Steve Ross: "We should all borrow from Zaza"

31 Jul 2024 - Photos by David Hou

"One hundred percent bottom," says Steve Ross, without hesitation, about Albin, the character he plays in the Stratford Festival's hit production of La Cage Aux Folles. But what about Zaza, the magnificent drag queen that Albin transforms into while singing "A Little More Mascara?" Ross pauses, "Interesting. She's at least versatile. I  never thought about that. It was always important to director Thom Allison  that these guys still after 20 years are at it like cats and dogs, which I love. It’s not a typical we have separate bedrooms kind of a relationship." That is obvious from the loving, lingering glances and the mini-monologue, sizzling with innuendo, that Albin delivers about roasting a chicken for George's dinner. "From day one we went on the suggestion that I was one of those Cagelles in perfect shape when I met George, and then over the years gravity took its course. What is that like to become an aging queen in the gay world? We all know what it's like to get older in the gay world but what is that like to have to maintain a level of success while your body is expanding?" 

Then Ross reminds me there is a third character he plays, though he doesn't offer an opinion of her sexual role. "Mother becomes a different thing, this strange hybrid of Mother was actually the easiest thing to for us to figure out because it felt like it was the closest to Albin. And it was the closest to my mom too. So it was interesting how Mother never felt like a struggle to create, but then that number, "The Best of Times," with the audience, was the hardest thing in the whole show I found. I allowed it to got in my head for a while, all of the build-up of the most famous queen on the Riviera, and I thought, that's a lot of pressure, that's a lot to live up to. Why does this aging big guy still draw them in? There are these six unbelievable dancers behind me, what is the difference? We had to really find the nuances of what is she still good at at 58 and why is she still bringing success to the club." Find it they did. While "I Am What I Am" is the big flashy number, the audience left singing "The Best of Times" where Zaza is dressed dowdily and relies completely on Ross's vocal prowess and charisma.

That achievement is the more remarkable considering that Ross's rendition of "I Am What I Am" concludes the first act with the audience stunned and in tears. "It was a long journey to get to the framework that we have now," says Ross. "We tried many different ways. On paper, it's so simple but I've never done a harder song in my life. I've never had to be so technical while acting at the same time. It's fascinating that every version I've seen is so angry from the beginning and just gets angrier. I didn't understand it. There's such a level of hurt, it seems, how that song starts. It always felt to me like there has to be something for the first time in this poor neurotic man's life that I am thinking clearly and that I have to take away something from myself, as opposed to just this, 'Fuck you, everyone. I am what I am' kind of thing. I tried to make it work, but I couldn't ever make it. It never felt believable. I tried to approach it as a soliloquy and I think we got further there. It didn't really start to come together until I had an audience to genuinely talk to. I depend greatly on genuinely talking to the audience every night."

Though he is renowned for his powerful voice, Ross insists he's not a trained singer. "I don't ever come at it from, then I will hit the E and hold it and stuff like that. My brain doesn't work that way. So all I do is try to try to figure out the bones of it.  And then I, I put whatever I can on top of it. The great thing is where this role sits. George Hearn  has the same vocal range as me. So the original keys sit so nicely in my range, which is lucky. I’ve always had a bit of imposter syndrome with singing because I’m not trained. Even at theatre school, when they discovered that I could sing, I said, 'Great, can we, can we capitalize on this?' And, and they said, 'No, we're, we're a real classical theatre school.'  I'm very happy with the route that I've taken." It is what makes Ross's rendition of "I Am What I Am" so extraordinary,  it is a great vocal performance, but the performance comes first. 

He insists that he had help putting the number into an emotional context. "I think the sequence from that monologue where I'm off stage and Georges reveals the whole story, I think that's where it starts. That whole section through to me walking out of the theatre, I think that whole section is brilliant writing that you can just kind of rely on. It's a battleship of a song. I had no idea. And then there was one add that wasn't in the writing, which was so generous of Sean Arbuckle who plays Georges. When I'm with the girls trying not to acknowledge it and doing the number, and then Sean pokes his head out. That was such a . . . I cried the first time he did it, because it was perfect. And for me, it's the straw that breaks the camel's back. Which is why I stop the orchestra, why I send the girls off stage. I've never received such a generous offer from another actor. And he stands in the wings and watches every night the way that Georges would. I mean, I can't say enough about that man. He's my whole show Mr. Arbuckle. The second they announced the show, I thought, he has to play that role. Because it's his story. It's really his arc and I am along for the ride. I don't deny that it's the two of us as a story, but it's really his story of betraying me and coming home. Betraying me and coming back and getting me back."  

