Playing Bard's homeland; pining for Canada
by Vit Wagner
Toronto Star
22 June 1996
Toronto Star
22 June 1996
The ruggedly handsome actor was winning strong notices for his portrayal of Petruchio in a production of The Taming of the Shrew that was packing audiences into the historic Open Air Theatre in Regent's Park.
Recalls Johnson: "It was really interesting to do Shakespeare in England because, even though I adored it and had a really good time, it made me realize that I wanted to do Shakespeare here (in Canada).
"It's something that I can never put my finger on, but there is an essential difference in terms of what we have as North Americans and our approach to it.
"Working in foreign countries has allowed me to focus in on who I am as a Canadian artist and what I have to bring to the work.
"For me, coming from Alberta, where my grandparents were homesteaders, I have a rough-and-ready approach to life. It plays into the work, as well. If you have problems, you somehow persevere.
"When I've run into problems in a script where I can't find something -- even if I can't put my finger on what it is I'm looking for, but I know something's missing-- I just keep bashing away at it.
"In England, especially with Shakespeare, where people are brought up with it, so much is understood intellectually right off the bat. And sometimes because of that there is an acceptance of tradition.
"Whereas here, we frequently end up with novel approaches because we do bash away at it."
"Novel" is a word one might use to describe Johnson's performance in a current Stratford Festival revival of King Lear, directed by Richard Monette and starring William Hutt in the title role. It continues in repertory to Nov. 2 at the Festival Theatre.
Johnson, provocatively attired in a cassock, lends a decidedly pious mien to the role of Edmund, the illegitimate, two-faced schemer who, in his thirst for power, sells out his half-brother and father.
"A few months ago, Richard (Monette) mentioned the possibility (of playing the character as a clergyman) and asked me to think about it. I did.
"It's rather timely in terms of our attitudes toward priests, in terms of their duplicity and what they can get away with because of their positions, compared with what people expect of them."
Johnson, tanned and looking a decade younger than his 43 years, has returned to Stratford after a seven-year absence (besides the stage stint in England, he worked in TV in Europe and New Zealand).
When last at Stratford, he played Brick in Tennessee Williams' Cat On A Hot Tin Roof.
This summer, he's in another of the southern dramatist's humid classics, Sweet Bird of Youth, playing spent gigolo Chance Wayne.
The production, directed by Diana Leblanc and co-starring Martha Henry as a faded movie queen, opens Saturday and continues to Sept. 15 at the festival's Tom Patterson Theatre.
"Both Edmund and Chance have fronts that they can put on," says Johnson.
"They are there for the audience to see and to read. They're both actors as characters. That's what I'm finding interesting this year.
"I'm also finding a similarity with Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, in terms of the Tennessee Williams play as a vehicle. And I mean a vehicle in the sense of a big Cadillac.
"Once you get in and start that mother up, once it gets going, it just floats down its path.
"It's fascinating to play someone who's just on the edge. He's got one last shot, after so many last shots and, finally, of course, nothing works out for him.
"There's a desperation to him; he doesn't give up until he's found a reason for him to give up."
Sounds like Chance could use a blast of that bracing Prairie air.
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