CHAPTER EIGHT
JAN-MARCH 1956

The Hill

The Rev. Brian turned up one day at River Street while Paul was rehearsing Anna Cameron and John Sullivan for The Guests, due out January. Anna was shortly to become the hostess of Open House, replacing Corinne Conley. “I need to talk to you,” Brian announced, looking like the proverbial cat who’d swallowed a canary.

Curious, Paul thought. He’s coming to discuss the Wilbert Coffin hanging coming soon, February 10th in fact. They all knew how the right-wing Quebec Premier Maurice Duplessis, catering to US interests, got the court to condemn a poor backwoodsman from the Gaspe for the killing of two American hunters. It was only too obvious that he would never have done it.

But Brian had not come for that. “I’ve managed to squeeze from management a one-hour drama on Good Friday.” He looked pleased.

“Terrific, Brian. What have you got planned?”

Brian had a twinkle in his eyes. “That’s just the point. Nothing.”

“Oh dear. Well, maybe one of Eliot’s plays? Murder in the Cathedral?”

Brian shook his head. “I’d like something contemporary, but squarely about the crucifixion.”

Paul absorbed that. “About the crucifixion…”

Eileen in her overcoat brought Paul a cup of coffee and went back for a cup of tea for Brian.

Brian went on, “I’ve gotten Sydney to let you off after your next show, so we have five weeks.”

“Are you asking me to write something?” Paul felt a growing excitement.

“Well, writing or adapting. If we think about it, we might come up with something.”

And come up with something they did.

But first, Paul wanted to meet the new designer he’d been assigned: Rudi Dorn, an Austrian, apparently quite a handful. But just oh so creative. He looked like Beethoven: big head, heavy features, squat body; you’d never believe any brilliance lay inside. But watch out!

Paul collared Rudi one day in the drama department. “Hi Rudi. It’s me. We’re doing a show together.”

“Ach Gott, not another show! I chust finished one.”

“No, this might be fun.” Paul let that hang in the air.

“Fun? What you think? Better at home drinking a beer.”

Good beginning? Oh well, persevere, Paul thought. “Listen. I might write a religious play for Good Friday.”

Rudi moaned. “Not more religious stuff!” He pulled his hand down across his face, stretching his features like a mournful gargoyle. “I can’t face all dat rubbish!” he cried. “People in pyjamas mumbling old Bible words.”

Paul had to laugh. “No Rudi, I’m writing it. You think I’m going to write stuff for people in pyjamas? It’s contemporary. I’ve decided to do something about the ascent up the hill of Golgotha. Where they crucified Christ. At the top. You know, a one-word title. Golgotha, or something.”

“Golgotha!” Rudi complained. “I can chust see the sets switching off!”

“Okay okay, not Golgotha, I’ll find something, don’t worry.”

Rudi shrugged. “Give it to Soloviov, he likes dat rubbish.”

“No, Rudi, you’re going to do it. I mean, what will we do for sets?”

“You want me to build some old mud houses out of canvas flats? I can chust see it.” He chuckled. “Takes my breath away...” He kept laughing.

Paul had to laugh, too, in spite of himself. “Well, that’s what they do in religious films. People accept shitty-looking buildings, if they have decent actors to follow.”

“What we need sets for, anyway?” Rudi asked, enigmatically.

Hmm... “Rudi, I’m trying to figure out how I’m going to picture Christ. I mean, do we build him a special set? Up in the corner? Cut to him from time to time, or what? But they beat him, they made him carry this heavy cross most of the way up the hill, and then, he gets crucified — I’m just trying to figure all that out.”

“And you’re going to have that chew, Lloyd Bochner, playing Christ?” Rudi grinned again.

“No, you’re right, it’s impossible to cast. Who could look like Jesus anyway?”

Rudi gave another exclamation of disgust. “Fake beards!” He moaned again. “Glue coming off, beards hanging, stage hands sneaking under the camera to fix dem — I know, you’re writing a comedy!”

“Ah come on, Rudi, be of some use.”

“I don’t put up sets.” He shook his head, thinking, and started to scribble ideas. “Hmmm.... Dey have new cyc [-lorama, a clear blue curtain]. Goes most round the studio. I could get it joined together. Then we have sky all around.”

