Who is Cosme McMoon?
He’s the long-suffering friend and pianist who accompanies Florence Foster Jenkins in the Chemainus Theatre Festival’s Glorious! running until Oct. 6.
“He’s a collaborator as well,” says actor Elliott Loran, who portrays him in the production.
He’s a little bit younger than she is.
“At the time when he was accompanying Florence, he was about 40, but in this play we’re having him about 30.”
How does he get involved with this high society woman?
“Cosme is a struggling artist, when he finds Florence he’s playing background music in a restaurant. He’s hidden behind the salad bar, and he describes his piano playing as taking second place to a colourful and pungent buffet and the sound of gnashing false teeth. To say that he feels under-exposed or under-appreciated is maybe an under-statement.”
As luck would have it, a friend of Florence’s hears him playing and set up an introduction.
“Her name is Dorothy, and she sees Cosme as being a young talent and knows that at the time Florence was looking for a new pianist to replace the old one, who wasn’t working out any more.
“So, Cosme, as he needed the money, went for an interview for Florence Foster Jenkins. He is positively shocked and appalled when he hears her sing, and is ready to walk away from the opportunity to play for her until she offers him three times what he’s being paid at the salad bar, which has him turn on a dime and accept the job. He’s a struggling musician and needs the coin.”
At this stage of the game, her voice was not widely known.
“She was known in some circles — her own circles — but not known to the greater public. He didn’t know anything about this woman. I’m sure he had the highest hopes that she would have a fine coloratura and be a fine soprano when, in fact, she’s awful.
“It’s definitely a shock and not a pleasant one, but he takes the job. He begins in a place of cynicism. I believe he may be playing for Florence ironically. And it isn’t until he has the opportunity to see her passion for what it is, and see her effect, her powerful effect on her audience for what it was that he comes around.
“He describes Florence as ‘someone who sees the world through rose-tinted spectacles and is always looking for the best in everything’. He also says she’s ‘skilled in the art of finding everything delightful’. He’s a cynical piano player, and also a gay man, who’s in the closet at the time. So, there’s a lot of cynicism about his place in society. It was incredibly precarious.”
For McMoon, encountering an eternal optimist like Florence Foster Jenkins was a jolt.
“She’s getting a lot of flak for her singing but chooses to brush off those who she describes as ‘The Enemy’. One of the ways she ensures her concerts are only full of supporters is that she holds interviews to be an audience member, to be able to get a ticket. She could then gauge whether the person was a fan or what she perceived to be The Enemy.
“I think that, as the play carries on, we start to see some chinks in her armour, to see some of the hurt and the struggle that she’s experiencing from the voices of dissent. And she has to defend herself at a very critical moment in the show. She acknowledges that, yes, there are those who say that she cannot sing. She says, I’m aware that there are those who say I cannot sing but there is no one who says I did not sing. That speaks to Cosme as a musician. It speaks of that passion.
Working with Beverly is a dream. We are blessed with this cast. It’s a joy to share the stage with these two great women of Canadian theatre.”
