THE ROAR OF THE GREASEPAINT – Part Fifteen

I confess that there is a small part of me deep down inside that is masochistic! I place myself in situations fully aware that the decision to do so will result in great pain. It might be because I convince myself the eventual outcome will involve a degree of pleasure but it seems that the lure of money is also involved. It’s a failing, I know, but sometimes I can’t help myself. And thus I succumbed to yet another involvement with “That” Director and one more touring Gilbert and Sullivan experience. There was one point early in the rehearsal process that I found myself looking at ads in the newpaper’s Travel Section wishing myself anywhere but where I was! And “where I was” this time was Edmonton, Alberta.

I had been lured by a three-month touring contract and lots of bucks to play ‘Koko’ in “The Mikado”, a part I had wanted for as long as I can remember. I justified my decision in a number of ways, but aside from the role and the money, there was another element to the engagement – an opportunity to sing with the Edmonton Symphony. “That” Director was now, as if to add insult to injury, also the Producer/Engager of his own Company and was in control of all aspects of the engagement. Aside from “Mikado” another event was added to the contract in the form of an “Introduction to Opera” for young people called “Doctor Euphonius and the Dulcet Tones Present You Can Tune A Piano But You Can’t Tuna Fish”. I had (and still have) no idea what that title meant but putting another show (and more about that later) together with the touring production just added to the mayhem that ensued!

I’d not worked with any of our cast before but we quickly bonded if only out of self preservation from the hands of our Director. Having worked with him before I knew how to handle him and quickly laid down my own ground rules for the approach. Bewilderingly, he had played my role years earlier and was hell-bent on me reproducing his performance! I think you can guess how that went down. While G&S operettas can get silly from time to time (well, most of the time) there still should be, as I have mentioned before in these pages, a degree of honesty about the performing of them. As his demonstrations of how to play the role got more and more embarrassing, as diplomatically as possible I navigated myself (and the rest of the cast of varying theatre experience) toward something a bit less “am-dram” and through cajoling and a “perhaps-we-can-try-it-this-way” approach, we managed to settle on something more “professional”.

Alongside “Mikado” rehearsals, four of us were also preparing for the “Symphony For Kids” performance. One might assume that this program would be made up of accessible material suitable for seven or eight year olds, but that assumption was thrown out the window rather quickly as we learned we’d be doing scenes from “Elixir of Love”, “The Bartered Bride”, “Merry Wives of Windsor” and a variety of other operas rarely performed for adults let alone children!! But we ploughed through. Our Musical Director was David Speers, a gentle and generous conductor who was as baffled as we were at the Director’s choices. Some of the music was very difficult (“Bartered Bride” comes immediately to mind) but because, like death and taxes, our single performance was unavoidable, we managed to get it together … sort of. The first rehearsal with the Orchestra was a shambles. Cues and entrances were missed as were notes and words and this was in front of 60 symphony Musicians whose faces reflected their confusion as why we were doing this. One of my challenges was to perform the “Largo al factotum” from Rossini’s “Barber of Seville”. This is a monumental baritone aria made familiar to a large extent by a Bugs Bunny cartoon and a perfect bitch to sing! I felt a perfect fool standing in front of this orchestra but I launched into it. It is fast, wordy and very physically and vocally demanding. It ends on a high ‘A’ after a long, accelerating cascade of “la-la-la’s” and yet more words. I hit the ‘A’ perfectly (the only time, actually) and descended to the tonic of the piece and it ended. I felt like I was going to faint. After a moment of silence, the sound of raindrops seemed to envelope me. I turned to find the string section of the orchestra tapping their bows on their music stands. I got slightly embarrassed but acknowledged their approval and David smiled broadly. We got through that rehearsal and the kids performance and nobody was the any wiser. But it was back to the other reality soon enough.

My cast mates in “Mikado” (Norman Roberts at ‘Pooh Bah, Sam Mancuso at “Nanki Poo’, Tom Goerz as “Pish Tush”, Elizabeth Mabee as ‘Katisha’ and Susan Skinner at ‘Yum Yum’) had decided that since I wasn’t shy about speaking my mind I should be elected the Equity Deputy (or “Eckity Deckity” as it is sometimes known) and that responsibility added another layer to my experience!

