Much Ado About Something

A planned trip to Stratford in August and the donation of a few items - designs, programmes and postcards - to the archives of the Shakespeare Festival triggered memories of my first visit there.  It has been 35 years since my last visit in 1978 but I believe the magic will still be there.

Robert Farifield's building for the Stratford Festival echoed its beginnings in the tent.  But he gave the Festival a performance space undisturbed by the whistles of freight trains or the cries of the umpire from the local baseball diamond that often fought for the audience's attention in the early days.

Back in 1958 my friend Bruce and I boarded a train at Toronto’s Parkdale Station headed for Stratford and its Shakespeare Festival   I was 12 at the time and Bruce was 14 - strange when I think that our parents had no second thoughts about us going on a trip like that alone. It was the first of what were to become regular visits over the next 20 years to the Festival town that Tom Patterson, Tyrone Guthrie and Alec Guinness put on the theatrical map five years earlier. The Festival had forsaken its original “big top” for a permanent home the year before; at the time a revolutionary design,  Robert Fairfield's circular structure built into the hillside surrounded the revolutionary stage that Tanya Moiseiwitsch had designed to invoke, but not slavishly copy, the theatre of Shakespeare’s time.

Tanya Moiseiwitsch designed this revolutionary thrust stage based on discussions she and Tyrone Guthrie
had about the ideal platform for performing Shakespeare.  Director Michael Langham felt the stage
was too "feminine" for the tragedies and histories and asked Moiseiwitsch and Brian Jackson to give it
a "sex change" in 1962. I recall being shocked by what I saw on entering the theatre for The Taming
of the Shrew that year.   I got use to it but still have a fondness for this first stage.

As well as well-known performers – Guinness, James Mason, Frederick Volk, Siobann McKenna, Jason Robarts Jr and Irene Worth – the Festival was developing its home-grown stars chief amongst them William Hutt, Douglas Campbell, Frances Hyland, Amelia Hall, John Horton, Douglas Rain, Kate Reid and a young and vibrant Christopher Plummer.  Plummer had first appeared on the thrust stage in 1956 as a charismatic Henry V in a ground breaking production by Michael Langham that bridged and celebrated Canada's two solitudes and featured Gratien Gelinas with members of Quebec based Theatre de Nouvelle Monde as the French King and his court. Plummer was to follow that with Hamlet, Andrew Aguecheek, Leonates, Mercutio, Philip the Bastard, Cyrano, Antony and in 1958 Benedict in Much Ado About Nothing.

A young, and very handsome, Christopher Plummer as Benedict, 1958.

It was that production that we boarded the train to see on a sunny July afternoon. In those days the Toronto Telegram sponsored a “special” Tuesday train to Stratford. For the price you got the 2 hours train ride, a bus upon arrival to take you to a local church – Parkdale United, as I recall – where the ladies of the parish had prepared a hot dinner. I don’t remember what exactly they served as a main course but I do remember desert was homemade cherry pie with fresh whipped cream. The Festival theatre was a short walk away and the buses waited to take you back to the station at the end of the play. The late night train from Chicago passed through at a convenient time and arrival at Parkdale meant getting home well after midnight. Fortunately there was no school the next day and Bruce’s mother was willing to pick us up. Several year’s later the late train no longer operated and the Telegram was no-longer published.  You could go up by train but the only way of getting back after the play was the bus – and I do recall a number of nights standing all the way from Stratford back to Toronto.

The wedding scene from that 1958 production of Much Ado About Nothing.  This Festival
postcard photo was taken from approximately where I was sitting that evening. I have
a collection of these postcards that will be going into the Stratford archives this summer.

Michael Langham at a rehearsal - 1988.

Sara Krulwich - The New York Times

The Much Ado was the second of the Shakespeare comedies that Langham directed at the Festival and as time passed he proved to be a master of the genre.  That is not in anyway to discredit his handling of the tragedies, histories or the problem plays.  His Romeo and Juliet with the oddly cast but somehow very right Julie Harris and Bruno Gerussi as the star-crossed lovers, Kate Reid, Tony Van Bridge and Plummer started as a light-hearted youthful affair filled with high-spirits and romance that spiraled into deep, aching and bewildering tragedy.  And both his Trolius and Cressida and Timon of Athens (with a score by Duke Ellington) proved less problematic then many imagined them to be.  His 1966 Bretchtian Henry V though not much loved at the time caught the pessimistic spirit of the period as accurately as his production ten years earlier had mirrored the optimism of its time.  The 1964 King Lear that he directed with John Colicos was a searing indictment of man's inhumanity to man - he often said that his time as a prisoner of war in Germany gave him new insight into the bleakness of that darkest of tragedies.

