"It's A Family Affair"
Richard Ouzounian

After divorce, alcoholism and familial strife, the Follows have come together on stage in one of Ontario's summer theatres

Angry confrontations. Emotional embraces. Floods of tears. Gales of laughter.

And that's just the rehearsals.

The Fighting Follows Family is back together 22 years after father Ted walked out, leaving his wife and four kids, the youngest of whom, Megan, would shortly become Canada's sweetheart in CBC's Anne Of Green Gables.

They've reassembled in a production of Hay Fever by Noel Coward, which starts previews Wednesday at the Gravenhurst Opera House. In other words, you've got a family of dysfunctional actors playing ... a family of dysfunctional actors.

Summer theatre will never be the same again.

Coward's play features Judith Bliss, a matriarchal actress in the grand style, her playwright husband, their stage-struck children, and all the various would-be lovers and guests who descend upon them during a weekend in the upscale British version of cottage country.

It's a fascinating group, but not as fascinating as the members of the Follows family who have assembled to play them.

There's actor/director/father Ted, a 55-year veteran of Canadian showbiz, mother Dawn Greenhalgh, a dramatic diva with coast-to- coast credits, and their children: Megan, one of the most successful Canadian actors of her generation; Laurence, a prolific theatrical producer; Edwina, an award-winning screenwriter; and Samantha, an accomplished television performer.

To this already bubbling cauldron, add the significant others of Megan and Samantha (Stuart Hughes, star of Stratford/Shaw, and Sean O'Reilly, a popular American film/TV actor, respectively), and you've got eight sticks of dynamite in search of a match.

That potentially lethal spark appeared in a heated argument between father and son that could have ripped this entire production apart early on in rehearsals.

The actual cause of the fight was trivial enough. Laurence had unwittingly given a visiting journalist a copy of a book that had been personally inscribed to Ted. On finding that out, the 74-year- old patriarch went ballistic.

"The argument was about nothing, that's what made it so dark, so personal," says Samantha, the 36-year-old mother of two who seems the sunniest of the Follows clan. "Everyone was watching. It was what we were all afraid of. I thought O God, here it is ..."

Much the same feelings came from Edwina, who at 40 is the oldest. Quiet, reserved, she tugs at her Yankees baseball cap in moments of thought. "My reaction to the fight? The worst is happening already, and I was hoping it wouldn't."

Dawn, now 67, was the veteran of many such battles as wife and mother, and she laughs huskily to describe her immediate withdrawal. "I left the room, then stuck my head in and said 'Save it for the documentary.' In the old days, I would have been right in the middle of it, probably punched out by both of them."

The usually hail-fellow-well-met Ted grows unexpectedly quiet as he admits the extent of his temper. "In normal circumstances, if I had gotten into a fight like that with someone, I would have walked out and not come back."

Laurence, 38, the perennial kid brother, shakes his thatch of blond hair as he remembers the moment. "I just stood there and said 'You will stop being like this. You will not walk out that door.' And he didn't. That was the first time he had gotten that angry and not walked away."

"You can't walk out," explains Ted, "it's the family."

When told his father has said that, Laurence loses some of his usual ebullience. "The last time he was that angry with the family and he walked away, he stayed away."

For 22 years.

It was 1979 when Ted Follows finally walked out the door from a rancorous marriage that had stormed since 1958, and the children he left behind ranged in age from 11 to 18. How they felt about that break-up very much depended on how old they were at the time.

For Edwina, who was 18, "it was a relief. For years it had been a constant threat. 'I'm going, it's over!' Well, when it was finally over for real, we could all get on to the next step."

The then-16-year-old Laurence was blunt. "I thought, 'Get out of here, who wants this situation?'"

Samantha, 14 at the time, greets the memory with her usual equanimity. "I don't have any issues with my dad about that. At the time, I knew it was best. It had become so rocky that there was nothing left to salvage. Time for some peace."

But for Megan, at 11, it was a lot more complicated. "Working on this project has made more feelings come up around my dad and what I felt about his leaving. I suppose that's why I really wanted to do it."

