To be or not be.

Gloomy and reclusive, Nicholas Pennell’s friends said of him in the last years of his life. He died from cancer at 56 in 1995. I remember him from my high school days, when I went with my drama class to see a matinee performance of Hamlet, produced by the Stratford Festival, at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa. He played the title role. It was my first experience of seeing Shakespeare performed live, and it was memorable. He was a brilliant actor; he had an impeccable sense of timing. He brought the house down in the exchange with the actor who played Polonius, in which Polonius asked Hamlet what he was reading.

Pennell looked up from his book, smiled, and said to the point with a smirk, “Words.” The teenage audience erupted in laughter and thunderous applause. The entire cast did a masterful job. As a teenage drama student in high school, I yearned to take to the stage. I dreamed of one day appearing on the Stratford stage; it is a dream shared by many aspiring stage actors in Canada. That dream never came to pass for me, but it has not stopped me from pursuing my passion for stage and screen acting. I admired Nicholas Pennell and never imagined that he could be alone and miserable while reaching the heights of acting. He also appeared in film and television. I thought if anyone had a reason to be happy and content with his lot in life, surely that would have been Nicholas Pennell. It goes to show that despair can take hold even if you are a great success. Yes, as Mr. Spock famously mused, “Having is not so pleasing a thing, after all, as wanting. It is not logical but often true.” Sometimes, I feel gloomy and reclusive when I compare myself to actors like Nicholas Pennell who reached the stature I once dreamed of as an actor. Knowing that he felt as I do at times grounds me in the reality that comparing and despairing is pointless. I am an actor. I am part of the culture, and I regularly receive praise for my work. Honestly, I do not crave fame, and no, that is not sour grapes.