Johnson plays both twins in Comedy of Errors
by Keith Schaefer
Beacon Herald Festival Edition 1989
Beacon Herald Festival Edition 1989
"Each character you develop in each play you do, you find a way of getting to know that person you're playing. You re-organize parts of yourself, and find out which parts make up that whole new person. So once that's accomplished in the rehearsal period, usually all you need (for the performance) is time for make-up and costumes."
"If push comes to shove, you can (change characters) like that," he says, snapping his fingers.
Johnson has three roles in the double bill. He plays Bassanius in Titus Andronicus, and plays both Antipholuses in The Comedy of Errors. As well, he plays Brick in Cat On a Hot Tin Roof and Worthy in The Relapse.
He says he's not concerned about the short time frame in which he has to make a large emotional swing from the dark tragedy of Titus to the light fluffiness of Comedy.
"I don't think it will be a problem, because if you find the essense of both pieces... and fortunately for me I get a long break from Titus because I'm killed early."
In Comedy, however, Johnson plays both lead roles, and literally has to switch from one character to another in seconds. But again, he says it's just something actors are trained to do.
These are the first leading roles for Johnson at Stratford. Born and raised out west, he was here in 1979 and 1980, and on the doorstep of success, but the mat got pulled out from underneath him.
"The first year was a total 'as cast' year, where I got a line in each show or something. The next year I got some nice stuff, and then the brouhaha broke. There was talk of me playing Horatio in Hamlet, and then ptth!" he says, referring to the messy situation of switching artistic directors in 1980, at the end of Robin Phillips' regime as artistic director. (John Hirsch wasn't hired as his successor until early in 1981, after much controversy surrounding the artistic directorship.)
"There were quite a few of us in the position where we were about to grow in terms of the parts we were playing, and we had spent a couple years exploring Shakespeare. We had gained some kind of knowledge, were really looking forward to the season and then, whacko!
"In lots of ways it was really good, because I think what I learned here then improved me and I took that back to Toronto."
He clearly put whatever he learned to good use, as in those intervening years Johnson has become one of Toronto's premiere theatre actors. And now he's back, to play five characters in four plays.
In Comedy, Johnson says, the Antipholus twins are different, growing up in different environments, but they're similar people.
"They're twins, but they haven't been brought up together. But as research shows, twins needn't be brought up together to have remarkable similarities. These two people are quite separate. The one thing that links them together is a sense of not being whole. One of them (from Syracuse) knows he's got a twin. The other (from Epheseus) doesn't but there is a sense of something missing, that's why he's got problems at home.
"Antipholus from Epheseus is more gregarious in a way, because he feels a loss but doesn't know why. The other one has been searching for his twin for seven years, and knows what his sense of loss is.
"So when they come together in the revelation scene at the end, it's not only 'Ah, there they are' but there is a sense of an emotional contact being made."
The two Anitpholuses will be dressed the same, but Johnson says it's all right if the audience gets confused.
"I think that's right. The way we've set the play, there's time for the audience to say 'well, what... why are you wearing that... what are you doing.' People in the play do that, and there's no reason why members of the audience" shouldn't also.
"It should be a fun evening that way."
"When you're working with really good people, people who want to be challenged, then hard work is invigorating. Granted, by the end of the season I will be a tired puppy, but it should be a really good tired."
A video of this production is available from the Stratford Festival Theatre Store in both NTSC and PAL formats. Click here for info
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