Being bigger than life was something Carole Gutierrez quickly grew into playing Sylvia, Nicole Hollander`s outrageous comic strip character, in the hit musical ”Sylvia`s Real Good Advice.”
The incarnation, by writers Arnold Aprill and Tom Mula, began its hectic life at Pegasus Players in March. The excellent reviews and audience word-of- mouth enthusiasm attracted commercial producer Nick Rabkin. On June 5, Rabkin moved ”Sylvia” lock, stock and schlock to the Organic Theatre on North Clark Street, where it is still playing.
”When I first heard about the audition, I said, `I could play Sylvia,`
” Gutierrez says. ”There`s a part of her that`s inside of me, but I`m not as flamboyant. I can be very opinionated, too.”
”I guess that`s because I taught actors for so many years. I was constantly giving them advice. I got to a point where my opinions were pretty strong. Sometimes I was hard on people, like Sylvia says, `Get over yourself,` or `Get a grip on it!` She`s one of those people who really knows who she is, not caring what people think of her.”
Apparently Hollander recognized something in the dark-haired, brown-eyed actress that clicked when Gutierrez sang ”Midnight Choo-choo” at an audition.
”Nicole called me and asked me to come to her office,” Gutierrez recalls. ”She said, `You`re so physically right for Sylvia!` She gave me books and tips. We hit it off immediately. She described Sylvia as a cross between Olympia Dukakis in `Steel Magnolias` and Roz Russell in `His Girl Friday,` with a Selma Diamond voice.”
Gutierrez, 37, craftily decided to dress as Sylvia for the next callback. ”I got platform shoes, capri pants, wild sweaters, scarves and jewelry, and teased my hair way out. I sang `She Can Cook Too,` from `On the Town,` as if I were Sylvia giving advice on how to place a personal ad. When I got home, they called and said, `The part is yours!` I just cried, I was so pleased.”
Gutierrez says she has done a lot of weird characters in her career, but nothing like Sylvia. She carries off the bizarre costumes and makeup for the role with cockiness, making her an endearingly wacky, tacky, psychic adviser. Her bathtub-cum-office and the entire set make kitsch seem positively stylish by comparison.
Gutierrez, a St. Louis native, was encouraged to perform by her star-struck mother, who named her for screen star Carole Lombard.
”I had an overbite and was tall and gawky and funny,” she says. ”My mother insisted I`d be the next Carol Burnett. She started me on dance lessons. I loved tap and jazz dancing. I acted in high school plays and at Southwest Missouri State University.”
John Goodman, Tess Harper and Kathleen Turner joined her in dramas there. She recalls a svelte, talented Goodman, who everyone thought would be the next Marlon Brando.
Bypassing New York after graduation, she earned a master`s degree in fine arts at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1978. There she met Jeffrey Ortmann and Dan La Morte, who later founded the Wisdom Bridge and Center theaters in Chicago.
After a brief stay in New York, she came to Chicago in 1980. She was quickly allied with the Wisdom Bridge Training Center, and she credits the late Edward Kaye-Martin there with outstanding coaching.
She helped found Center Theater, and was an active member of its acting ensemble for three years. She has been involved with the Center for the Gifted and the Whirlwind Performance Company, teaching drama classes for children.
A crippling bout with arthritis kept her out of circulation for three months in 1982, just when things were starting to happen for her
professionally. Gallstones were responsible for the canceling of her role in
”Falstaff” last summer for the Oak Park Festival.
Last September, Arlene Crewdson of Pegasus Players hired her to take over the role of the mother in Neil Simon`s ”Broadway Bound.” Reading the part of Kate, Gutierrez immediately thought, ”I know this woman, who suffered so many losses, her husband, her sons, her father and her youth.
”When I didn`t relate to her repression, Mick Leavitt, who directed it, said, `You`re a naturally warm person; now we need to take that away.`
”After that show I said, `In the next show I want to do it all, because I was so suppressed in that role. I want to strut my stuff, and do
everything.` And that`s what`s happening now.”
