Heading into the venerable Shakespeare festival’s 37th year, founder and artistic director Christopher Gaze delivers the memoir The Road to Bard.
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It’s no surprise that actor and Bard on the Beach founder Christopher Gaze has, for lack of a better term, a Shakespeare party trick.
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“If I want to be a bit flashy and draw non-Shakespeare lovers into what I’m about to talk about, I would say to you, ‘Since you got out of bed this morning, whether you know it, liked it or not, you may have just quoted Shakespeare. And if you cannot understand my argument and declare it’s Greek to me, you’re quoting Shakespeare,’ ” said Gaze, as he proceeded to recite parts of Bernard Levin’s famous 1970s essay Quoting Shakespeare in which Levin highlights Shakespeare’s deep, permanent impact on modern language.
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And what about something from the Bard himself?
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“If you shouted out, ‘Hey, Christopher! Know any Shakespeare?’ I would probably come forward with, first of all, a sonnet. ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?’ ” said Gaze, who went on to recite the rest of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 before busting out Henry V’s iconic St. Crispin’s Day speech in which the king delivers a rallying cry to his outnumbered troops before the Battle of Agincourt.
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As Bard on the Beach readies for the opening of its 37th season June 9, the Vancouver festival’s founder and artistic director is releasing his memoir, The Road to Bard: A Legacy of Shakespeare on Canada’s West Coast.
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Out June 2, the lively memoir follows Gaze, now 74, from his childhood in England with supportive theatre-loving parents who helped him land his first professional job at age six in a TV commercial for porridge — a major requirement for the role was he had to still have his two front teeth — to the Bristol Old Vic, and then over to Canadian stages, with an immigration intermission that led him to be a ranchhand in Montana before finally founding Bard on the Beach, one of Canada’s largest and most successful theatre festivals.
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The annual Shakespeare festival runs this year at Sen̓áḵw/Vanier Park from June 9 to Sept. 19. This year, slated for the BMO Mainstage, are productions of The Merry Wives of Windsor, and Macbeth. In the Douglas Campbell Theatre: Goblin: Oedipus, and Antigone are on offer.
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In 2020, when a plague came upon all our houses, live theatre went dark. In fact, COVID-19 forced Bard on the Beach to cancel two seasons of performances. Like many others, Gaze and company pivoted and offered online options and other safe events to keep busy and keep people working.
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It was around that same time that Gaze decided that, before he shuffled off this mortal coil, that he needed to document the history of Bard on the Beach.
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“I wanted the story of it — how it all began and how it’s been sustained — to be told by me,” said Gaze.
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During his six-plus decades acting, Gaze has played all manner of characters including kings, dukes, princes and even a poncy cricket player on the Beachcombers. But he has never taken on the role of a writer.
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“Not that I recall,” said Gaze, with a laugh.
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Sitting down to write a book, he admits, was a challenge for a guy who is in perpetual motion.
