Where There's Smoke...: Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man, a Memoir (5 page)

Ontario in the fifties was a hotbed of summer theatres. A new company was trying to revive Muskoka; Michael Sadlier was running the Peterborough Summer Theatre. There were companies or attempts at companies in Lindsay, Jackson’s Point, Vineland, and, of course, Stratford. With the exception of Stratford they were all stock companies, putting on a season of plays normally for a week each for tourists and locals. A wonderful training ground for actors, directors, designers, and technicians, these companies were Canada’s answer to the British rep system, both, sadly, long gone.

In 1956 John Pratt, formerly a performer with my cousins and later the mayor of Dorval, Quebec, aimed to open a theatre on Centre Island. Well, it had something going for it. There was an abandoned cinema they could use and it was located in the large metropolis of Toronto. Well, sort of. The fact that you could only get to Centre Island by ferry was thought to be a pleasant summer outing for the hoped-for audience. I suppose it was for some, but driving to the harbour, walking a good distance, waiting for the ferry, and then walking a good distance at the other end may not have appealed to all theatregoers. The valiant attempt lasted only one summer.

My foray into the working world having been cut short, I jumped at their offer to be an apprentice in the new company. And so, moving back into my room at the Sir Daniel Wilson Residence for the summer, I began the regular treks to Centre Island to work under the mentorship of designer/builder Russ Waller. Many of the major actors in Toronto worked in the company: Austin Willis, Kate Reid, Jack Creley. Andrew Allan directed some of the productions. Then in the twilight of his illustrious career, not that he was old, only that the world was passing him by, the great radio producer, Allan gave me my first but not last view of a director belittling an actor, embarrassing him in front of the company for no apparent reason other than the failure of his own career. “Are we going to do that again tomorrow night?” he would ask with withering sarcasm. John Clark, the victim in this case, was as far as I could see a talented young actor who was very kind to me and had done nothing to deserve such abuse. On the other side of the ledger I have nothing but praise and appreciation for Russ Waller. While I had been around theatre from an early age I really knew nothing about how it worked, how a play got on the stage. Russ taught me to build and paint scenery, to create and read a ground plan, and to set up and strike a set, all skills that I would continue to use for the next few years.

Returning to university in the fall of 1956, once again I was not cast in either of the first two Robert Gill productions at Hart House. Was rejection becoming a way of life? I was able to continue my working relationship with Russ Waller who designed and built the set for the first Gill production that year,
Dark of the Moon
, and I began my relationship with Donald Sutherland as we both worked crew on the show and rattled the thunder sheet together. Academically, I enrolled in my philosophy major and joined a small group of University College philosophy students who would study together for the next three years. Among our number was the future leader of the New Democratic Party of Canada, a charming and thoughtful young man, Ed Broadbent. Ed was one of those people who seemed to be genuinely interested in you.

But I was not to be denied as an actor in the fall of 1956. Kurt Reis cast me as the lead in Tennessee Williams’
Summer and Smoke
, a University College production that would play in Hart House Theatre when it was not being used for a Gill production. My role was challenging, that of a young dissolute doctor who is attracted to the uptight minister’s daughter, wonderfully played in this case by Aileen Taylor who would later act in the first play I directed and work with me at the Centaur Theatre in Montreal. By the end of the play her character has become dissolute and mine respectable.

It would be so interesting if one could go back in time and see oneself in such an early work, or even to understand what one thought one was doing as an actor. Was I any good in this? I have no idea. I remember I thought I was pretty terrific when I came offstage and felt the tension through all the muscles in my back. LAMDA (the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art) would later disabuse me of the notion that tension and good acting went together. In the play, my character, John, kisses three different women: the uptight spinster, Alma, a hot Spanish woman, Rosa, and his new young love, Lizzie. I am puzzled when I look back on this production for I dreaded these kissing scenes. From my current vantage point as an oversexed senior, I would give anything to go back and kiss those three attractive young women night after night. What was I thinking? The character clearly enjoyed these experiences. I was playing the character. Shouldn’t I have enjoyed them also?