She smiles with the calm strength of a grownup Anne Shirley. "I get to see my dad in a world that means a lot to him. Now that we've graduated to adulthood we have choices as to how we want to carry our baggage from the past."

There's another set of dynamics resolved in putting together a husband and wife again on stage after 20 years of divorce- personal as well as professional.

Ted is smiling at first as he remembers the old days. "We were known as the Fighting Follows. Everyone used to love to come to our dinner parties because our arguments would be such fun to watch ... like Private Lives."

Then his face darkens. "But after about 10 years, it turned into Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? And, boy, you're into a different kettle of fish."

Edwina remembers those days. "Yes, the fighting was considerable, and from a child's perspective it was overwhelming, because you never knew when it would spin out of control."

"Booze, darling, that's what it was," Dawn's husky voice cuts to the chase. "I used to use alcohol to boost me up, so I could call Ted on all his bulls---."

And she launches into an impromptu impersonation of what she was like in those days- voice strident, words slurred, arms waving. She ends it as abruptly as she began.

"I'm sober now. If I kept drinking, I'd be dead. I'll always remember when I stopped. Nine months to the day after Ted walked out. Nine months of absolute bloody hell. Then I went to an AA meeting, and for the first time in my life I said, 'I'll do what you're telling me.' And it worked."

But even with two decades of serenity under her belt, Dawn had her worries about working with Ted and the family. "I thought he might try to bully me. We did a play together a few years ago, and when I forgot a bit of blocking he'd turn to the cast and say, 'You see why I divorced her,' thinking it would get a big laugh, and there would be stony silence. No one was in the least amused whatsoever.

"I thought he might try it here, but I've got a lot of backup with my family. He won't get away with it, noooo he won't," she concludes, giving that final "no" a melismatic intonation Tallulah Bankhead would have envied.

The two outsiders have a tricky role to play in this equation. Stuart Hughes is a veteran of the Canadian theatre scene as well as Megan's partner, so he knew what he was getting into.

"Meg and I sat down before we came here and said 'What are we gonna do when the fur begins to fly?'" He laughs heartily. "I actually think this is a great play for us to be doing, because its theme is: How do I treat people I invite into my house? Which is a very good question to ask when you're working with this family."

"It's not about closure," insists Megan, "it's about making a choice to appreciate what you have."

Although Sean O'Bryan has been Samantha's husband for six years, he'd never encountered any of the Follows gang professionally. "But it's not as crazy as I thought it might be," he admits in his Kentucky accent, "because I've already worked with plenty of lunatics like Nathan Lane."

"Hey," he chuckles, "so far it's been a blast."

And inside the rehearsal, on this muggy summer day, it certainly does seem like fun. The hurts of the past are set aside while everybody concentrates on the work at hand. After all, this is theatre, the only thing stronger than family to the Follows clan.

"I always believed in the theatre," affirms Dawn, "it was my religion, my higher power."

Laurence agrees, "I never grew up with a religion. There was no conversation about a divine force. If divinity existed, it existed on the stage."

Ted crosses over and wraps a compassionate arm around his son's shoulder, their quarrel forgotten. "This is where I want to be, back in the bloody old theatre."

His career began here in Gravenhurst more than 50 years ago with a production of Hay Fever for the Straw Hat Players, and he feels the circle is finally complete. "This is my home, and if it's my home, that's where I want my family to be."

Laurence looks around at how smoothly things now appear to be going, and smiles. This production was his dream, and- problems and all- it seems to be coming true.

"Not many people can get together as a family and put on a play," he asserts, and then laughs. "Hell, most people have trouble getting together as a family for Sunday dinner."

"Oh, it's going to be exciting," Dawn concludes, "we've got that great rapport. Darling, we're a family."

With Stuart assisting, Ted directs quietly, but firmly. He lets Dawn find her way, offers Sam and Laurence some practical staging advice, and helps the action build up to the big moment at the end of Act II when Megan's character, the outspoken Myra, turns on the Bliss mnage.

"It's a great pity you ever left the stage," her character says. "It's your rightful home. You can rant and roar there as much as you like!"

And as the rest of the clan launch into the free-form argument that brings down the curtain, you start to wonder if Noel Coward might have ever met the Follows family.

Source: Toronto Star