“What? So I have to shoot everything low-low angle so we don’t see the tops of the buildings?”

“No,” growled Rudi. “What do you see on television? You chust watch actors. Who cares about buildings! Actors. Actors!” Rudi started to scribble again on the floor plans.

Paul began to think hard. “Yeah... Yeah Rudi. Listen, when I left Oxford I thought up this theatre company — ”

“What? Now you gonna tell me your life’s story?” Rudi said mischievously.

“No, no, no — listen, I made a company, I formed it, I bought a furniture van, I took them round, and we played all sorts of places, town halls. But we had no sets or anything, so you know what we did?”

“I don’t want to hear!” Rudi shouted as he scribbled designs furiously onto a blank sheet, thinking hard.

“So, the first play we did was Hank Cinq!”

Rudi looked up, curious.

“Henry Five!” Paul explained. “Listen.”

“On your imaginary forces work.

Think when we talk of horses that you see them

Printing their proud hoofs i’ the receiving earth;

for ’ tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings...”

“See? We had no sets. The Chorus, he said it all: Use your bloody imaginations!” Even now Paul remembered tall, long-necked Toby Robertson in front of audiences in town halls, speaking so beautifully those opening lines of Henry V. “Maybe we can do that here — is that what you’re saying?”

“What? More big Shakespeare words no one understands? Now more sets switch off!”

“No no no, I’d write stuff like:

“You see this bunch of actors?’” Paul started improvising.

“This is just a television studio.

So let us act out something for you.

Forget we’re just actors,

and try watching...That sort of thing.” Paul saw Rudi grimace which, he was to learn, meant he was thinking. Fearful! “Then we kind of see the story in their eyes.”

“Their eyes...” Rudi nodded, far away. “Television. Eyes...”

“Yeah, television,” repeated Paul. “Good thinking, Rudi. Faces of actors. That’s all the damn little screen is good for. Faces.”

“So I give you cyclorama, I give you rostra, they walk up and down, the ground is rough over dere, and you got your set. I go home and drink beer.”

They both laughed.

“Okay okay okay,” Paul said, “that’s given me ideas. I’ll go away and write the damn thing.”

“I’m sick of all this talk.” Rudi picked up his floor plans and turned to go.

“Rudi, no more talk; I’m going back to write. A television one hour. Okay?”

“All television is boring.” And with that, Rudi left.

***

George Crum, the National Ballet’s conductor had left town, and Angela had asked him to lend them his apartment. Paul holed himself up there, undisturbed, to write his drama. Angela was performing at the Royal Alex, eighteen performances, prior to leaving for tour. They would visit seventeen cities, thirty-eight performances in two months.

Fourteen Stations of the Cross: that gave some kind of shape. And indeed, it did encompass the whole story — in one hour. Some characters were set: the Centurion at the foot of the cross, Pontius Pilate, John and Peter, and other followers. But what about the conflict? He decided to write for actors he’d want to work with: John Drainie, Jill Foster, Jimmy Doohan, pretty little Welsh Sarah Davies — she had been wonderful in The Walking Stick, perfect for Veronica who wiped the face of Christ. Jill would make a terrific dumb blonde, a friendly housewife, contemporary. Then the Virgin Mary, and Mary Magdalene — Kate Blake, with her wild dark red mane of hair and soothing brown eyes, when they weren’t flashing. So he started writing the television play, The Hill.

What, he wondered, would most of them be thinking? In those days, with no television, no radio, and no Roman circuses, a crucifixion might well be one of the few enjoyable outings. So Jill, she’d bring sandwiches and sit with Veronica to have a picnic while they waited for the chaps on the cross to die. Jimmy Doohan’s character emerged as a weirdo who revelled in torture. Slowly, snatches of dialogue emerged.

What about the actual words of Christ? Brian had suggested different versions of the Bible. The one that Paul liked most was E.V. Rieu’s Penguin translation of the Four Gospels. So he went through, underlining bits he might want:

Let not your heart be troubled,

have faith in God, have faith also in me

in your father’s house are many mansions.

If it were not so I would have told you.

I go to prepare a place for you,

so that where I am, there you may be also.

