on the outside

There was a nearly transcendental moment listening to Angela Hewitt play Bach Tuesday afternoon.

The audience, assembled in the cosy performance space at Toronto radio station Classical 96, peered down, over, and around others to catch a glimpse of the Canadian-born, London-dwelling piano player.

Hewitt, however, was oblivious to everyone.

As she delicately played the opening notes of Bach’s marvelous Goldberg variations, she looked every bit like a new mother nursing her young, or Saint Joan hearing the heavenly voices; the look was one of concentration, care, passion and love.

Growing up playing piano, I was never one for the Baroque composers myself, finding them too technical to be moving, too tedious to be emotional. What can I say? Blame it on my youth.

Hewitt is currently on a world tour of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier –a huge demand for any player, since it entails close to four hours of constant playing. Believe me, those are a lot of notes. My hands ached from one hour; her hands are going to be steaming after quadruple that.

Still, she finds the heart amidst the heat.

I was reminded of such devotion and dedication to craft in watching Brent Carver in The Elephant Man Thursday evening.

In what could have been a superficial reading of a deceptively simple role, Carver finds the heart of John Merrick, the so-called “elephant man” who went from being sideshow freak to toast of society in Edwardian London.

It’s interesting, how a man as beautiful as Carver has been cast to play someone as notoriously disfigured as Merrick. Instead of covering his face up under mountains of prosthetics and makeup, he uses gesture, voice, and movement to convey the sense of physical impairment –and of the soul behind it.

Just prior to attending The Elephant Man, I’d opened the recently-published (and very good, I may add) Anansi Reader and come across an essay by Jean Vanier called The Difficult Place of Those Who Are Weaker, taken from the 1998 book Becoming Human.

In the piece, Vanier writes "the people we most often exclude from the normal life of society, people with disabilities, have profound lessons to teach us. When we do include them, they add richly to our lives and add immensely to our world."

I was reminded of Vanier's essay during intermission, as I noted the row of disabled patrons at the back of the St. Lawrence Centre.

Choosing Carver to play such a notorious outsider was a brave casting choice, and the right one. He captures the vacillations of a man at odds with his society through no fault of his own, and yet necessary in its progression. Not once does he avoid the easy trap of patronizing the role, or indeed, the patrons watching him. His performance is one filled with delicacy, subtlety, and a deep respect. Oh, and don't forget the passion.

Like Hewitt playing Bach, the dedication of such artists is not meant to be taken apart and meticulously analyzed for every twitch and tick -it asks only to be experienced and accepted, serving as a reminder that there is dew to be found in the most unexpected –and beautiful –of places, that it is through art we take from the outside transferring to the inside, and vice-versa, regardless of the body we happen to find ourselves inhabiting in this life.

Bach doesn't care what you look like; he only asks for you to be quiet and listen.

The Elephant Man runs at the St. Lawrence Centre until November 3rd; for more information, go to www.canstage.com.

Angela Hewitt is currently touring The Well-Tempered Clavier; for more information, go to www.angelahewitt.com and www.bachworldtour.com.

For information about The Anansi Reader, go to www.anansi.ca