I had one more theatrical assignment before the next Straw Hat season. I had been designing the lights for all the productions I directed and even when reviews might be mixed for my directing, they were universally favourable for my lighting. So one day I persuaded my cousin Murray to let me design the lights for a production at the Crest. Murray was happy to give me a shot provided no fee was expected. To my great pleasure the play I designed was The Seagull by Chekhov. It was directed by the British director Roysten Morley with a spectacular cast: Charmion King as Arkadina, Bill Job as Treplev, Powys Thomas as Sorin, Mervyn Blake as Dorn, and a young actress out of Carnegie Tech, Martha Buhs, as Nina. Martha soon changed her name to Martha Henry and went on to become the grand doyenne of the Canadian theatre.
There are plays I was involved with during this period that I have no memory of, even plays that I directed, but my recall of this production is vivid to this day. Was it as good a production as I remember? I think so. When Mervyn “Butch” Blake as Dorn brought Trigorin down to the front of the stage at the end of the play and gave the famous line, “The truth is, Konstantin has shot himself,” the effect was breathtaking. There were wonderful opportunities for lights, and writing in the Star, or was it the Telegram, Mavor Moore complimented me on my “Rembrandtesque lighting.”
An interesting lesson for a young director. The first rehearsal I attended was a late run-through. I thought it was terrific and I was especially affected by the final scene between Treplev and Nina. It was strong, emotional, and deeply moving, to me at least. Not apparently to Roysten Morley, the director. He was incensed. How could they wreck his production like that? He went on and on expressing his deep disappointment, not at this point to the actors — I don’t know what he said to the actors — but to anyone in the vicinity who would listen. I was astonished. I would have been thrilled to have actors bring such truth and life to a scene in one of my productions. Why was he so upset?
Only years later did a glimmer of light penetrate this strange event. I was an assistant director at the National Theatre of Great Britain, assigned to Michael Elliott’s production of Miss Julie with Maggie Smith and Albert Finney. Once again there was an amazing rehearsal, an electric scene between Maggie and Albie. And once again the director was somehow unsatisfied. Michael’s approach was different: he didn’t stomp about in the foyer; he took a slow puff on his cheroot, sat down with his actors, and talked for two days. These two directors were not looking for good acting. They expected good acting. They were looking for acting that expressed the truth of the play as they understood it. It was the director’s job to guide the actors to that truth. It was not their job to help them be good actors. That was the actor’s job.
Looking back years later on that scene in The Seagull I can only guess what the issue might have been. I have directed the play since, at Bishops’ University — with Christine Fleming (now Shipton), later head of drama programming for CanWest, as Nina — and debated the play with colleagues for years. The ultimate question seems to be, is the story upbeat or downbeat? Is Nina beginning a road to recovery, beginning to see her goals as modest but genuine, or is she on a downward spiral, gradually losing her mind? My guess is that Roysten wanted the former and Martha was playing the latter. And that while I was deeply moved by Nina’s plight in the rehearsal I saw, Treplev would not likely proceed to kill himself. He needs to see that she has “found her path” and he has not. And so, wonderful though that performance was, the play did not ‘work.’
Each moment in a good play has to lead inexorably to the next. The connection can be obscure, indirect, and unexpected, but it has to be there. If not, the story becomes arbitrary, a manipulation of the audience by the writer. If there is no coherence in the preceding action the actor in a stage play, at any rate, cannot respond with truth. This is not to say the result might not be successful with the audience. I still hear people say, “Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man” was their favourite X-Files episode, a work of arbitrary manipulation if there ever was one. But then, perhaps I viewed that episode through an old-fashioned twentieth-century lens, looking for logic where none was intended.
It was all very well to spend my first year after graduation hanging about the university campus doing undergraduate productions and summer stock in the summer, but where was I actually going with my life and career? The idea of actually going to drama school was gradually seeping into my consciousness. The great English directors all seemed to come out of Oxford or Cambridge; why would I go to theatre school? Still, Nancy Kerr kept talking about her experience at LAMDA and she seemed to have some notions about the rights and wrongs of acting that I was not aware of. Truth to tell, I really didn’t know a lot about acting. When I had done it, it was more by instinct than technique. And Murray had studied privately with Iris Warren who was the voice teacher at LAMDA; he raved about her. LAMDA had a one year program for advanced students, specializing in the classics. Maybe that would be a good way for me, as a young director, to learn more about acting and the actor’s process to help me be a better director. At this stage in my life I had no intention of being an actor. Of course, my real motivation might have been to escape the mess I had made of my personal life.
And so an audition was arranged in the apartment of Leonard Crainford, LAMDA’s Canadian agent, and, serendipitously, someone we had been talking to about working for our summer company. I did my two pieces for him and we talked about my goals. He assumed I didn’t expect “the top marks in acting” but seemed happy to recommend me. With my application, I wrote a cover letter to the Principal, Michael MacOwan, telling him about myself and that I had been involved in the theatre for ten years. When he read that and then noticed that I was only twenty-one he wrote back saying, “I’m afraid I laughed a little.” I still don’t see what was funny about that.
