Gas star loves mass audience

In town for Half Life at Centaur, Eric Peterson is on a mission to attract crowds to Canadian works

Pat Donnelly
Montreal Gazette

From left:
Actors Eric Peterson, Maggie Huculak (standing), Carolyn Hetherington and Barbara Gordon rehearse Half Life at the Centaur Theatre this week.
JOHN MAHONEY THE GAZETTE

Corner Gas fans alert: Oscar is in town, at Centaur Theatre.

Actor Eric Peterson, who plays the cranky Oscar Leroy to such perfection in the award-winning Canadian television series, is now appearing as a Second World War veteran named Patrick in a poignant retirement-home drama titled Half Life, by John Mighton, at Montreal's flagship anglophone theatre.

Later this month (Feb. 29), Peterson, 61, will be receiving ACTRA Toronto's Award of Excellence, the Canadian equivalent of a lifetime achievement Oscar, at the annual

ACTRA award ceremony. Previous recipients of this award include Gordon Pinsent, Sarah Polley, Paul Gross and Wendy Crewson.

How does he feel about the award? "Oh, I was terribly surprised and humbled and honoured," Peterson said as we chatted over coffee at the Centaur this week."I mean, good God! That's a peer award, so it's a pretty nice nod from the community."

Peterson, who has won four Geminis, is a national treasure. He has more than 50 film and television credits to his name (including Leon Robinovitch on Street Legal and Justice Declan Malone on This Is Wonderland), as well as an extensive theatre resumé that includes co-founding Vancouver's Tamahnous Theatre, co-creating (with John Gray) the internationally renowned Billy Bishop Goes to War, and performing countless lead roles in plays like Tarragon Theatre's The Designated Mourner, for which he won a Dora award in 1998.

In the press release announcing the ACTRA award, Peterson is also praised for his tireless fight for Canada's performers at the bargaining table. He was both visible and vocal during the ACTRA strike, which ended in mid-February of last year. "It was the first strike ACTRA ever had," Peterson said, "and we didn't do too badly. It was a great unifier, in a way."

As someone who, unlike most actors, was working steadily, he felt obliged to step forward. "You feel a bit uncomfortable standing up, putting your head up above the parapet as it were, because this is your livelihood and you're sitting across from people who do employ you." But he stood firm. And kept working.

"What's so lucky about me," he said, " is that it's Canadian television, like Corner Gas and This Is Wonderland, and it's also Canadian theatre. I've come to the conclusion that it's all I care about - that people watch Canadian theatre and television and films in big numbers. As big as we can get them."

Theatre, admittedly, is a tougher sell. Especially the artistic (as opposed to commercial) kind. Which is why Peterson has so much admiration for the Necessary Angel theatre company, which produced Half Life. Director Daniel Brooks and playwright Mighton, who received the 2005 Governor General's Literary Award for drama for Half Life, are a mighty combo. And the company is one of a handful in English Canada geared toward touring. "They're trying to take the art form where it's never gone before," he said, "or to practice it at its highest level. There's a long developmental process. It never ends, in a way."

This production of Half Life has already played Montreal, briefly, two years ago, during the Festival de Théâtre des Amériques. But Peterson, who created the role of Patrick earlier that year, was shooting Corner Gas at the time and had to be replaced by Les Carlson. Peterson also missed the Scottish tour, but made it to Melbourne, Australia, as Patrick last fall.

Peterson, who grew up in Indian Head, Sask., is a genuine character actor, grounded in the collective theatre movement of the 1970s. He identifies with his roles, becomes them, convinces us that they are real. For Patrick in Half Life, he slicks down his hair, dons a different pair of glasses, and within seconds becomes 20 years older.

While posing for a Gazette photo, he joked that a leg injury sustained last weekend while skating on Beaver Lake was just part of his process. Nothing like a good limp to help an actor age up. To his chagrin, he does not need makeup for this role.

Half Life, which is set in an assisted-living home, explores, among other things, the ephemeral nature of memory. Patrick strikes up a romance with Clara (Carolyn Hetherington), who may or may not remember him from long ago.

In keeping with the theme, Peterson and I reminisced about old times, at the Greystone Theatre of the Saskatoon campus of the University of Saskatchewan, where we both studied acting long ago. I didn't expect him to remember me, because I was several years behind him. (A mere kid.) But I had a vague idea that we'd crossed paths, perhaps when he'd returned for a visit. Together, we drew a blur, if not a blank on that one, although we could remember professors, like the unforgettable Walter Mills, who, according to Peterson, lives on. Mills won my heart forever by choosing me over rising star Susan Wright to play the mother in a play called Flowers for Algernon. Her older sister, Janet, a U of S classmate of Peterson, now portrays Oscar's wife, Emma Leroy, in Corner Gas.

When Peterson landed the role of Oscar, he got that full-circle feeling. It allows him to return to Saskatchewan every summer, where he can divide his time between the Corner Gas set and spending time with loved ones at the family cottage near Fort Qu'Appelle.

Working in Montreal has a family angle for Peterson, too: His eldest daughter, Molly, is now a theatre student at Concordia. (Peterson is married to Annie Kidder, sister of Margot.)

What do Patrick and Oscar have in common? "There's a unified, jaundiced attitude to the modern world that both of them would share,"

Peterson replied. "That's pretty well characteristic of me, anyway, as I get older. It's called the old fart's syndrome."

pdonnell@thegazette.canwest.com