DARIEN NEWS~REVIEW

August 11, 2005

Generation Gap: Granddaughter Plays Grandmother

Libby Skala has performed "Lilia!," her solo show about her grandmother, the actress Lilia Skala, before, but never in the very setting that first brought her grandparents to America.

Now, after a successful run with The Mirror Repertory Co. this spring, the show will be presented for one performance only, Tuesday, Aug. 23, aboard the oldest running ferry in the world, the Yankee Ferry in Tribeca, which served Ellis Island during the height of immigration to America.

In this autobiographical solo show, Libby Skala, who grew up in Darien, portrays her indomitable immigrant grandmother and tells the story of a woman who overcame extraordinary odds.  Viennese-born Lilia Skala became Austria's first female architect, a stage star in Max Reinhardt's theater, and then a penniless refugee from Hitler.

After coming to America, she worked her way out of a New York zipper factory to a career starring on Broadway, television and film.  She collected award nominations for her performances in "Roseland" (Golden Globe), "Eleanor and Franklin" (Emmy) and, most notably, 1963 Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations for her role as Mother Superior in "Lilies of the Field" opposite Sidney Poitier.

As a child, Libby Skala listened to her grandmother for hours.  Lilia Skala lived in Queens, but would often come to Darien for weekends.  She told remarkable stories of her life, always emphasizing that "with God all things are possible."

"Because of her unstoppable determination and belief in what she had to give to the world, within two years (of arriving in America, attending night school while working in a zipper factory during the day) she was cast in her first Broadway show," Libby writes on her Web site, www.LiliaThePlay.com.  "For the next five decades, her career in theater, in film and television flourished nonstop."

Libby Skala began studying acting as a teenager.  "My grandmother passionately worked with me on the different scenes and monologues I needed to perform for class.  When she 'demonstrated' how to perform the ingenue roles, she transformed so completely that I believed she was 16 years old more than I'd ever believed anyone was 16.  She transformed completely.  To this day, she was the greatest actress I've ever seen."

In an interview, Libby Skala expounded on the process by which an actor achieves this.  "They have a gift to be a transparency and let something flow through them," she said.  "They so intuitively understand the character or script that they become that person when they think the thought or say the words.  They are like a clear window pane for the voice or individual."

When playing the role of her grandmother, the process is similar for her.  "People say, 'Oh, you channel her,' but it's not like I'm calling her spirit from the grave.  It's sort of like she made such a strong impression on me, she's imprinted on my soul, imprinted on my heart.  Everything she was is still within me in a vivid way.  It's easy for me to call it up."

The play grew out of an improvisation and acting workshop that Libby Skala took while living in Seattle in 1995.  The teacher, [Gary] Austin, asked each student to talk about a fascinating person in their life.  Libby spoke of her grandmother, and Austin had her portray Lilia Skala working in the factory.

The Lilia character was born.

Libby Skala continued to develop the play in workshops and retreats.  She moved to New York City in 1997 and performed excerpts with The Performance Cooperative.  She credits Gary Austin, acting teacher Carol Fox Prescott, and playwright and teacher Jeffrey Sweet in helping her.

The play was performed for the first time as a full-length work-in-progress in the Greenwood Studios in Seattle.  It was performed in New York City in 2000.  She received glowing reviews.  The New York Times wrote, "One actor cloaked in magic...Ms. Skala does a marvelous rendition, in an evocative Middle European patois, of her grandmother's velveteen, old world charm.  An adoring portrait...deliciously poignant...Libby Skala is magnetic in a party that clearly means the world to her."

She also performed the play at the Darien Arts Center, in her former junior high school cafeteria.  Since then, "Lilia!" has played across North American and at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

After Lilia Skala's first starring stage performance in Europe, her mother scolded, "For this you went to university?"  But when Libby Skala told her grandmother that she wanted to go to acting school, Lilia was thrilled that she would no longer be the black sheep in the family.  She once told her granddaughter, "Only act because it is fun for you."  But then she added, "Then again, for me it was never fun, it was a matter of life and death."

"Lilia!" tells of the humorous and poignant relationship between Lilia and her granddaughter Libby, in which the grande dame served as mentor, role model and at times unwitting adversary.

"Because she was so strong and opinionated, I never really fought her," Libby Skala said.  "There was no winning with her.  She'd say, 'I'm your elder and I know.'  But what was right for her was not right for everyone."

Indeed, the strength of the Lilia character resonates with audience members.  "It reminds them of relatives or people they knew who emigrated from Europe.  They were such strong, hearty people.  I performed the play in Charleston (S.C.) and afterwards someone said to me, 'I'd forgotten how strong and resilient people of that generation were."

Lilia died in 1994 at the age of 98.  "She lived on her own until she was 97 and she was as sharp as a tack," Libby Skala said.

"In the last conversation I had with my grandmother, she asked me to write a part for her," said Libby Skala.  "This is it."

Actress Lilia Skala, above, is most remembered for her role as Mother Superior in "Lilies of the Field," above center, with Sidney Poitier.  Her granddaughter Libby Skala, right, is an actress who has appeared in movies and television, and has performed "Lilia!" the solo-performance play she wrote and stars in, across the country and in Canada.

COPYRIGHT © 2007 LIBBY SKALA

Last Updated: 3/4/2009

LIBBY

SKALA

Performer Writer