BF23: Randy Hughson takes on the historic role of James Donnelly
BY SHAWN LOUGHLIN
In speaking with The Citizen during the second week of rehearsals for the trilogy of Donnelly plays written by James Reaney, veteran actor Randy Hughson found it hard to contain his excitement and enthusiasm.
Hughson will lead the trio of plays - Sticks and Stones, St. Nicholas Hotel and Handcuffs - this summer on the Harvest Stage as James Donnelly, alongside Rachel Jones, who will play his wife Johannah. He says the plays, along with Artistic Director Gil Garratt at the helm, seek to tell a story beyond that of the Donnelly family, while, at the same time, humanizing a family that sought to live and thrive under most challenging circumstances in southwestern Ontario.
Hughson said he found the project to be ambitious and intriguing when Garratt first approached him about it - knowing that all three plays, being performed in succession by the same company, had never been attempted before. Due to the sheer scope of the project and its importance, not just in the world of Canadian theatre, but within the country’s history itself, Hughson decided to come on board, saying it’s really a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Furthermore, the shows are being given their due, Hughson said, with immense detail, creativity and a large cast of very talented actors.
Hughson says he knew about the Donnellys and their story as a young man, but really, where the story’s importance has resonated with him over the years, as a theatre veteran with decades of experience, has been the legacy of James Reaney’s plays. They were produced at Toronto’s Tarragon Theatre and the National Arts Centre in the 1970s and those productions, he said, were seminal moments in Canadian theatre, at least for him.
So, with that history in mind, to play James Donnelly, the patriarch of the family in question, was something he just couldn’t turn down.
Since beginning work on the project, Hughson says he has found the story fascinating in a way that continues to unfold day after day. He says he has connected greatly with the character of a man who loved his family and aimed to make a way forward for them, but wouldn’t bow to community and political pressures and fought back only when pushed to the brink.
The courage he’s found in Donnelly, Hughson says, has been immense. He hopes to one day have a quarter of the strength and conviction that Donnelly showed in those times, which Hughson says were contentious and violent, during which survival was often someone’s solitary goal. Those times are hard for today’s generations to comprehend, he said, and the more he’s learned the more he’s been amazed by the living conditions and relationships between people.
The story is generations old and entwined with the tales of early Canada and settlers coming over from Ireland, Scotland and the like, but with an update from Garratt, many of the themes remain as relevant today as they were then, Hughson said.
The amount of work done by the family, clearing land in years-long projects to establish farmland, is mind-boggling now, Hughson said, only to have some of it snatched away from members of an unwelcoming community. The pressure faced by the family to think a certain way and fit into a certain mold, Hughson said, simply pushed some of the members too far.
Garratt has praised Hughson as being a great leader of this project and he says members of the cast have been working collaboratively with him, bringing “offerings” of ideas for directions that scenes could take as part of the process.
The story is fascinating and heartbreaking, Hughson said, but it’s also very comic when it’s not harsh and violent. At its core, he says, is an epic love story between James and Johannah, who had such a deep, dedicated love for one another and for their children. He says the story builds as a slow, intense pressure that comes for the family on all sides until it absolutely implodes.
Hughson is also very complimentary of the cast that has been assembled. Between theatre veterans and young talent, all under the leadership of Garratt, Hughson says an amazing team has been assembled to tell these stories.
Hughson was a familiar face on the Memorial Hall stage for years, acting in some of the Festival’s most popular shows, like The Ballad of Stompin’ Tom and World Without Shadows. He even directed some shows, including Blyth Festival co-founder Keith Roulston’s Powers and Gloria.
However, he joined the Stratford Festival company and hadn’t performed in Blyth for several years until the holiday season of 2019, when he returned to play Scrooge in A Huron County Christmas Carol and then again last year in Michael Healey’s The Drawer Boy, a show that is near and dear to the hearts of many fans of the Blyth Festival.
Coming back to the Festival felt like a bit of a homecoming for Hughson, he said. As someone who has performed all over the country, he said Blyth feels like a second home.
At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, when theatres were shut down and actors were searching for ways to supplement their income, Hughson said he was travelling west from Stratford frequently for a “side gig” cutting wood. One rainy day, making his way through Blyth, he stopped in to see the Harvest Stage. He was all alone on the grounds and walked across the stage and envisioned what it would be like to be part of a show on the stage. He said he was overtaken with how beautiful the site was during that moment.
He was able to return as part of last year’s cast of The Drawer Boy and now with the three Donnelly plays, he’ll be back outdoors again. Hughson says the Harvest Stage under the stars is the perfect venue for the shows and that the Blyth Festival is the most well-suited theatre in all of Canada to be telling these stories again in 2023.
The Donnellys: A Trilogy will open on Saturday, June 24 with the premiere of Sticks and Stones, followed by St. Nicholas Hotel on Saturday, July 15 and Handcuffs on Thursday, Aug. 3. There will then be opportunities to see all three shows on consecutive nights several times throughout August as, after Handcuffs premieres, the shows will begin running in three-day clusters on Tuesday through Thursday and again on Friday through Sunday until Sunday, Sept. 3.