Copyright 1996 Toronto Star Newspapers, Ltd.   
The Toronto Star 


April 22, 1996, Monday, METRO EDITION 

SECTION: ENTERTAINMENT; Pg. C5 

LENGTH: 407 words 

HEADLINE: Carver returns to small stage 

BYLINE: by Robert Crew TORONTO STAR 

BODY: 
  
   Most actors would leap, head first, into Ragtime, the splashy, high-profile Livent musical that will open in Toronto early next year before heading to Broadway. 

Not Brent Carver. 

Make no mistake, he loves the show. "It's an exciting project and the music is really incredible," says the man who won a Tony Award for his last Broadway show, Livent's Kiss Of The Spider Woman. "It is fantastic." 

It's just not for him. 

"I just felt that the timing wasn't right for me. It's a real time commitment and I just wasn't sure if the part was quite right," he explains. 

"I try to do things these days by instinct and intuition." 

Garth Drabinsky's loss is Jim Millan's gain. Carver was more than happy to oblige when Millan, artistic director of Toronto's Crow's Theatre, subsequently approached Carver to work on a new play by a rookie playwright. 

High Life, written by Stratford Festival actor Lee MacDougall, opens tomorrow and runs for six performances only at the Brigantine Room at Harbourfront Centre, as part of the du Maurier World Stage. 

It's a dark comedy about four ex-cons who are involved in planning the perfect bank heist so that they can escape from life and devote themselves to morphine. 

"It's astounding for a first play - for any play," says Carver, who worked with MacDougall in the Stratford production of the musical Cabaret. "It's exquisitely funny and Lee has a gift for sharp and comic dialogue." 

Carver plays a character called Donnie - "a kind of Mozart of thievery" - who is the type of person who steals a wallet, uses the cards to get a little money, then gives the wallet back because he knows how awful it is when you lose your ID. 

Carver had "a really good experience" the last time he worked with Millan on Brad Fraser's Unidentified Human Remains and "I thought it would be wonderful to work with these three actors" - Randy Hughson, Ron White and Clive Cholerton. 

All four characters are very real, Carver says. "They happen to be addicted to morphine but they are people who get on with life." 

Carver has a number of other projects he's working on. He's just finished a TV program with dancer Margie Gillis called Wild Hearts And Strange Times, to be aired in the fall. 

He will sing in a recital of Earth Prayers, a work by composer Bruce Rudell, along with Judith Forst, the Vancouver Bach Choir and the Vancouver Symphony to launch a world AIDS conference in July. 

GRAPHIC: photo: MOZART OF THIEVERY: Is how Brent Carver describes hisHigh Life character. 

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH 

LOAD-DATE: August 6, 1998