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[0:00] Paul Gross: This is Paul Gross, and you're listening to Outrageous Fortune, the Kind of Official Slings & Arrows Podcast.

[0:30] Paul Gross: This is Paul Gross, and you're listening to Outrageous Fortune, the Kind of Official Slings & Arrows Podcast Network.

[1:00] Paul Gross: So welcome to Outrageous Fortune. Welcome to Outrageous Fortune. Paul Gross is one of Canada's most celebrated actors, as well as an accomplished director, writer, and producer. He's starred in numerous theatrical roles across Canada and beyond, including Broadway. On television, he has appeared in Elias Grace, Republic of Doyle, and Due South. He wrote and directed the films Men with Brooms and Peshandel, and he is currently playing King Lear through October 2023 at the Stratford Festival. Hi, Paul. Thanks so much for doing this. That's great. We're really grateful. We know you're busy and have dogs to capture in the woods and things.

[1:52] Paul Gross: Yeah, I'm just looking for dogs, that's all. So we've been asking everyone who acted in the show, how do you describe Geoffrey Tennant, and how have you heard others describe him?

[2:04] Paul Gross: Oh lord, how would I describe him? I think he's a very reasonable fellow, completely level-headed and rational. He just is surrounded by people who are insane, and so he has to take extreme measures from time to time.

[2:29] Paul Gross: Well, I don't know. It's funny, it would be sort of like being asked to describe yourself in a way, isn't it? It's kind of funny.

[2:35] Paul Gross: Yeah, yeah. And I think he's just one of those kinds of artists who is so driven that that is the only thing that matters, and will always be disappointed because you never quite reach whatever the perfection is that you have floating in your mind in a collaborative form like the theater. And so I think he's always quite disappointed a lot of the time, particularly in himself. But I think he's also, you know, he's very funny and smart, and I think he just loves, I mean in spite of his kind of weird, it might not seem quite true considering what the show's like, but I think he loves everybody he has to contend with.

[3:28] Paul Gross: Yeah? Yeah, I think so. Even Don McKellar's character, I think he has some kind of secret affection for him.

[3:39] Paul Gross: Yeah, I love that. I think that's great. Does that resonate for you about being driven completely by the chase of work and perfection in work?

[3:52] Paul Gross: I think, yeah, when I was younger, certainly, you know, you get that sort of, it's like having a taste of something, and you think, well, if we just work harder, we'll get there. And gradually I come to realize, no, you get to wherever you can get to, and that's ideally good enough. And then you come back and try it again, and it's actually more the process of it than the finished thing that matters. I mean, I think, you know, in this situation, he's really not the right person to run a theater. Like, you know, there's so many compromises that have to be made if you're an artistic director or something.

[4:39] Paul Gross: I had that question about him. It's like, is this what he should be doing? You don't think so?

[4:47] Paul Gross: No, it makes him crazy. And you have to deal with so many things that he'd rather not be bothered with. But yeah, it's funny. Richard Eyre, who's a huge fan of the show, the British director who I worked with, was lucky enough to work with, was crazy about it. And he said to me one day about Geoffrey, he said, no one would ever hire him to be an artistic director. And Richard has some experience with that, because he ran the National Theater of Great Britain for 10 or 11 years or something. And he is much calmer and more, you know, accepting. He said, but I think I actually think that job, I think, is fantastically difficult.

[5:38] Paul Gross: And easy to criticize, too.

[5:42] Paul Gross: Oh, this isn't running the way it should be. Our rehearsal schedule is too long or, you know. And actors really do love to complain. So the artistic director takes the brunt of it, which actually, I don't think Geoffrey had any particular problem with. He doesn't mind people criticizing him that much. It's more having to contend with the stupid things that happen when you're running something.

[6:09] Paul Gross: Yeah. I feel like I've heard an artistic director talk about, I don't remember which one, it would have been in Canada, but they were like, they came from an acting or a creative background and said, I really underestimated how much was about raising money and how that gets in the way of everything that I had to do to get to this point. Like the climbing of the ladder, thinking, you know, I act and I direct and then I artistic direct. All of the things that I did coming up here were not what I have to do now that I'm here. And this was like the thing that I always wanted to do, but it was not accurate.

[6:42] Paul Gross: Yeah, I think it's like all of those things. You know, I mean, I produced a couple of movies. I've never run a theater, but producing films is not completely different. And most of it is about financing. That's the work. And then you get to have fun when you get to make the film. And that's sort of, but I always look at artistic direction and think, well, where's the actual fun? You have to go to one fundraising thing after another, after another, after another. And the theaters are always on the margin. They're not flush ever, particularly. I mean, there were a couple of years I think that Stratford was okay, but it's, and everybody's gone through this extraordinary weird thing of the pandemic and the theaters being shuttered more or less.

