Heather Mitchell plays Ruth Bader Ginsburg: ‘I was even brushing my teeth as Ruth would’
The spirit of the late US supreme court justice and feminist Ruth Bader Ginsburg has entered Heather Mitchell. The actor has developed the bent spine of Ginsburg’s latter years, the clenching of her bite and speech, the tighter hand and finger movements that result from ageing tissues.
Sometimes, after leaving rehearsals at Sydney Theatre Company, Mitchell unconsciously finds herself moving like the diminutive octogenarian who championed gender equality and reproductive rights, and who died of pancreatic cancer in 2020.
“I was brushing my teeth last night and thinking, ‘What’s wrong with the toothbrush?” laughs Mitchell, 64, during a break in the four-week rehearsal period for the new play RBG: Of Many, One. “And then I realised, ‘Oh, I’m doing it as Ruth would’.”
Mitchell holds herself with poise, and a charm that takes you into her
