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NEW YORK - Natasha Richardson may be the first actress to blithely call Sally Bowles - the divinely decadent free spirit she plays in Broadway's Cabaret revival - "a slut."
But then Richardson last came to Broadway as Anna Christie, Eugene O'Neill's shopworn prostitute. "Maybe I'm more comfortable in the gutter," she laughs.
Richardson rode that 1992 Anna Christie to critical raves, a Tony nomination and a love match in leading man Liam Neeson. Her return in Cabaret fulfills a fantasy.
"But it was one I'd never believe would come true, because for me, Sally Bowles was Liza Minnelli. . . . So I was relieved after reading the novel to see her coming through not as Liza, but as another Sally.
"I'll never have the voice Liza had. But if Sally was a great singer, she wouldn't be at the Kit Kat Klub. . . . This girl is burnt out. By the end, she's going to be finished."
An innately theatrical creature - Vanessa Redgrave is her mother - Richardson instinctively envisioned an image for her Sally.
"She's a slut and likes to call attention to herself. She would wear a slip as a dress and not mind if her stockings and her garters showed. . . . She's that odd mix of childlike and sort of sophisticated.
"I just wanted it to be like peeling away layers of a soft onion: She starts with color and froufrou . . . (but) as she disintegrates, the whole look does too."
Richardson and Neeson had planned work around family time with sons Michael, 2 1/2, and Daniel Jack, 1 1/2. "He arranged the schedule so he would be with me and take care of the babies when I was previewing. Then Cabaret got pushed back five weeks."
Now Neeson opens in London as Oscar Wilde in the play The Judas Kiss this Thursday - Cabaret's opening night.
"It's frustrating for me," says Richardson. "I have to wait a long time to see him as Oscar Wilde."
Neeson will bring Wilde to Broadway on April 29, just in time for the Tony deadline, and it's nice to fantasize that the Neesons, both nominated for Anna Christie, will both be nominees again this year.
But there's one problem: Cabaret might not be Tony-eligible, Richardson says. "The Tony committee doesn't decide until we open."
Because Cabaret is being done in a new venue, Richardson says, the issue revolves around "applying for a license," which should have been simple, only the deadline was missed.
"So who knows?"
By Stephen Schaefer, Special for USA TODAY