Despite our Director’s meddling, we pulled it together and began our run. Community Halls, School Libraries and Gymnasiums, Old Folks Homes and Church basements (yup) became our daily haunts – very rarely a “real” theatre. Walking into a multi-purpose room filled with Korean, Vietnamese, Japanese and Chinese kids (and some parents) was incredibly disconcerting as we pranced, kow-towed and shuffled about the stage like Ginza-tourist-trap-factory-made Japanese dolls. It was during an Old Folks home presentation that our accompanist, Grant Hurst, got bent out of shape when a high-pitched whine filled the air as he sat down at the piano to begin the show. “It’s Mrs. McLean!” all the creaky voices shouted together pointing at an elderly dear in a wheelchair as a nurse dashed over to turn down her hearing aid! And on it went! We’d adapt our staging on the fly because there was no time to rehearse in the constantly changing performance spaces. But there was an extra dimension for me that drove me up the wall.

As Deputy (a duty I was to assume many, many times over the years, and which would lead to some dreadful tangles) I was a liaison between the cast and the Association’s West Coast office in Vancouver. Actors’ Equity is not, despite some assertions otherwise, a Labour Union. It is a “Professional Association” that has come to be accepted in the theatre world (out of tradition more than anything else) as the organization which, through negotiations with the Producers (Management), sets the rules and regulations for pay scales and working conditions for Actors, Stage Management and Director (Labour). If push ever came to shove, a Producer could take the Association to court and challenge its legal status as a bargaining agent for its workers … and win the case! The “Canadian Theatre Agreement” sets the parameters for both Producers and Actors and is the bible that keeps everything in working order. Except when it doesn’t! Or is ignored! Both happen! And, in this case …

As a Producer, That Director was even more inept. Under the best of circumstances doing both jobs was an impossible task.  On one hand, the Director was Labour. On the other, the Producer was Management. How was THAT supposed to work? It didn’t. As Producer his aim was to make money … at almost any cost … and he took the attitude (as some Producers do) that Equity was out to thwart those aims … at almost any cost!! While it was easy in rehearsal to keep things running “by the book” – rehearsal hours, breaks and such – once on the road we were at the mercy of what was being decided back at the office on a day to day basis. The initial touring schedule was neatly established at the outset. It broke down into two performances a day and the performing venues were arranged based on distances from each other. In-town there was no problem, and, to start, our out-of-town jaunts were also well organized. But after a few weeks, it began to fall apart. Because bookings kept coming in after we’d begun touring, proximities became problematic. We would do one show in the morning and two hours later would have to do our afternoon show … eighty miles away!! We even arrived at one venue that had no idea that we were performing there! It all led to a multitude of rule infractions – lunch breaks, half- hour calls, overnight rest periods, driving infractions (we were all in a van) and on and on. We sucked it up for a bit, but as can be imagined it began to take a toll very quickly. Mutiny was in the air! And it was up to me to prevent it.

My approach was diplomatic at the start. There had been a few in-town infractions but those were ironed out and the troop’s rumblings were assuaged with a bit of money added on to the paychecks. But on-the- road was another matter. Our Director, much to everyone’s chagrin, would pop up in a small town to see how everything was going. It was all I could do to keep the cast from lynching him! I would explain over and over again as nicely as possible that a) he was deflating morale by being there and b) he was ignoring the touring regulations. He was all apologies and “I’m trying to make it work” but twenty-four hours later he would turn around and schedule an illegal three-show day! We were headed downhill and my only alternative was to get the Equity Office involved. There is a point of diminishing returns in situations like this and the rule from the top was to avoid confrontation at all costs and turn the complaints over to the National Office. Which is what I did. Oh! My! God! I was informed that they’d been receiving complaints about this Engager for a long time! Why, WHY, hadn’t I been told about this at the outset!? I was astonished that no one had warned me and given parameters for approach when I’d sent in my contract and, more to the point, when I became Deputy!

Audiences never think about what goes on behind the scenes as they sit and watch us perform. All they see is what they paid their money to see. The intrigue never makes it on to the stage (most of the time) and all is well with the world. The stage was also our momentary place of solace as we escaped the upheaval for an hour or so. But the number of phone calls, cast meetings, heated ranting over meals, grew and grew. It was only days off that released some of the pressure and as time went on we got more and more of those days off as the bookings slowly dried up. I admit to a degree of sympathy for our Producer/Director. It must have been incredibly frustrating to be paying our weekly salaries with little box office money coming in. There was another Company, a non-professional group, also touring in the same area, doing the same kind of program and charging much less than we were. This kind of competition in such a small market can be debilitating and I understood how difficult it must have been to keep things going. He actually asked why he should be paying us per diems when the other Company wasn’t and demanded that WE write letters to Equity telling them that this other Company was preventing us (him) from earning a living! You can imagine how that went down with the cast!! But he had only himself to blame for the turmoil he’d created.

