Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutClinton News-Record, 1972-07-27, Page 9107 Year No. 30 invite them to do so. One reason they'd like to perform before Clinton area residents is so they can learn how their information and imitations might be wrong. "We really need to talk to people, and find out their ideas—not on how we should do a play, but on what their work is like. Maybe they could help us give our play a name." said the director. Any suggestions? Around the middle of August, they'll have a better idea of what they'll do, but until then, any suggestions or opportunity to talk with people would be welcomed. The farm is on the road between Holmesville and l3enmiller, off on the Maitland ',hie about two miles or elephone 482-3181. $econd Section Alan Jones of the Passe Muraille theatre company strains and pulls fellow actors and actresses creating the image of a hard-working farmer who has a big load to carry. The scene is from the group's own play about the transition of the farming community from animal to mechanized labor, (News- Record photo) Posing in front of their improvised theatre on the old Bird farm on the Maitland line are left to right: Director Paul Thompson, David Fox, Anne Anglin, young Severn, Fina MacDonell, Miles Potter, Alan Jones, young Christopher and Janet Amos. The Theatre company, which is based in Toronto, came to the country to experience a couple of months of rural life. (Photo by Lisa Williams) for the sum of $200. Henry McCann sold, 16th July 1878 to Charles Stalker for $650 and on 19th December 1879, Charles Stalker, hotelkeeper, sold to Jane McCann (Mrs. Henry McCann). And on June 4th, 1883, she gave a Deed for the property to Thomas Twentyman, bricklayer for $400 (Mrs. McCann had been a Twentyman). But, registered after this on the 28th August 1883, is a mortgage by Valentine Roth, a bachelor, to Jane McCann; the discharge of which was never registered, Thomas Twentyman moved to Waukegan, Illinois and desired to sell the property but perhaps this undischarged mortgage held the sale up. However, assurance that it had been discharged or never would be claimed must have been given as on December 10th, 1892, Thomas Twentyman sold it and lot 149 to John Kirkpatrick, Yeoman, Goderich Township, for the sum of $30. And on 15th June 1897 Ninian W, Woods, physician, bought it for the stall of $300. The deed also included lot 149 in the village of Hayfield. Arthur Haacke, butcher and constable had purchased lot no. 13 for taxes and received a deed from Huron County 19th January 1874, Henry McCann bought the west one-third of the lot 13 and henceforth, it appears On the deeds with the property of lot 12 known as "The Hut". Frank Keegan told the writer errands or do chores to help Mrs. Wilson when he was a small boy, Lucy gathered from him that she was not in robust health. He described her as being such a nice lady. Not many years before he died, he went up to the cemetery and cleaned the lichen off her headstone, The log school was used for public meetings and church services. Early burials were made around it—that is one reason the writer is convinced that at least one-third west of lot 13 was used for burials as the soil is pure sand and gravel as if it had all been turned up. The congregation of Trinity Church held services at the log school after Rector It F, Campbell cane until the church was completed. Mrs. Isabella (Howson) McLeod, daughter of Or. Ninian M. Woods told Lucy that it seemed about five years that they worshipped in the school house before Trinity Church was finished, but being a child, this seemed long and So it might that it was Mrs. "Gentleman" Wilson who named the old school house "The Hut.". An old picket gate in the barn has the name burned on it. Mrs. Keegan sent young Frank over to see if he could run Clinton, Ontario SY LISA WILLIAMS Just outside Clinton, on a rolling farm overlooking the Maitland River Valley, lives a theatre company called Passe Muraille, Not very many of the surrounding families seem to know they're there, but this will soon change, because the main objective of the group is to become acquainted • with its neighbors and their way of life, and to begin to feel at home with rural Canadian farmlife. Local residents would know the place as the old Bird farm. Paul Thompson, the director- manager of the group, heard of it through Don Lobb, and it seemed a perfect setting for the kind of thing they wanted to do. The objective of the group is fresh and idealistic, with a sense of confidence and seriousness. These are professional people with experience and a fine reputation behind them. Paul Thompson explains: '"For a long time now Canada has looked elsewhere for dramatic material, and people to do the material. Our training was toward an international outlook. We studied other countries' material—England, the United States. But it can be exciting and as much fun to deal with what's around us as with what's foreign." The company decided that nothing could be closer to the real heart of Canada than the life of her people, especially her farmers. The director, three actors, and three actresses (and "three babies, who don't count") came to the countryside of Southwestern Gntario—;("We wanted to be