Listen Up! The solution for Chaffey Hall is a no-brainer

Hugh Mackenzie
Huntsville Doppler

A Trip Down Memory Lane

Two articles in Huntsville Doppler last week took me on a trip down Memory Lane. The first was a story about the cat fight between the Huntsville Lions Club and the Huntsville Theatre Company over Chaffey Hall and the second was the brainchild of Dr. Drew Markham to initiate a new endeavour called ‘Huntsville’s Got Talent’. It caused me to recall how rich in artistic talent Huntsville is and has been for generations, in many ways well above its pay grade in terms of population. It also reminded me of how important it is to continue to foster this incredible and diverse benefit to Huntsville, which in many ways defines us as a community.

So, in that context, it’s no contest between the Lions and the Huntsville Theatre Company when it comes to the optimum use of Chaffey Hall. Unquestionably, the Lions do good work, but they are getting too long in the tooth to hunt. The Huntsville Theatre Company, on the other hand, is new, young and vibrant. They have put on some excellent plays and Chaffey Hall is a perfect venue for their boutique performances which routinely fill the place. As for ‘Huntsville’s Got Talent’, it’s an idea whose time has definitely come. It will foster and encourage a new generation of artistic endeavours and I know from personal experience that it will result in a number of exciting surprises for Huntsville. That brings me to the nostalgia.

When I came to Huntsville almost 50 years ago, the Rotary Club of Huntsville held an annual spring event of skits and music designed somewhat along the lines of Toronto’s ‘Spring Thaw’. It was written and directed by Dr. Lynn Sargeant. His skits were hilarious and almost before I had my bags unpacked, he had me involved in one of them. It was probably one of the shortest stage careers of any actor, even the amateur ones!

The skit had an African theme and I was cast as a somewhat effeminate Tarzan. Memory blurs much of it but what I distinctly recall is that my role was to swing on a ‘vine’ from the wings of the stage and slide down a tree to confront the ‘Great White Hunter’ played by Jim Jordan, then of Ski Jump Inn fame. On the final night of the show, two of the stage hands, Garth Thomas and Don Corbett, got into the wobbly pop a little early and decided it would be kind of fun to move the tree about a foot away from its designated spot. So out flies Tarzan on his vine and the tree is not where it is supposed to be and Tarzan had to jump for it. Well the tree was made of cardboard and the launch by Tarzan was a little too much for it so the tree crumpled in half and Tarzan landed hard on his rear end on the floor of the stage. Not only was it a very ungraceful entrance but the skit was timed to music and the orchestra, led by Dr. Sargeant was completely thrown off by the incident. So there I stood on the stage, holding my rear end, and mouthing to Lynn in the orchestra pit, “I’m hurt”, and he was looking back at me with absolutely no sympathy, just wanting us to get on with it. Luckily the audience roared with laughter through all of this, thinking it was all part of the performance. It turned out that I had broken my coccyx (tailbone) and I was starkly reminded of this event for several years following, every time I sat down on a hard chair!

Some time later, Dr. Sargeant left town temporarily to get his accreditation in internal medicine and the Spring Shows came to an end. However, they were a fundraiser for Huntsville Rotary and they wanted to find something to take their place. Other than my short stint as Tarzan, my entire stage experience was limited to a place in the chorus of Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance when I was in high school. Nevertheless, being not at all shy at that point in my life, I went to Bob Hutcheson, then president of the Rotary Club, and offered to produce Pirates as a musical for them. They were obviously desperate because Bob accepted the proposal. We managed to pull it off primarily because I was able to convince Canon George Sutherland, a highly talented musician, to partner with me.

Over the years, a string of musicals followed Pirates, some in the early years co-directed by me, others by Lynn Sargeant, Jane Hutcheson and Bruce Werry. These were some very special times in my life, not only because of the people I met and the friends I made, but also because of the tremendous talent that surfaced on the stage and behind the stage and in the orchestra. There was so much talent everywhere and the really great news is that there still is.

So much has evolved in the cultural life of Huntsville since then. We are blessed with really great artists in almost every aspect of the Arts, both amateurs and professionals, some of them renowned well beyond our community. We have a cultural heritage in Huntsville that goes back to C.O. Shaw and the Anglo Canadian Leather Company Band. It remains an important part of who we are and it contributes to our reputation as one of the best towns in Canada. It is important to preserve and encourage our cultural heritage. One step, tiny as it may be, is to turn over Chaffey Hall to the Huntsville Theatre Company. Seems like a no-brainer to me.

Hugh Mackenzie