Review: ONCE IN A LIFETIME SOMETIMES NEVER

Played at VideoCabaret, Deanne Taylor Theatre, 10 Busy Street,  Toronto, Ont. Played from Sept. 19-29, 2024.

www.videocab.com

Written and performed by Alan Williams

The show was divided into three parts. Each part played twice over the run of the show with the following schedule as per the website: 

“Part 1: “Once In A Lifetime Sometimes Never” – Thursdays 

A lightly fictionalised fable based on the story of ALAN’s times in Ontario.

Part 2: “Can’t Get There From Mystery Lake” – Fridays 

A lightly fictionalised fable based on the story of ALAN’s times in Manitoba.

Part 3: “A Quiet Time On Busy Street” – Saturdays 

The story of ALAN’s arrival in the strange country he never thought he’d find himself in known as Old Age.”

I was only able to see the final show of Part III, “A Quiet Time On Busy Street,” because the run was short and this is a full theatre season. Part III made me long to have seen Parts I and II. The place was packed. A couch was brought in from the lobby to provide more seating in the theatre. Chairs from backstage were brought in too. Wonderful.

Background: Alan Williams was born and educated in Manchester, England. He got his theatre training with the Hull Truck Theatre. Besides acting he is also a playwright, having written and performed his Cockroach Trilogy at the Bush Theatre in London, Eng. He performed his trilogy at the International Theatre Festival in Toronto in 1981. He stayed in the Toronto first becoming the playwright in residence at the Tarragon Theatre and then working at other Indie theatres when Toronto theatre was blossoming with homegrown work. He moved to Winnipeg, Manitoba to teach at the University of Winnipeg. He moved back to England in 1996 where he continued his acting career in theatre (War Horse, Jerusalem) and television (The Crown, Coronation Street, Doc Martin etc.). he was invited to bring his autobiographical trilogy to VideoCabaret by Layne Coleman, interim Artistic Director of VideoCabaret.

Alan Williams is a brilliant story-teller: laid-back, irreverent, perceptive, curious and inquisitive. He appears on the bare stage with no props, no need for a microphone, soft-spoken and the audience was rapt with attention. He wore black pants, a shirt, under-which was a t-shirt that had some design on it with the words “dead bod.”  

He talked about being recently hired to do a three-day reading-workshop of As You Like It by Shakespeare at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London. It was a trek for him since he lives about two hours away by train in a little town by the sea. He found cheap digs in London thinking it was a ‘hotel’ when in fact he mis-read it and realized it was a hostel. The place was terrible, cramped, tiny, but he didn’t complain.

At the first day of the reading the cast was assembled. There were a few senior people like him but the rest were young actors. They gave their names and pronouns. Alan Williams tried to keep track of everyone’s name and their pronouns and that was challenging. He was not judgmental about this, only commenting and curious.

As the reading continued, he had ideas and questions but urged himself to “keep quiet” and not cause trouble.  He wondered why they were doing As You Like It at all. He did an analysis of the play and observed that Shakespeare ended his play(s) going back to the status quo? Not a disruption. Alan Williams wondered about that. He noted he had read about Cliff Cardinal’s ‘radical retelling’ of As You Like It and his land acknowledgement in Toronto. He finally saw the production in Brighton, England and was hugely impressed with Cardinal and the piece.  Alan Williams wondered if Cliff Cardinal was happy while still being so angry. An interesting observation.

Alan Williams had played some pretty illustrious theatre in England but he was in a revery when he first came to VideoCabaret’s theatre space on Busy Street in Toronto. It’s in what looks like an old garage. It’s not fancy. The seating is composed of padded chairs on bleachers. The floor is black concrete. People are greeted by people who pitch in. Simplicity is the watchword. Williams loves the place. It’s what a theatre should look like. He gives the impression that if he had a free in any city, he’d seek out theatre, either in a reading or a show. And it would likely be in this kind of hole-in-the-wall kind of theatre.

Someone asked recently, “How long has theatre been dying.” In unison, a friend of mine and I replied, “Since it began thousands of years ago.” And we all laughed. In his own way, Alan Williams addressed that too.

He noted that young children who came to visit him and his wife in his house in England, played in their garden. The kids put on a show and repeated some jokes and gave their idea of a performance. Alan Williams thought it was terrific. He loved the joy, commitment of these kids and their glee at the performance. Williams said, theatre is all around us and in front of our faces, if only we can recognize it. Theatre isn’t dying if children keep wanting to put on shows.

Alan Williams has given a heartfelt, smart, polished musing on the theatre and his life in it for more than 50 years in Once in a Lifetime Sometimes Never.  He has been at the beginning of some exciting theatre in this city and in England. Yet he is still full of the wonder at its existence, creation, transformative abilities, the questions it poses to him that he shares. He does not seem cynical even when he wants to speak his mind. He does not seem judgmental at those just starting out, making the same mistakes he did when he was their age. He is watchful, curious, inquisitive, questioning and joyful about theatre.

The audience who came to his final show was a who’s who of those who were at the beginning of Toronto Indie theatre all those years ago. Contemporaries of Alan Williams. They are the people who made a difference in my introduction to Canadian theatre. The sad thing was that young people starting in the theatre now weren’t there to learn from him and to hear his stories. Alan Williams and those in the room are the shoulders on which our next, younger generation of actors are standing. Williams and his colleagues paved the way for the next generation. It’s a pity that next generation weren’t there to appreciate and carry on his message. The beauty is that we can learn from each other in these fractious times.

Presented by VideoCabaret.