But he didn't restrict his productions on the stage that he knew better than anyone else to Shakespeare.  Langham also directed a bawdy but stylish The Country Wife, a funny but ultimately unsettling almost frightening The Government Inspector and first with Plummer than Colicos a Cyrano de Bergerac that was the ultimate romance-adventure story.  It has always been said that his crowning achievement was the 1961 Love's Labour Lost (a play he was to direct three more times at Stratford including his final production in 2008) - sadly I choose to see Henry VIII that year; at the time a historical pageant with elaborate Tudor costumes seemed more appealing then the heady word-play of a young Shakespeare dazzled by his love of the language.  Ah the callowness - and foolishness - of youth.

One critic referred to Eileen Herlie and Christopher Plummer's Beatrice and Benedict as being like
Brandy and Benedictine.   They seem to have brought out the best in each other.

But back to the events of that evening in 1958:  the fun of a train ride (I love trains), a delicious home-cooked meal and the thrill of that trumpet fanfare echoing from the terrace of the Festival theatre on a summer's night.  But that was nothing compared to the pageant that followed:  Vincent Massey, our Governor General at the time, was there with his party.  As the trumpets sounded a new fanfare he made his entrance resplendent in his red and gold uniform, his daughter-in-law Lilias on his arm and surrounded by the vice-regal party in dress-uniform with their summer-frocked ladies.  We all stood as God Save the Queen began and at the end of the anthem cheered - we did that sort of thing in Canada in those days.  But even that was to pale in my 12 year old's mind with what followed.

Desmond Heeley's citizenry of Messina had a look to them that was
more English country house than Sicilian palazzo. But it gave the
production an elegance and style that mirrored Langham's direction
and the company that he was building.

Suddenly that gleaming wooden structure was filled with ladies and uniformed gentlemen more elegant even than those in the audience.  Langham and Desmond Heeley had chosen to set the play in the 1870 and though they may have been looking to the Risorgimento, it was more English country house than Sicilian palazzo.  But given the players it worked:  Tony Van Bridge was a pompous, deadly serious, and more comic for all that,  Dogberry with Alan Nunn, his perfect foil, as an Uriah Heepish Verges; Conrad Bain and Mervyn Blake where slightly stuffy but loving father and uncle; William Hutt, an elegant and handsome Don Pedro - his lone estate at play's end was all the more puzzling for that; Bruno Gerrusi as a dark, threatening Don John; Diana Maddox and John Horton all organza and braid looking the perfect young lovers.  But at the centre of it all were Eileen Herlie and Plummer as Beatrice and Benedick.  A star may have danced at her birth but a whole constellation celebrated the sparring match, strange-woeing and eventual wedding between these two.  As one critic remarked they were a heady mixture of "benedictine and brandy" - each complimenting and bringing out the best in the other.

It was all very magical and I recall Bruce - who was a stage-struck as I - talking about it all the way home - I'm sure much to the annoyance of those around us who were trying to doze on the trip back. I had been going to the theatre since I was five years old but I believe I can honestly say that it was that performance of Much Ado About Nothing that sealed my love-affair with the magic of the stage.  And each year for the next 20 I would make the trip to Stratford, sometimes once but often five or six times, and I waited for that familiar fanfare and the lights to come up on that marvelous platform when once again that magic would be reborn.

May 7 -1920: The Art Gallery of Ontario, in Toronto, opens the first exhibition by the Group of Seven.

Friday's Flowers

I grew up surrounded by lilacs; my father and brother had poured a concrete patio beside the house; it was under the shade of a huge weeping willow and protected on two sides by stands of lilacs. Well over 8 feet high even when weighed down with great clusters of purple flowers, on warm summer nights they filled the night air with an incredible scent - slightly reminiscent of the perfume my Grandmother favoured.