[7:29] Paul Gross: And that's interesting. I mean, that went on the plague season in Shakespeare's time, and they would leave the city because it was foul and go off and do shows in the countryside. But everybody just expected it to happen. So they knew how to deal with it. For us, it was just, well, what do we do? We're going to do something in the park. I don't know. And I do know from talking to a couple of people that the bringing the theaters back up to where they were has been really difficult. And audiences change their habits and they aren't showing up as much, or there's still a degree of fear about being infected, et cetera. But they also spent a lot of money and they lost ticket sales. And that is, in particular, if you're a big festival like Stratford or Shaw or something, you are dependent on those sales. So they're all racing around, banging around for money. And when the economy takes a bit of a dive, that money's not as available. People don't want to give you a million dollars. It's just strange.

[8:39] Paul Gross: I'm curious because I totally agree with you about this is the worst job for Geoffrey. And he didn't want it at the beginning either. And I think it's because he knew himself well enough to be like, this is not going to work. But I'm curious what you think would actually be a great job for Geoffrey, like where he would thrive the best, like in what situation theatrically?

[9:08] Paul Gross: I think he was probably pretty happy with Theatre Sans Argent at the beginning. It was ridiculous. They never had any cash and everything, their props would break and all of that. But there was something at least fixable that was containable inside a very small environment. I think he'd probably be just better directing than trying to also be a manager, because the fiscal side of it is so huge. And I make it sound like it's fundraising, but it's actually trying to figure out how much money can we spend on these budgets? And do we need to have these costumes? And this set is overpriced. And how do I tell them we can't afford that? And that's a lot of nitty gritty stuff. That's just really not a lot of fun, because mostly what you're doing is telling everybody you can't have what you need.

[10:04] Paul Gross: Yeah, a lot of no's.

[10:07] Paul Gross: So yeah, I think he'd been better off to be just a director. When you were talking about all the stuff you don't want to do as an artistic director, absolutely. But the first thing we see Geoffrey doing in the show is literally plunging a toilet. We have an audience, we're split between the States and Canada, but I'm a Torontonian actor. And if you've ever spent time at the Theatre Passe-Muraille dressing rooms, that was captured so clearly what it is to be in that specific bathroom and on that specific couch. But is there some kind of joy of that part for him? Like fixing the toilet is better than having to talk to a donor or something?

[10:54] Paul Gross: Well, it's more tactile, isn't it?

[10:57] Paul Gross: Yeah, sure.

[10:59] Paul Gross: It's an actual thing that you can fix. Yeah, I know. Isn't it crazy? Martha and I did a show called Domesticated at what used to be called Toronto Free Theatre. And that lobby, even that changed a little bit. But the dressing room of that is no different than when I worked there when I was 21. It still has the big red wines, puke stain in the carpet and mold that's growing up the walls. How is this possible? It's 40 years older and it just hasn't changed at all. Which is a good indication of how, you know, there's never a surfeit of money where you can say, well, let's fix up the dressing rooms. You just wait until everybody's got dysentery.

[11:40] Paul Gross: Yep. Yep. And you sure will get it on that couch. There's a couple of, like, couches that you will for sure catch something on.

[11:47] Paul Gross: Yeah, just think of what's been in those couches.

[11:52] Paul Gross: But I think that is, like, for him, it's just, it doesn't have a lot of things intruding on the work.

[11:58] Paul Gross: Right.

[11:59] Paul Gross: Fixing a blocked-up toilet is not quite the same thing as having a deficit, you know.

[12:08] Paul Gross: Sorry, go ahead.

[12:09] Paul Gross: No, I just think it's probably more, oh, I say that and yet at the same time, you know, it drives you mental if you never have enough money to do, to ever do what you kind of have in your mind. And there's, that's the lure of a bigger institution, is that their resources are larger and you do get to have a big turntable.

[12:31] Paul Gross: And pay your actors, like.

[12:33] Paul Gross: Pay your actors, yeah, that's true. That's the biggest thing of people who are there from 10 to 6 because they're paid to be there instead of, like, okay, we'll squeeze you in after your job here and over there. I will do a 15 minute rehearsal, it'll be fine. That kind of thing. Do you, I know you have a career as a director and writer and producer. Do you have a career as a director and writer and producer?

[12:58] Paul Gross: A career as a director and writer and producer as well as all of your acting? Do you, in those capacities, get the same joy out of things like unplugging toilets? Or do you have the same kind of fun when it's, like, the nitty gritty stuff?

