Table Of ContentL I F E B E F O R E S T R A T F O R D
T h e M e m o i rs of A m e l ia H a ll
edited by
Diane Mew
DUNDURN PRESS
Toronto & Oxford
1989
Copyright © Diane Mew, 1989
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or other-
wise (except brief passages for purposes of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press
Limited.
Editor: John Parry
Copyeditor Leslie Derbecker
Design and Production: Andy Tong
Printing and Binding: Gagn6 Printing Ltd., Louiseville, Quebec, Canada
The writing of this manuscript and the publication of this book were made possible by support from
several sources. The editor and publisher are particularly grateful to the Ontario Heritage
Foundation, an agency of the Ontario Ministry of Culture and Communcations for a grant in aid
of publication.
The publisher wishes to acknowledge the generous assistance and ongoing support of The Canada
Council, The Book Publishing Industry Development Programme of the Department of Com-
munications, and The Ontario Arts Council.
Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in the text (including the
illustrations). The author and publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any
reference or credit in subsequent editions.
/. Kirk Howard, Publisher
Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data
Hall, Amelia Wells.
Life before Stratford
ISBN 1-55002-061-7 (bound). —ISBN 1-55002-062-5 (pbk.)
1. Hall, Amelia Wells. 2. Canadian Repertory Theatre of Ottawa — Biography. 3. Theater —
Canada — History—20th century. 4. Actresses — Canada — Biography. I. Mew, Diane, n.
Title
PN2308.H34A31989 792'.092'4 C89-095246-9.
Dundurn Press Limited Dundurn Distribution Limited
2181 Queen Street East, Suite 301 73 Lime Walk
Toronto, Ontario Headington, Oxford
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Canada England
L I F E B E F O R E S T R A T F O R D
T he M e m o i rs of A m e l ia H a ll
edited by
Diane Mew
CON
PREFACE 6
PROLOGUE 9
WHAT DO YOU DO IN THE DAY-TIME?
PART ONE: CLARA BAKER'S PUPIL 1916-1939
CHAPTER 1 12
TRANSATLANTIC CHILDHOOD
CHAPTER 2 24
TEENAGED LADY MACBETH
CHAPTER 3 32
MCMASTER AND THE PLAYERS' GUILD
PART TWO: A DOUBLE LIFE 1939-1949
CHAPTER 4 43
THE OTTAWA DRAMA LEAGUE
CHAPTER 5 53
SUMMER SEARCHINGS
CHAPTER 6 62
BRAE MANOR AND THE CANADIAN ART THEATRE
CHAPTER 7 76
THE GLASS MENAGERIEE AND THE EDINBURGH
FESTIVAL
PART THREE: THE CANADIAN REPERTORY
THEATRE 1949-1953
CHAPTERS 90
UNCERTAIN BEGINNINGS
CHAPTER 9 202
THE THREE OF US
CHAPTER 10 235
A CLEAN SLATE
CHAPTER 11 247
A FULL LIFE
CHAPTER 12 268
THE RED BARN
CHAPTER 13 280
JOHAN AND NORA AND CHARLES
CHAPTER 14 202
GOOD FRIENDS, ABSENT FRIENDS
CHAPTER 15 224
STRAW HAT PLAYERS
CHAPTER 16 232
OLGA AND THE EMBASSY
CHAPTER 17 248
FIRE AND AIR
ILLUSTRATIONS 2 23-228
INDEX 259
PREFACE
I first met Amelia Hall in December of 1975. A mutual friend had
suggested me as someone who might be able to help with her
memoirs, which she was then in the process of setting down on
paper. So one wintry afternoon Millie arrived at the door of my
apartment carrying a manuscript almost as big as her diminutive
self.
I had no connection with the Canadian theatrical community,
although of course I had seen Millie on stage. But we established an
immediate rapport. I had been an avid theatregoer in England and
a regular supporter of two of Britain's leading repertory theatres.
Millie and I soon found we shared a knowledge of the plays that had
long been the staple of repertory theatres all over the English-
speaking world.
