In a boardroom at the Stratford Festival, Tom McCamus settles himself into a chair for a midday interview with the cheerful relief of someone who knows he has the rest of the afternoon off. No more rehearsals today.
That's a rare luxury for the 46-year-old actor who is currently juggling preparations for an ambitious return to Stratford with those for a brief appearance at the World Stage festival in Toronto in April.
At Stratford, he will be playing the dastardly Macheath in The Threepenny Opera by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill as well as the equally wicked title character in Shakespeare's Richard III.
In Toronto, he is the sole star of Novecento, an unusual monologue about a man who has lived his entire life on an ocean liner that was written by the Italian playwright Alessandro Baricco and mounted by director François Girard for Montreal's Théâtre Quat'Sous. (The monologue also inspired the film The Legend of 1900 by Italy's Guiseppe Tornatore.)
"All I do now is learn lines."
There's little risk, however, of confusing the three roles, for the atmosphere of each play is unique: "Once you are in that world, you are in that world," he said.
In The Threepenny Opera,that world is Brecht's cynical German version of the 18th-century England in which the thieving and murderous Macheath breaks the ladies' hearts; in Richard III, it's the dark thuggery of medieval British kingship. McCamus is a natural for these parts, but not because he's a baddie. On the contrary, in person, he's affable, unpretentious and a bit humble; it's on stage that he can show a wicked charm that should be able to explain why women can't resist Macheath or how Richard can seduce the widow of a man he's murdered over top of her husband's casket.
"I enjoy playing bad guys," he said. "It's totally outside of myself. Evil guys, you can get totally into wearing a mask." His recent screen roles include the villanous Mason Eckhart on the TV series Mutant X (who had to be killed off so McCamus could get to Stratford) and an evil geneticist in a low-budget movie called Trinity.
Tim Tooney, the character in Novecento, is a different proposition. He is something of a cypher, because the story of the play is not his but his best friend's. Set in the 1930s, it is fable about Novecento, a man who was born on a transatlantic liner and has stayed there all his life, becoming a great jazz musician as he crosses to and fro. Tooney is here to tell the audience his story.
"I sit on a box and I tell a story for an hour and a half. Other productions [of the same script]have had more movement, but François, being a film director, has brought it down to its essentials . . . The character of Tim Tooney isn't necessarily a story teller. He isn't good at this, so [the performance]doesn't have to razzmatazz." Instead, the atmosphere is coloured by Girard's grand staging, including a soundscape by Nancy Tobin.
Working with Girard on what is his first theatre project is the kind of interesting stuff McCamus has been up to since he left Stratford in 1998. There, his five-year stint had included Edmund in Long Day's Journey into Night, King Arthur in Camelot, Brutus in Julius Caesar, the title role in Coriolanus, and Vladimir in Brian Bedford's revival of Waiting for Godot with Stephen Ouimette playing Estragon.
"I had never intended to stay here but Richard [Monette, Stratford's artistic director]was great to me and offered me all sorts of things to do that I couldn't have done elsewhere." Determined to try more film work, he left at the end of the 1998 season, and found the first year out was a grim series of TV roles involving guns: "I thought, 'What am I doing?' I was doing 'Stick'em up!' "
Then, he was cast in Robert Lepage's film version of the John Mighton play Possible Worlds and life looked up.
"I was [shooting]on the Iles de la Madeleine with Tilda Swinton and Robert and I thought: 'Oh, this is great. This is why.' " Through Lepage, he met Girard, who originally mounted Novecento in French in Montreal with actor Pierre Lebeau. When the Edinburgh Festival asked Girard to consider producing an English-language version for that prestigious annual event, the director turned to McCamus, who earned strong reviews for a week's run last August in Scotland. Rehearsals weren't too shabby either, even if McCamus, in keeping with Quebec theatre practice, was not paid for them. Still, Girard was shooting a film in Morocco at the time, so McCamus was flown there to rehearse. World Stage has now invited the show to Toronto -- "It will be great to do it in my own city," McCamus said -- but he can only squeeze three performances into his Stratford schedule.
He was invited back to the festival as one of several returning alumni who will help celebrate Stratford's 50th season, but came mainly because Monette asked him to work on The Threepenny Opera with Ouimette, who also left in 1998 and is now directing that show.
"Stephen and I had always talked about doing a Threepenny somewhere. We had been looking for something to work together on for some time and there aren't too many Waiting for Godots around," he said. Monette then sweetened the offer further by handing McCamus Richard III.
They are meaty roles McCamus couldn't get anywhere else, but if he relishes the work, he also likes the opportunities he has found in film, which doesn't demand that you perform eight shows a week for months on end. He has no plans to return to Stratford in 2003.
"The money is a big issue," he acknowledges. "Shaw and Stratford pay fairly well but what film pays is incredible and you still have time for a life. Here, it takes up all your brain. You're exhausted."
When he does get a day or two off, McCamus jumps in the car and heads back to the farm east of Toronto that he shares with his wife, actress Chick Reid. The drive from Stratford takes three hours and these days he spends the time reciting his lines out loud.
Novecento plays Toronto's World Stage April 14 and 15 (416-973-4000). The Threepenny Opera runs May 29 to Nov. 2 and Richard III July 13 to Nov. 3 at the Stratford Festival (1-800-567-1600).
Kate Taylor