They also seemed to attract a great number of mosquitoes who felt that my person was the best dining venue in Alderwood. When I would come in - on those nights I was allowed to stay out with the family enjoying the night air - I would be covered in mosquito bites which then called for an application of a bit of lather from a bar of Lifeboy soap. In those days Lifeboy was a carbolic soap with a mild anti-bacterial power and, as far as I was concerned great healing powers - it did seem to take the sting out of those pesky bites. The fragrance of lilac mingled with the smell of carbolic soap is the Proustian Madeline of my childhood.

Fast forward to our first house in Hunt Club. It was a garden home with a patch of yard bounded by three townhouse walls and a cedar fence. It was basically hard clay, scrub grass and a small - almost Lilliputian - stone patio. But in the corner stood a lovely Persian lilac it was festooned with fragrant white blossoms. It was almost 12 feet high and by the time we moved out seven years later it was two stories high. But it almost wouldn't have had that chance to grow if one person - who shall remain nameless - had followed through on the plan to cut it down! Fortunately clearer minds - mine said he modestly - prevailed and it became a integral part of my small garden.  Hostas, lily of the valley and Solomon seals shared its shade with a cedar deck.  The rest of the garden was dotted with fox gloves, bergamot, daisies, campanella and a lovely hardy President Kekkonen rose bush surrounded a small waterfall illuminated by a stone Japanese lantern. The background was a cedar fence covered with Virginia creeper which glowed bright red in the waning days of fall. When I think back on those days in Hunt Club I hear the sounds of the waterfall, the glow of the lantern and the scent of lilac. Of all the gardens I have had I think it was that one that I created from clay and scrub that gave me the most pleasure and contentment.

All this to introduce today's flower - the lilac. Perhaps its just me being sentimental but I think Grandeville captured the very essence of that most gentle - but hardy - of flowers perfectly.

Someone was asking why I show multiple versions of the same print?  These were engravings that were coloured by hand and so from copy to copy there is a variation - sometimes in colouring, sometimes in shading, often in clarity because of differences in technique.  I find that often details missed in one can be found an another.  And also give the age of the books these were taken from  and the care given to them by the owners - some may be faded or discoloured which gives them, I think at least, an added dimension.



25 May - 1895: Playwright, poet, and novelist Oscar Wilde is convicted of "committing acts of gross indecency with other male persons" and sentenced to serve two years in prison.

Memories of .... Another Time

The downsizing I am currently experiencing means going through 60 years of "things" - knick-knacks, paintings, posters, books, CDs, household items, clothing and photographs. A few things have been put into the boxes for St Vincent de Paul or the consignment house without thought to where they fit in my life but more often unpacking something and simply turn it over in my hand has brought back memories of the many remarkable experiences and people that have crowded my life in the past six decades.

None more so than the photos that are neatly filed in albums or randomly piled in boxes or between book pages.   Admittedly in a few cases I'm at a loss to identify one or two people, the occasion or even the location but as I look at most of them the memories, and I will admit the tears, have come flooding back.

This photo was taken during my time at St Thomas Anglican Church on Huron Street in my Toronto days.

It was a Sunday evening choral evensong in late May and Patrick Bergin was being welcomed into our parish family.   Father Bull was officiating, the choir and acolytes guild were in full force and the church was full of family and friends of the Bergins.  It was a joyous parish event but as I think of it, just one of many joyous celebrations that I recall from my days in a place that was for a time a source of comfort, friendship and love.

16 novembre/November - Santa Gertrude di Helfta detta La Grande

Easter Memories

Every Easter I look back with growing nostalgia for the years I spent worshiping at St Thomas, Huron Street in Toronto. It was a place of incredible music, ritual, faith and friendship - particularly friendship. It was a congregation of people who cared. Yes the ritual was splendid - banners, smells and bells - but it was also a congregation that reached out into its neighborhood and worked to provide services for the students, working parents and elderly. Worship didn't end at the communion rail of a Sunday.

During my time there the music was directed by Walter McNutt - an organist of incredible skill at improvisation and a remarkable service player. His wonderful choir - boys, women and men - sang a mixture of the traditional and the more adventuresome but you knew that certain hymns would be sung at certain times of the year.

