Eric Peterson talks about the staying power of Billy Bishop, balancing television and stage roles, and the future of Canadian theatre.

Q: What talks were had with co-creator John Gray and director Ted Dykstra to re-examine the show and update it to reflect how you and John have grown older with the play?

ERIC: We've gone through radical recasting! From a 32 year old to a 62 year old as the actor who's going to be narrating the show. In a two man play like this, it has incredibly different resonance depending on who's telling that story. In many cases, we've taken some minor rewriting for the production we did when we were 52 and updated them and changed the ending. Now at 62 we're older than Bishop ever was in the play before and we've changed it to extend up to his 62nd year, which was his last but he doesn't know that at the time. But we didn't re-write it to say, "Oh this is my last day of life" or anything like that. It goes back to that John and I are very different people with 30 more years of living under our belts that we didn't have then. This experience has brought out all kinds of different resonances in the play. We did fool around with different attempts of how to get "into" this again and that's resulted in me being in pajamas through the whole thing, which has never been in any previous production. I feel this is much more of a man "remembering" much more than it has ever been before. A memory always has an effect on a person as opposed to the younger man I used to be who was telling a cracking good yarn about what happened to him in the war. This is more about a man looking back on his life it seems to me. Those kinds of elements seem to be more apparent in it this time around.

Q: Most people perhaps know you best from your television roles, but you got your start in Canadian theatre and have worked steadily on-stage ever since. You've mostly been involved in new Canadian works, what made you want to tackle a more classical repertoire?

ERIC: The offer. I wouldn't be at Soulpepper if Albert hadn't asked me. Because Corner Gas was coming to an end and my summers were available. I was really flattered by that and I thought, "it'd be good fun acting with those people at Soulpepper." I don't think there's been a year in my career that's gone by without doing at least one play. Theatre is still my first love and it's a remarkable art form. And it is enjoying a renaissance right now, given that the world is becoming more virtual and disconnected.

Q: What do you think is the future of Canadian theatre?

ERIC: Theatre is so specific to time and place - you have to come to it. In Toronto, I'm amazed that we have an audience here to the extent that we do and not just for commercial theatre where the economics are so different. As far as not-for-profit theatre goes in this country, in this city, I think it's doing great. The thing about theatre is that it's much easier to realize your creation in the sense that you don't have to pull together all the resources you do for tv or film. It's also easier in the sense that the non-profit theatres have that ambition to produce interesting, artistically challenging work on the whole. Whereas in film or television those ambitions may not be quite so acute. They are a business model from beginning to end. Whereas in theatre, if you really want to do something you can get the people together and do it some place - that's how Soulpepper started. it seems to me that the ability to access your own creativity with a minimum of interference it makes theatre a valuable asset and allows for a whole kind of variety and diversity that keeps the art form alive in this country. I don't ever see theatre going away in Canada, it's a human need.

Q: Are there any roles in the classical canon that you'd love to tackle?

ERIC: I came up through a different route than most, not educated in theatre school where they teach acting by participating in the classics - so I missed that. I never ended up at theatre companies that specialized in the classics like Stratford or Shaw for example. So those kinds of parts have never been in my mind much. On the other hand, most of my experience has been in doing new work - plays that haven't been written yet. I hope that some writer out there is writing a great part that I would still be able to play, the unwritten part.