Pierre Elliott Trudeau. Does the name ring a bell?
Love him or hate him for what he accomplished as prime minister, nobody can dispute he had a larger than life persona and a long-running effect on the Canadian psyche.
Most of us are familiar with Trudeau the politician and playboy – Trudeaumania, “Fuddle Duddle”, the October Crisis, the finger, bilingualism, Margaret, John and Yoko, the sovereignty vote – but there were other sides to the man.
One of those other sides is what Trudeau Stories, to be presented on The Banff Centre’s Margaret Greenham Theatre stage, Feb. 11-12, is all about.
Trudeau Stories, written and performed solo by Brooke Johnson, explores the friendship between a young woman and the former prime minister – post Margaret, post politics, post the national spotlight. What it is not is a mistress tell-all story.
Johnson met Trudeau at a National Theatre School gala in 1985 when she was 23 and he was 65, and their friendship continued to his death in 2000.
“Trudeau Stories is completely different,” said Johnson, Thursday (Feb. 3). “It’s not a typical play in any sense. It’s almost like a concert; it’s a solo and it’s a direct address to the audience.”
Johnson plays both herself and Trudeau over the 70-minute, one-act play. “There’s a lot of physical movement, it’s like a train trip. I’m not an impersonator, so I don’t try to copy his voice, but I get to the rhythms and qualities of how he spoke. It’s a dualogue, or dialogue.” Johnson also briefly plays a Trudeau receptionist, a couple of Mounties and a couple of McGill students.
Having met Trudeau at the gala in 1985, Johnson’s friendship with the former PM makes her take on his life as a regular guy different from all that had been put forth by the national media over the decades.
Trudeau Stories, she said, is based on 12 stories from journals she kept over the years. On stage, though, the play moves seamlessly through the stories, one melding into another.
“They are beats as much as stories – specific glimpses into the times we had and the different ways we connected. There is a story from our first meeting, three and six year old recollections, memories rightup to the time of his death.
“We lost touch in about 1996, but this play is about Pierre as a regular, if you can call him regular, guy. It’s about him raising his kids, about a shy man, a gentle man, his views on life, about a man who took great care with people.
“That’s what I hope people take out of it. The media tends to take the most scandalous and paint a different picture of him.
“There are references to when he was prime minister, things that resonated with me as someone who grew up while he was prime minister.
“But the story begins a year-and-a-half after he was out of politics. The story is strictly human, about friendship, loss and grief. It’s about a male and a female, but not sexual. It’s about a formerly very powerful man and a student.
“I had travelled and seen a little bit of the world, but I was still an innocent. The play is mostly about the nature of friendship and all the aspects there are to it.
“The play is not about Pierre Elliott Trudeau the politician, it’s about an extraordinary friendship.”
Johnson, a graduate of the acting program at the National Theatre School herself, has won a pair of Gemini Awards and been nominated for Toronto theatre awards for past work.
She first staged Trudeau Stories in 2007 and began regularly touring with it in 2009, across the country. Right now, it’s her bread and butter, as she is staging the play often enough that she doesn’t have time for other projects.
“Right now, it’s something I’m committed to doing. I don’t think it has a shelf life, so I don’t know what the future holds.”
Since the first staging of Trudeau Stories, Johnson says she has settled into the role and gotten over the terror of being both the writer and performer of her own play.
“As an actor, you always feel exposed,” she said. “When you play a character, you show something of yourself in the character. It’s hard to maintain confidence because you’re always being criticized, or not chosen for parts when you audition.
“But when you do a play as your own story, and your own writing, there are a couple more levels of terror. But I finally realized I could go out and not have a heart attack every night.
“In working solo, you’re always worried about being lonely on stage. As actors, it’s usually a collective where you share the stage. But when you work alone, there’s nobody to feed off and you always think ‘what if I forget a line or something?’
“But what I’ve found is, the other partner is the audience. Energy is going back and forth and you’re not lonely at all when the audience is responding. But sometimes it’s quiet and I’ve learned to accept that too. When it’s quiet, I’ve learned, the audience is a creature who wants to hear the story.
“With this play, I always feel a great connection with the audience.”
Tickets are available through The Banff Centre’s box office at 403-762-6301 or 1-800-413-8368 or online through Ticketmaster.
