The plans for the MTC 50th Anniversary “Homecoming Gala” were moving along. Still a couple of months away, I had a grip on what was happening as far as the entertainment was concerned. There were a couple of people missing from the roster, and some of the taped greetings were still in the offing – like the one from Judd Hirsch (who had played ‘Willie Loman’ in “Death of a Salesman”) saying a few words and introducing local actor Harry Nelkin in a small scene from the show. Some of these videos would affect the live performances. There was also the matter of confirming in-town folks and making sure the structure was secure so that everyone felt comfortable – no “off the cuff” bullshit, which always makes people squirm, both in the house and on-stage. All was under control and intended it stay that way.
I threw my hat into the ring for a role in “Pride And Prejudice” at MTC. Robbie was directing and there was only one part I was right for, so that was in the picture. I was also in an “on-hold” mode with James Dodding in England. During “Earnest” I had given him the CD of the “Christmas Carol” readings I did, and he floored me by asking if I would be interested in coming to London to do a few performances of it for The Dickens House Society! He sat on the organization’s Advisory Board and, before leaving Winnipeg, told me that he would start the wheels in motion for some dates that Christmas. It had been a while since I’d heard from him and I didn’t have a lot of details; but I forced myself to not press the issue, to stay calm and, like a seasoned professional, act nonchalant allowing things to take their course. But my God! Dickens House!? London!? “Calm” really wasn’t in the picture!
Thoughts of moving became more persistent during another trip to Victoria with my friend, Teresa Lee (“T”). The May weather was a tad on the dreary side and showed the city in a different light. But spending time with Mom was the point of the trek and she seemed to be in good form. The three of us spent hours walking about the beautiful Inner Harbour area enjoying the shops, being together and doing touristy things again.
Sometimes there’s no way of avoiding a reality which, out of self-preservation or not knowing how to respond, one has placed to one side. I found myself confronting the inescapable one night at dinner with Mom and Teresa. Mom had a great affection for T, and they got along like gangbusters. They always had something to talk about or laugh about. They were very comfortable with each other. It was during this dinner that the full force of Mom’s condition hit me.
We had wandered a bit in our conversations, and Mom would continuously repeat questions or remake observations which we would let pass. At one point, we found ourselves talking about Mom’s childhood as she regaled us with adventures she’d had with her two brothers, Johnny and Billy, when they were small. The stories were told in great detail, and she got very animated, as if she were reliving them. She was so present, clear, lucid, and I was enjoying listening to her. Then something suddenly changed. She started talking to me as if I was my Uncle Johnny. “Do you remember the three of us jumping on the bed? We weren’t supposed to do that, were we! Do you remember that?” She was looking into my eyes and smiling, waiting for me to answer her. It felt like I was in the middle of a play I’d never rehearsed! I didn’t know the lines and was completely at a loss. A weak, stammered “What?” was all I could manage as my mind scrambled to make sense of a) the question and b) the face of the person looking at me, waiting. From across the table, Teresa very quietly under her breath whispered, “Go with it.” A prompt! A lifeline! And I grabbed on to it, making something up as if I was Johnny saying “yes, I remember”. I was completely stunned. I wondered what Mom was seeing through her eyes, where she had gone, what had triggered her to leave the now and go back to the then, mentally casting me as my Uncle in a vivid and real place for those moments. It lasted only 15 seconds or so and then eased back into reality. I felt like I had been falling forever, not knowing when I was going to hit solid ground. I don’t know if Mom realized what had happened, but we made no mention of it afterward.
I understood that for Mom it wasn’t an “incident”, rather just a part of a conversation we were having. But for me, it was very frightening. That was fifteen years ago now, and I can still remember my skin tightening around my temples, the sound of T’s voice and the swirling confusion in my frontal lobe, trying to make sense of what I’d just witnessed. It’s an indelible sense memory now, not academically or theatrically, but fused into my DNA – that moment when I lost my tether to the lifelong safety of my Mother, realizing that something profound had happened and would keep happening from now on. I would have to address it … and had no idea how to do that.
