A magnificent performance

Manitoba-born playwright, novelist Robert Silver had a monumental impact on theatre and the arts community

By: Frances Koncan

Robert Silver was a man of many talents, and many nicknames.

Known as Bob to his family and Alf to his friends, Silver was a writer whose passion and persistence permanently changed the landscape of theatre in Manitoba.

Born March 13, 1951 in Brandon to parents Gerald and Margarita Silver, he spent his early childhood years growing up in Griswold.

"Our grandparents on our mother’s side lived there and had a little farm on the south end of town," says eldest brother Kevin Silver. "Our grandfather loved history and I think that’s where Bob really developed his love of history and storytelling."

It was that love of storytelling that connected him with lifelong friend Jim Mezon, a veteran actor at the Shaw Festival, during their time as students at Tec-Voc High School.

"It would have been in ’67 or ’68," says Mezon. "We were both in the theatre and arts program there, which had just started up. We spent four years there and it became apparent that Alf was writing as well as acting, so he started writing material with us in mind."

The two went their separate ways after high school when Mezon moved to Vancouver to continue his acting career. Silver stayed behind in Winnipeg, and it wasn’t long before he found his place as a writer.

"He was part of the fervent growth in the late ’70s and early ’80s in Manitoba which saw new organizations — theatre, music, publishing, film and video — created to promote Manitoba artists," says Rory Runnells, former artistic director of the Manitoba Association of Playwrights, which Silver co-founded in 1979.

In the early 1980s, Silver’s play Thimblerig was presented at the Tom Hendry Warehouse (then known as the Warehouse Theatre) as a part of the 1981-82 season at Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre.

"After Thimblerig," says RMTC Producer Laurie Lam, "Alf became our theatre’s first playwright-in-residence, a position that lasted for two seasons."

Silver followed up with more plays, including Climate of the Times in 1983 and Clearances in 1984, both of which premiered at the Warehouse.

Later, his focus shifted to writing historical novels.

"He always had a story to tell," says Runnells, "and our history was no better story to tell for him."

Silver’s successful writing career eventually took him to Toronto, where he rekindled his friendship with Mezon.

"In 1989, we were sitting in his apartment with his wife, Jane Buss, who at that point was managing director of Theatre Passe Muraille," recalls Mezon. "We were sitting there, bemoaning life in Toronto, and we thought, why not pool our money together and find a place that’s a little more out in the country and more suitable for us?"

The next year, the group purchased a farmhouse in Ardoise, N.S., where Silver lived until his death last Dec. 14 at the age of 68.

"It’s a very odd thing, to be a writer," says Mezon. "It can be a very lonely kind of profession."

"He was very happy out there in the country, sitting up in his office and writing, but he had no one to talk to. He loved to socialize. He loved people dropping in on the farm and sitting and having a drink and just talking."

Kevin Silver says the solitude wasn’t really an issue.

"Even though he was close with a lot of people and kept in touch with a lot of people, he was very much a loner," brother Kevin says. "He had no problem spending his time alone in his second-floor office in the farmhouse in Nova Scotia that looked out over the rolling Annapolis Valley.

"He was happy to be there, day after day, in his own world, writing both novels and plays."

Mezon worked as an actor at the Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake but would visit the farmhouse as often as possible.

"I would get back and we would sit around the kitchen table and we would catch up for months at a time," he says. "Then I would disappear, and a year later I’d show up again."

That was their regular routine up until last October, when Silver wrote to Mezon and told him some devastating news.

"He said he had liver cancer and that there was nothing more they could do for him."

So Mezon returned once more to the Nova Scotia farmhouse for one final visit.

"I said goodbye to someone I had known for over 50 years."

Silver left behind a legacy as a writer and member of Manitoba’s artistic community who was instrumental in championing Canadian and Manitoba plays, and that legacy shines as a lasting inspiration to other Manitoba writers and the artistic community in general.

"At his request, in lieu of flowers he asked people to donate to (the Manitoba Association of Playwrights)," says Brian Drader, MAP’s current executive director.

"We received numerous donations. An extraordinary final request that illustrates his connection to the organization."

In 2007, Silver shared the following thoughts on playwriting and theatre with Lam:

"When I walked in for the first day of rehearsal on a play of mine at MTC, it wasn’t my first day in that rehearsal hall. I wasn’t just interested in writing for the theatre but in the theatre itself, and in the 15 years before Thimblerig I’d acted on a lot of different stages, run lights and sound, sewn costumes, directed, built props and sets, schlepped scenery around, balanced budgets for the concession stand... I wasn’t necessarily all that good at all those things, but I’d done them all and had a basic handle on the mechanisms of the beast. I’m not saying that approach would work for everybody, but I found it much easier for all involved if the playwright’s done a few tours of duty in the trenches."

Although Silver did not have any children of his own, he left behind an enormous archive of written works and a sense of humour and joy that is impossible for his family and friends to forget.

"Bob always had a wacky sense of humour," Kevin says. "You’d get a card in the mail and you would never know what kind of weird comment he would come up with."

"I remember Alf for his generous wit, his intelligence and his belief in artists and their potential," says Runnells.

"I loved his sense of humour," Mezon says. "He was a wonderful writer."

frances.koncan@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @franceskoncan