Back in the saddle

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This article was published 30/03/2017 (3432 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Robb Paterson may be the most genial, funny guy in a Winnipeg theatre community that happens to be filled with genial, funny people.

But in the past couple of decades, all that charisma tended to be expended backstage, mostly in Paterson’s capacity as the associate artistic director of the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre, a gig he held for 12 years before he retired in March of last year. That job entailed several mainstage directing assignments, including White Christmas, A Christmas Story and My Fair Lady.

The upside of Paterson’s backstage leave-taking, evidently, is that we’ll start to see a lot more of him onstage. He already played some multiple supporting roles in the Royal MTC production of The Curious Case on the Dog in the Night-Time last year. Now he is playing a leading character, and a romantic lead at that, in the Prairie Theatre Exchange comedy The Birds and the Bees by Canadian playwright Mark Crawford.

Paterson plays Earl, a farmer with a prickly past when it comes to his neighbour Gail (Mariam Bernstein) since their spouses ran off together 20 years earlier. The relationship gets more interesting when Earl proposes a no-strings-attached sexual relationship in a plot turn that sounds like Wingfield Meets Tinder.

“I’m enjoying it immensely,” Paterson says during a rehearsal break. “It’s scary, of course, a little bit nerve-racking, not having done it for a while.”

The Montreal-born Paterson has more reason than most for a case of nerves. In 2002, he suffered a near-deadly bout with bacterial meningitis that left him in a coma.

He recovered and was back onstage in 2003, performing in the Royal MTC production of Richard III opposite William Hurt, when he suffered a lapse that left him hesitant to ever take the stage again.

“I dried onstage,” he says. “I was paying Lord Stanley and I had about a 15-line soliloquy and in the middle of it, I just didn’t know where I was and didn’t know who I was.

“It felt like a year that no words were coming out of my mouth, but finally it kicked in,” he says. “That experience was difficult for me.

“Everyone dries occasionally, but I’m sure it was related to my brain injury. So I got scared,” he says. “I was terrified of acting.”

At a crucial time, he did get some sage advice from actor friend Mairi Babb. “She said, ‘You’re scared? No shit, who isn’t?’

“I was lucky enough to get all this directing work, and I crept back onto the stage a bit,” he says.

The role of Earl feels like someone Paterson knows, he says. “I went to school in southern Ontario, and I know a lot of people in the farming communities down there and in the Eastern Townships of Quebec where my mom and dad live.

“They’re straight shooters in many ways and so I relate to that and I love those people,” he says. “I’ve always admired people who shoot from the hip and are very honest in their opinions and that’s this guy, definitely.”

In December of this year, Paterson is going to take on what will likely be an even more demanding role: that of Scrooge in the Royal MTC holiday production of A Christmas Carol adapted by Bruce McManus.

Paterson says he’s excited about the opportunity.

“I wouldn’t be anywhere else because I rediscovered the joy of sharing a dressing room, sharing a green room with a company and sharing a stage with people and telling stories,” he says.

randall.king@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @FreepKing