A COMIC SPIN ON JOE CLARK
New GCTC play 1979 mines then-PM Joe Clark’s predicament for comedy
Healey discusses 1979, his laborious play on politics
The ouster of a government is no laughing matter — unless you’re Michael Healey.
It has taken the acclaimed Canadian playwright almost four decades of hindsight, but he’s crafted a new play, 1979, which dramatizes — and comedically so — the moments leading up to the downfall of Prime Minister Joe Clark’s fledgling government. The play opens at the Great Canadian Theatre Company on April 13, a week after its world premiere in Calgary.
Healey discusses his fascination with making politics funny, and why Clark’s dilemma still resonates in today’s political climate.
Q What prompted you to create a play about Joe Clark?
A I’ve been interested in the 48 hours between the presentation of Joe Clark’s first budget and the vote on the budget and specifically on the decision-making, the machinations and the stress that must have been going on during those 48 hours when they came to realize they didn’t have the votes to get the budget through...
I’ve always thought those 48 hours would be an interesting thing to consider from a dramatic standpoint. Here’s a guy who’s under enormous pressure, has a decision to make, and is probably getting influenced in a lot of different ways. I thought that would be an interesting character study.
Q How much research did writing this play require?
A I did tons. Jeffrey Simpson wrote a terrific book, back in the day, about the events. There is plenty of historical record available. I read everything I could, then I kind of set it all aside and applied my imagination to it.
It is mostly fiction, and after that, I realized it had been so long since I looked at my research, I couldn’t remember any more which things in the script were fiction and which things were historical fact … so I had to go back and I went through the script about six months ago, and for every fact I came across in the script, I had to remind myself whether it was real or fake … I was amazed at how much of the real stuff stayed in, to be honest.
Q Your play is a comedy. But was the real stuff funny? How did Joe Clark experience it? A It probably wasn’t much fun for him at the time, I don’t expect.
Q Tell me about treating political subjects comedically.
A The things about politics, and this may sound weird, but I find it inherently dramatic. Because it’s oppositional, because the stakes are high, because people are in leadership positions, and they’re acting either honourably or not. I find the whole milieu lends itself to drama, and by the same token, to comedy, because when you take people of questionable moral value and you give them the opportunity to be corrupted, this is fertile ground for comedy and for social commentary.
I’ve always been able to find stories in the political setting and they turn out to be comedies because that’s my proclivity. I’m just destined to write comedies about this stuff, I think.
Q Is your play on Clark’s radar?
A I gather that somebody on the GCTC board is friends with Catherine Clark, Joe Clark’s daughter. and I gather that she’s been given the script. But I haven’t had any feedback from anybody in the Clark family.
Q Do you hope the Clarks or others depicted in the play see it?
A I do. I think particularly where Joe Clark is concerned, it’s a very affectionate portrait of him. Again, it’s largely fictionalized, but I think I deal with him realistically and sympathetically in terms of his dilemma and what he must have been going through. I think that people are largely dealt with in a sympathetic way.
This is a bit of fun, and the other goal is to talk a little bit about the nature of conservative politics in Canada, which is interesting at the moment just because there’s a leadership race going on among Conservatives, and the question of what kind of party they want to be is rearing its head again.
Q Maybe that’s your next play.
A Well, that’s actually this play. There’s a long scene, near the end of the play, where Joe Clark has a conversation with somebody whose ideas about conservativism and about how politics should be conducted are very, very different from his.
This is a moment in 1979 when Margaret Thatcher is elected, and Reagan is about to be elected in the United States. So there’s a real turning towards a harder, more exclusionary kind of politics where you make sure your base is solidified and you do what you need to open up the party just enough so you have broad enough support to gain power.
Joe Clark was still practicing a kind of politics where he was your prime minister even if you didn’t vote for him. That was his philosophy.
Q Does that seem almost quaint to you now? A Well, it sure does.
Q Do you have plans for more plays about prime ministers?
A I wish I could tell you the Laurier play is coming next, or whatever. Probably because it’s the 150th anniversary of the country, I’ve got a vague idea for a Sir John A. Macdonald play. But even if I start now, that’s three or four years away from completion. So, I’ve blown that deadline.
So, I’ve got nothing in the hopper. But as I say, it’s eminently interesting, constantly interesting to me. So, who knows? phum@postmedia.com twitter.com/peterhum