Intriguingly, Ross might have played Georges. "I auditioned for both the guys," says Ross. "When they announced it, I wrote to Thom, who has been a friend for 25 years, and said, 'Look, I tick a lot of boxes, but I don't honestly know if Albin is my wheelhouse.' And he said, 'No, I think you should audition for both.' So I went in for both. And weirdly, the Georges role which I thought was the the better fit was not a good fit even in the audition. I could feel it. So it worked the other way and then the great work began,  Because it was not my world that whole drag world. I did a gender reversed Guys and Dolls and I did a panto where I played the dame, but they were not nearly the deep dive that this ended up being. This is a real a diva drag role. It's bananas. I didn't realize the level of effort and output it would require because it is truly a star turn. I don't you can play that, but it's the level that it requires. When you were 65-75 better, it still wasn't enough; I felt like I was cheating the audience. I just don't want to go in anything but 100 percent. It's meant a very monk-like season so far, which is fine with me because I'm a hermit to begin with."

Aside from the practicalities of singing and dancing in heels and wearing fabulous gowns and wigs, "I essentially had to create two characters, which I didn’t realize I would have to do. Thom in the first week was watching me work and very astutely said, ‘This is all great, but in order for "I Am What I Am" to have the impact, Albin is going to have to be way gayer than Steve is. I'm a failed gay in many ways and I'm just not used to that outward  presenting as a gay man. I think I've played gay twice in my whole career. I've made a thing of being straight presenting and I've had a career of playing straight roles, so it was really interesting  to dial up the gay and then to dial up the power for Zaza." But Zaza wasn't complete until he found her spirit diva. "Thom had me do research about all sorts of '30s, '40s, and '50s iconic women. He just kept throwing out names like Bette Davis, Auntie Mame, Rosalind Russell, all these people. He said, 'Eventually you will find someone who you truly relate to and that you want to mimic on stage.' And we did. We found this woman Dolores Gray, who's perfection. Even into her 80s had a great cabaret career. She's one of those ones with a waist that's cinched, but her moves were perfection. She's the one that I couldn't stop talking about. Thom said 'There you go, I knew you'd find one,' and both Cameron Carver the choreographer and Thom embraced that and they sort of got into her as well. As a trio we came up with with with a real kind of Dolores-based Zaza."

Another timeless icon also gets homaged. "They don't all get it but the gays do. Pride Month it went well," says Ross with a laugh. "I would say that 25 percent of the audience gets it on a nightly basis .If you stay the course, they will just find it an interesting little comic turn, they don't know it's Marlene Dietrich. They just find it a bizarre little thing. 'What's she doing? Oh, okay, we'll go along with it' and they go with me. But they have no clue who she is. Even coming on as iconic as that. The furs are actually four throw rugs from Amazon, and they made this unbelievable looking thing we call the Yeti, it weighs about 40 pounds, but it's so beautiful. And then that dress that they recreated and the wig and stuff.  It's so good. We went back and forth. Thom said, 'Well, maybe we should cut the monologue,' but we stayed the course and it has it has become either something that that older gay folks get, or it doesn't detract from anything."

