SHERRILL GRACE
I was not born or raised in British Columbia; few of us are, it seems. In fact, I did not arrive here until 1977. But somewhere along the way, I realized I had come to be from here. Being from here, however, still lacked definition: mountains, islands, ocean, and Emily Carr's trees were not quite enough; even my beloved Cariboo only gave me a partial sense of where "here" is. In order to know where we are, in order to be fully present to the place in which we live, we need to see ourselves reflected and represented in the arts. So Carr's trees help; at least I know they helped me to see, not so much her paintings as aspects of the place I now call home. I can now say the same thing about B.C. theatre: Playing the Pacific Province helps me be here, helps me to see where here is, and why I love this place. Insofar as representing the pacific province is one of the chief goals of this anthology, then, I would have to say that the book succeeds. But it succeeds—quite wonderfully—in other ways too.
Ginny Ratsoy and James Hoffman, who both teach at the University College of the Cariboo, know their subject well, and they have brought a wealth of experience in and with B.C. theatre to the preparation of this collection. They have included seventeen plays ranging from George Ryga's 1967 classic The Ecstasy of Rita Joe to Marie Clements's 2000 tour de force, The Unnatural and Accidental Women. As luck would have it, I have seen both of these plays on B.C. stages (though I did not see the Vancouver Playhouse premiere of Ryga's), so reading from beginning to end felt like a personal journey in which I revisited places I had forgotten I knew: images kept coming back, memories of ideas and emotions and discussions—flashbacks of a sort. This, I gradually realized, is familiar imaginative territory, home ground. Several other plays in the volume also brought scenes and experiences flooding back. How will I ever forget the evening I saw Betty Lambert's Under the Skin? Pollock's Komagata Maru Incident and Gray and Peterson's Billy Bishop Goes to War have become part of my vocabulary.
But the journey for me did not end there because there are other plays included that I have only read or, indeed, neither seen nor read before: Crabdance by Beverley Simons is legendary and, what is more, it lives up to its reputation more than thirty years later; NO' XYA' by David Diamond, with Hal Blackwater, Lois G. Shannon, and Marie Wilson, is an important play and essential reading; and Betty Quan's Mother Tongue, which I missed in production, was for me a major discovery. Not surprisingly, Joan MacLeod's The Hope Slide stands out as perhaps the best written of the plays because MacLeod is a master wordsmith, but Colin Thomas's Sex Is My Religion surprised me with its power on the page. Inevitably, of course, there are weak spots, and while every reader of an anthology will identify different strengths and weaknesses, the choices that bother me are the plays that either do not stand up as fine writing or that require music and staging to come to life. In the first group, I would include Sherman Snukal's Talking Dirty, which seems trite and tired; in the second are plays like Horseplay and Morris Panych's Last Call, although the same problem also arises with Billy Bishop.
Ratsoy and Hoffman make their case for the plays they include in their general introduction by noting that, while subjective, their choices reflect the heterogeneity of the province, engage with what they describe as the "realities of living in post-colonial British Columbia," have had an impact on theatre life in the province, or, even when having little ostensibly to do with the province, have nonetheless emerged "from a significant theatrical matrix within the province" (v). For the most part these criteria work; the only play (apart from Snukel's) I would not have included—but would have replaced with something else—is Billy Bishop, which has its rightful place in the Canadian theatre canon but seems quite beside the point here. Billy Bishop is not about B.C. in any way, but it is, decidedly, about being Canadian, and its hero is both Ontario-born and symbolic of a national identity. This leads me to plays I wish the editors had included or, at the very least, commented on in their general introduction: I miss something by Gwen Ringwood; I wish Joy Coghill's Song of This Place had been included (it would have been a first publication); and I think the absence of Kate Schlemmer's Disposing the Dead (about the Janet Smith murder), which premiered at the Waterfront in 1996, is a significant oversight. And then there are the plays still to be rediscovered, like those by the hitherto forgotten Constance Lindsay Skinner, whose biography, by Jean Barman, appeared in 2002. But there is time and room for a sequel volume. All editors know that selections must be made.
While I am noting the criticisms I have (few though they are), I will mention two more. How could anyone, let alone scholars who are celebrating their province, describe Emily Carr, arguably Canada's greatest painter, as simply one of "its eccentric characters" (iii)? I suppose they assume that we all know who she is, but still I fault them for this careless reference, especially in this context. Carr, in addition to being a great painter, taught us how to see this province long before 1967. Also, while I like Ian Wallace's Lookout, the image reproduced on the book's cover, I find the first several paragraphs of the general introduction, entitled "Playing Out of Place: British Columbia," very confusing. An attempt is being made here to situate this new collection vis à vis the 1975 volume West Coast Plays, which used a photograph on its cover, but the point is weak, and the important occasion for striking the more relevant chords of space, place, and home is missed.
Most importantly, however, Playing the Pacific Province is a handsome, hefty volume. It has been nicely produced by Playwrights Canada Press, with good production photographs for each play, clear type face and solid binding (a not inconsequential detail for such a large book), and a reasonable price. The editors have provided mini-introductions to each play and playwright, and these are often extremely valuable. Several include excerpts from interviews with the playwright, and most provide important contextual information on theatre companies like Troupe, Touchstone, Tamahnous, Caravan, and Headlines, or on venues like Vancouver's Firehall Theatre, which, under Donna Spencer's artistic direction and as home to Axis Mime and Touchstone, has premiered some brilliant and challenging Canadian plays over the years. I also appreciated learning more about the number and range of awards that have been won by the plays, the writers, the actors, and the directors who have created B.C. theatre. Their successes are too little known, but they are clear indicators of the quality of theatre in B.C. and of the splendid talents we are fortunate to have amongst us.
If Morris Panych is correct when he says that the most distinct thing about B.C. theatre is that it survives at all "with so little support from audiences and governments" and that "perseverance is our most distinctive feature"(274), then I want to think that he may soon be proven wrong. Maybe now, with this fine anthology, British Columbians and all Canadians will begin to see what is right under our noses and begin to appreciate, celebrate, and support the theatre. Certainly, I came away from reading this volume full of pride as well as armed with information I did not previously have. Here is a volume I could use to teach that course I have wanted to offer; here are many of the plays that I want my students to read. Here is B.C. theatre in all its richness, scope, and challenge. Here is where I am.