Our tour limped sporadically on and, with a whimper, came to a merciful end. After two and a half months of madly zigzagging back and forth across the Alberta countryside we were released from our G&S shackles and returned to the real world.

I reaffirmed two things for myself from that experience. One was that a respectful, calm approach and common sense can usually dissipate tension, and two was that no matter what, performers always rise to the occasion. I also vowed two things at the end of that tour. The first was to never work for this Engager again and the second was to never do a school tour again. I never have and I never have!

It was during the last days of the show that I learned I’d been elected as National Councilor by the Manitoba Equity Membership! I had been urged to run for the position by a number of co-workers and learning that I’d been given the confidence of the Community was most encouraging. While I won’t go into it all right now, I can tell you that over the next ten years my involvement with the governing body of the Association (as regional Rep and ultimately as Vice President) resulted in some wonderful (and harrowing) tales that both warmed and chilled my heart. Stay tuned for those sagas.

There is an unmistakable smell to old theatres. It’s a combination of make-up and powder, barge glue, wood and sawdust combined with a little body sweat and, in those days, cigarette smoke. Those smells get permanently bonded to the bricks and plaster backstage and, for me, are comforting, exhilarating and just a little romantic. Over the years, I’ve found those smells at the Grand Theatre in London, Ontario, Portland Civic Theatre in Oregon, the Pantages in Winnipeg. I encountered it again when I walked backstage at The Neptune Theatre in Halifax.

If it’s possible for all the “stars to align”, they did for this production of “Evita” in which I had been cast as ‘Juan Peron’. Richard (Ouzounian) was our Director and, for the life of me, to this day I have no earthly idea how I got the part. I bear no resemblance to Peron. He was over six feet tall and here I was a mere 5’7-ish”. But then Howard Keel’s words came drifting back to me about letting go of that idea. Lifts helped!

This was a love fest all ‘round. Rick Fox (at left) was a gem of an MD. The glorious Jayne Lewis was my ‘Eva’. Rock Star Alfie Zappacosta (at left) was ‘Che’. Ever wonderful Janet Macewan was ‘The Mistress’ and the Ensemble was made up of then-budding Canadian Theatre luminaries – Shawn Wright, Jerry Etienne, Ellen Horst, Daniel Kash, Lee MacDougall, to name but a few. Right from the start, and due to Richard’s and Rick’s patience and generosity in the rehearsal hall, we bonded very tightly. Initially, it was us against the music, but these were great voices and we rose to the occasion.

“Evita” is through-sung, which is to say it’s like an Opera in that there is no spoken dialogue. It makes vocal demands far beyond the “regular” Music Theatre fare. It is a monumental show requiring a legit sound from just about everyone and the first week was spent scaling this musical mountain. I can remember the first time the entire company sang “A New Argentina”. The last line – “Cannot be and will not be and must not be denied” – is sung in six part harmony at a triple forte. There is a famous picture in an ad for audio speakers where a seated man is holding on to the arms of an easy chair with his hair being blown back by the sound coming from the speakers. That is what the tsunami of voices sounded like on that day. Incredible! And that set the tone for the rest of the rehearsals, everyone completely committed and involved, both to the material and each other.

One challenge that actors face in the Musical Theatre and in Opera is contending with the old saw “emotions so big they have to be sung”. It’s a weak justification, especially in Musical Theatre for “breaking into song” – when words “no longer suffice” and the only alternative is to sing about what one is feeling. I’ve always thought that a composer or lyricist worth their salt will have done the work of making that very difficult transition; but even if that is the case, the performer must still make the psychological bridge from speaking to singing all while keeping it “real”.

