An Evening With Socrates

( by Peter F.W. Smoczynski - December 2002 )

For a brief few hours last night The Glenn Gould Studio was transported back some twenty five hundred years on the modern calendar, to an infamous trial in an Athens arena. This time travel was possible by one man, veteran actor Nick Mancuso.

Mancuso´s riveting stage adaption of Plato´s “The Death Of Socrates” recorded at the CBC Studio was more than a performance but an ingenuous approach in radio drama production for broadcast and posterity.

Mancuso stood before a small audience that was judge, jury and fodder in his portrayal of Socrates defining a final argument and subsequent defense to shun a machination of vindictive charges for “corrupting” the younger generation of his time. Socrates´ accusers were the “gentlemen of Athens”, the penalty that the charges carried, death. Basically Socrates was the John Scopes of his time, (the school teacher arrested for introducing Darwin into the classroom and thus the famous Monkey Trial). Unlike Scopes, Socrates needed no Clarence Darrow as his defense attorney. Socrates, a master orator and theorist, destroys the allegations against him knowing all the while that the fix is in.

An encounter with Nick Mancuso is not what one would expect of an actor whose thirty years of credentials in the profession range from stage and television to the big screen.

Prior to last night´s taping, Mancuso enjoys a quick pre-performance meal with his CBC Radio Drama Producer, at the neighboring diner. Mancuso, would strike one as an academic at first, writer, poet, a man with a wizen outlook on life more so than a harden veteran of the Hollywood dream factory. At first, one senses a reservation about the man - “still” comes to mind ... and in one swift moment he bares the essence of his soul...

“Are you hungry?” He politely asks of the late arrival. “Because I can´t eat all this, it´s too much.” He says gesturing to the healthy meal that only seconds ago was placed before him. Much to the guest´s surprise, food - off the man´s own plate - is suddenly heaped onto a second plate and served up.

“Go on, eat.” Mancuso endears, “It´s very good.”

It is with the same generous un-abandon that Mancuso gives to his audience.

Tonight´s final performance has a small audience by invitation only. “The Death of Socrates” has recently closed at the Artword enjoying a short but successful run. After a shaky opening night “Socrates” gathered momentum in the theatre community, drawing healthy numbers at the box office and standing ovations.

“On opening night, I had a bout of the flu, a soaring fever” Mancuso confides, “I should of cancelled but...well...I decided to go ahead”

And as life would have it, tonight´s taping will be just as taxing for the actor who is fighting off a sore if not inflamed throat...an actor´s only tangible instrument in radio drama.

Mancuso appears on stage, quietly, without fanfare and witha simple “good evening” he places on audio headsets and waits for the cue from his director in the sound booth.

Unlike the stage version, there is no production here, no set, no lights, or costumes to assist, only an actor alone before an audience.

Mancuso delves in to the “soul” of Socrates and launches with tour de force. From raw visceral energy to compassionate fatherly advice - Mancuso´s Socrates taunts, goads, soothes and reasons with the faceless conspirators of his ominous fate all the while luring the audience into the heart of one man´s voice shouted down by deceit and ignorance. In the closing frames of the trial - Mancuso mesmerizes - Mancuso is Socrates.

And the it´s over. Mancuso stands to the applause with a simple thank you.

The actor, drained and in a departure from his crystal clear diction - is suddenly hoarse - as he steps off the stage back into “the present” before the small audience showering applause as if multitudes of common folk, praising not only a brilliant performance, but the conviction of one man´s belief some twenty-five hundred years ago in an Athen´s arena.