For her second act, former journalist takes on Tallulah in 'Looped'
Having left journalism behind five years ago, Margie Boule, the award-winning columnist and TV personality, dove right back into one of her other passions in life.
"When I started my career, I had to choose whether I wanted to go into journalism, or performing," she says. "I chose journalism, and I did performing during the margins of the day."
Retired from journalism, and several theater productions and an aggressive leap into playwriting later, Boule has taken on maybe her most difficult role, as the famed and flamboyant actress and talk show maven Tallulah Bankhead in Triangle Productions' "Looped."
It's based on the real life story of Bankhead and a 1965 session in which she was supposed to re-record a line for a movie, "Die! Die! My Darling!," that turned into an inebriated and honest and hilarious eight-hour breakdown of her very interesting life all caught on tape by the recording engineer, unbeknown to Tallulah. The whole scene was turned into a play once the recording had been discovered about 10 years ago.
Coming from a powerful and political Alabama family, Bankhead was the original party girl, a libertine, and known for her deep voice and her fake British accent.
Needless to say, it has been a challenging character for Boule, who remembers Bankhead from her childhood: "I was a child in the '50s, and I knew she was actress, and said 'Dah-ling' a lot and had a fake accent."
"This was a challenge because of playing a woman who was almost a caricature of herself in real life," Boule says. "I watched nearly every movie of hers I could get my hands on, and found a cache of radio shows she hosted in 1950 and '51 ... and read three biographies and her autobiography, and studied still photographs." Boule would practice her speech and her movements and her looks.
"I've spent hundreds of hours preparing for this part," Boule adds, "more than any other play, and I've done more than 100. Just because I want to get it right."
So, Boule hopes audiences enjoy the portrayal when "Looped" hits the stage, Sept. 3 through 26, at The Sanctuary at Sandy Plaza, 1785 N.E. Sandy Blvd. (tickets $15-$35, trianglepro.org).
"It's a really, really funny play. But, it's poignant," she adds.
Since concluding her 23-year stint as a columnist at The Oregonian in 2010, Boule not only acts in about three to five shows per year, she continues to write ... and write ... and write. She had a play about adult survivors of child sex abuse, "Telling," premiere at the old Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center, starring seven true survivors. She has five plays in the works, including a spoof about her stint as host of "AM Northwest" on KATU in the 1970s and '80s, where she also anchored the afternoon news. It's called "Up the Tube." Theater companies are interested in her works.
Boule has done three other productions with Triangle, and some for the likes of Lakewood Theatre Company and Broadway Rose Theatre Company. She really appreciates Triangle and Don Horn, founder and director.
"Don Horn has the magical ability to persuade people to allow (Triangle) to do plays that they won't allow other companies to do across the country," Boule says. "They've had so many West Coast, Oregon and Portland premieres and, in some cases, world premieres. They can get rights on things nobody can get rights for."
During her journalism days, Boule remained active in the performing arts with theater, singing, radio drama, voiceovers and the like, including singing with Pink Martini.
She enjoyed her time in television. "I always called it 'play for pay,'" says Boule, who tried to do her part in helping TV talk show and news women shed the "Barbie doll" stereotype.
She misses the newspaper business, even as it has changed dramatically through Internet and social media competition and shrinking budgets.
Journalism has come a long way since the town crier, she says, and "it'll continue to change people will decry the day when they say they're not getting the news from the old Internet anymore."
Boule has joined the Facebook and Twitter generation, and she has filled in recently on the "Mark and Dave Show" on KPAM 860 AM.
"I really believe that you make your own happiness," she says. "Even in the face of being laid off (from The Oregonian), I've had some of the best times in my life in the past five years. It's extremely cornball, but I believe in gratitude.
"I'm 64, and I'm proud of it," she says. "I grew out my gray hair. I didn't want to be one of those women with an old face and black hair, trying to pretend to be younger."