- published: 28 Apr 2016
- views: 1190
Fiona Shaw, CBE (born Fiona Mary Wilson on 10 July 1958) is an Irish actress and theatre director. Although to international audiences she is probably most familiar for her role as Petunia Dursley in the Harry Potter films, she is an accomplished classical actress. Shaw was awarded an honorary CBE in 2001.
Shaw was born in County Cork, Ireland to a mixed-religious couple, and was raised Roman Catholic. Her father was an optic surgeon and her mother was a physicist.[citation needed]
She attended secondary school at Scoil Mhuire in Cork City. She received her degree in University College Cork. She trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London and was part of 'new wave’ of actors to emerge from the Academy. She received much acclaim as Julia in the National Theatre production of Richard Sheridan's The Rivals (1983).[citation needed]
Her notable theatrical roles include Young Woman in Machinal, Celia in As You Like It (1984), Madame de Volanges in Les Liaisons Dangereuses (1985), Katherine in The Taming of the Shrew (1987), Winnie in Happy Days (2007), and the title roles in Electra (1988), The Good Person of Sechuan (1989), Hedda Gabler (1991), The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1998) and Medea (2000). She performed T. S. Eliot's poem The Waste Land as a one-person show at the Liberty Theatre in New York to great acclaim in 1996, winning the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding One-Person Show for her performance.
SHE BURNS
Today's on fire
The sky is bleeding above me, and I am blistered
I walk these lines of blasphemy, every day
And still...
Like a bad star, I'm falling faster down to her
She's the only one who knows what it is to burn
I feel diseased
Is there no sympathy from the sun?
The sky's still fire,
But I am safe in here from the world outside
So tell me,
What's the price to pay for glory?
Like a bad star, I'm falling faster down to her
She's the only one who knows what it is to burn
Today is fire, and she burns
Today is fire, and she burns
SHE BURNS
SHE BURNS
SHE BURNS
SHE BURNS
SHE BURNS
SHE BURNS
Like a bad star, I'm falling faster down to her