Best known from hit 1980s TV series Hart To Hart, Stefanie Powers talks to What’s On about her current role, starring as Helene Hanff in an adaptation of 84 Charing Cross Road which this month visits Wolverhampton...
In these days of Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat, the thought of communicating by letter may seem like an alien concept. But for Helene Hanff, author of the 1970 novel 84 Charing Cross Road, the stage version of which opens in Wolverhampton this month, this was how she satisfied literary urges that couldn’t be met on the other side of the Atlantic.
84 Charing Cross Road focuses on the epistolary relationship between Hanff and Frank Doel, manager of Marks & Co, the London book shop that shipped titles to her Manhattan home for two decades.
In this production, Clive Francis plays the part of Doel, while Stefanie Powers takes on the role of Hanff. The two actors are reprising their roles following the play’s run in Cambridge 18 months ago.
According to Powers, they’re hoping to give the piece a contemporary tweak: “At the time the play was written [in 1981], the book was a bestseller, and the adaptation played for audiences that had read the book - but today, that’s no longer relevant. We need to bring some freshness to it that will make it more relevant.”
The play sees each of the characters reading their respective letters. Unlike in other two-handers, the pair never interact. For Powers, this has created a curious on-stage chemistry with Francis: “There’s an extremely unusual rapport there, because we can’t look at each other on the stage, but I can feel that he’s there.”
For Powers, it’s not the first time she’s faced the challenge of performing a two-handed piece in the theatre. She appeared with Robert Wagner, her co-star in hit 1980s TV series Hart To Hart, in Love Letters by AR Gurney in the 1990s.
“People always said, ‘Oh, Love Letters is like 84 Charing Cross Road, and in a certain way I suppose it is, but in very different circumstances, as the two actors who read the letters were sitting side by side at a table on a stage.”
84 Charing Cross Road covers the post-war years from 1949 to the end of the 1960s, an era that fascinates Powers. “I think it’s a lovely snapshot of the period, of what was going on in both of their lives, what was going on in their time zones, and the changing times as they’re reflected upon by these two people. So it’s a very nostalgic piece and not without ironic humour.”
The play explores the cultural divide that exists between Britain and the US, an aspect of the script that appealed to the California-born Powers. “I think there’s a great deal of humour, so I think it will make an awful lot of people chuckle. The journey that these two people are on can be related to by all ages and all demographics, and the humour comes naturally out of the human condition and the circumstances.”
As a lover of book shops who admits that she “can’t leave without buying”, Powers finds the musty attraction of second-hand emporiums irresistible. “One of the advantages of owning books that have been read before is that it’s always fascinating when you open a book that’s been nicely bound and it falls open to places which the previous reader has either bookmarked or read most often.”
For many readers of 84 Charing Cross Road, the fact that Hanff and Doel only ever communicate by letter is the enduring appeal of the story, as they might well have enjoyed similar relationships with pen friends in far-flung parts of the world.
Powers recognises the benefit of sharing ideas globally in her role as president of the William Holden Wildlife Foundation. She set up the charity to continue the conservation work of long-time partner Holden following his untimely death in 1981.
“We have a pen pal programme, and it’s an interesting exercise for the kids in the scheme, who don’t have smart phones, who don’t take selfies, who live, for the most part, in houses that don’t have electricity and water and walk to school on dirt roads. It’s been extraordinary over the years since we started the programme to see just how much of an effect it’s made on the children who participate.”
Of course, for many theatregoers, it will be Powers’ portrayal of Jennifer Hart in Hart To Hart that will have lured them to the box office: “It’s flattering. I had the good fortune of being in front of the public at a time when people had tremendous loyalty to the actors they saw on television. It was a much smaller world with fewer choices. It was on Sunday evenings in the UK and whole families would be sitting around the television. It was a different world and we didn’t have 200 channels to surf.”
And it appears that the chemistry which Powers enjoyed on screen with co-star Wagner remains as strong as ever: “We still make each other laugh. There’s an invisible button that we seem to press in each other. It’s wonderful. I adore him, and he’s a treasure in my life.”
Powers recalls a childhood photograph snapped at her dance class that includes two friends who would eventually form even stronger links with Wagner: “Jill (St John), Natalie [Wood] and I were in the same ballet class, and I have a photograph of us. There’s Natalie, looking absolutely gorgeous, and Jill - but it’s quite extraordinary that those three girls in that photograph were all married to Robert Wagner. I was his television wife and the other two girls were his real wives. Isn’t that crazy?!”
