BUDD KNAPP
In Canada, at the mid-point of the twentieth century, there was almost no professional theatre, no Canadian television, and a film industry devoted only to documentaries. Actors hoping to earn a regular livelihood by their work had only one choice: to act on radio. In effect, this meant acting for the CBC, since the private stations never produced radio drama. Fortunately, there were lots of opportunities on the public network: every day of the week presented radio drama of one kind or another; there were dramatized stories for children, and for schools; there were soap operas; there were plays aimed at the farming community, and plays addressing problems of mental health; there were re-enactments of significant events in the nation’s history; there was a weekly series of hour-long original scripts, giving dramatic form to social or political issues, sometimes light-heartedly, sometimes in deadly earnest; and there were long-form adaptations of texts by a vast array of major authors Shakespeare, Sheridan, Ibsen, Shaw, Sartre, and Auden.
Most of these productions originated in Toronto, and they gave work to a thriving community of professionals, who refined the subtle art of radio acting to a point where their work won an eminent place in the world of broadcast drama. This is an art vastly different from the art of acting for stage or screen. It is intimate and nuanced. And the Canadians of that period were masters at it.
One of the pre-eminent actors among them was Budd Knapp. As a character actor, he was superb; and he will be long remembered, by the elderly, for his wonderfully dry, understated performances in the role of Inspector Maigret. He was also one of the great narrators of all time; and this is a separate skill which is seldom found in good character actors. Whatever his casting, narrative or histrionic, classical or modern, in prose or in verse, he brought to his text a first-rate intelligence and an extraordinary sensitivity to language.
Knapp’s greatest virtue, perhaps, was the self-effacing quality of his approach to a job. All actors, of course, in a character role, efface themselves in the sense that they disappear into the persona of the character they portray. But there is in this, in many cases, an element of display, a somehow self-congratulatory satisfaction in parading a technical virtuosity. No such vanity crossed Knapp’s horizon. He never thought of the text as a vehicle for himself, but only of himself as a vehicle for the text. His was the art that conceals art, and it was always deployed, and only deployed, in service of the author’s intentions. Faced with a great text, as he often was, he thought it only right and proper to let the text speak for itself; and the last thing he would ever have dreamed of was to get in the way of the text by somehow drawing attention to his reading of it.
This modest and endearing attitude was tellingly put into words after the final rehearsal of “Let us now praise famous men”, by James Agee and Walker Evans, in which the two men were represented by Budd Knapp and Douglas Rain, the rising star of a younger generation. George Whalley had adapted that vast and sprawling book into a tightly knit, two-hour radio version, that brought out the essentially religious nature of the text. It concluded with the words of the Lord’s Prayer, to be read by Rain. After the final rehearsal, Rain was still worried about that climactic passage, hoping to deliver it well, but afraid of sounding trite with such familiar words, and anxious to find an effective way of putting it across. He went to Knapp for advice, and their exchange was overheard in the control-room, because there was an open microphone near where they were standing. He expressed his concern to the older actor, and Knapp’s response was classic in its brevity, sage and kind.
“Just say the words, Dougie,” he said, “Just say the words.”
That was the counsel of a seasoned professional. In another context altogether, Knapp proved himself to be the consummate professional, a man of unassailable honour and integrity. He was booked to play William Langland in a large-scale radio adaptation of “Piers Plowman”. The role was enormous, and was of central importance to the success of the program. So the producer booked him many months ahead of the production, explaining what would be involved and kindling his enthusiasm to take part. No actual written contract was issued at the time, but there was a word-of-mouth agreement that Knapp would do the show, and the production dates were settled. However, a little while before rehearsals were scheduled to begin Knapp was approached by a television producer, offering him the leading role in a television series that was about to go into production. The job was worth an enormous amount of money, compared to the quite small fee payable for a one-shot appearance on radio. But Knapp declined the offer, explaining that he had already given his word to play Langland. The TV producer, realizing that Knapp would be embarrassed to go to the radio producer and ask to be released, said he would do so himself on Knapp’s behalf. Knapp flatly forbade him to do that, and went on to play Langland without ever mentioning the matter of the missed opportunity on television.
These dilemmas of conflicting engagements are not uncommon in the acting profession. In this particular case, the radio producer involved was strongly sympathetic to freelance artists struggling to make a living; he always released actors from a radio commitment if they had a much more lucrative but conflicting opportunity on television or in the theatre. He would certainly have released Knapp, had he known about the situation. But he did not know. He only found out about it years later by accident, in a casual conversation with the still disappointed television producer.
There is something wonderfully appropriate in Knapp’s professional integrity being linked to his performance as Langland. For the whole thrust of “Piers Plowman” is Langland’s abhorrence of Church corruption in the fourteenth century, and his insistence on moral integrity as the only salve for a rotting world. His vision of “a fair field full of folk” was rooted in the ancient values of his west-country upbringing in Malvern, which contrasted so strongly with the urban decadence around him when he moved to London. Bishops and lesser clerics, as he saw them, were just careerists, and he looked in vain among them for a true Christian — “there was one once,” he wrote, “but that was far ago, in St Francis’ time.” The simple prayer of a poor ploughman, he believed, could more easily pierce Heaven than any gabbled litanies of fat prelates. He left a great poem, thousands of lines long. At its core was one unalterable fact, unflinchingly faced: the difference between right and wrong.
Budd Knapp never erred in understanding that difference. Therein lay the affinity with Langland, which gave such authority to his matchless reading of the text.
