THE LONDON FREE PRESS

TUESDAY, AUGUST 15, 2000

Lilia! a tribute to a remarkable actor

    By Sandra Coulson, Free Press Reporter

       With a tightening of the jaw and an arch of the eyebrows,

Libby Skala transforms from portraying herself as a teenager to her

grandmother.

       Lilia! is a one-woman tribute written and performed by the

younger Skala to Lilia Skala, also an actor and best known for her

Oscar-nominated performance as the Mother Superior in the 1963

film Lilies of the Field with Sidney Poitier.

       In the early going, this hour-long production appears to be a

praise-filled portrait of a plucky, sunny, perhaps naive woman. It's

almost too good to be true.

       But there are moments when Lilia Skala can be petty, mani-

pulative and snobbish, especially when she comments on her

granddaughter's interest in pursuing a theatre career.

       Lilia Skala was remarkable, not just for her acting career. She

was the first woman in Austria to become an architect.

       But instead, she followed her muse into a theatrical career. In

the 1930s, she starred in plays that subtly attacked the rising Nazi

party.

       But her partial Jewish heritage forced her, her husband, their

two sons and her sisters to flee in 1939 to the United States. "I was

not educated to be a refugee," Lilia says.

       Despite her lack of English, she perseveres in acting while

working menial jobs during the day.

       In this play, the highlight of her career is not so much her   Libby Skala stars in a

Oscar-nominated role as the role she turned down on principle.   one-woman tribute to her

       Lilia! continues in repertoire throughout the London Fringe grandmother, who starred

Theatre Festival at the Spriet Family Theatre on the mezzanine          in the 1963 film Lilies of the

level of Covent Garden Market.   Field with Sidney Poitier.

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SUNDAY, AUGUST 20, 2000

Success puts Fringe on the map

By JOE MATYAS, Free Press Arts & Entertainment Reporter

 

Excerpted from a longer article: 

Popular plays were Portrait of a Lady, based on Margaret Lawrence's Stone Angel; Lilia!, Libby Skala's tribute to her grandmother; Still Waiting for That Special Bus, Alan Shain's romantic paratransit comedy.  Those three plays were among the artistic highlights of the festival, said Mark Mooney.... "I was impressed with the quality of acting in the one-man, one-woman plays." he said.

LIBBY

SKALA

Performer Writer