| In the mid-1970's, Juliette was invited to
appear on a local cable television show in Fort Lee, New Jersey. She sang,
"Those Were The Days" and "Under Paris Skies," which was one of Piaf's
songs. After the show, a woman approached Koka and asked if she would be
interested in seeing a script the woman had written; it was a one-woman
show about Edith Piaf. At first Juliette was not interested, but promised
she'd look at it when she returned from her planned trip to Europe.
"After I read the script,
and I told her maybe I could do it in cabaret."
Juliette worked on the script, and when she felt it was
ready to be performed, Juliette suggested renting a space and doing the
show in front of an audience.
"We sold the show out. There
were two producers in the audience who said they'd take it to Broadway.
I said, 'Thank you, very much'...You know, show business talk."
But this time, the talk paid off. The producers put together
the play using five actors, with Juliette Koka singing. Piaf, A Remembrance,
opened at the 48th Street Playhouse on a snowy Valentine's Day
in 1977. Although the show had a short run on Broadway, Koka won the 33rd
Annual Theatre Award for Outstanding Performance.
Ironically, at that point, Juliette still had not seen
Piaf perform.
"When I did see Piaf
first on a public television show, it was after my own Broadway
show."
The spirit and music of Piaf infused the follow-up show,
Juliette Koka Sings Piaf.
"Piaf was self-educated and
a very poetic lyric writer. She was upbeat and funny, but she drank, and
she had a very tragic life. I think I know her better than I know myself."
Juliette Koka's grasp of Edith Piaf's charisma was appreciated
several years later, when she was invited to perform at the 40th
anniversary of the United Nations and there she was awarded a UN medal
for her contributions to cultural activities.
Another strong Koka program is her Kurt Weill show, which
she ends with a unique rendition of "Mack The Knife," a song she
first refused to perform, feeling it had been done too much. Her musical
director finally persuaded her to do it as an encore, and she is still
surprised at how well it was received.
"I try to get as much
from the lyrics and character as I can...I kind of do it son-of-a-gun."
She is very definite about finding the right songs to
include. The emotions of the music must be those Koka can identify with,
for she does not sing in a language she does not understand well. For example,
she would like to sing Spanish music but feels she is not strong enough
in the language to communicate the nuances of the lyrics.
"I'm an actress who sings.
To me a song is a play, with a beginning, a middle, and an end. Every word
in the song is important."
When Juliette Koka gears her shows for American audiences,
she wants them to understand the emotions behind the songs. She tours often,
doing benefits and commercials, like the one for Maxwell House Coffee.
Besides her Piaf and Weill shows, Koka has appeared in plays like Prisoner
of Second Avenue, Bittersweet, and Jacques Brel...Alive &
Well with entertainers Charleton Heston, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Efrem Zimbalist,
Jr., and Larry Storch. Mentioning her admiration for Zoe Caldwell and Colleen
Dewhurst, she wishes she could appear in more dramas but feels her Finnish
accent is limiting ("I would love to be in Sweet Bird of Youth, but
she's from the South, so what can you do?" ). She laughs.
As in one show, Ladies & Gentlemen; Jerome
Kern! Koka loved performing American standards. She has taken them
to cabarets in Finland, Italy, Belgium, Switzerland, and in New York City,
to venues like The Players Club and Freddy's.
"I pick some standards
that not many singers perform, but also 'evergreens'. Sometimes I use just
a piano; with Piaf, I need an accordion. Othertimes, as many as ten pieces."
Internationally, Koka has appeared in various starring
roles in Helsinki's, Moulin Rouge Theatre, and has performed
her one-woman shows on cruise ships such as S.S. Statterdam, the S.S. Rotterdam,
and the Queen Elizabeth 2.
"When I work on a ship,
it's marvelous, everybody's playing!"
Juliette Koka loves most music, the European sounds of
Michel LeGrand, the drama of Julie Wilson, the romanticism of Chopin. But
when she needs a lift, she listens to opera.
"In my next life, I'll
be Lili Pons. But what can I tell you. You have to be happy with what you've
got, right?"
It takes what the Finns call, "sisu".
"Determination, that's
'sisu'. I have a lot of sisu. You have to have it in this business. I don't
have sharp elbows, but I have a lot of sisu."
|
ahlfors@citycabaret.com