‘I’m not scared to go ugly,” says Robyn Scott about becoming 78-year-old Jewish granny, Rosa. The transformation from a youthful 37-year-old to wrinkled, stooped Rosa for the production London Road takes Scott only 40 minutes, and relies on her acclaimed acting skills, a swath of make-up, and a whiff of Blue Grass perfume.
She conducts this routine every day at 9am in the residence room that is her home for the Festival.
‘Making these wrinkles is a bitch,” she says, removing a brush from her Marilyn Monroe make-up bag.
Much like the face painters at the Village Green, Scott draws black lines on her youthful face, but instead of turning her into Spider Man, these black lines are smudged to form the basis of Rosa’s sunken skin.
London Road, directed by Lara Bye, tells the story of two women living in a Sea Point apartment block.
The ritual of putting on the make-up helps Scott to centre herself and reflect on her character before going on to the stage. Scott only spent two lessons with a professional make-up artist, but she uses the sponge resembling steel wool quite masterfully to create broken veins on her cheeks.
Scott lines her eyes with a red pencil to make them look tired and heavy. Even her hands are aged with foundation powder, turning everything she touches to beige. During the application process, Scott bounces between her own exuberant sense of humour – ‘Darling!” – and Rosa’s elderly rants, contorting her face to make her aged features even more apparent.
Nthombi Makhutshi, Scott’s co-star in London Road, helps to cover her plaited blonde hair with a dull-coloured brunette-and-grey wig.
‘I’m a wig person. As soon as the wig is on, I really become the character.”
In return, Scott assists Makhutsi with her make-up, darkening her eyebrows and applying charcoal eye-shadow to give her some Nigerian glamour. ‘Let’s give her some lippy and we’re done,” Scott says, before heading out on foot across town to the Princess Alice Hall with Makhutsi.
Despite her aged features, Scott walks with the vigour of her real age, earning some surprised looks from passersby. On stage, Scott’s makeover is especially convincing, helped by the soft lighting and Rosa’s distinctive hunched posture. Scott’s ‘darling” is replaced by Rosa’s scratchy, ‘Deary, deary, deary”. Rosa embodies key sentimental elements of the elderly we all know and adore. ‘You see this play, and afterwards, you just want to call your mum.”