Lord of the Rings: The Musical (No Joke!)

[Bêthberry]

An article yesterday about Michael Therriault, the actor who plays Gollem, has his very interesting take on the character. Gollem, Therriault says, is someone not at home with his soul. Interesting stuff here on his preparation for the role. Most reviews say his performance as Gollem is the standout role.

Here's the article:

Originally Posted by Michael Posner

It's showtime
With the stage premiere of The Lord of the Rings set for tomorrow, MICHAEL POSNER sits down with the show's Gollum, actor Michael Therriault, a Stratford-trained rising star who was born for the theatre
MICHAEL POSNER

A funny thing happened to Michael Therriault on his journey to Middle-earth. When he auditioned for The Lord of the Rings producer Kevin Wallace and his creative team last summer, the Stratford-trained actor had been reading for the part of Frodo or one of the other Hobbits. Then, on the spur of the moment, he also asked to read for Gollum, the deformed wretch who haunts Middle-earth in search of the one ring. According to Therriault, he read two lines and then had to stop. " 'Sorry,' " he told the assembly. " 'That was horrible.' I was so embarrassed."

But something in those two lines clearly registered. During callback auditions for Frodo, director Matthew Warchus asked him to have another go at Gollum. "They asked me to describe Gollum in a sentence," Therriault, 32, said last week in an interview, "and I said he's like someone not at home with his soul." Then they gave him 15 minutes to work up a physical presentation of that idea. By the end of the day, he pretty much had the role.

"His absolute focus and precision of movement meant that you were instantly engaged right from the moment he went into character," says producer Wallace, recalling that audition. "Michael is very courageous, very conscientious and pushes the boundaries. It was self-evident to everyone in the room that he has that extra quality -- a combination of intelligence, imagination, and the vocal and physical abilities to realize his objectives."

On the eve of the world premiere of the most expensive stage production in history -- the $28-million The Lord of the Rings opens tomorrow night at Toronto's Princess of Wales Theatre -- this may sound like a producer's standard hyperbole. But having been fortunate enough to see LOTR's first preview performance, it's clear that if the show has a star -- over and above the sheer spectacle of its production -- it's Gollum.

Moreover, when it comes to Therriault, it's very difficult to find comment that is significantly different.

Thus Richard Monette, the Stratford Festival's long-reigning artistic director: "He's astounding. And so versatile. He can do Henry VI and he can do Ariel [The Tempest] and he can do Andrew Aguecheek [Twelfth Night]. He'll come to rehearsal with a dozen different ways of doing things, readings, stage business. And there's absolutely no ego with Michael."

Thus Stratford veteran William Hutt: "I first saw him as Mordred in Camelot in 1997, and he was electrifying." On the basis of that performance, Hutt later told Monette he wanted Therriault to play Ariel to his Prospero in the 1999 production of The Tempest, and urged him to tackle Oscar Remembered, a one-man show -- directed by Hutt -- about Oscar Wilde.

Thus John N. Smith, who directed Therriault in his first major TV role, as Tommy Douglas in the recent CBC-TV miniseries, Prairie Giant: "The kid is so talented. And a phenomenally hard worker. He was so well prepared. He was watching rushes from the first day."

My own nephew, actor Rami Posner, who spent four seasons with Therriault at the festival, calls him "a triple threat. He can sing, dance and act and do it all well. He's the most human, genuine person I've encountered in the industry. I challenge you to find someone to say a negative word about him. And there is no harder working actor. He lives, eats and breathes theatre."

Because rehearsal time at Stratford was always at a premium, Posner and a few other actors formed what they called the Fight Club, otherwise known as the After Hours Club, returning to the theatre in the evenings to continue working on their roles. "When Michael heard about that, he asked if he could join. But whereas we used to go home and eat something and then come back, Michael would stay and rehearse by himself until we arrived, and then after we left at 10, he'd stay and continue working."