[13:11] Paul Gross: Yeah, yeah, I think so. I don't like doing budgets, but that's a big part of it. But setting those aside, if you're making a movie like, say, Honey in a Road, it was, it's really fun trying to figure stuff out. Like, how are we going to shoot this? And because we didn't have, I mean, we had a lot of money, but not enough really. And so, it's trying to squeeze an awful lot of stuff into a tiny little area and hope that it works out. And that, you know, gives you these extraordinary kind of gifts. Like, we finished the last shot in Jordan. We blew up this village.

[13:56] Paul Gross: The next day, and we had built the village, and the next day this freak storm hit and a tidal wave came down out of the Wadi Rum desert and washed away what was left of the set. So, if we'd been one day behind schedule, we never would have finished that film. So, those are the kinds of things we think. It's nice being on that sort of nitty-gritty knife edge of things as well.

[14:25] Host: Yeah, I feel like a lot of creativity can come out of that. I mean, it's sort of like what happened with Slings & Arrows when the funding pulled out. And then it's like, well, we're all theater people. And this is what we've heard from like Susan and Mark and everyone is that, well, you're theater people, so you pivot and you figure it out. And so, it sounds like also that sort of make-it-workness is what you take into when you're producing something that you're excited about as well as like something can happen. But you bring in that theater, we'll make it work, we can figure it out. Everything is figureoutable mentality to that.

[15:05] Paul Gross: Yeah, I think so. And I think also not having an overabundance of money is a good thing because it forces your creativity to be a little bit sharper. I always think about the Beatles doing Sgt. Pepper's and they had two linked eight-track tape recorders. Like it's an infinite number of tracks in a recording studio. And they did all these giant songs inside of this really primitive stuff. And people just figured it out. They said, well, how can we get more? Can we get all the strings in here? And George Martin said, well, let me think about it. And then they figured out how to bounce tracks together. And it's kind of that sort of thing. You don't even have to think about that now. Can we get an orchestra in? Sure. Well, let's hear it. Let's go record the orchestra.

[16:03] Host: Yeah.

[16:03] Paul Gross: And I've been on shows where there's too much money. And it all gets, you know, I did a thing recently in New York called Tales of the City, and they were spending too much on it. There wasn't a feeling of, and it's not desperation is not the word, but it's that feeling of necessity. If we don't get it today, we can do it tomorrow. And when we shot the first version of it many years ago, they really had very little money. And it was all really kind of, you know, you're much more alert. It throws everything you're doing into sharp relief. And it's, I think it's just better. There's a fatness to a lot of, you know, fat budgets. And I don't, I'm not sure that's helpful. Because you can always stop and rethink something instead of having your subconscious kind of force you toward the solution.

You have 15 things in front of you that you might be able to do because you can afford to do all of them. And I don't know if that's a helpful. I mean, we did things in Arrows, we didn't have tons of money. So it really made a difference when we got onto the set because everybody kind of had to have some idea about what they're going to do.

[17:15] Host: I think about what you're saying when it's also like with Oliver and having all this money, but also sort of being, I don't know, spiritually dead when it comes to directing his shows. And like Jeffrey seeing that and then at his funeral, like basically saying, he lost his soul. So I'm just curious, what do you think about that? Do you also think that, because it seemed like Jeffrey was always, he was sort of paring down and trying to pare back and say that, like, let's get to the point. And I think that's a really important thing he was sort of paring down and trying to pare back and say that, like, let's get to the truth of the story. Let's get to the truth of the story. Like, we don't need all of this.

We don't need all of this. And then, you know, you get to season three and frankly, like, I just love season three, but like, I just love that last production. And it's just the Bolivian band making the storm. And it just feels like it's that, right? It's that all the money is taken from you, all the glitz. And so you just have to be creative. And then out of that, I feel like comes like the most beautiful stuff. And so I'm just curious what you think about that in terms of like Oliver and Jeffrey's differences when they're collaborating while Oliver is a ghost or in his head. And what you think about that also as like Jeffrey's been sort of tracking Oliver's path since they stopped working together.

[19:05] Paul Gross: Now, I think, well, first of all, I think people can stay in one place for too long. And I think that's not, oftentimes, it's not great. Because you need to have be challenged by other people, too. It's not, it's like, oh, we're a cast that gets along really well. And the product, what we're making is really good, and we're proud of it. And then so we'll just keep doing that. Well, that's going to run out of steam after a while. So you need this, you constantly need new challenges from other people. So I think that's one thing that happens.

[19:41] And I think also, if you're, if you're running a place like a festival, there's a level of fear that kind of enters in about, you know, with a lot of people about the festival failing. They're really close to the margin. I remember Richard Monette saying to me once, if they're off by their box office estimates by, I think it was 3%, it costs them a million dollars. You know, so if you, I think it forces, you start to get more guarded about what you're doing. And that's not healthy. It makes you seize up, I think.

