Canberra director and actor Jasan Savage dies

CANBERRA’S theatre community has been saddened to learn of the death yesterday of one of its most notable members.

Jasan Savage

Jasan Savage: 21 March 1937  26 February 2014.
Actor and director,  Jasan Savage, died  peacefully at the  Kalparrin facility on 26 February after a long struggle with illness.

Savage was well-known to Canberra audiences for his distinctive and often eccentric character interpretations on stage and to the wider community as a distinguished director who headed up the now-defunct University of Canberra-based Players Company and brought café theatre to the campus for many years.

Savage, born in  Melbourne 21 March 1937, was a professional actor o was rumoured to have once understudied Sir Laurence Olivier. An over-the-top personality who had a strong opinion on every piece of theatre he saw, he often sidled up to the critics at interval to put his (usually unpublishable) point of view.

In recent years, as well as directing, he also devised a one-man show about the  writer Henry Lawson, which he took on tour around the country.

He was considered a fine classical actor, possibly at his best in the great works of the British theatre.

The funeral for Jasan Savage will be held at Norwood Park Crematorium at 10.30am on Wednesday, March 5.

Helen Musa