Jason Morell: ‘I feel as though I was lost but now, I belong’
The actor has turned late-in-life discovery about his family into a play
When theatre director and actor Jason Morell made a chance remark to a fellow creative, little did he know that everything he knew and believed about his life and family was to change for ever.
“It was four years ago, and I was directing a show called Here At Last Is Love, written by David Manners. David happened to mention that he was really interested in ancestry and finding out about people’s pasts and family trees,” explains Jason who has appeared in numerous TV programmes (Dr Who) film (Mrs Brown) and theatre shows (Royal Shakespeare Company) with stars like Dame Judi Dench and Patrick Stewart.
“I mentioned that I knew nothing about my family, but that a couple of strange incidents when I was younger had always puzzled me. David got out his laptop and within minutes he started to reveal the most incredible story about my family and their life. Details that had been kept hidden from me, and now, at the age of 58, I was suddenly discovering my past.”
Jason had always suspected there was some sort of family secret. His parents were the famous actors Joan Greenwood and André Morell, and he had a very traditional, very British, very formal upbringing. He was baptised at Chelsea Old Church and was looked after by an au pair.
“My father was very strict. I was forbidden from entering the sitting room unaccompanied. But one day, when I was eight years old, I snuck in on my own. I looked around and saw a rather interesting looking book. It was very grand. I took it down from the shelf and opened in. It was full of press cuttings dating as far back as 1935 for someone called Cecil and then Andre Mesritz. I thought this was rather odd. Whose cuttings were they?
“I resolved to ask my father about it, so, when we were driving together in the car, I tentatively broached the subject. My father evidently did not want to discuss it, and I was too terrified to push the conversation any further, so let the matter drop.
“On my 9th birthday we were sitting at the breakfast table, and I opened a card. It was signed by my aunt on my dad’s side. I was perplexed, as I thought I had no paternal relatives, I asked my father who this aunt was, and he responded by saying I did not have an aunt and ripping up the card.
“Then, when a teenager, I was in a George Bernard Shaw play at school and there was a character named Morell in the cast. As I later discovered this was a name made up by the playwright yet intriguingly it was the same name as mine. And another coincidence – my father had acted in the same play when he was younger.”
When Jason was 15 his father died of cancer and as he opened his father’s strong boxes he learned just more two things about him, namely that his father had changed his name by deed poll and that his paternal grandfather had been the conductor of an orchestra.
“When I was 35, I visited Amsterdam, and it was very strange. I could not place it, but I felt unusually drawn to the city. I could not understand it, but I just felt at home, and comfortable there.”
Fast forward nearly 30 years when Jason is directing a play. They are chatting between rehearsals and David says he researches ancestry and family trees. Jason reveals he knows very little about his father. Within minutes he discovers the story of not only his father’s life but also of his very large family.
As the family history is laid bare Jason find himself on a strange journey of discovery with so many coincidences. Sitting in his Brixton home, a place he chose on a random whim, moving to an area about which he had very little knowledge, he was shocked to learn his father and his aunt, the very same aunt his father told him did not exist, had lived in Brixton just 736 footsteps away from his home. He learned the family was a Dutch Jewish family, from Amsterdam, the city to which he had been so inexplicably drawn.
“I’ve learned about all my other relatives, I’ve seen photographs, and it’s given me a wonderful sense of belonging and continuity. I’ve traced my family tree back to the 18th century and things about myself now fall into place.
“I feel as though I was lost but now, I belong, and that I have a family history.”
Jason has now turned his journey of discovery into a stage play that starts with the little boy who found the book. Forbidden Places is being staged at the King Alfred Phoenix Theatre as part of the Tsitsit Festival on November 30th. This 60-minute, one-man show tells not just the story of Jason’s father but also the fate of his Jewish family living in Holland during the Second World War.
Forbidden Places is at King Alfred Phoenix Theatre in North End Road NW11 on 30 November. kingalfredphoenix.org.uk
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