All you need is (tough) love
Seminar’s actors weigh pros and cons of being under a vicious mentor’s wing
The teacher from hell. We’ve all known one, haven’t we? They’re especially prevalent in the creative arts, something that last year’s film Whiplash drove home, with J.K. Simmons’s Oscar-winning portrayal of a music prof on the edge of sanity.
Seminar, the play by Theresa Rebeck now in performances at the Panasonic Theatre, features a prime example of this species. Leonard (played by Stratford star Tom McCamus) is a once-successful novelist who now supports himself by charging students $5,000 for private writing seminars where he will savagely outline their failings.
We spoke to the four actors who play Leonard’s students/victims in Seminar and asked whether they had experienced such treatment personally and if it brought any rewards. Andrea Houssin The Winnipeg actress is making her Toronto debut in Seminar as Kate, the girl whose elegant apartment is the setting for the play. She’s also the first to have her work destroyed by Leonard.
“I went through the same thing in theatre school. Harsh criticism laced with personal attacks. At the time, it felt utterly devastating and made me question all my life choices. It made me want to curl up in a ball and die . . . It was certainly morally wrong, but it might very well have been artistically right. If you don’t get smashed to the ground, sometimes there’s nowhere to grow.” Nathan Howe An actor-playwright from Saskatoon, in Seminar he’s Martin, the poorest of the students, also the one who is most terrified of revealing his work to Leonard.
“I had a Shakespeare instructor in school who nailed me after a run of the show in front of the whole cast with every possible note. He said I wasn’t believable, nothing I did was working and, when I went home, I felt pretty useless . . . Does anybody ever have the right to destroy another human being to make art? . . . I kind of sit on the fence on the issue. Yeah, it’s awfully hard to get whipped like that every night. But on the other hand, I’ve learned so much as a writer from the process.” Grace Lynn Kung A Canadian Screen Award nominee (for In Security) who has appeared with Soulpepper and Canadian Stage, she’s Izzy, the one whose work is initially praised extravagantly by Leonard. She’s also involved in romantic intrigue.
“The acting business is like Leonard on a grand scale. As a woman, especially, you experience it all the time. The first film I got, they asked me to lose weight. Sometimes they tell you why you didn’t get a part: ‘Too plain, too old.’ Or then there’s the directors who drive you to tears and say ‘Are you crying for real?’ . . . My view on the issue is that Leonard is right, because he’s always telling the truth . . . All of us in the play wind up better writers or at least with a more honest view of the world once he took our blinders off. I’m not interested in getting a massage that doesn’t hurt.” Ryan James Miller Winnipeg-born, he’s both an actor and a three-time Canadian Comedy Award nominee for his work with the sketch comedy troupe Hot Thespian Action. In Seminar, his character Douglas is the nephew of a famous playwright, born with a silver spoon in his mouth and the subject of Leonard’s loftiest scorn.
“I’ve never known a mentor like Leonard in my life and I wish I’d had one. I could have used a teacher like him to tell me what to do with my life. If I’d had a professor in my theatre studies who had told me I was wasting my time with Shakespeare it would have saved me a lot of grief . . . I think that Leonard’s honesty is something to admire, even though it can be borderline abusive in a way. He tells the truth, which is what everyone needs to hear, no matter how debilitating it can be.” Seminar runs at the Panasonic Theatre, 651 Yonge St., through Dec. 6. Tickets are at mirvish.com or 416-872-1212.