But there was still one more season of Straw Hat to do before embarking for England and before that there was another quick trip to New York. There is always theatre to see in New York, but the additional attraction was that Sylvia had returned to her home in the suburb of Yonkers after finishing her school year. So we hung about the big city for a few days, though naturally she returned to the family home each night. I was staying in a hotel on the edge of Central Park and one night around midnight after seeing Sylvia home I decided to go for a walk in the park. I mean, why not? It was a nice night. The next day I told Sylvia about my pleasant walk in Central Park the previous night. Her reaction: “You did what?! You went where?” How was I to know, naive Canadian boy that I was, that Central Park in 1959 was no place to venture unarmed in the middle of the night? I had a nice walk.
Here’s a sign of the times. I remember being in Sylvia’s apartment, which she shared with two friends. For some reason the conversation turned to the French Riviera and the fact that, astonishingly, some women wore bikinis on the beach in France. To the surprise of her friends, Sylvia said if she were there she might even wear one herself. I remember thinking she looked pretty hot in her black one piece. A bikini. Imagine.
As for the Straw Hat Players, by our third season we were no longer simply a group of undergraduates doing theatre in the summer. We had become a professional company and while still skewed to the young, we began to hire more seasoned performers and directors. Of course with the two companies we needed more performers than in our first year and it seemed that the pool of undergraduates was less strong now — or were we just more ambitious? At any rate our 1960 company included several performers who went on to establish stellar careers: Gordon Pinsent, Nancy Kerr, David White who became David Renton, and Jackie Burroughs, to name four. Professional directors included Alan Nunn, Ron Hartman, and Peter Dearing.
My first directing assignment of the season was The Glass Menagerie, the Tennessee Williams classic poetic drama about a Southern family fallen on hard times. Eleanor Beecroft played Amanda, the domineering mother whose sole aim in life is to find a husband for her shy, handicapped daughter. Eleanor’s day job was box of
fice manager at Hart House, but she frequently trod the boards and she provided us with some needed maturity. Kathleen Kelly from the university played the retiring daughter, Laura; Robert Graham, the brother and narrator, Tom; and a talented young actor from Newfoundland via Winnipeg, Gordon Pinsent, played the Gentleman Caller. Gordon was a delight to work with, responding well to being coached to an interpretation perhaps different from what he had originally imagined. All the performances were strong, but the famous gentleman caller scene was the feature element, thanks largely to Gordon’s truthful playing of a man who is almost entirely artificial.
Travel continued to be a major issue. By this, our third season, we now had two separate production centres with four or five productions being mounted in each location. A play would open in one location, play a week, and then move to the second location. At the end of the week’s run in the second location that same company would open their next play, run for a week, and then move back to the first location. And so the acting companies would move every two weeks, while the business and production teams would remain in one location for the season. Simple in principle, there always seemed to be exceptions requiring late, even all night, trips back and forth between Port Carling and Peterborough, a drive of roughly two hours. We used to clock our times, but the Volkswagens that Karl and I each drove were no match for Jamie Mainprize’s Citroën whose record time was never challenged. Young as we were, night vision was never a problem, but staying awake while driving was. We all had different techniques. Nick Ayre, a stage manager, said that he could stay awake as long as he kept eating, his girth a testament to his technique. Driving without a shoe on the right foot was supposed to allow the vibration of the engine to pass through to the driver. Getting out and walking around the car every few miles was the last resort. And always, smoke, smoke, smoke.
Sylvia was around for some of the summer. I don’t recall whether she had any official position, except possibly as the consort of the Artistic Director. I remember her being at the Peterborough cottage and swimming in her sexy black one piece. Alas, no bikinis in those days. Meantime, our relationship was heating up and yet being forced into some kind of resolution since I would be leaving for England in the fall. By this time I had given up on the notion of converting to Catholicism. But the challenge of keeping the season going left little time for personal reflection or discussion.
The season ended, and everyone had returned to their regular homes. One or two of us were still in Port Carling cleaning up the last bits and pieces when I had a phone message to call Sylvia who was now back in New York. I don’t remember how I got the message; the company phones had been disconnected. But somehow I found myself in the phone booth beside the town hall — its theatre life having been disbanded for the season — and soon I was listening to Sylvia telling me that her period was late, that she was sick in the mornings, that she was pretty sure she was pregnant. Worse news would have been hard to imagine. Of course we hadn’t used contraceptives. She was Catholic. We had been very careful about timing, but there had been one night when I felt the timing would be a bit risky, but Sylvia had said she thought it would be fine. Not to blame her at all — I was fully complicit — but if I were Erica on the CBC show Being Erica I would go back in time and relive that night. What could we do? Marriage was truly not an option; I was divorced and she was Catholic. Would I have wanted to marry if we could have? Maybe. Would I want to marry and have a child at that stage in my life? I don’t think so. Abortion was also not an option. Catholic, remember? And still illegal. Many discussions followed, the best thought being that perhaps she could come to England and have the baby there and put it up for adoption. And with that cloud hanging over me, I headed off to London to start a new life. More or less.