Without fail the Easter vigil would always end with Francis Pott's translation of the old Latin hymn Fi­ni­ta jam sunt prael­ia. And it would always be the setting called Victory - an adaptation by William H. Monk of Palestrina's Mag­nif­i­cat Ter­tii To­ni.

The strife is o’er, the battle done;
The victory of life is won;
The song of triumph has begun: Alleluia!

Refrain
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!

As I was making this video memories of processing out of the sanctuary with the clergy and choir came to mind. Hearing individual voices in the congregation that I recognized as I walked past them exchanging smiles and nods: my darling Elizabeth with her bass voice gruffing away, Gail, her glasses slipping down as she bowed every so slightly in greeting, Winnie, a small Dresden china figure who had lived all her 80 years in the parish and still wore a hat with a veil and gloves to church; Don with his great booming CBC announcer voice; so many more dear loving and much loved friends.

I was asked recently if I missed the church and in many ways I do. Yes, for the ritual, for the music, for the comfort that faith brought but mostly for the friendship which brought both comfort and love.

For them all: Christ is Risen! Alleluia!

And in my heart and mind I can still hear them respond: He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

04 aprile - Il resurrezione di nostro Signore

Mercoledi Musicale - Late

I am really getting late with these Mercoledi posts - I might have to reconsider the name but not sure how snappy a title I can work out of Giovedi?????

As I've mentioned more than once, lately a smell, a word or a snatch of music seems to trigger memories from the past. I suppose it an age factor though I would prefer to think of it as the Proust factor - the old smell of madeleines dipped in tea:

She sent out for one of those short, plump little cakes called petites madeleines, which look as though they had been moulded in the fluted scallop of a pilgrim's shell. And soon, mechanically, weary after a dull day with the prospect of a depressing morrow, I raised to my lips a spoonful of the tea in which I had soaked a morsel of the cake. No sooner had the warm liquid, and the crumbs with it, touched my palate than a shudder ran through my whole body, and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary changes that were taking place…at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory…

In Search of Lost Time, Volume 1: Swann's Way

I heard a snatch of this piece on the radio the other day - very briefly I was on my way out and it brought back a memory from a trip to France in the mid-1970s.



It was a very warm July evening in Aix-en-Provence and it was the last concert during our stay. I honestly can't remember the venue other than it was one of the many romantic courtyards in one of the many hotel de ville throughout that beautiful town. Josef Krips was conducting and Jean-Pierre Rampal was the flautist. As they launched into the Adantino movement from Mozart's Concerto for flute and harp there was a blackout. As we sat in the dark, under the clear, starry Provencal sky Rampal and the harpist (whose name I completely forget)continued on for several minutes. Those few minutes were magic - the darkness, the stars, the perfume from the courtyard vines, the summer heat radiating off the stone walls and Mozart!

What is that old saying: The Angels play Bach for God but Mozart for their own enjoyment. Lucky angels!

14 gennaio - San Felice di Nola

Lunedi Lunacy

I honestly don't know where I've been lately - I mean I know where I've been but I do seem to have missed things. As I was surfing the web on Friday I discovered that another one of the greats had died: Danny LaRue.

Now that name may not mean any thing to some of my North American friends but take it from me Danny was something special. The one thing he wasn't was a female impersonator - he was by his own definition: a Comic in a Frock. And what frocks! A Danny Larue show was going to be glamorous, glorious and fun filled.

Here's a brief BBC obit - that don't half do him justice:



On my second trip to England in 1970 I remember seeing some wonderful shows in the West End but the one that sticks in my mind was Danny LaRue at the Palace. For two years Danny packed the 1400 seat Shaftesbury Lane theatre dishing up an evening of galmour, glitz and laughter. I recall the audience being filled with moms, dads and the like all in for a good night's fun with "our Danny". Its rather strange that there is no entry for his long run there in the online history of the Palace.* Unless drag isn't respectable enough for the gang at Real Useful who now own the theatre? Damn if there is one thing Danny was it was respectable - racy, bawdy and very naughty sure but he took "drag" out of the clubs and pubs and put it into the mainstream of British entertainment.

And here's a clip from the Act one finale of that Palace show I saw back in 1970.