The days that followed were good, seeing a great performance of “Regina” by Pacific Opera Victoria, lots of walking, Mom and T going to Church on Sunday morning. I walked about by myself looking at places that might be options for a new home. T even managed to get Mom to her doctor to re-establish the medication regimen she’d been put on months earlier but had stopped taking. When you can’t remember to remember, Life becomes a vacant space with no guardrails, and, with no parameters or limits, order begins to fade. That seemed to be where Mom was at, and it scared the hell out of me to leave her. She was functioning, but to my mind, just barely. I vowed to keep in constant contact with her once home and to offer prompts and reminders as subtly as I could without upsetting or confusing her. Patience, something of which I’d always been woefully short, would now become the basis of every exchange.
The “Homecoming Gala” night was finally upon us. I’d kept things pretty well under control. Despite Stephen (Schipper, MTC’s Artistic Director) adding items to the line-up making the presentation longer and longer, my original concept was still mostly intact, and though little details kept me on my toes, I was relatively calm. Frantic Films, who generously coordinated the filming of all the greetings from folks who couldn’t be there in person, had done a great job, and it was now just a matter of our tech folks pushing the “Play” button at the appropriate moments during the show. We ran through almost everything at a rehearsal that afternoon. At some point, Stephen had decided that since the house would be so small (only about 120 based on the advance sales report) he would name and thank everyone who came, individually! All of them! Of course, I’d not factored this into my timing of the show, but it was Stephen’s event and what he wanted, I would accommodate.
The rehearsal went smoothly … for the most part. The Ecco Singers Choir sounded great, and Kevin Aichele was wonderful doing a number from the new Olaf Pyttlik musical “Quo Vadis”, which MTC was helping to develop. The pit band was a solid anchor for all the Musical Theatre moments and the drama scenes went well. But no matter how diplomatically and subserviently I tried, I couldn’t convince Len Cariou to cut his song, “Try To Remember”, from three verses down to two. He did, however, understand my “clock” appeal and eventually picked up the tempo and shortened the song … by a few seconds! “The Marathon” number – that List of famous lines from all the MTC shows over the past fifty years and which would be recited by six actors with a stop watch counting down on a screen behind them – was supposed to come in at 4 minutes, 48 seconds (I have no idea why I decided on that timing) initially read at five minutes, thirty seconds!! Oh Lord! We did it a few more times at breakneck speed but could only get it down by a few more seconds. It wouldn’t be until the actual performance that we would achieve our goal. In hindsight, it would have been the simplest of solutions to change the time we were aiming for, but I wasn’t thinking logically at that point in all the chaos. The only show elements we hadn’t run were the speeches by the special guests – Tom Hendry (the theatre’s co-founder), Len Cariou (the Theatre’s AD for a time) and Richard Ouzounian (also AD for all my years there). I’d shown them where the mic would be on stage, the route to get to it and reminded them of my request that their remarks be very short (five minutes had been the suggestion).
That night … well, we got through it. I was in the wings acting as a quasi-expediter/Stage Manager, trying to keep things moving. For the most part, the rehearsed bits went off very well. It was the “winging it” aspects of the show that provided some “moments”. The speeches were within the boundaries I’d set. No one strayed too far afield, although I know Len wanted to talk for a LOT longer than he’d been given. Ouzounian was wonderfully eloquent and touching as he talked about his years heading the Theatre, and brought a lump to my throat as he told us how reassuring it was to know that Robbie Paterson and Richard Hurst were, like the “Golden Boy” (the gold statue that tops the Manitoba Legislature Building), still a part of the Winnipeg landscape. My only on-stage involvement was as one of the “team” in “The Marathon”. The fact that we didn’t know if we were going to hit the time target had us all on edge and I explained all this to the audience when I introduced the act. Once the big digital clock appeared on the screen behind us, I could feel the folks out front lean forward as we threw the length of our rolled up “scripts” out in front of us to start the clock. It was manic! I could feel the intense focus as our ears strained to hear the cue lines, our mouths working to make the words clear as we sped through the famous quotes, bending over as we spooled the long paper through our hands desperate to get to the end. As we’d finish a line, we’d look over our shoulders to see where the time stood, and the talking would speed up. It just compounded the excitement and energy. We were frantic, laughing and jumping up and down trying to speak everything faster and faster. The audience was just as caught up as we were. I don’t know how many of the last few lines were intelligible, but the clock ran out just a few seconds before we got to the last line! I think it was our Herculean effort that made the house erupt into applause as we breathed a collective sigh of relief, took our bows and staggered off the stage, laughing all the way.
