Kristin Atherton’s performance of THE VOYAGE HOME by Booker Prize-winning novelist Pat Barker has earned her an audio-series triple crown. The actor who narrated all three novels in the Women of Troy trilogy received an Earphones Award for each one. “I’m so grateful,” says Atherton. “Pat Barker is an exquisite writer. Getting to record these books felt like all my Christmases had come early.”
The victimized women of Troy are the stars of this feminist retelling of Homer’s ILIAD. “Obviously, horrific things happen,” says Atherton, “but these women are not defeated. They have warrior spirits. To be able to give them voice was such a gift.”
Although the books are set in the ancient Mediterranean, Atherton, who is from Yorkshire, used British regional accents throughout. “Barker employs lots of English patois. It feels earthy and real. So that was my model. I used received pronunciation, what you might call proper English, for the rulers and the winners. And I gravitated to regional accents for other characters. In the first book, for example, I gave Ritsa, the healer, a strong Northern accent. It was a thrill that she ends up being the narrator of the final book.”
When she’s not narrating audiobooks, Atherton appears on stage, screen, and in video games. Right now, she’s a lead character in the hit video game Metafore: ReFantasio. She says, “Funnily, it’s one of my husband’s favorites. I’ll be prepping for an audiobook or studying my lines for a play, and from the living room I’ll hear myself shouting that I’ve successfully killed a monster. It’s very odd,” she laughs.
She has also taken over the role of Jamie Fraser’s sister in Season 7 of television’s “Outlander”—and she was recently announced as the new narrator for Diana Gabaldon’s OUTLANDER audiobooks. “It was intimidating to step into a character created by someone else, but it was a gorgeous experience. I love the Scottish accent. I love period drama. And I love a good corset!”
A longtime member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, Atherton is currently starring (as Angela Merkel) in the play Kyoto, about the 1997 COP climate summit. Co-produced by the RSC and the charity Good Chance, the play was workshopped throughout rehearsals. “The writers were in the room with us,” says Atherton. “It was wonderful. For me, writers are the greatest artists. They create universes out of nothing.”
That brings her back to Barker, whom the actress lauds for not hiding behind flowery prose. “Her writing is so sparse and clear. I just gave it space and breath, and a little tenderness.”
Working in a broadcast-quality home studio, sometimes with a cat sleeping under her desk, Atherton plays everything from little girls to grizzled male policemen. “Audiobooks are the purest form of storytelling. And narrating may be the purest form of acting,” she says. “When I was little, I believed that my dad was the whole cast of the Winnie-the-Pooh books. In the booth, I summon that lovely primal feeling. Together, the listener and I suspend all our disbelief, and I’m everyone in this universe. That’s such a gift to an actress.”
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Kristin Atherton photo by Yellowbelly Photo
