John Koensgen

Name: John Koensgen

Age: 65

G: Describe your career in four words: JK: Just fell into it

G: What do you do? JK: I’m an actor

G: Why do you do it? JK: Because I think I’m good at it and I get a lot of satisfaction out of doing it. Mostly. I think it defines me and I can’t do anything else, really…

G: What made you fall in love with it? JK: It was an accident. I was asked to be in a show, for nothing, in the summer. I was working at radio Carleton at the time and this fellow had directed me in a radio play. So I did the show in the summer. There were only six performances and it was called The Mumberly Inheritance and it was pretty light and fluffy, a farce-y stupid thing …no offence to the writer! Someone who was in the play with me had written a play and they asked me to audition for it. I told them I knew nothing about acting and he said “that’s ok there’s a chorus of 35 people. They play the mayor and members of society, etc.” and I said “ok..well”. And he casts me in the one part that played only one person. The character was a gay man who jumps off a building because his name was published in the Ottawa journal, the newspaper at the time in Ottawa, as a part of a gay vice ring. This was based on a real story back in the 1960s. And I’m, y’know, not gay and I wouldn’t jump off a building and wouldn’t commit suicide. At least I don’t think I would. So I went and searched out a bunch of theatre books. Inappropriate theatre books like On Theatre by Bertolt Brecht , Towards a poor theatre by Jerzy Grotowski, and Theatre of Cruelty by Antonin Artaud which were not really helpful in terms of acting but Gertowski mentioned something about breathing and i thought “maybe if I breathe like the guy… I’ll feel like the guy.” So I kind of fooled myself into doing a performance and it was really, a lot of work but it didn’t feel like work so I thought “gee, I think I’m pretty good at this, at least it feels good, and it doesn’t feel like work so…maybe this is what I should be doing?!” So I dropped everything else and within a month I had a job doing Waiting for Godot with a theatre company that that guy ran. He wasn’t directing and I auditioned but I didn’t get the part and then the guy who did get the part dropped out and went to Mulgrave Nova Scotia to start the Mulgrave Roadshow. Which was brilliant because then I was cast in the part of Pozzo which was a fantastic learning experience for me.

G: That’s a tough show to jump into at the beginning of your career. JK: Well I read something by Richard Sanger who was interviewed by GCTC when they opened the new building and the asked him how he got into the theatre and he said ‘I went to go see a show in the basement of a school when I was thirteen , my mother dragged me to see Waiting for Godot. It was so inspiring that I had to pursue a career in the arts. And it was particularly the actor playing Pozzo.”

G: That was you! How old were you? JK: Well...this was the January of 1977 so I would have been 26. Oh… no 25, I hadn’t turned 26 yet.

G: Where did you train? Did you train? JK: No. I trained on the job. Fortunately I was a member of the NAC theatre company for two seasons so I got vocal training I got some fight training you know. I got to do Shakespeare I had never done that before. Some small parts. I got to play a larger part in a play called Savages. It was all a really great learning experience. Then I taught stage combat at the National Theatre School for four years and learned a lot by crashing classes and watching the kids there. That was like going to school too.

G: Do you have a favourite book about your craft? JK: Being an Actor by Simon Callow. A amazing actor. He was the priest/pastor in Four Weddings and a Funeral.

G: Is there an experience that comes to mind that taught you a lot about your work? JK: Doing a one person show. Judgement . It was two and a half hours, no break.

G: woo- (cringe) JK: It took me , it took six months of my life. It’s not just a narrative it’s a metaphysical discussion on justice and sanity and a bunch of other things. It was hard. It was a hard show. Robert Bockstael directed it and we blocked the first eleven pages which is about twenty minutes. The script has no paragraphs in it, it’s all text. When we went to run it, neither of us could remember any of the blocking. So Robert said “you know what…don’t move. Just don’t move.” And I went ‘ok I’m down with that one.” But what it entailed was not moving at all. Not moving your hands, nothing. So at the end of two and a half hours when I would take my bow it felt like…rickety. But it was an amazing experience and it taught me a lot about being still and being in the moment. I had people saying “it didn’t feel like two and a half hours. I couldn’t believe it.” It was a really hard story two. It was about a bunch of officers and they end up eating each other to survive…so… yeah. It was a huge thing to get over.