Stephen had given his first set of remarks earlier in the evening. My five minute “suggestion” was handily blown out of the water when he went on for a remarkable sixteen minutes (all those guest’s names!). I stood in the wings wind-milling my arms (which everyone backstage enjoyed immensely) frantically trying to get his attention to wind it up, all to no avail. Toward the end of the show, he came to me backstage asking if we should shorten the introduction to the final “Quo Vadis” number. That intro took thirty seconds and gave a context for the song. He thought the show was running long! I almost hit him. But we finished to a great response and the folks I spoke to afterward told me it had been a great evening … and how well it had moved along. If they only knew!
I found myself having to do some schedule juggling in the weeks that followed. Robbie had offered me a thankfully small role in “Pride and Prejudice”, and Ken wanted me to do Rainbow’s Fall show, “Forever Plaid”, and possibly their Winter show, either “Little Shop of Horrors” or “Cats”. “Pride” and “Plaid” overlapped by a week, but I thought I could manage it if I put Morgan into a Doggie Hotel for that time so I wouldn’t have to dash home between rehearsals and performances to feed him and let him know I was still alive. It turned out, mercifully, that young Kevin McIntyre would be available to direct “Plaid”, a show he’d done twice before and was much better suited for the material than was I. It was now a case of Rainbow deciding between “Cats” and “Little Shop”. For my money, “Cats” was not the right choice for the Company. When it had been suggested, I’d re-listened to the complete production recording. We didn’t have enough triple-threats in the city. It is a humongous show – vocally and physically! There is no Ensemble per se – everyone is a name role with a specialty moment. The cast could only be high-end singers and actors, and the spectacular dancing, what the show was known for, was incredibly demanding. We’d have to import a lot of folks which would affect the production’s bottom line and I relayed my thoughts to Ken. He told me that a decision would be made by mid-Summer, but it was only a matter of days after our conversation before the choice came down. “Little Shop” would be my Winter project.
I don’t know why I tug at the bit as much as I do when a directing job comes my way. My “let’s-get-it-all-taken-care-of-now” approach appeals to my sense of order, and pinning down folks for production positions and the Cast well in advance calms me down and allows me to mentally focus on constructing my vision. And that’s just what we did. Ken wanted to enlarge the Cast a little bit – from ten to 14 – and I thought that would work if only to populate the Pantages Stage a bit more. We found Alan Kliffer, a Toronto-based performer who had the appealing nebbish quality for ‘Seymour’. Chelsea Duplak or Lisa Durupt would be possibilities for ‘Audrey’. The Vocal Back-up Trio would be Kimberley Rampsersad, Lisa Bell and Michele White. Our ‘Orin’ would be either Simon Miron or Peter Huck and Nick Atkinson would be the Voice of ‘Audrey II’. Harry Nelkin or Jay Brazeau or Nick Rice would play ‘Mr. Mushnik’ and the puppeteers for the ‘Audrey II’ were readily available from Ken’s connections. We could have the set and costumes from the Canadian Stage production, Michael Walton would light it for us, and Chris Peace would Stage Manage. Ken made the phone calls, and we were done! A no brainer! I was stoked! I had months to prepare!
