Courageous Cast Perform To Honour Their 'Theatre Father'

Let's go on with the show

Roger Franklin
October 03, 2008 12:00am

THEATRE will always be about illusion, but last night at the Regent it was the rarest species of courage that also trod the boards.

Throughout the day, as news of Rob Guest's fatal stroke sank in, shaken performers were stealing themselves for the rough night ahead.

Like friend and fellow thespian Marina Prior, they did it by recalling his warmth and humour and laughing between tears about Guest's funny little ways, like his habit of playing his own songs to "warm up" before a show.

Most of all they did it by reminding each other that Guest was a trouper who never missed a curtain during more than 2000 performances in the Phantom of the Opera.

"Rob was the ultimate professional. He would go on whatever," said Prior, Guest's Phantom leading lady.
"He was the sort of person who would lift everyone else, no matter what went wrong."

And last night, even in death and with his name already removed from the cast list by the door, that same magic remained a shining light.

"We are grieving as a family for our wonderful 'Wizard'," producer John Frost told the audience before the show.

"Tonight we are dedicating this performance to the father figure of this company."

Before the show, some patrons were a little dubious.
"Disappointed? Of course we're disappointed," said Nicci Ramsay, who flew from Sydney with her husband to catch the show. But she had little to worry about.

Within seconds of the first bars rising from the pit, where Guest's partner and musical director Kellie Dickerson normally conducts the orchestra, the illusion was working.
Greasepaint hid the tracks of the actors' tears and the glare of footlights made it impossible to notice eyes turned red from grief.

On a cloud of stage smoke, Collins St was lifted all the way over the rainbow to Oz, where understudy Rod Dobson now fills the Wizard's shoes, and the night ended with a two-minute standing ovation.

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24439423-2862,00.html