[20:19] The, I mean, in terms of, I mean, I think you can spend a lot of money on a show and it can be great. It's, there's no, there's not necessarily any equation between money's put in and, or not put in and what you end up with that an audience gets to see. But my experience, for instance, the few sort of, I'm not a huge musical fan, but the few that I've gone to, it would be a similar, some of them are just big and awful. And some of them are big and really good. And the difference between the two is that there's, the ones that are good tend not to be cynical. And the ones that blow is because they are kind of just, oh, we're going to be big and glitzy and make money. And I think that sort of messes up the whole process.

So I think it's always easier to see a really good show that has a, that's pared down to the bare minimum. And I think in Shakespeare's terms, of course, it's getting closer to whatever they had, which wasn't a lot. They didn't have the light systems or the sound systems that we have, or the capacity to truck sets on and off like we do. And I went down to the theater in Staunton, Virginia. What the hell is it called? American Shakespeare Company or something like that?

[21:59] Host: Yeah.

[22:00] Paul Gross: And I, and it was absolutely fantastic because they're, it's pretty close to original practices and the noise they make. If it's thunder, it's someone rolling a ball across this, you know, big ball on metal or something like that. And it was wonderful. And everybody, if there's singing, and there was, everybody plays an instrument and everybody has to sing and the lights are up all the time in the audience as well. And it was great. And I think we do tend, there is a tendency to overproduce stuff nowadays. And I also think that there's a tendency to overscore it, you know, and to start to tell the story through music with, particularly if you're doing classical work like Shakespeare, the verse really doesn't need a score and putting it in makes the verse unintelligible, I think.

[22:54] So there's things that we can do easily, even in a small scale, but not necessarily should be done. And I suppose the way to really approach it would, and I think that would be kind of Jeffrey's way, which is, what is this play trying to do? What is the best way to do it? And then you will know whether or not you need to have a submarine on stage or whether you can just do it with people.

[23:22] Host: There's also something, as you're saying on this, I keep thinking of the idea of like craft and of the joy of like, we made this and because we made this, the seams show or, you know, like Tony Kushner talks about the theatrical magic needed in Angels in America and that like, it's okay if the wires show and maybe it's better if they do. There's something so, and it feels connected to the idea of craft, of actually making something, like, you know, you see me making the thunder sound because we're making the play. And there's a generosity there that feels like what they finally reach in Act Three of Oliver and Jeffrey both kind of realizing like, oh, we're putting on a play and it's not about us. You know what I mean?

[24:13] Paul Gross: Yeah, yeah. That's interesting you should be talking about. I don't know if you know this, I'm going to Stratford this year to do Lear and I've been having these wacky dreams and one of them, in one of them, now it's a ways since I tried to recount it, so I'm probably going to screw the dream up. But it was somewhere in the storm and there were all these odd people just showed up and it wasn't really in a theater, but it was sort of like in this great big warehouse or something. And there wasn't any audience or anything, but they were, you know, they had these giant copper rolls of copper, just sort of rolled, fell down from the stage and these guys came out and just started beating them like kodo drummers or something.

I didn't even know if I was doing any of the lines, but then I, you know, I quickly write to Kimberly Rampersad who's directing, I said, okay, we need to get copper, great big copper things and a wind machine, but I'll direct the storm. Like, so it wouldn't be on tape, so I can look at somebody and that's when the thunder rumbles again.

[25:36] Host: I think we might even be fooling with that a little bit to see how we could, you know, while I'm on stage, I can...

[25:42] Paul Gross: Like you as Lear direct the storm.

[25:45] Host: Yeah.

[25:47] Paul Gross: That's interesting. And you'll see them, like the thunder is right there. And then what that adds is a kind of layer too, because the storm is as much outside as it is inside. And, you know, this tempest in my mind, I'll take for my senses, all feeling, I'll save what beats there. It would be really like right in front of you. And I think that's, we're kind of trying to lean, well at this point anyway, leaning towards something that doesn't have a lot of gimmicks in.

[26:22] Host: And, but you know, some shows really do need that. Like Harry Potter needs stuff. Like you can't, you can't have Harry Potter with some guy in a loincloth beating a drum, you know, stuff has to happen. So I think that too is there are certain things that just wouldn't lend themselves to that. But I do think that something like Lear does, because it's a very, it's very intimate at the same time as it's cosmological.

[26:52] Paul Gross: Yeah. There's also something so cool about a storm of your own making that becomes something you can't control, right? Which feels like his own political problem. You know, his familial problem, which is his political problem. Like that's really interesting. And that sounds so cool.

