Virginia Gay’s Calamity Jane promises audiences a rough and ready ride to the Wild West

If you’re a teeny bit introverted, you should avoid the front row seats at the Sydney musical starring Virginia Gay in the title role of Calamity Jane.

Actor Virginia Gay is starring as Calamity Jane at Belvoir St Theatre in Sydney. Picture: Toby Zerna

IF you’re a teeny bit introverted, you should avoid the front row seats at the Sydney musical starring Virginia Gay in the title role of Calamity Jane.

“We have complete disregard for the fourth wall,” booms the exuberant Gay, using the theatrical term for the invisible shield between stage actors and their audience.

“We move in and around the audience. You’re in the show with us.”

And watch out, because spontaneous antics have included a random audience member being chosen to play the barman for the night.

Welcome to the Wild West, with Gay as your ringmaster.

Calamity Jane the musical was adapted from the stage play by Charles K. Freeman that was written after the 1953 Warner Bros film starring Doris Day.

Virginia Gay as Calamity Jane, which opened last night at Belvoir in Sydney. Picture: supplied

The musical celebrates American frontierswoman, Martha Jane Cannary (Calamity Jane) who was born in Missouri in 1852.

Jane shot and swaggered her blokey way into history, having worked as everything from a dance-hall girl to an ox-team driver.

She was involved in military campaigns against Native American Indians and appeared in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show.

The Doris Day film remains a much-loved classic with fans, as Virginia Gay discovered last year when the show sold out at Hayes Theatre Co.

“They come to our show going, ‘don’t you touch our Doris Day’,” Gay says.

“And they leave hugging us and laughing with us.”

There’s not much Doris in Gay’s rambunctious rendition of Calamity Jane, which is now on a national tour.

As Gay says, they’ve shaken the show up, dragged it out of 1953, and turned its face towards the reality of women in 2018.

“We see the world in more layers and nuance now,” Gay says.

“It’s important when you’re carrying old stories to put a lens that says, ‘we’re not endorsing 1950s gender roles’. We’re saying, ‘let’s take this with a dose of salt and a wry smile and let’s see how we can subvert it’.”

There was “no language” to describe queer women in the 1800s, Gay says. So it’s hard to prove the stories that Calamity Jane had relationships with women as well as with men.

“She wore men’s clothing in public in a time when it was absolutely not de rigueur to do that,” Gay says.

Virginia Gay as Calamity Jane with fellow cast members Tony Taylor (left) and Anthony Gooley. Picture: supplied

One of the musical’s songs, A Woman’s Touch, has become an important queer text, Gay says.

The historical reality of Jane’s sexuality doesn’t really matter, in the end.

“What’s important is that (A Woman’s Touch) has become real to queer women post-1960,” she says.

“And we have to honour that. To say, thank you for allowing us to tell this story.”

The other cast members are Laura Bunting, Anthony Gooley, Sheridan Harbridge, Rob Johnson, Matthew Pearce and Tony Taylor.

The casting process turned out to be quite funny because all the actors are required to play instruments on stage.

“We were looking for people who were confident improvisers, great comedians, had heart and could sing,” Gay says.

“But we were also like, ‘what can you play?’

“I hope it doesn’t blow too many jokes to say there is a tuba solo (Rob Johnson) that will take your breath away.”

Calamity Jane, Belvoir St Theatre, 18 Belvoir St, Surry Hills; until September 30, $77, seniors $67, concession $54, 30 and under $47, student Saver $37, belvoir.com.au

Originally published as Virginia Gay’s Calamity Jane promises audiences a rough and ready ride to the Wild West