ArtsBeat

Goldie Semple stars as Claire Wedderburn alongside Thom Marriot as Mr. Wadhurst in a production of Noel Coward's "Hands Across the Sea" during the Shaw Festival's 2009 season. Photo courtesy of the Shaw Festival.

A bright light on the Canadian acting scene blinked out yesterday, when Goldie Semple, a veteran of both the Shaw and Stratford festival stages, died after a battle with cancer. She was 56.

An audience favorite and a master of sarcasm and restraint, Semple most recently graced the Shaw Festival stage this season with three whirlwind performances in "Brief Encounters," a trio of plays by Noel Coward. She also appeared in a 2008 production of Stephen Sondheim's "A Little Night Music," "The Cassilis Engagement," "Picnic" and "Easy Virtue," among many others. News Critic Emeritus Richard Huntington wrote glowingly about her Semple's widely admired performance in Shaw's 1999 production of Noel Coward's "Easy Virtue":

Semple's Larita is -- excuse the pun -- a matchless portrait of a strong Coward woman, a personality that by play's end has everyone either in her thrall or left in shambles. It looks like a relatively easy role -- a knack for a grand entrance, a little talent for mock-regal intonation, and you have it. But let the tiniest tear appear in this facade of exaggerated glamour and the character crumbles.

Semple allows no tear. She must move from being a wit (John to Larita on how to address Mrs. Whittaker: "It's mother now." Larita: "Not quite yet, Johnnie.") to a state of utter boredom in which a game of cards can make "her nostrils quiver like a war horse."

And her sarcasm must enter swiftly, make its mark and step aside for the next line. To the family's half-hearted attempts to amuse her, Larita says, "You're all very kind and considerate. I really only want someone to hold my knitting." Semple changes her tone, but barely. A lessor actor would make the line sag with condescension.

Coward's play is so good and so funny that that lesser actor probably could make it work. But Semple takes it to a new level. The last act, despite featuring one of the great entrances of comic theater, can be preachy in its put-downs of Mrs. Whittaker and her idiot daughters, Marion and Hilda. With everything falling down around her ears, Larita gets deadly lines like, "I can't imagine how I could have been such a fool." And that to someone else other than her husband. Coward didn't quite have the guts to let Larita and John have it out.

But with Semple it hardly matters. Glamorous to the end, Semple's Larita comes away with personality intact and in no need of shoring up by false bravado or flippancy. In the end, Semple leaves us with the character that she built over the course of the play -- strong, slightly flawed and still as much of a truth-teller as life's bad turns allow.

Semple also appeared in major roles in several productions at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, including Cleopatra in "Antony and Cleopatra" and Lady Macbeth in "Macbeth." She is survived by her husband Lorne Kennedy, also an incredible talent and veteran of the Shaw stage, and their daughter, Madeline.

I only caught Semple in one performance at the Shaw Festival, in "Brief Encounters," but it left a deep and lasting impression. She was an actress with a seemingly endless series of gifts. She captured my attention the instant she walked onstage, held it hostage with every raised eyebrow, every cast glance, every excoriating syllable. Hers was a talent I felt incredibly privileged to encounter, however briefly. She'll be dearly missed.

See obituaries in The Toronto Star and CBC.ca.

--Colin Dabkowski