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November 30, 2001
Talkin' Sass
Jordan trades rock for role in Vagina MonologuesBy PAT ST. GERMAIN
Claiming disappointment that her half-time performance at last Sunday's Grey Cup Game didn't air on TV -- "They were too busy playing replays and showing somebody's arse pick," -- Jordan is in sassy overdrive during an interview about her role in The Vagina Monologues at the Walker Theatre Dec. 4 - 9. Peppering her conversation with gravel-voiced bursts of laughter, Jordan jokes over the phone line from Montreal that having said the c-word during her performance in the Toronto production, her biggest worry for the Winnipeg show is that she'll mispronounce the V-word. "I had this friend, just a hysterically funny friend from Manchester, England and she had this thing, she'd say, '... the vageena, dahling,' " she explains. "I've heard every name there is by this time." One of dozens of celebrity players -- Jann Arden performed in the Winnipeg production in April and everyone from Alanis Morissette to Jane Fonda to Oprah has done it in the U.S. -- Jordan says she needed convincing to take part in playwright Eve Ensler's blockbuster the first time around. "I think I read something about it in the newspaper at least six or eight months before, and all I really noticed of course was the title and the title instantly turned me off," she says. "I thought they were just trying to get attention. And then I was approached to do it and I was like, 'No way.' "So then I went to see it and then everything changed. I was sitting in the audience going, 'You could not pay me to say that stuff,' and that's why I did it -- it became a challenge." It also became an enriching experience. Jordan, 39, says audiences were made up of people of all stripes, from gay men to 15-year-old boys to people "as old as you could get without dying in the aisle." "People wanted to hug you afterward because it was sort of taking the vageena out of the closet. It's a celebratory piece, it's very empowering," she says. "It's really an amazing piece, it's inspiring, it's funny, it's touching and by the end every single night we got a standing ovation." Joined by American touring actresses Tracey A. Leigh and Amy Love for the latest production -- Walker Theatre spokesman Wayne Jackson says there was a huge demand for a repeat after a near sell-out run in April -- Jordan has a tight schedule on opening day Tuesday. The Juno Award-winning singer has a Las Vegas gig in The Voices of Classic Rock, with Spencer Davis, Glenn Hughes (Deep Purple) and other acts Monday night. She overnights to Winnipeg via Chicago and heads straight to rehearsal from the airport. Following early '90s hits Racine and Rats, Jordan toured widely before marrying guitarist Derek Sharp and welcoming daughter Stella Charlotte into the world in 1997. When her latest album, Hot Gossip, was released last year, she told reporters she'd changed the spelling of her name to Sas because she was sick of seeing it shortened to ass on billboards. She now says that tall tale was all in fun, but it's hard to put behind her. Prior to The Vagina Monologues, she won a guest role on NBC's Sisters, playing a character in rehab -- "I played a singer, but it was a big stretch because this girl was so uncool -- but while she is now developing a talk-type TV show, she doesn't plan to pursue acting in a big way. "It's circumstantial, it depends on whether or not it looks like it's going to be fun," she says, adding acting and singing are pretty much interchangeable. "The only thing I don't think I could do is Riverdance." |
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