Stuart Hughes is a founding member of Soulpepper Theatre Company and a Dora Award-winning actor/director. Stuart has appeared in a number of Soulpepper productions since our inaugural season, and has also performed in six seasons of the Shaw Festival, not to mention numerious television roles. Stuart takes time out of rehearsal to talk about his role as Tom in The Glass Menagerie.

Nathan Kelly

You play the role of Tom in The Glass Menagerie, a character that many critics agree to be autobiographically rooted in Tennessee Williams' own life. Can you as an artist relate to Tom's struggle against the routine in his working life and his dreams to become a writer?

Stuart Hughes

Yes, definitely. I'm tapping into it by looking into those aspects of my life - where I've felt a stifling frustration and not had the time that I wanted or needed - and examining what that does to someone physically, what it does to them mentally. How that intense energy just builds up and needs expression. How long can you contain it? I think that that's where that kind of combustibility comes from with Tom. Tom (as well as Tennessee Williams) found escape through different things, some of them not healthy. So I've definitely been exploring that.

NK

The Glass Menagerie is a memory play based on Tom's recollections, but he also has the dual role of presenting those memories and interacting with them. How has this affected your portrayal of the character?

SH

I actually did this play 30 years ago, and it is often cast with a younger man. What I think you have to find are the same frustrations in the older, reflective Tom - what is it that he's frustrated about, what is he looking for? - and match those with the younger Tom; seeing what the thread is between the two of them. Ted Dykstra, our director, was interested in using an older actor so he could explore what changes and what doesn't change when you add that element. But I think one thing that will stay the same is Laura, Tom's sister, and his shame about abandoning her. But as a memory play, there are interesting parallels here to Billy Bishop Goes to War, Our Town, and even The Time of Your Life. Williams quotes William Saroyan's famous preface to The Time of Your Life in one of his essays - "if the time comes in the time of your life to kill, kill and have no regret." I think Tom, in order to free himself, doesn't need to kill exactly, but act harshly and purposefully.

NK

You're working with two other founding members on this production, Ted Dykstra and Nancy Palk. Do you find that working with such experienced artists helps in bringing the play to the stage?

SH

Absolutely. Ted and I have worked together a number of times, and we had been talking about this play for a while before we actually got to do it. I've been working with Nancy since the beginning and she's a very dear friend. It's interesting, for example, because during rehearsal one may come to a certain scene with an ingrained expectation of how it is to be played, but if you look at the text it doesn't necessarily warrant that kind of explosive emotion, say. Working together really helped us escape our preconceptions and live within the piece freshly, so it's good to be looking across the room at old friends. But we also have Gemma James Smith and Jeff Lillico who are both bringing new energies to the room. When you have great plays like this one, you know the text is tried and true, so the real thing is just to be honest with the play. I feel that this group we have gathered in this room is really all in it for the same reason; it really feels like an ensemble.