G: I find some of the most powerful moments I’ve experienced are set in stillness. JK: I’m a big proponent of not moving around. Oh Also doing Pauline and Turgenev. I was a part of the original workshops. It was their love story. She was married, he followed her all around Europe. Eventually they hooked up and had this torrid love affair for thirty years and eventually moved in with her and her husband. They began fast friends and then her husband died and six months later he died. She lived to be quite old. She lived into the 1920s. I was told I was not going to be in the show. GCTC was doing it, back in the old space and I said ‘that’s ok. Can I be assistant director?” And they said “sure…but you won’t be playing the part when it comes time to do it.” So the week we worked on the script I was kind of lost trying to figure out what was going on but it was trial by fire. We were performing it at page to stage as a staged reading. Allegra Fulton was playing Pauline. I don’t know if you know Allegra but she’s an amazing actor. We were on stage doing it all of a sudden something came over me, I don’t know what but I just inhabited this huge man , he was a big guy, and I just went like operatic. At one point I got down on my knees and said “mount me! Mount me on the wall!” And I could see in her eyes she was thinking “where the fuck did this come from?!” So afterwards Allegra came up to me and said “You’re going to work on this.” And I said “No I’m not cast.” And she said “you’re doing it. I can’t imagine doing this with someone else!” And I said “But I’m not doing it.” And she said “we’ll see about that.” And so long story short, she convinced them that I should play the part and then she dropped out.

G: no! JK: Yeah. Gina Wilkinson ended up playing the part. I remember Laurie (John’s amazing wife!) said it was one of the best performances she had seen me do, ever. And it’s never been done again. I’m surprised because it’s such a good show! A really great show for the two leads and really good parts for the others. A good show.

G: Well, who knows, maybe someone will want to put it up after reading this?!

G: Do you have a personal philosophy? JK: I think it has to do with integrity and survival, you know, you just have to be persistent. I keep joking that my epitaph will say “he survived everything, but this.” You are never going to know where the road will lead, you just have to follow it. Sometimes carving your own road…I don’t know how good I am at that but…I’m a better actor than I am at anything else….I mean, I’ve directed and produced….I like directing but it’s not necessarily what I am best at. It’s part of being involved in art and the theatre and storytelling.

G: What does your week look like? JK: What week?

G: This week! JK: Well I’m in my final week of rehearsals for The Extremely Short New Play Festival which opens on Friday! There are still a bunch of things I don’t know…but I do know that the acting is really good and that we are telling the stories really well and I know that the potential for the technology is there. I haven’t seen that technology yet but the potential is definitely there and, yeah like any show, it’s going to be a race to the finish line. That’s my week.

G: Ok so those are your night but what are your days filled with? JK: Worrying. G: Good.

We giggle. John and I can both be worriers and it’s comforting to be in the presence of a fellow worry wart.

G: What are you worrying about in particular? John: oh you know, getting bums in seats. Did I make the right decision about this? Did I make the right decision about that? Will anybody come? The minutia, setting up the box office. When you’re doing small scale theatre, you are doing everything. I have a very competent stage manager which helps.

G: Oh! Who is stage managing? JK: Matt Hertendy. G: Oh yeah, he’s great! JK: Yes he is. A lot of the scheduling and planning, those kinds of things fall on me…and I swore I would never do this again. G: I know, I remember. JK: This. Is. the. Last. time! Matt is going to take over, I think. G: Oh! He’d be a great fit! So great. JK: Yes, we’ve been talking and he’s interested and I’m interested in having it continue but not under me. It’s a younger person’s thing. So we’ll see.

G: What’s the hardest thing about what you do? JK: I find it increasingly more difficult, as I get older, to find work. When I was younger I could go a whole year working doing plays. One project to the next, sometimes overlapping. One year I think I did eight plays in a row. It was crazy. And as I get older I can’t do as much fight choreography as I used to. So filling in the gaps between projects is a little more difficult. I don’t want to go to another city. I would rather stay here. So getting film and TV work isn’t impossible here.

G: I feel like it’s getting better. JK: Yeah, I was busy this fall. I was busy in the spring with theatre and then I did a movie, then I had a knee operation, and then I did two days on a sci-fi film, and then five days on a movie of the week, and then two more days on a mini-series in Montreal. So I was unusually busy doing film and TV work which is great…but unusual.

G: What keeps you in Ottawa? JK: Well, I’m not a great fan of…I just don’t necessarily want to live in Toronto. I can’t afford two places so…I have a house in Ottawa…so. I moved back here from Toronto to work in the theatre and that worked out famously for me so yeah, that was my path.

G: Did you have any mentors? Who were/are they? JK: Frank Canino. He’s not in the business much anymore. He lives in Buffalo, New York. He was a great teacher. I did Waiting for Godot with him and then a play called Ashes. That was a pretty pivotal role because it got me a job with the NAC for two years. Oh god, everybody I’ve ever worked with really. Both the positives and the negatives when you’re working on a job. What’s good and what’s not. How to work, how not to work. Everybody makes mistakes and how to move on. Sometimes you’re brilliant and sometimes you’re not. Sometimes it’s your fault and sometimes it’s not. I’m learning that and not beating yourself up.

