Tones of Green, Graham Greene at the Festival

Native actor moves beyond usual image to portray Shylock in Merchant of Venice
Jamie Portman, The Ottawa Citizen
Published: Saturday, May 19, 2007

STRATFORD - Graham Greene is sitting quietly in the Chalmers Lounge, on the mezzanine level of the Stratford Festival's venerable Avon Theatre.

It's peaceful in the late afternoon, a place where the Oscar-nominated Oneida Nation actor can immerse himself without interruption in the often thorny text of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice.

He knows it's somewhat astonishing that he should be here at all, preparing to open June 1 as the Jewish money-lender Shylock in a new production of Shakespeare's most controversial play.

Native actor moves beyond usual image to portray Shylock in Merchant of Venice
Jamie Portman, The Ottawa Citizen
Published: Saturday, May 19, 2007

STRATFORD - Graham Greene is sitting quietly in the Chalmers Lounge, on the mezzanine level of the Stratford Festival's venerable Avon Theatre.

It's peaceful in the late afternoon, a place where the Oscar-nominated Oneida Nation actor can immerse himself without interruption in the often thorny text of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice.

He knows it's somewhat astonishing that he should be here at all, preparing to open June 1 as the Jewish money-lender Shylock in a new production of Shakespeare's most controversial play.

"He's gone completely mad and ends up losing all his property and finances -- and religion."

It was a new experience for Greene to start rehearsing Merchant on Feb. 28, three months before the official opening.

"That's the luxury of working at Stratford. I've done seven-week runs of plays with maybe only two weeks' rehearsal. So this is a real pleasure."

Later in the season, Greene will be portraying the tragic Lennie Small in Of Mice and Men in the smaller Tom Patterson Theatre, and this will pose a further challenge. However, he is relishing both roles.

Neither is connected to Greene's own ethnicity -- a situation he welcomes. He has played non-native roles before but he resignedly says that he still gets "a lot of stereotypical scripts.

"A lot of my films have had nothing to do with my ethnicity or who I am, but I find it slowly slipping back again. It's always 'Graham Greene the native actor' rather than 'Graham Greene, the actor.' They don't say 'Sidney Poitier, the black actor.' "

However he's also enormously proud of his heritage, which is another reason why his Academy Award nomination for Dances With Wolves meant so much.

"It boosted my career," he emphasizes. More important, however was the character he played.

"The film itself showed me as part of a native family that had never been portrayed on the screen before."

As a new member of the Stratford family Greene is working as hard as he ever has.

"I'm 55 this year. I'm not that young any more. I lost my voice last week and just got it back after four days of not being able to speak, and that was terrifying."

But the festival support system clicked in. "They booked me an appointment with a throat specialist in London to look at my vocal chords and get me back to 100 per cent. They go to great lengths for you here."

The Merchant of Venice will run June 1 to Oct. 27.