ROCKWOOD – “There was something quite magical in watching your parents turn into other people when they were acting,” said Melanie Kanarek of her mother and father, Tina and Alex Kanarek.
Tina (nee Newman) and Alex Kanarek met at the Mountview Theatre Club in London, England in the spring of 1958.
Kanarek was operating the lighting switchboard and Tina was the star of the play, Marching Song.
“The only words I ever had from my future wife before Marching Song were when I had a small part in a comedy as a stuffy MP and I was made up to look like Harold MacMillan,” Kanarek recalled.
“Tina put her head round the door of the green room to say ‘break a leg’ on opening night, saw me and said in her beautiful voice, ‘My God, you look just like a codfish!’ Praise indeed.”
Kanarek said on the evening after the last performance of Marching Song, he was sitting on his own on the cleared stage when “Tina left the gang she was joking with, came across the stage and put her hand on the centre of my chest.
“I can’t remember what she said, but from there we drove to an all-night coffee shop and talked until 2am.”
Three nights later, they were engaged. They married in November 1958, three weeks before Tina’s 24th birthday, Kanarek said.
He was born in 1930 to Jack and Lily Kanarek in the Stepney area of London, England.
As the family “improved their lot,” they moved to the suburbs of Hendon in northwest London, Kanarek said. The family home was bombed in the Second World War, and the Kanareks moved to live with grandparents in Luton, 30 miles outside of London.
Educated in boarding schools, Kanarek said they corrected his cockney accent and taught him how to be a gentleman. His interest in science was cultivated during those years, and he received a scholarship to London University.
Kanarek’s involvement in theatre began in 1955, during his post-secondary years. He said a friend coerced him into stage managing a student play.
The following years saw Kanarek becoming a lighting technician and a “bit-part” actor.
Kanarek majored in microbiology with research in virology and has a PhD, BSc, and ARCS in those fields. Throughout his long career, he said he only had three jobs.
“The most satisfying was with a British vaccine manufacturer. I was a member of the team that developed the polio vaccine for Britain,” he said.
“I stayed with that company for 21 years working on vaccines against measles, influenza, rubella and yellow fever.”
He also specialized in “developing large-scale manufacturing processes and creating formulations that protected vaccines against heat in the tropics.”
Kanarek said he was head-hunted by Connaught Laboratories and the family moved to Canada in 1979, though Kanarek often worked in other countries for extended weeks at a time.
“Tina supported me, especially when my career necessitated our move to Canada. She gave up her house, her friends, her horse and her theatre contacts to come with me ‘because my place is at your side,’” Kanarek said.
Their children, Melanie, born in 1961, and Julian, born in 1963, came too.
“Melanie went back to the UK to marry an old boyfriend who came to Canada to find her. Julian married a lovely Canadian nurse, and they have two boys,” said Kanarek.
He noted Tina was an accomplished actress. She was accepted into Britain’s famous Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) after studying at Mountview Theatre School.
Fellow classmates at RADA were Peter O’Toole, Albert Finney and Alan Bates. “Known at the school as ‘The Terrible Three’. All went on to be stars of stage and screen,” Kanarek said.
Tina graduated from RADA with a BA and a gold medal, and joined a professional touring company, working towards her equity card.
“This was in the 1950s and hygiene was poor in England after the war,” Kanarek explained.
Tina contracted infectious hepatitis while on tour and was sick for several months. Kanarek said Tina’s father, “Victorian in his outlook but very caring of his family, forbid her return to professional acting.”
Tina enrolled in secretarial school and after graduation she was employed as a secretary. But her love of acting remained, Kanarek said, and she began working in community theatre.
“She was an exceptional actress, a serious actress,” he said.
Melanie recalled that her parents “loved to go to the theatre together and they had a huge collection of programs from the national theatre and others. When we moved to Canada, Dad made the covers into a big collage on the wall of the family room.
“When we were young, my brother and I would often go to the theatre with Mom and Dad on the weekend while they worked on scenery or rehearsed. I remember being allowed to ‘help’ paint scenery and running around backstage and in the auditorium.”
She added, “You could tell how much they enjoyed it. I loved watching them put on their makeup, especially when Dad glued on false whiskers.”
During that time, the famous Proscenium Club, of which Tina and Kanarek were members, had to close.
“The members joined with those of the Lambeth Drama Club and, with me as their chairman, we persuaded Lambeth Borough Council to allow us to convert a Victorian fire station to a 120-seat theatre, with dressing rooms and rehearsal space above,” said Kanarek.
The South London Theatre opened in October 1976 with Kanarek’s production of Ben Jonson’s The Alchemist.
Forty-eight years later, “with a recent reconstruction, they have two theatres, and do 22 shows each year.”
Kanarek said he was proud of what was accomplished through the building phase and its first three years when “Tina and I acted there and I directed quite a few plays before we left England.”
Kanarek said Tina taught him everything he knows about acting.
“She was a warm, loving, painfully honest, highly opinionated person, who never did anything by halves. With her it was all or nothing,” he said.
“Tina’s contribution to my development as an actor was tremendous. Whenever either of us was cast in a new play, we would work on it together, analyzing the story and the character.
“We would hear each other’s lines and she would give me pointers on expression and control.”
He added, “On my side, I like to think that as my directing skills developed, I could help her, too.
She always wanted my opinion after I had seen the show or a rehearsal and vice versa.”
Since immigrating to Canada, Kanarek has had extensive involvement in community theatres, including Scarborough Village Players, Georgetown Little Theatre, Guelph Little Theatre and Elora Community Theatre (ECT).
With ECT, Kanarek has done several Shakespeare in the Park productions.
“Our Will (Shakespeare) always has parts for ancient men, and ECT have high standards. They work hard,” he said.
Katy Chapman, an actor, director and the social media chair on the ECT board of directors, has been in several ECT Shakespeare productions with Kanarek.
“Alex Kanarek was my first glimpse into what an actor could accomplish with both voice and text,” said Chapman.
“His command of the English language and the skillful way he applied his voice to the work he did in Shakespeare in the Park inspired me to dedicate myself to the language of every script I’ve been handed.”
Chapman said Kanarek continues to inspire her and teach her ways she can master her voice and “deliver a level of quality to audiences that only Alex can be thanked for.”
Tina passed in 2006, and Kanarek said he could no longer live in the family home in Uxbridge.
“Too many memories of my dear wife,” he said. “She was my best friend.”
He settled in Rockwood in 2007.
“My life is simple. If my family is happy, I’m happy,” Kanarek said.
On a recent visit from England, his daughter Melanie said his love of theatre has helped sustain him.
“It’s not just the performing or working on sound and lighting, it’s the community, the camaraderie,” she said.
“If I had to pick out one particular thing Tina taught me about acting,” Kanarek said, “It’s that you are always learning. Every part has its own challenges and rewards.
“Read the play over and over, not just your part, and try to find other information about the background to the writing and the playwright’s intentions. Tell the story to the best of your ability.”
Kanarek said “theatre gives us a window on the world and on ourselves which no other art can do. Good plays involve the audience in experiences they cannot get anywhere else.
“Theatre can take people out of themselves and make them think as well as feel.”
Kanarek will once again be in ECT’s Shakespeare in the Park productions this summer at the Elora Centre for the Arts’ outdoor performance pavilion, appearing as Old Man in King Lear and Leonato in Much Ado About Nothing.
