Showtime

Who: Mary Haney

What: Mrs. Warren's Profession and An Inspector Calls

Where: Shaw Festival, Niagara-on-the-Lake

When: Now through Nov. 1 and 2

Tickets: 1-800-511-7429

Mary Haney is mad as hell. She's just read a rather unflattering review of An Inspector Calls, a play she invested her heart and soul in for several months in rehearsal.

"I don't usually read them," she says. "I mean, really, what's the point? You don't change what you're doing because someone says it's wrong. I wish I'd never seen the thing."

A small woman of feisty temperament, Haney comes from an interesting background.

"My dad was a newsman at CKOC in Hamilton. My mom, Sheila, was an actress and director at the Hamilton Players' Guild for many years before turning pro. She was quite the character.

"She never lied to you," Haney continues. "If she didn't like your performance in a show, she said so. She didn't care. She always told the truth."

Mary Haney went to school in the city for Grades 4 through 6. She wasn't really interested in being on the stage. Later she confesses she must have had some desire in that direction since she remembers putting on little performances with friends.

Moving to Toronto when she was in Grade 8, Haney didn't know what to do with her life.

"Mom was onstage in Calgary, playing the Nurse in Romeo and Juliet. I went to see her, and there were all these people there from The National Theatre School. I'd never even heard of it. I thought, well this might be an option."

At 16, on summer break, Haney's work backstage as a dresser at Stratford helped her understand what theatre was all about.

"I don't think I was really following my mother's footsteps. I mean, I wasn't that big a part of what she did. I was little -- I was into mud pies and baseball. And I hadn't really followed her career. Then one day she gave up acting, just like that," she recalls.

"She had terrible stage fright. It just came over her. She stood backstage with the sweat running down her neck. Now I know what that's like. You stand there in the shadows, and you think, 'Why am I going out there pretending to be someone else?'"

These days Haney is a member of the Shaw Festival company. It's a troupe she call "adventurous and caring."

Haney drifts into conversation about Mrs. Warren's Profession, George Bernard Shaw's play about an unmarried woman who becomes a mother.

"Well, she's a hooker. That shocked the hell out of people when Shaw wrote it. He was talking, of course, about hypocrisy. What's the difference in marrying someone for money? Mrs. Warren didn't see the sense. Neither do I. Isn't that just a form of prostitution as well?"

The same sense of moral issue pervades An Inspector Calls, J.B. Priestley's drama.

"I play Mrs. Birling, and she's a feisty British matriarch. She starts out being tough, but she nails herself at the end of the play. She's struggling to maintain upper class respectability. It's a play with something to say to society today as well as at the turn of the century."

Right now she's not thinking past Mrs. Warren.

"It's an exhausting role, and I want to nail it. You know, my mom did this play, and now here I am taking it on. I wish my mom could see this. Sometimes people will see me in something and say, 'My God , you're doing your mom out there.' It must be organic. It's not on purpose."

Will Haney read her Mrs. Warren reviews?

"Are you nuts? What upsets me is people judge me by them. That's just silly."

Gary Smith has written on theatre and dance for The Hamilton Spectator for more than 25 years.