Danny wasn't one of the those lip-sync artists - he did all his own vocals and when younger could dance up a storm with the best of the gypsies on stage. Though I find in the later part of this clip I want to slap host Michael Barrymore (an irritating man in soooo many ways)I've included it for Danny giving his famous catchphrase "Wotcher mates!" and singing one of his signature numbers.



Danny, you definitely had that "little bit extra"!


*Post script: I had sent an e-mail to the people at Really Useful asking about the omission of Danny's long run at the Palace. Within a few hours they had replied. Apparently their programme for the current show, Priscilla Queen of the Desert, has a full length feature on his appearance there and they had removed it from the theatre history to avoid repetition. The internet history was copied directly from it but I was told they would update it online. Danny in Priscilla - now that would have been something to see.
27 luglio - Santa Natalia

Mercoledi Musicale

My room mate Ray introduced me to Jane Olivor back when we were just young lads doing the emerging bar and club scene in Toronto in the 1970s. She was just what young gay boys needed to wallow in when that person didn't ask you to dance at the August Club - or even worse asked you to dance once and then never again. And she was a nice change from Barbra telling us all about People Who Need People but just as dramatic!

Listening to Olivor today I can see how she had such appeal at the time - we all knew it was going to happen Some Enchanted Evening!



Though I now find her style is a bit mannered she does have the ability to touch the heart. I was never much of a John Denver fan but her version of Annie's Song has a simplicity and honesty that give that song more meaning than I thought possible.


20 maggio - San Bernardino da Siena

Does Anyone Still Wear a Hat?

"And are the ladies looking for hats for any special occasion," simpered the very eager and very British young salesclerk. Sales on the High Street are very slow and the sight of Peg, Anna and Gillian with Jim and I in tow had her hopes up for big sales.

"Well actually its for a funeral" I replied trying not to burst into laughter as Gillian modeled a flippy feathery number.

Poor girl - she was totally nonplussed but then she didn't know Deb. She couldn't imagine the half-smile and those eyes crinkling that we all could see as hats were tried on and comments made. She couldn't understand that what we were doing reached back to salacious lunch hour conversations, raucous restaurant banter, deep late night talks about everything that touched our lives or quiet chats on a London bound train where prognosis were revealed and talked about. But hopefully she could see the incredible love and heartbreak that was in our laughter. Deb wanted the ladies to wear hats at her funeral and damn it our ladies were going to wear hats. And if those hats were a bit flippy, a bit feathery, so much the better.
Peg thought something in a broad brim with a slightly My Fair Lady Ascot flair would work but finally settled on a smart little feathered pill box reminiscent of a 50s night club cigarette girl.
Gillian modeled several smart numbers gallantly proffered by Jim and I wanted her to get the feathery one that made her look like she was appearing in Swan Lake at the Theatre Royal. But she decided an old faithful that she had brought with her from Montreal would be just fine.
Anna tried on something broad brimmed and then a puffy gray pill box - for some reason puffy little hats on headbands are all the rage in England these days. She left the store sporting a straw saucer with a whiff of black feathers.
Slightly saucy, maybe even a bit silly our Deb would have loved them. And knowing she had taken us shopping one more time would have pleased her no end.

15 aprile - San Telmo

For Deb

By the time this has been posted I will, hopefully, be on my way to London. I say hopefully because I am flying standby as a retired Airline employee which could mean sitting at Fulmincino all day waiting to get on a flight. But this is a trip I have to make.

I wish I could say it was like my last trip over - that I was going to see my darling Deb, take her for lunch to the Ritz and then to see a play. That I was going to have lunch with her and James at some fun place and then shopping for an extravagant dinner of Fortnum and Mason take-out. But sadly my reason for going to London is to say goodbye. Deb fought against cancer for 11 years and never have I seen such a fight. Finally tired of the battle and knowing she had given it her best she died at the end of March with James beside her.

Tomorrow we will gathering to say goodbye and being our Deb we have specific instructions: no one is to wear black, dress as if for a garden party ( for ladies that means hats) and play music - not just church music but music that will remind us of her.

As luck would have it - god I believe in serendipity - my friend Kev posted this video on Facebook. Deb and I use to joke about The Sound of Music and how twee Julie Andrews was but not so long ago she went to a sing-along showing and I remember her enjoying it.

