How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria?
From nanny-cum-cook-cum-laundry-woman in an Asian city, Maria promptly plunged into work in an export garments factory eight years after her return home. Wages were better, work conditions allowed her one-day-a-week off, and there was handsome overtime pay. Her life as migrant work was irretrievably over. Then one day she fell mysteriously ill. What started as a suspicion that she inhaled too much cotton dust from cutting fabric ended with a much deeper malaise, diagnosed six months after a cough that wouldn�t go away. She had contracted the HIV/AIDs virus. She was promptly thrown out of her home that she helped build and sustain through eight years of monthly remittances. Her husband remarried and her children put her in a government hospital that has since become her home. Along with other patients, like her usually migrant returnees, she is hidden from view, a secret scourge that society has wished away into non-existence. Maria�s mini-narrative mirrors the vulnerabilities that some
auditioning for the lead role in a new production of Sound of Music, opening at The Princess of Wales Theatre on Oct. 3. Since our excursion, one was eliminated, so now there are eight. The would-be Marias are let loose at Tom’s Place in Kensington Market. The shop is celebrating its 50th year selling deeply discounted designer clothing. The women gravitate toward the sales racks of merch going for half the lowest price on the sticker. They seem to all get along famously, despite bunking in together in a house in Etobicoke during the run of the contest. They press each other to try on stuff. They tell each other how fabulous (or not) they look in that cropped jacket or jean skirt. Tamara Fifield, 21, is a native of Truro, N.S., a trained opera singer with a bachelor of music in voice – but with no Tom’s bags. Her taste runs to the simple but she has been known to improvise.
How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria? was an award-winning British television talent series, shown on Saturday evenings on BBC One between 29 July 2006 and 16 September 2006. It documented the search for a new, undiscovered musical theatre performer to play the role of Maria von Trapp in the 2006 Andrew Lloyd Webber and David Ian stage production of The Sound of Music. Presented by Graham Norton and “masterminded” by Andrew Lloyd Webber, the title of the show was derived from a line in the production’s song “Maria”. Following a public telephone vote, 23-year-old Connie Fisher was chosen as Maria and performed the role in the West End from November 2006 to February 2008. The series also helped the careers of the other finalists, some of whom later took leading roles in West End shows. Semi-finalist Aoife Mulholland also took up the role of Maria in April 2007 for two shows a week, after Fisher was advised to reduce her performances to six per week. The first programme to allow the publ
