Timothy Findley (1930–2002) was one of Canada’s finest novelists, but he began as an actor before turning to writing. He was part of the original Stratford Festival company in the 1950s, acting alongside Alec Guinness. His lifetime partner, William Whitehead, his inseperable other half from 1951 until his death, was an actor and director, responsible, among other things, for over a hundred episodes of the groundbreaking science series The Nature of Things, and the extremely intelligent radio series Ideas. They occasionally collaborated on screenplays. So it should come as no surprise that Findley wrote a fine play, as well as familiar novels like The Wars and The Last of the Crazy People.
Elizabeth Rex, his most successful play, premiered at the Stratford Festival of Canada in 2001. It is the product of a mature craftsman, and this television production of the play, starring Diane D’Aquila and Brent Carver, is both great drama and great television. The setting is the evening in 1601, when Elizabeth I is known to have spent with William Shakespeare’s acting company, and during which her paramour, Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, was executed. Shakespeare is a character in the play, but only in a supporting role. The drama focuses on Elizabeth and one of the actors in Shakespeare’s company, Ned Lowenscroft. Lowenscroft was a famed performer of female roles. Elizabeth, of course, is most famous for her ambiguous male and female personae. Lowenscroft is as impudent and devious as Elizabeth. Findley uses this fictional confrontation to explore every aspect of maleness and femininity. The twists and turns in the dialog, with first one, then the other gaining the upper hand, like two hell-cat lovers flipping sexual positions, are written and acted with masterly skill. Findley used modern language in the play, not some pseudo-Elizabethan anachronism. But the rhythm is Shakespearian. I have rarely seen a modern play with this degree of delight in (and control) of language. Findley understood and loved the English language, just as he obviously loved and understood people. This is the work of a formidable man.
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