I popped back out to Victoria to spend more time with Mom and to look at a large townhouse on a golf course she thought we could buy together. It was glorious! Mom would live upstairs and I down. I immediately fell in love with the calm and serenity and the landscaping of the 36-unit complex. The house was 2,500 square feet with a huge upper level balcony terrace and a patio on my lower level just across from the golf course. Neither Mom nor I could hold ourselves back. We talked about it for the rest of the day, over dinner and all that evening. I could find no downside with it. We put in an offer through the agent and the next day it was accepted. Mom’s condo was listed at the same time the townhouse offer went in, a Tuesday. On Wednesday, her condo had three offers and on Thursday, we were at the bank signing all the papers. Breathless would be a good word to use to describe how I felt on the plane all the way back home. I’d just altered the trajectory of my life and, for those few hours flying back home, nobody but Mom and I and the real estate agent knew about it! Now I had to think about selling my place in Winnipeg. That would take some time.
I was still processing what had happened in Victoria as I found myself back at my desk just a bit on edge preparing budgets for a 23-city “Chitty, Chitty, Bang, Bang” Tour. It was hard to focus. Sam was in Russia with a “42nd Street” Tour, so I was holding down the fort. The “Chitty” Producers (Big League Productions) decided they wanted some major changes made to the orchestra budgets and since I couldn’t get Sam on the phone, I just bit the Executive bullet and implemented their requests. Sam would have to deal with the consequences once he got back. And then there was “Triple Sensation”.
“Triple Sensation” was a talent competition reality series on CBC TV that had debuted a year earlier and was now entering a second season. It was billed as “A Project of National Cultural Relevance”. Nothing like pronouncements, is there? But, of course, that was only natural because the show had been created by Garth Drabinsky! As always, Sam had somehow managed to involve us (MSI) in the project and I had been organizing timetables, budgets and orchestra musicians for months. There had been cross-country auditions in the weeks previous, and then workshops and classes leading up to the big televised final sessions in Toronto. There were a lot of high-end people involved – Marvin Hamlisch, Sergio Trujillo, Adrian Noble, Cynthia Dale – as the competition judges, so I had assumed that the organization of the production elements would be of the same calibre. I should have known better. The project had now become the bane of my existence!! It quickly became apparent that the folks behind the scenes were the most disorganized, inept bunch of dolts I had ever worked with – and that’s saying a lot. For some reason, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation uses a “divide and conquer” model for their corporate structure. In other words, always make sure the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing. There is an attitude of “Do you know who we ARE? We ARE the CBC, and we ARE in control” – one that persists to this day. In my years of experiences with the CBC as a Radio and TV performer, I was always aware of a tension that hung over a set or in a studio. Everyone was wary of each other. They did their jobs as if they were being watched by a Big Eye somewhere, and followed a strict hierarchical protocol that would not allow for decisions in-the-moment. If something was wrong, someone would have to tell someone else who would then tell someone else until the problem worked its way up the chain to the someone who could make a decision. I watched it happen over and over again and now I was in the middle of it. This time it had to do with changes in the taping schedule. Because I knew this routine, the timetable had been established months earlier and everyone … everyone – musicians, producers as well as mucky-mucks … had been notified, confirmed and reconfirmed for this particular weekend. Then, on the Friday night, someone decided to change the time of the Saturday Orchestra rehearsal and to ADD another rehearsal on the Sunday afternoon of the final taping!
Of course, the protocol had to be followed and the structure observed, and I threw my hands up in the air and went ballistic. Perhaps I could have rolled with these punches a few years earlier. It would have been just another day at the mill. But this was viscerally debilitating, intensely frustrating. I felt put upon and ignored and finally lost it one day on poor Mark Camelleri, the show’s MD who had been my on-the-ground guy at the CBC Studios in Toronto. While we tried to get it organized, desperately phoning people with this new schedule, a lot of musicians had taken other jobs based on the long-standing schedule and could simply not be at the added rehearsal. It was a low point for me. I mean, really low. All I could think of was getting to Victoria and being free of the bullshit of this job. It angered and saddened me at the same time.
Not without some bruised egos and some very angry executives, “Triple Sensation” eventually worked itself out, as these things always did, but I became deeply aware that I no longer had the energy or the stomach for all … this. My fuse had become very short. My patience, such as it was, had at long last abandoned me, and I dreaded the phone ringing. I just wanted Sam to find someone to take my place, to let me go!