Between them, stage and TV/film veterans C. David Johnson (Street Legal, the upcoming Priscilla Queen Of The Desert) and Diane D’Aquila (Elizabeth Rex, Of The Fields, Lately) have experienced hundreds of opening nights.[rssbreak]
So they can definitely relate to their characters in Jitters, Soulpepper’s remount of David French’s backbiting backstage comedy, opening Wednesday (June 30). See Listings.
Any backstage ritual you must do before going onstage?
C. David Johnson: Check my fly. Remember my first line.
Diane D’Aquila: Take a nap.
Best opening night ever?
Johnson: Any opening at Theatre New Brunswick. The carpenters would clear the shop backstage and turn it into a huge club with lights and music and tables.
D’Aquila: Is there one? I work very hard to make it just another performance in the process.
Worst?
Johnson: Stratford 1984’s Two Gentlemen Of Verona. I sat in the shower and drank the better part of a bottle of champagne, which I threw up into someone’s garden en route to the official festival party.
D’Aquila: A Midsummer Night’s Dream with the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta, Georgia, ca 1983. Morning after: Bottom in a back brace, Titania in a neck brace and Oberon in a leg cast up to his thigh. I leave the rest to your imagination.
Have you modelled your performance on any particular actor?
D’Aquila: Absolutely. Jessica Logan is my homage to three great dames of Canadian theatre. Two of them are still very much alive, though, so I’m not saying who.
Discuss the following line in the play: “We’re not adults, we’re actors.”
Johnson: You have to be in touch with your “inner kid” if you’re an actor. After all, we’re dressing up and pretending to be other people. But I reject the common view that actors are immature.
D’Aquila: There’s an old cliche that all actors are children. Ask any of us who have children what we think of that.
Your scene partner forgets his/her line. What do you do?
Johnson: Wait… wait some more… then wait a bit more and try and figure out if you can work around it without losing any crucial plot information. If it’s really bad – walk off stage.
D’Aquila: Try to help, which invariably makes it worse.
Which is worse, cellphone ringing, candy wrapper opening, person in front row sleeping or people talking?
Johnson: If this were America, we could be armed onstage, in order to shoot any of those offenders. A well armed society is a polite society. Manners, people, manners!
D’Aquila: All of the above.
PM Harper decides to take in a matinee after the G20. How does that make you feel?
Johnson: Queasy. If our show takes precedence over international relations, we’re in real trouble. Unless he brings Mrs. Sarkozy.