[27:13] Paul Gross: Yeah, I know. I think it could be really, we've got a lot of little things we're talking about that's just, and they're not huge, but they're just enough to add a little something to it that is, well, I think also I'm going to get hit by lightning, but we'll set that aside.

[27:33] Host: That's a little tricky.

[27:34] Paul Gross: Really? So like, that's the stuff, that's the stuff that we need. We need to strike Paul Gross with lightning if we're going to do a play. Why not?

[27:42] Paul Gross: Yeah. Well, that one was out of a dream too. I think I'm really, I've become a full-on Jungian now.

[27:52] Paul Gross: Nothing about Carl Jung, however, I think that well there is something about that though, isn't it because your subconscious is your partner there's good. I don't know you may not know. Do you know Cormac McCarthy the writer? Okay. Oh, yeah. And I saw this just because his latest stuff is out which is mind-blowing and I saw this tracked on this long interview that he did where he talks not at all about writing but he talks an awful lot about physics and mathematics he's so wild anyhow. He talks about the subconscious and he's been thinking about it a lot recently, you know, this thing that is always there and it's handling the night shift so that when you have a problem you go to sleep creatively it comes up.

And of course, it's the night shift the same with mathematics and physics or with any other kind of creative problem. You plug it in and go to sleep and the night shift takes over and as often as not some kind something will suggest itself, but he says he's quite puzzled by the fact that this has been around with us forever and been presumably some sort of tool that we have to make us scared and run away from the lion and that kind of very rudimentary help. But why did it never learn a language? Why doesn't it just give us the answer? And I'm kind of quite taken with that in some way it relates to Lear like yeah, he can't find it he knows he knows it's all ruined but he doesn't know exactly what is it that I what's wrong, you know, and I think that those are the things that we and because Slings and Arrows was always dwelling on these plays these great works all the characters are too so there and there's and that and it does kind of compel you to think much more broadly than how many people are coming to dinner you are there?

They do all have sort of problems these characters in relationship to the work the art the regrets the ambitions the being being stuck like yeah knowing what to do staring at something. I think I have no idea how to fix that. Hmm which is like a place of soliloquy kind of right like I don't you know, what what do I do now? Yeah, what now what next? What do I try? so anyway I find all of that sort of folds entirely in on itself and I think if you have just to come round it out back to where we started if you have too many if you have too many things in it that the audience is supposed to go. Ooh, ah then they're not following that path they're kind of waiting for the next submarine. Hmm. So it's a question really cool thing whether or not you should have it in or you shouldn't I just think you should always try everything and then you'll know pretty quickly whether it should or shouldn't be there.

Right, which is kind of a principle of rehearsing and try everything in a scene and then you slowly get rid of the stuff that absolutely is terrible and then you've got a few things left that might work. I think a huge I mean an amazing thing of the craft of the show is how you can keep returning to it and find new things because these characters are so rich and deep and and I also think like the Shakespearean layers of it are almost oblique, you know it's not as if like ah, that's Claudius and you know, that's the temp, you know, it's it's not that cut and dry things are much more kind of shadowy and like moving through people and passing through them in ways that feel really really rich. When you were working on the show season to season did that come up for you?

Like what's that useful as an actor to be thinking of Hamlet in season one and Lear and three and all of those things? Um yeah, yeah it was you know in one with Hamlet and I mean Luke, I don't know how he put up with it. He had so many people in the show had done it like Steven and I had played it was him and Marth had been in two productions of it and like so many so many of us had been in it. There's just unbelievable tonnage of completely unsolicited advice. I'm sure it just landed on him every day. Oh, you know what it really is Steven doesn't know what he's talking about what it really is. But yeah, I mean it was for for people who have been doing it it was so much fun to do because you're revisiting things and also thinking about hmm why did I do it like that?

Actually, you know, I think about it, you know, it was it was so there was a bit of that but also and I think maybe I'm more aware of it now because of what I'm starting to see a bit more clearly in Lear that I didn't really see in Hamlet is a little bit overwhelming you just have so much to do and he never stops talking so it's kind of you don't ever get to kind of sit sit in it very easily whereas Lear has quite big chunks where he's not he's not around and the last two three acts he's not really all that concerned with the plot he's on to other stuff. But what's fascinating to look at now and becoming more aware of is just how Shakespeare runs that stuff all the way through so just then the nature of nature human nature natural law goddess nature all of the very however you might describe it however you might be able to see what that word connotes is is feathered through there all the time and it's just all over the place.