Recently I read William Shatner’s memoir,
Up Till Now
, and he talks about his first sex scene in a movie and his terrible fear that he would get an erection. If it were me, I would be afraid I wouldn’t get an erection. I mean, wouldn’t it be embarrassing to be rolling about with some lovely naked woman and to be seen not having any response at all? Alas, since I was not an actor during my romantic lead years I never had to deal with that issue.

The Method, the degree to which an actor identifies with a character or merely represents a character, was a heated topic in the fifties. Many of us thought that if Marlon Brando’s inaudibility was a sign of the Method maybe we were better with John Gielgud’s verse speaking. I don’t know if I had really taken a position on this subject at the time, so when Nadine Ragus, who clearly had a position on the subject, playing the hot blooded Rosa thrust her tongue inside my mouth in a fervent French kiss, I didn’t know how to react. The audience couldn’t see our tongues. What was the point? But give me the chance to replay that scene now . . .

Was I afraid that if I enjoyed the kissing I would be disloyal to Cathy, my girlfriend at the time? I know I hated it when she had to kiss someone on stage. Was I afraid I would be abusing the actors in a personal way if I enjoyed a sexual contact with them? Nadine’s active tongue would seem to have absolved me of that guilt. Or was I just shy?

As they say, youth is wasted on the young.

But my career was soon to take an unexpected turn, leaving the kissing issue and other personal acting issues behind. David Stein, later known as the writer David Lewis Stein, had undertaken to direct a one-act play for the UC Players’ Guild that would be entered in the same one-act play festival where we had done
Purification
the year before. David had worked with Kurt Reis on some of his productions and wanted to try his hand on his own, but feeling a need for someone with more acting experience he asked me to work with him to which I readily agreed. Directing was new to me and I was anxious to give it a shot.

Well, it’s not strictly true that directing was new to me. At age twelve or fourteen I used to roll up my sleeves and act like a director when my younger cousins and I would present little plays to our uncles and aunts. We called ourselves the Ragged Shirt Players in counterpoint to our grown-up cousins, the Straw Hat Players.

Needing a play of a certain length I recommended
The Browning Version
by Terence Rattigan, a play in which I had played the young Taplow years before with the Straw Hat Players. Central to the play are the crotchety headmaster, Crocker-Harris, and his younger wife who is getting it on with a younger teacher. We had the good sense and good fortune to cast Ray Stancer and Aileen Taylor as the two leads. Casting Aileen may have been a bit of a cheat. I’m not sure she was actually registered as a student though she spent a lot of time on campus and could often be seen in the Arbor Room, the canteen at Hart House, having coffee with Peter Gzowski, who was then editor of
The Varsity
. But, whatever, I learned an important lesson about directing. If you get the best actors at least half your work is done.

For whatever reasons David lost interest in the project as it went along and I became the sole director. I took to directing as a dog to a bone. I loved being in control; I loved the intellectual challenge and I discovered I had a good spatial sense. It was easy for me to create stage movement that was both natural and varied. The production was an unqualified success. Robert Gill said it was the best directed undergraduate production he had seen. Well, with that accolade what was I to do but become a director?

Gill did finally cast me one last time, in the final production of my second year,
The Tempest
, in which I played Ferdinand opposite Cathy’s Miranda. Ferdinand is not an easy role and I’m not sure I did anything with it other than convince myself and others that my decision to switch to directing might be a rather good idea. The surprising performance, to me at least, was Donald Sutherland’s excellent performance as Stephano, surprising because so far as I was concerned he hadn’t been much good in anything else I had seen him do. A raw talent, people would say. I agreed to the raw part. One day during tech rehearsal we were sitting together in the house and Donald said, “I know I can act.” I was struck by his assurance since it would not be Donald Sutherland whom most of us would have predicted to become a successful actor. Ray Stancer, now the Toronto lawyer, more likely. But I have seen this self-assurance about acting a few times since, when a young person knows they will be a successful actor whatever anyone else may think. Brian Cox, perhaps. R.H. Thompson. Diane D’Aquila. I auditioned both Robert and Diane for the National Theatre School. I figured I might as well accept them. They were going to be actors whatever I did.