Another thing troubling him: how to involve his audience. He needed to represent the mass of people. And as he daydreamed, he remembered his mother and aunt, in the 1930s, with their choral speaking. The ladies of Westmount would come and speak choruses from Greek plays, Rene conducting them in unison — probably the only elocutionist doing that in Montreal. He could hear them, upstairs at 37 Chesterfield Avenue, AAAEEEIIIOOUU. So why not a CHORUS of actors? Never seen or heard before on television. Write that in verse. Yes. A Chorus who commented throughout on the action. What would they say? He could just see Sydney’s hair rise. But Brian was behind him...

Angela would arrive, worn out from performing. A glorious time. Paul could write with his Angela nearby. When at night he got out of bed to jot something down, she’d awaken and call him back into her arms. He’d stand looking down at her white, oh-so-white, body in its thin, soft nightdress, amazed that she was all his. That glorious creature on stage who kept hundreds entranced with her grace, the perfection of her arabesques and her superbly sculptured body. How lucky he felt. And then he’d come and lie beside her, cover them both with sheets and hold her tightly.

***

When Paul entered the drama department offices, Sydney’s secretary spotted him and waved him over. “They’re waiting for you.”

“They?” Paul stood and looked.

“Sydney has Brian with him.”

Paul wondered if that was a good or a bad thing. He glanced across at Eileen, where she sat outside his office door. She smiled. “I read it this morning, Paul. Don’t change a word. They’re bound to like it.”

Paul wasn’t so sure. He hesitated.

Sydney’s secretary motioned him again and he walked over, knocked, and went in. Behind his desk, Sydney just sat, saying nothing, and looked at him — at a loss, it seemed, for words.

“Well,” Paul asked cheerily, “how did you like it Sydney?” The best defence was to appear more confident than he actually felt.

“What the hell do you think our viewers are going to say when they see that on the screen?”

“Sydney, it’s not my job to imagine what they’re going to say. I just wrote the Crucifixion in today’s terms.”

Brian nodded.

“All right, listen to this,” Sydney went on:

“The soldier kneels with a mallet, starts hammering a spike through the hand of the prisoner.

“Mrs L, I can’t stand it.”

“Aaw, don’t watch it. Come over here and have a sandwich. I always do this when they start their hammering. Lovely view from up here on a fine day...

I don’t think I could eat. But I’ll sit down with you.

Oh come on, try this cold mutton. Ever so nice.”

Sydney looked up from the manuscript: “What will the public say if we broadcast this?”

Paul leapt to defend his script. “Look, what about when Mary Magdalene sees them nailing that spike through her Lord’s feet?

Mary, weeping: “The feet I kissed. They bleed…”

(Fade up Jesus voice over) She watered my feet with her tears, and dried them with her hair. So I wish you to know that her sins, her many sins, have been forgiven, because she loved much… And I tell you…

Cross fade audio

MARY ... in all truth that wherever in the whole world the Gospel is preached, the thing this woman did will be spoken of, so that she shall not be forgotten.

“I find that very moving.” Brian said emphatically and put down his copy, eyes watering.

Sydney nodded to himself.

“Sydney, you said IF we broadcast this.” Paul pressed. “There’s no if. It’s going out on Good Friday. That’s the plan. Isn’t it, Brian?”

“That’s our intention,” Bryan said enigmatically.

“And you’re going to want me,” Sydney snorted, “to take the flak?”

Brian spoke up. “Sydney, we want flak. Shock them into knowing what it was like. I’ll take it. It’s my bailiwick, after all. Religious programs. And there may be less flak than you think.”

Whoopee, thought Paul. Good old Brian.

Sydney then tried another tack. “And what’s this Chorus you’ve got written here. You want to hire a dozen speaking parts just to say a bunch of verse? They won’t be extras, you know.”

Paul attacked. “Choral speaking, it’s a great tradition, Sydney. Look at Oedipus. Stratford next year.”

“Who’s going to train them? You’ll have your hands full trying to get this crap on in just two weeks.”

“I’ll train them. But Sydney, I meant to ask, we’ll need three days in the studio.”

“That’s one thing you definitely won’t have. It’s two days or nothing.”

“But the way we’re doing it, Sydney, we won’t even have to build sets. Rudi’s going to stretch a cyc around the studio and all we need is a couple of stock rostra. Think of the money we’ll save there.”

