Daring to fail, an actor returns to the stage

Michael Toner stood in the wings of the Walnut Street Theatre, nervously peeking through the curtain with his cane, and listening, waiting, for the cue that would mark the moment he had worked so hard to achieve: the moment he would walk back onto a stage.

In the darkness, the veteran actor chased away the butterflies. He rolled his hips, readying them for the extra burden they would bear. He stretched and loosened the muscles in his right leg. And for one final time, he checked his prosthesis, making sure it was secure. Making sure it was ready - making sure he was ready.

Then, he closed his eyes, waiting.

It had been seven months.

From the beginning, the doctors and nurses agreed that this feat seemed a near-impossibility. There was just not enough time. Not enough time between the Center City hit and run that took Toner's left leg in June and the role awaiting him: a starring spot in the Walnut's three-week, 15-city tour of Eugene O'Neill's A Moon for the Misbegotten.

A January opening? This January?

Perhaps, the 68-year-old actor from Mayfair could be walking with a cane by then, his doctors advised. But his injury was so extensive. The rigors of a play - there simply might not be enough time.

A gracious man who earned his stage reputation specializing in the bleak realism and dark comedy of Irish plays, Toner was a perfect fit for O'Neill's Phil Hogan, a sodden, cantankerous, but kindhearted farmer scheming to marry off his daughter.

But in those first cruel days after the accident - days of endless pain and surgery - the play became something more to Toner. A goal not to give up on. A salve to self-pity. A reason to make himself whole again.

For strength, he turned to his favorite Samuel Beckett quotation: "To be an artist is to fail, as no other dare fail."

"A perfect mantra for the stage," he would say. "And a perfect mantra for me now."

And now, seven months after the night he was struck as he crossed 11th and Market by a car whose driver sped off, Toner stood in the theater wings, daring to fail like never before.

In the audience for Sunday's final dress rehearsal were the nurses and therapists who had helped him on his way back. They wanted to be there. To share in it.

There was Colleen Callahan, a registered nurse at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, who attended to Toner at his sickest in the days after the accident. Even in his worst pain, she said, he was so positive. Even in his worst pain, he never complained. Even in his worst pain, he talked about the show he had to do.

There was Drew Lerman, an occupational therapist at Moss Rehab, who had worked with Toner for months on targeted exercises he designed around the physical realities of the play. In their last session, they prepared for one final thing: how to get up if he fell.

Toner had worried about his entrance the most. A chase scene in which he would have to cross the full length of the stage three times.

But Toner did not fall. He did not fail.

Once on stage, he no longer felt nervous. After a few moments, he realized the audience was following the play, the story, the characters. They were following him. They were not focused on his leg - and neither was he anymore.

Later, after the standing ovation, after the hugs from his nurses and therapists - "Our miracle man," they called him - Michael Toner sat exhausted at his dining room table.

Off stage and alone, with the emotions of all he achieved washing over him, the actor began to cry.

Then, he rested. For the next show.

mnewall@phillynews.com215-854-2759