International relations
Canadian secretary warms heart of cantankerous American
Janice Sawka

Winnipeggers who associate Robb Paterson with snappy musicals will get an opportunity to see the man’s dramatic side in Trying, the current production at the Manitoba Theatre Centre mainstage.

Local actor/director Paterson helms this story of Francis Biddle, former U.S. attorney general who, at age 81, is trying to organize and document the events of his life before time runs out. The story is told from the point of view of Biddle’s personal secretary, Sarah, a straightforward young Saskatchewan woman who finds herself working for a venerated man long accustomed to browbeating his staff.

“It’s a very intimate story of an evolving relationship, of two people learning what’s up with their lives,” says Paterson. “It’s a gentle drama with a good deal of comedy, along the lines of Driving Miss Daisy.”

The script, by Canadian playwright Joanna McClelland Glass, is based on her personal experiences as secretary to the real-life Francis Biddle in the late ’60s. The play has already received enthusiastic responses from audiences in Chicago and New York. Paterson took in the off-Broadway production twice last November as part of his preparation for the Winnipeg show.

“They did a little more sentimental take on the story than we’re doing,” Paterson reports.

“I can tell you that (American audiences) really enjoyed the line about Canadians being referred to as ‘dependably civil.’ I don’t know if they got all the Canadian references, but they certainly got the characters. Which is the point, because the play is about people, these two specific, completely different people. I never saw it as an allegory for Canada-U.S.A. relations.”

The play takes place in 1967. Biddle, the product of an old-monied Philadelphia family, attended Harvard before entering politics and becoming personally involved with many milestone events of the 20th century, from being a member of FDR’s administration through the pivotal years of the Second World War to the famous postwar Nuremberg Trials.

Now, bitter and in failing health, he has driven off a series of secretaries trying to help him with his memoirs and vast backlog of correspondence, as editors from throughout the country seek his input on books regarding FDR, Harvard, Nuremberg and other events. In frustration, his wife hires yet another secretary, Sarah, who is significantly younger than those who came before her.

It seems Francis, disdainful of youth, had until that point always insisted on aides closer to his own demographic.

And then the battle of wills begins.

“That’s what Act 1 is all about: can she take it?” says Paterson. “Biddle speaks dismissively about her, about Canadians in general, but she gets the job done and he comes to be impressed with her, even though he won’t admit it outright — at first.”

The MTC production toured rural Manitoba to “overwhelmingly positive reaction” for much of the three weeks before its Feb. 10 opening in Winnipeg, which made for a few appropriately warm-and-fuzzy moments, according to Paterson.

“I’d just like to point out that the actors playing Biddle and Sarah, David Fox and Brooke Johnson, are married in real life. They’ve now been on the road together for three solid months — and they’re still married.”

For more info see our What’s Up entertainment listings, beginning on page 6.