The hard work has clearly paid dividends: Seven seasons at Stratford, in increasingly prominent, skill-stretching roles. His Dora Award-winning performance as Leo Bloom in the Toronto production of The Producers. The plum part as Douglas in Prairie Giant. And a five-month sojourn on Broadway as Mottel the tailor in Fiddler on the Roof, opposite Harvey Fierstein and Andrea Martin.

In preparing for Gollum, Therriault naturally read J. R. R. Tolkien's trilogy, and used descriptions of Gollum to lay down the basic physical construct of the character. But he also -- while appearing on Broadway -- sought out modern-dance performances, went to the Lincoln Center dance library and made a binder of images that conveyed the same emotional impact as Gollum, and later hunted down tapes of the experimental British dance company, DV8.

It's a tired cliché to suggest that someone was born for the theatre, but in Michael Therriault's case, it almost seems true. Growing up in Oakville, Ont., son of working-class parents -- his father drove trucks and later worked on the line at Ford, his mother worked with seniors -- Therriault says he knew he wanted to act and sing as early as elementary school. By Grade 6, he says, he had started phoning around on his own, looking for a dramatic-arts school.

When he discovered the Etobicoke School of the Arts in Toronto, his parents were skeptical: It was an hour and a half away in Toronto and they couldn't afford it. But his grade-school principal was so impressed with the young Therriault, he arranged for the board of education to pay a full scholarship, including tuition and transportation costs. "I think I remember saying to my parents, 'I'm going. I have to go.' They couldn't say no."

Later, his mother encouraged him to go into modelling. " 'Mom,' I said, 'have you seen what models look like?' 'But you're so handsome. You look like Gene Wilder.' 'Mom, Gene Wilder used to scare me as a child.' " On graduation, he enrolled in Sheridan College's performing-arts program and soon won an audition to Stratford. (The only other jobs he's held were as busboy and wait staff at the CN Tower, the Second Cup and the Golden Griddle, from which he was fired after a week.) At his callback audition, he performed Mordred's song -- The Seven Deadly Virtues. "It was okay and they said, 'Thanks, Mike.' " But then [choreographer] Tim French, who had seen me in a summer-stock show stood up and said, 'Wait a second. Michael, I'd like you to do that again and do it this way.' I don't think I'd have gotten the part if he hadn't said give it another try."

In his early years at Stratford, the critics were pretty tough on Therriault. "I stopped reading them," he says. "It was really hard. You know when you're not hitting the mark."

But Monette and Hutt, he says, never lost faith. "If it weren't for them, I don't know if I'd have a career. They just believed in me. When The Miser opened in 1998, I got ripped apart. Richard calls me at home and immediately offers me the part of Ariel for the next season. And he'd say, 'You should do this, it would be a real stretch for you.' " It was Hutt who pushed him, reluctantly at first, to tackle Oscar Remembered. Again, Therriault says, not a critical success, "but for me a giant learning curve and in that respect a huge success."

Therriault says he often felt inferior at Stratford because he had not attended the National Theatre School; at times, he contemplated leaving the festival and going back for more training. "You know, we often box ourselves in as actors and as people. But that's such a dangerous thing to do. You're just not giving yourself enough credit."

Despite his success, Therriault leads a Spartan, almost monastic existence. When he changed apartments once, friends offered to rent a truck and move his furniture. "Unnecessary," he told them. "I don't have any furniture." He bought his first bed when the landed his role in The Producers. He recently rented a furnished condo in midtown Toronto, but concedes that he's been living out of a suitcase for the past couple of years. When he lived in New York doing Mottel, he rented a flat in New Jersey and took the shuttle bus into Manhattan for his eight performances a week.

Therriault says he can't see beyond the end of his 18-month commitment to The Lord of the Rings. The seven-month rehearsal process has been exhausting, and he feels ready for opening night. "Bill Hutt told me once that for actors, it's all just play, and the audience is allowed to peek in if they want. That's very freeing. To think, 'I'm just going to indulge myself like a little kid and not worry too much about whether they like it or not.' I'll try to remember that on opening night."