Which brings up audience reaction to the show's joyful gayness. "We're so pleased that that for the most part at matinees the older crowds are truly really embracing it," says Ross. "When I take George's hand in the café scene, I can see husbands take their wives' hands. We're on to something which is great, because there was a concern that our audience, our demographic is a bit strait-laced. I know for a fact that people don't particularly research the musicals here, they just go, 'I'll come see the musical.' And then all of a sudden go, 'What am I looking at?' But then again, they've all seen Drag Race, they probably have a grandkid who's a fanatic, so there's some point of reference." And there is another special skill that Ross possesses. "I seem to have made a career out of bridging the everyman in the audience," he says. He explains by referring to his other role this season, Shylock in the uber-musical Something Rotten!. "Director Donna Feore has always said my strength is being the bridge to the husbands who then leave the leave the show and go, 'I can do that.' It's why she makes me dance in a lot of her shows. She said, 'You are the relatable one, you're not the perfect-looking, perfect, moving one, but you're out there. That's why in Crazy For You she had me dancing every number. So I wonder if my Albin, my Zaza is a bit of a bridge. I look at some of those queens on Drag Race and they're so perfect. And if I'm not, I think that's really interesting, and I think it's great that Thom let me explore the flaws as well."

Albin/Zaza is a demanding role so Something Rotten! is "almost like a vacation," says Ross. "Not that it's not work, there's still rigor to it. It was so fun to create because I love working with Donna so much. She leaves no stone unturned, so there are no small roles in her shows, and we have a gas. We're very proud of that show, I think it's a perfect fit for this place, for the musical nerds and the Shakespeare nerds. It's our demographic and they're getting every musical theatre reference. It's very fun from night to night to see who gets what." Because the festival runs on a repertory system, everyone plays a role in more than one show. It is part of the appeal for Ross who has been part of the Stratford troupe for 16 years. "I never came here to be a star," he says despite La Cage aux Folles making him the star of the season. "I came here because I got to. There was the potential of doing plays and musicals in one place,  which is all I really wanted. I came here from my theatre school, came on a trip, and I saw Scott Wentworth play Macduff in the Scottish Play and then Sky Masterson in the same season. I sort of went, 'Oh wait, I didn't know this existed,' so it was immediately on my radar that way. I feel so lucky to bounce back and forth between plays and musicals, it's not a common thing, there's a small list of us who get to do it,"

Ross doesn't know what next year's roles might be. The plays and musicals have yet to be revealed. "There's rumors flying around, but the auditions haven't started. They're a bit late this year. I have auditioned as early as opening week. I auditioned for Guys and Dolls on my opening day of Crazy for You. I guess it's all about the director's schedules. All we've had is a save the date for August 5th.  But we don't even know what we're auditioning for. It was just that the musical will be auditioned on August 5th, so who knows? We'll see. You usually do a musical and a play or you do two musicals. It varies. It goes back and forth. When I first came here, you did a musical and two Shakespeares, which was amazing. You did three. But it shifted over the years into doing two musicals because they could then get more bang for their buck and you're ultimately doing a full eight show week of four and four."

Like all the best repertory companies, Stratford manages to avoid having a star system. Ross refers to some of the company as the "upper echelon" but everyone is in the trenches together. In the short off-season he takes on roles with other companies but he has also started a new endeavour as a playwright. "It's very exciting. Who knew? It's all I want to talk about," he says despite having waxed philosophical about La Cage aux Folles and the art of musical theatre for close to an hour. "I started during the pandemic. You could knock me over with a feather that my stuff is getting produced. I love it so much. It's a totally different form of creation and the sense of control. I don't have rules because because I wasn't trained, but I also feel that having been in the business for 32 years I have been around good writing enough that I was able to skip some steps. I know what I like on my ear, I know what rhythm I like, and I think that let me get in the fast lane quicker." 

Ross is actually going to see his latest play 12 Dinners for the first time that evening. Produced by Stratford's Here For Now Theatre, his excitement is evident. As are his nerves. "They've been so supportive. This is the third of mine that they've done. I'm baffled, but it's it's so great. It's so interesting to to not only be doing it as a hobby, but  to all of a sudden have people go yeah let's do it . . . It's fascinating to me as it'll be the first time I see it tonight, I wasn't able to be there for most of the rehearsals so I'm very interested to see what they've done with it." Ross momentarily exhibits a bit of Albin's insecurities before rallying with a big smile that beams that special charismatic magic that has allowed Zaza, "this aging big guy," to triumph in a hostile world. He realizes it and laughs heartily, "We should all borrow from Zaza."