Actors are a pretty judgmental lot. No two ways about it. Sitting in an audience, there is an assessment going on constantly – “I could do that role – I SHOULD be doing that role!”, “That’s not the way to deliver that line!”, “He has no idea what that character is all about!”  I have no hesitation in admitting that about myself. Sitting in the audience is a busman’s holiday for me. There is a continuous critical monologue going on in my head. If I’m not buying it, my seat is usually empty for the second Act. If someone hasn’t grabbed me in the first Act, they’re certainly not going to do it in the second. Sometimes I have friends in the show and that’s a hard one to deal with if the performances haven’t done it for me. “Great work” or “Good job” are easy outs afterward but we both know the words are empty. It’s the same in rehearsals.

The first few days are assessment days. With folks you’ve not met or worked with before there‘s a personal and professional wariness that will either be eased or heightened. “Nice to meet you” or “How ya doin’?” are exchanged during the first few social minutes, then everyone’s sits down at the table for formal intros and the director’s message and a first reading of the piece. That’s when it gets serious. The director is sized up if you’ve only met for a moment in an audition or if you’ve be cast by an AD and this is the first time for each of you.  “Is this a nice person?” “Can I trust this person?” “Do they know the material really well?” There are furtive glances as we speak our first lines in the play. You can usually tell from the get-go if someone is (hopefully) on top of the material. There is the sound of the voice, the sense of control and understanding, and, importantly, confidence. In a Musical it’s even more fraught as someone sings and “the voice” is privately adjudicated – a much more specific assessment – but eventually, everything settles down (for the most part) and “the play’s the thing”. Sometimes things don’t settle and there is a downward spiral that results in chaos and confusion. I was back to Dinner Theatre for this episode.

“Run For Your Wife” is a well-worn English farce by Ray Cooney. It concerns a cab driver who is leading a double life with two wives in two towns. Trouble brews when the cab driver is mugged and ends up in hospital where his two addresses are discovered and the police are called in to investigate. I played the very proper but befuddled Detective Sergeant Porterhouse. It’s not quite as sophisticated as an Ayckbourne farce but presents great possibilities to actors willing to commit. It is very precise and relies on honesty in the playing. This material can’t be “sent up”. Right off the bat we encountered two problems.

Our “star” was Dennis Cole, a TV actor who had made a name for himself in the ‘60’s and ‘70’s on the likes of “Felony Squad” and “The Young and the Restless” and any number of other shows. Like I said before, Dinner Theatre is where once high profile actors with now-ebbing careers “end” up. It was with great concern that we learned that our lead character would not be joining us until the second (out of three) week of rehearsals!! WTF? The other problem (initially) was our Director.

Every now and then I find a certain approach from Central Canada-based (read “Toronto”) male actors that just rubs me raw! It’s a kind of superior testosterone-fueled mentality that insinuates itself into every aspect of the process and colours relationships both on and off stage. I wrote in my Journal that “he (our Director) has a certain pseudo-macho quality about him which, if I were a woman, would drive me to distraction. I’m sure Christine (Mitges, playing one of the wives and one who didn’t take fools lightly) was ready to bash his head against a wall because of a particularly chauvinistic remark he made this afternoon. He uses profanity as if it was a sign of power or as if it was funny, but I don’t think many of us find it funny at all”. In his opening remarks he kept referring to the play as a “French Farce” and informed us that we would be using a metronome later in the process to get our “timing” down! What? WHAT? The piece was an ENGLISH farce and, while subtle, the differences are vast. Fortunately, all of us knew those differences and carried on in spite of him.

In shaded ways over the first days of rehearsals we disabused him of his metronome idea and refused to rise to the bait when he went off on one of his macho rants or made lewd comments to one of the ladies. (It’s good to know that over the intervening years that kind of behaviour has become completely unacceptable. But back it was rife.) When he realized that none of us were impressed by his approach, he calmed down … a bit. For some reason, as has happened with other directors, it was again a case of him looking over at me for approval after a quip or off-colour joke. I just ignored him. Much too slowly, he got the message.

Dennis Cole, we were told, had all his lines down – and he did, for the most part but our wariness was slow to ebb. He was a very nice man, strikingly good-looking in a boyish way and a good actor as well. However, his one failing was that he couldn’t do a British accent. Why he was cast in a British farce to begin with was an unspoken question that floated in the air for the first few days after his arrival, but our producers decided to make the character a relocated American and included small references at the start of the show to make that clear to the audience. There were jarring moments when I found it hard to believe that this American would be using the very English idioms and phraseology required of the character. I guess they weren’t going to go as far as to re-write the script and our ears got used to the anachronisms. It was obvious that Dennis was feeling somewhat intimidated by us. His world had been TV and film and he lacked the ease of being on-stage. In his world, once you got the scene on tape or film that was it. Now he faced months of doing the same thing night after night to a live audience. But because he was such a pleasant fellow, we encouraged and cajoled him along and he quickly settled in as one of us.

