Blyth Festival 2024: Seasoned veteran actor Jim Mezon makes his Blyth debut
BY SCOTT STEPHENSON
A “two-hander”, in the theatre world, is exactly what you’d think it is - a play that has only two main characters. Two-handers are all about the dynamic balance between the two actors who are carrying the story, and the audience along for the ride. Mark Crawford’s The Golden Anniversaries is one such play. It tells the story of Glen and Sandy Golden, an older couple struggling to celebrate 50 years of married life together. Lovely leading lady Janet-Laine Green is one of the hands holding the script for The Golden Anniversaries. The other hand is illustrious theatre actor and director Jim Mezon.
Mezon has been bringing his considerable skills to the Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake since 1980, and has been seen in countless productions over the years. The Citizen sat down with him over coffee at Coffee Culture in downtown Stratford, where he was happy to talk about his upcoming role in the Festival’s 50th anniversary season, which will be his first time touching base with Blyth.
“I’ve never been there, never seen a show, but people talk about it constantly. I’m really looking forward to it. And I did work with James Roy.” Roy, along with newspaperman Keith Roulston and playwright Anne Chislett, are the dream team that dreamed up the Blyth Festival 50 years ago.
Mezon has taken on quite a few heavy roles throughout his tenure at the Shaw Festival, from a conflicted Inquisitor in Saint Joan to his complex portrayal of Peer in Ibsen’s Peer Gynt, but offstage, he’s quite affable and easy to talk to. Between Mezon’s down-to-earth attitude and Green’s charming cordiality, it’s hard to envision these two as an embattled old married couple, but that is what the magic of theatre is all about.
Mezon’s prodigious career as an actor and director started out in Manitoba, behind the scenes. “I was a shy kid. And then, in Grade 4, there was this puppet show, and they had built this little stage thing. And something clicked with me.” He realized that he, like the puppeteer, could make things happen without having to show himself, behind the scenes. “And that led to me showing myself, and it validated who I was.” He became involved in Winnipeg’s amateur theatre scene, and the die was cast. “I found it, and it found me. And I discovered I was kind of good at it. And now it’s 50 years later.”
Having worked extensively as an actor and a director, Mezon has been able to develop a deeper understanding and appreciation of both professions. “Acting and directing are different hats. Actors only worry about themselves - directors worry about everything.” While he’s not sure if The Golden Anniversaries was commissioned for the 2024 season or not, he does know what got him excited about it in the first place. “It’s Mark Crawford - he’s got a pedigree for writing good plays.”
As an artist who’s worked in major cities all over North America, Mezon has inhabited his fair share of urban environments, but he’s still the son of a farmer from outside of Winnipeg. “The country is where the people live. The people in the city, they’re there for a reason. The people in the country are there because of a connection to the land they work on. For me, coming from rural Winnipeg, I’d much rather be sitting on a back porch, drinking a beer, than some big social situation.” Mezon will hopefully find that the Blyth Festival strikes that happy medium - Huron County is full of pastureland and back porches to sit on, but the Festival is also known for its legendary afterparties for cast and crew - you never know who might show up!
His theatrical travels have also given him a chance to observe audiences of all kinds. “If you’re in New York City, people have seen a lot of theatre, and they’ve got a certain degree of sophistication. And then you come to a place like Toronto, and they’ve got that desire - they’re striving to be sophisticated. When I do shows in the countryside, with a smaller audience, the expectations of the audience aren’t fewer, they just aren’t striving for sophistication - they just want a good story. It’s really satisfying, really rewarding.”
As he will be donning his actor hat for his Blyth debut, Mezon is already figuring out who the character of Glen Golden really is. The Golden Anniversaries may be a light-hearted comedy, but Mezon and Green have been exploring the complicated relationship underneath the laughs. “We thought it would be a good idea if we met... now,” he explained. The Goldens may have been together for a long time, but they were young once, and Mezon is trying to examine their lives as a whole, and asking questions like “How did they talk to each other on their wedding night? Right now, we’re just peeling back the layers of the onion. It’s such a human story.”
Working closely with Green during the rehearsal period will, hopefully, allow them to create rich, deep characters that feel like they’ve been growing together for years. As they are the first pair to tackle this brand new two-hander, the couple they build together will be the one that sets the tone for all the other teams that follow. There’s many more onion layers to peel before opening night, but Mezon and Green are already giving their all to make the world premiere of The Golden Anniversaries a memorable one.