Toronto Star - January 11, 1986

"King reigns again"
Robert Crew

Having just appeared in the most successful Canadian TV drama ever, Charmion King is now back on stage - in one of the most successful Canadian plays of the past decade.

The smoky-voiced actress played Aunt Josephine in Anne Of Green Gables, which aired on CBC last month to record audiences. And on Thursday, she opens in the CentreStage production of Jitters, at the St. Lawrence Centre's Bluma Appel Theatre.

David French's backstage comedy was a huge hit when it opened at the Tarragon Theatre in February, 1979 and received rave reviews from New York critics at the Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut, later that year.

King played the role of Jessica Logan, the temperamental prima donna actress, in both productions, which were directed by Bill Glassco.

And when Glassco decided to revive Jitters in his first season as director of Theatre at CentreStage, he immediately called King to ask her to recreate one of her most illustrious roles.

"I've had to rethink it again, not just picking it up where I left off," King said in a recent interview. "The play itself is a little bit different as far as my role is concerned. Jessica has been upgraded a bit.

"Before, she was an actress who had worked here most of her life and had then got lucky and had a couple of things on Broadway. So basically she was a Canadian actress.

"In this production, she has worked half her life in the United States. That means your relationships with everybody are different.

"I found the first week of rehearsals very odd, simply because I'd start to say the lines and I'd hear myself saying them exactly the way I use to say them. And it didn't work at all. I was just slushing around."

It's an open secret that French based some of the characters on local theatre personalities. There's more than a touch of himself in the character of Robert the playwright, for example. And the director, George Ellsworth, is modelled on Bill Glassco.

George was played by Miles Potter in the original production. This time around, however, Potter has moved from playing the director to actually directing the show.

But it really doesn't matter who is who.

"Despite the fact that David was inspired by certain people, I really don't feel that the play has to be that specific," King says. "Really it's about theatres anywhere in the world that aren't Broadway, that aren't the centre.

"The playwright's lines absolutely send me. I think it is just the funniest role and it's so David, but I think it's also The Writer. And it's The Director and it is The Actress. He's captured it beautifully.

"It is very interesting in this particular production. There has been no chatter, as there was in the earlier one, about who's who and what was said and that kind of thing.

"And the two actors that were the basis for the Patrick Flanagan role have never been mentioned," she adds, a little mischieviously.

Who are they?

"I'm not going to tell you!"

Despite the good reviews, Jitters never made it to Broadway; producers insisted on replacing King with a "star" but many of those approached, including Lauren Bacall, turned it down. Finally the show opened a pre-Broadway run in Philadelphia with June Havoc as Jessica. Unhappy with the casting, Glassco resigned and the show died.

"It fell into a peculiar hiatus after the Long Wharf closing which was a pity because it was hot," King recalls.

"I'd go in on my day off to New York and people would stop me in the street. That was terrific. And I think it would have sailed through, because there had been a momentum built up and it became a kind of an "in' thing to see."

Pleased to be back on stage in Jitters, King is less than happy with CentreStage in other ways.

"These posters," she says, indicating one with a wave of the arm, "I think they are a terrible mistake. Did you know Dougie Rain was in this show (he plays Flanagan)? I don't think anybody knows. It's ridiculous. Here we have one of the finest actors in the country. His name should be like that."

She holds her hands apart, to indicate huge letters.

"What can you see? David French and Jitters. Well, good, but there is room there. What is this little print?"

But isn't Glassco trying to promote CentreStage itself with these posters?

"All the more reason why you have got to say this is big-time. The theatre is here, everyone knows it is here, but the question is, are you going to come or not? You'll come to see somebody.

"People who can afford to come here to this theatre may not bother coming because they can afford to fly to New York or fly to London to see the season there. We are not talking about a $10 ticket."

Has she mentioned this to Glassco? "I've got a list," King replies, chuckling.

Born in Toronto, King has been a name in Toronto theatre for nearly 40 years, with a critically acclaimed performance as Saint Joan at Hart House Theatre in 1947. She met her husband-to-be, writer and actor Gordon Pinsent, while performing at the Crest Theatre and they were married in 1962. Daughter Leah is a Los Angeles-based actress whose new movie, April's Fool Day, will be released in March.

King has worked at both the Shaw and Stratford Festivals but took a number of years off after Leah was born to "play the major role of wife and mother."

She has done some TV and movie work but admits to being most comfortable in the theatre.

"There is an excitement in the life that doesn't exist in other lives, I suppose because you really open yourself up," she says.

"You are at your most vulnerable and you give to the audience. That can be traumatic if they don't like it but if they do, it is the most rewarding thing in the world.

"When you're really on and you know you are giving a good performance for them, you get back from them. It is a peculiar exchange between audience and actor."

Nevertheless, she's delighted with the success of Anne Of Green Gables. "I loved the show. I thought it was magnificent and Megan (Follows, who played Anne), is absolutely the most adorable girl that you'd ever want to meet.

"She is just a perfect professional. She's always right there, knows absolutely everything she is supposed to know. And she's a darling backstage; she's not some twit who's realized she's got a lead in a hit and whatnot.

"To ring the variety of changes in that role - she's fabulous. I think she's going to be a huge star. And she's as pretty as a picture. She's just got it all."

Somehow, one can't imagine a Jessica Logan saying such things about a fellow performer.

Source: Toronto Star