Singin' the booze

>> Lac Brome brings Big Mama Thornton back to life

by AMY BARRATT

Blues singer Big Mama Thornton was six-feet tall, deep-voiced and, at least in her later years, chose to wear men's clothing. But if you automatically jumped to the conclusion she was a lesbian based on that physical description, performer Amanda Strawn has a bone to pick with you.

"People see the suit and presume all kinds of things," says Strawn, who is portraying Willie Mae Thornton in Big Mama, at Theatre Lac Brome in Knowlton this summer. "I'm sensitive to that because people see my skin colour and presume all kinds of things about me, none of which are true."

Initially, when Lac Brome artistic director Nicholas Pynes called to offer her the role, Strawn had reservations. "I didn't want to be some big black mama singin' the blues and gettin' drunk," she says, "and I honestly didn't think I was right for the part."

For starters, there's the physical thing: Big Mama was six feet tall and weighed 300 pounds in her heyday. Strawn is tall, and deep of voice, but the 43-year-old actress/singer is in great shape. (She credits rock-hard biceps to her 22-month-old son, Ben.)

Thornton is best known for having a number one R&B hit with "Hound Dog" in 1953, three years before Elvis turned it into a rock 'n' roll song, and an even bigger hit. She died alone in a Los Angeles rooming house at the age of 57, hard living having wasted her body to an emaciated 95 pounds. In the decade before her death in 1984, she often played Montreal's now-defunct Rising Sun blues club.

It is the later years that Strawn has chosen to portray in Audrei Karien's play. She fought to wear the man's suit instead of the frilly dress and "fat suit" that the director originally envisioned. As for Thornton's sexuality, Strawn says she still doesn't know for sure if Big Mama had female lovers, but in Karien's version of events, there were definitely boyfriends. According to the script, fellow singer Johnny Ace, who shot himself in a game of Russian roulette while Thornton looked on, was the love of her life.

Suprisingly, Strawn confesses she's no fan of the blues. But she says that's where the acting comes in. She started listening to Thornton recordings two months before heading down to Knowlton, and although she can't claim to have fallen in love with the style, she has internalized it to the point where she can reproduce the gravelly voice of a classic blues shouter. It's eerily unlike her normal sound, which is round and mellow and resonates from here to next week.

A native of Los Angeles, Strawn is a great believer in "that little voice you hear inside" that tells you to do things that seem at best impractical, at worst crazy. It told her to propose to a man two hours after she met him on Hollywood Boulevard, and they've been together 14 years.

More recently, the voice helped her nail her characterization of Big Mama, an alcoholic whose poison of choice was gin and milk. "Right before opening night I heard a voice telling me to go get a bottle of gin, and I kept telling it 'no, no' but finally I went and got the gin and had two shots before the show. And I found her. I found her in there." :

Big Mama runs to August 19 at Theatre Lac Brome. Box office (450) 242-2270