents Looped

The original bad girl of the golden age of Hollywood, Tallulah Bankhead was glamorous, scandalous, always witty, and never well behaved. In the Summer of 1965, with her career and her life burning away, she spent one drunken day in a Los Angeles recording studio to record a single line, a loop, of dialogue for her final film, Die! Die! My Darling!

Tallulah Bankead lived an incredible life. She seized the stage as a teenager and made a name for herself from London to L.A. She became famous to audiences of stage, screen, television, and radio. As much as her rapier wit and powerful voices, she was known for her irrepressible passion for life as someone who refused to conform to anyone’s standards. She was determined to live life to its fullest and on her own terms. At the end of a successful career, Talulah’s increasingly self destructive behaviour made this one day of sound recording infamous in Hollywood history.

Glenda Kenyon has studied extensively for this role and enjoyed the journey of learning about her. She found that she has more in common with her subject than first appears, having played the same characters in Noel Coward’s Private Lives and Lillian Hellman’s Little Foxes, both for The Guild Theatre. Glenda enjoys the challenge of bringing this larger than life star to the intimacy of live theatre. ‘I’m not setting out to be a Tallulah impersonator. There are many. But we’re telling a story about her character, more than anything. Her outrageousness as well as her empathy… her vulnerability. I would like people to have their interest piqued in her person.’ Glenda believes the film star’s private compassion has been obscured by the stories of her wild sex life and substance abuse and that people don’t hear enough about her charity work or her generosity in the support of refugees. It is this duality of character, someone formidable and compassionate, vulnerable and unrestrained, that Glenda hopes to capture in her performance.

The Guild Theatre opens their dynamic 2020 Season with the Australian Premiere of ‘Looped’ by Matthew Lombardo. Valerie Harper created the leading role of Talulah Bankhead for the 2010 premier with a Tony nominated performance. For The Guild Theatre’s Australian Premiere, Sydney community theatre stalwart Glenda Kenyon brings the complex star to life. Glenda is joined in the production by her son Jordan and husband Greg, both very well known to community theatre audiences, making this a truly dynastic three hand show.

What: Looped

Where: The Guild Theatre

When: On Now until the 7th of March, playing Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays, and Wednesdays

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