“Don’t play the problem; play the solution. The audience should never see the effort. They should only see the pleasure.”

(Advice given to Jacob by director Charlotte Gowdy of Neptune Theatre’s Chase the Ace)

While I had planned a trip to Halifax to attend a couple of productions at the Neptune Theatre in early April, I never expected to have the chance to continue chatting with someone I had interviewed during the pandemic. 

When I learned Jacob James would perform in the Studio Theatre, I reached out to see if he might be interested in catching up.  He was playing more than ten roles in Mark Crawford’s solo work, Chase the Ace. Carrying a solo show takes a lot out of an artist. James has also played Billy Bishop in Billy Bishop Goes to War and joked that it makes Chase the Ace look like mini-putt. He’s also performed in Jacob Marley’s Christmas Carol (one that I’m hoping to see sometime soon).

I had seen Ace the previous night and hoped James would be able to talk the next day. He graciously agreed to meet at the World Tea House in downtown Halifax, across the street from the Neptune, where he was about to conclude his run with only a handful of performances left. 

He began our conversation by stating he’s less busy in Halifax in performance than in his real life. He feels as if he’s on vacation when in town working. That oxymoron made me smile.

Jacob realized studying theatre gave him a better chance with women than his lacklustre athletic abilities. He later realized the biggest motivation for doing and performing theatre was to help promote the act and practice of empathy. He knew he would attend Montreal’s National Theatre School after playing Hamlet at 18 for Theatre 5 at Kingston’s Grand. A terrible car accident during the late-90s ice storm in the Kingston area left him, on all accounts, dead for a few moments. However, Jacob’s friend, who was in the front seat, recalls James sitting forward and gasping for breath as he came to. For that reason, the ‘To be or not to be’ soliloquy from Hamlet still retains lifelong clarity.

In the last profile, James was teaching at Queen’s University. He’s moved on and inspired in thinking about creating a conservatory style like Powys Thomas and Jean Gascon did:

“It made me really want to start my own theatre school. It made me think…let’s just get some really talented teachers together. I haven’t moved forward on it as of yet.”

He’s also let the Theatre Curation Project go for a time. The project really came out of a question about whether the theatre would even survive after the pandemic. Jacob began the Project as a way to help him cope with what he missed most about the theatre when it was closed. He has thought about returning to the Project after one of his mentors and friends, Graham Greene, passed away in Stratford (where Jacob himself resides).

James highly compliments his director of Chase the Ace, Charlotte Gowdy. The two of them were classmates at the National Theatre School. He then told a humorous story about what happened to him during the run of the show. Jacob was reminded of some advice Greene had given him: “Leave your wallet in the dressing room and check your fly.” Jacob had a bit of an issue with a low-flying zipper on the black jeans he wore during the show. One of the show’s award-winning costume designers had come up with an ingenious way to keep the fly up.

 There’s been a great deal of growth in James’s theatre career since we last spoke over Zoom six years ago. His young son, Henry, was five back in 2020. He’s now eleven. Jacob clearly adores his son and calls him an incredibly intuitive kid. 

But, as all parents discover, the time goes by so quickly, and kids grow up so damn fast.

Jacob remembers what the late Joe Ziegler said about raising children: “The nights are long, but the years are short.”

.That worldly bit of sage advice stuck. Weighing priorities over the last six years tops James’s list. As a dad, he gets up with Henry, makes his lunch, and sends him off to school. James acknowledges that the creation of an online theatre school might be something in the near future. Right now, he focuses on being with his boy as much as he can. 

James considers himself lucky to be busy with theatre. He’s also a Paranormal Investigator and completes ghost-hunting work. While it’s an exhausting process at times, Folder Five Paranormal keeps him focused on other interests outside the theatre. Jacob has always had a keen student interest in the paranormal:

“ We shoot usually two seasons a year. We’re on hiatus (in April) right now. We’ll go for about a month of marathon straight ghost hunting. We call it Dracula hours. They start at 5 pm, and we usually finish about 3 – 4 am, and then you sleep.”

The period of adjustment to these hours has to come after the filming of the show. James has also given a workshop on Paranormal Investigation at the Stratford Perth Museum. He loves sharing his decades of knowledge with people who are interested and passionate about the paranormal and places great importance on ethical and responsible paranormal investigation.

What’s next for Jacob in the theatre?

He will tour this fall in Million Dollar Quartet around Ontario.

Google it, kids, to find out where and when.

Thanks, Jacob, for the catch-up.

(To read my first conversation with Jacob James during the pandemic, click here: https://ourtheatrevoice.com/member/jacob-james/ )

(To read my review of Chase the Ace, click here: https://ourtheatrevoice.com/a-quirky-hilarious-and-touching-solo-play-by-mark-crawford-jacob-james-stays-committed-and-fully-present-in-the-seventeen-characters-whom-he-plays/ )