And this and the kind of structural subtlety of what he does right actually a structural bravery of what he doesn't Lear is crazy it's like he take he doesn't a tragedy in two acts and then and then is really I think just concerned with well what happened, you know it's like answering his own question that he might have asked himself. What happens if Richard the third doesn't die? Where does he go? And so he kind of and I think that's what he was driving for which is why they had to have a whole second play, which is the whole Gloucester Edmund subplot which is in the subplot? It's like a it's like the play that they would be most engaged in in his day probably because they were quite intrigued about succession questions and does the realm fall apart if you don't do it?

Well and it also it's just more entertaining people get stabbed and die and have eyes put out and Lear meanwhile is going. What is the nature of thunder? I mean, so it's not you know, but I think that's just to see how he plays all of that I think in reflection I can look back at Slings and Arrows and realize that you know what Susan and Bob and Mark did was really amazing to pull that through. Yeah, I knew you would quite often feel it, you know, and it but it also depended on the plot you were in you know and like mostly I would be on the plot of the play that we were doing so I would be much more aware of it. I'm gonna sort of jump back to season one and ask about what your thoughts are on what happened to Jeffrey years ago when he was at New Burbage and like why why he fell apart, yeah.

Well Hamlet Hamlet can make it it makes you crazy and there are stages you go through as you get crazy and I don't know where it happened somewhere in rehearsals towards you know, maybe we're a few weeks out from opening I did I didn't trust anyone in the company at all like they were all they were not trustworthy on a court and of course that's just that part is starting to take you over because you you're with it all the time. You cannot sleep without it. You can't do anything with that and I was lucky because I had Brent Carver was doing sitting filler on the roof and it was on the in the same theater so we would cross over often like I'd be going into the evening. He was coming out of the matinee and he would always check him.

So how are you doing? I said, I don't trust anyone. He said no you shouldn't to get you. Okay stay away from them. Okay. Thank you. But then it's did progressively get weirder and weirder where I have these sort of weird hallucinations on stage where I could like see a full picture of him Shakespeare, I mean while I'm doing lines and it would be very quick obvious because I don't think the audience could ever see that but it would be quite full. I remember one with what a piece of work as man what a piece of work as man and I could see him at a table and there are people around a low ceiling it's kind of smoky and it was a tavern of some kind and there they've got stew in front of them and he does that speech and then you sort of say well, that's really good.

Yeah, it is. I should write that down you know, I got these lots of those kind of weird encounters with him and then I had full blackouts where I would not faint or anything where I would just wake up on stage and not remember what had happened? Those were scary but I was scared to go to the theater and I didn't know who to talk to you know Brent said oh, yeah, how long is this from going on? I said it's like a bit a week. He said I'll go for another week and then it'll stop and it did and it did but I think that that yeah and I'm not really prone to kind of that sort of thing so it was quite alarming and I and I didn't really know who to speak to about it other than Brent, right? um So I think that in terms of that I mean I do know it's it's somewhat based on Daniel Day-Lewis and Richard Eyre was actually directing that production and I asked him about and he said yeah, he just he couldn't take it his father had died not long before that and it just was all too much for him and he just walked off.

I said, did you see it coming? He said yeah, I could see it and I'd say damn. It's okay. It's okay. Damn. So I think it's a part that can if you're really deeply into it it can it can knock you sideways. How long did it take you after you finished the production in o2 to feel like Paul again, and when you went into season one and were the director of it. Did you have like any flashbacks or any like feelings that came up that felt like you know a little bit of PTSD from from that experience? No, no, no because in the end it's one of the great it's one of the most extraordinary privileges I've ever had in my life to do that part in that theater. So no all in all it was wonderful. I don't have any and I and I also think I kind of tried as hard as I could every single scene and every night and I mean not work it too hard, but to throw yourself in everything you have in it but you have to really recognize at a certain point.

You can't really do it. I mean it isn't doable it is you do something and so if you see in your lifetime five Hamlets that that's Hamlet and all five of them are valid like I was quite a snob about actors and there was production in Winnipeg that Keanu Reeves was playing him and I thought let's go see that. I looked back on that when I was starting to do it and think what a pompous ass like, of course you should have gone and seen him anybody you should go see anybody do it. It's just it'll something's going to come out of it that you didn't know and then that you add all of that together and then at the end of your life, that's Hamlet. It's the same with Lear and it's the same with all those great parts and and it but it doesn't leave you I still feel it still feels really fresh and it's 23 years ago.

I mean I can talk about it for hours and I don't think it ever leaves you. I know that on the opening night at Stratford. Chris Plummer was there and Richard brought him backstage and I'm talking to him in the dressing room I'm looking at him and he says like staring staring at me and you want to do it again, don't you he said I'd do it right now in the fucking parking lot.

