Comment on this story What: The Dresser When: Preview: Thursday, Aug. 26, 8 p.m. Opening night: Friday, Aug. 27, 8 p.m. Runs thru Sept. 11. Where: Clarence Brown Theatre Cost: How much: $20-$23 general, $36 opening night. Call 974-5161 for tickets.

The curtain falls close to home in The Dresser

by Leslie Wylie

If, as Shakespeare’s Hamlet asserted, the purpose of dramatic performance is “to hold, as ‘twere, the mirror up to nature,” Clarence Brown Theatre’s production of The Dresser functions as a two-way looking glass. From the audience’s perspective, it provides a chillingly accurate reflection of modern American reality—a surprising feat, as the TONY-nominated play was penned over two decades ago and is set in World War II-era England. But when viewed from the inside out, the theatrical smokescreen lifts to reveal a more personal commentary on just how fine the line between drama and real life can be.

The Dresser is based on playwright Ronald Harwood’s experience working as a dresser for the famed Shakespearean actor Donald Wolfit. Wolfit was controversial—flamboyant, large and out of fashion in comparison to contemporaries like Laurence Olivier and John Gielgud. He was the last standing kingpin of the old-school acting tradition, and while some of his performances were supposed to have been extraordinary, many were criticized for being overblown.

In Harwood’s play, an aging Wolfit is embodied by the character Sir (John Collum) with Norman (JD Collum) as his loyal dresser. The pressure of touring in war-torn England has taken its toll on Sir’s acting troupe, and Sir is mentally and physically breaking down. Norman takes it upon himself to coax the troupe and its leader through the 227th performance of King Lear.

“The dresser is attached to Sir because he recognizes the greatness of Sir,” John Collum explains. “Norman is the closest to the star of anybody, and the star is dying, and so it’s his responsibility to keep him going. If Sir fails, he fails.”

Meanwhile, WWII is raging outside the theater, literally. Sir says: “The night I played my first Lear there was a real thunderstorm, now they send bombs. What else do I have to endure? Bomb, bomb, bomb us into oblivion if you dare, but each word I speak will be a shield against your savagery.”

As it becomes increasingly difficult to overthrow the drone of air raids with Shakespeare’s poetry, a series of eerily reminiscent questions are raised. Within a volatile political climate, what becomes the function of art? Is the artist a player on war’s stage, or has the war become part of the show? What is the response of the contained audience, whose attention is torn between the calamity of the outside world and its culture’s pervasive internal distractions?

Collum acknowledges the poignancy of digesting The Dresser within today’s sociopolitical context. “I think this play will be much more pertinent to an American audience today, because we’re at war and we know what bombs can do.... If you began to ask me what a playwright, in my opinion, is supposed to do, I’d say that it is to tell what he thinks life is about, to show the world what it is, to express it. You can interpret that in a certain way as expressing the politics of humanity.”

However, he draws from a more personal source to perform the role of Sir: his own life. Collum has had his share of dressers, is well-schooled in Lear, and fields a formidable acting history with a long list of film appearances, Broadway credits (yielding four TONY nominations including a 1975 “Best Actor” win for Shenendoah) and television roles on ER, Law and Order: Special Victims Unit and Northern Exposure (for which he received an EMMY nomination as bar owner Holling).

Collum’s son JD, as Norman, is an accomplished actor in his own right. The elder Collum says, “He is the title role, and I’m the old, dying actor. It’s a wonderful fit for the two of us. Father-son is not necessarily a part of it, but the relationship between this old actor and a younger man who is trying to keep him going I think rings some chords for my son.”

However, it is another father-son relationship that makes possible Collum’s deep comprehension of Sir’s character. He says, “Sir is driven by certain demons, and he’s driven by the influence of his father who wanted him to be a boat builder like he was. But he wanted to be an actor, so he lost his father’s love and psychologically I’m sure that there was a great deal of anguish in Sir over that particular situation. He felt he had to prove himself to his father, the same as I had to prove myself to my father.”

Collum began acting in Knoxville, performing in Shakespeare in the Park productions under The Dresser director Gerald Freedman, but his father harbored more practical aspirations. Collum ended up walking away from a business and his pursuit of a Masters in Finance to move to New York and launch an initially struggling acting career.

“Pretty stupid,” Collum says, “and so I was constantly trying to prove to my father that I’d made the right decision. I was driven to prove that acting was a great thing to do, and driven to prove myself as an actor.”

Collum now hopes to prove that a Knoxville-borne production of The Dresser could hold its own on Broadway. CBT has a small history of transferring productions to New York, and Collum seems determined to stay in the spotlight for as long as it will have him. He says, “I wouldn’t want to stake my life on it, but I would be willing to stake my reputation.”

August 26, 2004 • Vol. 14, No. 35 © 2004 Metro Pulse