Fred Euringer
When Lewis Casson died, John Gielgud began his eulogy with the simple, moving preface: 'Herne's Oak has fallen.' Somewhere in the forest in our country, in the silence, a great tree has fallen. Jean Gascon is dead.
He did bestride our narrow solitudes like a Colossus, bridging the two cultures as no one else has done, or is likely to do again. His achievements and his influence are astonishing. An exhaustive list would be overwhelming, but Le Théâtre du Nouveau-Monde, the National Theatre School, the Stratford Festival, the National Arts Centre, the Canadian Opera Company, to highlight only the star jewels in his crown, either would not have existed at all, or were profoundly influenced through his promethean energies. These creations and influences will remain. They are, in a sense, part of our cultural heritage.
But it is as an actor that I shall remember him; and because his arena was the stage and not television or film, his achievements in this sphere are ephemeral. His greatness as an actor must live - as does the greatness of Bernhardt, Irving, Lekain, Kean, Burbage and Alleyn - first in the memories of those who were fortunate enough to have seen them act; finally in legend, fleshed out, however inadequately, by eyewitness commentary.
Who, that was there, can forget the electrifying impact of Jean and his troupe at the Stratford Festival in 1956 in that remarkable production of Henry V, in which the two traditions met head-on at centre stage, with an éclat that was to reverberate for two decades? I did not have the privilege to see Jean in the early TNM performances, but I did have the great good fortune to see him act in Strindberg's Dance of Death in both languages, first in French in Montréal and later in English at Stratford's Avon Theatre. The monolithic power with which he prowled the stage in that awesome performance is unequalled in my memory by any other single performance I have seen.
He was, quite simply put, our greatest actor. With some, I would say the greatest actor of his generation on this continent. The fact that he was able to arrive at such pre-eminence in two languages marks his genius as unique as it was extra-ordinary. On the world's stage, one is hard put to think of another actor who could have matched him in this regard, or another place where it could have been accomplished.
It is this bilingual phenomenon that makes him so uniquely Canadian. He brought the TNM to what it could be in its time, and then he brought his gift to English Canada. And with his energies and talent, he brought to English-Canadian theatre a largeness of spirit, a sense of the size of life, a generosity of character, which have left their mark on a generation of English-speaking Canadian actors, and through them, to English Canada itself.
When I conjure up Jean the person, the image that arises is of a Montréal restaurant, lit by the warmth and colour of a Frans Hals: Jean dispensing stories, surrounded by an adoring entourage of fellow artists and students. The time is 1968, right after the De Gaulle visit, and Jean is telling De Gaulle/Pompidou stories, in French and English. Tears of helpless laughter are streaming down our cheeks. The expression "joie de vivre" was invented to embody such occasions. That was Jean.
We are immeasurably richer for his having been with us.