[41:49] Paul Gross: Oh, wow. Yeah, it's I don't think that one ever leaves you. And I suspect it would be the same thing with Lear. It will be probably. You know, but then there are guys like for Bill Hutt, it was like, it was like that was like his, his show. And he did so many of them, four, I think. I heard in another interview, he'd done a bunch, and Susan thought it was like a crime that none of them had been, you know, recorded in any way. So she was happy that like bits, you know, could be on the show. I think if we were in England, where we were different, Bill would be geel good. He'd be it'd be absolutely at that level. He just didn't ever have a mechanism. Or the machinery to, to put him in a place where, you know, show him in a way that he should have been.

But that's also true for a lot of our actors, like Doug Douglas Campbell's, Lear was Titanic, and we don't ever really now we are starting to, you know, we're starting to film some of that stuff. But there was it's kind of difficult to do them to film it well. But I think they're getting a lot better. I know that Richard Monette talked to me about it. I said, well, you need money. I can't, you're gonna need money. They didn't have any. But it is, I mean, one of the great things for me is that that's, it's, it is Bill Hutt doing Lear that made me want to be in this in the first place. So, yeah, I mean, I think it's first place. So, world was this odd, we also felt like a full circle to work with him.

And now even more of a full circle to go and follow him later and do this on, on the same stage that I saw him on. Then that that's actually something that doesn't float down much in film, there is this legacy, weird legacy of theater that you can trace it all the way back to the globe. Through somebody knows somebody who knows somebody and you're back at Burbage. And it's a nice feeling that you're part of this long line of people who've crashed around and tried hard and failed miserably, that occasionally do something quite good.

[44:36] Paul Gross: My lunatic neighbors driving up in his buggy. If he's not 100% hammered, he might just turn around and go, Are you okay if we have to stop for a little bit? Of course, that makes the crazy dogs crazier. Oh, well. What was I going to say? I think one of the things that they did, the three writers did so well. And because they all, they know it well, they know the material really well. And is to make the work, you know, driving for, got to sort this out, or what is this decision? Or what do I do with this scene? Or it wasn't precious. It was, it's work, it's craft, it's keep going at it till you figure it out, you will figure it out, you know that. And it wasn't sort of, or when it was like, then it was dramatically intended.

But I, because I think there's that too. I've always felt that about the theater. It's just hard. It's hard work. You work hard. Yeah. I mean, it was, it's, it is too bad that we didn't keep going with it. There were so many different reasons. But I think there was something very magical about what, all of the things that came together. And to not, you know, and to also, you know, you have to acknowledge the producers, Niamh Fishman and Danny Iron, you know, that was so, there was such an enormous trust in us. And they're not really theater people. But also, it's just dead bang funny. I remember they started talking to me about would I be interested in directing? And I read the first hour of it and I thought, no, I don't really know.

I'm not sure I know how to do that, actually. I don't know if you've ever heard this story. So weird. They had, the only person they had in their head that they wanted to cast was Martha. And then Niamh asked me to read a script. And I read that first one, I think, or maybe it was four. I think I read four of them. And they were, I was only going to read one and say, and it was so good. I just sat there, went howling with laughter, went through them all, and then called them and said, I don't, I don't think I'm the right person for this, for, to direct. I think you need someone a bit, just a little bit more outside of it than I am. And also, I wasn't that skilled as a director. I hadn't done a ton.

And I said, well, who do you have playing Jeffrey? Oh, well, we don't have anyone yet. Well, I'd love to do that. Oh, we haven't even thought of you. Oh. So then they went away and thought about that. So I'm really, I'm really lucky that they said, okay, yeah, we'll take you. It was such a fun part to play. Mostly because I could just, a lot of the time, I just stand there and watch people do crazy things.

[48:00] Paul Gross: That kind of weird judgmental feeling of, what are you doing? Just because you're talking about Hamlet, and then about not feeling you're the right person to direct it. I'm wondering about what you think of Jeffrey as director and what are the qualities that you feel you've tried to take on from him in your own directing? And also, what is a director's responsibility with Hamlet? Was when you were talking about that, I was like, if you're directing someone who does Hamlet, and there is this history of actors being pushed to the brink, it's so strange that there's a precedent of multiple actors seeing ghostly figures while they're doing the part. What is your responsibility to that actor if you're their director?

[49:02] Paul Gross: I think you have to be their partner. And their security. Because it's, first of all, you can't do Hamlet as a director without doing what the Hamlet wants to do. You can't make Hamlet something other than that person, because it takes absolutely everything of the actor, and even that's not enough. So, it's not like putting on an accent, it's ungettable, really, in that that makes you, you become aware of that at some point in rehearsal, and then I think people start to rattle a bit, and then you're there as a director. I mean, you give the frame. We're going to do it in, like Joe Ziegler directed me, and he had played it, I mean, knew it inside and out, I mean, literally knew the whole play, uncut.