“Are you crazy? No sets? What are you going to use?”

“Sydney, Sydney, didn’t you read the opening paragraph? We see everything — the countryside, the conflicts — in the eyes, on the faces, the whole story will be told by our actors’ expressions.”

Sydney shook his head again in shock.

Brian grinned.

Two days, thought Paul, that’s going to be tough. Well, just let the Supervising Producer get it all off his chest. But had he not he heard Sydney say, two days or nothing? So, it would be going out!

Pleased, Paul came out of Sydney’s office to find a slim, elegant costume designer in a tasteful get-up with his sketchbook and biblical references. Horst Dantz, German, talented, was the best costume designer around. Horst began to show a couple of designs: “You see, I make zese just like zis history book here. And — ”

“Horst, Horst, no historical accuracy shit. The costumes must be out of time. Stylised. That’s how we’ll do the production. Have you seen Rudi’s sets?”

“No, I’m sorry, no time to speak wiz Rudi.”

“Horst, listen, there are no sets, just a cyc.”

“No sets? Mein Gott, what are you doing?”

And so it went, Paul persuading first the props department, the technical producer, and then the actors. For Christ himself, well, only one — Douglas Rain — could play that. But where? Ah, in the little-used announce booth. A stand-in, never seen on camera, would make Christ’s moves for the eyelines of the followers. Men and women of the Chorus? Put them in another studio connected by earphones. All so unheard of. But gradually, an enthusiasm began to build.

But who knew what it would be like when this show went out LIVE across the nation?

***

“Ten minutes to air!” Eileen Jack’s electric announcement over the loudspeaker cut through the rising excitement and organized chaos. Good Friday March 30th, 1956: the clock showed 8:50.

Paul Alford was going over some last-minute notes in the music booth with Bill McClelland. His tiny room contained three turntables with 78s of music and the various paraphernalia from radio: latches, windows to open, a pad on which to make footsteps, and so on. In front of him in a homemade rack stood records that he had selected from the Music Library in the adjacent Radio Building. “So if you back-time that music to end where it did, Bill, I might bring it in a bit sooner, so just be ready.”

“Do my best; may not be perfect.” Bill was a genius, every director knew that. He handled so much in that booth of his: all the sound effects, all the background music, chosen somehow during the first day’s walk-through.

Paul hurried through the control room, past Brian and Sydney, who wished Paul luck as he grabbed his notes, tore out along the catwalk, clanged down the winding metal staircase onto the studio floor and over to an elderly, grey-haired actor reviewing his lines from a folded script. Earl Grey had been on stage in England and first appeared on film in 1934. Slightly wizened but statuesque, with a British accent and short, neat grey hair, he was a perfect Pontius Pilate.

“Earl, I forgot to mention, when you do the hand washing, please hold them a bit higher to get them on camera, because I’ll go in pretty close.”

Paul paused just long enough to make sure Earl had absorbed it, then hurried over to where Katherine Blake, Mary Magdalene, sat at the edge of the cyclorama, composing herself. “Katherine, you were perfect in the dress rehearsal. Saving yourself, damn good. So now you can go at it. John (the studio director) got you a handkerchief, so if you cry, he’ll hand it to you off camera.”

Kate smiled up at him. “Don’t worry, I have one. Horst was clever enough to put pockets in our robes.”

Consulting his notes, he went to Davie Dron, a heavier and older cameraman, having begun at the BBC in the legendary days of “Ally Pally” (Alexandra Palace, the first television broadcast anywhere). He was studying his shot list and sweating as he always did, due to the hot studio. “Davie, I forgot to mention, be extra careful on that low angle of Jill at the cross, you might shoot off set.”

Dave nodded. Of course he knew.

For the procession up the hill of Golgotha, the actors wound round the sides of the studio in front of the pale blue cyc, with the cameras following. After passing in front of the camera, actors had to tear around behind it to their next positions on another camera, making it seem as if the procession never stopped, except when Christ fell or Veronica wiped His face with her handkerchief.

Paul hurried to George Clements getting onto his seat on the crane. “Fabulous what you guys have been doing. Good luck, eh?” He also waved to sturdy Ron Manson, the third cameraman.