The crunch toward opening came quickly. While the metronome never made an appearance we inherently adjusted to a frantic pace and energy that had us breathless each time we came off-stage. It was exhilarating and we were all swept along in the whirlwind. Even Dennis rose to an acceptable rhythm as we moved out of the rehearsal hall and into the theatre. The space was smallish to begin with and the backstage area was incredibly congested. Because we were dealing with two different places in the play, our Stage Manager (the laid-back and meticulous Chris Pearce) had posted large labels on doors letting us know which door lead to which apartment even though they were in the same space, and huge arrows pointing to the “bedroom” or the “kitchen”. Even with the visual aids some of us still managed to get lost in the maze of prop tables and costume racks behind the set walls which led to missed entrances resulting in some tensions (and a few laughs – entrances into the apartment being made through the previously established bedroom door!).

After a couple of tech days we threw ourselves into a preview performance with an audience made up of the Theatre Staff. We were pumped to get in front of people and took to the stage looking forward to hearing someone other than our Director laughing. Surprisingly, there was minimal response to what we were doing. We couldn’t figure out why they weren’t reacting until we realized that most of our audience was made up of the Filipino kitchen staff who understood almost no English! Our speedy British banter, double entendres and jokes baffled them completely. Fortunately the serving and box office staff kept us on track and we got through it and were on to the opening.

As I’ve written before in these posts, there is NOTHING like hearing an audience laugh at something you’ve done on-stage. On opening night and for the rest of the 3 month run they never let us down – perhaps, better put, we never let THEM down ( I got called “masterful” by a critic in this one!). We were a tight septet playing off each other and enjoying the experience … well, most of it. I had mentioned in a previous post that dear friend Robbie Paterson and I have never exchanged an angry word with each other. Well, that isn’t exactly true. There was ONE word. Robbie was playing the next door neighbour in this piece and we had a number of small scenes with each other. Robbie is, how shall I put it, a “juicy” speaker on stage. During certain agitated exchanges saliva would build up in his mouth and be expelled on certain consonants. The folks at the tables right in front of the stage should have been provided with umbrellas! The person he was talking to on stage, which, in this case, was invariably me, got the brunt of it! For weeks I accepted the showers in silence until one night. I found myself doing a slow burn as I was being sprayed during our big scene. We exited and, as I yet again cleaned off my saliva-be-speckled glasses, got close to him and in my loudest backstage whisper “screamed” “SWALLOW!!” at him. Over the weeks that followed, it gradually turned into the dry season. That was the only time I’ve ever “raised” my voice at Robbie.

We kept getting extended for weeks on end. Some of the Toronto folks were getting very antsy to get back to “civilization” as one of them put it. Dennis was winding down and losing interest, it seemed. So we were on the road to the end. As the closing was announced, our audiences increased in number and responses and we went out with a bang. I had received some of the best notices of my young (at that point) life and sort of hated to see it close. It turned out to be the longest-running and highest-grossing show at Stage West Winnipeg.

During the last weeks of the production, word had started to circulate about a new three-block- long Mall being built. It would be called “Portage Place” and the long-established stores and services located along and adjacent to Portage Avenue were being expropriated for the huge project. Unfortunately, Stage West was smack dab in the middle of the area and would meet the wrecker’s ball. We were the second-to-last show to play the space and, sadly, by mid-summer a favorite playhouse for both audiences and performers was no more. For the longest time supporters tried to find another space for the theatre to continue but to no avail. I miss those days.

But where one door closes … well, you know the old adage. Toward the end of the run I had been approached by a very pleasant and organized man named Michael Utgaard who owned an Artist Management Company. He had an established reputation and represented mostly classical artists but wanted something a bit less “high brow” to round out his stable. He asked me if I would be interested in creating a programme suitable for touring and, needless to say, I jumped at the opportunity. Thus, “Shubert Alley – The Broadway Tradition” was born. It didn’t take long to put the presentation together. Unlike the recital preparation there weren’t a lot of choices to be made and I decided that a chronological approach would be best, making sure that the vast majority of the selections were very familiar to what I knew would be a less than cosmopolitan audience. Michael arranged an Arts Council grant to get pictures done and create a brochure describing our offering; and with Ross Houston as my cohort at the piano, we experienced our first “Contact Manitoba”.

“Contact Manitoba” was a Trade Show for performing artists to display their talents before Community Concert booking agents from Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Western Ontario. It happened every two years and was a dizzying experience. The competition to get booked is fierce and, while there were a LOT of artists plying their wares, there were none that fit into our category.   Everyone had fifteen minutes to “wow” the agents and then hope for the best.

If it’s possible for a group of people to collectively drool over an artist’s performance we experienced it that day. As we left the hall, Ross turned to me and said “We’re going to be millionaires!” Well, not quite. Reps for the Community Concert Series were booking for the season ahead and it would take a bit of time for our touring schedule to be organized but, in spurts over the next two and a half years, Ross and I traversed the Prairie countryside plying our Musical Theatre wares in front of immensely appreciative audiences. And if you think I don’t have stories from those days, stay tuned!