And you know, he said, how much do you want to be involved in these kinds of discussions, or close and set? And I said, I don't know. He said, well, I think I'm going to do it kind of the Regency period. It's nice, it's clean, it's not, you know, I don't know, I don't want to do it kind of the Regency period. It's nice, it's clean, it's not, there won't be overlay of direction on it. There's no concept. What do you want to do with the soliloquies? I don't know. Well, why don't we do them with nothing? No music, no nothing. It'll just be you alone, on the stage, dead center, and you talk to the house. What? Okay. I didn't, but he was kind of right about it. Oh, I should tell you a funny one about that, like, because I, this is another part of my hammock collapsing.

We did a, I think we did a, an invited dress or something. There were like 500 people there. I mean, yeah. And we hadn't been on the stage that much because the set for Fiddler on the Roof took a long time to build, so we couldn't get onto it until quite late. I got lost in the bombs too, when we were doing our first run through, because I'd never been down below there, and it's just an unbelievable maze. And I'm suddenly, I'm facing a bunch of boilers, and I'm thinking, well, this can't be right. And so I'm like, Paul, where are you trying to go? Up left. Oh, fuck. Go down here, turn left, run up some stairs, and you'll be there. Okay. And then the next time we did a run, they had people stationed pointing where I should go, until I got to learn how to run around down there.

Well, Joe thought it was kind of funny that I would go as far, I'd go off one place and then come back on really quickly, like way up somewhere else, so I had to sprint to get there. Anyway, we did this, and I completely ran out of gas. Like, I was so tired by the time we got to the fifth act. I thought I, and I'm talking to Horatio, and he says, you know, don't go and have this sword fight with Louis Ortiz. He's really good. He'll kill you. And I said, no, no, it's okay. I've been practicing. One of these little Shakespearean, yeah, he's not supposed to be, well, I've been practicing. Okay, good. That'll cover that. But there is that beautiful thing, you know, let it be now, just not to come, if it be not now, yet it will come.

And if you get one word wrong in that, it's like a Chinese puzzle box, and you can't fix it. And I got one wrong, and my brain's going, processing a million ways of saying it to try to get out, and I realize I can't get out of it, and I say, oh, fuck it. The readiness is all that big, and I was just kind of charged, got through to the end, and then kind of went home, and I called Joe, and I'm crying. I said, look, this is ridiculous. You know I can't do this. I know I can't do this. It's just stupid. Who are we pretending? Why don't you just call him? He knows all the lines. He could step in tomorrow. And Joe said, well, okay, I'll give Monetta a call in the morning, but listen, just do me one favor.

Do one run with an audience, because we had a preview that sold out, preview house. All right, I'm going to do one, and then I'm packing my pickup truck, and I'm driving out of here. Okay, well, I'll see you tomorrow night. And then everything fell into place, because he's not, that's the other thing, try to get that actor at a certain point, figure out when they need to realize that your partner in this after me is the audience, and you need them. You need to talk to them, and they need to talk to you, and they do too. They like yell stuff at you in those soliloquies. Am I a coward? No way, man. Somebody yells from, and that's in the fairly sedate theater of Stratford, so it's a very alive part that way.

But I think also to embrace the actor, you're going to go through a lot doing this, a lot of ups and downs. We'll have days where you think you can't do it. Those are good days too. You have to just keep at it.

[54:18] Paul Gross: It is, I mean, you know, it's one of the most magical things on earth to get to the end of Hamlet, the tragedy of Hamlet, and he dies, and you still have this big 1800 people or whatever going, you know what's coming. You actually know what's going to happen. He's not getting up. He's not walking out of here. He never was. When you bought your ticket, he wasn't going to. And then in the center of that is the mystery of it all, the magic.

[54:49] Paul Gross: Thank you for listening to part one of our conversation with Paul Gross, the penultimate episode of season one of Outrageous Fortune. Stay tuned for part two, the final episode of season one.

[55:03] Paul Gross: Thank you for listening to this episode of Outrageous Fortune, a kind of official Slings and Arrows podcast. If you enjoyed it, please share this with your friends and any fans you know of the original series. You can also rate and subscribe to Outrageous Fortune on the Broadway Podcast Network, where you will find a ton of wonderful podcasts and exclusive interviews and content all about theater, Broadway, and performance. You can follow and find out more on Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, or YouTube using @BroadwayPodcastNetwork or on Twitter at @BwayPodNetwork. Thanks. See you next time.