Here is the ultimate Sound of Music Sing-Along from Antwerp Central Railway Station:


Thanks Kev, Deb would have loved this. I wish with all my heart she could sing-along.

07 aprile - San Jean-Baptiste de La Salle

Our Budfordshire

Its been a year today but we still miss him.

27 dicembre - San Giovanni apostolo

Christmasy Things - Carols III

The three Christmases we spent in Warsaw were amongst the happiest of many happy Christmases. I had grown up in a Polish neighbourhood and many of the traditions, foods and music were familiar from childhood. As a child and teenager I would go next door to join the Michaelski family, my darling Teresa, her brother Eddie and Pan Stan and Pani Mary, for some of their celebrations. Mary always made, to my Anglo sensibilities, the most exotic and wonderful dishes using spices unknown in our household. I don't recall us ever having carp - the main stay of a a Polish Wigilia or Christmas Eve meal and I must say for that I'm thankful.

Here are three of the glorious carols I heard in those days and again during our stay in Poland. And if you're at our place over Christmas you'll hear them along with all the other music that has become our tradition at Christmas.

Wśród Nocnej Ciszy - In the Stillness of the Night
This is, traditionally, the first Carol sung on Christmas Eve.

Gdy Się Chrystus Rodzi - When Christ the Lord is Born
This carol is always sung at Midnight Mass.

Bóg się rodzi - God is born
And this is my favorite of all the Polish Carols.

Its a tongue twister and I never go it right but as long as it was said sincerly the traditional greeting was warmly received.

Wesolych Swiat Bozego Narodzenia!

23 dicembre - San Giovanni da Kety

Landmarks from My Youth

Back in the 60s and 70s I spent a good deal of my time, and salary, at Sam The Record Man's. Not one of the many franchise stores that suddenly popped up in suburban malls but at the Mother House in downtown Toronto - Yonge just above Dundas. The Yonge strip from Queen up to College was a pretty mixed area - strip clubs, bars, cheap souvenir shops, at least one blue cinema, few good restaurants - Diana Sweets where the waitresses wore white handkerchiefs pinned to their black uniforms - and some where merely looking at the menu in the window could subject you to botulism.

It was gaudy, slightly bawdy and neon lit with one sign dominating it all and telling you that "Yes, this is Sam the Record Man." Sam's was four floors, but at least 6 levels, of records, records and more records. My friend Alan worked in their classical department and if Alan said "buy it you'll like it" I did. He was seldom wrong and his legions of customers knew that. I remember one occasion when Alan was fired or quit or possibly quit before he was fired. After a week Sam Sniderman (yes there was a Sam and he's still a moving force in the Canadian Music Industry) called him up, things were patched up and Alan returned to work. Sam knew a great salesman when he had one.

I moved away from Toronto in 1978 so I'm not sure when Sam's started to decline. Perhaps when Sam gave up control, maybe with the advent of those suburban stores or the appearance of the mega record stores, but certainly with the general downturn in the music industry and Internet downloads. After a series of bankruptcies and changes the store finally closed in June of 2007.

The property was sold to Ryerson University and the store sat empty for a year, the twin discs no longer spinning over Yonge St. But two weeks ago, as part of Toronto's Nuit Blanche, they lit up for one last time and spun as they had since the late 60s.

It must have been a lovely sight.

And this from a press release by Ryerson University:
Ryerson is committed to preserving the legacy of Sam the Record Man and the iconic sign for the city and people of Toronto. On October 6 removal of the famous sign will begin. Following the construction of the new Student Learning Centre, the sign will be remounted and displayed in a new permanent home on the Ryerson campus.

21 ottobre - San Gaspare del Bufalo

Dancing in the Dark

I think if you looked up the word "elegance" in the dictionary you'd find this film clip with a side reference to "sensuality."



One by one those Stars in MGM's glittering firmament are being extinguished and the world is a less bright for it.

18 giugno - San Calegero

Supper with Friends

Lately I've found that little things are triggering memories - it may be a word, a picture, a sound, something on the street or even a taste or smell. Suddenly a long-forgotten event or person springs to mind.

And they went, and found as he had said unto them; and they made ready the passover. And when the hour was come, he sat down, and the twelve apostles with him.

