A Stratford Season (Page 3)

Stratford native and actor Andrew Linley, BA'00, is the third McGill grad at the Festival. Compared to the well-traveled Carrier, Linley, 24, took a more direct route to his hometown stage. Like Carrier, he was active in McGill theatre while doing his coursework, majoring in English with a minor in religious studies. (He also managed to spend two years on the varsity volleyball team.)

Don Carrier as Bassanio PHOTOS: Helen Dyer, V. Tony Hauser

Returning home in the summers, he frequently chatted with directors, finding out what it would take to break into theatre. The networking paid dividends with some auditions, and he landed minor roles in three performances last year. Back for his second season in 2001, Linley is playing the second officer in Twelfth Night, the photographer in Inherit the Wind and Lord Rambures in Henry V.

McGill student life is fresh in his mind, so he has a unique perspective on the differences between academia and his current vocation. The former, he says, is about contemplation and thinking and putting ideas into words on paper. But acting is all about instinct, wrapping yourself up in the immediacy of the moment, the script, and letting go.

Asked what he's learned by watching more experienced colleagues such as Carrier, Linley says, "They really, really just trust the text." After this Stratford season, Linley may pursue more schooling, and if he has his way, directing is also down the road. He notes that some directors say it takes ten years to be properly trained in classical theatre.

Which is why, in Carrier's view, Stratford is such an attractive option for someone like him right now. He won't give his age -- call it actor's prerogative -- but playfully admits to being "in mid- to late thirties." He can no longer get away with playing a 17-year-old, as he could a decade ago, but he can portray someone in his mid-20s, partly because there aren't many 25-year-olds with enough classical experience to pull it off.

	Carrier (left) and Linley (centre) in Henry V PHOTOS: Helen Dyer, Chris Nicholls

Carrier and his wife, actress Anaya Farrell, BA'84 (known during her undergraduate days as Anne Farquhar), recently bought a house in Stratford after years of living out of apartments while criss-crossing the country with various shows. It's nice to have a home now, somewhere, even if his Stratford contract -- generally between five and nine months, depending on the number of theatres an actor is working in -- has to be renewed one season at a time.

"The safest thing," Carrier says, "is you never count on anything."

But count on this: the McGill commerce degree he has to fall back on won't land him in an office tower any time soon. "Even when I was studying business, I knew that I didn't have my heart set on it," he says.

No, if you want to know where Don Carrier's heart is, go see him at Stratford.

Mark Brender is a freelance journalist working in Toronto.