The Citizen-Blyth Festival 2001, 2001-06-13, Page 37Ted Johns remembers Gratien Gelinas from working with him on a translation of one of his plays.
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BLYTH FESTIVAL SALUTE, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 13, 2001. PAGE 13.
Ted Johns returns to Festival as romantic plumber
all out, but he had a bottomless pit of Johns stars in The Passion of
emotion," Johns said. Narcisse Mondoux, which Gelinas By Mark Nonkes
Citizen staff
Ted Johns remembers the day he
met the writer of The Passion of
Narcisse Mondoux.
The Quebec playwright, Gratien
Gelinas was an elderly man at the
time. Blyth was doing production of
The Innocent and the Just, the
English version of Gelinas's biggest
hit, and Johns wanted to improve the
translation.
"He had an incredible energy and
threw a 12-hour tantrum about how
this was to be done. I kept thinking
he's an old guy, he's going to be tired
wrote in his last years. It was a show
written specifically for Gelinas and
his wife to tour.
"It was sort of handmade for him,"
Johns said while eating lunch at the
Blyth Inn.
The play is a humorous love story
in which Johns portrays a retired
plumber who starts wooing a widow
at her husband's funeral.
"He has to go to ever greater
lengths to win her and her
affections," Johns said.
The character Johns play is a little
chauvinistic. He looks at marriage
and relationships the same way he
would a plumbing job, Johns said.
Johns is excited to be in a middle
age love story, something that is not
often told.
"It's something I myself would
have loved to have done if I had the
imagination to do so," Johns said.
Johns has written, directed and
starred in a string of shows at the
Blyth Festival since the 1970s —
plays like Garrison's Garage, He
Won't Come in from the Barn, Jake:s.
Place and Country Hearts.
The last Blyth show Johns starred
in, The Great School Crisis of '99,
will be produced at Theatre Passe
Muraille in March 2002.
• e
Born and raised near Seaforth,
Johns is related to the Lobb family.
He graduated from the University of
Toronto with a degree in English and
History.
After teaching in northern
Labrador for a year Johns taught at
Brock University. At that time a
broke Paul Thompson came to
Brock and Johns offered him a
mattress to sleep on. It was at that
time Thompson wanted to do a show
about farming and Johns put him in
touch with his relatives.
Thus The Farm Show was born. A
year later Thompson needed another
performer in the touring show and
Johns quickly became involved in
the theatre world.
Since that time Johns has written,
performed and directed across the
country and numerous times in
Blyth.
"Theatre is a very volatile thing.
There is no predictability to it at all.
Who knows what you will be doing
next summer or even in the winter,"
Johns said between bites of an egg
sandwich.
Johns is married to former Blyth
Artistic Director Janet Amos and
lives in Toronto.
ii
The Passion
of Narcisse Mondoux
Festival Gallery
hosts 3 shows
The Blyth Festival Art Gallery
begins its second quarter century
with three shows offering a wide
variety of works.
Positive/Negative, the show that
opens the Festival season from June
12-July 7, features mostly black and
white work by two Stratford
artist/illustrators, Gerard Brender
Brandis and Scott McKowen.
The works on display will
include illustrations from books,
theatre, wood engravings, scratch
board and other fascinating images
and techniques.
Links to Tradition, from July 10
to August 11, includes contemporary
interpretations from First Nations
Artists from the collection of the
Woodland Cultural Centre,
Brantford. This exciting multi-
media - exhibition features
photographic imagery and sculpture.
Real Painting, opening August 14
and continuing until September 15,
features the work of three area
artists: Ellie Enns, Jane Stryker and
Gwen Smithers-Kiar. The show
offers great diversity from delicate,
impressionistic watercolours to
colourful, fascination abstraction.
as well as
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