He has played Hitler and Scrooge, shy eccentrics, flamboyant villains, even a character who was half man, half ape. But offstage, William J. Norris reserves the right to be low key.
He has a deadpan explanation, for example, of how he has managed to beat the odds in a cruelly overcrowded profession. At any given time, 85 percent of actors are, as the expression goes, “resting.” Norris, however, has worked steadily, appearing in 125 different roles over the course of 25 years because, he says, “I got lucky, genetically. I was going gray by the time I was 18.” This stroke of what the actor calls good fortune meant that he could never play the “romantic lead, Luke Perry parts.”
Because this forced him to concentrate on character development rather than his own looks, Norris has never run the risk of being rendered obsolete by a wrinkle. As a young man he played old men; as a mature man he plays odd ones. And he has constantly increased his skill, becoming known as an actor of astonishing precision and insight.
These days he’s playing a worldly bishop in David Hare’s “Racing Demon” at Organic/Touchstone Theater, but his other roles over the years range from a royal adviser in “Richard II” at the Goodman Theatre to a ghostly Russian in “Slavs” at Steppenwolf.
Ina Marlowe, the artistic director of the newly merged Organic/Touchstone says, “There’s no one quite like him. Bill always does something differently than you’d expect. He exudes stage presence. It’s exciting to watch.” For this reason, Marlowe was happy to cast Norris in “Racing Demon.”
Mike Nussbaum, the lead in “Racing Demon,” has played with Bill Norris so many times that their long history together is itself an asset. “It’s a wonderful thing to have such confidence in someone, to have someone fully responsive to your performance,” says Nussbaum.
In this play, their characters share a turbulent past. The title “Racing Demon” refers to a children’s card game played in England, in which a fast, tricky player will always beat a kind-hearted, hesitant one. Nussbaum has the role of Lionel, a humble Anglican priest with a working-class parish in London. His congregation is dwindling, and parishioners complain of his lack of fire and publicly expressed doubts. Lionel is clearly a kindly, un-doctrinaire seeker of God’s truth, who feels distaste for outward show and false reassurance.
“They gave Mike another part where he’s cuddly,” Norris pretends to grumble. “My character, the Right Reverend Charlie Allen, Bishop of Southwark, who opposes him, will come across as an (expletive).” He adds, as if regretfully, “The minute I have to call the saintly Lionel a `great, pea-green, vacillating jelly,’ the jig will be up.”
“Don’t believe him,” says Nussbaum. “Bill’s got the plummy part. He loves climbing the walls. He had a choice.”
Norris’ Charlie is an exceedingly worldly bishop, one whose taste in cuisine–he begins the play by discoursing on the merits of salmon cakes fried in duck fat–reveal that Christian poverty and self-abnegation do not appeal to him.
“As a priest you have only one duty,” he tells the drably sincere Lionel. “That’s to put on a show.” Charlie the bishop puts on a show of superb smoothness. He’s a fluent, debonair phrasemaker, a wit.
The other priests who enter into the conflict are equally sincere and often even more ruthless in their devout desire to establish what religion, in their opinion, should offer.
Norris, who says he had a normal childhood of Little League and Cub Scouts in a Southwest Side neighborhood, spent his high school years as a seminarian. This means that the debate of “Racing Demon” is in some ways a familiar one. “The issues of what is relevant and what religion should provide haven’t changed,” he says. But in fact, he adds, “Hare could have been writing about any organization–the military or a corporation or a school. How things work out depends not on ideas but on friendships and rivalries and weaknesses.”
In Norris’ bishop there is all the impatience that a brilliant man feels for a dull one.
As villains go, Charlie is a mild specimen, at least among those played by Norris. “I’ve relished roles other people didn’t want,” he says. “Characters who were ugly physically or spiritually or psychologically. I’ve never stopped to question why these parts appeal to me, but villains are interesting. Goldfinger is far more interesting than James Bond. There’s more going on in Iago than in Othello. A villain can appear in only a single scene but create such an impression that he’s always in the audience’s mind. Take Hannibal Lector. How many scenes is the character in? Four or five out of 90. But Anthony Hopkins is what stays with you.”
Nevertheless, there have been occasions when a role is such strong meat that Norris himself is made uncomfortable. Such an occasion came when he played the title character in “The Hitler Masque,” by Ron Ray at Victory Gardens in 1976. The action takes place during the dictator’s last hour on earth, and most of the dialogue is taken from Hitler’s own letters, diaries, and speeches.
“To espouse some of the things he said in an intimate theater space, his hatred for humanity . . .” says Norris, trailing off. “You could see people sitting there nodding, `Yes, I remember. Yes, I was there.’
AUTHENTICITY MEANS A SCAVENGER HUNT
Few audience members realize the lengths to which a theater professional will go to insure authenticity.
When a cast member of “Racing Demon,” Lisa Nichols, was visiting her family in England, director Ina Marlowe asked her to bring back a few stage props, including English currency, cookies and religious pamphlets.
“I also brought back a wallet that belonged to my father,” says Nichols. “English wallets are much larger, because the money is bigger.”
Other items were harder to get.
“I had to steal the pub glasses Ina wanted. My mother slipped them into her handbag.”
Nichols acknowledges that it could have been worse.
“Thank goodness Ina didn’t ask for an authentic ring for Bill Norris’s character, the Right Reverend Charlie Allen. I’d have had to pretend to kiss some bishop’s hand and suck it off his finger.”