84 Charing Cross Road runs at the Wolverhampton Grand Theatre from Tuesday 29 May until Saturday 2 June.
Best known from hit 1980s TV series Hart To Hart, Stefanie Powers talks to What’s On about her current role, starring as Helene Hanff in an adaptation of 84 Charing Cross Road which this month visits Wolverhampton...
In these days of Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat, the thought of communicating by letter may seem like an alien concept. But for Helene Hanff, author of the 1970 novel 84 Charing Cross Road, the stage version of which opens in Wolverhampton this month, this was how she satisfied literary urges that couldn’t be met on the other side of the Atlantic.
84 Charing Cross Road focuses on the epistolary relationship between Hanff and Frank Doel, manager of Marks & Co, the London book shop that shipped titles to her Manhattan home for two decades.
In this production, Clive Francis plays the part of Doel, while Stefanie Powers takes on the role of Hanff. The two actors are reprising their roles following the play’s run in Cambridge 18 months ago.
According to Powers, they’re hoping to give the piece a contemporary tweak: “At the time the play was written [in 1981], the book was a bestseller, and the adaptation played for audiences that had read the book - but today, that’s no longer relevant. We need to bring some freshness to it that will make it more relevant.”
The play sees each of the characters reading their respective letters. Unlike in other two-handers, the pair never interact. For Powers, this has created a curious on-stage chemistry with Francis: “There’s an extremely unusual rapport there, because we can’t look at each other on the stage, but I can feel that he’s there.”
For Powers, it’s not the first time she’s faced the challenge of performing a two-handed piece in the theatre. She appeared with Robert Wagner, her co-star in hit 1980s TV series Hart To Hart, in Love Letters by AR Gurney in the 1990s.
“People always said, ‘Oh, Love Letters is like 84 Charing Cross Road, and in a certain way I suppose it is, but in very different circumstances, as the two actors who read the letters were sitting side by side at a table on a stage.”
84 Charing Cross Road covers the post-war years from 1949 to the end of the 1960s, an era that fascinates Powers. “I think it’s a lovely snapshot of the period, of what was going on in both of their lives, what was going on in their time zones, and the changing times as they’re reflected upon by these two people. So it’s a very nostalgic piece and not without ironic humour.”
The play explores the cultural divide that exists between Britain and the US, an aspect of the script that appealed to the California-born Powers. “I think there’s a great deal of humour, so I think it will make an awful lot of people chuckle. The journey that these two people are on can be related to by all ages and all demographics, and the humour comes naturally out of the human condition and the circumstances.”
As a lover of book shops who admits that she “can’t leave without buying”, Powers finds the musty attraction of second-hand emporiums irresistible. “One of the advantages of owning books that have been read before is that it’s always fascinating when you open a book that’s been nicely bound and it falls open to places which the previous reader has either bookmarked or read most often.”
For many readers of 84 Charing Cross Road, the fact that Hanff and Doel only ever communicate by letter is the enduring appeal of the story, as they might well have enjoyed similar relationships with pen friends in far-flung parts of the world.
Powers recognises the benefit of sharing ideas globally in her role as president of the William Holden Wildlife Foundation. She set up the charity to continue the conservation work of long-time partner Holden following his untimely death in 1981.
“We have a pen pal programme, and it’s an interesting exercise for the kids in the scheme, who don’t have smart phones, who don’t take selfies, who live, for the most part, in houses that don’t have electricity and water and walk to school on dirt roads. It’s been extraordinary over the years since we started the programme to see just how much of an effect it’s made on the children who participate.”
Of course, for many theatregoers, it will be Powers’ portrayal of Jennifer Hart in Hart To Hart that will have lured them to the box office: “It’s flattering. I had the good fortune of being in front of the public at a time when people had tremendous loyalty to the actors they saw on television. It was a much smaller world with fewer choices. It was on Sunday evenings in the UK and whole families would be sitting around the television. It was a different world and we didn’t have 200 channels to surf.”
And it appears that the chemistry which Powers enjoyed on screen with co-star Wagner remains as strong as ever: “We still make each other laugh. There’s an invisible button that we seem to press in each other. It’s wonderful. I adore him, and he’s a treasure in my life.”
Powers recalls a childhood photograph snapped at her dance class that includes two friends who would eventually form even stronger links with Wagner: “Jill (St John), Natalie [Wood] and I were in the same ballet class, and I have a photograph of us. There’s Natalie, looking absolutely gorgeous, and Jill - but it’s quite extraordinary that those three girls in that photograph were all married to Robert Wagner. I was his television wife and the other two girls were his real wives. Isn’t that crazy?!”
84 Charing Cross Road runs at the Wolverhampton Grand Theatre from Tuesday 29 May until Saturday 2 June.