Blonde Ambition

These days most performers study quite intensely to end up on the stage, but out of all the tools in a musical theatre performer's belt, there's one thing that can't really be learnt until you're there in a theatre doing your very first show: the art of the costume change. “That is quite a skill all [of] its own,” Lucy Durack says, laughing.

Durack had plenty of practice while she was playing Glinda the Good Witch in the smash hit musical Wicked, but it's in her current role of Elle Woods, the charming cheerleader-type that goes to college in Legally Blonde, where she has really had to hone her skills. “I'm quite fortunate that I have the world's greatest wig person and the world's greatest dresser,” she says. “Both of them are actually my friends. I worked with them on Wicked so we've already got a working relationship and I think that helps. Especially at the start when there's no time to get it down pat. Nobody really warned us with Legally Blonde. I have 18 costume changes and over half of them are quicker than any costume change I've ever done in any show, ever.”

Not that Durack is complaining. After performing the show in Sydney, it's obvious Durack has a lot of time for her character and she's happy to admit she shares quite a few characteristics with the ambitious Elle. “I'm not going to lie, I do love pink,” she says. “I do have a little dog of my own, I did start a law degree, and I do try to see the good in people and not judge people. I think Elle does a very good job of that. There are those similarities. I didn't grow up with that kind of wealth. I grew up in a comfortable suburban home in Perth so that's where the similarities end.”

While Durack's last show, Wicked, had a very dramatic, sad thread running through it, Legally Blonde is colourful and funny. And much to the audience's delight, every night Durack and co-star Helen Dallimore, who plays the hilarious beauty salon manicurist Paulette, get to work with Quincy, Sparrow and Luca, the dogs who play Elle's chihuahua Bruiser and Paulette's bulldog Rufus. “Luca, who plays Paulette's dog, is just delightful. I think [fellow cast member] Rob Mills has actually lost his heart to Luca. He had Luca the bulldog's face as his profile picture on Facebook for a good few months,” Durack says.

But working with animals does present challenges. “There's been no toilet issues, which has been a big relief to me,” Durack says cheerfully. “There was one show where they'd cleaned the stage with something different. It was like the dogs were ice-skating or something. They couldn't handle it. By the end of the show everyone was like, 'Oh my god'. The second the show was over the guys cleaned the stage of whatever it was and they were like, 'We won't use that again'.”

And of course there's always the regular challenge of performing a comedy live every night. “It's really hard not to giggle onstage from time to time. And nothing seems to help. The more you think, 'Stop it, you're unprofessional', the more everything seems ridiculous.”