either here or out west")—to learn about it first- hand. WITHOUT WALLS The words "Passe Muraille" mean "theatre without walls", and the company, which is from Toronto, has maintained an imaginative approach worthy of the name. Some of its productions are done without scripts, when the actors felt that to write out the parts might make them too static. Recently they did a play about the Doukhobors and their last play, Buffalo Jump, was about the "On to Ottawa" Trek of the unemployed during the Depression. Not all of the Passe Muraille company came to the farm, Paul Thompson says that the size of the company depends on the show underway at the moment. "Ours is a transient company. Actors and directors go with us, they go broke, go away, and then come back with us. I counted once: there were forty or fifty actors working in the theatre, About twenty had done two or more shows with us," he said. "Our shows are intended for people to enjoy! As much as we can make it, this experience (on the farm) is an exchange, There are senses of understanding and senses of acceptance among people. We have to find ways of showing that on stage. "We want to encounter as many people in this community as we can. The than down the road had his daughter married, and we helped him with his haying. It was a learning process for us, and at the same time it helped him out. We have an immediate feeling of discovering what the people in this area know about. "'Our reception in the community has really been tremendous. People are quite co- operative," Mr, Thompson said. The group has worked in the fields, attended a council meeting, a fiddling contest, a bingo night, and talked at length with neighbours. Then they go back to the farm, and re-, enact the ideas and events they have experienced. YOUNG ACTORS The actors and actresses are all quite young, and have had totally different backgrounds. Miles Potter is on his second show with Passe Muraille, He is also the co-founder of the Children's Pantomime Theatre in Toronto. Alan Jones has done five •productions with Passe Muraille. He says: "There is a great number of dramatic sources in this country which have not been exploited. I like working with Passe Maraille: they deal with Canadian content." David Fox has never done professional acting before. "I was a high school teacher, and quit after nine years of teaching literature and theatre arts." he said. Anne Anglin, Paul Thompson's wife and the mother of nine-month-old Severn, has been with Passe Muraille for four or five shows. She has acted with the Saint Lawrence Centre, and people in this area might have seen her as Hamlet's Ophelia in Stratford. It is Fina Macdonell's first show with the company. She comes from Winnipeg where she was one of The Patrick Players. Janet Ames, mother of two- year-old Christopher is interested in ballet. She's worked with Theatre Toronto, Toronto Workshop Productions, and Young People's Theatre in Toronto. LEARNING FROM THE COMMUNITY The company rehearses four hours a day, six days a week. "But I would hope," says director Thompson, "that they spend at least that much time again out in the community, learning, We have to keep adding to our body of knowledge. It's a bit like school; they ask me, `What's the homework for tonight?' " The homework is usually a By Lucy It Woods In May, 1968, Lucy was asked to compile the history of 'Thct Hut" when the 4nyfield Historical Society was recording the history of early buildings in Bayfield. She was assisted by Mrs. Wrn. L. Metcalf who did considerable research at the Huron County registry office in Godorich. The story of "The Hut" was read by Mrs, Metcalf at a special unveiling of the first historical plaque last Thursday, July 20. The plaque was erected on the front part of the building to mark the first school in Bayfield, According to Beldon's Atlas 1879, the Baron de Tuyll gave two lots to Bayfield for school purposes and the villagers built the school in 1836—whether this was gratis or paid for by the Baron's factor, E.C. Taylor, who it is recorded spent little time here, is not known. The 20 foot by 20 foot building was of cedar logs and poles were used as rafters in the construction of the cottage roof which was shingled in wood, Stove pipes were connected with a brick chimney near the peak on the north side. It was heavily plastered to the peak of the roof inside and at sometime the plaster was tinted blue. Edward Templeton whose father was an early settler on the Huron Road was the first teacher in 1836. It was the first dramatic problem to work on: the physical description of a place, or the creation of a character. One night each actor had to make up a song, There is no particular pattern to the content of the rehearsals from day to day, although they usually start out with "warm- ups". Each actor bends and stretches, relaxing his mind and body. Then the actors do dramatic exercises, such as trying to portray an image through physical description coupled with movements. Fina, arms over her head, suddenly became a slanted roof with a pigeon under the eaves. Janet's body described the grey wall of a barn with orange tiger lilies growing next to it. Evidently not satisfied, she commented, "It's hard to concentrate hard enough