“HMS Pinafore” insinuated itself into my life again – twice! I succumbed once again to the lure of money and, against my better judgment (I said there was money involved) hit the country roads again (left)  with a remount of the tiny production we had done for the Manitoba Opera some time earlier. I was the only cast holdover from the “original” production but eased into the new relationships with little trouble and we actually had a good time – aside from the rehearsal period when we were subjected to THAT director again! Fortunately, he disappeared once we were up and running, but not before had offered me a lot of money to play the role of ‘Koko’ in a production of “The Mikado” that he was “directing” in Alberta later in the year. I told him I would think about it hoping desperately that something else would come along at home and I could turn him down. If nothing else, the tiny tour served to prepare me for the massive, full-blown “Pinafore” I was soon to enter into at Rainbow Stage.

I have mentioned that the success of a production rises or falls on the shoulders of the people involved and their relationships to one another. The second kick (actually, third kick) at the “Pinafore” can was a much different experience from the rest. To start, the cast was ten times the size of the Opera production in all aspects – the cast, the set, the orchestra and the stage! It was huge … as all Rainbow productions were. The Creative Team kept going back and forth about casting me as either “Sir Joseph” (the part for which I thought I was a shoe-in) or “Dick Deadeye”, a smaller role but attractive nonetheless. I ended up with the latter and headed into a couple of months eating the scenery. There had been a rumour that our director, the great Bob “Hutza Futza” Ainsley, was going to put the entire cast in roller skates, but thankfully, that never came close to fruition. It was, however, not going to be a “park and bark” (stand and sing) production and rehearsals kept up all breathless. We were all up for it.

I immediately sized up my “rival” for the ‘Sir Joseph’ and decided that he looked more the part than I did. Norman Roberts was wonderfully affable and, begrudgingly, did a tremendous job. Rich-voiced Dorothy-Jean Lloyd was ‘Buttercup’, the stupendous Cristen Gregory our ‘Josephine, baritone-turned-tenor David Dunbar as ‘Ralph’, model- handsome Tommy Oliver as the ‘Bo’sun’ and the glorious Paul Massel (now Father Paul) was ‘Captain Corcoran’. I mention all these folks because they still hold a special place in my heart as true and talented professionals who took their jobs very seriously but had a lot of fun at the same time. We were a very close knit group and socialized a lot together. I even convinced all of them to sing at Church a couple of times during the run and the fact that they would do that impressed me no end! (Pictured above left to right: Bob Ainsley, Pam MacDonald, Cristen Gregory, Tommy Oliver, David Dunbar, Paul Massel and me.)

My ‘Dick Deadeye’ was, as one critic put it, a “nautical Quasimodo”. While his name indicates an eye patch, a hump gives yet another physical dimension to his character. He does little but skulk about the stage spying on the other characters for “dirt’ to report back to the Captain and gets mercilessly and constantly roughed up by anyone nearby! I was pushed and shoved all over the stage and the audience (and the chorus guys) loved it. (That’s me being “nosed” by Tommy Oliver in the photo above) After all, what is a villain for! (My bow was invariably met by great applause and lots of boos and hollers!) I took full advantage of my outcast status. The hump part of my costume was built into a t-shirt and could either be behind the left shoulder or the right. I couldn’t decide so two were made. I ultimately chose the right shoulder. One night during the run I wondered how it would feel if the hump was on the other side and after my first scene changed into the other t-shirt. I continued to do that after each scene, back and forth, waiting to see who caught on first. NO ONE NOTICED! I then started to switch my eye patch as well, one scene on the right eye, the next scene on the left. Yet again, no one noticed. It was naughty of me but I was having fun waiting to see if anyone would catch on to my little game. I couldn’t believe it but no one ever did!

Another moment that was actually staged was my favorite in this show. In “Kind Captain” I sing about the “merry cat of nine tails” and had been supplied with a huge stuffed black cat. On a particular line I threw in the air and it disappeared into the orchestra pit. As if by magic, on the very next line, the cat came flying back out the pit, now pure white, and perfectly lands in my hands on the last note of the verse thanks to the most excellent timing of Celoris Miller who was playing the piano! The audience would explode as I gave a slow take toward then. I LIVE for that kind of moment!

The unfortunate thing about this business is its transitory nature. For a short while there is a visceral intensity that lifts us out of the ordinary and gives a deep sense of belonging and comfort. We rally about a common purpose and imbue ourselves with a security, even though we know it will end all too soon. We dive into relationships and rely on them to our very core. It’s the reward and punishment for the trust we allow ourselves all the while knowing, in the back of our minds, that it must all stop. Like all the others before it, this Summer wound down. I hated to see all these new friends leave town and grieved a wee bit for being abandoned.

But now it was onward … but not necessarily upward!

NEXT: The West and then the East …