Up Till Now: The Autobiography

bridge into what must have been the Ottawa River. And I remember thinking that if this car went into the river there would be no marks on the earth that I had ever lived. There would be no residue of my presence other than the sorrow of my mother and father. Essentially I had no friends who cared about me, no girlfriends with whom I’d established any kind of bond, and no accomplishments. That was a devastating thought, and it summed up how little I was leaving behind in Montreal. It reminded me of a line from Macbeth , “A tale told by an idiot . . . signifying nothing.”
    At Stratford we presented three plays a season, from May through September. We rehearsed the first play and while it was running began rehearsing the second play. The same actors worked in all three plays. I was one of a half-dozen young actors in the company and we competed with each other for roles. Mostly we were supporting players, usually we were the chorus. Getting a few lines was an accomplishment. We all lived in awe of God, who took the human form in Stratford of Tyrone Guthrie. Guthrie was legendary in England. All of the great actors either worshipped or at least respected him. When he came to Canada the few people serious about acting felt the horizon was moving toward us. And so we trembled at the sight of him, this great man who had come to us to cloak us in his wisdom.
    Guthrie was about six-foot-six with a huge potbelly and a hawk-like nose. The theater was little more than a large hole in the ground covered by a great tent. We would be on the raked stage at the bottom of this pit and the tent flap would part and the sunlight would burst in and from that great brilliance Tyrone Guthrie would emerge. It was quite an entrance. And he would stand there and pronounce his decisions, “And you will play the role...”
    It was hypnotic, “Yes, I will play the role...”
    Tyrone Guthrie wasn’t much of a teacher. He didn’t offer a lot of instruction; to read a line or interpret the meaning of that line, you had to work on and discover by yourself. But he was a master at the grand design, at producing extraordinary theater, at creating memorable events on stage. Once, I remember, he put his arm around my shoulders and said earnestly, “Bill, tell me about Method acting.” Me, explaining Method acting to Sir Tyrone Guthrie? I began to explain what little I had read about it, how an actor can become the character and feel the emotion flowing through...
    After I had explained what little I knew, he asked, “Why don’t they think of a beautiful sunset?”
    I understood that wasn’t really a question, but rather a suggestion. He was reminding me that there is a greater scheme at play in a beautiful sunset than in simply trying to call up some emotion to service a character. And that an actor should not get so caught up in perfecting technique that he misses the lyricism and beauty of everything that is going on around him.
    Within weeks of arriving in Stratford I was playing a small role in Henry V, starring Christopher Plummer. Chris Plummer and I are about the same age but rather than going to college he had started working in the theater and was probably the leading young actor in Canada. He was part of the very small community of successful actors in Montreal, very much part of the “in” crowd. He was prematurely mature and I had envied him. At Stratford he played all the young leading-man roles. In Henry V I was assigned the role of the Duke of Gloucester, for which I was onstage about five minutes, as well as understudying Chris Plummer.
    King Henry V is one of the longest roles written by Shakespeare, so when we weren’t rehearsing I studied those lines. Whenever I had a few extra moments, at night or in the bathroom, I memorized all of his speeches. Because we had opened the play after only a few weeks’ rehearsal there had been no time for an understudy run-through. During the staging of the play the understudies kept an eye on theroles we were supposedly preparing to play, but none of us thought it was possible that we’d actually have to go on one day to replace a sick actor. The company consisted of young, healthy, ruddy-faced, beef-eating, apple-chomping Canadian actors; nobody ever got sick. Basically, the rule was that if you took more than two breaths a minute you were still alive and had to go on.
    The play opened to excellent reviews. The New York Times called it a “stunning piece of work...penetrating and