The crane required a superb team of three men to operate: one assistant at the rear on the electric controls for motion and direction; another beside the boom arm to move it fluidly up, down or sideways, and of course, the cameraman. Paul loved it because the crane shot down from a height of twelve feet, and, at its lowest, from a foot below the pedestal camera.

Earlier Paul had given the cameramen their notes, after first talking to his cast and releasing them for touch-ups or costumes, or to concentrate before their performances. He crossed to the two disciples, John and Peter. The latter, John Drainie, acknowledged to be the finest radio actor in the world, was now making his way into television. He wore a fisherman’s beard as befitting Saint Peter, while Jeremy Wilkin, as the Beloved Disciple, looked younger with blonde hair and complexion, an excellent contrast. Jeremy had played the lead in Our Lady’s Tumbler. “You guys are terrific. John, could you turn a little bit more on those two profile views at the beginning?”

John nodded, and Paul trotted over to the two thieves crucified with Jesus. Arranging these crosses had taken quite a time on the first studio day. Paul could not shoot up at a cross because the studio cyc was only fifteen feet high. So how would they ever solve that one? Rudi, the genius, laid the crosses flat with their tops on a rostrum, so the camera shot them against the cyc as if it were looking up into the sky. The stagehands were now tying the arms of the British actor, Donald Ewer as the Good Thief, onto his cross.

“You don’t need to do that now. It’s an hour away from the ending...” Paul began, concerned.

“I don’t mind,” said Don. “Better for me to be in position now, than trying to do this during the show. We’d make noise and so on.”

“Wonderful!”

"FIVE minutes to air!” Eileen’s voice crackled over the loudspeaker, sending everyone into a quickened sense of anticipation. Paul looked up.

“Good luck, everyone,” he called and tore again up the winding metal staircase, shirt-tails flying. He came through the door to fling himself down in front of the bank of monitors, above a glass window that gave onto the studio. Cec Johns, the technical producer, spoke a terse message into the loudspeaker. The cameramen put on their earphones and guided their cameras into position.

To Paul’s right sat the switcher, who pressed buttons on his console that cut from camera to camera. Cec took his place on a stool behind. Close to Paul on his left, sat Eileen Jack, twirling one of her red curls, right hand with the pencil following shots throughout the show. Between them on a stool sat Rudi Dorn, not yet here, of course, off talking. His assistant, Bob Hackburn, would stay on the studio floor for any emergency.

Further to the left on the long counter sat the audio engineer, who spoke through a separate mic to his boom and mic operators. On this show with its two mic booms, one man stood behind each large boom to reposition it, and on its platform, the operator, one hand on a small crank, pushed the mic out or in, his other hand controlling the direction.

Paul turned to Don, the switcher. “Open the mic to the announce booth, please.” There, Douglas Rain, the voice of Christ, would have his own mic and earphones, and his own screen. When Paul said, “Cue Christ” the switcher flicked on his red cue light.

“Doug, all set?”

Through the glass of the announce booth, Paul saw Doug nod. The switcher closed that mic.

Paul spoke a few last words of encouragement over the loudspeaker.

“Thirty seconds,” Eileen declared.

Paul looked up at the slowly revolving second hand, turned to her and grinned. “This is it, I guess.”

She paid no attention, focussed on the clock.

“Rudi, Rudi, come and sit.” Paul commanded.

“Ach Gott, I have to watch all over again?” But he grinned back at Sydney and Brian, who now seemed rather anxious. How would Paul pull all this chaos together, they clearly wondered.

“Ten seconds,” Eileen’s voice sounded sharply over the loudspeaker, which was then doused for the show. Grimly she counted out, “Five, four, three...”

“We’re on,” said the technical producer. On air. Live. Across the nation.

“Fade up!” barked Paul.

Eileen, fast: “Ready two on credits”

Paul, staccato: “Two! Flip the credit. Take one!”

Up came the second credit,

“Fade out credits.” Paul flicked his hand at the switcher. “Take the crane! Great! We’re rolling!”

And Paul’s script for The Hill, depicting the ascent up Golgotha and written just in the last weeks, began to roll out live, coast-to-coast, across the Canadian viewer-scape.