HE may be only ten months old but baby Wilf is already a stage star. He made his first appearance, in a manner of speaking, when actress mother Lexi Strauss was five months pregnant and on stage in Salisbury.
"I was playing a dominatrix with big PVC boobs and a corset. It became quite difficult to get the corset on, but the bump didn't really start to show until two days after we'd finished the run of the play," recalls Lexi, who grew up in York and has returned to the city for her latest performance in the newly opened Theatre Royal production of Northanger Abbey.
Wilf's father, actor Morgan George, played one of Lexi's clients in that production of an Alan Ayckbourn comedy three years ago. Now the couple are together again in the Theatre Royal's new adaptation of Northanger Abbey.
The production marks Lexi's professional debut on that stage, although she has appeared previously at the theatre at a school speech day and in a staging of Dylan Thomas's Under Milk Wood.
The couple has worked previously with Tim Luscombe, the director of the Austen premiere.
"He wanted Morgan for one of the roles and found me a little part," says Lexi, who plays the non-speaking parts of the Maid, Dorothy and Alice. "It's brilliant. This particular show is ideal for me because it's nice to spend more time with Wilf. I'm only in the play for a second, so I've hardly been needed at all for rehearsals."
Lexi and Morgan have not had to find a babysitter as one or the other has been available to look after Wilf during the day, and Lexi has found that motherhood and acting have worked well together.
"For my last production, I used to go home every lunch time to breast feed him, and I breast fed him before I went on stage at night," she says. "It made me so relaxed. It really helped my performance. I got the best reviews I've ever had. I think it's no coincidence that women who breast feed say it really calms you down when your baby has been screaming all day."
Wilf, meanwhile, is growing up as a theatrical baby.
"I know quite a few people from old acting families that were brought up like that," says Lexi. "We take things with us to make it feel like home. We have a washing line and hang colourful things, like socks, on it."
When they are not appearing in the theatre, home for Lexi and Morgan is Malvern, although working in York has the advantage of letting them show off Wilf to his grandparents.
Once the Northanger Abbey run is over, they plan to spend some time at home. "It would be nice to spend the summer there," says Lexi. "But perhaps the only place that feels like home at the moment is when we are all together."
Northanger Abbey runs at York Theatre Royal until June 12. Box office: 01904 623568.
Updated: 08:55 Friday, May 28, 2004
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