Gina is a dear friend. She also happens to be an awesome person and actor and writer and director and dancer and talker and swinger and giggler and confidante and all-round-cool-babe. If Gina is in the room, the room is hip-hop-happening with electricity. I am always happy to see her, and no matter the circumstance or the intervening years, Gina makes me feel like a special part of her life.
And, even though Gina has left this earthly void, she lives inside me.
I remember the first time I met Gina. 1978. University of Victoria. Both of us just 18 years old. I was standing out on the steps of one of the P-huts barracks that had been converted to classrooms for the theatre department. Gina approach across the empty gravel parking lot: long unruly black hair; an over sized waistcoat; arm in arm with her father, Jack. Both dressed formally. They were backlit by the sun. They looked like a glamorous movie couple. We introduced ourselves and Jack said he'd be back in a few hours and departed. And, with that, Gina and I started rehearsals for Edward J Moore's "The Sea Horse".
Gina wasn't in the theatre department - this caused a minor stir among some of the female theatre department actors - but Chris Sears (a Master's directing student) decided he needed someone specific and had asked Gina to play a role in a two-hander he was directing (after seeing her in an amateur production at Langham Court Theatre, I think). I would play Harry Bales - a sailor - and Gina would play the owner-operator of the Sea Horse bar, Gertrude Blum. Two 18 year olds playing middle-aged world weary alcoholics!
The play called on us to be lovers. Our director felt we needed to be comfortable with each other, so he asked us to do some "trust" exercises to assist the process. So, within days of meeting each other, Gina and I were spooning on the rehearsal room floor, whispering our lines to each other. Cuddling. I remember Gina's hair, how she smelt, and how cuddly she was! That exercise broke down any barriers there were between us, and from that day forward, we were friends. I still remember a line from the play: "I love you Gertrude Blum!"
Gina went off to the National Theatre School. A year later, I followed. We spent two years together at NTS, got some opportunities to "act" and socialize together. After school, we went off to make names for ourselves... even passed like ships in the night at a house on Delaware Avenue in Tranna as Gina moved to other digs. When we could we celebrated birthdays and holidays and openings and... life.
Years passed. Neither of us were great letter writers, but we would see each on occasion. Calgary. Vancouver. Toronto. Stratford. Winnipeg. It was in Winnipeg in 1996 that we shared some very good times. I was doing a play at Prairie Theatre Exchange and Gina was at MTC doing "Picasso at the Lapin Agile". Each night after our shows some of us would meet up and cavort and play and laugh and dance and act like 30+ year old teenagers. Being bad! Oh my, how we laughed.
It's funny how life unfolds. Three of Gina's loves - Henry, David and Tom - are friends of mine. I admire each of them for their friendship, for their talent - but also because they loved Gina so much.
And Gina was a lover. A passionate lover of life. Merde, Gina!
