Veteran Canadian actor finds success as rookie in London
by Mira Friedlander
Special to the Star
Toronto Star
22 August 1993
Special to the Star
Toronto Star
22 August 1993
They like him in London, England, where he's currently starring as Petruchio in Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew on the West End, at the historic Open Air Theatre in Regent's Park.
His Kate is Cathy Tyson, who starred opposite Bob Hoskins in the film Mona Lisa and they're playing "to jam-packed houses who love the show."
He's already turned down three offers for when the run ends in mid-September, one of them a lucrative television series. "It's a time of exploration," the handsome 39-year-old actor says, "I'm in no hurry. There's nothing holding me in Canada, so we'll see what turns up."
If Johnson stays in England, it will be Canada's loss. His performances here have netted him a best actor Dora Award for his work in Tarragon's 1988 production of Judith Thompson's I Am Yours and his performance as Dracula opposite Lucy peacock at Young People's Theatre that same year made women everywhere wish he'd bite their necks.
In 1989, at Stratford, he was a powerfully smoldering Brick in Tennessee Williams's Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and again at Tarragon, he was electrifying as the transvestite in Michel Tremblay's Hosanna.
There were a slew of other roles at Stratford, some at Shaw, as well as television work in such projects as Margaret Laurence's The Diviners, for CBC in 1992.
"I decided to go to England because there was nothing happening here," he says in that familiar actors' lament, and from the moment he arrived in London last fall, things fell into place. His impressive resumé bagged him a role with the well-respected Welsh company Theatre Clwyd in its production of Arthur Miller's Death of A Salesman, starring Timothy West and directed by Janet Sussman. From there he went straight to Shrew.
"It was a bit like starting over," he says, "but the big difference was a long resumé and 19 years experience. And this contract with Shrew is a sweetheart of a deal. I'm being paid for working a third of the time, because the show's in rep with Romeo and Juliet and A Connecticut Yankee. I have lots of days off to travel and there are loads of Canadians popping in to visit. It's like being thousands of miles away and never having left Cabbagetown."
Johnson, 39, is lucky because a Scottish heritage allows him a work permit. He found that out quite by chance. "I had gone over to work in a television series called Dracula, The Series, and spent six months shooting in Europe. Nice work if you can get it.
"On my way back in London, I discovered I could work here because my maternal grandfather was born in Scotland. So over the next couple of years (I'm a real rushing type) I kept working in television and put together all the documents. Finally, I went."
Salesman, he points out, with its five-week tour across Wales and Scotland, was a perfect vehicle for him, as well as almost netting him a West End credit first time out. The production was to have ended up at the Old Vic for a run, but West committed himself to another project the day before it was set.
"That was fine by me, because this was a very heavy play to do every night. We were all tired and the mechanics of touring here in England are exhausting too." Unlike in Canada, where actors simply jump on the company bus, in England actors get themselves from Point A to Point B. "Here you buy your own train ticket, get yourself to wherever you're supposed to be and then get your own digs," he explains.
"They give you something called a subsistence allowance, which is a perfect word for it -- it's a tiny income for being on the road. That's just the way it is."
There are other differences too, the most notable of which is rehearsals. "You can be up there running your lines and people will be sitting around reading newspapers or walking across the room without even trying to be quiet. The lack of concentration en masse is really stunning and requires an individual focus that will carry you through and allow you to do your work. I find it hard at times.
"But what you lose on one end, you gain on the other. Generally speaking, actors are much more respected over here, treated as equal citizens. It's a nice state to be walking around in."
That respect translated into another job offer three weeks into the Salesman tour, when Johnson was contacted by his British agent about playing Petruchio.
"I decided it would be a treat to spend the summer in London at this remarkable theatre and I had turned down a lot of Shakespeare over the last couple of years, so it was time."
Unlikely though it seems at the moment, Johnson is also planning for the next dry spell by working on something that, if successful, would allow him to spend time in both London and Toronto.
"I'm working on a project with an actor friend from Toronto and an L.A. producer. We're trying to put together a series that might see the light of day in a year or two, if we're lucky."
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