St. Luke 22;13-14.

We were strolling near the Cathedral in Athens last Saturday around an area of shops that specialize in church adornments. When I saw this icon in a store window memories of Holy Week at my old Anglican parish in Toronto came flooding back and with them one name: Elizabeth Lemberger.

Elizabeth was an Austrian Jew who had converted to Anglicanism after her escape to England at the onset of the Anchluss. Alone at the end of the war she immigrated to Toronto and became part of an incredible parish family at St Thomas - Huron St. Every year after the Vigil and First Mass of Easter a group of us would gather in Elizabeth's cramped apartment over a laundromat on Bloor St for a Passover supper. She would prepare many of the traditional Seder dishes and a few recipes she remembered from her childhood to share with her extended parish family. For her it was a way of remembering and celebrating the faith of her birth and the faith it gave birth to and the family she lost with a family she had found.

It has been over 30 years since I sat at one of those dinners and 15 years now since I last saw her, we lost touch as I moved around the world. But as I looked at that icon last Saturday the memory of her ladling hot, savory, aromatic broth into a bowl of broken matzo was as vivid as though it were yesterday.

22 marzo - Sabato Santo

My Mame - Back Where She Belongs

And speaking of the great Angela Lansbury, I found this draft that I had forgotten about in the archives.

My friend Blake was in New York a few weeks ago and managed to get tickets for the opening night of Deuce, the new Terrance McNally play starring Angela Lansbury and Marion Seldes. He took this great shot of the incredible Angela as she was leaving for the opening night party. She wasn't signing autographs but she turned to the crowd and called out: This is my night to howl! Blake says the cheers at that point where almost as loud as the applause at the curtain calls.
At 82 she still looks great and Blake says that both woman were wonderful but Lansbury has that magic on stage that says "Star."

14/05/07

I remember the first time I saw her on stage - Mame during the Boston try-out in 1966. It had be a disastrous few days. I headed for Boston and a drama school audition at MIT - I was all set to become the Michael Redgrave of my generation - notice not the Olivier or Gielgud, I knew my limitations.

I was eighteen and terribly naive. It was my first time flying and I honestly believed they brought a new airplane out for each flight - duh well 33 years in the airline business taught me better than that. I won't go into the gruesome details but that three days involved lying to my boss about where I was going; getting stacked up over JFK and missing my flight to Boston; losing my ticket in the transfer terminal; buying a new one on North East Airlines; having just enough money for a cab to my hotel in Cambridge and to get into Boston the next day; gave a horrible audition where I blew the test piece to hell; a call to my bank in Toronto for a draft; their call to my boss that cost me my job.

As I said it was a disastrous few days. Except my wanders through Boston took me past the Schubert Theater and a brilliant yellow poster announcing: Angela Lansbury as Mame, a New Musical. I had really loved Rosalind Russell in Auntie Mame and really hated Lansbury in The Manchurian Candidate (one of the greatest portrayals of evil in the cinema.) How could that horrid woman be the aunt that we all knew we were meant to have? I bought a ticket in the balcony - what would it have been $1.50 maybe $2.00 and strangely, considering it became the hardest ticket to get in New York, I don't remember it being a full house.

- Overture!
- Voice over reading of Patrick's father's will.
- First scene - Patrick and Gooch (Jane Connell) outside Beeckman Place.
- Party scene with Vera Charles (Bea Arthur) centre stage and then...

And then this woman appeared at the top of a spiral staircase in a backless gold lame jump suit, a trumpet in her hand and as she descended began singing, radiating love, joy and that magic that says "star." And for the next three hours every disaster disappeared.

28 gennaio - San Tommasso d'Aquina

Count Your Blessings

A few of my many blessings in 2007 - a year that has seen so many changes - glad and sad.

"And you will find this world a place of love
If you just count your blessings from above."

I've been blessed.

Auguri e buon anno nouvo - Blessings and a Happy New Year

31 decembre - San Silvestro

The Traditions of Christmas - Sharing II

So many memories of Christmas - good and bad - are being posted on some of my favorite blogs this week that I once again must share them. If they aren't on your regular blog visits here are some wonderful additions to your Christmas reading and listening:

• Tony, our own EG, explains why "the worst Christmas ever" is really "the best Xmas Ever."


