A COCKY KID GROWS UP
Mike Shara reflects on a life on the stage
Mike Shara had to change our interview time. The military coach was waiting to put the cast of “A Few Good Men” through their morning paces.
He couldn’t back out of that — the pushups, those on-the-spot runs, the bark of orders, all that good stuff designed to turn a cast into a team.
“How could I miss all that?” he says. “I mean it’s, ‘All for one and one for all,’ right?”
Since I didn’t want to join Mike and the boys for their morning workout I agreed to meet him later. By then Mike was on his lunch break. So much for pushups. Now it was a box of wedge fries and a great big beef sandwich. Those onthe-spot runs make a man hungry.
Fries, or no, the Stratford and Shaw star looks good, with his nicely toned body and sheared short hair.
Shara confesses he wasn’t that interested in theatre while growing up in St. Catharines.
“Later, I figured out it was a good way to meet girls,” he says. “Well, I was always this smart-ass kind of guy. I guess I liked the attention theatre gave me. When I was a kid I got a small part in ‘Cavalcade’ at Shaw Festival. I loved it. I was hooked right from there.”
Shara chose the theatre program
at the University of Windsor to prepare for his stage career.
“That was until I was kicked out,” he shrugs. “I was such a show-off. I wanted approval, I was a big know-it-all. You know the kind of thing? I mean, I was just there for a good time and not the right reason. I thought it was all a lark. I was trying to project the bad boy image. I just underestimated what was involved. And they were right to expect more of me.”
Finding his way to the Shaw Festival, this time as an adult, he played terrific roles in everything from “Lord of the Flies” to “The Matchmaker.”
Stratford came next with roles in “Cyrano” and “The Importance of Being Earnest.”
“I was scared to death of Shakespeare,” he confesses. “I mean I was no classical actor. At my first rehearsal for a Shakespeare play I was scared I’d look stupid. I felt naked.”
Among other roles, Shara played Cloten in “Cymbeline,” Berowne in “Love’s Labour’s Lost” and Duke Orsino in “Twelfth Night.” Quite a range for a guy who wasn’t classically trained.
After dozens of roles and a failed marriage, Shara disappeared from theatre stages two years ago.
“I just burned out,” he says. “I’d had enough. I was in three plays the last season I was at Stratford in 2016. I was playing Laertes in ‘Hamlet,’ Hortensio in ‘The Taming of the Shrew’ and when I was offstage I in my dressing room learning my lines for ‘Love’s Labour’s Lost.’ I had no time for anything else. I mean I couldn’t read a book, go to a movie or go see my daughter Molly.”
“I was in my 40s and hadn’t had a summer off for a long time. I was just getting sick of myself at Stratford. I mean I never shut up in ‘Love’s Labour’s Lost.’”
Shara escaped to television and movies.
“I was low man on the totempole there. That’s good for an actor. And in those jobs you can make your money and still have time off.”
“I’m grateful I was there in those festivals and one day I’d like to go back. But these are different days. Back then I was 20. You work, you party. In your 40s things are different. For instance, I finally have the right relationship with a woman,” Shara says.
Married to dancer Carla Bennett, Shara says he’s, “happier now than I’ve ever been. And you know, it’s nice to say that out loud.”
Today Shara’s back onstage in “A Few Good Men.” He’s playing the role Tom Cruise did in the film. He’s a lot taller and just a tad older.
“Playing Lieutenant Kaffee has a connection for me. He’s a real character. He knows how to cut deals. He’s coasting through life. He learns he needs to stand up and fight the good fight. He’s about to become a man, not a boy. And I can certainly try to relate to that on my best day. He’s the troublesome smartass, but he’s easy to like. He comes to an understanding during the play that he’s more than that.”
Aaron Sorkin’s 1989 drama hasn’t lost its relevance. “Things about America bubble up in the play, things that haven’t really been solved today,” Shara says.
“As actors we have to live in the time zone of the play. We can’t view what happens from a 2017 point of view. We can’t pass judgment from where we are now.
“I’m not a war hack, but I admire the discipline men and women in the military have. Antiwar and anti-military are two different things.”
When it comes to judgment Shara leaves it to the audience to decide who is right and wrong in Sorkin’s play.
“If you know who is right and wrong five minutes after the curtain goes up what’s the point?”
When you ask Shara about the things he regrets in his life he asks you how much time you’ve got to listen.
“Selfishness, neediness, how I affected other people, for sure. And then there’s something else. Career-wise, I regret a little lack of ambition. If I had it in me to be more direct, more demanding I could have been more of a star. I wasn’t good at asserting myself, having confidence. There were times at Shaw and Stratford I could have drawn more attention to myself.”
That was then, this is now. Tomorrow morning Shara will be back with the Good Men cast doing those pushups.
“I’m getting whipped into shape,” he laughs. “I feel I’m athletic, until I’m in the rehearsal room with guys 18 and 19 beside me.”