G: I find that part hard JK: It’s hard but it’s an easy thing to do. G: But it feels like such an appealing thing to do at the time. JK: oh yeah. It’s easy to think “why didn’t I get that job? Blah blah blah” you learn it’s not my fault. They don’t want me but it’s not because I’m not good enough. They had other reasons. It has nothing to do with me as a performer. When you cross that bridge of understanding it is very liberating. It means you can do this without second guessing yourself or trying to appeal to others. There’s this thing about external acting where you are trying to cater to the audience expectations of your work and it’s an extrinsic way of acting which I’m not interested in.

G: That can be dangerous for your sense of self. JK: well yeah, It’s not only making you vulnerable, it’s phony. G: And you’re never going to get back the response you want because you aren’t giving out something authentic. JK: exactly, it’s not the truth. You’re giving out an indication of something rather than something that you can hang a hat on and say “that’s real. That’s me. That’s what I believe. That’s the truth of the moment.” That allows you to find things you like about yourself as an artist. I don’t know where all that was headed but… G: That’s why I find this exercise so interesting …the non-sequiturs….that’s what I’m into

G: Who inspires you right now and why? JK: The last performer that I saw who I really liked… Oliver Becker in The Last Wife.

G: Yeah! He was really great. JK: It always inspires me to see someone really great on stage because it makes me joyful about what we do.

I attempt to move on to the next question but before I get there John jumps in to say something, I swear, I did not pay him to say:

JK: A good example of that is when I came to see you at Crush Improv. It was a joyful experience. G: Oh, well thank you, I was pretty terrified so I’m glad someone found joy in it! JK: It was brilliant. And it made me feel really good. G: I’m so glad! Now I feel good that you felt good, it’s good!

JK: It’s hard to say one person or another inspires me. I just get inspired by good work. What was that show...it was about…Seeds! G: Oh yeah, that was another great show. Annabelle Soutar. JK: That was a fabulous night at the theatre. I had worked with her husband Alex and he was talking about the show and then when I saw it here at the Arts Centre I was blown away by…how could a show about a farmer fighting Monsanto be so compelling for two hours without a linear narrative? But it was! G: It had the most intense talk back I have ever witnessed. The people were fired up! JK: Watershed also got great reviews.

G: Who’s career do you wish you had and why? JK: You know, I wish I’d done more international work. So I guess Ross Manson. You know if I could go to Germany and be brilliant. Tanya Moodie. She’s a brilliant actor from Ottawa and she lives in London. They are great artists who have a broad perspective. Tanya lives in London but she got to work with Peter Brook doing a play called The Suit around the world for a year. How cool is that? And then she got to perform in Dicta, a Danish series where he did every episode in the second season and she’s in Sherlock. She’s worked at the RSC, she played Gertrude in Hamlet. Oh god she works all the time, she was in King John at the Globe. She’s just a power house of an actor. She went to RADA for three years and….so it’s not just that they are international it’s that they’re great artists who have a broad reach. I feel like I’m a good artists but I have very limited exposure. Which is just for me. Going to Edinburgh was amazing because I got to see other artists and how they work.

G: How do you prepare for a role? JK: I have no idea?!

We are greeted by the cute little doggie whose owner is the proprietor of Blumenstudio. The doggie is a terrier type breed with a squeaky elephant in his jowls. We are, of course, distracted by his cuteness. John tries to get the doggie to play tug of war but he’s much too docile. The dog, not John.

JK: I approach every play like it’s a clean slate. Who I am in the play. I read it read it read it. If I’m alone I’ll read it aloud.

G: It makes a big difference for me to hear the words out loud. JK: I try to figure out why I speak, what other people are saying to me. How I react. I don’t always succeed. I try to stay as flexible as possible. Butcher was…mysterious because I had to memorize words that had meaning but they weren’t English…so that was weird. Memorize the lines, understand what I’m saying first and then memorize. I think getting off book is super important. It liberates you. Earlier I thought it would trap me, to memorize too early, and that’s true up until a point. But it can be a gold mine so I try to memorize as soon as possible.

G: How do you usually feel after a show closes? JK: Drained but not sad, usually.

G: How do you prepare for an audition? JK: It depends on what the audition is for. For a film audition I memorize the lines. I understand what the scene is about and play it how I would play it. Not how they expect me to play it. If they give me direction I listen and do that. For theatre, I don’t audition that often. The last big theatre audition I did was for Stratford so I prepared for months.

G: What did that include? JK: Doing my pieces for everybody! Boring them to tears. Asking them what piece they thought I should do. Which was great and I got some wonderful advice. And I nailed it. It was a company audition so I got to go into the room with all the directors for the season and the big wigs and the reason I got a part was because the director of Pentecost was not one of the regular directors there. He was a Bulgarian director and he loved my work and he cast me as a lead.

