Village Squire, 1979-02, Page 29THEATRE
Eric Peterson becomes the dashing hero
Billy Bishop when he takes to the stage.
Western Ontario
legend makes
for great theatre
attraction
If you hurry you can still catch at a
Western Ontario theatre the show that is
probably Canada's biggest hit show of the
year, and deservedly so.
The show is the Eric Peterson -John Gray
version of the story of Canada's greatest
World War 1 flying ace, Billy Bishop called
Billy Bishop Goes to War.
The show was conceived by Peterson and
Gray after Peterson read Bishop's
autobiography Winged Warfare. They
spent a good deal of time talking the
project over, he says, then sat down to go
to work on it and spent several more weeks
of concentrated work. They chose to put
the show together at Vancouver's East
Cultural Centre, a theatre that was well
organized but usually played host to
touring shows rather than organize its own
shows.
The two had worked together before
during their association with Theatre Passe
Muraille and indeed the whole company
involved in ,the production had come
together through TPM. Besides the two
principals Eric's wife Lorna Gail is stage
manager and another old association Paul
Williams designed the set and lighting.
Gray wrote the play, the music and lyrics
and directed the show. He sits on stage
with Peterson, playing the music,
providing sound effects and now and then
interjecting explanations or narrations.
Peterson holds the rest of the stage,
playing 15 different characters from
Bishop, to British officers, to a British
matron intent on helping the career of this
"colonial" to a French chanteuse to King
George.
Sometimes one-man shows can be just
poor imitations of what could have been
done with more than one actor. This show,
however. doesn't suffer a bit. Peterson is a
remarkable performer. In a way he's the
stage's version of Billy Bishop. Bishop was
a chronic underachiever who accomplished
very little in life and had few prospects
until he fell into the right occupation at the
right time: killing people with airplanes.
Peterson looks entirely unimpressive off
stage. Small and wirey, with tired, haunted
eyes it seems hard to believe he could be a
demanding persence. But on stage he
seems to grow, his energy flows out in all
directions and he dominates a stage. His
acting is superb. His singing is not, but the
presence he carries soon makes you forget
that.
He changes characters with a simple
change of gesture, altering of voice, and
becomes convincing in the new part. He
carries out three way discussions, taking
each character in turn and makes each
individual and believeable. His actions can
February 1979, Village Squire 27