We became friends, and over the years we were to have many
animated discussions on the manuscript and what was needed to
shape it into a publishable book. I used to drive Millie down to
Stratford in the spring, my small Toyota loaded with her costumes,
props, painting equipment — and the manuscript. The return trip in
the fall was something of a ritual. We would load the car up again
and stop for a leisurely lunch in Stratford before braving the high-
way home to Toronto. Millie would regale me with all the theatre
gossip, the triumphs of the season, the exciting crop of young actors
that year, the inadequacies of her digs. Over the dessert would come
the casual comment: "I'm afraid I didn't do much on the manuscript,
dear/'
She always intended to get down to work on her memoirs, but
somehow her life was so full; it would have to wait until her
retirement. That time, of course, never came. When she died sud-
denly in December 1984, the manuscript was still unrevised.
In fact, Millie was attempting to write two books in one: the story
of her own life and times as a professional actress in Canada in the
1930s and 1940s, and the history of the Canadian Repertory Theatre
of Ottawa — the first year-round professional theatre company in
Canada. Gradually over the years, she became convinced that the
story of the CRT, which she ran almost single-handedly from 1949 to
1953, was the more important element. Paradoxically, as the profes-
sional theatre in Canada developed and flourished, especially at
Stratford and Niagara-on-the-Lake, she was determined that the
6
early struggles and the pioneer role played by the CRT should not be
forgotten. She looked upon it as a nursery for Canadian actors, and
a glance at the photographs on pages 113 to 128 shows how many of
Canada's finest actors gained their early stage experiences at the
CRT.
These memoirs end in 1953 with Millie's appearance as the first
Canadian actor to speak on the Stratford stage when she played
Lady Anne opposite Alec Guinness's Richard III. It had always been
her intention to end there: she considered that the subsequent story
of Canadian theatre — and her role in it — had been sufficiently
documented elsewhere. But she was acutely aware that only she
could write the history of the Canadian Repertory Theatre and its
forerunners. It was that history, and her own struggles to earn a
living as a professional actress in Canada, that she wanted more
than anything else to put on record. The scrapbooks, playbills, and
other archival material which she kept over the years, and on which
this book is based, were voluminous. Fortunately for future students
of Canadian theatrical history, she donated them all to the National
Archives of Canada.
Had Millie lived to revise her book, undoubtedly she would
have changed many things. That enormous boxful of manuscript
she presented to me that afternoon in 1975 had to be trimmed, cut,
and reorganized, and some descriptions of productions at the CRT
that were dear to her heart have been reduced. But it is my belief that
this book preserves her picture of some of Canada's early theatrical
history. I hope her friends will hear her distinctive voice coming
through these pages, and that a wider audience will come to know
a much-loved lady of the Canadian theatre.
Diane Mew
Toronto
August, 1989
7
A publicity photograph taken in 1953 just before Amelia left the CRT to
take part in the first Stratford Festival season. Photo: Bill Newton
8
PROLO
WHAT DO YOU DO IN THE
DAY-TIME?
It is 9:30 on a spring morning, and I am hurrying through Confedera-
tion Square in the heart of Canada's capital. My sights are set on
Sussex Street near the Chateau Laurier Hotel, then along Sussex to
Guigues Street, by the Roman Catholic basilica. Facing the basilica
is LaSalle Academy, a Roman Catholic school for boys, and the
brothers of this establishment are landlords of, believe it or not, the
Canadian Repertory Theatre. It is 1950, and Rideau Hall (Govern-
ment House) is occupied by Viscount Alexander of Tunis, who
sometimes frequents the Guigues Street theatre, informally, without
fanfare.
This morning I have been hailed by an acquaintance and ques-
tioned about my dalliance in this venture. I detect in his attitude
suspicion, incredulity, a touch of pity. He knows that every Tuesday
we open a new play and present it for the remainder of the week.
Doesn't the Little Theatre on King Edward Street do the same, about
six times during the season? But we who are involved in the Guigues
Street venture never stopl Week after week we grind out plays. Don't
we work at anything? We actors are being asked, persistently, "What
do you do in the day-time?"
Here then is what we do to fill in the daylight hours.
Wednesday morning at around 9:45 we arrive at the auditorium
of the school on Guigues Street. Rehearsal begins at 10, and there has
to be time to go down to the Green Room below the stage and divest
oneself, in season (and all the world knows, it's a long winter in
Ottawa), of overshoes, overcoat, earmuffs, and winter woollies.
9
Description:By the time Amelia Hall died suddenly in December 1984 she had become one of Canada's most respected and well-loved actresses. In this book she has left an incomparable record of her early years in the professional theatre in Canada. In particular, these memoirs chronicle the history of the Canadian
