Good career move
for Mary Martello

By Rita Charleston
For the Times

Ask her about her career, how she got started and some of her favorite roles, and she’s quick to answer.
But ask Mary Martello about her being nominated for and winning more Barrymore Awards than probably any other actor in the city and she becomes reticent and more than a little modest.
"I’m pretty blown away by it all, to tell the truth, but it’s absolutely thrilling," said the actress who’s now appearing in the U.S. premiere of Age of Arousal at the Wilma Theater through Jan. 6. "I can’t explain exactly why this is happening to me, since there are so many fine actors here in Philadelphia. I can only hope it’s because of my commitment and my joy in my work that shines through whatever I do."
Age of Arousal, by award-winning Canadian playwright Linda Griffiths, is set in England in the late 19th century when a population imbalance leaves the country flooded with half a million more women than men. The women’s suffrage movement is invigorated by the rise in numbers, as non-married "Odd Women" fight with passion, clarity and confusion for sexual and financial independence.
Determined to make women rich, a formerly militant suffragette, Mary Barfoot, and her devoted protégée battle for equal opportunity and enlist female students to master the technology of the male-dominated workplace. The play goes on to take a modern look at forbidden Victorian desires on the brink of explosion.
Martello plays the 60-ish Barfoot, who has opened a school for secretaries with the idea that women trained in this field can finally learn to become financially independent. It’s a role, Martello said, that’s bound to become one of her favorites, especially because it is directed by Blanka Zizka, who also has been co-artistic director at the Wilma since 1981.
"On nearly every page," she explained, "I saw the characters becoming aroused — intellectually, sensually, sexually, artistically and politically.
"And with Blanka being someone who is so very focused and not afraid to discover new things every day, as well as being an expert in very intimate communication, I am having a wonderful time with this production," Martello added.
Martello, a Lansing, Mich., native who now makes Princeton, N.J., her home, has also made Philadelphia her professional home for almost 10 years. She said she’s proud to have worked during that time with a variety of great directors at many of the great theaters here, including the Arden, InterAct, Prince, Walnut, Wilma and many others.
She has received eight Barrymore nominations (so far) and has won many of those nominations for roles in such productions as Triumph of Love, Café Puttanesca and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Recently, she was seen in Assassins, Carousel, Annie Get Your Gun, A Prayer for Owen Meany and The Music Man.
"Actually, I got my start when I was just seven years old and some friends and I were walking down the street singing," Martello explained. "A friend of my mother’s heard me and suggested she get me involved with singing lessons, which she promptly did."
That led to a start at the BoarsHead Theater in Michigan. Later, moving with her family to Virginia, she got even more work, eventually moving to Princeton when her former husband landed there for a job reassignment. Luckily, that led to some work at the McCarter Theatre, where Martello received her Equity Card, and other venues in the area.
And today, here she is, happily ensconced in the local theater community, where she admits she is thrilled to be.
"I love the work, I love the process as well as the performance," she said. "Really, I can’t think of anything else I’d rather do." ••
For times and ticket information, call 215-546-7824.