Be The First!

was able to borrow a copy of the book through partner's university job. i know monette best from his scene-stealing turns in find the lady so i was curious whether his book says anything about his film roles. not really, since the focus is understandably on his stage career and how he became director of the stratford festival, but it's still an interesting read, especially when he's talking about his time in the stage version of "oh! calcutta".

won't be ordering a copy of this for my dane archive, so here are some notes about items of interest to my research project.

- page 41, while discussing his turn as hamlet at the crest theater in 1963/1964, about ken james (with dane in rituals, the heatwave lasted four days, cop, and others): "Horatio, Hamlet's friend and fellow student at Wittenberg University, was played by Ken James, a pugilist as well as an actor, and a man considerably older than me, even though we were supposed to be peers. One day, he turned to Marigold [Charlesworth, one of the directors] and asked, in his throaty boxer's voice: 'Hey, Marigold. How come I'm still in school with this guy? Am I a dummy?'"

it's not clear to me if this anecdote is james intending to be mean towards monette for his being 19 years old at the time, or if it's a good-natured joke about the age difference. monette doesn't indicate either way.

- page 236, about his appearances on television: "...I'd appeared in such other CBC TV dramas as Mary of Scotland, The Reluctant Agent, and Certain Practices."

the reluctant agent was a serial that lawrence dane co-wrote, and there's a couple surviving episodes available through LAC. it doesn't seem as though dane acted in it, and it's not clear to me how involved he would have been on set.

still, it's a little striking to me that he completely omits any mention of find the lady. as a proud canadian, why not mention working with john candy? was it really that much of an unmemorable blip, or did he not want to talk about it for some reason? well, we'll never know.