Friday, September 14, 2007

THE BUSY WORLD IS HUSHED
Theatre: Northern Light
Directed by: Skye Brandon
Starring: Holly Turner, Trevor Schmidt, Farren Timoteo
Where: The Third Space, 11516 103rd St.
Running: Tonight through Sept. 30
Tickets: 471-1586 or Tix on the Square (420-1757)
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EDMONTON - The last time audiences saw the artistic director of Northern Light Theatre onstage, he was spitting barbs and talking through his nose.

That would be Trevor Schmidt in full Bette Davis regalia, up against fellow diva combatant Joan Crawford (Darrin Hagen) in 2005's BitchSlap! In a word, outrageous.

Starting tonight, in Keith Bunin's The Busy World Is Hushed, opening the NLT season, audiences will see Schmidt as Brandt, a troubled ghost writer of the lapsed-everything persuasion, adrift in the mapless universe -- a man, says Schmidt, much like himself. Which is to say "untethered, unmoored, with a sense of impending loss. Is there a plan? If so, who's got it? Ready to commit, but to what? Not faith, that's for sure. Not to a partner who's always just on the horizon, theoretically, and never actually here. Not even to his own work."

Brandt gets hired by a biblical scholar to pen her book on a newly discovered gospel and, in the process, finds himself entangled with her wayward son. "He takes on the job as a distraction, really," says Schmidt sadly. "I often think that of my job."

Which brings us back to the enigmatic, multi-talented figure who chooses plays no one else would think of, directs them, designs them with low-budget ingenuity, writes his own (with a specialty in juicy women's roles), sings, dances, acts -- and in all things veers between bright high-camp buoyancy on the one hand and wrenching melancholy on the other. "At the base of me," he sighs (no one sighs like Schmidt, from the kneecaps), "when I'm not 'acting' and putting on my public face, I'm essentially sad. An unhappy person."

Who is that person? And where did he get his unprecedented assortment of theatrical skills? A Saskatonian until age 10, Schmidt was the precocious kid who "rushed through his work so my teachers would let me put on a play." By Grade 2, a director had been born: "Br'er Rabbit, with an onstage narrator." By Grade 3, in a more abstract work about a rainbow, with onstage paint-mixing, Schmidt was the broody designer: "That's just not going to turn out a good green." By Grade 4, he was appearing with the older kids in Robin Hood, as the villainous Prince John.

By Grade 6, the new Calgarian -- who drew, cartooned and caricatured constantly -- "quickly knew I was different, scholastically smart but emotionally behind." Junior high in "a horrible private Christian school" was, he says, "the best way to scar your child for life and make sure they'll have nothing to do with organized religion."

The high-school Schmidt, "tiny, freakishly thin, red-haired long before red hair was popular," found his home in drama club musicals, directing at a local community theatre ("at 15, I was terrible to the cast!"), doing kick lines in Calaway Park revues.

"I was strongly advised to go into dance, Les Grands Ballets or the Royal Winnipeg," says Schmidt, now in his mid-30s. "But I equate ballet with army shows. And I don't like being yelled at at or called names. If I wanted that, I'd go home for Thanksgiving."

At the University of Calgary, where he majored in acting and minored in design, Schmidt played Hamlet and, since there were so few women in the class he played Juliet, and Olivia in Twelfth Night ("my year of crying and dying"). And at 22, he landed a coveted spot in a Banff Centre double bill that went to Toronto, which is how he met one of his two life-changing theatre mentors, Seana McKenna ("a goddess"). The other is Maralyn Ryan, who talked him into moving to Edmonton.

At heart, Schmidt thinks of himself as an actor, and one "with a knack for emotional vulnerability," even when he's directing ("my interest is what isn't being said") or designing costumes. His preference is for "the unexpected choice."
"Everyone likes to see me play furious or funny. That's how people see me; this slightly bitchy, droll person. I'm always stunned when I get to play romantic involvement."

It's "exhausting" to be Brandt, he says of rehearsals. Not least because "I get rid of all the Trevor layers, the jazz hands, the high-energy performing stuff, and find, at the base, we're the same. ... Those echoes of my personal life are far more frightening than nudity."

lnicholls@thejournal.canwest.com