Interview: 'I Like To Be In The Centre of The Action': Performer Melanie La Barrie on Death and Hope in THE BOOK THIEF in Concert

After previous runs in 2022 and 2023, The Book Thief musical has finally arrived in London. The Book Thief: A Concert Production was originally scheduled to be performed for one night only on 19 October, but two more performances have been added on 26 October due to popular demand.

Recently, we had the chance to speak with Melanie La Barrie, who is playing the role of Death in this production of The Book Thief. We discussed what made her want to be a part of the show, what it is like to perform in a concert production versus a full staged one and what is appealing to her about playing characters who take on the role of the narrator!

So how did you first get into the world of theatre?

Goodness gracious me, that's such a long time ago! I went on an open audition in Trinidad, and I didn't get the part that I auditioned for. I wanted to audition for this really glamorous role, and I didn't get that role. I got the role of the mom, and it's informed my entire career since then. So it was an unconventional entrance into theatre, but it's been mine, and it's been super fun ever since!

And what made you want to be a part of this production of The Book Thief?

Well, I hadn't even read the script when the offer came through, but I saw two names - Tom Jackson Greaves, and I saw Jodi Picoult - and that was two people that I absolutely adored. I worked with Tom in the Liverpool Everyman Rep season when they brought that back in 2017 and then during the pandemic on another production in Southwark Playhouse. I love Tom. We have a lot in common in terms of how we make art and how we regard creative space and process, how we make things. And we're just good friends! So I will always say yes to working with Tom.

But Jodi is one of my favourite authors - I'm obsessed with her. I'm a major fangirl! And so as soon as I saw that, I was like, “Yep, absolutely.” I said to my agent when the offer came through, “No matter what happens, I'm doing this.” Of course, it's happening at the same time as doing Mary Page Marlowe! [Laughs] So that's how I got involved. I saw people and I said, “I must be part of this.” And of course, The Book Thief is one of my favourite books as well.

For those who might not have read the book, can you tell us a bit about the show and the role that you play as Death?

Well, that's it! It’s Death, and that's it. So the show happens at a seminal moment in our history, which everybody will be very familiar with, and it's about how people exist through those difficult moments - the tools that they use to grow seeds of hope to survive and to live, Not just live and survive, but to live joyfully and fully. Because we, in human history, have had so many great big disasters happen of our own making, and yet, people survive. People survive and often they have great resilience, because they use so many different tools. The tool that we use is the power of words, and how using the right words can build us up and build other people up and build our communities up, and how we can make beauty around us, inside of us and in other people, even when there is ugly horror surrounding us.

And what is it like to take on these narrative roles, like Death in The Book Thief and Hermes in Hadestown?

Well, I like it because I like to be involved in everything! I like to be in the centre of the action all the time. Death . . . It's a wide-ranging experience. Of course, there is sadness and grief, but there's also music and drumming and in some cases, carnival characters and people in costumes.

There are so many ways to approach death - it doesn't have to be morbid and macabre. Yes, it's solemn in parts, but it's also joyful in parts. And in many cultures, there are very different ways of experiencing death. Death is always present. We all head in that way from the time that we're born, so death is always present. And we thought, rather than make her a looming and frightening character, Death is present, but Death is often ignored. 

We don't wake up every day thinking about our death - we don't think about it until we meet it, a lot of the times. And so we thought, “Wouldn't it be really cool if she was just a woman who was just there, in the action, around all the time, and that she experiences the joys of other people's lives?” And when it comes time to regard Death, you are met in the most perfect way possible - you are given the experience that you want to have. We meet people kindly, and I like that. So we thought, “Yeah, let's have Death have a little fun during the course of our traffic of our stage.” But also, we're never foreboding - we're just respectful.

And Death goes through it as well, because in those moments in our human history, when there are too many deaths, we thought it really interesting to explore how Death feels about that. When there are too many premature deaths, how does that feel about that? So it's been a unique and thoroughly inspiring exploration of it. But I like playing these narrator characters, because you just get to be nosy and individual. 

It seems like it's been a very collaborative process in terms of the creative style of creating Death.

Yeah, it has been! But the writers, they've been with the process for such a long time. So it's collaborative - and beautifully so - but it comes from their brains as well. They were trying to think about how to do this character and and then they thought about me, and they said, “Oh, that might be fun!” But also it's about having great respect for what's there. They have been working on this musical for nine years! It's so informed by the beautiful work that they have already created. It's all there on the page. I don't have to work very hard at all!

How have the rehearsals been going so far?

They've been fantastic! We had a week of exploration, because this is a new conceptualisation of Death, and then we started putting it together. Of course, it's not a lot of time. And of course, I have Mary Page Marlowe. What's great is a lot of people who had done the show before have returned for this version, so that gives us a little bit of a shorthand as well. It's mostly me getting in the way! [Laughs]

I can't even imagine balancing to like basically two shows at once!

Mary Page Marlowe is so beautiful! I'm just in one scene, so it's not too bad. I have more work to do here than I have to do there!

What is it like to be part of a concert production of a work versus a fully staged one?

I've done a few of these now - I did one earlier this year at the Savoy Theatre. It's a new thing that people do, because it is a concert, but it's not a concert in the way that people would normally think about concerts. It's a concert production, which means there is going to be choreography, there is going to be movement. It is staged in a way, but we don't have the full sets, lighting design and all those beautiful technical elements that come with with a full production. I think this is a really nice stage in the development of a brand new musical, because it means you present the material almost in its rawest form...We do give you physical storytelling as well, but it's very simple. It's us with some chairs, and we're building an imaginary world for you, depending on the audience to to go with us in that way of exploring. But also, we trust the audience, so it's a really nice in between. And theatre audiences will let you know what they like and what they like less!

Speaking of audiences, what do you hope that they take away from The Book Thief?

I think that we live in such an interesting time right now. There is an uncertainty, and we wake up in a world where people in power are so far removed from us, but they're making decisions that affect all of us daily.

The uncertainty is encroaching. And I would like when people come to The Book Thief that they remember their power, and that their power doesn't mean that they have to go and get into office. Sometimes it's the power to live in the fullest way that you can. To - completely and fully - to the end of your time, and to encourage others to live and to do that together, because we have to. 

It's our simple, small triumphs of the day that are our greatest power that causes us to wake up another day and live fully. I hope that people come to The Book Thief and they are reminded of that.

And finally, how would you describe The Book Thief in one word?

Epic - in all the greatest ways possible!