Iconic actor and cabaret artist* Paul Capsis rushed to Melbourne in February this year to perform in The Who's Tommy**- but not before his debut recording as a narrator in his first audiobook.
’This feels like a new era in my work,’ he said, after weeks of training in a covid-safe studio during the last lockdown in Sydney. Versatility is the keyword used for Paul’s career, which has spanned stage, screen, cabaret, and singing. So narrating audiobooks?
‘I could see that Paul was absolutely owning this new form of ‘performance’. He has greasepaint in his blood, I swear,’ says Maria Issaris, saying that during the training with Paul that she ‘basked' in all that was Paul as a ‘creative’.
‘It was amazing to witness his analysis of the roles he was playing,’ she said. ‘He was also working out the technology, and at the same time being a truly engaging and impassioned human to hang out with.’
And the difference between performing and narrating? ’There is a fluidity to narrating,’ says Issaris who is breaking new ground in audio book production for independent publishers and authors, ’the performing element is still there, up front and centre, but it is tempered by the need to ease the listener into a story, allow them to settle into a whole other world very intimately.’
Of Paul Capsis’ voice she says, ‘Pauls voice over the mike - its extraordinary. You can never tell how a person is going to sound over the airwaves. For Paul, the mike picks up levels of velvet undertones that come across soothingly even when there is a lot fo drama going on.’
And were there any surpasses in hearing Paul narrate a story?
‘O yes,' she said,’ hearing Paul narrate the character of an Aussie farmer was an incredible surprise - he just owned it. His range is astonishing.’
Paul Capsis is working with audiobooks@radio, and narration of manuscripts is organised via maria@audioboks@radio.com.au
*Just a note: it is official! Paul was awarded the title of Cabaret Festival Icon at the 2021 Adelaide Cabaret Festival
** - Paul played The Acid Queen in the Victorian Opera’s production of Tommy.