into a non-literal movement." Paul Thompson answered her, trying to help her feel comfortable with the exercise. "It is the physical taking over, and extending the metaphor," he said. Anne began a description, and broke it off, "I'm really having trouble with this. I don't like this whole exercise; I don't see what it's getting at. I can't do it," Anne's trouble was discussed. A problem of one of the actors necessarily becomes a concern of the whole group. The director explained why he considered the exercise to be valid, and the group took turns with a second round of descriptions, Anne hesitated for a moment, and then, bursting into low somersaults, her voice deep and smooth, she said: "R000llliiing meadow grass...daisies...reeds standing in water...frrr000gggsss..." The rest of the company could visualize the scene, and smiled warmly at the picture, and at her success. "Hard act to follow!" said one. ONLY A FEW WEEKS The Passe Muraille company is eager to make the most of their few remaining weeks in the Clinton area. Although they are not sure what form of production the rehearsals will eventually take, they would like to perform it either at a school building or in the houses of friends and neighbours who school in all of Stanley Township, If the Baron de Tuyll gave the two lots, there is no record of it other than the statement in Beldon's Atlas. The school was built almost on the line between lots 11 and 12 Bayfield Terrace. After searching the Titles and taking everything into consideration, the writer decided that it was lots 12 end 13, Lot 1.2, containing about a quarter of an acre, was sold by the Sheriff of Huron and Bruce to James Gairdner and Andrew Rutledge, School Trustees and registered—Instrument No. 316, 17th June 1865. Miss Crawford who had been governess to the family of James A, Gairdner, conducted a private school after the new school was opened. The log school was sold 25th March 1872 by the school Trustees of Section 8, to Charles J, Wilson and became his residence. It was divided into four rooms. A small hallway led from the entrance on the north to a large living room on the southeast, Off this was a small bedroom. A door from the hallway opened into a medium sized room on the northwest off which was another bedroom in the southwest corner. All partitions and A nine-and-a-half foot ceiling were lathed and plastered. Two years later, Charles J. Wilson deeded the property on 28th Pehruary 1874 to Wm, Henry McCann an hotelkeeper, have been for a shorter time, she explained. As children, they often skated up the lake to church, (The Dr. Ninian M. Woods family came out in 1851). Then Mrs, Barnard Snowden, (formerly Elizabeth Westlake) told her children that they came to church at the school house for awhile before the church was built. The Matthew Westlake family came out in 1853 and settled on the Sauble Line, The Presbyterians also used the school, Lewis Thomson recalled that the pulpit sat in the north east corner which was later the bedroom where Lucy and Jean Woods were born. As soon as the building of Trinity Church began, members were buried in the church yard and the remains of loved ones moved from the school grounds and re-interred in the church yard. Hayfield Cemetery was formed in 1861 and the plots laid out in 1.862-3, after which all these buried around the school and Trinity Church were moved and reinterred in the cemetery. William H, Woods, son of Dr, Ninian M. Woods, the pioneer, told an anecdote of this period, The young lads about town discovered that a gentle-Ilan boarding at the Queen's Hotel used to stroll down around Bayfield Terrace about twilight and visit a "graSs" widow living at the end of Louisa Street. So one night two of them took sheets to cover themselves and got down behind a tombstone in the school yard. When they heard footsteps opposite, they began to groan and a ghost with much creaking rose from a grave and told the man that she was the lady's husband. The "Ghost" predicted dire calamities which would befall him if he ever went near the widow again. The gentleman in question gave /his pledge. He left next morhing for his home in Walkerton and never was seen again. Some of the older citizens to whom Lucy talked of the matter rather doubted that it was the "ghost" which scared him off but the lady's husband who returned home just short of having been absent seven years. There is no record of the teachers at this first school, but one of the early teachers was Miss Isabel McLeod (later Mrs. James Thomson), She and her sister Anne wished to come to Bayfield from Cape Breton. Their father, Murdock McLeod, a sea captain, wouldn't allow his daughters to come alone, so he accompanied them. They walked, whether from Hamilton or Cape Breton, is not quite ciear, The girls had been educated at home in the classics Thursday, July 27, 1972 Here Passe Mersin* rehearse ono of the ecenes from one of the plays they wrote Since they have come to Clinton. The group hopes to show theplay, tentatively known as "the Saga of John Deere", to Clinton and area residents Sonietime in Mid-August. (News.fkecord photo) Passe Muraille learning from the rural folk ambling with Lucy BY LUCY R. WOODS Historical plaque dedicated to "The Hut" in Bayfield