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Culture Stage

Graham Harley, 1942-2010

Graham Harley sent me up almost every time he saw me. He loved to twit me, affectionately, for being a critic (a word, by the way, that I don’t use about myself).

I knew Graham, who died last Thursday (December 23), for almost three decades and had seen his work years before that.

With his wide-ranging knowledge of all things theatrical and cultural and an incisive wit, Graham was one of the players who established the vital Toronto theatre scene of the 70s. A co-founder and the artistic director of the Phoenix Theatre from its beginnings in 1974, he staged works by contemporary writers such as Simon Gray, David Mamet, Edward Bond and Alan Ayckbourn, as well plays by Canadians Allan Stratton and Margaret Hollingsworth.

The company initially performed in a second-floor space on Dupont, a former shoe factory. It was a wonder that in such a tiny venue Graham could stage a rollicking, eye-popping production of The Relapse by English Restoration playwright Sir John Vanbrugh, the subject of his PhD thesis.

Born in England, Graham taught in the United States before moving to Canada, teaching at the U of T and continuing to work in the theatre.

After the Phoenix closed in 1983, Graham began an association with other companies as director and actor he helmed Fruit Cocktail and directed plays and opera around the country. His stage appearances included several productions of David Pownall’s Master Class, in which he played composer Sergei Prokofiev the role earned him a few award nominations, including a Dora. Other acting credits included David Young’s Inexpressible Island, John Murrell’s New World, J.B. Priestley’s When We Are Married at Shaw and King Lear at Stratford.

His last stage appearance was this past summer in Soulpepper’s What The Butler Saw. As Doctor Rance, the loony head of an asylum, Graham knew how to deliver a Joe Orton line with just the right comic touch, giving it a demented barb while making it the most logical bit of wisdom that his character could utter.

TV audiences saw Graham regularly – he received a Gemini nomination for Dieppe – but he was probably best known to today’s viewers as one of a pair of singing actors (the other was Michael Polley) who opened each of the three seasons of Sling And Arrows (watch here for the first season’s song and credits).

He also sat on the board and later became chair of the Actors’ Fund of Canada, writing a detailed history of that worthwhile organization for its 50th anniversary. In typically witty Harley fashion – Graham was always clever – he closed the history by likening it to a five-act play, comparing each act to the style of a Canadian playwright or theatre company.

Bright, sharp and never at a loss for a comment, Graham was a mentor and supporter of several generations of Canadian theatre artists. I watched him with younger actors, encouraging them and providing warm, big-hearted comments about their work. Their devotion to him was just as apparent.

Though I’d known him for years, he and I really bonded through our dear friend Marion Gilsenan. That’s when I got to know him better, and discovered how to get beyond those send-ups he regularly flung at me: I learned to send a few barbed comments Graham’s way, and he appreciated the ripostes.

Generous, bright and skilled as both actor and director, Graham will be missed in the theatre community.

A celebration of his life will be held Thursday (December 30), 11 am, at the Mount Pleasant Cemetery Visitation Centre (375 Mount Pleasant use east gate entrance, north of St. Clair). Memorial donations to the Actors’ Fund of Canada (actorsfund.ca).

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