Yet Sutherland’s self-assurance at the time was belied by a conversation I had with him recently. Apparently he was not decided on his future; in fact he had dumped the question entirely in the lap of critic Herbert Whittaker. If Herbie gave him a good review he would be an actor, otherwise not. Well, the rest is history.

Campus life was to involve me in other ways throughout my four years. In 1957 I was asked to debate the proposition “Resolved that Faubus was right.” Orval Faubus was the governor of Arkansas and stood on the front steps of a Little Rock High School to prevent African Americans from entering in accordance with the new civil rights laws. I think the debating society had been turned down by every potential debater in the college before they got to me. No one wanted to defend Faubus. I guess they had no trouble getting people to take the opposition side, but no one would take the government position as the “pro” side in a debate. Well, why not? Attacking the proposition was just too easy so I agreed to defend the proposition. Debates at the college were set up like a mock parliament with those supporting the motion sitting on one side, both the debaters and the audience, and those opposing the motion sitting on the other. When I entered the hall it was packed. Everyone was sitting on the opposition side, no one, that is, no one, on our side, only the other poor sod who had also agreed to defend Faubus. I presented what I thought was a rather intelligent argument, that we had to define “right” from Faubus’s point of view, not our own, and went on to present a picture of life from that point of view and show that in those terms Faubus was “right.” After the official debate the floor was open to speakers from the audience, the audience crammed into one side of the hall. Well, Stephen Lewis got up — yes,
that
Stephen Lewis, who later became leader on the Ontario New Democratic Party and Canada’s ambassador to the United Nations. Eloquent as always, he proceeded to lambast me and my arguments and defend civil rights in general and African-Americans in particular.

In a strange way this debate prepared me for my future role on
The X-Files
. Confronted with the task of getting inside the head of a villain, or at the least a person whose views one finds abhorrent, what does one do? Somehow one has to see the world as they do; after all villains don’t think they are villains. They believe in what they do. In this case, the debater, but later, the actor, has to construct a world view whereby their abhorrent actions seem logical and right. I used to have a lot of fun in later years explaining to fans that they completely misunderstood
The X-Files
. Didn’t they see that Mulder was the bad guy and my character was the hero? Stephen may have been blind to the irony of my argument, but that may be just as well. He has been a passionate defender of the downtrodden and the world is the better for it.

After
The Tempest
there was nothing for it but to study for final exams and finish all those half completed essays and wonder what I was going to do in the coming summer. To my surprise and pleasure I was invited to be the stage manager of yet another iteration of summer theatre in Port Carling, Muskoka. James (Jimmy) Hozack and L.C. Tobias had decided to give it a go. I guess Tobias had some money and Jimmy certainly had the experience. Jimmy Hozack was the delightfully ironic but greatly overweight business manager of Hart House Theatre. He worked closely with Robert Gill and Eleanor Beecroft who ran the box office. But more to the point he had been Business Manager of the Straw Hats with my cousins for a number of years and was often credited with developing the audience. Jimmy’s poster run for Straw Hat was legendary. Every week he would set out with the posters for the next production and take a couple of days to do what might have been done in a few hours. Gregarious, personal, and funny, Jimmy would stop and chat with all the merchants. The goodwill he created had a lot to do with the success of the company. He and Tobias might well succeed where the producers the previous summer had not.

And they might have succeeded had they been more frugal. They offered me sixty dollars a week, a pretty big step up from the twenty-five I made the year before. I was thrilled to make sixty bucks a week at that time, but I would have done it for less. I don’t know what they paid the actors and directors, but I’m guessing it was more than the market would bear as, in the end, they only did the one season.