But there is a pitfall in Opera. What does one do when not singing? The heightened emotions continue with the composer taking his/her turn at the crank, musically reiterating or underlining the passion to which the singer has already given voice. There is a tendency to fill that vocal silence with “acting” but somehow, for me, that approach has never fit the bill. My personal challenge in “Evita” was to make those silences work both for me and the audience, to keep us all present in the thru-line of the feelings. It required a LOT of thinking beforehand, plotting the progression in tiny increments and then fitting them into the musical line which underscored the emotional evolutions all over again. Jayne and I had conversations about this and came to the conclusions that we would still have to trust our inner monologues and unspoken dialogue in order to get from one emotional place to another. Lloyd Weber and Tim Rice had been masterful in giving us firm emotional foundations that were both guiding and supporting. It was a lot of work and exhausting in performance but incredibly satisfying when achieved.

There is one point toward the end of the show when Eva knows she is dying and sings about becoming Peron’s Vice President. He must make a choice of supporting her or, because of the demands of his Generals, leaving her behind as he rises in power. He looks down and sings, almost rhetorically, “So, what happens now?” Eva quietly sings “Where am I going to?”, a reiteration of what ‘The Mistress’ has sung earlier in the show as Peron casts her off in favour of Eva. Peron responds with “Don’t ask anymore” and backs away from her. During the musical underscoring that follows I remember looking up at Jayne and seeing a single tear roll down her cheek. The confluence of reality and theatre hit me like a bomb blast for a moment as I got overwhelmed by the intensity of the emotion we had created, fighting back the instinct to take her in my arms as a human being and turning away as the character. I held back my subjectivity until I got off stage and dissolved into tears myself. It had been so real. Mercy, I love the Theatre!!

From opening night through an weeks’ extension we were sold out. Doing that material every night was incredibly satisfying on so many levels and we all continued to find new insights into our characters and relationships. Toward the end of the run after a student matinee, the outgoing AD (Richard had just been appointed Artistic Director to start the following season) called Jayne and me into his office. He told us that he had been displeased with how our relationship was coming off on stage! He said our intentions were vague and cloudy, that my approach was “dead wrong” and proceeded to give us notes about how to “improve” our portrayals! We sat there, stunned! This was a conversation that should have a) happened during rehearsals and b) been with himself and the Director of the show, not us half way through the run! But he was the head of the theatre and we nodded at his input and left.

We looked at each other in the hallway and went our separate ways to get ready for the evening performance. I closed myself in my dressing room. My mind was racing, trying to assess each moment he had addressed, attempting to make some sense of his notes and going through the show in my head adjusting deliveries and transitions. I went on stage that evening petrified of what was going to happen. In the first scene with ‘The Mistress’, I tried to incorporate the AD’s requested additional layer of compassion but everything seemed to go awry. My conditioning had been thwarted and, like forgetting a line, I just kept thinking that this wasn’t right. Extricating himself from ‘The Mistress’ had to have a slightly brutal quality to it in order to justify his change of heart. Feeling sorry for her wasn’t what I was supposed to be doing in that moment. It went downhill from there affecting the relationship with ‘Eva’ and I found myself losing my focus and my ‘Peron’ started to disappear.

I came off stage after the first Act and people started asking me if something was wrong. I explained what had taken place earlier in the day and folks got angry that this had happened to Jayne and me. I calmed down and told Jayne to forget about the first Act and that we were going back to the way we had been doing it. Thank God she agreed, saying that our scenes had been the worst ever and all was back to normal.

The AD didn’t see the show again until the following evening. After it was over he appeared at my dressing room door and proceeded to tell me that what I was doing in the scenes we had talked about was SO MUCH BETTER than what I had been doing before our chat!! I could hardly believe it! I had written in my Journal the evening before about the incident and conjectured that he would do what he had just done and that I wouldn’t have the guts to tell him he was a complete asshole because we hadn’t changed a damned thing! Of course, I didn’t have the guts and just ended up feeling sorry for him more than anything else. He really couldn’t see the difference and only saw what he wanted to see. That’s the thing about acting. You prepare and prepare and create a character and relationships within the confines of the story that hopefully live for the audience as you take them on the journey. They demand nothing more than the truth in what you give them. It’s a matter of trust, in every way, with everyone, from the first day of rehearsals to the last day of performance.

I left “Evita” with a heavy heart because of the love, warmth and generosity of yet another “family”, momentarily gathered and now scattered in every direction. Miraculously, I’ve remained in touch with many of those folk and that’s comforting. But it was onward now, back to the Prairies with opportunities missed and opportunities taken!