• Auld Hat both remembers and provides a gift of music.


• Lorraine and I find we are kindred spirits when it comes to wrapping gifts and she shares a recipe for Egg Nog Pound Cake.


• Over at World o'Jeff the Del Rubio triplets contrive to delight us and a request is made to share the season with Milly.


• Sticky Crows has some great shots of Montreal after last week's storm that almost, notice I said almost, make me homesick.


• Eric at Secrets of the Red Seven addresses envelopes and the sending of Christmas cards.


• Speck remembers a once unwanted gift that became a treasured tradition.

Thank you all for sharing.

20 decembre - San Macario

The Traditions of Christmas - Sharing

Sharing can take many forms and that is what blogs are about. We can share memories, stories, music, thoughts, opinions and observations. A few of my blog favorites have been sharing some great stuff the past few days:

• On his Jukebox Friday Eric over at Secrets of the Red Seven has a great version of the worlds most popular chorus by a group called the Roches - not roaches.
• Doralong's music choice is a bit more rock inclined with Brian Setzer giving Rudolph a run for his money.
• Elizabeth has two things to share: one a musical bombshell from the London Gay Men's Chorus and the other a personal memory and her thoughts as she looks back on it.
• And though it is not exactly Christmas, Lorraine speaks eloquently of sharing a meal at special times - happy and sad.

Thank you, my friends, for sharing.

16 decembre - 111a Domenica di Avvento

Change Trains at Bologna

Trains in Europe aren’t what they use to be – or at least not on the TrenItalia Eurostars. Gone are the old compartments with their worn bordello maroon plush seats and dusty billiard table green curtains. The coaches are now Pullman-style with groups of four or two airplane seats in violent red with black chevrons, given a false sense of privacy by smudged Plexiglas dividers. Gone is the embarrassment most North Americans feel when confronted by a train compartment occupied by local travellers – oh God I’m going to spend the next three
hours with someone who doesn’t speak English. Now a smart metal console with dropdown table and laptop and cell outlets allows you to ignore the other travellers after the initial “buon giorno” and get on with your work, video gaming or blogging. But I must admit the gentleman in the pĥoto at the right did go to extremes to avoid fellow passengers.

I suppose something has been gained in the change but something has been lost. I remember on my first trip to Europe as a semi-callow youth of 19, a good deal of the pleasure and adventure of the trip were the people – European and other foreign travellers - I met in slightly musty train compartments. The struggles to make conversation with my Ontario high-school French and opera-libretto German and Italian was half the fun. That discomfort at occupying a enclosed space with strangers only set in as I grew older. Also at the time I was an not unattractive kid and I recall the attentions of several older gentlemen – oh they must have been almost 30 – of course as I grew older and my hairline receded so did those sort of attentions.

27 ottobre – San Fiorenzo

Well glory be – they still have Intercity trains with compartments – now in cooling blues and Plexiglas – and people still make conversation when sent to them by the ineffableTrenItalia booking system. From Parma to Bologna – 50 minutes – there was a lively discussion about the Maryinsky Ballet Swan Lake at La Scala in the compartment next to mine. And in my own much merriment was being made of the cha-cha rhythm of a woman’s telefino ring – I gather the reason it was going unanswered was that it was “only her husband.” And a concerned discussion broke out about the burning smell coming from the brake assembly of the car in front of ours every time we slowed down or stopped in a station. And in true TrenItalia fashion an announcement was made in Emilio Reggio that we would be delayed 10 minutes – and a minute later we departed.

On the connecting train from Bologna to Roma it was back to the Pullman and the solitude of XP and Ipod. Though I must admit there was a bit of eye-candy that would gone unseen in a compartment - some Italian mothers are right, their sons are gorgeous. And though we left Bologna on time with no stops along the way for some reason explained in a totally inaudible announcement, we arrived in Rome an hour late.

And some older man of 65 or so made eyes at me - or maybe he was just squinting to read his newspaper.

28 ottobre – SS Simone e Guida

Memories - Father's Day

Tater doesn't update everyday but when he does it is always incredibly well written and filled with an understanding of the people and events in his life. His most recent essay is a beautiful memory piece.