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by Timothy Findley, directed by Dennis Garnhum

Stratford Festival, Tom Patterson Theatre, Stratford

July 17-August 17, 2001

“A man of genius has a right to any mode of expression.” Ezra Pound

This year, in what would seem to be a ploy to cash in on the success of "Elizabeth Rex", Stratford has debuted the stage version of Findley's radio play "The Trials of Ezra Pound" first broadcast on CBC in 1990.  Though severely flawed as a play, "Ezra Pound" turns out to be the best directed production so far this season.

Unlike "Elizabeth Rex", which rather fancifully imagined Elizabeth I slumming it with a troupe nondeferential actors, "Ezra Pound" is at least founded on intriguing historical fact.  Pound (1885-1972) was one of the most important poets of the 20th century.  He nurtured the careers of most of the famous writers of the period, including T.S Eliot, James Joyce and Ernest Hemingway.  His own style, Imagism, changed the way English poetry was written and imbued in his life's work, the encyclopaedic epic poem "The Cantos" (1925-72).  Disgruntled with the United States of his time, he moved to Italy in voluntary exile.  He did not return until 1945, when he was arrested on charges of treason for radio broadcasts to the United States of Fascist propaganda laced with vicious anti-Semitism.  His aberrant behaviour led to a trial in 1946 to determine whether he was sane and thus fit to stand trial.  Pound's supporters saw that only if Pound were found insane would he be spared the trial for treason and the death penalty.        

Findley has chosen a topic that involves a number of important questions:  How can the same mind that produces poetry also produce morally objectionable propaganda?  At what point should the expression of hateful opinions become a punishable offence?  Is confinement to a mental institution better than a death sentence and how can this be decided by a jury?  Findley does deal with all of these questions but he sets the play off on the wrong foot by focussing the entire first act on a clichéd subject irrelevant to Pound's case--the fine line between genius and madness.  As a result Act 1 threatens to become an analogue to Peter Shaffer's "Equus" with Pound as the horse-blinding boy and his psychiatrist Wendell Muncie as Dysart.  This leads nowhere since, as we discover at the end of Act 1, none of the examining psychiatrists, including Muncie, believes he is insane.  Only toward the end of Act 2 is the question of the limits of free speech raised which could more usefully have served as the focus of the whole play. 

In the play Pound's private thoughts and encounters in his hospital room overlap the proceedings of the trial itself.  We the audience and jury are asked to judge the case, but Findley has unfortunately neglected to present us with any evidence.  Repeated we are told how great a poet this thoroughly disagreeable old man is.  Why then are less than a dozen lines of Pound's poetry cited in the entire play?  Repeatedly we are told how loathsome Pound's broadcasts were.  Why then do we hear only a snippet from one of these about Roosevelt and his "Jewish gang" and not more about his outright support of Fascism and the Holocaust?  By the end all Findley has actually shown us about Pound is his temper, his concupiscence and his difficulties with what seems to be a urinary tract infection.

That the play works at all is due to the brilliant direction of Dennis Garnhum and the fine performances of his cast.  Garnhum gives the play the kind of intelligent minimalist staging rarely encountered at Stratford.  The simple tables and chairs of John Thompson's design are set up in a symmetric pattern front to back in Act 1, side to side in Act 2, to represent both the courtroom and the hospital.  Thus, the placing of the judge and prosecutor changes four times during the show.  Not only does this give the audience different physical perspectives on the action that suggest we view it from different ethical perspectives as well.  It also makes clear that there is no way out for Pound no matter what the verdict.  Wendy Greenwood's precise lighting ensures we know when events occur in court, in hospital or in Pound's mind. 

Of the fourteen actors six are making their Stratford débuts and ten are appearing only in this production.  Garnhum draws taut, controlled performances from all of them.  David Fox makes Pound a tempestuous old man to whom self-censorship is unknown.  It's an intense performance that makes it easy to see how he could broadcast reprehensible speeches but difficult to see why he should have any American supporters.  He gives us virtually no glimpse of Pound as a great poet but then neither does the play.  Ric Reid (Wendell Muncie) has the play's second most interesting role as a psychiatrist under pressure to give false evidence in court.  Jerry Franken lends the star witness Winfred Overholser great presence and authority even when his plan is undermined.  David Storch makes the prosecuting attorney Isaiah Matlack a vivid character both driven and calculating.           

Tom Barnett as Pound's defense attorney Julien Cornell cannot match Storch in intensity.  David Francis (Pound's friend William Carlos Williams) and Hazel Desbarats (Pound's wife Dorothy Shakespear) both succeed in the difficult task of making their concern for such an extreme egotist seem as believable as possible. 

The rest of the characters are there for purely functional or symbolic purposes.  Findley having neglected to flesh out their personalities, the actors do very well at giving them some weight.  These include Frank Adamson (the Chief Justice), Shawn Mathieson (a Justice Department man), Damien Atkins (a toady), Michele Graff (a mistress) and Ashley Wright (a dissenting psychiatrist).  Jane Spidell gives the reporter Ellen Deutsch (historically "Andrew"), whose purpose is to give the Jewish reaction to Pound's trial, as much passion as the text allows.  Roy Lewis plays Arthur Beatty, the hospital's black custodian, who seems to be in the play for the dubious motive of qualifying Pound's racism--i.e., Pound may be a virulent anti-Semite but he can get along with black people.  Beatty is also there so that in the last line of the play Pound can also claim to be a "custodian".

"The Trials of Ezra Pound" is not as contrived as "Elizabeth Rex" and unlike the latter does bring up a number of important questions, but the thinking behind it is fuzzy at best.  The rigour of Garnhum's direction and actors' committed performances hold our attention in the theatre.  Once outside, the flaws in the play make it crumble to bits.

Photo: David Fox as Ezra Pound. ©2001 Stratford Festival.