The Worst Line — Ever
An actor’s job is to bring little black marks to life. Unless it is a secret X-Files script, in which case the little marks are in red so they can’t be photocopied. But whatever the colour, the marks represent words written by a dramatist. When the words are beautifully written by a great playwright the words seem to fly unbidden from the actor. It is as if the scene is playing itself and the actor is merely a conduit. But what if the words are bad? What if they lack motivation, relevance, and truth? What does an actor do then?
Dame Edith Evans had one solution. If you don’t understand a line, say it loud. You know what? This works, on stage at least. Faced with a lousy line actors are tempted to mumble their way through it, but this tactic only serves to telegraph their embarrassment to the audience. Speaking the line with authority and volume assures the audience that you know what you are saying even if they don’t. Instead of the actor looking stupid the audience member feels stupid.
Every actor has had to deal with some truly awful lines, lines where asking for motivation draws the classical quip, “Your paycheck.” Recently I was playing a character in a movie who has been chained up in a basement all his life by his brother because when released he kills people. One night he is unwittingly released by a group of teenagers. After killing as many of them as possible he is shot by his brother. As he lies dying he looks his brother in the eye and says, “I love you.” These words did not fly unbidden from this actor.
The worst line I have ever had to deliver was not written down, but nevertheless had to be said at the right time in the right place. To understand the context one has to imagine another time, another century. But no, this was not a piece of period theatre, but an actual event in Ontario, Canada, in 1960. Yet the customs and mores of that time are passing strange to a modern audience.
For instance, I had recently married and soon came to wish I hadn’t. So why had I married? Well, because in 1959, in middle-class Toronto, sexual relations outside of marriage or the promise of marriage were very hard to come by, no pun intended. And living together was unheard of. And so relationships that nowadays would have a limited lifespan often turned into marriages in 1960. But not only was marriage a too necessary choice, it was a much more binding choice than it is today. Divorce was even harder to come by than premarital sex. No mere waiting through a period of separation, no claims of incompatibility. There had to be adultery. But since adultery is almost impossible to prove there actually had to be faked adultery in order to prove that there had been adultery. I hope you are following this. But if you think divorce was hard to get in Ontario, it was ten times worse in Quebec. Divorce had to be approved by the Senate. Do I need to remind you again this is not a period drama? This is the story of my life.
Here is the story. My mother had a friend who was trying to get a Quebec divorce and I was trying to get an Ontario divorce. My mother had the bright idea that we could be ‘co-respondents’ for each other, co-respondent being the term for the participant in the alleged adultery. Despite the fact that Marjorie, my mother’s friend, was ten or fifteen years older than I, she was an attractive woman and illicit sex with an older woman didn’t seem such a bad idea to a randy twenty-one-year-old. Alas, it soon became clear that sex, illicit or otherwise, was not on the agenda, but only the appearance of illicit sex.
To satisfy the divorce courts an elaborate drama had to be played out. At the time I was playing the ancient fireman in The Schoolmistress, a farce by Arthur Wing Pinero, at the Crest Theatre. Trust me, there was more truth in my performance of an eighty-year-old man in a farce than there was in the drama to follow. After the performance, following the instructions I had been given, I went to my mother’s apartment. When I arrived, Marjorie, my co-respondent, was there. And so was my mother, another friend, and a bottle of champagne. After a short visit my mother and her friend left and Marjorie and I were alone in the apartment. With the champagne.
Following instructions again, we closed all the curtains in the apartment and turned down the lights. We poured ourselves some champagne, sat in the semi dark, and talked. After a time, still following our instructions, we changed into night clothes. I don’t know about your adulterous affairs but putting on pyjam
as seemed odd to me. Still, we changed and messed up the bed, poured some more champagne, and continued our conversation.
At this point a detective was supposed to bang on the door. But how was he to get to the door? Of course, he was supposed to break into the building and surprise us. But this being a modern apartment building with a locked front door and a buzzer system it was deemed advisable to bypass this step. And so, after a time, the buzzer in the apartment buzzed. I pressed the button, released the front door, and returned to the bedroom as if nothing had happened. We waited in the dark.
Finally, there was a knock on the door. If you were in flagrante with your mistress, would you open the door? However, following this script written by lawyers and detectives, I did open the door. In the hall was a detective in a suit and another man with a large camera. And now I had to say the line that to this day sticks in my throat to think of it.
“Is my wife with you?”
If, in real life, that’s what you would have said in that situation, you understand this script much better than I. Bad dramatic writing manipulates a script for audience impact without regard for truth. Well, this line did everything required of it for its audience in court. It made clear that I was doing something illicit and that I was afraid my wife would find out. That no one in that circumstance would actually say that didn’t matter.
But to continue the story. At this point the detective (hired by Marjorie and me but ostensibly employed by our spouses, since their lawyers would savage us with the evidence) entered the apartment. The photographer took pictures of us, in pyjamas no less, and of the messed up bed, and of the half-empty champagne bottle. The detective informed me, that on seeing this state of affairs — no pun intended — he would have to report to my wife. The business of the evening thus being concluded, the detective, the photographer, Marjorie, and I sat down and finished the champagne.
Where There's Smoke...: Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man, a Memoir Page 10