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Toronto Star 10/22/07: Tom McCamus

Stratford honours William Hutt: William Hutt's own words on audio and videotape remind us of what we lost

Oct 22, 2007 04:30 AM
Richard Ouzounian
theatre critic

STRATFORD–It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that the best parts of the Celebration of the Life and Legacy of William Hutt presented at the Stratford Festival Theatre last night came from the late Mr. Hutt himself.

When Hutt's inimitable voice roared through a taped audio recording of his Titus Andronicus, or video clips reminded us of his brilliant James Tyrone, all was well.

The legendary star of the Canadian stage died of leukemia at the age of 87 this past June and last night was Stratford's slightly belated attempt to honour him.

Maybe it was the fact that so much time had passed or that the event took place on a Sunday night in autumn, but less than half of the orchestra of the Festival Theatre was filled, and for much of the hour-long ceremony things were oddly muted.

Richard Monette began with a low-key if heartfelt series of tributes, including the observation that "Bill could carve his characters on a mountainside or on a cherrystone."

Martha Henry followed with a gentle, artfully assembled selection of lines she had spoken to Hutt onstage during their decades-long partnership and it made the years fly to remember all their pairings.

Brent Carver told a nostalgic saga of The Wars, Brian Bedford strongly delivered a melancholy sonnet and Adrienne Gould told a sweet story that stressed the sensitivity of the man, but you could almost hear Hutt in heaven snapping his fingers and asking "Doesn't anyone remember anything funny in my life?"

Tom McCamus and Peter Donaldson briskly sprang into action, and Donaldson recalled a game of one-upmanship he played with Hutt during the run of A Man for All Seasons, which ended on the night only five people gave Hutt a standing ovation and Donaldson asked "How many times are your family coming to see this?"

Hutt's great-niece, Olivia, sang his favourite song, "Bewitched," with a touching simplicity, and his good friend, Nancy Stotts-Jones, brought him to life with some winsome anecdotes.

But we were more than ready for his iconoclastic nephew, Peter, to shake things up with a long, ribald story about the penis he fought to wear while playing Caliban opposite Hutt's Prospero. His imitation of his uncle is uncanny and Hutt came to life once again.

Then he returned on video, with a series of edited clips from his onscreen appearances. Heartbreaking in Long Day's Journey Into Night, glacially moving in The Wars and blazing with intensity in the final season of Slings & Arrows, to prove that William Hutt did not go gentle into that good night.

For a few minutes we were reminded once again of the man's great artistry and the sound of weeping was heard in the theatre.

But it ended just the way Hutt would have liked. There was a close-up of him in his dressing room, rehearsing his final song from Twelfth Night and there was an almost unbearable melancholy to the way he sang "Our play is done/That's all one/And we'll strive to please you every day."

But then his eyes snapped open wide and with the hint of a smile he said, "Except Mondays. That's our day off."

© The Toronto Star

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