G: How do you nail an audition? JK: Do your work. Just be happy with your work. Do your work ahead of time and be happy with your work. It’s a play. Just remember you’re doing a little play. God I sound like…what’s his name? I hate getting older! G: I can’t remember anything and I’m still considered young so I don’t know if it’s age. JK: Anyway just be confident in your work and be the character in that play saying what they are saying from a place of truth.

G: What trick of the trade can you share? JK: Be still! Make the audience come to you.

G: What is your Favorited piece of theatre right now? JK: No Great Mischief. It’s such a rich celebration of the human condition. The audiences at the end stand up laughing clapping and crying all at the same time. Doing the curtain call for that is just exhilarating. It’s very satifsfying.

G: Is there something you are trying to say through your art? JK: hmmm….I think it’s just telling stories that ultimately have something to say about the world we live in and how we live. Doing shows that have nothing to say about the human condition can be fun, I’ve done some, but as an actor it’s not as satisfying. The Baltimore Waltz was a lot of fun, you got to play a bunch of characters and it’s immensely fun the perform. It’s a fantastical play about AIDS. The character’s brother has AIDS and she enters a fantastical world with the tin soldier and they go on a tour of Europe and at the end they waltz but he is dead. It is an incredible play, very moving but it’s incredibly funny. New Theatre produced that, we lost our shirt but it was a great experience.

G: What is your perceived biggest failure? JK: As a human? G: as an actor or as a human. JK: Oh I’m disorganized. It’s chaos which I thinks helps me as an actor but it doesn’t help me as a producer at all. I fight that one.

G: What is your perceived biggest success? JK: I have no idea! The play I’m in at the time. I mean, I’m amazed that every time I do a play that I might be good in people say “that’s your best work” and I think “really? What about this or that one?” I think of myself as anonymous walking through life and then I’ll get on a plane going somewhere, Edmonton, and all of a sudden a person in the front row of the airplane will say “Oh my god you’re on the plane!”

G: What’s your strongest skill? JK: Being in the moment. Not overthinking thing. After a career you learn that. But there have been young actors I’ve met who just know that intrinsically. I think “wow that’s a gift!” Shannon Taylor is one of those. She’s brilliant and she just embraces the theatre. She’s so compelling.

G: What do you wish you were better at? JK: Getting work! G: Oh, you work a ton. JK: Yeah but I’ve gone long stretches in between. I can’t always do fight choreography and I don’t seem to teach anymore. G: Do you miss it? JK: It depends on the students, really. When you get keen hard working students it’s a gift. But it’s a labour otherwise. I want to say “look do something else. It’s too hard.” Mind you, this career of being a performer has many avenues and far be it from me to tell someone else not to do it. If someone told Jim Carrey he wasn’t an actor…I mean he’s a performer but…There was this great performer who worked all over the place, Stratford, the NAC and I asked him why he didn’t teach and he said “why I wouldn’t know what to teach. How do we do this?! I have no idea!”

G: What is your actor pet peeve? JK: Not memorizing your lines makes me crazy. Not listening and playing to the audience without any respect for the story being told. I would call that ‘look at me’ syndrome. That can drive me crazy. G: Yeah as a scene partner you feel completely abandoned. JK: Yeah I just want to slap them. That’s kind of rude of me but it’s ruining the work, the play, it’s not what it’s about.

G: What is your actor pat rave? JK: Watching an actor that is so good you forget they’re acting. You don’t notice the acting.

G: Why do people need theatre? JK: That’s an increasingly important question. Because people are becoming disassociated from human contact and the human story, like the flesh and blood human story, by watching film and television. Not to say those stories aren’t being told well but they aren’t sharing the story with the other audience members. I think that is a huge difference. The perspective is done by the camera and the director so they tell you where to look. In the theatre you are sharing the space with other people. The Empty Space by Peter Brook states that we have an unspoken agreement in the room to laugh, to be quiet, to comment, and to react without turning to your partner and saying “did you think that was funny?” The actors are influenced by the audience. That doesn’t happen with film and TV. There’s no communication. In the theatre it’s a two way conversation. A theatre performance is never the same in two night. It is always influenced by the temperature in the room.

G: What theatre secret do you have to divulge? JK: …No…Then it wouldn’t be a secret!

G: What’s the craziest thing you’ve had happen to you on stage? JK: I had an audience member come down onto the stage during a show. I was doing Life Times Three and the audience member asked where the washroom was and I had to, in character, direct them to the exit during the show. /

This is what is so frustrating about technology: my phone will not give me the last few minutes of our conversation. Alas, I have lost John’s last few minutes to my devil phone recorder, the technology gods have spoken. So I will have to finish this lovely interview with a rather blunt ending. Such is life. John is one of my favourites and I hope you all make it to the Extremely Short New Plays Festival Opening Friday!